Spiral Knights - Keeping Spiral Knights Alive

Keeping Spiral Knights Alive

14 replies [Last post]

Tue, 08/09/2016 - 07:49

Iron-Lyon

Hey everyone, I just want to start off by saying that I absolutely love Spiral Knights and want it to stay open. I've been a player for 4 years and I always keep coming back whenever I have the free time to. This game is so vast and amazing that I've spent a lot of money on it, more than any other game I own to be exact. This game is really unique in its own way and I want to give some advice to the new team (Congrats by the way!) and just share some thoughts and tell me what you think. As a fan of this game and Business major with a BA I would like to share some advice to help keep the game prosperous.

First off the guild hall. The guild hall is a great aspect of the game but should be done a little differently in my opinion. We should eliminate the guild maintaining fee. This hinders the want to expand and continue a guild hall. Think of it in this way in real life people already hate having mortgages, why would you want one in a virtual world? Especially one that can never get paid off? Eliminating this I believe it would encourage players to expand their guilds with more rooms and in turn entice player to purchase more furniture to fill those rooms and there goes the money flow. You got to look at it from the player's point of view. Why pay money for something that never ends, and if you don’t pay it you lose access to all the expansion and furniture you spent money for? No one would get enjoyment out of that. So for this I say eliminate guild hall maintenance fee to encourage players to expand guild halls and buy furniture which is where the money will be made.

Secondly the fire crystals. This update is honestly what hurt me the most as a fan of the game. I remember when the elevator would only cost 10ce and your heat could keep going up no matter what. With this update it really hindered my want to play seeing how difficult it was to get fire crystals and how limited they were. I also spoke to a lot of other friends of mine who have also been playing this game since its first release and they feel the same way. The want to play is being brought down because we have to pay for something that use to upgrade by itself. But now you could literally sit at the same heat level don’t matter how much heat you obtain just because you can’t afford the fire crystals to level up. Back when I first started I was more inclined to buy stuff (Weapons and armor, trinkets, and usable) so I could build up more of an arsenal. But now I limit myself because there's only so much I could upgrade meaning less play time until I could gather enough fire crystals to level up. I use to love buying a whole bunch of upgrade slots so I could always have four open slots and run through the clockworks but now I only limit myself to two because even if I had four open slots to get heat they wouldn't go anywhere because well no fire crystals. It’s a really big bummer when I have ten five star weapons and three five star armors and can barely level up any of them due to lack of fire crystals.

All I'm saying is don't try to put a price on everything but rather make it so fun to play that players can't stop, get addicted, (like I used to be) and spend money to keep playing. You want players to be addicted to the game. Anyone can tell you that if they love something a lot they'll spend all kinds of money on it. But ever since a price tag was put on everything to get further in the game it's honestly hurt it more than helped it. Thanks for reading, this is just my thoughts!

Tue, 08/09/2016 - 08:31

Fehzors-Forum-Alt

Just a recap for those that missed last episode of RADS, the televised series broadcast live from random people every week-

The noble paintool argued that he didn't want to grind and that everything was awful.
Bopp swooped in with a brief and impartial post. Basically the wiki.
Batabii complained and then corrected everyone on everything.
A bunch of filler characters stated opinions, never to be seen again....
....meanwhile, Bopp battled it out with Batabii, fixing everything so as to be absolutely correct, as usual.
I wrote my opinion on the matter that stated my wish for more grinding areas.
Fangel wrote condescending subject lines at people, in spite of agreeing with them.
New filler characters were introduced and suggested some fixes.
Fangel disagreed again but kind of agreed with some small politically charged fixes.
Batabii returned once more to correct something and the thread fell apart somewhere on page 2.
...
...
THE VERY NEXT MORNING
...
...
The thread was moved to the suggestions forum without input from Grey Havens once again, where the filler characters were angered that their gear wasn't heated.
...
...
AND THE THREAD WAS NEVER HERARD FROM AGAINNNNNN

http://forums.spiralknights.com/es/node/114835

Alright continue.

Tue, 08/09/2016 - 10:21

Fangel

omg is that my superpower now

If I scream disagreeing and agreeing statements will my hair glow? Saying them with my inside voice doesn't make me feel like a television star.

But as for the topic at hand, guild halls act as a group crown sink. A fully upgraded guildhall is now only 40k a week since the iron guildhall update, meaning a single firestorm citadel run with your guildies is pretty much enough money for a week's upkeep. That really isn't too much to ask for in the long run.

Fire crystals is a better system than the old mist energy for people who are F2P. The difference between the systems is players get hooked on the game until they reach the 4* hall of heroes, at which point they run into grind walls. Compare this to the past, where players would play the game, realize their gameplay time was limited, and quit before ever even reaching tier 2.

Heating has become the slow part of the game. In the past, actually playing the game was the slow part - crafting too. It might take several days to craft and heat on thing, however now-a-days all you need is persistence. Really the only thing missing from the new system is a subscription bypass to heating like the old elevator passes - once something like that is added you can bet people will be buying those no questions asked.

