During a pleasant conversation with Holy-Nightmare about something unrelated (MSI UVs, which will be part of another post I want to write another day), the topic of Danger Missions and their relative level of reward came up. While I'm aware the main thing they offer is a final room utterly rammed wall-to-wall with treasure boxes, this reward doesn't quite measure up to a number of offerings that might be found elsewhere throughout the game - not the biggest problem, because they're still fun, but Holy and I thought they maybe need juuust a little something more.
To that end, both Holy and I ended up converging on the same thought - it'd be kind of fun if Danger Missions offered a new Token as a reward. Recon Medals, perhaps.
When a danger mission is completed, depending on rank and mission difficulty, you would earn a modest amount of Recon Medals, and once you have enough, you would be able to exchange them either with Feron (in the arcade) or Desna (in the hall of heroes) for specialty items - ranging from usables like Recon Boxes to a variety of weapon/item skins or cosmetics (possibly including guild furniture) themed along the style of the Recon Rangers. Maybe the boxes contain Flares, similar to the Confetti items, allowing you to drop flares in Haven or in the Clockworks.
We thought that this idea of a token trader could be a reasonable way to run some Recon-themed or even Proto-themed cosmetics that some players have a desire to own but no easy way to obtain - but I'm sure that Holy and I would like to focus on the boxes at least in this post because of their relevance to mechanical reward.
It's my belief that they could reasonably contain Fire Crystals, Orbs of Alchemy, Sparks of Life, and rarely, UV Tickets of various levels, or rarer still, Accessories and Cosmetics. We would anticipate that these boxes are reasonably easy to earn, but they would not fully replace other more reliable means of earning the aforementioned; those who consistently commit to serving under the Recon Rangers' banner would be able to benefit from them meaningfully, but players less interested in doing prestige missions would ideally not feel pressured to engage with it.
Implementation-wise, I feel like it'd be a matter of creating a recolor of the boss token item, and building a new vendor off whatever Brinks' or Mortimer's trader class is - a token vendor that is restricted to specific tokens. As for measuring out reward frequency, I think that it is possible for a single danger mission to reward up to 5 medals, and for a recon box to be worth 20 medals (while containing a small but appreciable number of rarities), but that's just me spitballing some numbers to get the conversation started.
The hope is to encourage players (such as myself, honestly!) to engage with a mission structure that would otherwise be left by the wayside, by making the rewards of that mission structure more compelling and specific. It'd be nice if danger missions offered something that isn't found elsewhere, and nicer still if they provide options to get a few more nice-to-have consumables that are less unique but still useful to a casual player (and if they want to get something rarer, they have the option to run more consistently and save tokens!)
This post was put up with Holy-Nightmare's blessing and I'd also like to take the time to thank them for their insight; the idea of running boxes for tokens was theirs and we just ran with the idea for a bit thinking about what they could contain. Many thanks! ♥
I've thought before that it would be beneficial for the game if the daily prestige missions had more value to offer to a player. I've seen this done in Final Fantasy XIV, where simply logging on to play your daily fill of roulette matchmaking provides you with substantial boons in the form of level-scaled rewards, which is good enough to make them a preferred means of player progression before anyone goes to other grinding hotspots.
In contrast, in Spiral Knights I have never felt compelled to play a danger mission other than for my curiosity over its contents, which is usually worth just one run. Instead, when I want general rewards, I simply go to The King of Ashes as many players do. I play event prestige missions when I have the time, so those are useful, but the ordinary day-to-day missions just aren't compelling enough.
I like the ideas you have outlined in this post, and I can say if danger missions awarded these loot pools comparable to forge prize boxes, I would absolutely play my daily mission on a regular basis. Making them a frequent source of orbs would also be spectacularly useful to newer players who are still progressing through the game, as orbs of alchemy are a consistent bottleneck, something I've seen every time I have introduced a new friend to the game.