Spiral Knights - Newcomer's Thoughts on Energy

Newcomer's Thoughts on Energy

25 replies [Last post]

Mon, 08/08/2011 - 20:03

Antistone

Legacy Username

Started playing Spiral Knights last Thursday; just made tier 2. Haven't spent any real money, but I've bought 3 or 4 hundred CE with crowns. The wiki is great.

Overall, I like the energy system. Naturally, it would be more convenient to me not to have to buy energy at all, but I think this is a reasonable and elegant compromise between various interests; some people pay dollars for rapid advancement, other people pay crowns to get their game subsidized, it's free for the people willing to work with the system and the developers still make money.

However, there are a few details with the implementation that really turn me off:

1. "Wasted" Mist Energy

If you're going to give me a limited budget of free energy, I really don't want to feel like I'm wasting any. But it's hard to spend down to 0 when a tier 1 run takes 60+ and a tier 2 run takes 80+ and a full bar is 100. I could do a partial run, but the top stratum of any tier is substantially less rewarding than the bottom, so it FEELS very inefficient. I could hypothetically log on and play at whatever hour of the day or night my energy bar fills up, but that's just not realistic. I want to be able to log on once a day, play a logical and reasonably efficient chunk, and not waste much of my mist energy.

Suggestions:

A. Add a system for beginning in strata 2, 4, and 6, similar to the existing one for starting in strata 3 or 5.
B. Add an option to move "horizontally" to the other areas at a given depth, so I can spend off excess energy adventuring at the bottom of a tier without starting over. (Optionally, this might also increase the incentive to run non-boss levels, since they'll have more horizontal space.)
C. Increase maximum mist energy to approximately one day's worth of regeneration PLUS the cost of a full-tier run, so that if I have not-quite-enough energy right now, I can log off for a day without wasting my regeneration. (I realize changing the maximum has ripple effects; see below.)

On a related note, it would be nice if mist tanks allowed you to momentarily exceed your maximum, or were handed out in increments smaller than a full bar. If I need 10 for a lift, and I've got 5 plus a mist tank, I'd like to end up with 95 after using the lift, not 90.

2. Energy for Crafting

To craft a set of 2-star or higher gear for the minimum amount of crystal energy requires several days of NOT playing to save up the mist. To be unable to play, especially right when I've got a cool new toy, is very frustrating. Even more so recently, when I was all excited to finally try out tier 2 and I suddenly realized that all my energy would be gone after I crafted the items needed to enter.

Plus, while I don't especially mind crystal energy being required for high-level crafting, telling me that I can use either mist or crystal energy for anything and then setting the price higher than the mist maximum FEELS like a bait-and-switch. It also seems ugly from a design perspective, since it means the mist energy maximum is magically tied in to all your prices and you can never change it (even temporarily or under special circumstances) without butterfly effects throughout your economy.

Suggestion:

Make it so that mist energy CANNOT be spent on crafting (or only in very small amounts; maybe 10/item) and reduce crafting costs appropriately (whatever that means). It makes the CE cost more transparent, it avoids taking the players out of the game whenever they craft, and it frees you to mess with the max mist energy whenever you feel circumstances warrant (well, I suppose you'd have to make similar changes to some other shops for that last part to be true). You can say that stable energy is required to create permanent items.

If you're concerned it will be too easy to flood the market with crafted items when crafters aren't waiting for mist, you could compensate by:

A. Put a recharge time on crafting. A global one would be OK, though an independent per-recipe one could hinder mass production while having almost zero effect on people crafting items for themselves.
B. Bind on crafting. Allow use of mist energy for unbinding (might need to rebalance costs).
C. Put some additional limit on volume of crafting.

3. Costs vs. Earnings

Having reached tier 2, it feels quite nice to be able to go on a clockwork run using crystal energy and make more crowns than that energy cost on the exchange. It would have been really nice if I could have felt that way at tier 1. I actually recorded my money and did some math, and determined that I was very close to the break-even point at current energy prices (a little over 50cr/en), but that my average was a bit below, and even if I got lucky I wouldn't make noticeable profit.

I realize the exchange prices are set by players. I don't know what they've been in the past, what are the dominant factors in determining them, or what side-effects would accompany a drop in price. But I think the game would be much more welcoming to new players if you figured out some way for tier 1 knights to pay their elevator fare at the equivalent of about 40 crowns per energy, or otherwise change things so that they can make a noticeable (if small) profit adventuring beyond their mist allotment.

