Like, over the weekend, we had three gates open at once, and the next lowest counter was 3.
Are gate openings supposed to be this irregular?
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 14:14
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 18:17
#2
Yeah, not supposed to happen
My understanding (tenuous as it is on this particular feature) is that this is not an intended behavior. Hopefully we'll not be seeing it happen again.
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 18:37
#3
I like how irregular the
I like how irregular the system is, but with the long times between gate openings, I've noticed a lot of people abusing gates by filling them with one colour of crystal to see what comes out, and while it may be interesting for them, eventually we're not going to have any fun gates to play in.
Crystals need an offset so that massive amounts of them don't generate dungeons full of just one type of area.
It's pretty annoying only having two dungeons to play in right now, especially considering how difficult they are compared to some of the others.
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 20:43
#4
Gate Abuse?
Isn't adding crystals to a gate to try to get a particular types of level a game mechanic? Why would doing that be 'abusing' the gate?
(in the case of the Iron Falcon gate, it was an experiment to see if we could get Lord Vanaduke back, but the Arenas still make it a very interesting gate! and more difficult - yes - but why is that bad?)
I think it may be more *noticeable* right now because of the amount of open gates is restricting the variety, but I really like being able to skew the gates to a particular flavour of level, so I can get more of the type of level I want to play, or want to get materials from. In fact, I thought that was the whole idea! After all, the gates all started out with a lot more of one type of crystal, so they are already 'abused' before anyone adds any crystals, aren't they?
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 21:50
#5
All we need is more level
All we need is more level types. So if you do manage to get one gate that is entirely red, you don't get 30 floors of the exact same arena. You might get several different types of arenas, some red clockworks, a red forest area with flaming wolvers, a few castle levels, some impressive unique bosses, and so on...
Plus, in the future there may be levels that can only be obtained with certain combinations of minerals, or with special new alloys, etc etc.
I think the minerals system is new and exciting and the current lack of variety doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the system. They haven't developed all that content yet. I'm excited for a time when an all-red gate is something to save up for and work towards :D
Mon, 10/25/2010 - 22:08
#6
On that note...
On that note, I'd like to seem the variety of levels to be higher at the upper levels. After all, once you are at a higher level, your more likely to spend more time playing the levels underneath Ember.
It's a little discouraging when you have already seen most of the level types getting there. It would be great if some levels only appeared at the higher levels (other than bosses of course)
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 02:23
#7
more bosses
more bosses more bosses more bosses
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 02:58
#8
"I think it may be more
"I think it may be more *noticeable* right now because of the amount of open gates is restricting the variety. . ."
It's a serious detriment to playability, I would consider this abuse simply because these 'experiments' have excluded dozens of new players from experiencing the variety we had at the beginning of this beta.
Since there are only a handful of maps, it would be better to have a safeguard so the gates come out with more variety instead of having an overgrown path for every single map on the way to Moorcroft. Or bombarding new players with impossibly difficult Arenas they paid 10 energy to die in.
Tue, 10/26/2010 - 16:41
#9
Soooo
When are new gates
Soooo
When are new gates going to open up in Emberlight? I'm not sure I get how this system works.
Wed, 10/27/2010 - 11:17
#10
Haven, Moorcroft and
Haven, Moorcroft and Emberlight all have access to the same gates. When one opens in one, it opens in all.
However, gates that don't reach as far as Emberlight can't be accessed from there. Roughly, the more minerals that go into a gate, the deeper it reaches when it opens.
The number on the console of unopened gates is the time left until it opens. Back at the beginning, it took two days to tick down by one, but it might be different now? Not sure.
Here's the last thread about it. http://forums.spiralknights.com/node/17
I have brought up some concerns with this as well. In particular how this scales with our current low amount of players, or a large amount for that matter.
We may have a situation in a few days when there are no gates with floors from Emberlight and down and only a couple of launched gates to choose from at all.
Issues with many gates in progress may dilute the minerals further preventing access from the deepest towns and to the core.
And the frequency of new gates being launched.