Spiral Knights - No orbs of alchemy no forge vs. today

No orbs of alchemy no forge vs. today

18 replies [Last post]

Sat, 10/11/2014 - 20:46

Abelisk

I miss it. You know, when we had the deep curiousity of hard-to-get equipment. 800 ce to craft equipment.

The problem now is not that it's easy to make equipment, but fun curiousity for crafting is lost. Before you had to stock up on crowns and energy which took quite a while to do. We all had the curiousity of how the equipment, especially weapons, behaved. We were in for a surprise. We expected something magical to come out a week's worth of grinding crowns/energy. And we did, and we were proud. Now, we have super easy free 800 energy lying in boxes... No effort = not as exciting, huh?

So if orbs were removed, the forge would be removed too, right? Of course, free elevators can stay.

Sat, 10/11/2014 - 21:40

Zaffy-Laffy

Yes and no. The economy will collapse over time, the end.

Sun, 10/12/2014 - 04:13

Mystrian

I can see why you are upset, but hunting for orb takes effort as well as dedication.

Sun, 10/12/2014 - 05:55

Bopp

missed the point?

Mystrian, I think that the original poster is saying that Orbs make it too easy to craft equipment. Perhaps he has tons of them lying around (as I do).

Sun, 10/12/2014 - 09:34

Dead-Bard

The system changes but the

The system changes but the game stays the same.

In ancient times you had to farm vana to get money to buy energy to make equips.
Now you need to farm vana to get orbs and radiants to make equips and heat them up to 10.

Bottom line: Nothing changed, at all.

Sun, 10/12/2014 - 11:59

Abelisk

Dead-Bard: I don't farm Vana. I have 24k crowns which is nothing close to 800 e. I have 30 eternal orbs lying in my inventory from cheap mission runs. It has definitely changed. 30 eternal orbs = 8k e. I got them from spamming Alone in the Dark and arcade runs. I got them in 1 month. Only spent about an hour daily... That's how easy it is.

Sun, 10/12/2014 - 13:33

Mystrian

Post #5, is there proof?

Sun, 10/12/2014 - 14:42

Abelisk

guise

Mystrian: I can upload an image of my orbs if that's what you want.

Sun, 10/12/2014 - 15:56

Avihr

Hmm I've fought worse

Before the forge the thing that kept you from crafting a weapon was the 800 energy, the recipe and the materials, nowdays crafting is easy, but the difficult/costly thing is bringing a 5* to level 10, but the weapon by itself is just easily obtainable.

the other reason that there was much more "hype" from crafting a new weapon was because it was easily leveled up and brought to its full potential very quickly, and the fact that a 5* recently crafted weapon is weaker than a lv 4* lv 10 weapon doesn't help at all, whenever i upgrade things from 4* to 5* the only thing i can think of is: "oh man now i'm gonna have to get this crap to lv 8 just to get back to where i already was before"

Sun, 10/12/2014 - 17:08

Dead-Bard

Dead-Bard: I don't farm Vana.

30 orbs in 1 month is nothing, I got around as many as you just from farming vana for 1 week, orbs droprate is too high to keep up with their use, the restricting denominator nowadays are fire crystals and say what you want but from start to finish it's much better to farm Vana over farming 18-28 floors just to get radiants from the last 2 floors, as a bonus you also get more money than from arcade running.

Which brings us back to my previous statement: The best payout for time/effort is still farming vana by a landslide, same as it was before the forge update.
The only difference would be that you can't now buy Elevator passes to speed up the farming process anymore.

Sun, 10/12/2014 - 20:50

#10

Abelisk

avi

Dead-Bard: Never knew the Elevator passes were a factor in your claim. I can see where you are comparing the crafting rates.

But tell me, which way is more fun? Does anyone like the forge? How about this, if eternal orbs cannot be found in treasure boxes and the forge is removed, how will that sound? The reason why the Forge was introduced was so players would need to spend more time in the Clockworks because crafting was much easier, and as a result the Forge was introduced. However, if orbs were difficult to obtain and only required energy to be obtained (and they were non-tradeable and non-sellable), then knights would spend a much longer time in the Clockworks gathering crowns and converting it to energy. As a result the Forge would be deleted and heating only required running the Clockworks.

Mon, 10/13/2014 - 01:05

#11

Daili

My 2 cents

In my opinion the whole orbs, forge, and free elevators was the downfall of the game. Now don't get me wrong, I like the free elevators, but the downside about it is that if you can play freely, you will eventually overplay the game to boredom, where this game becomes more repetitive than actually worth coming back to.
Back before orbs, forge, and paid elevators, I enjoyed the game. I hated the whole limited gameplay with 100 mist to play 10 levels, but that always brought me back to the game because when I was done one day I had to come back the next day to continue to do missions and arcade or whatever to be able to get better gear. Getting better gear and leveling it up was a joy back then to do. Now it's just a chore, especially when the main component for heating up 5 star gear is in the last 2 floors, and I'm not really in the mood to run the tier 3 arcade or do endless runs of FSC just to have enough to heat up gear completely without forge faults with lower chance selections.

