@op:

1.
Make levels detailed and cluttered with objects, eye catchers, construction beams, gears, regulation tubes, all sorts of things.

Completely agree at this point. Most levels are so plain. Even with the having a theme mist aura going on in the air that shows the status theme, it's just plain. Like why have ghost in a barren area without some poor saps skeleton to decorate the area? Why have construct in an area without having some monitors and extras in the background? Why are beasts prowling around the place with just bushes around the place? Where is their game/meat they were chewing on? What other objects lye around that area that compliments the monsters for being there? Well, from what I have seen, unless it's a mission I am running, there is nothing that shows off the monsters behavior. It is not a habitat like the thread I posted a while ago:

http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/63597

My solution to fix this?

Create new breakable/interact able objects for each monster type that is laid about in the area these monsters is located in that level.

Monster families: http://wiki.spiralknights.com/Monster

Beast:

- Bones lying against rocks.

- Rock formations on the ground we can destroy like breakable blocks.

- Berries hanging of trees for whatever chromalisk eat.

- Insect swarms swarming about here and there.

- Long howling in the distance in wolver levels.

- And many, many more things.

construct:

- Mechanical bits lying about.

- Monitors flipping on and off with construct symbol lying against the wall.

- Electrical wires that are hazardous to us flashing on and off.

- Mechanical workshop with rail line and robotic arms that fling pieces of gear at us as turrets against the walls.

- Computer turret laser security defense systems with flashing red rotating lights and a sign screaming in huge red letters in a wall monitor "INTRUDER ALERT!!"

- And many, many more.

Fiend:

- Piles of paperwork against the walls of desk and offices.

- Floating demon eye for lamp posts.

- Hanging broken street lights flashing.

- A statue of a Trojan carrying a huge clockwork gear as if carrying cradle and all.

- Plans in the paper work lying about showing lore on the fiends master mind plan to take over cradle and turning it into a bustling demon city where all they think about is profit, and margin loss.

- Fiend bosses getting to ride of floating bill boards showing how far the technology of fiends has come.

- A fiend scientist, unleashing new fiend tech and demonic experiments with pictures of him everywhere (seriously, there isn't one recognizable character in the fiend family. Almost as if they have no lore what so ever).

- And many, many more.

Gremlin :

- Exactly how tier 3 gremlin starting level is designed, but with more sinister activities like:

- Approaching a gremlin as it is breaking a part of the clockworks.

- Approaching a gremlin as it is disputing / fighting with another gremlin.

- Approaching a gremlin as it surprise attacks you from a surprise door that opened from the wall.

- Broken pieces of the level lying about.

- Gremlin symbol graffiti against the walls and floor.

- approaching Gremlin knockers as they are building a construct of some kind.

- More gremlin tools lying about, with some crimson order symbol on some levels.

- And many more.

Slime:

- Slime purple-ish or other colored goo lying about.

- Approaching slimes as they are attempting to fuse.

- Approaching Jelly cubes munching on a block or whatever they like to eat.

- Approaching a jelly cube and seeing it evolve into the current tier jelly cube (only applicable to tier 2 and 3).

- Slime galore as they multiply before our very eyes (all slime families should be asexual and have the ability to multiply randomly or in a timely manner.)

- Other jelly items that can be created or other jelly/slime behavior can be created with more in depth lore/goal.

Undead:

- An infinite amount of things can be done with undead behavior. So will not cover it, so instead, I will cover surrounding items. (Undead have unlimited potential sense they are the dumpsters for everything that lived. In dumpsters of death, you find everything that existed and that faded away with time.)

- A broken cursed clock once interacted with, spawns Kats/cursed cats with skelly’s/cursed skelly’s and a killable phantom.

- A cursed sword of Excalibur that summons a reskin Almirian knight completed with shield that can inflict curse.

- Bones of a huge dead dragonic monster that we walk upon as ground as we cross upon valleys of death on the level.

- Floating wisp in the distance that are crying endlessly as they traverse the skies (same pattern as the tortodrones in the tortodrone mission when you see the migrating tortodrones in the background.)

- And infinite amount of different types of decayed monster corpses/pieces on monster corpses lying about completed with some decayed worn out monster symbols.

- The undead monster family symbol along pathway and walls. The symbol fades after passed by as the disappearing reaper that comes for its prey.

- And many, many, infinite amount of possibilities.

2. Change the UI. It's not that it's terrible, it's just been around for too long and we need something interesting.

I'm not too interested in the u.i too much. But as long as I get used pretty fast to the next change and it's not too hard to use like too many windows overlapping (namely the known recipe windows and the merchant windows bar), then I’m game. Or adjustable windows that can be moved and placed around the screen.

3. Take a page from games like final fantasy or Pokémon, and add enemies/bosses like hell.

I love bosses, but I agree with fangel that we need more mini-bosses. Even adding a boss that act like a mini-boss then it fleeing for us to find out that we only fought it in its weakest form and when we face it again, it evolves/get stronger like vanaduke and shows us its true strength.

But seriously, what we need more than anything is character! What I mean by character is, no longer will the monsters we face be random fodder for us to grind. Give each mini-boss/stronger rare monster/ and bosses a name and give each of them character. Make us care about their lore/back story. Let them shout out in a text-bubble their actions like "I'm Gonna kill you!" or "Prepare to Die!" And so many more things you can do with a monster/npc once it has character. Something like giving a name to the recon rangers we summon, or giving each of the roamulus twin heads a name. So many more ways we can make the game more interesting and less full of mindless grinding once characters are involved. Like giving the knights we rescue a name and us knights being able to see the name of these monsters/npc's when we hover the mouse over them (maybe we can name them too, if we’re going to see/interact with them later in the future).

Another good direction is to give the unlimited roaming mini-bosses that can appear anywhere, at any time in the clockworks missions and arcade alike (the ones that will interact with the players most) A good back story. Make us players care about them and make us look forward to meeting them. Give them some unique exclusive weapons that they only have like how vanaduke is the only monster with a mace (psyche, there is also maulos). But more like how the phantoms are then only ones with weapons like theirs (psyche, void gremlins also have their swords). Just give them unique/reskin gear to make them seem special which only have a small percentage of dropping from them once defeated. And make it that the more we defeat these monsters, the more we can advance in their background story. Like them dropping of pages of storyline once defeated. Or the monster dropping of a key that unlocks a door that have always had been locked in a level that can now be accessed after defeating them. In that door you will find an area when you can face them again, and once you defeat them, you will be able to read exclusive content that tells you their goal.

Also, give monsters the ability to communicate with each other. Something like a gremlin screaming in a chat bubble "Need healing!" To a silkwing/gremlin medic when their close to death as long as that medic monster is alive, they would scream that chat bubble. And the way you already have now where they yell a yipe after being killed. Like having vanaduke screaming kill them all!!, when he summons the last wave of monsters. Or having vanaduke whimpering Curse you wolves.... as he dies, and having randomly, one of use players having a 50% chance of catching the curse status after he dies. Small interconnected things like this are what really would give the game some good highlight in my opinion.

Lastly, try your best to interconnect the stories that are created and have them relate to an existing or future upcoming boss that is created. And if you do not want to create stories, ask the spiral community to create some fan fiction that you can read over, approve, and publish it as content. Were here to help if we can.

Well, that is all I have to say. Hope you like what I wrote.