Hello everybody!
I’ve been playing SK for more than 480 hours so far, and I’m still not tired of playing such an amazing game; but nonetheless, I’ve come to 3 points which I think could add something more to gameplay. It’s a long post, but I hope it’ll be worth the reading as I expect it to be :).

Here we go:

1. New guns
Despite the variety of ranged weapons that can be crafted, I’ve always felt like there are two important types which are still missing: shotguns and flamethrowers. I think these two could be easily implemented in the game and could make the gameplay even wider. Everybody who has played FPS knows the pros and cons of shotguns: very powerful in short range, but weak on long distances, high reload time, small magazine and slow rate of fire. Well, I think these characteristics could also be used in SK as well, creating a devastating weapon which forces knight to get close to enemies and to be left defenseless for a short time both when firing and reloading (which is a bit what happens with blitz needle by the way). Regarding flamethrowers… well, they are already in the game actually, but used by gremlins only. Knight could use them in the same way, with a standard attack which creates a row of flames and a charged attack which creates a wall of fire. There could also be some varieties of flamethrowers, such as one which shoots liquid nitrogen to freeze enemies, or one which spits poisonous goo.

2. New battle sprites
This is surely an issue that someone has already written about in this forum, and that Three Rings is probably already working on already, but I would like to talk about it anyway, as I think this is quite important /interesting.
After the patch which eliminated the possibility to sell minerals in order to change a clockwork’s floors, minerals had become absolutely useless, and adding battle sprites has partly solved this problem, as crimsonite, dark matter and luminite can now be used to craft food for our little helpers. But unfortunately, this didn’t happen for moonstones and valestones: these type of minerals are still with no use rather than selling them to merchants (which would just give you a little amount of crowns, anyway), and I think this could be a good occasion to add new battle sprites to the game. In my opinion this would not only solve the aforementioned problem, but also add new gameplay possibilities: for example, valestones remind me of beast floors, so I think there could be added a battle sprite in the form of a little beast (maybe a bird… ) which could give power ups to knight in the same way an alpha wolver boost his companions with its howl. This is just an idea, but I think that, with the help of other forum users, and gathering each one’s opinion, this could be achieved quite easily.

3. Dual wielding
Ok, I must admit here that this suggestion is a little too courageous , as it would drastically change the gameplay, but if I’m proposing this, it’s because I’ve seen SK change a lot during these years, and I think Three Rings won’t be afraid to change it even more. Obviously, dual wielding would result in both advantages and disadvantages for the player, and I have here some example for melee and ranged weapons which could give you an idea of what I’m thinking about:

Melee weapons: Advantages: there could be an increase to melee attack speed, or a more powerful charge attack.
Disadvantages: many could say that the most obvious disadvantage would be not having a shield to defend, but I think that, in this way, none would choose to play dual wielding, as it would be too risky. What I’m proposing, is to have an health bar on swords as it happens with shields (obviously that would be far lower than the shield’s one), so that it will be possible to block incoming attacks. Also, blocking while dual wielding could grant no knockback on enemies, or, as an alternative, you could only be able to block frontal attacks.

Ranged weapons: Advantages: there could be an increase on the bullets one can shoot before reloading, or a more powerful charge attack.
Disadvantages: It could take more time to reload weapons, leaving knight defenseless for some time, and there could be no shield blocking at all, as attacking in range is always safer than melee.
Also, there could be some weapons which are impossible to dual wield because they’re too big or heavy (even if they’re usually held in one hand…), for example troikas, or blitz needle.
I think this could be an issue to try on one of the test servers.

I’m no game designer, so I’m perfectly conscious that the things I think could be easily manageable, could actually be hard to implement, and that some, if not all, of these points are difficult or even impossible to put in the game due to a high amount of work they could bring with them, but these are just some suggestions I thought I should share, and I hope to hear your opinion about it.