Spiral Knights - New Missions to Come Out with the Free Roam Floors

New Missions to Come Out with the Free Roam Floors

10 replies [Last post]

Tue, 09/03/2013 - 02:49

Blaackblue

To understand what a Free Roam floor is, refer to my other post here

So to accompany the new Free Roam floors i suggested, there would also be a plethora of new missions to go along with this new content. Keep in mind that every mission takes place in the core's out shell, NOT IN THE CORE ITSELF. A good way to think of it is comparing it to the Earth's outer core, with the inner core being where the energy source for the Skylark is. Access is never granted to the inner core.
You are free to call these floors T4, but nearly half(if not less) of the monsters will be T3 strength and the rest stronger. Note that all new class monsters are -slightly- resistant to normal type damage, making weapons with pure damage stats like the WRH, all flourish variants and all guns and bombs deal more damage than weapons that split normal and type damage. Pet skills from a sprite that has a harness will also deal additional damage.

New Missions!!!

Missions of rank 10 and up (Vanguard) will be added with this update

Each mission will have a single floor on it with multiple areas pertaining to the mission

Knights are required to complete each area(in any order they choose) and find the Safe Point located at the back of the floor to complete the mission. Although there will be many Safe Points on the floor,ONLY THE SAFE POINT AT THE BACK WILL ALLOW THE PARTY TO VENTURE FURTHER INTO THE MISSION

Every party member is required to be present at the elevator Safe Point in the back for the party to move on (im not too sure on this point, requires feedback)

Rank 10-1

Mission 1: a talking mission with Kora to learn about the new Free Roam floors

Mission 2: another talking mission with Biotech Hahn explaining the new monster types

Rank 10-2

Missions 1-2: simple missions to get used to the new system and monsters, the first being a slime based mission with 3 random status areas and the second being a beast based mission with 3 random status areas

Mission 3: a monster research mission with items from the new monsters found only in these new floors(arcade included) that are related to beasts and slimes

Rank 10-3

Missions 1-2: simple missions to get used to the new system and monsters, the first being a gremlin based mission with 3 random status areas and the second being a construct based mission with 3 random status areas

Mission 3: a monster research mission with items from the new monsters found only in these new floors(arcade included) that are related to gremlins and constructs

Rank 11-1

Missions 1-2: simple missions to get used to the new system and monsters, the first being an undead based mission with 3 random status areas and the second being a fiend based mission with 3 random status areas

Mission 3: a monster research mission with items from the new monsters found only in these new floors(arcade included) that are related to undead and fiends

Rank 11-2

Mission 1: a talking mission with Captain Ozlo, explaining the new star rank, 6 Star. This mission will reward the player with 6 new recipes for the Azure Guardian line

Missions 2-3: these two missions will be monster and status themed floors, similar to the Concrete Jungle, Dark City, or Scarlet Fortress floors. There will be 4 areas, each with a different map of that particular theme and all areas in the floor will be of the same theme. The theme chosen will be left up to the devs.

Mission 4: Hall of Heroes with 6 Star recipes (not every line of armor and weapons upgrades into 6 Star)

Rank 12-1

Mission 1: a talking mission with Kora, with her telling you about a disturbance that is altering the energy signal of the core. She then explains how you will be reaching this disturbance and find out what it is

Missions 2-4: 3 more themed missions, one of which who's theme can only be found in this mission similar to the final floor of The Silent Legion. A Tortodrone mini boss will also be required to be defeated in one of these missions

Rank 12-2

Mission 1: another story talking mission with Kora talking about the energy disturbance

Missions 2-3: 2 themed missions, unique to these mission floors and cannot be found in the arcade or anywhere else. Each mission will be unique from one another, and content will be left up to the devs.

Rank 12-3

Mission 1: a scrambled recording from an unknown source(SPOILER it's from a member of the Alpha Squad) stating that the latter floors will be dangerous, and warning knights to turn back.

Mission 2: the boss mission, containing the boss from the bottom floor of the arcade(Free Roam boss). It will function exactly the same as it does in the arcade(refer to my other post for details). The floor after the boss will be similar to the 7th floor in the arcade, but there will also be a new artifact in the center and no geo knights in the area, being replaced by the Alpha Squad.

Rank 12-4

Missions 1- :A new set of congratulatory missions, similar to what Vanguards received after defeating Vanaduke(number and content of mission left up to the devs). One of these missions will elude to a continuation of the story.

New Items and Star Rank

Along with these new missions and floors, there will also be a new star rank for a select number of gear. Note that not all gear can be upgraded to 6 Star

To craft these new Star levels, there will also be new 6 Star level materials that will only be dropped by monsters in Free Roam floors, be it in missions or the Arcade(actual description and detailed reports of said items left up to devs or suggestions by other players). 6 Star materials work exactly the same as all other materials.

6 Star recipes can only be obtained from the Hall of Heroes mission in rank 11-2 or at the NPC in Free Roam terminal(or in AH if some1 is selling them). Prices will be set at 50,000 crowns

6 Star recipes require Ephemeral Orbs of Alchemy, which can be found in Free Roam floors. 3 orbs can be bought in the supply depot for 1,000 Crystal Energy. They also require 10,000 crowns.

