These types of threads (especially with that sort of wording) are unnecessary, unhelpful, dismissive and do absolutely nothing to remedy any perceived issue.

They've actually been stepping their game up as of late, between releasing 5 star winmillion and the new treasure vaults. It's really given me something to look forward to. They also did the whole hazardous+no auto aim lockdown event thing and those happen quite often. So what you actually want them to do is beyond me.

Toyoti....put yourself in Grey Haven's shoes. Now, imagine someone slinging insults like "autist" at you, telling you to work harder, to make something for them. Sounds like indentured labor, doesn't it? Don't do it. A little respect goes a long way, and insults like the thread title have no place in SK....only in Lockdown, when AT is on.

Even with all the new Triple-A games coming out, nothing gets me as hype as seeing an update in this 8 year old game for some reason. I would love to see this game evolve from a Camaro to a Pagani.

I'd say try to help in any way you can. Post in Suggestions, try doing what Lego does, etc etc.

@Crazy Horse

Calling the OP names only brings you down to their level.

I work with the disabled so I've seen quite a bit of autism and a lot of them have a sort of genius to them.

Say you put a mouse in a wooden maze with the cheese at one end. If the neurotypical mice all solve the maze, it's the autistic mouse that climbs over the top to get the cheese. This also means that navigating the complex maze of human interaction may make them seem a bit off, but never, never, underestimate the power of climbing over the maze. And when we classify them as "wrong" or use their unique perspective as an insult, we're throwing that genius away.

You getting tweaks to your little corner of the world in a minigame that has no bearing on anything in the actual game will not keep the game from "dying." It's good that you enjoy it, but it's not the end all experience and it certainly is not the game's lifeblood. Embellishing your point will not alter that.

There are competitive, strictly PvP games you could go explore - Lockdown is not one of them. It's not meant to be. Focus more on your second point of discussing PvE additions. We are sure to get more in the future, as people have already said, since they are clearly listening to people.

Opening with an insult is always a good choice if you're trying to discredit everything you have to say after. Quite the bold move, and I commend you for it.

Keep in mind the general premise of this thread was "SK is going to die because Lockdown didn't get changes"

Nowhere in this thread did anyone argue the dying bit in general. Grey Havens "keeps games operational for as long as possible." We all know that. We're here to help extend the lifespan and enjoy the game. If you're here to spit more vitriol than the Dread Venom Striker, your message immediately becomes invalid.

They are not "paying customers." They are people who chose to donate their money on a game they enjoyed, for a chance to get something shiny, etc. They knew what they were doing. That does not give them any higher right to dictate how the game should be run. A "paying customer" would be one who purchases a subscription to continue a service; something Spiral Knights definitely is not based around. They are not "entitled" to anything because they chose to donate money.

If you've truly run out of patience, you wouldn't be tossing word salad all over this thread currently. In fact, I would assume that you wouldn't be here at all. You'd be elsewhere doing something that brings you enjoyment since I feel this place fails to do that anymore. Perhaps having a cup of tea, or petting a small animal. I recommend a capybara if you get the chance. They are very friendly with everything. We could all learn from the capybara.

In response to the Treasure Vault - not everything needs player tested. Sometimes you just want to get content you are proud of out into the world and see live reactions to it from the entire player base. That makes it easy to see the overall feel, what works, what doesn't and what needs tweaked which can then be patched later on. I think it came out fine. It's still a bit too easy to cheese with an Iron Slug, but overall it's gotten better than its initial release. That's something.

For the Turbillion, it's a weapon people have asked about for years. It's less about adding another weapon to the arsenal and more doing something small that held a lot of meaning. While it may seem trivial, it was well meaning and generally well received with the only complaints being that it followed in the Spur's footsteps. That is to say, inherent flaws that have not yet been addressed and easily still can. I'm sure they will be.

You don't have to have patience or hope. That's okay. I have enough for the both of us. If it makes me a "cheerleader," as you put it, then I'll just have to find myself a pair of pom-poms. When the shutdown announcement does come in the future, by all means have your "I told you so" moment. For now, there are a lot of people who are excited about things picking back up and still actively enjoy the game - myself included.

Here's that capybara in the meantime.

We're here to help extend the lifespan and enjoy the game.

If so then we are terrible at our jobs, looking at the fact that 2.5% of the original player base from it peak of SK remained.

If you're here to spit more vitriol than the Dread Venom Striker, your message immediately becomes invalid.

