Now looking at the title you may be thinking “What the… It is already.” And you would be somewhat correct, yes you can go online and play with many people BUT there is no incentive to do so, from personal experience, apart from bosses, the game is far easier and more beneficial to solo though.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of spiral knights, I enjoy playing it but with the recent update where 4* - 5* items were locked onto an account… what use was there in playing with others? I couldn’t come up with a justified answer for that. Being on a Games design course I have been taught to look at and analyse games and think of ways to improve them and when playing some more I made a guild. (Core, you should join it =P) Upon entering the guild hall I was very disappointed, there is so much potential here and it is wasted. With a big empty space, So in this suggestion thread I am going to offer suggestions onto how I feel that the Social aspects of the game can be improved as well as how OOO can make a profit from it, after all games are a business, we have to show our support if we want things done and I’m sure if even some of the changes are considered that people will be more willing to pay.

GUILD HALL

The guild hall should start out as it currently is, empty, and have extra options for a price of CE and this price can be reasonably high because it’s not a single person paying for it, it’s a group of people and that brings me to my first addition;

1: Treasury: A box placed in the centre of the guild that any member can put crowns, items or energy in one of the many slots. There are two main functions of this the first being the “Guild Fund” this is what is used to purchase all of these additional areas, each member con contribute towards this fund but not take from it. The second is the item slots, each slot can have an item added to it and a price set for other guild members to buy it, it’s also possible to put things up for free.
2: Auction Terminal: Instead of having to leave and load a different area, have a small terminal that guild members can use, it functions the same as the regular auction house.

3: Guild Alchemy: Unlike the alchemy terminal already present in the guild hall, The guild Alchemy terminal will load up with nothing inside it when first opened even if the user has learnt recipes. Each guild member can then put a recipe into the terminal for a small price, this will then show up for every guild member to use.

4: Guild NPC: In the hall, an NPC will be placed; this NPC will start off with basic equipment this can be traded for any other equipment by the guild master so that the NPC will have its own look, the guild master can then use a command such as “/Guild MOTD message” that this NPC will say when spoken too, it can just be a nice message, rules of the guild or information on Boss runs as well as updates in the guild.

5: Message Board: When crafting, it can sometimes be difficult to get a hold of the materials you need or even to find people to help you past a certain point within the game and of course, not everyone is on at the same time. So being able to put up short messages that anyone can check out will be an easy way to find what you are looking for or just to set up certain events such as a boss run.

6: Guild Armour: At the start of the game was a wonderful little screen where you get to alter your characters appearance and personalise yourself a little. As a bonus for being in the guild, it should be possible for a guild master to set up a custom armour with various designs and colours,(3 different colours minimal to allow many combinations of variation and include white and black as they go with almost everything.) so that each guild has something of their own, this outfit can then be bought by members and worn in the costume slot or be 2* armour with a bonus heat gain when playing with guild members.

7: Arena: Just for those disputes that can’t be handled with discussion. Nothing is more fun that being able to hit your friends round the back of the head for claiming you’re a n00b, it’s also a good way to advance players in the ranks, make them fight a superior member to prove they have what it takes and are not going to be a hindrance on the group, could have tournaments for fun to show off each members skill and even have a ranking or could also be linked to the next point.

8: Beistery: Being able to capture and raise monsters, these monsters can then be used in the form of a support card similar to the ones that summon the knights to your aid or could be used in the guilds arena as an advancement test, a battle royal. Maybe even just kept as pets? Possibly even a farm? Every now and then depending on how well looked after they are, the creatures will drop materials that can be used.

9: Arcade Exit: Far right within the arcade there is an empty wall that could easily be swapped out and have a portal to the Guild hall in it, after meeting up with friends in the hall it’s unlikely that the first place you want to go is the town square, more likely it’s into the clockworks. (This wouldn’t be as much of a problem if every area didn’t take so long to load every time it was entered.)

PARTY

Another one of the major thing that annoys me with Spiral Knights is parties, Whenever I am in one I feel as if I am being punished, not rewarded for playing with others when in an MMO that is a very bad thing, Social aspects should definitely be improved and give players a reason to be together other than the company.