Maybe that would already happen if you implemented suggestion 1A or 1B above to let players spend more time in stratum 2; maybe you can tweak prices or drop tables so market forces cause it with minimum disruption; maybe you'd have to invent some sort of special new resource that can only be spent on tier 1 elevators and nothing else. I honestly don't know, and now that I'm at tier 2 it probably won't affect me much regardless, but I really think this would be a good idea and would make me feel better about introducing friends to the game.

I apologize if this has all been said before; I am new, after all. But these are things that seem like they could be changed without upsetting the basic model and could have greatly reduced my frustration with the system as a new player.

Mon, 08/08/2011 - 20:07

Soulstaker

No mist with crafting is

No mist with crafting is good.you want to spend ten thousand crowns to get the energy than five thousand?

Mon, 08/08/2011 - 21:29

Antistone

Legacy Username

That's where the "and reduce

That's where the "and reduce crafting costs appropriately" part comes in.

I already have the option to pay the entire cost in CE. I'm saying that the ME cost should be eliminated and everything rebalanced accordingly, not that it should be converted 1:1 into a mandatory CE cost. That would be dumb.

Mon, 08/08/2011 - 22:53

Vesuvius

Legacy Username

I've been thinking of tweaks

I've been thinking of tweaks to the energy system as well. Banning mist energy from crafting and making all crafting less expensive would probably work as you described, and it would make tweaks like those I'm proposing in my thread easier.

There's still a huge flaw with the idea though, it's that it breaks the beauty and simplicity of the game. Anything that costs energy can be paid by any kind of energy; need more energy? just buy some. It makes the whole system easy to understand, and I don't see introducing complexity such as two kinds of energy one of which can't be used for crafting as a good move.

The fact that you create your cool new item and want to play with it right away is I think the essence of how this game nags you for money... it's a bit different than most free-to-play MMOs which don't charge for play time. I find it frustrating as well as I decided to stop spending money on games for a few months, but on the positive side not playing for hours on end is good for our health :P .

Of course they could do like some other FTP MMOs (LOTRO and DDO I'm looking at you) and instead of an energy system, make the grinding painfully slow and sell us loot multipliers, and sell "mission packs" for access to the coolest areas such as boss fights, etc.

Tue, 08/09/2011 - 01:25

Antistone

Legacy Username

I disagree. Making energy

I disagree. Making energy completely interchangeable would be beautiful and elegant IF you could actually buy everything with 100% mist energy (even if it took multiple installments), but having a magic number above which energy prices implicitly change from "either energy" to "crystal energy only" is inelegant, confusing, and opaque. There was a thread just today from a new player who couldn't figure out how he's even supposed to pay a cost of 200 energy for 3-star crafting; reasoning out all the implications of the cost requires several logical steps and various background knowledge about the game.

Having the crafting tutorial flat-out tell you that you need crystal energy (click here for more info!) would be much easier for players to learn, in addition to untying the developers' hands with respect to tweaking the mist rules. Players already need to understand that there are 2 kinds of energy and that one of them is limited in ways the other is not; this is just one more limitation. CE would still do everything that ME does, just not the other way around--which is the de facto rule already.

As far as making money, I think anyone willing to buy CE in order to craft and adventure in the same day is probably already willing to buy CE to adventure MORE in the same day. I suspect they'd make more money by NOT turning off the players who are trying to use the minimum CE, by NOT appearing that they're trying to trick or coerce them. Of course, that's just my personal conjecture; I've got no data to back it up.

Tue, 08/09/2011 - 02:13

GoottiKustaa

Legacy Username

Just put a reminder that CE

Just put a reminder that CE can be bought and is needed for crafting. Leave the energy system as it is. It is in fact quite simple.

You could just put a CE autobuy feature on crafting stations to show teh additional crown cost of the extra energy you need, that would avoid newbs not realizing that you can buy CE. In fact, that would be a good system in any case. Even if it only allows buying in lots of 100CE.

The crafting system should not change, since players have already invested into the current system and that might punish them needlessly. If it really was broken, fixing it would be ok, but I don't see the brokenness.

Some people claim that needing CE for anything is not "free to play" but that is just silly. You can play for free and make enough crowns to buy the CE you need.

Tue, 08/09/2011 - 02:18

Jonanlsh

Simpler idea

The Energy Market should allow purchasing of energy in smaller energy increments. Buying 100 CE is good and all, but being able to purchase smaller units of CE as it is needed would help beginner players who are crafting. They use up all their ME in crafting, then when it comes to purchasing CE they have enough crowns for less than the 100 CE. Allow the selling of CE in units of 10, not 100.

