i never use it haha i just sell the crystals when they are at 4crown/piece (no matter what gate it is)

Regarding OOO fudging with the gates, I'm fairly certain that there was once a very arena-rich T3 undead stratum, much more than your regular fare.
Apparently, they switched it into becoming Dark City.
In my view, that's a horrible thing to do. As part of the game, they let us, the players, have control of the gate creator, but that should mean that they give us its rewards, good and bad, not swipe it away like controlling parents when they realise what they've left us.

On another note, about level payout, sometimes I can get up to 8k on a standard T2 run, without RJ, so sometimes it's just a matter of thinking outside the box and leaving your comfort zone.

People try to get poison before the JK stratum or fire if possible

I was always under the impression that our current mineral system was a temporary fix until they fixed the old boosting mechanic. But maybe they gave up on that. =(

"The people forcing fiend strata on 5th tier are what I was going to mention too.

From what I understand they are mostly elite players who deliberately make FSC harder to get to for newer players. That seems despicable to me."

Actually it's because fiend levels reward the most crowns for their materials. Dark City is so yummy :)

I'm behind an overhaul too. Although giving players some control over the strata is a good thing, it turns into a bad thing when you see nothing but freeze, shock, and beast, undead, and fiends right before Vanduke. Sometimes we want to run something else for a change.

I suggest having a sliding block puzzle-like system where you must have one of each kind of level in play at each tier. You can have more than one type of a level in a tier (example, you can have two fiend levels in play at T3) but you must have one of each other type of level always in play.

It would be kind of like a sliding block puzzle. Each tile would be a strata theme, but the players will decide where the tiles go.

...now that I think about it, that might not be a good system. Oh well.

I believe Nicoya is semi-right. When a gate is launched the strata are some-what predetermined, in that the mineral payouts will lean toward a certain stratum type (that is why when a gate launches, all the values are not even). When people try and unbalance this stratum type (by depositing specific minerals rather than autoselling) the payouts change in order to swing the minerals back into the predetermined stratum type.

I think it'd be even better if there was an incentive for us to make those gates something other than Fiend & Poison. In T3 both Fiend & Poison have fun levels that don't appear in the other tiers.

Considering the number of players in the game, the effect of the average player in determining any given gate will always be negligible. Full stop. If there are a thousand people jointly determining a single outcome, the average person cannot cast the deciding vote more than 1/1000 of the time. That's math for you.

So, what could we do to allow more players feel like they have more control? Here's some brainstorming:

#1: Let players make sacrifices for more personal control. This situates more power in the hands of people who care about it more, and makes other people feel like they *could* get more control over the gates if they really wanted to.

I imagine this is what "boosting" was originally intended to do--I can pay crowns to get more of the mineral I want desposited into the gate I want. But that didn't work for a number of reasons.

So how about this: create a "mineral exchange" where players can sell minerals to each other, similar to the energy exchange. If you want a lot of crimsonite in that gate, you can just buy a bunch of crimsonite and put it in yourself. Players who don't care can sell their minerals to the highest bidder.

Or maybe you can buy a "mineral amplifier" from Boost that increases the amount of minerals you collect in the clockworks or something.

#2: Concentrate selection power in a smaller number of players at once, but on a rotating basis. This gives everyone a turn in the spotlight.

A really simple way to do this would be to give individual players a "multiplier" on certain gates, that makes any minerals they deposit into those gates count for more.

Another approach would be to let players BID for gate themes using minerals, instead of simply depositing their minerals into the pool. If you make the highest bid, your minerals determine that theme; if you don't make the highest bid, you get your minerals back and can use them on another gate. This way, you keep accumulating minerals until you have enough to win the bid, so everyone will get a turn eventually. (Though with thousands of players and only 5 themes to determine every 2 days...most players are going to quit the game long before their turn comes up. Maybe not such a great plan.)

#3: Offer special challenges to influence gate construction. Again, this gives more power to the people who care about it more, and it has the added advantage that players feel like they're doing something to affect the gate.

Maybe there's a mini-game where monsters are "stealing" minerals from the construction pool of an incomplete gate, and players can go in to defend the color they want to support. Or maybe you're "purifying" the minerals and making them more effective--each level makes X minerals count double (or some multiplier based on how well you do), and the number of times players can complete the level is dependent upon the number of minerals deposited into the gate. The theme of the monsters could be influenced by the mineral color, and their strength by the depth of the stratum you're trying to affect.

In short, a special level that somehow has a greater effect on gate construction than normal. Something that will effectively cost players' time, but preferably something that will also be affected by player skill, and will give participating players a feeling of making a difference.

#4: Have a promotional event where you give away bonus minerals to players who buy crystal energy.

That's probably a really poor idea. I just want energy prices to go down.

Anyway, you get the idea. The problem isn't that players don't know what theme they're supporting, it's that a single player is a drop in the ocean, and so most players WILL NOT make any difference most of the time, under any possible system. Improving the system is a matter of playing a shell game where we redistribute those tiny shares of player influence in a way that makes players forget they're fighting over crumbs.

Oh, and sorry about ruining that illusion for everyone reading this post. But it is what it is.