The spark system comes up a lot and I believe that it's fairly balanced as is. Being able to craft sparks of life (and buy them with energy, honestly) creates a terrible dilemma for those newer tier two players- they need crowns, energy, rarities etc. to progress, and to get them they often "need" to revive.. which costs them very things they need desperately. In the end it almost never pans out in their favor and they remain in virtual poverty with the worlds smallest violin playing each time they buy sparks. In this way, tying sparks to the crafting currencies is a terrible idea and the problem of "too many materials" is better solved and addressed by the ideas in my first post.

What I will say for the spark system is that players rely on it too much and come to expect success on all runs, even if that isn't really feasible. Using a spark after doing your best and making it 90% through is a lot different than using a spark after dying to the first battle, and too often I see sparks being used for the latter, giving these knights unrealistic expectations of their abilities while they have sparks only to let them down and offer them their power back at the cost of their already meager profits. Sparks of life should probably not be buy-able with energy, only find-able in the arcade and through real money purchases.

FIRST-

I'm loving how the suggestions forums is gradually turning into Fangel & Fehzor's silent talk show. Someone comes on, suggests something, and we talk about it until we've written several hundred more lines than the original poster.

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Yea, a couple loading tips to address this would be a sweet touch. Like-

"There is no shame in returning back to Haven."

and

"Sometimes, returning to Haven is a better decision than using a spark of life- think carefully before using these precious resources."

I also take issue with the way difficulty settings work with sparks- I'm of the opinion that you should get more sparks and only slightly less crafting rarities on lower difficulties. The point of lower difficulty is to make the game easier, not a bigger grind. Harder difficulties should then give more item drops and a number of additional crowns.. these things aren't necessary for progress to the same extent as orbs and fire crystals are, but are definitely worth the extra difficulty. We've already discussed this though XD

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The way battle sprites feed on all materials is kind of questionable, because it evens out the value of all materials in a way biased towards star level. Rather than being a "blaze pepper" it becomes a "4* material". So lets say the player get the following 5* materials-

A: 20
B: 15
C: 15
D: 15
E: 10

Normally material E would be twice as rare as material A, and this might cause problems to the player.. which is the idea- to force the player to go for material E because they're probably only playing FSC and so not getting the 5* beast material or something. But if the player crafts 6 sprite foods using the most material they have-

A: 12
B: 13
C: 13
D: 13
E: 10

Suddenly the difference is negligible! The same effect is felt across the entire economy. E is still rarer than the others, but not nearly as rare until it isn't rare at all.

The fix-

Sprite's favorite food:
A random material of the same star level as that sprite, or many of a lower leveled material-
n^2 where n = (sprite star level+1 - material star level)
So a 5* sprite desiring 3* materials would require- 9 of some 3* material
n = 1; 1
n = 2; 4
n = 3; 9
n = 4; 16
n = 5; 25
n = 6; 36

Sprite food machine:
n* Food = two of a specific n* material, n^2 of every mineral type
-This food would only be feedable at 5 bars of hunger and would level the sprite all the way up, draining all 5 bars.