Spiral Knights - the cost of playing spiral knights

the cost of playing spiral knights

16 replies [Last post]

Thu, 08/04/2011 - 21:47

Shidare

i was thinking about $/CE/cr conversion, and found these numbers interesting. for the sake of my sub-par math abilities, we will assume a 100 CE = 5000 cr exchange rate, though last i saw it was closer to 5400. regardless, if you buy 7500 CE for $20, ignoring the extra mist tank and other bonuses that come with the newbie set, the exchange rate is:

$1 = 375 CE = 18750 cr

let's look at in-game prices, then! disclaimer: the $ value of items paid for in crowns, such as recipes and materials, fluctuates based on trends in the CE market, and should be taken with a grain of salt. $ values in the cent range have been rounded up

adventuring

entering a level: $0.03 / 10 CE / 500 cr
opening a treasure gate/danger room/activating a robot: $0.008 / 3 CE / 150 cr
reviving:
t1: $0.006 / 2 CE / 100 cr
t2: $0.015 / 5 CE / 250 cr
t3: $0.03 / 10 CE / 500 cr

crafting

1*: $0.04 / 14 CE / 700 cr
2*: $0.16 / 58 CE / 2900 cr
3*: $0.59 / 220 CE / 11000 cr
4*: $1.33 / 500 CE / 25000 cr
5*: $2.40 / 900 CE / 45000 cr

unbinding

the prices listed on the wiki may not be accurate, as i seem to recall unbind 5* tickets costing 8000 CE the last time i checked, and the pricing of 5* items in the auction house lines up with tickets costing 8000 CE, so i will expand this section when i am at a computer than can run spiral knights

one uv: $0.80 / 300 CE / 15000 cr
two uvs: $4.00 / 1500 CE / 75000 cr
three uvs: $20.00 / 7500 CE / 375000 cr

recipes

1*: $0.01 /5 CE / 250 cr
2*: $0.05 / 20 CE / 1000 cr
3*: $0.21 / 80 CE / 4000 cr
4*: $0.54 / 200 CE / 10000 cr
5*: $1.67 / 500 CE / 25000 cr

as i noted earlier, the crown values of CE purchases and the CE/$ value of crown purchases are both subject to change and in this case stand as rough estimates. still, this is pretty illuminating for me: it costs as much to put 3 UVs on an item as it does to buy an entire other game, and if you add the price of recipes and crafting together, you're looking at around $10 for each 5* item you want. your daily allowance of mist energy is worth about $0.27, so f2p players are looking at quite the grind.

at this point i find the economics behind this game more fascinating than the combat, and while i would still like to reach 5* equipment i don't want to sink any more time or real money into this game than the $22 and 70+ hours that i already have. i also don't want to suffer the tedium of arena farming, and i don't have the time for endless basil runs, so i'm just going to log in once a day, spend a few minutes crafting and auctioning a couple 2* items or a single 3* item, wait until my mist accumulates, and repeat. it is paradoxically the slowest and fastest method of making money, depending on your metric: it will take me about a month to make 150000 cr, but it will take me around an hour of playtime in total, which sounds pretty sweet when compared with the ~12000 cr/hour one can make arena farming.

i find it troubling that i still even want to play SK, honestly. i coincidentally just happened upon an interesting article in the new york times about the creators of dwarf fortress as i was writing this, which elaborates why. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of-dwarf-fortr...

the money quote:

"Tarn sees his work in stridently ethical terms. He calls games like Angry Birds or Bejeweled, which ensnare players in addictive loops of frustration and gratification under the pretense that skill is required to win, “abusive” — a common diagnosis among those who get hooked on the games, but a surprising one from a game designer, ostensibly charged with doing the hooking. “Many popular games tap into something in a person that is compulsive, like hoarding,” he said, “the need to make progress with points or collect things. You sit there saying yeah-yeah-yeah and then you wake up and say, What the hell was I doing? You can call that kind of game fun, but only if you call compulsive gambling fun.” He added: “I used to value the ability to turn the user into your slave. I don’t anymore.”"

