Spiral Knights - How do you feel about this update and all the recent changes?

How do you feel about this update and all the recent changes?

12 replies [Last post]

Tue, 07/30/2013 - 19:39

Redblades

Before we start, I'm going to tell you that this is one of my FEW serious threads.

Okay, lets start with the battle sprites.

+63.6
Gives more diversity to PvE playstyle, it's great

-1 on a couple parts

1. They're completely useless in t3. seriously, they do absolutely no damage. can you give us vanguards a couple free levels?

2. Why do you have to make a flashy animation for it? The only reason I would want to use another weapon/attack is so I can combo it with the rest on my weapons.
Please make skills usable while:
Shielding
Charging
Attacking
Lifting up sprites/statues/water
etc...

EDIT: Please make it so the cooldowns aren't universal the long cooldowns make the other skills alot less viable.

Done ranting, lets move on to energy changes:

+1 for the no mist and no elevator costs. Finally, people can play as much as they want. The game wont push newbs away anymore.

-1 to the mist well
Like seriously, I paid money, added CE into it to get mist for crafting. now you're telling me I can't get "orbs of alchemy" and can ONLY take 100 energy per day? What the f^!@..

Emergency revives:
Seriously? You didn't make this game easy enough already?
Also, make it so it fully heals people who haven't used the ER for that depth.
+/- 0, so so

Difficulty modes:
+1 to this, but make it so missions must be played on normal mode so people will be encouraged to go back to the arcade! Missions are there to guide players, not for them to FARM THEM..

The forge:
Interesting, I'll put a +1/2 for now.

---------------------------------------------
WARNING: Everything in this half of the post is negative (albeit constructive) criticism on the changes to mechanics of the game.
If you are easily butthurt, please re-insert your skull into your anus, and proceed to ignore this half of the post.

If you noticed, I skipped a couple parts, including the revive mechanisms and the loot mechanisms. I'll be talking about them now.

The devs say that the changes to the loot and revive mechanisms will "encourage teamwork" and eliminate any reason "NOT to party with one another". However, this logic is completely and utterly flawed.

Reasons to party up in Spiral Knights:
-Dividing and Conquering, clearing rooms and parts of the map separately, while banding together to face powerful monsters when needed.
-The ability to revive one another using your health.
-The ability to "donate heat" for faster heating of items.
-Sharing pills and vials

With the change of the loot mechanisms, dividing and conquering will now be a worthless tactic. The reason for this is because we now have to walk through the whole map to pick up our crowns and heat. Since we have to walk around the whole map just to get our loot, it will actually discourage many people (including myself and quite a few guild members) to do runs with parties.

Also, with the change of the revive mechanism, playing in a party is quite similar to playing solo. You cannot help one another without spending money. Before, if you died, you had to revive yourself with energy. Now, it's the same thing, even if your party members have full health. I fail to see your logic behind this change, because it just completely discourages teamwork. There is also a skill meant for getting more heart drops. With the heart drops, you can pick up a friend and both heal with the help of Seraphynx. The ONLY reason I can see behind changing this is to grab money. However, it's a terrible money grab, since I can just restart the mission (no elevator cost).

Sharing pills and vials were one of the reasons I loved to party up with people. If a friend needs a pill, I could just drop one for him. If he's "watering vana", I can give him poison vials to take out vana more quickly. With this change, we cannot share and help each other. Another way to discourage teamwork. Where's the logic behind this?

User Interface Changes:

Red flashy screen of death + screen shake:
Seriously, OOO? This isn't CoD, I don't "bleed out" every time I lose a bit of health. However, some of the newer knights may like this feature, and it's a decent warning system to "GET YO BUT OUT AND GET HEALTH". Although it may help newer knights, many veterans are already used to monitoring their health while murdering zombies and crap, so please put an option to turn this effect off. It's quite annoying to see a pulsing red all over my screen, and it's distracting. It also hurts my eyes.

Weapon wheel and removal of old weapon monitor:
Another flashy UI change that will appeal to the newer knights. Again, I'm not asking you to remove it, but please put an option to change back to the old weapon monitor. Hell, why not an option to change back to the old UI? MANY knights dislike this new User Interface, and giving them a choice between the two UI's will satisfy both parties (old and new knights).