Yes, how dare I express hatred and frustration at a developer that doesn't communicate with the fan base and insists on doing things their way? If I have any emotion other than hope, joy and happiness, I must be invalid. The way you exclude people who do not share the same emotion as you makes me wonder if those school shooters were justified in their hatred against the society.

But I think regardless of whether or not you think my opinions are invalid, one thing remains true, it is that GH will do things their own way. Just like an autistic mouse that crawls over the maze hall and bolt directly for the cheese. GH ignores the traps and treasure in the maze, that been any praise and criticism, headed towards that indeterminate goal of 'keeping the game alive as long as possible'. If that even is their goal. All I said in my OP is that calling GH autistic is somewhat fitting.

They are not "paying customers." They are people who chose to donate their money on a game they enjoyed, for a chance to get something shiny, etc. They knew what they were doing.

What? If those are donations then do you care to clarify why it is called purchasing CE/prize boxes and not donating to GH in maintaining the game? Since purchase something would automatically makes whomever purchased that item, a 'customer'. If I go to an amusement park, I am NOT donating money to the park staff, I am paying to have fun, therefore I am still, by definition, a customer. And if I am not having fun in said amusement park, then I am entitled to tell the park staff to entertain me.

When people buy things in SK for RL money, I highly doubt they want the developer to spend it on buying a capybara or other leisure items. After all, a set of costume would be worthless if the server is down, following that logic, every purchase is a bid to keep the game alive. And as such, paying players should be entitled.

If you've truly run out of patience, you wouldn't be tossing word salad all over this thread currently.

Please finish my entire sentence, I ran out of patience with GH, not their game. I certainly wish SK can be handed to more keen developers since GH themselves show little interests in returning the game to its former glory. Hell, just give SK's server rights to the players and let them play in 'single player' mode and design their own dungeon would be nice.

In response to the Treasure Vault - not everything needs player tested. Sometimes you just want to get content you are proud of out into the world and see live reactions to it from the entire player base.

That is an awful statement consider the fact there are, not one, but FOUR new elements introduced to the game with little to no warning. Echo blocks, razors, monster garage and a new boss. These element certainly warrant testing before release.

When treasure vault first came out, even some of GH most die hard cheerleaders complained about the mechanics, which is saying something when even Fangel is complaining about the payout. The reception would have been much more positive if these things are fixed pre-release, and judging by the speed it is implemented, this is a case where GH should have waited.

And even post buff, the payout seems to be hovering at the 1K range, you can get those on the first level of FSC. So at the end of the day, Treasure vault is just another high risk - low reward dungeon that will soon fade into memory like compound, if you can even find it that is.

While it may seem trivial, it was well meaning and generally well received with the only complaints being that it followed in the Spur's footsteps. That is to say, inherent flaws that have not yet been addressed and easily still can. I'm sure they will be.

Looking at the state of bombs and bomber gears, I am not sure where your confidence came from.

When the shutdown announcement does come in the future, by all means have your "I told you so" moment. For now, there are a lot of people who are excited about things picking back up and still actively enjoy the game - myself included.

I think I have said this before when I was debating with Fangel, but the thing is, I don't need to have that moment. That moment has already came to pass. The truth is, SK will die whether you like it or not. Eventually, in the distant, future, where neither you or I would be playing this game. It will go out in a whisper. And the people who are 'exited about the game' is simply not there, 300 ish players for a MMO this old is not too shabby, but this is by no means an indication of good health.

There was no way SK would've been "Competitive" with PvP, you are taking words out of your mouth. Even back then when Chaos wasn't buffed and stuff, or BK didn't exist, Wolver was almost the number 1 go to set with rarely any variety, along with literally no-one playing Recon or Guardian. Even now, Striker dominates both by a large margin, it's a clear sign it's a very unbalanced mess.

Balancing an Co-Op focused game around PvP was a bad idea in the first place, the only reason Polaris got nerfed because people wouldn't shut up about it. I'll say they could of done alot more to make PvP at least a bit balanced such as disabling Unique Variants, but GH would never bother otherwise. LoL, CS:GO, etc have nothing to do with SK at all, not even close to in gameplay style. You are making up complete garbage at this point and doing poorly at it.

Also, screw off with that. "You are new to this game" "Trolls all you dont know nothing about upgrade this game..." you are asking to get hated with such insults. Most of us are veterans here and know usually what we are talking about along with having the experience, you clearly don't with the way you are speaking, thinking PvP is the only thing keeping this game alive. People move on and had enough, Jempire did the same, stop crying like a baby they quit and moved on with their gaming lives.

