Energy Overhaul: Changing the old to make room for future possibilities
Sat, 10/13/2012 - 21:13
EDIT: Made a new post in response to some ideas thrown about in response to this idea. Read the OP first and then check here: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/66409#comment-547263
Hopefully anything that you felt was wrong has been addressed there. I am going to work on fixing up this OP as soon as I can.
This isn't one of those threads saying to get rid of the Energy system, so don't worry about that. I actually quite like the Energy system and how it limits playtime. It makes it so that you make sure that Energy counts while not letting you while away endless hours playing a single game. Though as we all know there are some problems with the current system among other things, so I'm here to propose an idea. Or to be more accurate an overhaul.
One of my main goals is to nerf how universally useful Crystal Energy is, while making Mist Energy and also Mist Tanks more useful and obtainable.
I'll try to be as brief as possible while still attempting to give a clear picture on what I'm talking about. Please, read ALL the points before picking this apart. I'm suggesting all of these things together because that's how they work. Together, not separately.
If you don't think something wouldn't work, please think about it in the context of having all of these implemented at the same time before flaming it to ashes.
Here we go:
1. Mist Energy still recharges naturally over a period of ~20 hours.
This mechanic is good in many ways in that it makes players plan ahead of time how they're going to go about their day. Some may say that it regenerates too slowly, but there will be ways of fixing that as I'll elaborate later on...
2. While in the Clockworks, Mist Energy is drained not by elevator usage (usually), but by just being in the Clockworks.
Energy would drain at a rate of about 1 Energy per minute. It encourages faster movement through the Clockworks and I think something like this would work better in the setting than the current system. Having it drain just by being in the Clockworks emphasizes how dangerous the world you're delving into is as it drains the very energy from your Knight. Further adding onto that, maybe the reason for this is the mysterious Swarm, which lends itself to more expansion on the story.
Plus, it allows for more variations in how levels play and lends to a few more ideas for level design and story.
A few examples:
- Certain areas wouldn't drain Energy at all. These areas would be on the surface of Cradle and above, possibly opening up new areas to explore and giving the option to travel around to various locations such as the Skylark, the Rescue Camp, and a new dungeon-type level, Cradle's Axis (the golden semi-circle around Cradle.) While the Axis wouldn't drain your Energy by being there, it would be dangerously hard. Beyond Danger Mission hard.
- Shadow Lairs would drain Energy faster due to the nature of the Swarm. This makes them even more dangerous than they were. Especially if you add in a crippling negative effect for running out of energy...
- Safe zones in dungeons where Energy isn't lost (starting area, certain arenas, lengthy bosses if need be, etc.) and Drain zones as well. Could lead to multiple paths in levels where one may be shorter, but drains energy faster, another is a normal path that drains at the usual rate, while still another may be a no-drain zone, but have significantly more dangerous enemies (maybe even leading to the reintroduction of the Tortodrone)
NOTE: Boss level elevators would still take some amount of energy to use. This is to keep them from being easily farmed over and over again. They would cost even more if you try the boss via Mission to keep the balance of Energy cost vs. reward.
ANOTHER NOTE: If the benefit of not having an elevator cost is too great, tack a SMALL price onto them. Of course this would require a lot of testing that I couldn't accomplish, but I'm sure OOO could.
3. Once out of Energy, your Knight is in a weakened state, dealing lower damage, taking more damage, and moving slower. Eventually you'll start to lose health as well if you don't return to the surface.
Since the elevators (probably) don't burn up any Energy, what's stopping players from staying in the Clockworks all day long? The threat of exhaustion of course! Burning out all of your energy leaves your Knight highly vulnerable to the threats of the Clockworks, making it more beneficial to probably head back topside and save yourself from losing a certain new item... (more on that new item in a bit)
4. The Energy drain will NOT effect Crystal Energy.
We don't want people to start accidentally burning their hard earned dosh. That's just heartless. However...
5. Crystal Energy can't even be used for the same purposes as Mist anymore and the same goes for Mist.
"BLASPHEMY!" you cry, but hear me out on this. Crystal Energy is still mainly used for crafting and extra monetary exchanges that don't use Crowns, but they can't be used for revives and other things in the Clockworks. If you want to do more adventuring than usual or feel you may need some extra Energy down in the Clockworks, Crystal Energy CAN be compressed into a Mist Tank for you. This will require a payment in Crowns however and maybe some various materials.
If you do try to use CE for those purposes in a last ditch effort or something, it will cost you DOUBLE the amount that it would take for Mist. That means you need to do a lot of forward planning if you delve into the Clockworks. You don't want to carry in CE with you into the Clockworks just to accidentally lose some of it and then have to buy more, so plot ahead!
Seeing as I'm aiming to bring Mist Tanks into regular use, let's add on to that...
6. Enemies can drop Energy fragments, allowing Knights to regain lost Energy if they can overcome their adversaries in a timely manner and make it back to Haven in one piece.
These new Energy fragments are essentially small shards of Crystal Energy. However, they're too tiny to be used on their own and need to be compressed into a Mist Tank before they can be used. Further more, should you not be able to revive and have to return to Haven after falling, you lose ALL gathered fragments.
Granted this would either be a rare drop or require a LOT of fragments to constitute a single tank of Energy, but it gives players an incentive to battle all the denizens of the Clockworks. It also makes players think more about picking their fights. If an enemy takes more time than the possible Energy it might provide or is too risky to fight in the first place, it may actually be more beneficial to just skip it. But that allure of extra Energy may be a bit too much to resist...
If kept at the right drop rate/collection rate, stronger Knights wouldn't be able to farm for Energy because they would lose more Energy than they would gain in the process. Or they could just sell them and use the Crowns for accessories and whatnot.
Now before I forget about these (again), Elevator Passes! If the whole Energy drain turns out to work too well and make elevator costs a thing of the past, what use do they serve now? Aside from boss runs, what am I supposed to do with this thing?!
I'm glad you asked!
7. There will be a new kind of elevator (or to be more accurate a Spiral Order escape pod Macgyvered into an elevator/rocket drop pod.) These "elevators" will bypass the level rotations of the Clockworks and allow you to choose your destination for ~10 Energy.
From what I can tell by the forums and other players that I've met, Passes are mostly used for boss runs, so why not add an incentive to go through the Arcade? If you could hit all the profitable levels in any given Gate, you could walk away with more Crowns than if you had done a boss run. Plus it would be a hell of a lot more exciting than running through the same level over and over.
You could also add in some occasional special levels that are outside the Clockwork rotation with rare enemies and items only accessible through these special elevators. Hell, even some level modifiers (no energy drain, increased heat, Crown, drop rate, etc.) that get randomly assigned to levels and players with passes could chery-pick their way to victory so to speak.
