Spiral Knights - Shorten Gate-Change Waits (or?)

Shorten Gate-Change Waits (or?)

5 replies [Last post]

Thu, 09/29/2011 - 21:52

Naniwa

I realize that this isn't the biggest issue for your core casual focus, but gate switch times are awful. Those of us that actually play daily and want to maximize our time spent generally look at a gate map and know what we want to hit. There are various reasons for hitting certain floors, but they generally fall into profitability and challenge. Those two aims often intersect, as well. Our other reason for skipping floors is to avoid weaknesses, most often seen in mixed or elemental strata. Gang, if I missed any reasons, please respond.

So: The simplest proposal is to cut down switch times. I can't see this as problematic; people that used to take breaks before gates would simply change to making use of their facilities, refreshing their drinks, whatever, afterwards. Those in a rush would still bull through and take whatever they get.

An alternate idea, which I do hate a bit, is that we be charged a few energy to "skip ahead". If waiting for gates was a very important part of game design (which it never should have been), then here's the alternative. Charge us a scant (and by scant, 1-3 ce seems fair. I can always diddle my thumbs in the meantime) fee for the convenience of "skipping ahead".

Personally, I'm tired of looking at a gate and knowing that I'll have a half-hour of downtime just so I can get to the gates that I want. This stops the game from being casual at all.

Fri, 09/30/2011 - 00:02

Plaguerider

-1

Lol are you kidding me? You want to shorten the time of an already abused system? People already take advantage of the game by waiting for arena gates so they can easily get more crowns than they would had they taken a predetermined path. Not a chance in my opinion. I already suggested that there be a payed crowns fee to change the rotation. Honestly every level being randomized would be better. I don't think it is fair for people to abuse the arenas. I suppose it is, but it ruins the focal achievement of collecting crowns and heat.

Fri, 09/30/2011 - 04:00

Algol-Sixty

You want to shorten the time

You want to shorten the time of an already abused system? People already take advantage of the game by waiting for arena gates so they can easily get more crowns than they would had they taken a predetermined path.

It is pretty clear that OOO intended people to be able to choose which floors the get, what with the floor being displayed, the gate map, etc., choosing is not "abusing". A system that encourages people to wait long periods of time is simply bad game design though. Waiting 10-45 minutes isn't a problem for people who have lot of time, but it encourages players of SK to go off and play some other game while they wait and hurts casual players.

Your objection about arenas would best be addressed by fixing arenas. I often wait for different floors for other reasons, such as when I'm hunting warp dust/bushy tails, I'll skip a construct floor and take the wolver den. If there is a stratum that has only a single floor with shadow, I may change my armor/weapons to deal with other everything else and skip the shadow floor if it happens to come up. I personally find deconstruction zones boring, and will often wait for those to cycle out. When new floors come out, such as the candlestick keep, I'll go out of my way to play it.

Being able to choose floors is no different from being able to choose gates and tiers on a gate. OOO wants you to be able to choose, but with a cost. OOO designed reasonable costs for choosing gates/tiers, but they cost they chose for floors is bad for the game.

Shortening the wait time is the best fix that I've heard of, although if someone thinks of a better, I would be quite happy. Having crown (or CE) costs, however, is a bad idea. If the fee is too high, people will just wait. If the fee is low enough for new players to take advantage of being able to choose, then the cost would be almost irrelevant to experienced players.

Fri, 09/30/2011 - 10:43

Plaguerider

You think that was intended?

You think that was intended? Then you're a fool. No it wasn't 'intended'. The only reason we know the gates change is because someone got lucky and saw the screen change. And of course it is kind of obvious. But no. I do not think that the intended plan was to have players wait around for the next gate of their choice, other-wise they'd be able to pull up a screen on the elevator and hand pick the gate they want. And yes it is abused! Only selfish players would think it isn't.

If choosing floors were no different from choosing gates, then there wouldn't be a timed rotation. There'd be a hell of a lot more gates, and a one way stream of levels. I'm honestly shocked at how convinced you are.

This has nothing to do with poor game design, the only reason this is an issue is because players found out the system, cracked it, and now abuse it.

Fri, 09/30/2011 - 11:27

Quotefanboy

Not intended?

If it wasn't intended it wouldn't be in the game. If it wasn't intended it would have been fixed already.
I mean mystery dungeon even makes it to where you can't tell what the elevators on. Therefore you can't abuse the system. Obviously they're aware, and obviously it's not being removed. Therefore, it's intentional.

Enough said.

Fri, 09/30/2011 - 14:59

Algol-Sixty

I do not think that the

I do not think that the intended plan was to have players wait around for the next gate of their choice, other-wise they'd be able to pull up a screen on the elevator and hand pick the gate they want.

You are obviously not a programmer if you think that there would, of course, be a screen that would let you pick the next level.

Showing the next floor on the elevator, with symbols and colors to let players know what they are getting into is probably fairly easy. Creating a gate map display so that people can get even more detailed information is probably not much work either. Having the next floor change instead of being fixed when you start the level could be a bit of work, depending on how the data structures are set up, but they did it.

Basically, OOO put work into doing everything that is both simple to do and needed to let players choose the next floor. If they didn't want people to choose, there are likely *very* simple things to stop it. If they didn't want people to choose, I doubt they would have gone through all the effort that they did.

Creating a GUI display that lets a player change stuff is, however, a classic example of what programmers call "small matter of programming" situation. I could easily see a large number of problems that could make it both messy and hard to do. Such gotchas is why I suspect just speeding up the floor rotation would be the simplest, and mostly likely fix that OOO would do.

Floor rotations is a very simple way of creating a very large number of potential paths, the coral serpent gate for example has the potential for over a billion different paths. From a programming point of view, they way they did it almost certainly much simpler than creating hundreds of thousands of gates. Having the rotations change dynamically means that players have to pay a "small" cost to choose the next floor, much like you have to pay a small cost if you want to deeper tiers when you haven't already reached those tiers from above (e.g. 200cr for T2, 500cr for T3).

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Shorten Gate-Change Waits (or?)