Hi all, I wanted to give my feedback for the Mysterious Spikes. The main topic has a lot of different conversations happening so I wanted to put mine in and hear what everyone else thinks.

I appreciate the work GH is doing for the game. However, I want to be blunt: The all-stat buff of the spikes is lazy.

It is something that makes me upset because it is exactly how the imbalance of the game is right now where it all revolves around three things: Damage, Speed, and Health. There is no variety when looking at the big picture if these spikes were implemented like the way they are now - the gameplay does not really change or get mixed up. It is fighting the same exact way as most people are now: Glass cannon and spamming charges. There is no smart or different way of playing against spiked enemies other than brute force like we always have played the game. Spikes being implemented now without other variety of ways to play will fail to bring in players for a longer period of time and will just be another event like BK where people come in to have the fun of gaining more crowns - not actually have fun in the game.

In my opinion, i think the current mechanic of the spikes need to be heavily tuned down or better yet: Reworked. I understand not putting in the time to rework it and instead tuning it down - which it is what it is at that point. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of the spikes, but how it is executed is poorly done.

If the spikes get reworked, I think a lot more can be done than just revolving around the three stats I mentioned earlier (Damage, Speed, Health). Here's some ideas I'm just throwing out there that can work alone or in combination with each other.

- Moveset changes: If an enemy is spiked, they will have small changes to their moveset.

- Resistance changes: If an enemy is spiked, they will have their resistances changed. They can have their resistance/weakness chart flip-flopped, weakness negated, they can take less damage from charged attacks, or give a speed buff + have no resistance.

- AI changes: If an enemy is spiked, the enemy behaves differently. Gremlins no longer dodge/Mecha Knights no longer shield/Lichens no longer merge/Spiked Enemies dodge charging knights

If you took the time to read this, thank you.

If not, TLDR; I think an all-stat buff mechanic is lazy and spikes should not be implemented the way they are now.