I agree BUT, SK is still relatively young and lockdown is just an event. The game doesnt really have any permanent pvp game yet since it's still called an event. I think and I hope lockdown is like a dry run for what OOO plan to be the permanent pvp system.

In your final paragraph, you state: "Lockdown isn't fun."

I think it's fun. I am pretty sure lots of people think it's fun.

If you don't like it, don't play it. You stated you'd rather run clockworks. So run clockworks.

Last time I checked, Spiral Knights is a game. It's for enjoyment purposes. Points 2 & 3 on your rant are all about how lockdown is a bad way to advance your character. Again, if your goal in SK is to advance your character and you feel this way, then don't play lockdown.

What is exactly your suggestion?

Also, I don't believe it's so unbalanced. Yes Faust is a great weapon for PvP but that's only because no one wears shadow defense. I have elemental defense and DA, which damage is equivalent to GF, gets greatly reduced. Same thing with for flourish, except that this one is way faster. Pulsar doesn't give me any kind of problem.

i have to disagree

1st thers no lack of balance other than latency issues for which pvp alone isnt to blame..any1 can equip any item

2nd the rewards are very well worth it, u could even make money selling mod calibrators

3rd waste of money yes, waste of time no

many ppl asked for pvp and its been introduced very long ago and was released much later

Nah, i dot think its rewarding... Well yes mod calibrators can give you some crowns but it's a really low payout for the time you spent getting them. I agree that it's fun but its not rewarding. As for the 'balance' issue, i think it's pretty balanced since as no said, anyone can equip anything. However if you're talking about classes, i think there's some imbalance there.

"Which is exactly why you see teams full of strikers, with an occasional guardian or recon."

What? Guardian/recon is the best two man combo in the game.

Lockdown isn't a loss of time as long as it's fun.

Balance isn't such a problem, I just think Strikers were designed way too weak (paper-like). I'm isolating that sentence because Strikers are the only ones that still get two-hits killed, while recons/guardians easily can require 4 sword hits, or even more.

The real issue about Lockdown is lag like Zelda-title-man said: it's highly unbalanced depending on where you play from. Usually if you're not a US/American (North and South of course lol) you'll get an outstanding (but normal) 150+ ms ping, and unfortunately in such a small lapse of time plenty things can happen during a game and cause your unexpected death, like the characters disposal on the screen alterated due to the latency, which may lead you to react wrongly, or a recon cloak nearby warning displaying too late for you to react to the uncoming attack, or even 200ms during which you could have run away closely from an attack but get hit instead, with usually no chance to run away afterwards.
Due to that, I can't play Lockdown at night at my time. It's unbearable due to the gap between US (and every other country nearby) and the rest of the side communities- French, Spanish and German -, added to Asian/Australian/African players. And apparently OOO isn't willing to focus anytime on that kind of issue. What's more I still recall online games such as PSOI&II on Dreamcast/Gamecube, developped by SEGA, were running on 56K modems connection and didn't suffer such latency issues. Consterning, since apparently SEGA is also affiliated to OOO on the Spiral Knights project.

Wow, you just really like to complain, don't you.

I didn't insult you. I read your post and you complained very vocally about Lockdown. You stated that it's not fun, not balance, not profitable, and not rewarding. My response basically boiled down to "If you hate it and like the other parts of the game, then avoid it."

In fact, you insulted me first. In the OP: "Lockdown isn't fun and no sane person would ever play it." So apparently myself and many others are not sane.

Do I think lockdown efficiently advances your character? No, I don't. Do I have fun playing lockdown? Yeah I do. Have I ever been top damage dealer in a lockdown match? As a matter of fact, no. Do I play lockdown regularly? Yeah.

"My true goal here is to have a serious discussion on how we can improve lockdown by making it balanced, fair and fun for both teams." Really? Because it sure looks like you've done nothing but complain how "imbalanced, unfair, tedious" etc it is and then yell at anyone who isn't agreeing with you. What exactly are your suggestions for improving Lockdown?

