Spiral Knights - Some questions about 2011-modern SK hate/comparison.

Some questions about 2011-modern SK hate/comparison.

22 replies [Last post]

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 15:01

Xtweeterx

Before any of you say I don't know what the [BLOOP] I'm talking about, please have a look at this and this as proof that I was around during the old UI and before a comma separated crown numbers properly.

I've been reading the posts in this thread and everyone makes it sound like modern SK is far worse than it was before. I would like to get a better picture of what you all mean. Granted, my 6-8 month quit upon joining did make a huge impact on the experience for me as I missed out on quite a lot, but I would like to know how modern SK compares back to 2011 or maybe beta I can name quite a few, but I do believe there is some if not a lot more that I'm missing.

I can name a few things from experience such as:

No Auction House
Arcade had purpose
No missions
No accessories or battlesprites
The old heat system

etc.

I'm sorry if I sound oblivious or "brainwashed" by OOOs things, but I find almost nothing wrong here, but am aware of some things that are wrong (Zombie hitboxes, Trojan hitboxes), but that doesn't mean I go around complaining about the most intimate things such as balance or input and stuff (Though that bug where you put your shield up like half a second before something hits you and you still take damage really annoys me).

But yeah. How exactly did 2011 compare to now? I want all the full details (yes, even the most microscopic things). Were there more challenges back then? I recall the jelly green giant, but yeah. What?

I would like nothing that relates to the UIs since complaints about those are just meaningless, and I took literally 10 secs to adjust to the new one without a hitch. It's cosmetic. Not game-breaking. Why's it so hard for you to do the same? That's like accidentally changing a hat or misc on one of your guys in TF2 and never playing that character ever again.

EDIT: title typo vanquished

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 15:11

Thunderskull

of the hud ages.

I never liked the OLD OR NEW UI. Yeah you saw this text right, I really really really don't like BOTH UIs. One was too plain and the other used excessive unoriginal gradients.

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 15:22

Blazzberry

I have no mouth and I need to scream

http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Category:Releases

Release Notes 2011-01-05 through Release Notes 2011-12-19 are what you're looking for.

Anything anyone else mentions is going to be member/guild biased. Such as who played the game, who started an argument for those to watch as they had nothing better to do, how the gm's interacted with others, annnd what items did and whatnot.

Everything you could possibly ask for is in the notes.

Sad sad thing about this community is hardly anyone likes change. Be it good or bad. At all.

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 15:25

Draycos

I like change, as long as it's reasonable and well-done.

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 15:38

Fangel

I can't say the updates have phased me

The game is still fun, and Three Rings has done a good job. People just don't like change, and will complain until they get used to it (See: complaints about Grinchlin Assault danger mission). Sadly, these complainers are often the loudest voices, so we hear them the most. It doesn't mean their complaints aren't valid, but we hear them so much we start to believe that's what everyone thinks.

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 15:40

Xtweeterx

Oh look!

I found patch notes on my 14th birthday!

http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Release_Notes_2011-03-18

@Fangel

Then I think we are in agreement that complaints about damage balance is subtle brain cancer. (Too lazy to get the link. Digging through release notes pages in a lot of tabs)

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 15:49

Fangel

Every complaint is valid

Every "issue" just doesn't need to be addressed. When weapons directly outclass each other, there is a problem (dazzling light ray will never be better, sadly). Acheron is my go-to shadow weapon, and I rarely touch Gran Faust due to damage values being the same, but they both appeal to different playstyles. Acheron really only becomes super unbalanced once you wear damage boosting gear, anyways.

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 16:04

Midnight-Dj

@fangel

(See: complaints about Grinchlin Assault danger mission)

Nope, till this day I still wished that whoever designed those levels to be shredded into pieces by a horde of Grinchlins, SK's winter event still sucked like last year, this is why I went to another game for winter event instead of trying to get some pointless, unheatable reskins while blowing through my SoLs.

"LoL Midnight, you suck and no one cares about what you think."

Indeed, I have horrandous luck in DM payoffs and I often get lags and freezes during intense battle thanks to my one bar latency. And to be honest, let's compare the stuff that I could get if I played the SK event instead of the one I am attending on.