Tue, 08/09/2016 - 11:07

Bopp

summary

Your first point was that guild halls should be free. I don't think you've seriously considered the other side of the argument. As Fangel points out, they're a crown sink. Further, as I've pointed out in many threads, there are too many guilds in this game, because every player wants to be his own boss. Guild halls work against that tendency, by making it hard to maintain a prestigious guild.

Your second point was that fire crystals and the forge are too annoying. I don't really disagree, but we've already talked about that a hundred times, and I can't bring myself to do it again.

Tue, 08/09/2016 - 11:11

Corporal-Shade

Hello Darkness, my Old Friend.

Keeping Spiral Knights alive?

Spiral Knights is alive. Now go home.

Tue, 08/09/2016 - 13:29

Iron-Lyon

All these different point of

All these different point of views showed me a different way to look at it. I appreciate everyone's input. Thank you!

Tue, 08/09/2016 - 14:41

Poothis

As much as I'd like that

As much as I'd like all of our suggestions, it really wouldn't be healthy for the game in the long run. As some have already said, the guild is a good crown sink and removing the upkeep would raise energy prices even more (if I'm getting my market facts right, I might be horribly horribly wrong).

The heat problem is actually not that bad considering we have free elevators. It's the tradeoff of playing as much as you want vs having slower progression. The only real problem fire crystal is Radiant, but once you get used to DaN and treat it as a true grinding location it isn't that bad. At least in my opinion #UnpopularOpinions

Tue, 08/09/2016 - 17:05

Midnight-Dj

Pessimism level restored

@Blazecat

Spiral Knights is alive. Now go home.

SK is in a state of slow and painful necrosis, it is not alive nor dead.

@OP

I think I am going to throw my 2 cents into this, why not instead of using upkeep, use a player's prestige (you know, that useless number we are trying to increase?) to gate the guild hall. Making guild building a time sink as supposed to a crown sink.

Let me give you an example:

A player needs at least 10,000 prestige to start a guild, from that point on, any prestige gained by the guild member are accumulated to an overall guild prestige, it acts as the upgrade currency for the guild hall. This would actually give players an incentive to play danger mission (with a four men team) and daily mission. And in GvG LD, winning or losing gives you guild prestige.

Tue, 08/09/2016 - 18:17

Godzy

o.0'

"Filler characters"

spilled my coke because of this lmao

I do miss those 30 day passes for elevators for $6 was it? Can't recall
If they added a triple Radiants pass... $$$$$$$$$

Tue, 08/09/2016 - 19:46

Solotron

Where am I?

Well well well well well well well well well.

While there's good ideas going on....... uhh no I think that's it.

Ideas growing in these kind of posts are always encouraged by the community and Grey Havens as well. Of course we'd love to see enthusiastic players post all about how to enrich the game. We all by now have listed the problems/solutions/risks and challenges that cover the game from top to bottom.

Real talk: Grey Havens is in control, whether they talk with us from time to time is up to them. They can see all what people want and do it in secret, but unless they communicate more with us, it makes us a bit .... unsure. Right now we're waiting, waiting on something, anything that will get us back into the game and whatnot. They pat our backs, we pat theirs. They give us content, we give them our time and occasionally money to help them survive. This is what's going on, voices have been shouted here and we continue until we see results, or give up eventually. I'm just a person as enthusiastic as the rest, I enjoy doing things for Spiral Knights, I also enjoy the community. I am not anticipating anything, I'm not expecting any game changing statuses to happen from this post, but as long as I'm here, I will continue to do my part as a SK channel artist, because I enjoy it.

Other than that, yeyyyy you're all interesting people.

Tue, 08/09/2016 - 20:14

#10

Corporal-Shade

Hello Darkness, my Old Friend.

Huh, Solotron. I wonder why you don't have an avatar for the forums. *Looks at Forum Avatars* Eh.

Wed, 08/10/2016 - 09:48

#11

Litozinnamon

._.

TBVH, the area around the Auction House used to be so crowded, it lagged my PC (idk for some of you but it really lagged my PC), now its just empty and barren..

Wed, 08/10/2016 - 09:49

#12

Litozinnamon

._.

nth to see here

Wed, 08/10/2016 - 10:02

#13

Corporal-Shade

Hello Darkness, my Old Friend.

SK is in a state of slow and painful necrosis, it is not alive nor dead.

That's not helping.

Wed, 08/10/2016 - 12:27

#14

Teddysmacker

Boop.

Imo Spiral knights is in a fine position where it is now. With no update it would survive another 3 years at least.
But yeah, it definitely isn't dead. It's more like reviving after all those promos thrown at us from OOO, so Grey Havens is cleaning up after them.

Guild are fine, maintaining it is fine.
Only problem with fire crystals imo are the radiants, and most players work towards their end missions, in which the player can improve both in combat skills and being aware of their surrounding. Even then, Radiants can currently be farmed efficiently in Dreams & Nightmares, and it's a popular mission to do with parties as well.

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Keeping Spiral Knights Alive