"If we see a recipe or hat we might want from Sullivan, we are given the incentive to play lockdown until we get that item we wish to have, no matter how long it takes because that is a goal we have set out to achieve." Well, you said yourself in the OP that you consider all of the equipment trash that isn't worth obtaining... so no problem for you there.

Also, I think you are very confused about the definition of logic...

1 - Game consists of Activity A & Activity B
2 - Activity B is a sub-activity that is not required to play game
3 - Renpartycat enjoys activity A
4 - Renpartycat does not enjoy Activity B
5 - Renpartycat believes that nothing obtained from participating in Activity B enhances Game

1 & 2 are facts. 3, 4, & 5 you stated in your OP. Looking at those five pieces of information, how is it illogical for me to state you should participate in Activity A and avoid Activity B? Combining these 5 pieces of information, we can see that you do not lose anything by not participating in Activity B.

Oh wait... I forgot the other part!

6 - Other people enjoy Activity B
7 - Renpartycat insists the makes of Game should completely change it to match his wants.

Logically, what does this state about Renpartycat?

As for implying you don't know what a video game is, I didn't really mean the statement to be insulting. BUT I DO NOW!!!
"Not everyone plays it for fun." - It's a video game, if you're not having fun then why are you playing?
"If you think advancement and goals are unnecessary, you are not human." - Again, this is a video game. This is not improving yourself as a person or a society improving itself or having goals within your life. It's a video game! There are plenty of video games were you don't advance your character within the framework of the game. And a vast majority of online pvp games fall into this category. MMORPG PVP is unique in that it combines a leveling/ skill acquiring/ gear collecting game with combat with other people.

Renny, you do yourself a disservice.

"I don't care what anyone thinks about lockdown. I'm trying to show the truth about this mini-game, and get my voice heard by the community" and then later "I simply want lockdown to be enjoyable for everyone who plays Spiral Knights. Is that so much to ask for?"

First off, if you're trying to get people to agree with you then you obviously DO care what they think. You need them to agree with you or you're a lone voice, and a lone voice very rarely does anything. Second, trying to make everybody happy is impossible. You can make some people happy some of the time, and other people happy the rest of the time, but you can never make everybody happy all of the time. And third, when people are trying to show "the truth" it usually means they're trying to convince you of their agenda. Just look at the Democrat and Republican parties, or the Mormons that have my door slammed in their face on a weekly basis. (*Note to self: send them a bill for the dents in my door.*)

The issue is not the classes. Strikers move fast as hell, but are also squishy as hell. 2 shots from a GF/DA and they're dead unless they have some kind of significant health boost. Recons are assassins through and through, no other class can just sneak in and with the right timing down you before you knew they were there. And have you ever played against a team of Guardians? Talk about hard to kill. Nor is it the weapons which do exactly what they're supposed to, big damage (Otherwise what was the point of getting them to 5*? ). No, the issue is that the armor defense does next to nothing for T3 lockdown. The armor just doesn't translate nearly as well to PvP as the weapons do. You can 2 hit a Striker wearing Dread Skelly with a Gran Faust just as easily as a person wearing Vog. People realized this rather quickly, hence why you don't see a lot of variety for armor. If the defense is meaningless then people use whatever they feel gives them the best advantage: ASI, CTR, damage, health, etc. And will stay that way until the armor is buffed for PvP (not PvE where its fine).

And it being "hardly rewarding/waste of time and money". PvP is a mini game, it can not be as rewarding as PvE or the need for CE will be drastically reduced and OOO will watch their profits drop. If you really want to make some kind of profit off it then turn your coins into mod calibrators, I think they're worth 10k each still, should give a decent profit assuming you are good enough to break even on your matches. As for waste of time/money. It's a game, you play it for fun. Sure you also play it if you want the tokens for a specific item, but a lot of the people playing do it for fun (as should be obvious by the replies saying just that). When you steamroll the other team its kind of meh, but when you get a close match its a blast.