i don't think the quote entirely applies to spiral knights--spiral knights is very much a skill-based game--but i see the parallels involving "addictive loops of frustration and gratification," and "the need to make progress with points or collect things." at the end of my time playing spiral knights, i don't feel like i was part of a story, or that i had experienced revolutionary gameplay (or even a particularly crisp iteration of well-trod gameplay, considering the server and memory-leak issues). there was no heartbreaking end like wind waker or ffx, no breathtaking and action-packed escapes like mgs3 or metroid fusion...just some Numbers Going Up.

i'm interested in your views, although i'd appreciate if people who just want to flame and people who are incapable of stringing together words and punctuation to form an actual sentence would leave this thread alone.

Thu, 08/04/2011 - 22:43

yusyus

Legacy Username

i'm not the best at english

i'm not the best at english so i hope this is ok.

i find this really interesting as i more than one time thought about why people would buy CE and how much it actually costs to just play this game if you do.
but.. as long as there's no cash-out or black market which supports CE/CR, i see it relaxed as CE/CR is basically free. (as you wrote, just craft and sell)

i find people amusing who buy their gear with real money, clear all content in a week and have nothing to do then instead of earning it the slow way and enjoying the way.

anyway, good thread, this should open the eyes of some players and they will think twice before rolling for UVs :)

Fri, 08/05/2011 - 01:09

Shidare

now i'm thinking more about

now i'm thinking more about f2p games and the different ways they're monetized versus regular pay to play games. in WoW, you get as much playtime as you want for 5625 CE a month, and the time it takes to level up and get sweet items is much lower until you reach the really high levels and start raiding with huge groups for 3 hours just to get a chance at one top-tier piece of equipment.

another advantage WoW has is the comparatively huge amount of content offered. spiral knights has four bosses, somewhere between 100-200 weapons, three different ways to attack (swords/guns/bombs), around twenty types of enemies, one main hub area and around five types of levels that merely vary in what monsters and what status effects are most prevalent. WoW has a huge number of bosses, something like twelve races and a bunch of classes, dozens of skills for each class, a ridiculous amount of usable items and equipment, and a massive, sprawling world. 5625 CE in WoW will give you a month of playtime; 5625 CE in SK will give you around three 5* equips.

if you compare SK to TF2, which has been f2p for a couple months now, it still doesn't fare very well. in SK, your playtime and progress are both limited by how much CE you have. f2p players much choose between playing hours of profitable runs to pay for playtime with a bit leftover for better equipment, or playing away their 100 mist every day to progress over a longer period of time, but with less playtime in total. if you are a complete addict, very good at the game and play constantly, you might go from starter equipment to a set of 5* in a few weeks of arena farming and basil running. if you only play away your mist energy each day, it could take as long as a few months. it's quite clear that OOO made an attractive package that seems only moderately grindy at first to ensnare f2p players before showing them the drastic equipment price increases that begin at t3, forcing them to choose between playing a ton to reach 5* quickly, limit their playing to mist energy and reach 5* slowly, fork over the cash and bypass the grind, or just stop playing. more and more i wish i chose the last option.

TF2's advantage in this case is that the paid content, while fun, is tangential to the main game, which is a deep and polished, innovative multiplayer experience. once you get used to combat and learn the attack patterns of the limited numbers of enemy types, the SK gameplay turns out to be a rather shallow update on gauntlet, which is 26 years old. if you don't pay a dime, you can still be quite good at tf2 and compete with the best players. if you don't pay a dime, you can be a master of the SK combat and you still won't be allowed to enter t3 until you have 5* equipment.

this is setting aside the technical issues that mar SK. both WoW and TF2 run relatively smoothly, and a player can usually expect to play the game with minimal or no lag and framerate issues. in SK, dealing with lag and framerate issues is part of the strategy for being good at higher levels, which still blows my mind every time i think about it.

Fri, 08/05/2011 - 01:54

stabystab

Legacy Username

To start I played Runescape

To start I played Runescape for roughly a year or so (both as a F2P member and also as a P2P at certain times). I also played WoW for 3 years (I quit shortly after the raids were lowered to 25 man... 40 was way more fun, those poor guild masters trying to organize us all). I've played a half dozen or so other MMOs, but runescape, WoW, and SK are the only ones i have payed real money for.

