Now that there's some real momentum in the game's improvement, I'd like to take some time to suggest some 3 months early spring cleaning. I've talked about this here before (I think), but I've always felt that this game never fully adapted to the removal of mist energy and regressed in some ways. I'd like to flesh out some suggestions that could help smooth the rough edges leftover from that transition. Apologies for the long post; I hope you'll still give me the time of day.
First: Energy Gates and Energy Mechs
Energy gates and energy mecha knights are two of the most obvious relics that still haven't been tweaked. Back in the mist era, their existence made perfect sense. We had 100 free energy to use about once (maybe twice if you log on at the right times) a day. I forget exactly how much energy one would have left over by the end of a deathless arcade run, but let's pretend it was 30. Energy gates were like a small tax in exchange for opening up extra portions of a level. In the case of danger rooms, it was a big risk vs reward: "Do you spend 3 energy - possibly gimping your ability to self revive later since those were like 50e iirc - and power through a really tough fight for some big rewards?". Sometimes one could find a small loot room locked behind one: "If you managed to get this far without spending energy unnecessarily, you can use your leftover energy for extra loot!". Mecha knights and turrets were a way for you to spend energy to have a bit of an easier time in a tough level. There's even a couple sleep themed levels completely centered around opening energy gates!
When mist was removed, we no longer had consistently expendable energy to use on these things, yet they still remain. Nowadays, these things just serve as a meaningless tax for a small reward. If anything, mecha knights and turrets are slightly more expensive than doors making them extra useless. 3 energy for a gate might sound cheap, but when compared against the average reward one would get from unlocking whatever they block off, most of the time they cost more than they give in return. In most instances, the room an energy gate blocks off is reachable by projectiles, allowing people to pop open the clover boxes to see the rewards they give. I usually find that the things these boxes drop won't make up for the cost of merely opening that gate.
I'll stop wasting your time here and just say I think energy gates should be removed outright. They serve no real purpose anymore. 3 energy is too small of a tax to ever be meaningful unless we get mist back, and frankly I don't think anyone wants that. I've alluded to the game being healthier with mist around before but I'd like to be completely clear and say I don't want mist back. I'd much rather the game just finds a way to mimic a healthier gameplay loop like mist provided with less arbitrarily restrictive systems. As for mecha knights and turrets, maybe we can spend our own health to wake them up or something? I don't think a pickup would be suitable since they're rare enough that the pickup in question would usually just be inventory bloat. Even still, it'd be a shame to just remove them. They're a neat thing for players to encounter.
Next: Revives
I'm kinda driving blind here for this point since I have no data regarding how much cash revenue sparks of life make for this game. Maybe newer players will spend a decent sum on them (I certainly did when I was younger, but I know better now lol), but I have my doubts as to whether this is a notable revenue stream for them. If this kind of a system can be done away with, then how about we remove sparks of life FROM THE SUPPLY DEPOT (not outright!!!) and re-implement being able to revive other players with our own health? I think sparks of life could be a rare but powerful form of revival. The attack up from sparks are particularly helpful, but the cool factor of that is pretty heavily dulled when I quickly have to face the fact I just wasted >1kcrs because I suck at the game.
As for whether players should be able to revive others with sparks... I'm kinda torn on that. I'd personally prefer that we can't, as old players who have a massive stockpile would likely wind up being able to just ignore the cool new cooperative revive system by spamming them on people they're carrying. On the other hand, having a remote way to revive someone could prevent issues where someone dies in a spot that'd just kill anyone who tries to revive them. How about making it take something like a 5 second uninterrupted animation to do it?
Tangentially related: I remember a time where players could actually drop pickups like vials or health capsules for others to use. Could we have that back too? I really think these mechanics go a long way in making the game feel more cooperative, which is especially important for an MMO.
More coming soon. Trying not to hit the character limit here. Hey, that reminds me: A character limit counter would be really useful for the forums.
Next: The Infamous Forge.
Back in the mist era, allowing players to just level up their gear the instant the heat hit 100% wasn't such a big deal for pacing. We could only do a couple runs per day unless we paid money, so it was fine. When mist was removed, there was no longer anything stopping us from leveling up many sets of gear from 1 to 10 in a single day. I'm aware the forge was introduced to stop people from blazing through equipment progression, but good lord I think the bat slipped and hit the crowd with how huge that swing was. As much as I understand we want to give veteran players a thing to keep them motivated to play, this is way, way too much.
I have been playing since either 2011 or 2012 (I really can't remember which but I think it's 2011). I have over 2000 hours in this game. Despite this, very few of my 5* equipment is level 10. Most of my weapons are between 5 and 8. Armors and shields are even lower. I really don't think it'd take a whole lot to make the old system work. I think we'd be better off just letting things level up like they used to but with higher thresholds. Even still, this would be a big change and I understand if this just isn't a reasonable thing to risk. As it stands, radiant fire crystals are by far the most egregious part of the system. They cannot be obtained until depth 25, at which point they still rarely drop. It's not until depth 27 that we can really expect to get a decent amount of them from clover boxes. It takes quite a while to simply reach that depth, and then we only have a couple floors where we can even get them. Not only do I think they need to drop much sooner, but I think we should be able to craft up our lower tier crystals for better ones. Additionally, since we need so many crystals to level up, I'd prefer if the recipe didn't cost a lot of crowns to use. Even just making pet food can add up a lot especially if I'm making them in bulk. For the record, I think the current price of 500crs per DOWN craft is too much. Something like 200 for the highest tier would be better for both up and down crafting. I'm also very aware that 5* gear has a much lower chance to get level up bonuses like bonus heat or double level ups. I've only seen a double level up on a 5* equipment a handful of times through all the years I've played this game. This should also be changed.
Again, I'd really like the devs to consider just removing the forge outright. I think it's more satisfying to see things level up and wrap back to zero heat when reaching the end of a level. Having to stare at a full heat bar stay unchanged when my heat icon was burning brighter than the headlights of the BMW that was flashing behind me on the way home from work tonight is extremely frustrating. We could even keep the random level up bonuses; simply have them apply the moment the weapon levels up with a quick, seamless text bubble briefly showing what happened.
I'm aware we'll have many thousands of fire crystals left without a purpose if this was done. I myself am clocking in at 14450 shining crystals (4*), and given what I've seen from other players, those are rookie numbers. There will need to be something done to account for this and to that I say: "Uuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."
Honestly, I can't really think of an elegant solution for that. Maybe we could just trade them for crowns? They drop just like crowns so it'd make sense. A sort of way to make up for the thousands of useless 4* crystals that COULD'VE been crowns if I had just been a bit luckier.
Anyways, that's all I've got tonight for suggestions regarding relics from the game's past. I'll probably post a new thread for a bunch of arcade suggestions. I meant to talk about the old mineral depots from before missions were added, but I really think that topic fits arcade reworks better.