SK winterfest(the ones that I can possibly get for the amount of effort I am going to put in):
A reskin for my Grand flourish into a candy poker, whose damage only surpsass my grand flourish at lvl 7+
Some winter wish tokens that I can trade for some prize boxes containing forst costumes that I despise.
And all the other crap for steam and winter P2P boxes are inaccesible to me since I never pay real life money on games, that is stupid.

Navyfield winterfest(The one I attended to instead of SK):
Four event exclusive aircraft carriers, they are not the best, but comparing to the ones in the same tier and levels, they are way above average.
200 medals, that is one of the in game currency that allow me to get some goodies.
200% EXP and 200% Money gain for the duration of the event. (it is still going on) And it is for all players, normal or premium.

So yeah, OOO, take a note from a MMO that is older than facebook (navyfield came out on 2003), step up your winterfest or go home.

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 16:08

Xtweeterx

@Midnight-Dj

I don't know about you... But I like to have at least one permanant souvenir of proof that I partook in something.

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 16:12

Midnight-Dj

:/ @tweeter

I have my kat eye cowl at 4*, so I have my own piece of memory of SK event already, as for winterfest, I want those memories to get out of my mind as quickly as possible.

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 16:23

#10

Ardent-Light

*Sigh

Well... I am fine with change. I like the old Ui more, but it was made to suit abilities better.

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 16:29

#11

Mushy-Bucket

---

...but that doesn't mean I go around complaining about the most intimate things such as balance...
Balance is an intimate issue? Really? Don't even get people started on that. You obviously haven't looked at some of the extensive research done about that particular topic.

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 16:33

#12

Xtweeterx

@Mushy-Bucket

Well then I would like to see some of this "extensive research" then. I will go to hell and high waters to finally lay that topic to rest other than just "Ugh this is weaker than that dont use it" or "i hate the acheron buff!" or other comparisons without any evidence.

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 16:35

#13

Draycos

I can't believe you think that nobody who complains about balance gives solid evidence for their claims.

This is why I don't make big posts as much..

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 16:42

#14

Xtweeterx

@Draycos

Okay, false assumptions aside,

It's not my fault there's millions of complaints out there that the evidence is too buried in to find >.<

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 16:54

#15

Thunderskull

@Midnight-Dj

I dunno but the level design was the best I seen in spiral knights since a while, but you know effort to reward ratio is MEHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Don't blame the level itself blame the poorly thought out reward. :P

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 17:09

#16

Mushy-Bucket

---

It's on one of those Guild's (probably Lionheart) pages that has charts. It shows DPS, damage-per-hit (let's call it DPH), and thinks of that ilk. It also clearly displays Acheron's (and all Brandishes') incredibly high DPS and DPH. Like, I recall the DPS being somewhere in the 700's and the DPH about equal to the GF (That's per hit, and it does one more hit. What does that mean? Crazy high damage). For comparison, the Brandishes' and OE's DPS were in the 600's and the Sealed Swords were in, if I recall, the 400's. The disparity between these weapons is astonishing and disturbing.

I'll post the link if I find the page again. If you get bored, browse the Wiki Subforum, I believe that's where I found it in the first place.

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 18:16

#17

Zopyros-Il

Beep Boop

I have to be perfectly frank here.
I sincerely don't think you understand the core of a lot of the SK veterans complaints, nor why so many of them left at certain critical points (namely the Missions update, UI update, and Battle Sprites update). It wasn't because they liked 2011 SK, but because 2013-14 SK seems to be run by people who just don't care.
Those updates changed things, certainly, but it was the way they changed things that ruffled so many feathers. The biggest thing was that for two straight years and running, there has been barely any acknowledgement from OOO about problems and feedback within the game. Their attitude towards beta feedback is probably the biggest signifier for this. Practically nothing changes between beta and release, even when there's a practical uproar about upcoming changes. We get things like the reviled Shard Bombs changes, bugged Dash 'n Bash, bugged and unbalanced Battle Sprites, and probably more things to come should OOO decide to open their 2 day beta test again.