ADDITIONAL IDEAS:
These aren't a part of my overall idea, but could be fun to mess with nonetheless.
The ability to Overcharge you Knight by giving them too much Mist Energy.
Say when you use a Mist Tank, there's some left over Energy that just gets wasted. Sad, right? Not anymore! Ascend your Knight into a temporary state of badassery with that extra Energy! Faster movement! Swifter and harder hitting strikes! Quicker charges! More prismatic glow! All this could be yours for a grievous or intentional math error!
This would only be a temporary buff and would burn that extra energy fast. Your Knight will go back to normal once the excess is burned off and you're back at 100 Mist again, but this would add a new dimension to fighting enemies. Imagine the possibilities with boss fights if you could let loose with a ridiculous amount of burst damage! Imagine if that were the quickest way through their ridiculous defenses! Imagine possible armor that could be created to boost this ability! Oh the possiblities!
Add Mission levels to the Clockworks.
What do I mean by that? Just pull the missions out from the Missions menu and throw them into level rotations in the Clockworks. It'll make ventures into the Clockworks more exciting if things actually "happened" along the way. Plus it could add incentive to use the new elevators to selectively go to these missions... or go around them. Whatever spins your snipe.
If done in the right way, it could lead to the revival of the Arcade, since you can get the same out of it should you go this way or that. Hell, it could be worked on even further and you only select the Mission from the menu. You have to get to the Mission area yourself to progress the story.
To make it easier, a level could just be marked "Mission" and should you have a Mission selected, it would play that Mission. Otherwise it may generate a level with a random Mission-like goal or play a Mission that you have already beaten.
Elevator Pass-only areas.
This probably isn't the best idea at all, but it is something to consider. Make certain areas off limits to people without Passes, similar to the Shadow Lairs. These areas wouldn't offer that much more, maybe some unique materials or something like that. Just something more for the players who put their own money toward the game.
And that's not to say that Freebies can't tag along should they join up with a player with a pass. Just a thought.
----------------------------
WELP.
That's my proposal. With proper Energy fragment drops and pricing of Mist Tank production, CE prices could drop dramatically finally with a good Crown sink. New content for both players who pay and those who don't/can't, while offering just a bit more to those that do pay. Putting more attention to diversifying the Arcade from the Missions. As well as lowering costs on the bosses should you visit them through the Arcade and not the Mission menu. A bunch of new mechanics and areas to think about.
To be honest, I was going to make a big fancy illustration to go along with it to better explain some of the smaller points along with some concepts for the new elements, but I can't see taking that much time to make something like that. Not if OOO barely listens to us much anymore. I just wanted to get this idea out in the open and hear your feedback on it.
And please remember that all of this is supposed to work together. Some of the individual ideas may be able to stand on their own, but for the most part a lot of these rely on the mechanics introduced by the other ideas. I've thought about a lot of these over for a long while trying to work out every little kink that I could, but I can only see this from my own perspective. It helps to have other people point out problems that I missed and to help build on these ideas.
I look forward to your input!
Sat, 10/13/2012 - 22:23
#2
This is actually pretty intelligent
I daresay this is the most intelligent method of lowering the necessity of energy to this game, but should be separate from the existing floor system for one major reason: it relies too much on conservation of time. Time can be saved by using high damaging weapons over, say, support/utility weapons and rushing. People already use high damage weapons in general to clear floors more quickly. Most support/utility weapons (mostly bombs) are already considered underpowered. I heard you liked the existence of underpowered weapons, so we made those underpowered weapons even more underpowered so they can be underpowered while being underpowered. Snort.
Of course, if at least most (>80%) of the equipment in this game was balanced, then support/utility weapons would still be useful. Sadly this is not the case. There would also be the case of defensive and specialist armors becoming even more useless because they fail to contribute what offensive equipment already does, making the same silly scenario as earlier.
Also, average floors can take around eight minutes to complete while soloing casually. Eight minutes by one minute per second is only eight energy per floor, which is less than the current elevator costs. Seeing as inflation is not particularly welcome, how about this system stays exclusive to the Arcade on a special gate with no bosses and has nothing to do with the mission system or include any bosses? That would eliminate two farming points and give the Arcade a unique option.
Here are my few qualms:
- "Certain areas wouldn't drain Energy at all. These areas would be on the surface of Cradle and above, possibly opening up new areas to explore and giving the option to travel around to various locations such as the Skylark, the Rescue Camp, and a new dungeon-type level, Cradle's Axis (the golden semi-circle around Cradle.) While the Axis wouldn't drain your Energy by being there, it would be dangerously hard. Beyond Danger Mission hard."
I actually have multiple questions about this.
Do you mean to include areas of floor maps in the Clockworks with immunity to the energy drain effect? If energy drains over time, assumably based on a timer (when the timer hits the one minute mark it takes its toll then waits for the next mark), what would stop people from derping around until right before the timer tries to bite them, but they hide in a safe zone, then go out again after? Would it just delay the effect, trapping them in there, making the safe zone a delayed punishment?
What other areas would there be? Anyone who has read this can tell you what I am thinking of right now.
Why would we go to those other areas? We go down to the core of Cradle to find Alpha Squad and to find an energy source powerful enough to get us off the planet we are marooned on since the Skylark crashed, so why would we be skipping around on an axis? Also, how would we find the Skylark? Would it be in pieces, in progress of reconstruction (implying that the point of the game has a feasible end), or fully repaired (meaning the game would end because our goal is complete)?
- "Shadow Lairs would drain Energy faster due to the nature of the Swarm"
People already pay for the key. We can leave it at that.
- "Boss level elevators would still take some amount of energy to use"
Boss floors are already too farmable for heat and crowns, not to mention boss tokens and to an extent boss token equipment. We want to create something that draws people away from farming bosses, not make it easier.
- "Once out of Energy, your Knight is in a weakened state, dealing lower damage, taking more damage, and moving slower. Eventually you'll start to lose health as well if you don't return to the surface."
How far does that go and how long does it take? When you zero out do you just suddenly lose X% damage, Y% movement speed, and lose Z% health per W seconds? What are those letters doing there instead of numbers? Since you would be losing health in this state, would you eventually die or just be in a "perma-deadly" (this is from a game I used to play a few years ago, it was basically a state where you have zero health and anything that can hit you will kill you including actions, so long as the animation shows something hitting you from an enemy) state until something finally takes you out or you leave?
- "The Energy drain will NOT effect Crystal Energy."