With spiral knights three things must be considered before passing judgement on the game (and its payment system). the first is that you can get anything without paying, you have access to every level, all buying energy does is make playing for 3+ hours easier (though you could just buy everything with CE and "beat" the game without experiencing it). the second is that you buy game time, this time doesn't expire and you can play when you want. With WoW while there is rest XP if you don't play your still burning through your subscription. which, in relation to SK, means if you don't feel like playing one week, because of overtime at work or you have a 10 page paper to write etc... your CE won't drain away. the third and most important piece is that compaired to the two other games i have mentioned spiral knights is really young. The developers haven't had a lot of time to tweak and add further detail to the game, after 4 years this game may become as large and complex as the other previously mentioned games.

P.S. I found WoW had a more friendly player base which i believe to be related to the subscription requirement.

P.P.S. now i miss my massive raids... maybe i'll drop a suggestion for 8 man raids in the forum.

Fri, 08/05/2011 - 02:17

Arctic-Fern

This thread makes me want to

This thread makes me want to sell my WoW account.

I kind of regret paying real money to play WoW. Now I'm down $240 (accounting for my foreign currency) and I could've used that to buy some phone or even some CE. Granted when I buy that CE I might regret it sometime in the future, but we'll see when I have played SK for 4 months, which is how long I was able to play Warcraft before I was sick of it.

BTW, do we factor in that WoW has a cost of entry before the subscription is bought...

Fri, 08/05/2011 - 05:22

AlfaOmega1

Legacy Username

you're missing the point

Although i did read your whole post, i think you're completely missing the point.

Being able to play 180 hours with only a $5 investment is well worth IMO. In this game you don't need 5* gear and even if you have it, without skill, you will get pummeled. I've seen newbies decked out in 5* gear who get killed in the first stage of t3. So all the extra gear (the expensive one) is really not necessary to really enjoy the game. Unlike other games where you have to pay a subscription and grind grind grind grind grind grind grind....

Theres a point in this game where if you're good enough and have some ok gear, you can literally have unlimited play. Remember that while you might be paying ce to do runs, you get roughly the same amount in crowns from that run. Then there's the tokens and materials which you can sell to make even more money. So if running purely on ce, you can actually make profit. Now factor in the mist that replenishes daily and you can convert that in order to craft away.

But yes, if you want to immediately be decked out in five star gear, never have to wait on mist, and see doing runs as grind more than fun, then I don't see why you would even need 5* gear in the first place as the games is not really story driven. Even after I finish my mist tank, I'll use ce since I don't see a daily run as a "a run to convert mist" but more of a "I find doing runs is fun and I have mist! YAY!"

Fri, 08/05/2011 - 06:35

Volebamus

obvobvobv, like others before

obvobvobv, like others before you, you have not realized a few key factors about this game:

1) 5* are not necessary at all. In fact, you should invest towards getting 4*, and consider 5* a luxury that either grinding or paying money can easily afford. In fact, as much of the time spent is in Tier 2 anyway in the first month or two depending on how strict you budget, the difference between 4* and 5* in T2 and the first half of Tier 3 is marginal because of the equipment nerfing on floors before level 23. Ignoring 5* until you have the luxury not to cuts the grind time by at least half.

2) Much in the same way 5* are unnecessary, most overpriced things in this game are unnecessary, especially the things you mentioned like the 2-UV and 3-UV, unbinding (yes the wiki is correct), and unprofitable reviving and gate opening.

Fri, 08/05/2011 - 06:43

Nodocchi

Sure, if you just want to

Sure, if you just want to make money and see some virtual numbers go up then by all means log on for a few minutes everyday to craft and then log off again. Now this may seem radical to you, but most people play this game not to see some virtual numbers increase or some bars increase on their equipment but because they enjoy the delving the clockworks to fight monsters or running around trading items and manipulating the market.