1: Heat: when soloing, I am able to get much more heat than when in a party, (As well as get more heat from tier 1 than tier 2 but that’s for another day.) There should be a bonus for gathering heat in a party, you should get close too or even more heat when in a party I can see this being done in several ways;

a) Add a multiplier to the heat gathered for every member in the party.
b) Made the game smarter, it will know when you have more members and spawn extra monsters to compensate.
c) Have each member gather the same amount of heat, if one person picks up the heat, everyone gets the same amount.

2: Group Attacks: The charge attacks are great to use doing that extra bit of damage when needed. But everyone knows the charge can be a bit slow when at a low level and sometimes when you use it will knock away an opponent meaning that your team mates miss, this is a bit of a disappointment, I am in a team it should act like one, Once two players have charged up their attacks, they could change colour when close enough to each other to perform a team attack, Once one has released the button to attack, there charge colour should change for a short moment allowing the other team member to also release, if performed correctly both will attack a single target at the same time with whatever combination of weapons they have equipped, dealing a big amount of damage.

3: More weapon Choice: Currently there are three types of weapons. Swords, close range best damage, Guns, long range low damage, Bombs, support, A.O.E, ok damage infrequent use. And each person has the possibility of having 4 equipped, fairly pointless if you ask me, each person can have one of each with another left over for those special occasions. What this means is that there is almost no benefit to playing in a team as in other MMO games that have classes, While I am glad there are no classes in this game (I don’t think a choice made at the start of something you know nothing about should influence your whole game.) there needs to be a way for people to benefit each other so there are a few examples below, some may work, some may not.

a) Daggers: Like a sword but faster and less damage, the point of a dagger is to get behind an opponent to get a massive critical bonus for a backstab.
b) Staff/Spear: Having a fair range on it, staffs is able to gather and keep opponents away and while not being able to do as much damage; it is able to control monsters, push them and keep them in a set area for another team member to easily attack.
c) Net: A charge weapon, Once thrown, the net is able to hold monsters in place, doing small amounts of elemental damage at higher levels and allowing other team members to come in and attack the monsters, the user themselves is unable to move until the net is released and the monsters are free, the longer its kept the greater chance a monster has to wriggle free.
d) Banner: similar to a wolvers ability to buff the damage of other wolvers, a banner is a charge move that can be used at any time to increase the team in various ways attack/defence/speed for increasing lengths of time depending on the quality, each person can only have USE one at a time, but can have up to 4 active on them, one from each member. Swapping to other weapons while active will not negate the effect.
e) Wands: While playing in the clockworks I often look at goblins and think… why cant my team be like that, they have healers, mages, warriors and supports. Aslo a charge weapon, wands can only effect other players and not the caster themselves, these could be used as either defence or offense.
a. Defence: Shield: give someone a constant barrier to protect them from harm, lasts until destroyed or cast on another target.
b. Defence: Heal: recover a portion of Health of unit directly in front of.
c. Defence: Revive: Instead of splitting hearts to revive someone, the wand will refill the target to the same as the caster.
d. Offense: Elemental: Similar to some goblins, Zombies and Turrets (I don’t do proper names.), have a beam of some sort, a line directly in front of the caster that will be damaged by the spell.
e. Offense: Buff: Enchant a weapon to deal elemental damage for a short period of time.

All of these affect both friendly players and enemy players to avoid them from being spammed everywhere and used in moderation.

4: Forming Parties: I really don’t know why this was not implemented from the start, When playing a game, It would be nice to form parties outside of the clockworks, to gather members for a Boss Run or similar, to be able to always be connected to your friends and instantly join their games when they enter the clockworks when leaving the clockworks there should be the option of “leave this party” “stay in this party” The party leader should be able to set if this option is available, with this, a player can go to the arcade or an alchemy terminal, still be able to chat with those in the clockworks and re-join them when they have done whatever they need too. If everyone leaves the clockworks, they can remain in a party to go on another right after.

5: Group Boot: Sometimes, the leader of a party is not very sociable or, through no fault of their own, disconnects, either of these options can cause a party’s progress to completely stop instead of waiting for the party leader to either see sense, log back on or be forced to log off (after a long wait.) there should be an option, that if the other party members all agree too, the host is the one that is booted.

FINAL WORD

While I have many more ideas upon how spiral knights can be improved I would prefer to tackle each thing at a time, so this is my suggestions for improving social aspects. If you read through all of this then I appreciate you spending the time to do so and will be happy to clarify anything that you feel is unclear. I welcome constructive criticism and hope that you show your support for even just one of these suggestions. Thank you.