Mist only. Pretty straightforward, though it severely limits those who buy CE to play longer. Then again they could just go to the normal Clockworks with the current elevator system to have two systems to choose from. People like having options when every card is a king.
- "Crystal Energy can't even be used for the same purposes as Mist anymore and the same goes for Mist."
Do you have something against paying players? This is going a little too far. Sure, we can stop people from using CE in place of mist for the energy decaying effect; but to make CE absolutely useless in the Clockworks would make the premium player proportion shrink further. Less CE being bought means less CE in the market, meaning less supply, meaning prices go up. Since supply is lower and shrinking, eventually CE goes from gold to the ability to breathe; not just valuable, but vital. We want people to stop leaning on CE as a crutch, not cut their legs off and make them crawl while bleeding out. That would mess up the new carpeting.
- "Crystal Energy CAN be compressed into a Mist Tank"
Why not just use CE? Not to feed the energy decay, just to have a solid and storable form of energy; seeing as that is what it is already.
- "Enemies can drop Energy fragments, allowing Knights to regain lost Energy"
How about instead of dropping energy itself, they drop energy decay immunities of varying values? Kill a zombie or something small, get X seconds of immunity to the energy decay. If your fragments just add into your mist tank then people would just farm those then jump back to Haven to gain both energy and drops (crowns, materials, heat) without losing anything.
- "Say when you use a Mist Tank, there's some left over Energy that just gets wasted. Sad, right? Not anymore! Ascend your Knight into a temporary state of badassery with that extra Energy! Faster movement! Swifter and harder hitting strikes! Quicker charges! "
So many problems. Also, there is no reason to give us even more offensive bonuses when our knights are already ridiculously powerful compared to everything we fight. People can fight Vanaduke with full Proto and no shield, even with Proto weapons.
- "Elevator Pass-only areas"
Less pay to win, more play to win.
Overall this is decently solid, though there are a few too many moments where having CE is bad and useless. We still want people to have something to use their CE on in battle, even if it can only be used for reviving yourself. There is also still the matter of offense being completely superior than support, utility, defense, and assist when we want gameplay variety.
Now take this.
Sat, 10/13/2012 - 23:30
#3
Hot damn. This is actually pretty good.
Before I say anything, this is spiral knight's we're talking about right now so it's probably (if not definitely) not going to happen. The reason everything revolves around CE is because everything revolves around money, and I don't think they're willing to change that.
Granted, you can turn CE into mist and Mist is mist and you can't fix that, but the reason everything in this game is CE based is just because greedy company is greedy. See EA for further details.
Now to talk about your idea.
I rather enjoy this idea, but it makes the game pretty try hard. This game now becomes a hardcore version of time attack.
Normally, I won't take many, if any, hits if I'm actually trying. So when my friends "drag" along, making the enemies harder and dying so I have to revive them constantly, I don't have many problems. With this new system I would, because I have to beat a boss as fast as possible, or the room, or this enemy or taking the next step. Every second counts because literally "Time is money" now. Sure, this does help more skillful players. Now people who are skilled at the game can make more money, and paying for UV's sometimes pays for itself because you can save an extra 10 mist or so every run.
On top of that, now you have to make sure you have to dedicate your time to spiral knights once you start a run. Think something like Vanaduke's 2nd stage. There's a lot of this you've gotta do, and there's no way to really put a checkpoint in a stage like that. Now when [stuff] starts happening, because we all have lives and life can throw stuff at you at an instant, you have to either leave on the spot or drag everyone down (That's if you're going to come back in time too) while you go handle your life problems. It reminds me of final fantasy 11 where people would spend hours just staring at monster spawns trying to "Claim" the enemy because they couldn't really leave their position. It can spawn at any second within this 2-4 hour window. Your time has to be DEDICATED. This isn't nearly as bad, but it does come into play.
Although, just for ideas sake, I do like the idea of the "weakened state". I like this, because it's not "I'm at 0 energy son of a-" now you're in haven; however, you should probably put a time barrier around party buttons that protect your Mist energy. It should also expand past the party button, so if your friends want to "take a breather" or go away for a second, they have the opportunity to in the middle of the stage without getting your mist wrecked. There could also possibly be an elevator in the middle of stages so if you know you have to leave you can, and you have to do one of those double confirm things (much like how you open CE gates in the middle of a level) to leave. That way you can leave, but your friends can go on. You don't have enough mist to go on, or perhaps you have to leave in the middle of a stage. This helps out those who have about 3-4 mist left, and maybe want to get enough out of a run to just get to that halfway point, perhaps even needed to dragged there.
What I could see is your mist going into the negatives, but this wouldn't actually cause it to go negative. Much like how obtaining energy fragments doesn't "actually" increase mist. This way when you hit about -5 mist you get low status to everything (damage, defences, attack speed, movement speed) then it goes from -5 to -10 to -15 and so on until you go -low to -Maximum and then when it goes past that you start losing health progressively. Not to also mention as it goes deeper into the negatives the time it takes for you to go further into a negative state would be sped up, causing you to fall faster and faster. The negatives would leave you as soon as you reach the surface (You would also not lose health near elevators, due to being in the negatives of energy and your friend is trying to catch up and you end up dying in the process.)
Not to also mention, this actually could explain more about Trojan lore. This actually sounds really cool because it sounds like this is how trojans were made. This is how they were corrupted.
I would say more, but through previewing I can see that most of the more required and "solid" arguments were already said. The only thing I could think of was: (Mind you, this is just a side idea. No one has to agree with it, It's just a thought.)
Making no way to immediately go down to tier 2 or 3. Now you can say "Wait what" so this is my idea. As of right now, 10 elevators going down sucks and players in 1* are obviously going to beat the monsters in a tier 1 area slower then a 5*. Now you take into effect that monsters of tier 1 can drop temporary mist to perhaps even over-exceed 100 mist.
-Side note : This wouldn't overcharge you or anything, you should just not "regain" mist after 100, but you don't lose your mist. Like for example:
If I use a mist tank at 90 mist, I'll have 190 mist, but I won't start getting mist over time until I hit 99. This way extra mist isn't lost, but there's no real need to have 10,000 mist. In fact, it's rather useless because It's be more worth using 90 mist in a day, and gaining back 60-90 of it back instead of using 90 mist in a day, and gaining 0 of it back. You can't use it for crafting, so there's not really a reason why this would be an issue.-
This way stronger players can reach tier 2 elevators while losing much less mist then normal, albeit being forced to fight weaker enemies to get to the stronger enemies, but you get more temporary mist going down then what you normally had so, hypothetically, when you play your cards right you can actually get to tier 2 with more mist then you started with.
This makes elevators and arcade more viable, and the way to get "Boss missions" is to actually go DOWN to the boss via elevator.