Tue, 08/09/2011 - 07:17

Starlinvf

I wanna point out the section

I wanna point out the section about odds numbered stratum rewards being lower..... the whole point of that is to encourage full runs of the Tier. If people could farm the same amount of crowns out of the early stratum, there'd be no point in going to the late stratum other then bosses. The monsters are a lot weaker, access is effortless, and Basil is at the terminal.... everyone would just repeat until rich.

Tue, 08/09/2011 - 10:43

Antistone

Legacy Username

@GoottiKustaa: Players have

@GoottiKustaa:

Players have not INVESTED into the current system, they have merely USED the current system. I'm not suggesting they delete all previously-obtained recipes and crafted items or anything.

You could argue that ANY change that makes the game better is in some sense punishing those who played the game before. From new content to improved balance to slicker UI, people who played in the past didn't have whatever the new feature is, and therefore spent their time playing a game that was not quite as good as the one available now. Does that mean that improving the game is somehow a bad thing? Rubbish.

And I'm not suggesting removing the CE cost of crafting, I'm suggesting removing the ME cost. Your last paragraph is arguing against a straw man that's exactly the OPPOSITE of what I suggested.

@starlinvf:

Yes, obviously. That's why not a single one of my suggestions involved making the rewards for the first stratum in a tier as high as the rewards for the second. Rest easy; no one is proposing anything like that.

Tue, 08/09/2011 - 12:40

Starlinvf

@Antistone - You pointed it

@Antistone - You pointed it out as being a waste of mist energy.

Quote -
A. Add a system for beginning in strata 2, 4, and 6, similar to the existing one for starting in strata 3 or 5.
B. Add an option to move "horizontally" to the other areas at a given depth, so I can spend off excess energy adventuring at the bottom of a tier without starting over. (Optionally, this might also increase the incentive to run non-boss levels, since they'll have more horizontal space.)
C. Increase maximum mist energy to approximately one day's worth of regeneration PLUS the cost of a full-tier run, so that if I have not-quite-enough energy right now, I can log off for a day without wasting my regeneration. (I realize changing the maximum has ripple effects; see below.)

Your proposing to bypass the less profitable stratums, which has the same overall affect as increasing the rewards sans Basil... So again, no one would bother with the early tiers. Players can still bypass them now, but it takes coordination (or blind luck) for someone to act as an anchor, and there are features in place to discourage that. The increased rate of crowns would directly cause inflation in CE as it always does.

As for removing ME from crafting, that hurts players even more then it could ever help. Reducing energy costs once again encourages rage crafters, and messes with the overall economy. Secondly, it forces newer players to purchase CE for low star crafting, which will see a price jump due to crafters high rate of consumption. On top of that, it gives the impression that you "NEED" to buy CE from the site to even do crafting, which isn't remotely true. Even without the price reduction, that means you have to do a few runs in the clock works to get enough money to cover a 50CE cost.... when you could had just used mist energy instead is down right confusing. Energy is Energy.... if you have 100CE and 100ME, it costed you 200 to craft an item, and now you have no energy to go into the clocks works. If this some how surprised you..... Jeff Foxworthy would like you to be on his game show.

The overall energy system is well balanced in its current state, and changes in one area can destabilize every other market segment in the game. Just look at the power surge weekends when CE prices jumped slightly from the activity. Thankfully it wasn't enough time to cause any lasting inflation. As for the guy that couldn't figure out 200 energy, thats not a problem with the system, its an educational issue that can be solved with a better tutorial.

Tue, 08/09/2011 - 16:58

#10

insanephoton

Legacy Username

Some thoughts...

I agree with most posters that there isn't really a problem with the energy system as it is and changing it wouldn't really help. Making mist energy non craftable would hurt those of us who don't always have time for a full run everyday. Sometimes I might not feel like playing or only have a short time to play, so I craft a couple of 2* items to sell. This means that I don't feel that I've wasted a days worth of mist energy and hopefully make some profit to go towards buying some CE or something that I want for the days that I do have time to play

The tutorials could be better on most aspects of the game, there seems to be an assumption that people will read the wikis. If most people are like me, then you don't start reading wikis until you are already well into a game.

As for the original feeling of ME going to waste... if you're sure you won't need to revive, how about spending it on opening treasure/danger rooms or reviving mecha-knights? It may not be hugely profitable ( though danger rooms can be worth it) or efficient but isn't thismeant to be fun?