The Free Roam boss will have its own set of tokens, which can be used to purchase a helmet, 2 weapons and the boss material Purifying Powder(similar to the Rock Salt bought with jelly tokens). Trophy materials will also be available to make Guild Hall trophies of this boss.

Suggested gear for upgrading follow:
1 or each wolver set to match new monsters (excluding Snarbolax)
1 of each demolition set (Excluding Mercurial Demo)
1 of each gunner set (Excluding Deadshot)
Radiant Silvermail
Dread Skelly set
Grey Feather set
Azure Guardian set
Swiftstrike Buckler (along with 4 and 5 Star versions)
Ironmight set
Royal Jelly to match new Slime monsters or a new line that is 5 and 6 Star only
More to come later (possibly moved to a new thread, this one is getting quite long!)

Feedback is VERY much appreciated, but please give positive feedback and tell me what i did wrong. Negative posts meant to debunk my suggestion are not welcome.
The purpose of this post is to suggest new missions as a whole, the content of these missions can vary to suit the needs of the update.

Tue, 09/03/2013 - 04:28

Hexzyle

The whole concept of 6 star

The whole concept of 6 star gear is dum-beh. The tiering system has been entirely engineered to work around a 0-5 star weapon rank, tacking a 6th star rank onto the end is ridiculous, to say the least. Would you pay 130,000 crowns per piece of equipment for a meager 10% boost in effectiveness? And even if you do make it more than 10%, for example, turning Chaos or other offensive armors into ridiculous "easily MAX ASI + MAX CTR + MAX DMG" equipment of destruction, you turn Tier 3 into a cakewalk, further increasing crown income and inflating CE prices.
That's not to mention the huge amount of developmental time it would take to redo the crafting and unbinding mechanics, add in new 6 star materials, create new models for 6 star equipment (which is very difficult because 5 star equipment is supposed to be "final form", at their "most ultimate and awesome" state) and then test and balance it all.

I haven't read the rest yet, it looks pretty bad. Rather than refute the whole thing I just wanted to point out this one section that is probably the most unbalanced.

Tue, 09/03/2013 - 04:29

Blaackblue

@ Hexzyle

I know making certain items into 6 star would completely unbalance the game, which is why i specifically said that NOT ALL ARMOR SETS WOULD BE UPGRADABLE. in particular, i'd like to see ones that don't have any perks on them, to promote armor sets that are purely defensive. And if the set did have a perk on it, the perk would not upgrade, only the defense and status resist would. the only reason i added the whole 6 star thing on the end was because the new monsters in the new floors are supposed to be a lot stronger, making the game more difficult and i didn't want people saying that the game would then be too hard. but if you think we could handle it all in 5 star gear then ok i'll roll with that. also, i'd really much appreciate it if you read the whole thing before commenting... i know it's long, and i'll try to split it up into different threads for specific things.

Tue, 09/03/2013 - 04:41

Hexzyle

Who am I kidding, might as well refute the rest as well

Surface of the core? Are you kidding me? What monsters are on the surface of the core? Did you see any when you looked down from the core lobby? Why are they down there?

The surface area of the core is roughly 78 hectares. (The explorable surface of a single Skydome is roughly one hectare) That's non-shifting metal, so you can't have randomly generated floors. They'll have to be preset, which REALLY takes the fun out of "exploring" because it all has to be pre-made and therefore you can only explore the levels as fast as the developers can develop it. And it's just miles of boring metal. There's no biodome environments, no features or landmarks down there. Just miles and miles of pipes, smoking vents, and the occasional watchamacallit, which is also metal and doesn't do anything.
That aside, why can only Tier 3 players play on a free-roam level? Why not everyone? You know you could have a lot more interesting content if you called it "explore surface of cradle". That way everyone could do it, and there would actually be a variance in scenery. Not to mention there's 1.6 million hectares of the surface of Cradle to explore, so it would be perfectly acceptable to make it randomly generated.

Making normal weapons more useless than they already are due to weapon slots? What? You're also buffing bombs and guns more than they need to be. Basically nerfing swords, and any sort of Hybrid player. Let me rephrase that: you're punishing certain branches of creative styles of play.

Final note: there is no higher rank or knight award than Vanguard. Any further missions you undertake at Vanguard rank are practically expected of you, you don't get brownie points for signing up for them.

Tue, 09/03/2013 - 04:45

Hexzyle

i'd like to see ones that

i'd like to see ones that don't have any perks on them, to promote armor sets that are purely defensive.