Now this makes that idea of yours with the elevator pass useful. With elevator passes I can immediately go down to tier 3, without using any of my mist. Not to mention, with this new system, lower tier elevators would give more rewards. Tier 2 and Tier 3, because you have to RUN THE - - - - DOWN THERE AS FAST AS POSSIBLE NO LOOKING BACK and only then, if you're a "Game master" could you make it down in time and beat the "Level Red." (Vanaduke haha funny joke.)
This makes
-Elevators have a new use, and missions "aren't" Master race.
-Elevator passes have a cool use
-Elevators end at a boss, therefore beating a boss takes you back to the surface, and getting down all the way to vanaduke or jelly-king is an actual challenge and takes time, instead of simply pressing the "I'm there" button. It also gives a reason why their reward can be so much higher (maybe even increased from this point due to it being harder to get there.
Aside from anything in that sub idea, I like your idea. The only problem I have is DPS now becomes master race, and trying hard is the only way to play. Anything else slaps me on the wrist, and on the mist tank.
Sun, 10/14/2012 - 03:05
#4
@Luguiru:
"Crystal Energy can't even be used for the same purposes as Mist anymore and the same goes for Mist."
Do you have something against paying players? This is going a little too far. Sure, we can stop people from using CE in place of mist for the energy decaying effect; but to make CE absolutely useless in the Clockworks would make the premium player proportion shrink further. Less CE being bought means less CE in the market, meaning less supply, meaning prices go up. Since supply is lower and shrinking, eventually CE goes from gold to the ability to breathe; not just valuable, but vital. We want people to stop leaning on CE as a crutch, not cut their legs off and make them crawl while bleeding out. That would mess up the new carpeting.
"Crystal Energy CAN be compressed into a Mist Tank"
Why not just use CE? Not to feed the energy decay, just to have a solid and storable form of energy; seeing as that is what it is already."
I don't think this would make CE less valuable. In fact, by making CE available to compress to mist tanks you'd force CE players to divvy up their CE for dungeons and crafting or whatever. If you throw some crowns in there, it doubles as a crown sink. If you're a paying player willing to use CE in dungeons, chances are you have a couple crowns and/or materials to throw in for mist tanks. Doesn't really have to be a ridiculous amount of crowns or anything.
The only handicap I can think of would be...Can you change CE to Mist Tanks in the Clockworks? I'm assuming not, since you said if you had to use CE to revive or something it would take double the amount. That may be a bit steep. That's basically punishing CE-purchasers.
I like the idea, but allow CE:Mist Tank conversions at will (Including the CW), I predict tons of P2P players complaining over something like that. I understand you're trying to make adventuring into the CW ever-so-slightly more risky, but you will just get a bunch of upset players. You'd still need to be at least somewhat prepared, since you'd still need the crowns or mats necessary to do the conversion.
Anyway, I didn't read it in great detail, just saw one part that caught my eye. Ciaos.
~Sev
Sun, 10/14/2012 - 08:31
#5
whoa....derp....
you have blown my mind.
this was well well well thought out.
sure ill go for it, +1 would even out the levels with huge payouts
Sun, 10/14/2012 - 15:22
#6
This seems like a good idea,
This seems like a good idea, aside from the fact that it seems to punish people for pausing to actually enjoy the game, or even for any other reason whatsoever.
Sun, 10/14/2012 - 19:05
#7
I don't like this for a few reasons-
1. It limits the amount of time players spend in the clockworks to a certain amount, and doesn't allow those of us who know how to budget ourselves to play forever.
2. It discourages fully exploring levels. Why fight through a wing of a CT level when we can just bypass it and not? Similarly, why fight enemies when you can run by and get the treasure+go? You counter this with "energy fragments" that can be used to get more mist... however, if the strongest knights cannot even gather these fast enough to support continuous play, then what purpose would they serve? They obviously wouldn't be enough to support much playing, and would only delay the amount of time you are able to. So you'd either have a situation where you were making energy, which as you said wouldn't happen, or you would have a situation where it would make more financial sense not to fight enemies/backtrack. The halfway point would be unreachable due to the existence of differing payouts.
3. "Overcharging" your knight for speed boosts etc. would be another layer of paying to win on the front of the game. And as people have said- we're already strong enough.
4. "Epass only areas" sound awful... look at operation crimson hammer... and not many would want to play a game that requires both a subscription and a waiting period.
5. Older players would not likely be happy with these things, as they are the rich players. And you want to appeal to them just as much as newer players coming into the game.
6. It still does not solve the underlying issues that the game has- being balance, lack of content, and an energy system that turns people away from the game.
7. I enjoy "pausing" the game to go grab a soda or to use the restroom. I don't want to lose my ability to do so whenever I feel.
8. This would stop the devs from working on "real content" that is actually something to play. If they have to take a break to change the energy system, that's a good deal of time and effort on their part. I'm fairly certain that we aren't going to see this change any time if only for this reason.
Sun, 10/14/2012 - 22:06
#8
So many textwalls...
Sorry for not getting back to this right away due to work, but I'll try to tackle some of the problems you guys brought up. There's going to be a bunch of new suggestions here to remedy those problems, so bear with me for a spell.
Problem:The time oriented Energy drain screws up a lot of things.
Making the Clockworks and Missions more like a time-attack rather than dungeon crawl is, admittedly, probably not the best way to go about changing Energy usage. It detracts from a lot of the social aspects of the game since you can't just goof around in the dungeons with friends if such a system were to be implemented. That sucks and I'm sorry for ever suggesting something that would destroy the fun of stuff like that. Apologies.
Aside from that, it also puts more benefit into using the stronger, faster weapons while shunning any that are still effective weapons, but just can't get the job done fast enough. Though, part of this is due OOO's poor balancing of the equipment, leaving some to be favored and others left to collect dust.
There's not much I can do to fix that bit, but I can at least try to make a few suggestions as to alternate means of Energy usage that would remedy some of the other problems.
New Suggestion 1: Make Energy drain over distance traveled.
Say for every # of blocks that you travel, 1 Energy is drained. The number of blocks required to drain Energy would vary from level to level depending on the size so as not to waste extra energy on the lengthier ones.
However this discourages movement in combat such as kiting. Some may argue that's a good thing, others not. It also discourages backtracking to go down different paths or to pick up items left behind. So while this one fixes some problems, it just introduces new ones. Not my favorite, but something to think about at least.
New Suggestion 2: Certain actions take a fraction of Energy (attacking, succefully blocking, etc.).