Huge portrait of my knight:
Don't even. Why. Y u do dis ;-;

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There have been many interesting changes to the game that I truly believe to benefit the game. However, many things still need to change. Most of the 2nd half of this post is about having the CHOICE to do something.

I want to be able to CHOOSE whether I want to revive somebody with my health or not.
I want to be able to CHOOSE whether I want to use the new UI or the old UI
I want to be able to CHOOSE whether I want to use the new weapon monitor or the old monitor
I want to be able to CHOOSE whether I want to have my screen shake and hurt my eyes with bright red or not
I want to be able to CHOOSE whether I want to drop my vials or not
I want to be able to CHOOSE whether I want to donate heat or not

In Soviet Russia, game control you

TL;DR
+1 to:
battle sprites, difficulty modes, energy changes and heat changes
-1 to:
removal of health revives, forcing new UI, not being able to drop vials, and "per person" loot picking.
please add:
Ability to use battle sprite skills while doing a different animation (attacking or shielding or charging, etc..)

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Enough of my opinions, this isn't a suggestion thread. What do you think about this update?

Edit: Please keep discussion and feedback about the release announcement in the discussion thread. Thank you!

Tue, 07/30/2013 - 19:59

$Refractionz's picture$

Refractionz

I appreciate that the staff are taking their time to improve the game. However, everything I loved about the game is changing. I liked Spiral Knights because of it's simple game mechanics and aesthetics. I'm not sure if I'll keep playing at this rate.

Sincerely,
Refractionz

Tue, 07/30/2013 - 20:12

Ink-Incorporated

I don't even know.

Tue, 07/30/2013 - 20:32

Reqy

I'm not a fan of the screen

I'm not a fan of the screen shake.

The First hit after every depth, my screen freezes for a split moment. Something i didnt have to deal with before the update.

Tue, 07/30/2013 - 20:35

Reto-Da-Liz

so true

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 02:24

Kloriff

Thank you, Redblades.

Why don't the people in charge think like this player?

Thank you, Redblades for putting into such an eloquent post all the things I have felt since this 'update'.

Sincerely.

Kloriff.

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 02:51

Paweu

Let's be honest, the dropping

Let's be honest, the dropping of stuff was often abused by people to gather spare pills for danger rooms and the like and now that everyone will receieve the same amount of consumables the "sharing of pills" doesn't really work. Not everyone has to play on elite, if you can't handle it, you shouldn't be given any handicap. Not with all the stuff we got this update. People shout: "the game is too easy" but when OOO goes ahead and removes all the stuff that made it so easy suddenly people are enraged.

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 03:51

Ice-Frog

Just trew away 28 Radiant

Just threw away 28 Radiant Fire Crystals (=392 CE) in a single attempt trying to lvl up my owlite shield to 5 lvl with 75% chance, and all I got is - Forge Failed!?
I'm out.

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 04:01

Hexzyle

If you were that serious about it you could have at least put it in the right place.

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 05:26

Redblades

"Let's be honest, the dropping of stuff was often abused by people to gather spare pills for danger rooms and the like and now that everyone will receieve the same amount of consumables the "sharing of pills" doesn't really work. Not everyone has to play on elite, if you can't handle it, you shouldn't be given any handicap. Not with all the stuff we got this update. People shout: "the game is too easy" but when OOO goes ahead and removes all the stuff that made it so easy suddenly people are enraged."

The reason this game is so easy is because they nerfed all the monsters. not the fact that I can drop pills and gather them. Hell, I don't even use pills.

"If you were that serious about it you could have at least put it in the right place."
This is a discussion, and I don't think OOO would appreciate it if I copypasted it. I'll link it on that thread though, thanks hex.

@reqy
I noticed quite a bit of lag for the first hit too. just a small screen freeze, but enough to get me running into mobs and traps.

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 05:28

#10

Juances

The sprites are useles in T3 because we were supossed to get them on T1.
For a new player, they might level up nicely along the rest of their arsenal.

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 05:37

#11

Shrinkshootr

Um, no.

" They're completely useless in t3. seriously, they do absolutely no damage. can you give us vanguards a couple free levels?"