Mon, 10/13/2014 - 20:53

#12

Thegamerguy

I have recently started a new character for the sole purpose of reliving SK- fighting, making friends, and following the storyline. Unless you're an endgame (which, by the way, IS a minority) player, crafting gear takes a lot of time. It may be easy for big-shots to sit around in their accumulated wealth and dream about the "glory days" of running Clockworks and the likes, but the reality is that most players struggle to craft new gear even with Orbs. Taking them out of the game would be even more frustrating, because instead of getting price cuts you're forced to pay the full shabang. "Working hard towards a new piece of gear" turns into "Endlessly grinding for clearance to a new Tier."

Start a new account and play the game as it's meant to be. Don't send the new account anything from your old one, don't add old friends, don't join your old guild. Your perspective may change quickly.

Mon, 10/13/2014 - 21:20

#13

Fehzor

The forge and all of that nonsense works perfectly well with a few complaints:

It's too complicated. Whereas "just crafting things" is an elegant solution, getting the orbs and then the fire crystals with the heating is a bit abstract and while not hard to comprehend, still something to comprehend as opposed to just playing and getting gear. The whole thing just isn't elegant in the least, and it feels forced upon the game like it was. This is the reason why we keep getting these "where do I find simple orbs of fire" type threads.

The other big complaint is radiant fire crystals, and how the limiting factor was moved away from just "money" to the very specific "treasure boxes on depth 27 and 28". While this is still a bit better than just "FSC", it still makes me give up all missions and most arcade gates for the teeny portion of arena filled gates etc, which have an actual payout as opposed to just not.

If the system was simplified in such a way as to nullify these two things, then it would make the crafting process significantly smoother and less strenuous.

Tue, 10/14/2014 - 00:14

#14

Fangel

Honestly I like the forge.

The forge is a system that I actually do like. But in the bundle is free elevators, orb drops, and no mist.
With the forge, you get bonuses for leveling up your gear. There is actual progress towards making your gear usable, and you have to work and put time and effort into your items. Before, you just have to use one set and equip the item into a spare slot and run through a boss level and then you have it fully heated for sometime that you might use it maybe.
The forge has supplied me with plenty of UV tickets that I would not have otherwise spent crowns on. The prize boxes are always a fun little surprise too.

Radiant fire crystals are in a more balanced state right now than during the drought, but a bit too rare to say they've been completely fixed. It's workable, but at the same time it's no fun having 14 items you want to get to level 10 and only finding 6 radiants throughout an entire arcade run on elite.

The game has changed from "grind for crowns" to "grind for rarities", which makes players who want new gear play the base game instead of minigames (PvP) or the market (Energy/AH). The only thing that really hasn't been nice is players who pay aren't getting their money's worth because there is no rarity equivalent of an elevator pass yet. Once Three Rings figures that out this whole issue will probably be over with.

Tue, 10/14/2014 - 08:46

#15

Avihr

@Fangel

paying players have the option to buy radiants with energy, oh wait, yeah I remember now that noone buys those from the depot because the price tag that OOO has put on em.

Even players who I would consider disgustingly rich have told me "do not buy radiants!"

Tue, 10/14/2014 - 09:03

#16

Bopp

that's what's weird

Yeah, that's the main thing I don't understand in this game. It seems to me that Radiants are literally overpriced, in that even people who spend money on the game don't spend their money on Radiants. It seems that lowering the Radiant price would generate so many more unit sales that it would increase revenue for Three Rings.

But presumably Three Rings has thought of this. Perhaps keeping Radiants so rare prolongs the endgame enough, that the paying players stick around longer, and their total expenditure goes up.

Tue, 10/14/2014 - 09:05

#17

Abelisk

Fangel: Here comes the problem. Farming for rarities is a roulette and fire crystals are most common in the harder difficulties. On normal there are far less fire crystals and in the end, I think farming for crowns would be the better choice since there's such an abundance of crowns. Heat is treated very lightly now and is only a minor catalyst, whereas fire crystals are the main thing to level up equipment. I think the complexity of the fire crystals is threatening new players away from simplicity, which is not a good thing. While rewards such as prize boxes may be a good thing, these rewards can be implemented to the previous heating system. For example, if the Forge system was removed, then when you level up after finishing a level e.g. Level 1 to Level 2, then on rare occasions you could receive a "Heat Prizebox", also differentiating depending on the star of the equipment heated.

Tue, 10/14/2014 - 11:20

#18

Vohtarak-Forum

im vohtarak, call me by that name

I find the current system better, aside from the radiants issue

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No orbs of alchemy no forge vs. today