This one would require the most work testing-wise were it to actually work out, but fixes a lot of other problems along with the time-Energy drain. Every swing, every shot, every bomb a Knight performs drains a fraction of Energy. Now, if you passed basic math, you know that adding fractions together eventually equals a whole number, so that's when the Energy will drain.
Now comes the interesting bit. Make the Energy drain different for various equipment. New way to balance equipment, ho! Heavier equipment will drain Energy faster per action taken, but hit a lot harder. Lighter things would take less, but are generally weaker leading you to have to take more swings thus more Energy. Bigger shields would take less Energy for a successful block, but are heavy leading to the increased drain from that. Smaller shields would take more Energy should they take a hit, but be lighter for a decreased drain.
This may also include distance, but would have to be a MUCH larger amount of distance traveled to actually register an Energy loss. However, everything does add up eventually and could lead you to losing some Energy should you just run around in a circles all day.
The biggest problems with this is figuring out the best values for the various drains. That would take a LOT of play-testing to get right. Enemy count and health may even have to be adjusted as well to get an average of 10 Energy spent per floor.
To keep the fun alive of having the ability to playfully shoot your friends, this drain could be limited to only when your Knight is nearby enemies or if the attack/block is successful on certain entities. Maybe both so you still have to think about your swings and the shots you take.
This one is my personal favorite since it allows for the most flexibility if something like this were to ever be implemented. It could lead to some weapons and tactics to become more prevalent and give use to some useless items. It's just the amount of testing to get there... egads.
Though this wouldn't work for Lockdown at all unless a temporary Energy gauge was added in that would recharge at respawn and from Guardian shields. This would keep the balance of the new drain, add in the threat of exhaustion, and maybe balance out certain loadouts. Though, honestly I don't know. Lockdown isn't my specialty, seeing as any balance suggestions I come up for it get shot down pretty quick.
New Suggestion 3: Something similar to the distance traveled solution, but with invisible checkpoints around the dungeon. Each checkpoint would remove 1 energy when a certain amount are passed over. The checkpoints are activated if passed once, but never take another Energy if passed again.
This is an odd one and would be rather difficult to implement (as well as explain), but fixes a few of the problems of the others. Say every 10 blocks down a path and in every room there is a checkpoint that registers if you've passed it or not. After a certain amount of these checkpoints are passed the game takes away 1 Energy. After you pass a checkpoint, it wouldn't be activated again should you backtrack over it again. There would only be a certain amount of these per level and would be dispersed in a manner so that you could technically save Energy if you never explored, but then you don't get any treasure or see the various sights.
You could play around with your friends all the live-long-day with something like this since then you don't have to worry about the time or whether your actions taking away your Energy. A more social alternative, if you will.
A problem and benefit with this is that players can just go straight for the elevator and save Energy. It's a problem in that it allows some players to go through more floors and possibly gather more Crowns, materials, etc. However, it's also a benefit in that players can essentially save energy for later levels by blazing through the earlier ones, skipping treasures and whatnot, allowing for longer trips for players who are more interested in just beating stuff up.
This one is a bit weird and has a few kinks to work out, but could work in the long run.
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Problem: Crystal Energy loses a lot of its usefulness, thus making players buy less of it leading to more problems in the market.
Suggestion: Crystal Energy can still be used for most of its original functions while Mist loses some. But Mist Energy is what you run off of in the Clockworks. Period.
There are a lot of things that CE can do that ME can't do. I'm not trying to take away from it's usefulness in any way, especially since I still intend for it to still be used in the same manner as ME after being turned into a Mist Tank. It'll just cost a few more Crowns if you want to use it in that way. Otherwise, CE still retains most of its original uses. Crafting, guild creation, unbinding, and special purchases can only be completed with a rather generous amount of CE. Amounts that ME could never reach. Hell, make it so that you can't even use ME for crafting and the like so there's even more incentive to go out and buy CE.
To make the conversion process simpler, you could make Basil or Kozma be the Crystal-to-Mist Tank converter. You run into them VERY frequently and will always have the option to create a Mist Tank from them. In my opinion, the only reason why you can't make it through a dungeon should be because you weren't prepared enough for it, not that you didn't pack enough CE to Energy Revive Blast your way to victory.
However, if the new system does begin to cause problems for the Energy market in that people aren't inclined to buy as much Energy from OOO, there could be new functions added in for CE and new things to buy with it. Though seeing as the Guild update may end up doing that itself, that may not be necessary. We'll have to see.
Though paying players may be a bit butthurt about having to pay a few more Crowns, F2P players have to buy the Energy from them and then pay that same fee if they want to use it that way.
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Alright, time to address individuals.
@Luguiru
I see now that the time-thing wasn't the best way to go for Spiral Knights. Don't know why I did in the first place, but I digress. One of my new suggestions up there may fix some of the problems that you and others saw with it. Let me know what new, horrible atrocities these lead to though. Don't want to be too evil.
I like your idea of having both systems in the game. It's not like the current system doesn't work, so why not give players a choice?
1. Energy drain floors, Cradle's axis, etc.
The Energy saving floor would be a delayed punishment type of thing. I was thinking of putting them and the drain floors into the arena type areas. Would make you pay attention to your footing more along with the various other traps Spiral Knights already has. Graphically I want the energy saver to look like it came from Sanctuary with a bit of a distinctive golden glow, while the energy drain one looks Swarm infected.
Hmm... I just got another idea...
And HOLY MOLY that thread has a lot of world building and story. I seriously need to read through all of that... Plus throw some of my own ideas at you sometime maybe.
As for why go to the Axis, that was something story related that I thought up. When the Knights go into the Shadow Lairs via the elevators, all that happens is they get turned around and around by the living labyrinth. Sure they find some cool gear in safe Sanctuaries created by the Core, but they can never reach it for some reason. So how do they bust through the Swarm and into the Core? Those new "elevators" I mentioned. Rocketed down from the highest point possible straight through the Clockworks and the Swarm, right into the Core. Of course, first you have to get up there. I even thought up a boss for up there. You could probably guess what it is seeing as we only know of a few creatures that really flies around on Cradle...
I don't know what they could do at the Skylark though. It'd probably be easy to find since the Knights should know where it is, considering they know it needs a new power source and it needs repairs. As for its purpose, it honestly would have made more sense for that to be the Hall of Heroes, but OOO already kind of borked that up, so I don't know. Maybe use it for a mission to rescue Knights who went down with the ship or a bonus dungeon.
2. Shadow Lair drain.
They do already pay for the key which costs quite the pretty penny, so tossing a super Energy drain on top of that was kind of stupid of me. Still, I like the idea that fighting the Swarm drains more energy than usual in some way. It just fits better.
