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The original poster makes some good points. I once introduced a gamer friend to Spiral Knights, and they were underwhelmed, specifically because the early fighting is so mindless and easy. There are some decent fights in the early missions (e.g. the Collector). But there's just too much time spent in Tier 1, where monsters are dull.

The reason, I think, is that Spiral Knights was originally designed for casual gamers, who are looking for relaxation rather than an intense test of twitchiness.

I do like how the Swiftstrike Buckler can be considered to still be used in lategame just for it's bonus. It's a 3-star equip that can be a part of someone's lategame build because of that. I think that's kind of neat to sprinkle equips around that way.

Agree with OP's comments, I have personally introduced friends and they have not been impressed at all by the early experience.
They ended up quitting unfortunately.
I believe the current early game experience is worse than the old days when the mist system was present.

I'm surprised the early game experince apparently got worse. What happened between then? Balance stuff?

@Azuresh: The "journey", as you call it, is no different from any other currently-active and/or still-active MMO. Everyone has to go through it, everyone has to put up with it, and (almost) no one enjoys it. Consequently, having 5-star gear isn't all that much better since the introduction of the Forge system, because you have to go through just as much trouble to fully heat a 5-star item as you went through to get the materials, crowns, and Orbs of Alchemy to craft it.

In terms of "basic" charge attacks........their being as weak as they are for low-level gear is kind of the point. In terms of "bonuses" for progression through the game's "main story", you're given that via the ranked Mission rewards, many of which you'll be using to upgrade your first Battle Sprite. As for "popular armor lines", players will still have to progress through the game's story before they can actually use (much less obtain) the majority of them. The only really "useful trinkets" are the ones that you can obtain from PVP, and......well, while you have to participate in PVP to get the materials to craft them, most people are not only busy farming & grinding for better gear so that they aren't easily beaten in Lockdown matches, a good number of them have little to no interest in participating in Blast Network matches.

Regarding trinket slots -- a lot of users would prefer to be able to pay for them to be "permanently unlocked", so that the few trinkets they already have will have a bit more value to them. The Swiftstrike Buckler (and its re-skins) being locked at 3-star rank is, unfortunately, a deliberate decision, and I highly doubt that these shields will ever see 4-star and/or 5-star upgrades, much in the same manner that items like the Darkfang Shield will never become craftable, and that we very likely won't ever have a way to negate the "backfire" damage from the Fang of Vog's charge attack.

Unfortunately, many of the "improvements" that you suggest are things that players have had to work toward getting since the game's initial launch, and the ones who decided to "give up" because things were too difficult for them, clearly didn't want to take the time to put in any actual work at all. Believe it or not, this game would be a lot less fun for everyone if players just had everything "handed to them", with little to no effort for any of it.

@Leidran/@Sorasallsin: Things were considerably worse when you had to spend Energy in order to progress to the next floor of an Arcade Gate, upgrade any of your gear, or revive yourself if you died (a price that doubled each time you died on a single floor, and depending on which Tier you were in, got more & more expensive with each revival). Don't have enough Mist Energy? Better stock up on Crystal Energy, then. Don't have enough crowns to get Crystal Energy? Buy an Elevator Pass! Can't afford an Elevator Pass? Well then, that just means that you're done playing for the day. Prior to the removal of Mist Energy, players who either didn't have any Crystal Energy in reserve, or who couldn't afford to buy CE or Elevator Passes on a semi-regular basis, were basically "grounded" in terms of not being able to go any further into lower depths of the Clockworks. This, of course, was unless someone else in their party (assuming they were in a party) felt charitable enough to donate their own CE, to help pay the Elevator costs.

The introduction of Missions did away with all of that nonsense, and in order for those Energy requirements to be permanently removed, something had to be implemented as a suitable "replacement". Specifically, both the Alchemy & Heating systems were completely overhauled, and from that point onward, you had to obtain complete gear sets of a certain star rank in order to be "allowed" further entry into the lower depths of the Clockworks. The bigger problem with all of this was the August 21, 2013 update, which not only introduced the woefully unnecessary "Fire Crystal recipes" (they degrade Fire Crystals into their lower-rank versions instead of enhancing them into the higher-ranked ones), but which also decreased the drop rate of Radiant Fire Crystals in Tier 3's sixth stratum (floors 24-28). It was apparently "fixed" a few months later, but not significantly enough that players can reliably farm the Clockworks for Radiants instead of having to repeatedly farm "endgame" missions like "Champion Rank 9-3: The King of Ashes".