It would be nice if the treasure in treasure rooms was worth the 3 energy cost and also if mecha-knights stayed with you until either they were destroyed or you returned to haven

Wed, 08/10/2011 - 01:01

#11

GoottiKustaa

Legacy Username

@GoottiKustaa:Players have

@GoottiKustaa:

Players have not INVESTED into the current system, they have merely USED the current system. I'm not suggesting they delete all previously-obtained recipes and crafted items or anything.

And I'm not suggesting removing the CE cost of crafting, I'm suggesting removing the ME cost. Your last paragraph is arguing against a straw man that's exactly the OPPOSITE of what I suggested.

My last commet was not to your idea directly, just an indication of my general frustration on the energy related complaints and suggestions. Usually they stem from some idea that the game does not allow you to play enough to be called a "free to play game".

Slicker UI would be exactly stuff like I proposed. An autobuy feature for crafting stations to buy the CE would help newbies to see that you can replace CE with crowns, in case they did not "get it".

Wed, 08/10/2011 - 03:22

#12

Fraxur

They should reallly change

They should reallly change the crafting costs, a 1* needs 10 energy and a 2* needs 50 energy, a difference of 40 energy but 3* needs 200 energy which is difference of 150 energy from 2*s which is a HUGE jump. I think a more reasonable crafting price would be 150 energy for 3*, 300 energy for 4* and 600* energy for 5*. The old crafting price was 3* 100, 4* 200 and 5* 300, I had 2* everything plus a 3* sword when it changed and I was quite angry at how the price rised so much, I would probably be in all 4* plus one or two 5* weeks ago with the old price whereas I only just got all my 4* (excluding my gun) yesterday with the new price.

Wed, 08/10/2011 - 03:41

#13

Jeffreysgf

Not free to play

GoottiKustaa, I would say if CE is required for anything, then it is not free to play, at least for that. Currently, it is not free to play T3, or even get 3* stuff. Someone must pay for that, it can be you if you buy CE with real money, or someone else if you buy it with crowns. Regardless, that is paid for, and therefore not free. It might be free to you, but OOO is still charging for it.

Spiral Knights is not free to play, it offers a free demo, which if you want more content, someone must pay for it. If you want to play for more than around 2 hours per day, someone must pay for it. If you want to get 3* stuff (excluding boss rewards from T2 bosses), someone must pay for it. If you want access to T3, someone must pay for it. This is not free to play, if it was, no one would need to pay, it is just shifting the cost onto someone else.
If it really was free to play, then everyone should be able to stop paying real money, and still have everyone (including newcomers) have the same experience, everyone should still be able to get 5* stuff, go to T3 and beat Vanduke, which they wouldn't be able to.

Edit: Fixed typos.

Wed, 08/10/2011 - 06:35

#14

GoottiKustaa

Legacy Username

Having spent real money, I

Having spent real money, I really don't feel like I paid for someone else's stuff.
I paid OOO for making the game interesting enough, and got something in return.

It really gets into semantics to claim that this game is not F2P. I can promote it to my friends as F2P with pay to get faster results, and none of them will complain to me that "it is not really free to play".

As long as there are people who are willing to pay a sufficient amount for it, the game will exist - otherwise OOO will not keep it up.
From this, we can see that as long as the game is economically viable to OOO, there is CE in the market to be bought without paying for it in real money - Essentially Free To Play for those who want to do so.

It really is free to play in that sense.

If you think otherwise, I really don't care. I just am against the general attitude that some posters have that everything should be doable with mist energy (but getting off-topic in this thread now...)

Wed, 08/10/2011 - 08:37

#15

Soulstaker

Why take away mist from

Why take away mist from crafting?that's just bull crap.

Wed, 08/10/2011 - 08:39

#16

Xylka-Mkii

@jeffreysgf

I agree with GoottiKustaa.
It is free to play. ALSO crowns are a virtual in-game currency that can be EARNED infinitely. You use Mist energy that is ALSO INFINITE to gain crowns to get Crystal energy needed to craft higher level items. All Three Rings is doing is saying: Ok so you played the game enough and know how the game works. You now have EARNED the CE to Upgrade to these better equips. Have fun.

