>asking why we don't just start begging
>on SK

$1000 of Radiants

700 energy worth = 50 radiants
45,000E per $100 = 450,000E
450,000/700 = 642 packs of 50 = 32,142 Radiants
[455 radiants needed for 5* item]
32,142 / 455 rads = Only 70 5* items in game

1000 dollars is worth only 70 5* items in the game, and I have 30+ to heat, not counting the countless other vanguards with gear they can't heat...
That's the math. Read it and weep.

I guess you could say...
"puts on sun shades"
.... it's a deal too "hot" to handle.

YEEEAEAAAAAHH~~~

Seriously though... Seriously... Really?
It costs 400* something dollars of energy to buy the radiants from the supply depot to heat all my weapons?
Go ahead and tell me I'm crazy and frustrated at this situation; tell me how this is supposed to be making OOO money.
I dare you. Tell me how this situation is better than the pre October 2013 Radiant Fire Crystal LSD times.

Retrofit know's what's up. ^
We need a long term solution, and it needs to start with the way this game is being run. We know they can change radiants on whim. It's been done before. So why are you still here if management is all screwy?

A boycott wouldn't really get far and wouldn't really do much. Of the people who would be boycotting, most would be end-game players who are still active. For the most part, end-game players who are complaining about radiants aren't the ones playing super frequently because catch 22.

Instead I would recommend contacting support or email Three Rings directly. Someone's going to be behind the email, but an internet boycott isn't as powerful as a physical one. You know how protests are powerful when the streets of a large city are filled with protesters, but along the same line internet protests aren't as powerful as it's just a number on a screen.
However, an email in the Three Rings contact box will be read. If you had each player of the proposed "boycott" send Three Rings an email - not an inflammatory one either - saying what change should be done, and had everyone sending these email write their own version with similar information.* Personalizing these messages will make the emails more powerful. Flooding Three Ring's emails with these messages would prompt them for a response, much like how civilian protests in Hong Kong gathered attention worldwide.

Boycotting will not do much, as Three Rings will either see a player leave, or a player join. You can't stop people from playing Spiral Knights, and you shouldn't try to stop them from doing so. If Three Rings is in a financially bad situation, which we do not have proof one way or another with, then all we would be doing is pulling a nail in the coffin or punching a brick wall. A mass email (from players, that is. No robots please. A street full of protesting robots would ruin the protest, as robots are not people and can not feel) will warrant a response without affecting the enjoyment of the game for players or affecting the cash flow for the company.

* (Such as "Dear Three Rings, the current state of radiant fire crystals makes the game less fun to me. I think that making radiant fire crystals drop for the entirety of stratum 6 much like how crystals dropped on the release of rarities would make the game much more fun and encourage me to play the game more, and tell all my friends about the game! Please consider making a change to the system, as there are too little radiant fire crystals being dropped to make gear that requires too many. I really want to play the game but cannot bring myself to play it, and a simple change like this would fix that. Signed, ______").

i just have one single question guys: Why suddenly now you guys complains about radiants lately? what happened to those who complained later and where shot down by the community huh?.

Sweet-Hope, players have been complaining about fire crystals ever since they were introduced. And the complaints have been really frequent ever since the Radiant drought started. There have been probably over 100 threads. This community has been very consistent.

Step 1: Farm Depths 27-28. (Add people to your friends list and jump to them!)
Step 2: Stop complaining and sit in your pools of radiants.

Not a single $ spent. 9 swords, 6 guns, 4 bombs, 5 shields, 4 sets of armor/helms all level 10.
Current inventory of radiants: 1780.

When a depth 27-28 arena comes around, get a group of people and farm the heck of out of them!
Each arena gives you around 20-40 radiants. Good groups you can finish arenas in less than 10 minutes.

While I have no doubt cheating the system by having a lot of friends and looping depth 27-28 arenas is a strategy, Redmania, just stop for a moment and think. It really has come down to that.

You rely on the whim of having friends go down that deep and joining them just to get rads on the last two depths.
People know the system is so bad they clamor to loop depth 28 arenas just to get rads. I admit I jump into 27-28 parties as fast as my Metal Sonic set can, but that's not reliable; I don't want to have to wait on other people and "get lucky". I want my efforts, and I speak for everyone here because they should too, that my efforts account for leveling up. Effort = 100% Experience... Spending hours hoping for a chance to get lucky with rads =/= Stale Experience, moving onto the next game...

You strategies work only because the system and poor drop rates for rads are still crummy.
If Rads dropped like they are supposed to, this wouldn't be the case, and people would be farming all over the place, not just FSC or waiting for arenas, or whatnot. This is about making the game a tolerable point A to point B and going back to point A again and making more new items to get to Point B.
Despite what the game is trying to sell you as "normal", it's really a poor way to get players to play longer... ironically by making them use the exact same weapons that end gamers can't afford to heat instead of touting the diversity this game was intended to create.

I would agree. People ask what the best elemental weapon is for firestorm citadel and I tell them that it's the one they want to use because they're the one using it and them having fun is the most important thing to their success. But consider people like Paintool who have 30+ 5* weapons to heat. There is a limit, to how much you can do while still drawing some form of enjoyment from the game and after a while it becomes work, regardless of what you do. I'm sure you look at gates and see whether there's an arena at the end just like the rest of us.

As for my saying that a boycott would be better, one player boycotting the game is good but not good enough to change anything. The trick would be to get everyone to believe in it, and then hold firm- if you flood the game with people in Havens, on runs, everywhere then you can easily influence people into not buying anything ever, make your message heard, and probably get what you want. I've seen it done before with shadow lair keys, and the infrastructure to hold such a boycott is definitely there right now- large guilds, lots of players wanting for the crystals. The thing that's missing is.. well, a Magnus or a Chris or someone of that caliber to lead people.

The frustrating part is that back in the day I complained about not getting enough Shining fire crystals... I should have kept my mouth shut.

My skillset (and available time) does not allow me to run vana over and over. I'm just not that good at beating the duke. So to get radiants, I have to delve to depth 28. That's fine, but it takes quite a while to get enough radiant to heat from level 7 to 8 and so on.

A lot of people complain about balance, right? Fire crystals are so far out of balance, it's not even funny. And I hope that no one actually pays real money for radiants from the supply depot. If you do; Shame on you!

@Autofire: We all make mistakes... lol, jk.

But, seriously, wouldn't it be better if no one bought radiants? Now, if the price for radiants was 1/10th what it is right now, I might even consider buying them, but 700 CE just seems like a waste, since, let's face it, you need 1400+ CE worth for the last couple levelings of your gear. So, what, that's like 8 items heated to 10 with $100 worth of Radiants? Good night, I have around 20 5 star items, half of which I heated before the forge, one of which I have heated since the forge. I just don't tend to spend that sort of money on a single game, and I would assume that there are a lot more like me playing SK.

Also, why is it that 5 star stuff requires more radiants than lower star stuff? 102 crystals to go from 9 to 10?! That's about 10 trips through T3 arcade.

By the way, I'm not angry, or anything like that (even though I sound angry). I love this game, and would like to complete my sets, but it's just gotten very hard, and after 3 years of playing this game (1300 hours+), I'm starting to get burnt out with my stagnating 5 star gear, and ever increasing 4 star gear that sits at level 10 waiting to be upgraded using the 33 eternal orbs I have found in my travels.