WoW does not give you unlimited play time, no subscription based game gives you unlimited play time. The maximum amount of time WoW gives you for a $15 one month subscription is 31 days x 24 hours = 744 hours. So if you want to calculate it like spiral knights, each hour of WoW costs a player $0.02. That is assuming of course you make the most of your subscription time and do absolutely nothing else but grind in WoW all day, every day. Now if you payed the same amount into Spiral Knights, not only does your money allow you more play time, but it also allows you to skip much of the grind inherent in many MMORPGs. Now I don't know what you think about grinding but I believe the general consensus is that grinding is bad and boring.

As far as the story goes, we are only in the first act, so lets wait and see where the game takes us. You can't really compare this game to the mainly story driven games you named. It would be like comparing TF2 to one of those games and asking, where is the story in TF2? Where is the heartbreak?

Fri, 08/05/2011 - 10:02

Soulstaker

I played runescape and it is

I played runescape and it is pretty cool.It has way for content than SK.But only f2p can only enjoy 15% of the game.That fifteen percent is a lot of endless fun.I find myself doing wilderness and other things in runescape.this means runescape fifteen percent is better than Entire SK.D:

Fri, 08/05/2011 - 11:06

Starlinvf

What about the reverse.....

What about the reverse..... Say you make 7k cr = 140CE per run. A T3 run costs you 90CE leaving you a net profit of 50CE which is theoretically $0.15 profit. So thats 16 runs to craft a 5* item if you don't expend energy on anything else.

Fri, 08/05/2011 - 12:39

#10

Blue-Asylum

Good post and I was with you

Good post and I was with you up to the point you started comparing SK to WoW which has been out for 6 years and has a massive development team and community behind it. Similar to TF2. Not to mention that SK is going after a different market than WoW using a different economic method.

One thing that was put me off of WoW is the subscription fee. I like the 'pay what you like as you go' model better. Not everyone does, having games with other options is great.

Fri, 08/05/2011 - 13:21

#11

Starlinvf

The cash shop model is only

The cash shop model is only dangerous to people who lack restraint... just look at all the SoMMOs (Social MMO for anyone who didn't catch that), and even Xbox avatars and the Mii. They make a killing from people over what basically amounts to a new texture.... not to mention **** EMOTES!!!!

Valve is no exception to this. http://www.joystiq.com/2011/04/19/portal-2-has-in-game-dlc-store-ala-tea...

Fri, 08/05/2011 - 19:16

#12

Zike

Legacy Username

Diablo 3 is making the

Diablo 3 is making the starting point.

Now mostly every game in the future will allow buying (which already does SK) and selling (which doesn't allow SK) items in real world money.

I bet SK will come to this point somehow in the future, before diablo 3 is out would be a smart idea :)

Fri, 08/05/2011 - 19:40

#13

Shidare

first of all, i would like to

first of all, i would like to thank everyone for the thoughtful replies to this discussion. it has been interesting and informative to read your thoughts regarding the SK payment model and how it stands as a game compared to other popular online services.

@stabystab: you raise a good point about the CE vs. subscription payment model, and it's true that the CE model doesn't punish you for taking a week off (though for periods of a month or longer you can deactivate your WoW subscription and renew it at a later date). as for being able to access all of the SK content for free, that's true in the same way that you can swap a cell phone for a porsche over two years like this fine fellow (http://jalopnik.com/5591644/how-a-17+year+old-craigslist+swapped-an-old-...). your progress in SK is limited by how much money or time you are willing to put into it. if you don't want to put in any money, it can take hundreds of hours to amass a decent 5* armory, or tens of hours over months of playing as time-efficiently as possible. if you don't want to put in the time, it can still take dozens of hours and a $20 or more investment.

i think the $ cost of CE and the CE cost of crafting makes it take too much time and money to advance in the game. why? because of your last point: it is exactly because SK is a young game with limited content, slow response to in-game issues and significant technical problems that i wonder why OOO believes it is worth that many hours, or that many dollars. as i said, for the price of one month of WoW or several great games on steam you get enough CE to get your foot in the door to the deepest levels of a comparatively shallow pond. i sincerely hope they continue to add more and more interesting content to this game as time goes by (and i don't mean bomberlag :P) because i do plan on keeping this game on the back burner.