They are useless in T3, I agree. No damage done whatsoever. Maskeraith seems to be the only useful one on low levels, because of the poison/damage enhancement ability. Thankfully he's the one I chose. However, their damage should scale with the tiers appropriately, just like a proto bomb, while being stupidly low in damage, will still do more in T3 than in T1. Giving vanguards a few free levels isn't a way to solve the problem. Not to mention, I'm one of the players who's been around for a long time and isn't vanguard level (I'm just knight or something, I don't know, I don't give a *&#$ about the ranking system or missions). Rank isn't everything, and I'm a bit annoyed that I got only a little bit of loot from the changeover even though I've been here since long before missions.

"The only reason I would want to use another weapon/attack is so I can combo it with the rest on my weapons."

Agreed. There's no good reason why we can't charge a sword or hold a shield and activate that skill.

"The reason for this is because we now have to walk through the whole map to pick up our crowns and heat. Since we have to walk around the whole map just to get our loot, it will actually discourage many people (including myself and quite a few guild members) to do runs with parties."

And how exactly is that worse from 1) doing it solo or 2) having materials randomly distributed to the party? As far as I know, heat drops haven't been changed, and coins collected are still collected for everyone in the party (changing that wouldn't make sense if they're going to duplicate drops). This means that the only thing changed was that all mob dropped materials are instanced (just like hearts) but are in the same spot for every single person so the loot collection will always be the same. People keep whining and moaning about this but I don't see the problem. If you were going solo, which EVERYONE ALREADY DID ANYWAY, this is the exact same thing. If you were going into a party, loot was randomly distributed. Don't like running around to collect drops? THEN DON'T. You can simulate the old method of random distribution by choosing not to scour the whole map and grab the stuff. Seriously, what is your logic here? How exactly does this discourage partying? Unless you know about some mechanic that I don't, the only reason I can come up with would be impatience on the part of your teammates who don't want to wait for you to run around and get your things, even though they'll be doing the same thing.

Please, explain to me why this is so bad, because either I'm missing something here, or everyone is just needlessly producing an ocean of tears about this.

"You cannot help one another without spending money. Before, if you died, you had to revive yourself with energy. Now, it's the same thing, even if your party members have full health."

Are you kidding me? Did you miss the part where you get sparks of life from a few missions and they also drop in the clockworks? Trust me, I've strolled through T3 on elite a couple of times, and it's not difficult at all to gain a "profit" of SoL. Which are free. which you can use to revive yourself, or a teammate, if they've been downed. A second time. Because there's one free revive per floor. You do NOT have to spend money on anything, and even if you CHOOSE to, the going rate from the depot is 10 SoL for 200 CE which is one revive per 20 CE, which is a crap ton less costly than paying for elevators. I might die three or four times in a run (and need to use a SoL), and that's a high estimate because I don't die that often (keep in mind I am factoring in emergency revives). You have no argument here at all. It doesn't cost money, and even if you choose to spend money on SoL, it's still way cheaper overall than the old elevator costs, because if you don't atrociously suck, you die way less often than you would use elevators twice. And like you mentioned, if it's that big of a deal, you can just restart from the beginning. God, seriously...

Aside from that, I generally agree with the other things. I don't have a problem with the revive system except for the one fact that if I want to revive someone else, it's difficult to do it in the middle of a fight, which is when it most needs to be done. It would be nice if they allowed me to activate a spark of life on a teammate when I stepped over them, like the old revive system, instead of running around trying to dodge things while trying to use the UI in the upper left corner. Stupid. Not being able to drop vials or capsules is also a really disappointing change, I really don't like that. And finally, the redness thing...it's too much. It would be fine if it were fainter or used less of the screen or something, but it's irritating, too opaque, and takes up too much space. It also activates when you're like on 25% or 30% health, which is way too high; I've still got a hit or two left at that point, I'll be fine.

Wed, 07/31/2013 - 05:39

#12

Lanieu

I want to be able to CHOOSE

All of this. I agree.

Spiral Knights has taken a huge nose dive in 'love-ability' and I am tempted to just delete my character and call it a day.

The sprites are cute, sure, but literally pointless. Le sorry OOO to diminish your hard work. You lost me 99% at the 'new ****** UI'.

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How do you feel about this update and all the recent changes?