The only thing I can suggest is reduce the ridiculous price on the keys, keeping the super drain, create a new CE purchased item that protects from the drain, or just leave it as it is currently.
3.Boss levels elevators still take energy to use.
I agree on them being far too easy to farm. Though if it were an easy problem to solve OOO would've already come up with it......HA! Who am I kidding? I came up with this in 5 minutes. Why not have a gate similar to the ones denying access to the different Tiers, except you can pass through it once a day for free. Each subsequent time you want to go through and fight the boss, you need to pay more and more Energy to go through. Say 0, 10, 20, 40, 80, etc. Adding onto that, the boss doesn't respawn until a certain amount of time has passed (1-2 hours) or if it's been defeated a certain number of times that day. Also make the boss missions daily like the Prestige missions. If you want to continuously fight the boss you need to dive in through the Arcade.
I'm sure other people have come up with their own ideas and some are probably far better than that simple one, but considering that OOO hasn't listened to them, I doubt they'd listen to me.
4.Weakened state specifics
I kind of hate getting too into details like those ones, but I'll elaborate a little more on it. When you hit zero Energy, your Knight wouldn't just suddenly collapse or take on the negative effects right away. I was thinking it would take about a minute before the effects become truly hindering, giving you time to get out of a level should you have been in over your head when you took that elevator. After about a minute and a half, your health would begin to chip away while the other effects continued to strengthen. You wouldn't die from this, but you would be stuck at half a pip of health where anything could take you out, like that "perma-death" state.
This does lead to the problem of players purposefully doing this to themselves and then using a Mist Tank at the last second, thereby extending their time limit.
And I guess it would still work the same way with the other suggestions I came up with. I want it to become a race against time should you get into that state.
5, 6, and 7 were hopefully already sorted out.
8. Energy fragment drops
I really like that idea of the temporary immunity drops. It might be fun to have both in the game, but that might get a bit too crazy with so many ways to deter the energy drain.
And the fragments wouldn't be dropped in big enough quantities to warrant multiple trips through the Clockworks in a single day. It would be more for emergencies, should you survive and have enough to turn into a Mist Tank.
9. Overcharge state
In most games, most people would love that ability to become super powerful. I guess it's kind of sad that when you say we're already far too powerful, I agree completely. OOO has just been making the game far too easy as of late. I just wish they'd add in something difficult enough to warrant this and stop pandering to the players who want this game to be a cakewalk.
10. Elevator Pass-only levels.
I knew this already wasn't the best idea, but still want something for the paying players to play around in where we Freebies don't mess up everything.
And I don't dislike the paying players. It's just that the Energy system is severely messed up and since little changes haven't been working, I thought of something drastic. Problem is that any change to the Energy system effects them in a big way. It's really hard to avoid.
I honestly kind of wished they got more for their money though, especially after giving away some of it to Freebies like me through the Energy Depot. They pay real money and their own time. All we pay with is our time. It's kind of unfair, especially since there's not really any special content for these wonderful players. Any content that they can buy aside from the bonus missions, are just the same things that freebies can get.
I don't want a pay-2-win situation or an overly restricting subscription system (like Wakfu), but I still feel they should get something for their money spent.
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@Quotefanboy
Yeah, some things will have to be played around with further, but thanks for the support on the initial idea.
Already steering away from the time sensitive drain, so hope you can give some feedback on how those new ideas would change up your playstyle.
I like your idea of having an escape elevator in areas throughout the level, though it may take away from some of the sense of danger the new system is meant to instill in the player. We could probably just take that idea and apply it to the starting elevator, allowing for players who feel that they can't make it through the level with their current Energy to just backtrack past already cleared rooms and get the heck out of there. Plus it'll fix those annoying times you misclick and accidentally go down another floor.
Another thing is to even add in an "Escape Rope" item, albeit a very expensive one. It's a bit more questionable as to whether or not such an item is even needed, but if a bigger penalty was added to the "Return to Haven" button, it could make it more useful.
I'll add in some energy drain safe zones in the OP. Namely the areas around elevators, party buttons, etc. and maybe lengthy puzzle rooms. Not being able to stop and rest to take a breather sucks too much.
I've thought about the no skipping Tier 1 and 2 thing myself, but in the end I don't think players would like it very much. Instant satisfaction is becoming far too prevalent in gaming and having to burn through those Tier 1 levels with 5* armor may not be worth their time. Plus there's always those annoying missions to farm anyway.
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea. Working for your reward is always a good idea. It's just at that awkward point between "working" and "grinding" that makes me think twice about it. As much as that extra energy may be a benefit to players, I think a lot of them would still like to just instantly hop to their desired Tier.
I'm going to try to think of a way to rework this somehow...
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@Severage
I'm hoping that I addressed your issue of the CE-to-Mist Tank conversion. I want there to be a bit more planning in the game than there currently is. Being able to convert the CE on the fly would kind of defeat that, but I do agree that it should be able to be done in the Clockworks. So I suggest that the merchant for the CE conversion be either Basil or Kozma. Huh, maybe add in another NPC to go along with them... they'll be the Three Marketeers.
If it does turn out to be a problem and CE conversion at will is needed, there would have to be some kind of penalty for doing it yourself and not through the merchant. Maybe since you have to craft the tank part yourself, it could cost some valuable materials you have?
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@Fehzor
Similarly to Severage, I hope I fixed a few of those problems already with some of new suggestions in this post.
I'll try to address the ones I didn't cover, though.
5.Unhappy older players
Making players unhappy is something unavoidable when changing aspects of a game. Unfortunately, with how OOO has Spiral Knights set up currently, the players who are hurt the most will always be the paying players, which is probably why their hands are tied on certain matters a lot of the time.
For the time being, all I can think of to do is throw new content directed exclusively at them while making these changes.
6.Doesn't fix underlying problems.
Sadly it doesn't fix the balance issues, lack of content, and lack of story, but trying to develop a new Energy system could lead to at least fixing the Energy problem. There are plenty of other threads vying for balance fixes, all with good solid ideas that should at least be tested, but looking at the recent trend of past updates we can kind of tell how much attention OOO is paying to them unfortunately.
Oh, and I have tons of ideas for balance, content, and story, but as I said in the OP, I can't justify spending so much time fleshing out and working on ideas that will never be paid attention to. (I say this, but then spend more than an hour writing a textwall response so it may actually happen in the end anyway...)
8.Devs losing time for coding content to code this.
I was going to say something rather crass about OOO and their recent lack of content, but I don't know how hard it is to maintain a game of this magnitude or to create new working, bug-free content for it.
