When creating a level for any to play
Please listen for what I have to say

It's basic knowledge that if you create an increase in difficulty
you should also increase the reward, you see

Shadow lairs had existed for eight whole years
eight whole years with enemies scaling to depth thirty
while they took longer than the average run, the lairs were met with cheers
they were difficult, but not if you had the right peers

Alongside the breach the vault update, as an unannounced change
The shadow lairs were given a massive buff, albeit quite strange

Adding configs allowing enemies to scale to depth forty
might not be the best idea; listen to our side of the story

the lairs take two, or even three times longer to beat
what we're met with is no increased loot; not even the heat
what's worse is the difficulty; it's been kicked up to eleven
no gear seems efficient; not even the strongest of weapon

yes, tier four is there
yes, it feels not very fair
we would've appreciated our feedback to at least of been heard
we want a change, 'CAUSE THE LAIRS ARE ABSURD.

Hello

I would just like to type my mind about the implementation of the immense change that was the shadow lair buff, my, and the community's thoughts on it. I pray that the serious nature of what I am typing can get across. The main problems we all see with the lairs is the obscure implementation of the change, the difficulty of the change, and the lack of increased reward/incentive.

Spiral knights is no stranger to unannounced updates, examples being the nerf to flourish swing range, and the divine avenger change. These are small-ish changes, so we don't mind them nowadays as those weapons aren't really used in PvE currently. The most recent change that came without announcement was the increase to shadow lair difficulty. We all thought that this was a bug; we thought there was no way difficulty would be increased by ten depths without any sort of reward, especially if the entire change wasn't mentioned in the patch notes. Well, in fixing ICFB's passage and keeping shadow lairs the same, it's quite obvious that this was intended. We have not seen anything of this difficulty in the lifetime of spiral knights, and it was implemented without, I repeat without, announcement. The general manager for GH, Nyxed, joined the feedback channel on the Arcade discord server. Even though the channel was misused by most of the server-goers, there were plenty of us that made it clear that this change was unwelcome. We expressed our concerns with this difficulty increase, but when the bugfix for ICFB rolled around we were all surprised and disappointed that it had excluded the shadow lairs themselves.

Playtesting. When the biggest change difficulty-wise gets dropped for the late game, it should get playtested. If I'm being honest here, I cannot see how this could have ever went through even the smallest amount of playtesting. Let me explain. Having shadow lairs being scaled to depth 40 creates not only difficulty, but length increase. With mixer and full black kat, using 2 sparks, it takes me over 2 hours of constant gameplay to beat dfv solo. Two hours of shooting the same enemies as before but for longer. Shadow lairs had increased difficulty for great and creative reasons such as south-facing trap sections in dfv or unconventional respawning enemies in rrt, or snarbolax fighting in the first depth of rabid snarby; not increased hp pools. Sorry if this sounds rash or rude but not only is this change not thought out, but it is also lazy.

Elite difficulty drops more loot than normal difficulty and deeper depths drop more loot than the shallow ones. This is common knowledge. You have increased the difficulty of the lairs and have put them 10 depths deeper for literally no increased incentive. I do hope this doesn't make sense. It's hard to explain this in detail because it so so simple, yet no changes have so far been made. If a certain stage that is 8 years old is changed to take much longer and be much harder, you have to increase the incentive or reward or it will be harder to find people willing to run them. I was able to find a party willing to run dfv every day for 2 months prior to the update. Now, it is very hard to find anybody willing to run it, EVEN FOR FREE. Why? Running a mission with artificially inflated difficulty FOR OVER 2 HOURS OF CONSTANT GAMEPLAY FOR NO INCREASED REWARD OVER PREVIOUSLY STANDING REWARDS is not enticing. So, if the reward is trash, why bother with shadow lairs in the first place…

Which brings me to why I’m bothering with this in the first place. I’ve spent thousands of hours in the endgame of spiral knights and I thoroughly enjoyed running shadow lairs, but not after the change. And it’s not like I’m alone in feeling this way; most spiral knights players who enjoy the game as much as I do have felt as though shadow lairs are no longer worth their time due to these unnecessary changes. I’ve ran dfv over a hundred times and I enjoyed it very much so every run, but these changes turned a once fun mission into a slow, monotonous grind to sink time into for no increased incentive. The difficulty was increased, the length of the lairs were increased, while incentives such as the armors and the payout weren’t touched. Remember, these feelings aren’t exclusive to me, but between most if not all of the long-time players of your game. As your player base, we want to tell you that we would enjoy if shadow lairs could be reverted back to their former selves. And if this is not possible, or you are unwilling to do so, please, give us a reason as to why. We have not gotten a response as to why this change occurred. Is it something you cannot fix? Is it due to an increased reward coming to shadow lairs in the future? I know it may be hard to find time to play the game and acknowledge how these changes have affected us, but take not only mine, but the entire community’s word for it, please. The shadow lairs need to be fixed. If any of the things I mentioned are given attention, shadow lairs will return to being a great endgame to not only be excited for as a new player, but a fun mission to grind as a seasoned one.

Nobody asked for this change. Remove it please, or compensate the dungeons accordingly.

Thanks.