You mean "make defensive armors way more expensive to actually reach their full potential"? That's not a buff, that's just a tease.

because the new monsters in the new floors are supposed to be a lot stronger

Making monsters "stronger" by increasing how much damage they do and causing you to be killed in one hit if you don't have the exact armor isn't "harder" or even "more challenging", it's just completely unenjoyable. (since minor mistakes are punished with imminent death) See Artificial Difficulty

Tue, 09/03/2013 - 05:30

Blaackblue

I never said the surface of the core

I never said the surface of the core, i said the inside the out shell. i even gave a comparison to help readers get the analogy. with the core that you see on d29, that is the surface of the outer core. all of these levels will take place inside that shell, so you wouldn't be able to see it from d29. also, the planet Cradle is highly illogical as it is, so saying that there are environmental shifting domes like in the arcade inside this outer core wouldn't too far of a stretch. If you really want these free roam levels to be on the surface of cradle, that could be a possibility but it kinda goes against all the story in the game. we are supposed to be digging further into the clockworks to reach the core, so working outwards would be counterproductive. also monsters (and gear alike) get stronger the closer it gets to the core, which ties in with my whole T4 theory. an alternative i posted in my other thread was to have 2 separate Arcade gates that go from haven to core in all free roam floors(obviously less than 29 floors). i didn't like it too much because it bunks the possibility of T4, at least in this particular update. i wanted it to be T4 to give experienced veteran players a reward for sticking with the game for so long, as opposed to adding all this new non T3 content that only allowed lateral improvement instead of vertical improvement.

And with the way monsters work in T4, they are not just damage buffs, they actually get new moves and abilities, evolving their AI system to actually make the game harder, not just provide fake difficulty. but since this particular post was only for the new missions, i didn't feel like i had to go in-depth about all their new abilities. i will post another thread involving new monsters and a hardcore breakdown of T4.

on a side note, i'd just like to say that this was really just a suggestion that i thought up in a single day, not meant to be a final product. i WANT feedback so i can make revisions to it so that it can ultimately be consumer ready, this is really just a base idea. so i'd appreciate it if you didn't just treat it like a horrible idea and at least give it some serious thought.

Tue, 09/03/2013 - 10:38

Hexzyle

I never said the surface of the core, i said the inside the out shell

There is no "outer shell". There's no "inside the outside". You're either inside the core, or you're outside it. And you already said "NOT IN THE CORE ITSELF" so all that's left is the core lobby with all that annoying, laggy dusty stuff, or the surface of the core, walkin' around on that really red metal.

also, the planet Cradle is highly illogical as it is, so saying that there are environmental shifting domes like in the arcade inside this outer core wouldn't too far of a stretch

Cradle is perfectly logical. Domes are shifted via Skydome cranes and trays, which are mounted on Gate Shafts. There isn't a Gate Shaft in the core, so there's no cranes or trays. Additionally, Skydomes are deconstructed and reconstructed by Gremlins and Constructs. AFAWK nothing has ever gotten in or out of the core, so there'd be no way for anyone to transport Skydome parts or any other required resources to and from the core.

get stronger the closer it gets to the core

But D29 is right outside the core. There's a ~40 metre drop to the surface of the core and that's it. No space to cram a level in as a "depth 30" (the systems needed to drive a single depth's Skydome tray span over a kilometre high) to put REALLY strong monsters in. All that's left is the core itself. If the core is a single Skydome, then it has an approximated diameter of 113 meters. If it is as big as its model is, then it has a diameter of 500 meters. That's enough for a bunch of Skydomes (that never change since there's no system to change them) or a big chunk of metal to stand on. That's 19 hectares, or a 443 x 443 level. Say you did use that space for your "inside the outside of the core" suggestion, then you've then revealed "whats inside the core" and the story's all over. If there's nothing precious or useful there then the knights sink into a depression as they realise they can never leave the planet. If there is something there then you're basically stepping into "final boss development"; do you really want this "free roam boss" to be the ultimate final boss of the game that reveals the core's secrets?

The only other solution to this is to have the construction of Cradle retconned so that there are now 32 depths before the core instead of 29.

Wed, 09/04/2013 - 01:24

Blaackblue

Surface Idea

OK so if you really don't like the idea of a deeper part of the arcade then we could go with the surface of the planet like you said before. It'd be a better idea than changing the number of floors in the current arcade, since players are already used to 29. But then the monsters would all be T1 (or maybe even weaker) meaning there would be no new missions for Vanguards.

Wed, 09/04/2013 - 04:55

Hexzyle

the monsters would all be T1 (or maybe even weaker)

Perhaps so on the light side of Cradle, but what about the side of Cradle that's permanently dark? There's possibly stronger monsters there.

For putting it inside Cradle, isn't really anywhere you could put such a large area of map, unless you wanted to walk around on the top of one of those Skydome Trays, which is a possibility.

Thu, 09/05/2013 - 02:51

Blaackblue

Hmm, with the whole dark side

Hmm, with the whole dark side thing having it on the surface doesn't sound like a bad idea. They could come up with completely new monsters that channel core energy better, and thus still be strong even while on the surface. It's a possibility, that also allows for much larger areas then what i had originally intended. Although with an almost indefinite space they would have to work up a whole new system for heating and such since no elevators to return to the surface with.

Thu, 09/05/2013 - 05:47

#10

Red-Right-Hand

Bad idea about equipment 6*

Bad idea about equipment 6* dude, it would just be like WOW if this were to keep going. The equipment would keep jumping and so would the levels, etc. Ideas like the battle sprite are great. The idea about the floor is ok but should be set some place apart from the core. Keep thinking mate.

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New Missions to Come Out with the Free Roam Floors