Spiral Knights - All this energy rage...

All this energy rage...

4 replies [Last post]

Tue, 06/21/2011 - 07:58

DnNeelz

Legacy Username

is perfectly understandable.

The system is broken. Believe me I think games like these should offer things for real money, to keep running, like all other popular F2P games do - but SK does it badly.

The thing is once you're a good few hours into the game, you'll be able to buy energy to keep playing to no end, negating the need to buy crystal energy. For one this is just annoying to do, buying energy with crowns to just keep playing, and secondly this doesn't benefit the company that made Spiral Knights. When you can keep going without spending real money, but just spending crowns instead, people will not feel the need to buy energy with real money anymore, at all.

Now this in of itself may not be that bad, but the following is my major point I want to make:
You are making the experience for new players bad, and people could decide to uninstall or keep playing purely upon a first impression. You are making the experience bad for new players because you're making them believe 'You have to buy CE, or you won't be able to play any more today, so buy or gtfo'. While in actuality it's more like 'Just spend the crowns you just earned for more energy and you'll be fine' once you get a bit further in the game.

Honestly I wish the company would just replace the system and offer us something different. A good example of a company that does it right is Riot games their popular F2P game called 'League of legends'. It offers you skins, champions and boosts in trade for actual RL money. People buy this a lot, me including, I loved buying me a new skin in League of legends, and yet it doesn't interfere with the gameplay at all. I think Riot games did a perfect job at designing that, it didn't [screw] over the people who didn't want to pay, and yet a lot of people did pay.

Spiral knights has enough people to try something like this, it would most definitly survive. So my message to you: figure out something different people can pay for that is interesting, I'm sure people will do it if you put some effort into it. Because giving newer players the impression they can't play unless they pay, just makes them feel like the whole 'Hey this game is F2P game' card was a load of bull.

Tue, 06/21/2011 - 10:05

OnmyojiOmn

Legacy Username

You don't understand the

You don't understand the energy system. In order to play after you've exhausted your mist bar you need to either buy energy with real money or buy it with crowns, and buying it with crowns means most of what earn running gates goes right back into buying energy to run more gates. You have to limit yourself to the more lucrative gates and accept a drastically slowed rate of progression.

The energy system is fine. It's the best F2P system I've seen so far.

Tue, 06/21/2011 - 11:16

Duskdash

LoL player here as well.

LoL player here as well. Honestly, I like SK's system a lot better - mostly for the mileage you get out of CE. Whenever I make a purchase in LoL, I ... dunno, don't really feel I get much mileage out of it. I've bought champions that I've hated and never use, and you can mod the game's files if you want a champion to look different on your client, so skins are just entirely aesthetic status symbols, like the Rose Regalia pieces. It's also a completely different game with an entirely foreign sense of progression and advancement - it's a DotA-based game with a purely individual progression metagame, not an MMO with an economy of its own.

Granted, the two games have their similarities: LoL limits you to ten champions that rotate per week until you either a) play free to earn the in-game currency to permanently unlock them, or b) buy them instantly with real money. An early-game limitation that is a decision between spending more in-game time than a paying player would, or paying to cut down on grind? Sounds pretty dang familiar to me! Also similar: LoL has the champion bundles at a bargain to appeal to newer players and get rid of the early-game limitation that way; SK has the starter pack that has, of course, CE and a couple of items that would collectively cost a lot more than what you actually pay for.

You also have to understand how markets are cyclical. If everyone reaches a point where they can buy energy after a run, eventually the supply of energy for sale is going to dwindle and prices will rise. This, in turn, will presumably make buying energy with real money a more attractive option, which replenishes supply. (LoL analogue: "Hey guys, we come out with champions every two weeks! Pay to keep up!" You hear similar new champion rage there, too. "lol vayne OP pay2win")

You are suggesting they change their model to a ... surprisingly similar model. If anything, you're suggesting they add purely aesthetic items at the cost of money - as if they had the Regalia items for sale separate from the CE.

(Also, Eurydice has already noted the suggestion to "make "You can buy CE with crowns, too!" more obvious to new players" to the higher-ups. So, there's that.)

Tue, 06/21/2011 - 15:18

Fly18

Legacy Username

The gameplay itself is a

The gameplay itself is a large energy sink, it's not cycled back in. Therefore someone is always buying energy to add to the energy market.

Tue, 06/21/2011 - 16:47

Effrul

If nothing else: as somebody

If nothing else: as somebody with a job, a girlfriend, and poor impulse control, one of the things that initially attracted me to SK was that it's more ore less impossible to accidentally wax a whole day on it.

Edit: Does it seem to anyone else like this has started coming up a lot more since the Steam launch? Not trying to imply anything, just an observation.

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All this energy rage...