@alfaomega1: to me, having to play 180 hours to reach the endgame content is the bad part of SK. you don't *need* 5* gear to play on tier 3, but you DO need 4* gear, which is still a huge investment of time, a huge investment of money, or a significant investment of time and money. i think your point on how it's not hard to go infinite misses my point, since i mentioned several easy ways to go infinite. the problem is not in going infinite, it's that doing so takes up a huge amount of time if you don't pay, and a significant amount of time even if you do pay. i could grind away arenas or basil runs for "profit," and i would be forsaking other important parts of my life. i could buy CE to avoid the grind, but the price is high enough that i don't feel it is worth my money, and i don't want to continue to financially support OOO as long as they keep certain things i disagree with.

@volebamus: you raise a fair point in that having a full 5* arsenal is not required to reach the core or beat vanaduke. however, like many MMOs, SK is a game with many "addictive loops of frustration and gratification," and has "the need to make progress with points or collect things." most players naturally see getting 5* equipment as a goal, especially those with 4* equipment who are so close but, considering the cost of moving from 4* to 5*, actually quite far away. i acknowledge this even in myself: i have reached the point where the levels and enemy patterns are no longer surprising and challenging, and i still find it enjoyable to play for a half hour a day because it satisfies my need to make progress and get sweet weapons, but then i have other things to do in life and am comfortable knowing it will take me a while at this rate.

@xiax: i can sort of agree with you--fighting monsters and trading items are certainly part of the reason people play spiral knights, but the fact remains that the primary measure of progress in this game is the level of your equipment, and i think you underestimate how badly people want to level it up. higher-level equipment makes the dungeon crawling more fun, looks cooler, and enables you to access areas with better items to sell, so even people who mainly enjoy other parts of the game have strong reasons and rewards for leveling up their equipment. that is the way this game has been designed. as far as WoW not being "unlimited" that's just arguing semantics, since nobody would play for all 744 hours in a month. i would argue that $15 spent on WoW is worth more than $15 spent on spiral knights: you get access to a huge, beautiful world full of lore and backstory, a thriving player base and a staggering amount of levels, enemies, classes, races, skills and equipment, and you don't have to spend your time playing to earn in-game money to spend on more time to play the game. $15 spent on spiral knights gets you 70% to the endgame in a tiny world with limited combat, no unique skills, a small variety of bosses, levels and enemies, gameplay you've seen before in any arcade, and a grind just as punishing as WoW if not more so, because at least when you level up in WoW you do it in a bunch of different locations.

you're also misinterpreting my comparisons to other games. if you're going to play SK f2p, TF2 offers a much smoother, dynamic f2p multiplayer experience with no grind and way fewer technical issues. if you're going to spend money and dozens of hours on SK, you could spend the same amount of time and money on games with incredible stories or revolutionary gameplay and, again, no grind.

@starlinvf: then you're spending ~20 hours to afford one piece of equipment, which is exactly the kind of slog that will convince someone to shell out some cash. i mentioned better ways to make quick money, anyway: if you want to spend as little time as possible, craft a 3* item a day using 100 mist and 50 CE and sell it in auction. if you like fighting monsters and want to make more money, use your mist to get to basil in t3, buy some popular 4* and 5* recipes and sell them at a profit. i don't know about you, but i find the prospect of grinding 20 hours for a single item horrifying.

as for the cash shops in the games and platforms you mentioned, i am completely okay with those! i don't have to buy hats for my portal robots to enjoy the full gameplay and story experience of portal 2, and if people want to buy emotes and other silly crap they are welcome to do so. but with SK, the money and the gameplay are intertwined at every point.

@ariblue: as i mentioned earlier, the comparison to WoW and TF2 is why i find the cost in time or $ to progress in SK off-putting. for less than the price of a starter pack that will help you get a 5* item or two and dozens of hours of playtime in a comparatively shallow game, you could play in a carefully crafted world that has had a huge development team and years of refinement behind it. if you are an f2p player, you could either grind away at SK and deal with lag and frame-skipping to reach the challenging portions of the game and earn sweet weapons, or you could play a refined, smooth multiplayer experience and focus less on getting good gear and more on getting good at the game. in either case, SK is the worse deal, so i find it disappointing that OOO has set the $ price of CE and the CE price of crafting at the levels that they have. you raise a fair point about some people disliking subscription models, though.

