Spiral Knights - Custom Clockworks Creation

Custom Clockworks Creation

5 replies [Last post]

Wed, 12/05/2012 - 14:33

Xenonguard

CUSTOM CLOCKWORKS CREATION

I have seen people on the forums posting ideas on creating custom Clockworks depths, only to be shot down by people saying that people will just put loads of treasure boxes in a level to just farm it. In this page Curio mentions that there are tools to create levels that are being worked on for public release. Here is my solution to the farming problem and some more details on adjustments for the public.

Custom Currency

To stop people from making extremely unbalanced levels with a lot of loot and not a lot of monsters, treasure boxes, heart boxes and crystals will cost money. Not crowns as such but a form of currency. Adding monsters will add to your [currency] and placing prize boxes will decrease it. Stronger monsters will give more [currency] and weaker monsters will give less. This makes sure that the risk vs. reward is balanced. I have not yet decided what the actual ratio will be, but you get the idea.

Report Function
You may be thinking "But Neonguard! What if they just put an army of monsters in a secluded space and give you free crowns? How will you stop that with this currency?". The thing is, you can't really. But what you can do is add a Report function. When a law-abiding community member comes across a crown farming level, they can just report it, for a Game Master to review (or something). If the Game Master doesn't think the level fits in with the risk vs. reward feel then they can just delete it. Abuse of this function (reporting random levels for no reason) will lead to a temporary ban of it for the abusing user.

Bosses
By now you may be wondering how bosses will fit into this. Bosses will cost a quite large amount of [currency], but they will also return a smaller amount. Bosses in custom levels will not drop tokens. Only one boss per level is allowed (excluding the Roarmulus Twins for obvious reasons)

Access
Now for how to actually get to these custom missions. In the Arcade, there is an empty platform like the one where you see Sullivan and Feron. This could be where a Stranger would stand and talking to him would open a "Custom" section of the Missions tab. This section would also be accessible through the Missions tab without talking to him. The "Custom" section would have a organisation system similar to that in the Auction House. You would be able to search for levels by name, play count, rating (more on that later) and Tier. There would also be a Featured page for the most played and highest rated levels. Another gate in the Arcade could be for featured maps in order of Tier.

Miscellanies
Tier: In the level creation settings, there would be an bar to change the Tier of a level. Higher Tiers would turn monsters into their respective Tier variant and would give you more [currency] per monster. Treasure boxes would cost more in higher tiers, but would contain more loot. Bosses are only available in their correct tier as well (Snarbolax - T1, Royal Jelly & Roarmulus Twins - T2 and Lord Vanaduke - T3).

Rating: When you receive the mission completion tab (shows gained prestige and rewards if any), you are asked to rate the level. You can rate a level from 1 to 5 stars. Higher rated levels have more chance of showing up in the Featured Levels screen.

That's all for now! Please post feedback in the replies.

Wed, 12/05/2012 - 14:43

Canine-Vladmir

One thing i can say.

This game has too much law-abiding community members. :_

Wed, 12/05/2012 - 15:03

Little-Juances

Everyone will want to submit their own map. GMs won't be able to act quick enough.
By the time a level gets reported and deleted, I could farm it thousands of times.

It should be completely free, no rewards. Only a rating system so from time to time, developer review the most voted ones and make them official.

Or at least some 'grace period'. New levels will be free the first week or so after creation. If no negative reports during that time, it'll become normal.

Wed, 12/05/2012 - 15:40

Garbeld

The only way to ensure an

The only way to ensure an unexploitable system, really, is to make it a zero-sum system (of course, systems with sufficiently little variance and/or sufficient unpredictability can still be practically unexploitable, e.g. energy goes in, crowns come out - not strictly "zero-sum", but close enough).

