I've been playing for awhile, but right now I don't feel like there's anything keeping me interested in the game anymore.
There's no deeper story compelling me to keep moving forward and dungeon crawling. There aren't any real boss battles to go do with friends, or rare drops that I want. Recipes started out as fun, but when you're consistently missing that one last rare drop you need, the grinding starts to feel useless. There's no auction house or market place, so you can't even buy/trade for the item you need. Unless you shout in the arcade and hope someone has the item and are willing to trade you for it.
There's not even any joy in grinding. I've played Wow and Ragnarok Online, and I don't mind grinding for items. In those games if I grind and don't find my item, I can at least feel good that I got more experience or a new level or discovered a new area. The problem with Spiral Knights is if you go out looking for items for recipes and you don't find what you're looking for it feels like a waste of time. Yes, you can get some money and drops, but most of it is useless (At one point I had over 100 red, blue and green shards each. What the crap am I supposed to do with those?! They're barely even worth selling at a whopping 1 crown a piece!)
I guess the main problem for me right now is that there aren't enough little "highs" to keep me interested in the game. There's no feeling of success when I reach a new level. There's no striving to learn a new skill or spell. There's no excitement when I get a new weapon, because I only got that weapon for a recipe and I'm trying to level it. The good armor/weapons are too expensive, and the lower level items feel like a waste of crowns. The customization options feel limited (I want cuter items! I want to be so pink and cute that you will puke rainbows when you see my character)
Anyway, tl;dr:
SUGGESTIONS:
- Make drops worth more.
Give the user the choice of either saving up and buying a good item or waiting it out and getting a recipe. Having shards drop like rain but having the price so small makes them feel worthless to pick up, rather than exciting. - More customized items (with preview)
Have some low end items that make your character look cool, but might not be the best statistically. Also let the user decide if they want to switch their color palette, they can at any time. Also: cuter items - More mid-bosses
Give people a reason to group and take down a boss. - More Puzzles
I noticed that there were some small puzzle solving in some levels to open gates. I liked those! It switches things up and helps make it interesting - Increased skill set
You don't have to make 'classes' but having a wider range of options would be nice. I have heard some people complaining about wanting to have a healing/medic skill, or at least being able to cast spells to change up the attack - Reputation
Just an idea, but a reputation, where you can "like" or "dislike" a character so people can tell what type of person they're partying with. I have the feeling that the more people that come on, the more you're going to want this. - Number of times in a gate
Sometimes I forget how many times, or if I've even been through a gate. Some little number indicator would be nice - Auction House or Player run Stores
Give players the needs to find what they need, instead of shouting and running around the arcade
Most of those suggestions are alright, but please, no rep system. The players with the highest rep are the ones who go around spamming, "rep4rep," and you also end up with players who threaten to lower your rep if you don't give them what they want. It's just a system that has no effect but is waiting to be exploited. It serves no purpose other than to allow players to prejudge each other.
I also don't see much point in showing how many times you've played a gate, but I can't think of any reasons against it, either.
For the increased skill set idea, maybe this could be made into some kind of perk system?