Fri, 08/05/2011 - 19:51

#14

Richy

The cost of this game...is

The cost of this game...is absolutely free.

Fri, 08/05/2011 - 20:30

#15

Blue-Asylum

@Obvo, WoW is still going

@Obvo, WoW is still going strong, so those that want the WoW experience probably have gone to WoW. For those that don't want or have already had the WoW experience, pressing on to new games is fun. SK isn't above comparison, I just don't think WoW compares that well, their goals and markets are different. I don't know much about TF2 so it might make for a better comparison.

SK's little secret is it's not about gear but skill. Gear is mistake (and lag) protection but isn't really needed to win, beyond the requirements which hide that secret. I do love my mistake protection. I find the $ > CE pretty good if used wisely and have felt I've certainly had $15 worth of fun and can continue to play the game for free for as long as I want. I do agree about crafting costs. I understand why they did it, but feel it was a poor fix to the problem and ran into trying to control the players experience too much. As someone who sometimes likes to play the markets and auction houses of games I was disappointed when they smothered a good portion of that market.

Sun, 08/07/2011 - 16:52

#16

Business-Lady

I only just started playing

I only just started playing this game, and the game SK reminds me the most is Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst. Small parties (unlike classic MMORPGs), relatively simple gameplay mechanics. PSO:BS was was free when I played it, though I am not sure if it was if it was eventually P2P game (I stopped playing after about a month so if it did go P2P, I dodged it). At the moment, I am not sure if I will end up playing for much more of SK to PSO, I don't see myself beating the same bosses again and again. The reason I've sworn off traditional MMORPGs (UO, EverQuest, presumably WoW though I never bothered with it), is that those games eventually become a game of repetition rather than a game of skill. Now I don't mind an element of repetition if it eventually ends (e.g. levelling single player RPGs), but not in "endless" online games. And though I am sure there is a large difference of skills between a veteran SK player and a beginner like myself, I do think that once you get used to the general AI pattern, it just becomes a case of repeating the same game on different maps, with the monsters behaving the same way (until they add new content).

In that sense, I don't think TF2 is a good comparison due to the nature of the games: SK is PvM oriented whereas TF2 is PvP oriented. The experience is very different when you are playing against other players. Same map with human opponents (even the same players over time) will feel much more different than a somewhat different map but the same AI enemies. And at least in my case, I won't tire of the game as quickly.

I have to say that I am possibly as intrigued by the economic model of the game about as much as I am about the game. Not sure if it's a good thing given that I've only played the game for about a week though ^^; One thing I noticed is how much F2P players like myself are reliant on paid players, and how much CE is purchased relative to the basic need to beat the game. Yes I know that it costs a fair bit to craft 5*, but as long as you aren't UV obsessed or needing to obtain more than the necessary number of weapons, you can probably complete the the necessary gear that would allow a moderately experienced player ("not super l33t I could beat anything in Proto Gear") to beat the game (as in clear T3) not that long after the get go. You can even afford to be a little wasteful by spending CE on CR, effectively giving F2P players to slowly advance into 5*. And I think this is why the cheapest pack is $20 (when it would be trivial to have packs of $5 or $10 - or if they do exist, I do not see them). Even with decreasing returns (say, 3000 for $10), a cautious player can probably hit 5* without unreasonable amount of waiting/grinding waiting in between. Though s/he would not want to sell much of the CE, unless it was clearly profitable (7.5k+) which would heavily damper F2P players (far more than presently). It must be an interesting balancing game on OOO's side: they need to bring enough free players to hopefully bring more players (preferably paid). Given that the CR <-> CE exchange rate is largely governed by supply and demand, they need to ensure that there is enough supply of the purchased only currency in the market so that rate for CE doesn't get so high that people simply leave (complaining on the forum is not quite the same thing as mass exodus).

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the cost of playing spiral knights