At the same time, they should seriously consider opening themselves up to the Steam Workshop. I'm sure the community can take care of adding new models, annoying recolors, and more levels to the game. OOO needs to focus on the things that only they can fix. Bug fixes, optimization, balancing, and a hundred other tweaks here and there. Turn this game that's falling apart at the seams into something truly worthwhile.
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All in all, I'm glad a lot of you like the idea and that you pointed out the various problems that this system would cause. A lot of which I'm surprised I didn't see myself because they're kind of obvious... but then again, I'm an idiot, so thanks for pointing them out. I highly appreciate it.
Original post will be updated somehow once I figure out how to keep the old ideas viewable and add in the newer ones without it getting too cluttered. Also after I get some sleep.
Mon, 10/15/2012 - 00:16
#9
@Zopyros:
I'd ordinarily jump in one of the few well-developed ideas in this thread section, but with so many people posting walls of text I got a bit apathetic. It was bad enough in my own guild hall thread.
Needless to say, I have been here for a long time and this is certainly the first CE-reform thread that wasn't outrageous.
Keep up the good work.
~Sev
Mon, 10/15/2012 - 02:40
#10
Comments:
To your 3 suggestions, I simply looked at them and didn't very much like the first two. They seem either easily exploited, simply redundant, or hurts some classes much more then other classes.
Suggestion 1: This seems to deeply hurt gunners who run and gun. What's the point to run in a circle and dance around the enemy when you're losing more then walking up with a Voltedge/Acheron and blowing his face open? Why run around with bombs, perfectly timing my placements, when I can simply Graviton + Divine Avenger Charge everything? It punishes those who like to run around, dance around their enemies, and rewards running in, head first, and shanking them until they die.
Suggestion 2: This seems to only reward accuracy in the end, and this one sounds the most exploitable. All one needs to do is to kite with a Graviton/Electron Vortex and to Blow everything to kingdom-flipping-come with a strong sword's charge attack (Levi, DA, Brandish, FoV). I could go on a better tangent how this can also invoke balance in the game, due to the Brandish being over powered but its charge attack would cost more then doing the charge of, oh say, the Cutter? Yet in the end this gives a game a weird, pseudo turn base because whether you hit or miss you can only perform so many "actions" before you start to shut down. On top of that, this extremely limits our arsenal potential. We have to "limit" how much we can do and "limit" how much we can miss a shot. This also makes infinitely-respawning enemies nothing more then a game-play dump. If you constantly kill them now, it's fine, but if you constantly kill them then you're losing mist? It sounds rather unfair.
Suggestion 3: This isn't hard to code at all. We already have energy gates, and all we really need is to make multiple checkpoints at every stage, next to a "you can leave if you don't have the mist" gate to go up. Make the gates work much like the 1-way gates which we already have, except by passing through them you lose 1 mist, and if you don't have mist it becomes purple and you can't pass like when you have a certain item and the gate won't let you pass. The only problem is if every stage has 10 checkpoints, then your idea really has no point in existing. The only real thing they should implement if they pull something like that is the crystal energy drop on enemies, so you might be able to open a door free once in a while because you gathered enough fragments. Then again this may make some stages more hard to process then others, because less payout with more mist. What I could see is many split-pathways in the stage that allow the player to go either to the right, which is much longer with easier enemies but with the same payout, or to the left, which is much harder (more traps, enemies are clustered, etc etc) yet takes less time to traverse because less gate-checkpoints. That way people who are skilled can make it through it, and if they fail they used up more points then if they went the other path because they revived. The only problem is, with an idea like THIS one we'd probably have to revamp EVERY STAGE EVER to make checkpoints in certain areas, adding sub-paths in many other areas to invoke harder yet less costly paths and the like. The only thing I could see this not applying to is bosses, which would still have elevator costs, but wouldn't have any checkpoint areas. Their checkpoints are their elevators.
Elevator passes: If you run off of the third suggestion those 1-way gates don't drain mist. This way it stops you from limiting your time spent in the game (Which is exactly what it does now. Allows one to play constantly with no payment) Yet that is essentially a "pay to win" because now I can beat vanaduke 20x a day, which means i get about 2k Ce if I really, really, felt like grinding like an autistic little pile of mush whilst others can only do it about twice with their 100 mist, only totally up to 200 ce a day. Granted, that does take a lot of time and effort to obtain and in the end it's simply how much I can play a day. It's not like they paid for an instant gratification. They still have to "earn" it. Up to you if you like that concept.
Escape rope: I like that, but making it expensive better have a purpose. What what would I be losing if I went to the surface normally? Would I not obtain any of the crowns for this entire run, making my mist usage a waste? That seems rather...disturbing to think about. Would that happen if you died? On top of that, most runs don't truly give "That" much money (at least they don't right now. The highest we get is duke, which is 9k for 5 floors, and jelly king which is like 3.2(?) for 3 or danger floors which is about 3k-3.3 for 2 floors worth of energy. I understand this is bosses, and you'd probably make it a lot different if you simply made the pay-outs nicer (which would then probably inflate CE, but that's just economy stuff). Therefore if you're forcing arcade elevators, elevators never gave that much pay-out anyway unless you had only arenas and danger-rooms without messing up. Unless you can change it to where all of that is fixed, I don't see why buying this rope would really be smart. Maybe it would cost a certain amount of mist, but then what if you had 0? Would you not be able to return to the surface unless elevator? Overall it just seems very aggrivating, and punishing players for wanting to take that "extra step to see how far they can go."
Energy safe zones: If you're using the timed thing, yeah this is definitely needed. Something else you can do is allow yourself to "pause" your character which then puts them into a state where they obtain no heat, no crowns, no anything BUT they also don't lose mist. They cannot move, they cannot attack, they cannot do anything. They most they can do is spin (so they don't fall asleep) but that would be it. This is so players can go afk WITHOUT losing energy, and if everyone else wants to do it they can too. However, this seems somehow able to be abused. I'm not sure exactly how, but it does have that feel like it could be abused somehow.
Awkward point between "Working" and "Grinding": I understand that completely, so why don't you make it to where you can go down to tier 2 or tier 3 for the cost of mist? To go down to tier 2 it's 5-20 mist, and to go to tier 3 it's 10-30 mist or something. That way players can still get their instant gratification, but in the end those who go from tier 1 to tier 3, gathering all of the mist fragments, could possibly make more money in the end. Then again, the only way I could see them even making more mist then the game would take would be if this was time attack.
Final suggestion: Much like Lug said before: "How about this system stays exclusive to the Arcade on a special gate with no bosses and has nothing to do with the mission system or include any bosses?"