Missions changed the general pace of the game and made a semi-open game into a much more linear experience. Honestly, a change like that wouldn't appeal to 100% of the community. That's to be expected.
It did however completely destroy the recipe market and practically killed the Arcade, something that a lot of older players loved about the game. The whole market brought traffic to the Arcade and while you often didn't find the recipe you were looking for, you would find one that someone else wanted. So you put it onto the Auction House, get some money for it, and maybe even find that someone did the same for the recipe you were originally looking for.
OOO never addressed this now deceased market and is only JUST NOW getting to trying to bring life back to the Arcade. That was more than a year ago. There is still no planned changes to balance out the Hall of Heroes with the very few unique recipes that Basil has, making him practically redundant and useless.

The UI update was one of the biggest messes I've ever seen. It was meant to usher in the "new" Spiral Knights and all the upcoming changes. It made things look more "modern" AKA shiny.
Usually when a game's UI updates, it's done in a practical way with explanations as to why things were moved. OOO, in their usual aloof manner, didn't really explain anything. There were a number of redundancies with the new UI, far below optimal placing of information on the HUD, useless new features, horrible overlap, and just a general look that didn't mesh with the look of SK. And to top it all off, it visually didn't match SK's general art style.
SK is generally subdued colors, soft blues, and soft curves.The UI reflected that.
New UI? Bright blues and yellows, high saturation, lots of gloss and bevels. It didn't match anything in SK. It stuck out like a sore thumb.
And before anyone tries to say that it was just the SK forums getting mad about it, I checked the Steam forums and discussions, Kongregate forums, Newgrounds forums, and even SEGA's forums upon release. The overall general consensus that I found was that the new UI was unnecessary and confusing. Also, ugly. It was honestly rare to find people that genuinely liked the new UI over the old UI.

Oh, and this update also introduced Dash 'n Bash. A prelude to a bigger problem in the game. A problem highlighted with Battle Sprites. Our Knights were getting more powerful, but the environment around them wasn't. We now have perks, advanced movement capabilities, and more firepower in an environment that could already be dealt with without any of those. What's worse is that OOO's solution was to just tack more health on monsters and make new levels where they threw so many monsters on the screen that damage was nigh unavoidable due to the lag this created.
Not making new monsters that appear in all stages to help supplement the original monsters.
Not more intelligent combinations of their existing monsters.
Not updating their monsters with new moves.
Not upgrading the AI.
Just the simplest and least engaging type of difficulty they could manage.

Those are typically the reasons that people left SK and dislike its current iteration. Not that they liked 2011 SK so much better, but because so many of these new things made 2013 SK look like a disheveled mess.
And good Vog, that's not even taking into consideration ANY of the massive balance issues, lazy textures, old bugs that still haven't been addressed, major pacing and leveling issues, lack of any new end-game content for two years, and general lack of communication between OOO and the community.
But then again, you don't very much seem to care about those, seeing them as mere complaints instead of actual issues that need to be addressed.

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 18:38

#18

Xtweeterx

@Zopyros-Il

I only read complaints of the same thing around once or three times. Seeing them over and over again more than enough gets to me.

And while I do see your viewpoint(s), I still can't find anything wrong in game. I remember a slag taking away 8 units of health on elite mode FSC. And that's without shadow defense of any kind. Sorry. I just like to play.

The only things I do see is the lack of end-game content, and lack of communication between the devs and the playerbase.

Again, if you're talking about balance, please show me proof. I would like to see this.

I don't see how the dash n' bash is bugged, nor the battle sprites useless or bugged. They are meant as support fire. Not to be actual weapons.

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 18:55

#19

Shamanalah

my 2 cents

The day I came in the AH was there (in July 2011) so no AH IDK about that...

But the core of SK was the Arcade, where endless possibilities could be created via minerals and creating different strata for different reason (crafting X weapons or doing X depths before JK or Vana)

The core of SK was the PvE and with all those changes, the PvE is so casual it is boring. The AI got big nerf, we are given sprites, buff items (chaos/acheron buff), new consumable power-ups... UI that is clearly unappealing (no cr/ce on sight? really? 3D animations for items? more lags for no reason, simple toggle on/off would solve a lot of issue).

The reason a lot of Veteran hate SK is because a lot could be done better, so easily.

