Welcome to the best adventure game on the web. And it’s free! Now, how can you advance in the game in a way that’s both efficient and fun?
First, I strongly recommend that you buy some energy with real money, for example, 3500 crystal energy (ce) for $9.95. Although it’s not necessary, it will help you to accomplish many things at a much faster pace. There is a market tab for buying and selling energy. Don’t worry about the crowns (cr = Spiral Knights money) cost of ce because ultimately it won’t matter. When you begin to play, make sure you have enough mist energy (me) and/or ce to complete the Tier with perhaps enough for one or two revives. Keep going down after each level.
There are several ways of gaining wealth while playing. During the course of play, you will acquire materials and crowns. Playing (remember, it’s not work) is the primary way of gaining wealth. You will then sell some of your materials for crowns as well – your secondary way of gaining wealth. Use your wealth to buy recipes for 2* gear. Do not fritter away your money on cute no star or 1* gear. After you have gained access to tier 2, begin buying and reselling recipes from the Basil vendor at level 13 – your third way of gaining wealth. After you have acquired some good recipes that you have used in crafting, consider crafting and selling gear in the auction house. This is a possible fourth way of gaining wealth, but you have to be very shrewd in assessing the costs and profit margins of the gear you are selling. Patiently craft up your gear to 4* level and gain access to tier 3. Now you will start getting to the Basil vendor at level 23. Buying and reselling recipes from here can be hugely profitable – your fifth, and to this point best, way of gaining wealth. As you become familiar with the market for gear, you may begin to buy gear from other players just for this purpose of reselling at a profit. Keep in mind that all of these methods for gaining wealth are just other aspects of the game. It’s all playing. Be kind and polite to your fellow knights, and help out a newbie now and then, too.
How to Gain Wealth in Spiral Knights
I did not necro this thread, I made an edit below which made it change dates. Skip to bottom please these are my month old thoughts
The devs created crystal energy for an economy in their game instead of the make money spend money on whatever type of game you might expect when you begin and go down that first elevator to get to haven, and, probably have no clue what the heck energy is. Facts are facts, and energy is also a way for them to make $$$. Some people feel they need to complain about this, and part of the reason it is so seller dominate in the energy market is because there is too much energy bought with $$$ and too much Crystal Energy out there period, and it is being consumed in very inefficient ways.
I made a new character to play without spending money on energy or sending any energy over from my main to see what it is like. It is literally impossible to play more than 30 minutes in a day when you begin and it will stay that way until you can make the 4k cr every 70 energy you spend doing a JK trash levels run, to maybe make a tiny bit as long as you used mist still. I don't see any way they can make the game possible to play for new players besides waiting an entire day to do a few clockwork levels besides directly reducing the energy cost of the elevators. If they made crown gain increased, all that would happen is energy would cost more since it is so seller dominated. Otherwise, people will continue to leave Spiral Knights as they already are due to the price of energy contantly rising, and that will continue to make it rise since there will be less competition for each and every player that leaves. How its working is a player spends x amount of $$$ on a big amount of energy to sell/use (without the mindset of "I'm going to crash the ce market" because it is not needed), and they sell it based on what they can get in the market. And they might be selling quite a bit. The issue with this is that the economy is gaining energy quicker than we are getting crown equivalents, easily seen as there will be about 7 offers visible in the buying energy with crown category of the market, and sometimes up to 200 in the selling energy for crown category. There are not enough players doing vanaduke trash runs to get a good amount of crown in the market.
So hopefully the devs can read this, they are making money as people buy energy but it is, facts are facts, "slowly ruining their game" for the free / pay moderately playerbase (a big majority) which when there isn't a big playerbase in a game that is lost, you start losing things like the community itself and bringing other issues. The tough part is that new content will not help keep this playerbase since that would be considered a whole other issue.