If you also think using Autism in any way as an insult is going to help, then you can go get corrupted by the Swarm and lose your soul for all i care. I suffer it myself, and that to me is very offensive as much as i hate to make it personal in public. Picking on anyone else with the disability would also promote my wrath. Get out or rethink your words, accept what you did wrong or you future SK career is looking grim.

I'm fully siding with @Midnight-Dj in this thread, summing up my same issues with GH. Lootbox spam has only succeeded in hurting the game, pushing away players and wasting tons of resources on those while instead could've been spent on actual content. More so with the rise of banning gambling in games thanks to EA's antics with Star Wars Battlefront 2 (2017)

Owlite Wand does not count by the way as content, or any other Pay2Win weapon behind lootboxes. It's garbage and behind a gambling paywall, it could of served far better as a craftable weapon from the Black Kat event. It would of been fitting also acting as a long lost relic you could restore with crafting, as the Black Kats themselves having wiped out the Owlite civilization and most traces of them.

@Timoria You need to rethink some things you said, especially this line: "Not everything needs player tested"
Flat out bird poop and a lie, if you don't let people test your content, it's very likely to be unbalanced and not fun to play.
This is exactly what happened and GH is the guilty verdict not wiling to open back up the test server to let us test the content and give feedback. Even after release in which they requested the latter, they took none of it except buffing Treasure Vault payouts, which are still poor even in Stratum 6 and doesn't fit what a place full of crowns should pay out.

We're talking like 3x or even 5x the payout going through such an unbalanced level, you'll likely want Treasure Vaults in those depths for Radiant Fire Crystals otherwise. I'm still only running them to grab an 2nd Misplaced Promissory Note, then i'm not touching them ever again outside of party runs or in Stratum 6 if i still need Radiants.
That in itself will be moot soon, as i have only four 5 star weapons left to heat not behind Pay2Win, three i yet to obtain from PvP. Been running Dreams & Nightmares alot to get them.

Instantly any thoughts i had on your side of things went to zero with that line as stated, even lines before that i was not agreeing with and not even close to questionable. That's enough from my end, wish to not escalate this further and not have Crowbars handed out in almost drawing the line of being offensive and avoiding being Sir-Swears-Alot.

@Midnight DJ

I suppose my question for you is what you'd like for them to do and why it's necessary-- after all, they've been putting out a few actual content updates in their usual slow fashion and then some.

So you want bug fixes from them and not new stuff?

https://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/122323

They have a section titled bug fixes right in the patch notes, and fixed some bugs above that so they are kind of doing what you want but you're still upset because they aren't good enough? Turbillion's charge does feel a bit buggy still so I'll give you that.

What they need is the new content, the turbillions, the chesters, and they need them frequently. This keeps your game relevant in people's minds, on their newsfeed, and as a part of their life. They could do better, and I see this recent update as them starting to realize a few key things about this model.

Lastly, while it doesn't matter what we think to them, it matters very much to me what you think Midnight. You've been on here for a while and I rather like you, despite you calling me some kind of cheer leader lmao

I mean they don't have to make what you want verbatim 😂😂😂😂

Oh no!

community: hey gh i have this beautiful id-

gh: no

community: understandable have a nice day

@Fishysh the first thing they could do is ban permanently auto target from lockdown, I even made a thread explaining how auto target in lockdown is the worst idea ever and all the benefits from removing it once for all, not a single reply from them and nowdays it's still enabled in lockdown. Not even a matter for small staff, it's them thinking this way is better, and so is for many other things which would need from little to no effort at all to change them and make the game slightly better and make the community happier. I really wouldn't defend them too much, another team would've done a better job especially if they actually loved the game. Releasing turbillion with the broken charge is also a big meme. SK would last way more if simply they'd put more effort and listen more instead of closing themselves off. You don't know how many would be happy by banning auto target from pvp, buffing few things, fixing few broken charges and so on. I highly doubt this is some insanely hard stuff to change, unless the game is filled of spaghetti code.

The active players have been consistent for years. Lessening very, very slowly over time. Content infusions bring some players back. But overall it is what it is. If they can pay their workers and keep the game running/lights on, it won't die.

If you check the trends, over the past year the active player count has never dropped below 200.

So sure, SK is dying. Extremely slowly. So slowly that to obsess over it or whine in Haven is just obnoxious.

Play the game and enjoy it, or don't.