As we all know, the player base has been dwindling for the past few years. Spiral Knights just can't seem to keep players playing. However, the cause of this isn't content which is where most people are pointing the blame. As you can see our numbers have been pretty steady even with that two year content drought we just had. No, the real cause of this is progression. I have been observing the way newcomers have been behaving for while, most of them do not make it past the Rank 5 - 6 portion of the game. The way Spiral Knights handles the opening of the game and what it takes to progress is terrible design. Let's take a look at it.

Rank 1 - 5-1

This part of the game is actually pretty steady in its progress and I believe it's handled fairly well, except for few key factors. While it does lead the player on nicely, it does not have the best of tutorials. New players are still asking us many questions even after blazing through the missions. This is due to the fact that the tutorials are presented in huge text walls. People don't play games to read books, they play games to have fun.

In order to fix this, I would create more engaging and interactive tutorials. For example, in the place where we are introducing damage types to the players, give them temporary weapons to use against the six monster families, each weapon with its own damage type. Have them fire each weapon at the monster families to see how the damage changes, and have an NPC comment on the weapon's performance after the player is done. This could directly lead into how to read the gate map, teaching the players what colors mean what. So they can come properly equipped. I see too many newcomers come out of this part of the game not knowing what weapons are good. Don't have this tutorial happen at all once. We will replace Pierce of Cake, Elemental my Dear, and The Shadow Knows" with this new design.

Furthermore, this portion of the game does not encourage the player to experiment with weapons and find what they like. The game outright punishes you for creating the wrong pieces of equipment, this is due to the fact that it takes a while to build up crowns for new equipment and getting orbs other than the ones gifted to you is a chore. Which leads players to just use cobalt, which gets boring after a while. We can fix this by adding a new item.

Recipe Coupons - Recipe Coupons are exactly what you think they are, they'll allow you to buy a recipe of the corresponding star level for free. Recipe Coupons will appear alongside the cobalt recipes, so if people want to go out and try other equips, they can, with no extra grinding required. Players will get 4 recipe coupons per star level. This item will encourage players to buy whatever they want with no consequence. In addition, we can add a weapon "preview" feature. This will take you to a guild training hall with the weapon you're previewing, allowing you to play with it at level 10 to see how it'll function at its best. Players will be able to play around with every kind of weapon in the game without wasting time or other precious resources. Upon leaving the training hall, you'll be taken back to hall of heroes.

Recipe Coupons should also drastically lower the rates that a newcomer crafts a useless weapon. E.G. crafting an elemental weapon when he needs to fight elemental resistant enemies. They'll also drop from Forge Prize Boxes.

Rank 5-2 - 6-2
Well, this is the worst part of the entire game. Rank 5-2 and Rank 6-2 Hall of Heroes are infamous for causing players to quit. This is where most newcomers are going to leave the game. If we implement recipe coupons and weapon previewing and think this section of the game will be in a much better spot. But that won't solve everything. Orbs of Alchemy are the next hurdle we need to cross. Advanced and Elite Orbs are an extremely tedious grind, and players really don't like that.

Fixing Orbs of Alchemy:

First, we need a guaranteed source of orbs. That's where prestige comes in. We add Orb of alchemy reward for completing the normal prestige mission and even more Orbs of Alchemy for completing the danger mission. Meaning the player will be able to craft something new everyday. The orbs you get will be a choice(you must also have at least a certain rank), and you'll get more depending on how low the star level is.

Left: Normal Mission, Right: Danger Mission. Difficulty will not affect orb payout.
Flawed: x3, x6 No Requirement
Simple: x2, x4 Requirement: Rank 3
Advanced: x2, x2 Requirement: Rank 5
Elite: x1, x2 Requirement: Rank 6
Eternal: x1, x1 Requirement: Rank 7

This will not be broken because you can only do prestige once per day. Anyways with prestige, you'll be able to get past 5-2 and 6-2 in much less time than we currently have. As for long-term players, they'll be very happy to have a surefire way of getting elites. This will also create a consistent play cycle, rewarding the player for logging on, on a daily basis.

After that, we need some sort of good tutorial telling the player how to obtain orbs of alchemy. I believe one of the NPCs in the missions just says you can find orbs of alchemy in the clockworks, but that's not explicit enough. Add a tool-tip in one of the missions in front of a group of boxes. Along the lines of "Treasure Boxes can drop rarities such as fire crystals and orbs of alchemy!" would suffice.

Anyways the game is looking a bit better now. Recipe Coupons, Orbs from prestige, AND previewing weapons will make the newcomer experience a lot more enjoyable.

Rank 7 and beyond
I think Eternal Orbs and Shinings are in a pretty alright spot right now. The only thing I have to say is Radiant Fire Crystals. To that I say, add more depths to arcade please.

That concludes my post. If we implement all of the things here, I believe that our player base WILL go up quite a significant amount. More players = more promotion sales = more money. :3 Do it GH