"Hey look your HP in town where you can't even fight nor have HP to begin with" is pretty... lazy devs, litterally... sorry OOO but you are lazy -_- there I said it...

Simple toggle on/off of UI screen section upon loading an area is easy to do and you could do it if you weren't lazy, also my shield bar is useless in Haven... been 4-6 months now?

Edit: The new feature aren't bugged... it's just we were able to do SL FSC w/o them... and now with dash... sprites... drop buffs... it's so easy... the game was fun because it was challenging... now it's just unbalanced with the new forge system

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 19:34

#20

Zopyros-Il

Bep Bop

Just because you've seen them a bunch of times doesn't stop them from being any less valid though. It more or less makes them more valid since so many people are complaining about it.
While it is a problem that there are so many threads that complain about apparent problems, that's inherent with EVERY forum. It's also concerning that those complaints have been around for so long and yet aren't addressed, don't ya think?

The concern about Radiants and some other rarities is valid, as it restricts leveling up easily and seems to be more of a money grab than anything. If it is true that it is a part of OOO's future Arcade redux, it is tremendously inconsiderate to the playerbase to implement this one part of it and not really explain it or update it when it became apparent that they needed to delay the update.

The concerns for balance have been brought up for years. I'm only going to touch on three, but if you honestly want hard numbers and things, Zeddy and his science team are the ones to ask. I don't have their threads on hand, but you can search for them via Google if you want.
Or check the Wiki. They've posted a lot there.

I'll go over three problems real quick:

- Normal damage in general isn't nearly as effective as taking a Elemental/Shadow/Piercing weapon, especially with Arsenals now being available on every single floor of Cradle. It's not a terribly big problem but it should be something that can be fixed with slight number tweaking.

- Defensive type armors not providing enough protection in comparison to the offensive sets has been a problem since the start of the game. Having an extra pip of health or being able to take an extra hit in a game with a perfect shield and now a dash is not an equivalent exchange for being able to consistently dish out more damage.

And my last example:
- Chaos Armor and Iron Slug. The most powerful piece of equipment and arguably the worst. Chaos makes nearly every other armor obsolete, especially Mad Bomber, for measly consequences. As I mentioned before, a perfect shield and a dash more than makes up for its weaknesses.
Iron Slug doesn't dish out enough damage for its low fire rate, clip size, range, and lack of mobility. Its charge attack is even worse.
The thing about both of these is that Nick himself said that he would be fixing them soon. That was more than a year ago on the Iron Slug and quite a few months on Chaos.

That's not even going in depth with those things, but I don't have all night to try to explain everything.
If you don't see problems with things like this, then that's fine. Just don't disregard or insult the people (with Game of Thrones memes for example) that are trying to balance things out.

Dash, bash, and the sprites aren't very bugged now, but they certainly were at release. What's wrong with that is that there was a beta for both of these things. Beta where these bugs were found and brought up by the testers... and were then ignored because the betas was only open for about two to three days before OOO released the full update. Betas are supposed to be used for bug testing and balancing, but that concept seems to elude OOO. It's more of a preview than anything that you pay into. Saying that its a beta is very misleading.

Also don't see how your FSC adventures with Slags has much to do with this, but I'm glad you're having fun at least.

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 19:47

#21

Shamanalah

my 2 cents

It's more of a preview than anything that you pay into. Saying that its a beta is very misleading.

I always call it a Preview Server and not a test... it's a preview to see stuff 1-2 weeks before they implement it, they don't really care about what we say...

The only time they listen to us was with the super dash bug and it because it was really game-breaking... but was one of the most fun I had in SK... there should be a race mod with the super dash in it o.O

Fri, 01/03/2014 - 21:33

#22

Mushy-Bucket

---

@Tweeter
Here's your Vog-dang evidence of imbalance. Please direct your attention of the last chart, and then look at the DPS numbers based on what the selected weapon is strong on (i.e. Look at slimes/gremlins for Acheron/GF, undead/constructs for Brandishes/DA, etc).

http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Lancer_Knightz_%28Guild%29/Sword_Combos_Per_Minute

There is your solid evidence from Lancer-Knightz

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Some questions about 2011-modern SK hate/comparison.