Spiral Knights - On loot splitting and Mist Canisters (two separate suggestions)

On loot splitting and Mist Canisters (two separate suggestions)

5 replies [Last post]

Mon, 06/27/2011 - 22:28

Recaff

Legacy Username

First of all, I'd like to say that I'm surprised to have found such an enjoyable and easy to play game in Spiral Knights. It's a much needed break from arguing with GamersFirst about how to run APB into the ground faster. What I'd like to do though is throw out some suggestions on maybe how the game can be improved. I'd love to see what both the community and the developers think, so tear into it if you're so inclined.

Just to start, I've got one little thing that bothered me although it's hardly a huge deal. I was down to 5 Mist Energy at one point and realized that I had a mist canister on me. Unluckily for me, the elevator suddenly locked down and was trying to force me to choose whether I should go up or down. If there's a way to easily implement the ability to mess around with your arsenal or at least to access mist canisters while the elevator is locked, that'd be awesome. Maybe just making it so you can unlock the elevator and get back off would work too. As I said though, it's not a big deal and having used up 5 Crystal Energy accidentally, I think I've learned not to get on the elevator until I'm really ready.

The next thing I was thinking about is how it's much more profitable to gather materials by yourself than to go with a full group. And correct me if I'm wrong, but don't monsters become more difficult to kill when there's more people in the group? I think it would make more sense to stop splitting things up and make it more of a 1:1 loot ratio across the board. The way it is now, crafting materials are split between group members up to a 1:4 ratio while Crowns, Heat, and the minerals you carry on your back are shared evenly at 1:1. And just to clarify to make sure everyone understands, what I mean is when one person picks something up, everyone in the group should get it. Randomly assigning it to just one player puts more emphasis on playing by yourself, especially when you're in a group and have to deal with harder monsters while running the risk of not getting something you need when it drops. If everything was put at a 1:1 ratio, players would be more inclined to play with eachother instead of dodging eachother like they've got the plague where material farming is involved. And at the same time, this would put more emphasis on larger or full groups too, creating a balance between harder monsters and rewards gained by having more people able to carry minerals on their backs.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Throw whatever opinions and/or additional ideas you have out there and I'll be sure to share my own feedback.

Mon, 06/27/2011 - 22:42

Undying

That would be a huge impact

That would be a huge impact on the games economy though. The price of all materials would be cut down to nothing. Most materials are cheap enough as it is.

Tue, 06/28/2011 - 11:55

Recaff

Legacy Username

@Malleable

That's a good point, but you can't go much lower than what everything is already. Maybe a good way to offset price changes if it's necessary would be to make materials a little bit rarer while keeping the 1:1 ratio. I'm sure there's a math problem in there that would make sure players aren't getting more than they do now while giving everyone the same thing as it drops. This way, there wouldn't be a flood of materials on the market or groups attempting farm everything as hard as they can all day either.

Just as a quick example off the top of my head where instead of dividing the materials 4 ways like they are now, you could share them all evenly while lowering the drop rate to half or quarter what it is now.

Tue, 06/28/2011 - 05:57

sirlaggalot

Legacy Username

agreed.

Monsters actually drop less material and are easier when you're by yourself, in my opinion, but this is untested and i'm just speaking from my experience.

I also feel that the splitting of materials is a bit uneven. Sometimes materials suddenly get given to 1 person multiple times in a row. It would be fairer if the material was assigned to each party member in a repeated order.

An even fairer way would be to let the materials be picked up by the person who made the kill (as in who dealt most damage on that monster/opened a treasure chest). That way, it would not be reliant on ping/latency nor chance, but the player's ability. I find that i cannot compete against players who are based in wherever OOO's is. But it ain't Australia, that's for sure.

It's only fair that you get out what you put in where effort and kills are concerned, right?

Tue, 06/28/2011 - 11:54

Recaff

Legacy Username

@sirlaggalot

Well the way it is now, I think the items are split 4 ways based on their star rating. A player might end up getting multiple material drops in a row if all of his teammates have more, rarer materials when one drops and he doesn't. And just to be a bit more clear, a player might get a blue shard or something like that and then a swordstone drops. Assuming his teammates already have other 2-star materials and the player in question has less or none, he'll probably get a second material in a row to make sure he's getting as many 2-star drops as his teammates are. Doing a repeated order would definitely make sure everyone got just about the same amount of materials, but someone might just end up ridiculously lucky enough to walk away with a bunch of rare stuff while someone else might get nothing but a bunch of light shards.

As for the second suggestion, that would be too easy to abuse by players already at the top of the game. Anyone running around with 4 or 5-star equipment would easily overpower their teammates and take the majority of drops. Even assuming everyone is evenly geared, sometimes someone has to whip out bombs or a gun and their damage output goes down. The most important thing I can think of is making sure the Royal Jelly is poisoned for instance. And at the same time, that would probably make it harder for higher pinging players to get things too. I've played with a disastrously high ping before when my roommate was downloading something and I could barely hit enemies sometimes because my character kept jumping around.

Tue, 06/28/2011 - 12:39

Nodocchi

Monsters may be easier while

Monsters may be easier while solo but you also run the risk of death and having to pay energy to revive. At the same time, even though monsters are more difficult with more people if everyone in the group is competent, it should still be easier than running solo especially since the number of monsters does not change, this means that your party can outnumber some groups of monsters where before they outnumbered you. You will find that some monsters are a lo easier to deal with if you have multiple people.

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On loot splitting and Mist Canisters (two separate suggestions)