Now listen. I have played the game and bought only the starter pack which i used up very fast and only about 1600ce inreal life money.
HOWEVER, since spending up that ce crafting and runing the clockworks, I have been able to save up 1000ce buying with crowns only.
It isnt thathard to get to 3* gear. If you are smart and are careful about how you spend energy, you can easily make it to 3*. My freind who has NEVER bought ce with real money got to 3* gear within DAYS not weeks or months. DAYS. It wasn't hard for him and he plays less than me.

LEAVE THE SYSTEM AS IT IS
one tweak could SEVERLY hurt the majority of players
Its free to play since spending crowns does not give real life money to Three Rings thus its still free.
And a lot of other MMOs cost a regularly input of money to play. We are lucky this isnt one of them.

Wed, 08/10/2011 - 10:57

#17

Antistone

Legacy Username

Well, thank you all for

Well, thank you all for crushing my hopes that the forum would be populated by reasonable and helpful people. Let's see, we've got a holy war on semantics that isn't even related to the threat topic, we've got rampant burning of straw men, and we've got doomsayers who can't even form a syllogism but who are convinced that making even the slightest change to any part of the game will utterly wreck it. Good crew.

I came here hoping the devs might read and consider my ideas. Now I find myself hoping that they never read this forum at all.

Wed, 08/10/2011 - 11:53

#18

Naruchico

Yup

Don't waste your time with change, thoughts of change are bad...if anything where to change on SK every other moron that pilfers the forums here will whine till it gets turned back.

I came here with a lot of nice idea's to make the game more free to play....got the same crowd of "get over it" "its fine" "don't change anything it'll ruin the game".

only advice I can give you is, the forum is where all the older paying players, and right wing nut-jobs come to guarantee a good idea is shot down.

so don't waste your time here, might as well start a guild in-game and then bring that following here, at-least they will actually like an idea, compared to these worms.

Wed, 08/10/2011 - 12:00

#19

Soulstaker

Only thing I don't like is we

Only thing I don't like is we can't craft with mist.I want mist to be to craft with.Rest are fine

Wed, 08/10/2011 - 14:01

#20

Orangeo

I understand not crafting

I understand not crafting with mist for higher level items, but think of the children (noobs). If they re-fit energy costs to not need mist, noobs would have to buy a whole 100 CE to make an item that might only need 10. On three star items and up however, this sounds somewhat useful. Everything else I generaly agree with, but it feels like too much separate information to carry on a conversation with.

Wed, 08/10/2011 - 23:22

#21

Psychorazer

HUH!?

You CAN craft with mist! I made my Tempered calibur with mist and 100 ce!

Thu, 08/11/2011 - 00:59

#22

GoottiKustaa

Legacy Username

I still don't understand how

I still don't understand how "you are taken out of the game" when you craft. You can just use CE to adventure if you already used your mist to craft. CE and mist are interchangeable in that way. They have the same value, as long as you can spend all our mist (e.g "no overflow"). In fact, crafting with mist is better because then you are guaranteed not to "overflow" your mist if you have less playtime. Removing mist crafting would not flood market with anything, it would instead shrink the market of cheap items since some people use their mist to craft when they have no time to play that day - this keeps the prices of low tier items quite low in the AH for newbs to buy them - not a bad thing IMO.

No need to get agressive about someone not agreeing with your idea. If you don't want criticism, don't post it for public review.

Thu, 08/11/2011 - 01:35

#23

Psychorazer

Oops..

Just realised how stupid I sounded. NVM! Ignore my last post!

And dude, I'm NOT trying to crush your hopes. I always get really annoyed that I always run out of energy. But that's the game. The point is to get you annoyed at how little you are getting in the lower teir and so practically force you to try to get into the higher Tiers for more profit.

SK has their reasons for most of what they do. Asking for compromises is ok, but see if you can provide ideas along similar lines that are more realistic.

No offence if there is any.

Thu, 08/11/2011 - 10:59

#24

Soulstaker

SK is forcing you to buy

SK is forcing you to buy CE.Most people buy 750 CE for three bucks because it's like cheap.

Thu, 08/11/2011 - 15:57

#25

Starlinvf

using political terms in a

using political terms in a non-political discussion doesn't really help your credibility. Radical changes to anything often fail from either the backlash from poor understanding of the new system, or simply being a bad idea from the getgo. Smaller changes are easier to predict, and can change course far easier then when redesigning an entire system that wasn't broken to begin with. I'm sure they teach this in business school, but doesn't seem like anyone pays attention to it.

The system as is does exactly what its designed to do, and does it far better then 80% of the cash shop models used in F2P games. The only thing left to argue is the actual price.

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Newcomer's Thoughts on Energy