If a player wants to load up a room full of nothing but treasure boxes, that treasure is going to be coming from his own wallet (or a guild wallet, or a level-specific wallet). Once this fund is empty, the level becomes unplayable (and/or provides no rewards to players). Every monster and treasure box placed will have a crown cost incurred for every instance of the level created (with a possible refund for any that are unused).
Which brings up the obvious question of "why would a player create a level in the first place?"

A couple of possibilities: One, the energy cost for playing the level could go (perhaps at a loss) to the level creator - say, every player who enters the level for 10 energy (any kind) will provide the level creator with 5 energy (mist only). This, of course, brings up the problem of "levels over a certain level of popularity will be profitless to the creator, as any time his mist energy is full, any earnings will go to waste." Levels can perhaps, then, be tied to guilds, and feed into Mist Wells, instead. Or else players could simply receive Mist Tanks, or a refilling mist tank for each level, to store excess mist.

Alternatively... the exact same as the above, except with a crown cost for playing the level, instead of an energy cost. I actually dislike the prospect of allowing more methods to convert Crystal Energy to Mist Energy, since, as a free player, I see the purchase of Crystal Energy from other players as my only (realistic) means to acquire 3+* gear.

With such a setup, it wouldn't matter whether the cost of level entry scales with the cost of the level created. If it does scale, then players might be attracted to it simply on the basis of resource conversions (they spend mist energy and/or crowns, and they get back crowns, heat, materials, and on very rare occasion an item). If it doesn't scale, then the more expensive the level is (the more treasure boxes and loot-rich monsters the creator places), the more incentive players have to play the level, and the more popular it will be.

Wed, 12/05/2012 - 15:56

Juances

And what about people with elevator passes? You'll take their mist too?
What if I do my own level?

GMs could ban scammers and reinburse victims. But as I already said, on a large scale, they'll be overwhelmed.

The more you look into it, the more exploitable holes you'll find. It has to be free and just for fun.

Wed, 12/05/2012 - 16:54

Garbeld

And what about people with

And what about people with elevator passes? You'll take their mist too?
a. Yes. Possibility: It's not an elevator, it's a coliseum event or guild room or something. Or some way to manipulate Cradle has been discovered? I don't care.
b. I did put forward the possibility of it costing crowns instead of energy.

What if I do my own level?
Then, depending on how the object costs are balanced, you might yield an average of a few percent profit per run in converted resources. Big whoop. (And given that heat, materials and crystals have a lower practical value than their theoretical market crown value, there's not going to be much point)

Anyways, tt doesnt stop me from creating an empty level/block the exit to troll aroud and waste peoples' resources while gaining mist and not lose my crowns. (i'd throw lots of boxes so the value seems high, but hide the boxes behind an impenetrable barrier)
And then I'd laugh and never play any levels you make again and never refer them to my friends; no one except your friends would recommend the level to anyone; worthwhile levels will get played a few dozen or hundred times as often as yours does.
Toss in a rating system, even a very minimal one, and it immediately gets downrated into oblivion, and you end up seeing a couple tank's worth of energy/crowns if you're lucky.
The ability to make a level in the first place would probably cost a lot on its own - the vast majority of would-be scammers will end up with negative profits.
Even all that aside, depending on what customization is allowed the player (presumably, creating levels a million tiles wide won't be), in most realistic cases it should be possible for an automated system to determine pathability to all treasure boxes and monster spawns from the start point. Or, eliminating the need for even that, simply have that phase of level creation involve running around as a player - placing a lootable entity involves personally getting to where it is placed, so placing it somewhere unreachable is impossible.

I concede, if a rating system is added, then it creates the possibility of griefers (perhaps entire guilds) coordinating to immediately bring down a legitimate level's rating before anyone has a chance to play it so that no one does, but it should also make it much more manageable for GMs, especially if the rating system includes more data than just "thumbs up vs thumbs down", or "ranking on a scale of 10" - say, include a selection menu for the reason for one's rating ("poor layout", "overly long", "ugly", "beautiful", "well-paced", "obvious scam", etc.), and/or a comment-box.

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Custom Clockworks Creation