Spiral Knights - Shadow Lairs as Permanent Unlocks

Shadow Lairs as Permanent Unlocks

8 replies [Last post]

Sun, 10/07/2018 - 02:20

Accusation

[Suggestion]:

Using a Shadow Key unlocks permanent access to a Shadow Lair for an individual Knight. Once a Lair is unlocked, the Knight may access that Lair at any time simply by reaching the T3 Clockworks Terminal.

In effect, treat Shadow Lairs as DLC, not resource sinks.

[Reasoning]:

Current endgame content exhausted. Clockworks, FSC, Dreams and Nightmares, Lockdown, even Danger Missions. It's all charted territory. Need something new to do when we log in. The dwindling player base certainly serves as evidence of that.

Current cost of Shadow Lairs make running them excessively prohibitive. You *can* run them repeatedly, but the persistent unlock cost will rapidly make it untenable, even for wealthy players. Aside from occasional guildmate runs, or dedicated runs for equipment acquisition, Shadow Lairs lie mostly untouched - their full potential unrealized.

Shortcut to "new content." Though technically old material, having reliable access to previously restricted areas would be a massive breath of fresh air - giving veteran players a new sustainable experience to chew over, while giving new players a new threshold of expertise to attain, and a new set of goals to look forward too.

[Queries]:

Q: What if one Knight has not unlocked access to a Shadow Lair, but another member of their party has?
A: Then the Knight who has not unlocked the Lair would be unable to descend into it. If this suggestion were implemented, the days of splitting key costs or hitching a ride on someone else's key would be over. You'd have to get and use your own first.

Q: What about the Energy sink?
A: I doubt many keys are being used lately. Frankly, imagine the energy sink if Keys were permanent unlocks. Every veteran player would want to get their hands on a set of four, eventually.

Q: Wouldn't Shadow Key costs have to go up to make this work?
A: Probably. Frankly speaking, if it meant gaining permanent access, I wouldn't mind shelling out a handy 7500E per key. Again, it would effectively turn Shadow Lairs into DLC, and I'm A-OK with that idea.

Q: What about the increased crown generation?
A: Not as many crowns in circulation these days (see Auction House), and Punch is a thing. We'd be OK.

Q: What about the children?
A: Nobody thinks about those anymore, stop talking about it.

Grey Havens pls let me throw money at you over this kthxbai

Sun, 10/07/2018 - 03:00

Kat-Kill-You

I would be down

I would be totally down for this, the main reasons I have not done many shadow liars is the related time for the expenses on keys, having to find a good party (which is rather hard because you can't really find players at all now), and having to prepare so much for them beforehand if doing them with a group. With this you could just throw yourself at them over and over again and get some nice practice or a challenge without having to worry about wasting the key you got just to even try it once.

Tue, 10/09/2018 - 07:49

Zero-Chill

meow

I'm all over this idea but I think it shouldn't be that expensive, just 6.4ke (double OCH's price) or 7.2ke (price of 4 shadow keys) would be fine while also having the option to buy the keys with real money directly and the party system should work just like OCH's. I think the current keys should still exist in case you want like a trial run or something for 4 people, just a one-time thing if you don't wanna buy it.

Sun, 10/07/2018 - 15:52

Glitch-Incarnate

Totally

This definetly sounds worthwhile, especially if it's one key that works for every Shadow Lair which I assume is what you're referring to. +1

Mon, 10/08/2018 - 17:23

Crazee-Pi-Forum

Remember, don't shoot food.

I don't really think permanent shadow lair unlocks should be a thing. Something like a 1 day pass where you're free to open as many lairs as you want would be better.

Mon, 10/08/2018 - 17:48

Fangel

aye

I feel like permanent unlocks would simply change the farming grounds, and don't really give the shadow lairs their proper "dangerous" appeal. I think having them be accessible on the weekends similar to a prestige mission would be nice - having them be prestige missions over the weekend allows them to be on a rotation as well.

Tue, 10/09/2018 - 07:52

Zero-Chill

meow

Well, I'm well aware that this would change the farming grounds but it's still gonna be fair, you're just gonna do UFSC instead of FSC :p

Having them free on weekends is a good idea but it can result on people not buying shadow keys at all and just waiting the free shadow lair pass which can be bad for the devs if people don't buy their energy to use on keys. Currently, people just get the mats and run away doing only 1-2 runs at the cost of 450-900e but if you were to make them permanent unlocks they'd earn more and we'll get basically extra free content, so it's a win/win situation for both sides, we also get the better radiant farming grounds. In short we get "new" content and radiant farming areas while devs get more money, if that won't solve at least 50% of the problems with this game IDK what will.

Also keep in mind that you still need to run arcade to reach them, which makes the 6.4ke (double OCH's price) or 7.2ke (price of 4 shadow keys) price on them fair enough, unlike OCH where you just get sent to the levels directly and get a couple OP weapons for free. You should also have the option to buy the pass with real money directly for like 12$

I'd like to add that it should be one key for all shadow lairs not one key per lair, otherwise each key should cost no more than 3.2ke but even then not as many people would like to buy them.

Tue, 10/09/2018 - 09:04

Tpen-Five-Fun

What if there's a free shadow

What if there's a free shadow lair weekend... Or a minor event like slime casino.

Mon, 10/22/2018 - 16:21

Azuresh

I both like and dislike this idea.

I like the idea of making SLs a bit more solo \ few players friendly ( It seems like a slight waste and a burden to pay that much at once if you enjoy playing at solo or with a small party ) and how they are something special and fun, yet so rare.

The problem is that making it easily accessible and able to be done over and over again will definitely take away a part of how special it is. Everyone here probably sees SLs as one of those unusual and fun levels, and to be honest, they are special. Its not like they are your 2394823th run on a Danger Mission or something. They are just uncommon and there is often some great planning and slight hype for them. Thats what makes them fun. And i even feel like the way you pay a lot for it and consequently have to plan a bit more makes it great to experience. Damn, even the D19 - D23 of a SL run feels super nice as you get ready to use your key.

Having SLs repeatable and cheap like that, would, effectively, kill part of that specific fun, and worse, potentially bring the feeling of a SL run to something like doing danger missions, or maybe even something that is stale af atm such as DaN or FSC. Obviously people are going to repeat those levels a ton of times. Soonly those levels will definitely stop feeling special if such thing occurs.

My '' fix '' for this issue would be :

- Instead of this, make the price of the keys a bit lower ( 1500E perhaps?)

- Make Shadow Keys much easier to get. To be honest, i would absolutely love if Shadow Keys were actually something uncommon to get for '' free '', such as Lockboxes having an actual good chance of having a shadow key ( 1 in 10? ). Maybe make Shadow Keys have a chance to randomly drop out of treasure boxes, kinda mirroing the chances of getting a gear drop or maybe a bit rarer, make them ultra rarely be found on prize wheels, etc.

Those two changes, specially the second, would make SLs much more '' solo friendly '' in terms of price + more common while still preserving their unusual - nes and fun.

Another idea would be, like Tpen said, a free SL period. Once every 5~~ months, maybe we could have everyone granted a single free entrance to a SL with no price ( Without being able to hop on others after you already used yours ofc )

Search

Shadow Lairs as Permanent Unlocks