This makes me think of a special "Survival" elevator. It takes that idea of "working for your money" even further. This way, time attack exists for a reason, and instead of the whole game changing to fit this design it's only this area. In survival there'd be infinite changing floors that would have this exact mechanism, which doesn't seem very hard seeing how most of this game's stages are nothing more then rehashes and recolors anyway, which would allow us to go deeper and deeper. The beginning stages are tier 1, then it'd slowly drift to tier 1 and tier to to fully tier 2, and then from tier 2 to tier 3 mesh into a complete tier 3. Once you go so far into that, it starts getting harder by making the dungeons more like danger missions or arenas with high payout with high difficulty (hopefully not false difficulty which would be like 6 Navi-heal-butterfly spawners so kill them all you want, they'll just come back with no pay-out) so you can kill as much as you can, getting back as much temporary energy as you can. There would be no bosses, only floors upon floors of unique fun. The reason I loved this game so much was because of its elevators, but now I get punished for liking the change, the different paths that the bosses used to have. Heck, Once I forgot I even had 400 of every crystal because I almost forgot the arcade existed. This would really bring back that feel of diving down the clockworks, exploring, and having fun while all the while making good amounts of money with a decent amount of difficulty that IS NOT bosses. Perhaps, just to give this survival idea an extra edge, once you go down "so many floors" (Like the exact point where tier 1 and tier 2 completely split off to where there's no mesh of them together, and the same for tier 2 and tier 3) you'd hit a checkpoint where you'd pass by a giant token to get a Survival mode tokens. That way we still get the full benefits of boss rushing, without all the stale, bland, "Lets do duke again Quote said as he put a gun in his mouth" sort of feel you get by doing boss rushes. Perhaps these could be obtained by killing a mini-boss, much like what they've been creating for danger missions. Like that pumpkin in the last Halloween update, or that Trojan from the ghost mission (or heart of ice ) or something like that. I don't really thing re-coloring and re-scaling a monster to do some "extra things" should be all that time consuming. Not to mention the boss would always be randomized, so sometimes on that checkpoint you'd fight that giant trojan, or maybe that super-wolver, or that Ice and Fire giant slime combo or maybe, just maybe, a Tortodrone.
Fri, 10/19/2012 - 01:49
#11
Before I go into any of what
Before I go into any of what you mentioned, I have to ask something simple: Why?
The current 10 energy per elevator is a decent system. If you don't have the energy, you can't go. End of.
1. Mist Energy still recharges naturally over a period of ~20 hours.
I'm trying to see how. We're in the clockworks, it drains us... Where does it recharge? If in the safe zones, people will just sit there instead of waiting for enough energy to use the elevator.
2. While in the Clockworks, Mist Energy is drained not by elevator usage (usually), but by just being in the Clockworks.
I really don't like this idea. The point behind SK is to explore the Clockworks. Wander around the levels, and find what you can. If energy is drained over time just by BEING there, everyone's just going to try to rush to the elevator, or those "safe zones". Similarly, talking with others in your party becomes quite limited, as you can only truly discuss anything while in safe zones. So, either there has to be A LOT of safe zones (thus, making the system pointless anyway), or you expect players to never talk to one another.
On a different note, the game has it down that mist is absorbed by your armor over time. Just from the air of Cradle. You propose to totally change that, and make the air hostile?
3. Once out of Energy, your Knight is in a weakened state, dealing lower damage, taking more damage, and moving slower. Eventually you'll start to lose health as well if you don't return to the surface.
This point simply shows an obvious flaw in a time-based system: what happens when you have no energy.
From what you're saying, energy powers your exploration all the time. Without it, you can't survive there. If players are killed by lack of energy, what happens to them? Can they be revived? Are they automatically kicked from the party? What?
4. The Energy drain will NOT effect Crystal Energy.
That makes player too reliant on mist. If I have no mist, but 1000 CE, it weakens me and kills me. Shouldn't your CE pumping thing be automatic?
5. Crystal Energy can't even be used for the same purposes as Mist anymore and the same goes for Mist.
Again, you're making players way too reliant on their mist. This'll present a problem for energy revives too, as they can go well over the current mist cap; so, does it take mist and crystal (thus nullifying your restriction), or does it just not allow you revive?
6. Enemies can drop Energy fragments, allowing Knights to regain lost Energy if they can overcome their adversaries in a timely manner and make it back to Haven in one piece.
This sounds good, but it'll work well with the current system too. With the current, it'll improve play-ability.
7. There will be a new kind of elevator (or to be more accurate a Spiral Order escape pod Macgyvered into an elevator/rocket drop pod.) These "elevators" will bypass the level rotations of the Clockworks and allow you to choose your destination for ~10 Energy.
That's a horrible idea. Why? Think of this: "I want T3 Basil, so I'll spend 10 energy to go there; rather than 50+ to traverse through the clockworks to get there". You basically make traversing the clockworks to get anywhere a pointless and expensive process.
The ability to Overcharge you Knight by giving them too much Mist Energy.
No. What if I use a mist tank in Haven? The benefits are useless to me. A better idea is to have "overhang" become Crystal.
Add Mission levels to the Clockworks.
This already happens, to an extent. If I read you correctly, you want to pull out the Missions tab? That makes the game long and tiring. Quite simply because to do a T3 mission, I have to traverse the ENTIRE clockworks. I'm assuming your covering this flaw with the "special" elevator. However, as I said before, that special elevator has it's own problems (well, problem). It costs 10 energy to start a mission with the current system, and all you're doing is making starting a mission more complicated.
Elevator Pass-only areas.
NO! Doing that basically tells F2P players to get screwed.
Fri, 10/19/2012 - 11:06
#12
...
"I actually quite like the Energy system and how it limits playtime"
Stopped reading there. Well, actually no, I didn't, but let me tell you something. The problem isn't about the mist being less useful than crystal one. It's the fact that the game depends almost entirely on it, and your idea just reinforces that. Which is a terrible, if not, a stupid thing to do.
Fri, 10/19/2012 - 12:51
#13
Multi-accounting will ruin your day...Have 2 knights (this may also work with a good friend :D )Immediatly kill one of them so it gets money for free, not burning any energy. More abusable than current system.
Now, on a lighter note:
New Suggestion 1: Make Energy drain over distance traveled
New Suggestion 3: Something similar to the distance traveled solution, but with invisible checkpoints
Both have similar flaws. On maps with puzzles or dead ends, parties will fight about who goes that way.
There's also one possible little exploit that will work at least on lower tiers, where reviving is cheap: kill yourself. Party butons teleport you, you dont walk nor go over checkpoints.
uuuugg....not more energy removal threads. I'll read this then create a real reply.
EDIT: o.o not what I expected. It's late here so I'll come back tomorrow. Promise!