Remember, this doesn't effect me. I pay to play, and don't mind giving them my money as they created a very badass game and I love them for it as most do and will continue to love the new content. I have a pile of ce on my main, will be able to constantly enjoy the game itself. The only reason i posted this is because i made a new character and test out how free the game actually is, i found out everything that i said and its things that i didnt know or pay attention to before since this was suggested by a friend and sounded fairly interesting and, fun.
originally posted 8/29/11
Edit of 12/31/11 minutes away from 2012: GUYS!!!! this is my old thoughts from months agoT_T please don't necro threads it is confusing! New players are REALLY confused because a lot of this stuff doesn't even apply now!
u r right about gameplay being more difficult cuz u need to pay for CE. i used to get 1hr max gameplay with 100 ME, now i got 3hours cuz i play with *richer* ppl who could add me to their tab (they rarely do though lol) and they revive me. in tier 1m u get barely any rewards for clearing levels, yet it s still 10 CE to use the elevator. with 100 ME, u could make 1-3k cr in tier 1, or up to 4k in tier 2 if u hit treasure vaults. it costs 200cr to go to tier 2 each time, and every time u use an elevator, it costs 10CE! the elevators should be 5-7CE i think. with 10CE, ppl wn't buy CE, cuz it'll disappear in no time (if u r active like me at least). i had a max cr income of 16k crm i used if to buy a needle shot and sumthing else. their weapons overpriced. 3000 cr for a lv1 no UV frosf gun? like wtf. u can find better deals., but still. overallm i think spiral knights shohld lower in game costs such as elevator fees and alchemg fees. to alhemize/craft a 5 star weapon ix costs 800 CE ( so 7k cr X7= approx amount) so maybe 26-28000 cr to get 800 CE or 2100 CE and 100 ME, plus the crown fee of 5000 cr.. if u only get to make 4k cr a day, how can g make a 5 star outfit? ( meaning 2 five star weapons,armor,helm,shield) and trinkets r extra.. i luv the game, graphics nice, u could play 4 free, but u need to pay to rlly enjoy. i have a $25 visa gift card i want to use, but they don't accepf it. i think they should lowervall in game prices, free players will enjoy, and have extra ptofits to share with newbies, and they'll buy more, knowing there money will last. would u rather buy 3500CE for $10 if it'll be done in a week or 3500 CE for same price, but it'll last 2 weeks? u'll buy if it lasts longer right?
but anyways lool, to gain wealth, start a party, get to treasure vaults with least amount of elevators needed to be taken, then when you get there, kick every 1 else and hoard the rewards. then just re-invite them. (jk, dn't do that, it's bad and mean, they paid 10CE to get removed from party?) i fon't remembed ever doing that myself.. just an idea lool. (a bad idea..)
What do you mean, hoard the rewards? Every single crown, heat ember, and token is given to every member of the party, it isn't split up at all. The only thing that is divided are the materials (those are split randomly), and that wouldn't even matter in a treasure vault because there are only a few enemies.
maybe in t1, OOO could lower the CE costs for elevators to 5?
im already t3 and have tons of CE/crs/equipment, but i remember how easy it was to make a decent profit in t1 back when i started, and back then it was 2.8k per 100CE! :P
then i went their today and i could NOT get enough crowns from a full run to buy more CE :(
i think that MAYBE the elevator costs should be 5CE for t1, then when ppl are in t2 they can make enough money to get a profit with 10CE/elevator :/
my suggestion, u can discuss over it and flame/like it, i dont mind :)
T1 gives lower rewards but i'm not sure it would justify essentially doubling it (half elevators costs--> play twice as much).
Just slightly adjust the overall drops.
This thread was omega necrod check dates (I updated my old post and it ended up changing dates so I explained how I didn't necro at top)
A lot of it doesn't even apply anymore like buying recipes for 2 star items.
Trading your tokens for mats that will give you a great amount of cr also helps too
Make sure to get bushes, mailboxes, trashcans, buckets of bolts and stuff.
Btw good post man.