Oh... and how is that WHB coming along?

~Gwen

I, for one, approve of this post. Right now the PvP in this game is terrible, but could possibly be fixed with some adjustments. Now, before I post anything, I'd like to say to those who will post, "DURRHURHUR U DN'T KNO WAT UR SYING UR A 4* BOMER U SHUD UZE SWORDS LEIK A REL PLYER111" to go [hug] yourselves. I've been playing WoW PvP on a PvP server since WoW has been released, and have been playing League of Legends and Team Fortress 2 for quite some time. I have also played Lockdown since its creation, so I know my way around the PvP map.

Strikers are the worst contender here, and battles will be filled with them for a good reason. Strikers get nothing but benefits with nothing as a reliable trade-off. What striker would use bombs, really? (bombs will be explained later) In my opinion, the sword damage and attack speed bonuses should be removed from the Strike Booster. Yep, removed. This way, it will be impossible to max out melee damage and attack speed outside of unique variants. There should also be a handgun attack speed/damage penalty, the bomb and health penalty should stay as it is. I see strikers working like the scout in TF2: their strength lies in the ability to be all over the map and to be able to run in, hit somebody, and run back out, but their trade-off would be the inability to use ranged weapons and being fragile.

Guardians cannot guard, period, but this is probably because they can't deal with the huge amount of damage from a striker, so fixing them could also fix the guardians as well. A buff in defense might be in order: the AoE shield should probably only be a buff that cuts enemy damage and doesn't cause the shield to break faster, and the healing regeneration should be buffed as well to about 1 bar per second. Also, the bomb CTR could be buffed to medium, and the sword attack speed can stay. Guardians should be like the tanks in League of Legends and other mobas, in that they're not really meant to do damage, but rather support their teammates, in this case a shield and healing, as well as make "player aggro" and make players want to zerg them and kill them fast, which will probably be easier said than done if your teammates are trying to kill them.

Recons, in my opinion, are fine as they are. Handgun attack speed could be replaced with gun damage, but otherwise good job! :P

Swords, by design, are the strongest and most reliable source of damage. They have to be. A swordsman has to be up close and personal with enemies, which will in turn attack them if they don't throw their shields up fast enough, just so that swordsmen can deal some damage. Therefore, these swords need to have high damage so that it will be worthwhile. That said, they're fine as they are. And probably don't need any bonuses outside of armor, trinkets, and UVs.

Guns trade out most of this damage for the ability to deal damage at a range. In PvP, people usually go for ones with fast projectile speed, namely the Antigua guns and Blitz Needle. Therefore, attack speed probably won't be an issue, and people would rather go for handgun damage.

Bombs trade out the ability to rapidly spam attacks for AoE damage and reliable statuses. That said, bombs probably won't be as good of a source of PvP damage like the swords and guns are, but what they to give is a great form of defense. The "ring" surrounding the bombs is what really kills them, as it gives off too much of a warning and lets them know exactly how far to run away. It's why the shard bombs work well, and why Polaris is such a dominant weapon - they don't give out rings or patterns showing where they'll explode and how wide of an explosion they'll be. The enemies should not be able to see these rings, and you shouldn't see theirs.

I guess I'm the only one that considers the 5* trinkets as God-level equips here.

Loved them so much, made two of each of the sword trinkets. Hilariously enough, the CTR ones end up being used the least for me.

No one is forcing you to play lockdown, besides if you don't like the fairness of the weapons go get yourself one. The only person who can solve your problem is you. Go out there and melt some faces ;D

Renpartycat: if you're after a serious discussion, why do you throw your toys out of the pram whenever somebody disagrees with you? Have you ever seen "rant" coexist helpfully with "discussion"? If you want to discuss what's wrong with Lockdown, then a discussion of how to improve it is surely the only really useful outcome? If, on the other hand, you just want to blow off steam, I suggest you get a blog. Or a punching bag. Or a mirror to scream at.

If you truly don't think there's a demand for PvP, I can only assume your long-term memory of the forums stops just before Blast Network's introduction (you know, that "grindfest where you die every 3 seconds" - unless, of course, you're any good at all at Bomberman). Oh, actually, maybe just before Lockdown, come to think of it; after BN was implemented, the board was awash with players crowing for a "real" PvP game, with swords and guns and hurting oh my! Madadder's helpfully linked to a clutch of such threads; there's a Search bar at the top right if you want to see (many, many) more.

Gwen's pretty much nailed the balance stuff (and in a much more level-headed, readable and less moany manner). There are strategies to deal with the problems you're describing. I'm...I'm really trying not to say "it's not Three Rings' fault you suck at LD" but I'm struggling.

Hes talking about the Rock, Paper, Scissors relationship of equipment..... however, hes using it wrong because RPS assumes there are no outside factors that can modify the win conditions. The 3 classes do not explicitly dominate each other, nor do they have a perfect companion loadout.

The only thing I agree with is that weapons and armor don't scale at the same rate, which is by design in PvE. As long as damage can outpace defense, the only benefit that aids in combat is offensive bonuses.

"No one is forcing you to play lockdown, besides if you don't like the fairness of the weapons go get yourself one. The only person who can solve your problem is you. Go out there and melt some faces ;D"

C'mon man. A "can't beat them, join them" attitude isn't supposed to justify balance. That kind of feeling just boils games down to tedious "who has better equipment" contests. All of the tier 5 weaponry/armour/guns/bombs are supposed to be balanced, not have only certain loadouts dominate others. Like CoD MW with the M16, CoD MW2 with the UMP and intervention, CoD WaW with the MP40 CoD BlOps with the AK74u, Street Fighter 4: AE with Yun and Yang, Mortal Kombat 9 with Raiden, Kung Lao, and Kabal. What do all these things have in common? They are overpowered, and if the developers of the majority of these games (minus infinity ward) didn't nerf these weapons/characters, games would boil down to the same loadout, same class, same character. They'd eventually get so tedious and boring realizing that these are the only viable weapons/characters/tactics, that everyone would either A) Join the rest of the people playing the high tier, B) Quit.

I agree with thread autor, lockdown need ballance.
Its not interesting and unfair to play when you have 2-3 star eqip and fight with team of powerful 5-star knights.

Like Debianlinux said in his first post, Lockdown is for those who have run out of mist or just don't want to waste energy. So what if they make new weapons to promote this addition to Spiral Knights? I don't think most people actually play for the rewards, most play for fun (or at least that's what I think).

The point I am trying to make is that 60 percent of the losing team's entry fee just vanishes completely. Whether or not the reward is enough is a moot point. The losing team loses 200 crowns and the winning team wins 80. It just does not make sense to me. I understand that people are expected to play the clockworks and not farm lockdown, but give the people what they earned. I would love for someone to explain to me why this is the way it is without dodging the question and trying to discredit my argument rather than answering the question. Where does the rest of the entry fee go?!? And on a sidenote, if the point of playing lockdown isn't to win crowns, then why give crowns as a prize at all?

Still doesnt answer my question. Where do the missing crowns go. Why do they go there? You did exactly what I asked people not to do: Discrediting my argument rather than answering the question. And to break down your math a bit, assuming these koins are worth 100 crowns, that means the losing team still loses 100 crowns, while the winning team wins 280 crowns. But that profit is only seen after you gain 75 krogmo koins, it is not instant. Until then the losing team is down 200 crowns while the winning team is up 80.

ANSWER THE QUESTION!!!!!!!!!!!

Prehaps the crowns go into the monsters that drop crowns on levels? It is a monster arena.
So, where do crowns come from? where does CE go to?
ANSWER THE QUESTION!!!!!!!!!!!