Spiral Knights - which would be better: the elevator pass or double the crowns?

which would be better: the elevator pass or double the crowns?

11 replies [Last post]

Mon, 12/19/2011 - 05:32

Algol-Sixty

Which would you rather have, an elevator pass, or a "crown amplifier" that doubled the amount of crown you (and you alone in the party) receive during the clockworks? For the sake of this question, imagine that you are the only one to get this option, so no matter what you choose, there wouldn't be much impact on the game.

Elevator passes let you get lots more crowns and you don't have to buy CE to run the clock works a lot

A crown amplifier would let you buy all the CE you needed to run the gates with CE, craft, etc.

Mon, 12/19/2011 - 05:36

Shidara

Elevator pass.

'Cause I want to play the game, to play the game.

Mon, 12/19/2011 - 05:58

Metagenic

Elevator pass is better

Let's say you had the Crown Amplifier. 1 RJP run costs you 80 mist and earns you about 7k crowns. So with the amplifier, you'll earn 14k crowns and have 20 mist left, if you don't revive that is.

Let's say you had the Elevator Pass. 1 RJP run without Tier 3 gear takes about 50 minutes (let's just round this up to 1 hour). If you can play 3 consecutive hours farming RJP, you'll be able to earn 21k crowns - more than what you would have earned with the Crown Amplifier - and still have 100 mist left to use at your own pleasure.

Mon, 12/19/2011 - 06:10

Algol-Sixty

Let's say you had the Crown

Let's say you had the Crown Amplifier. 1 RJP run costs you 80 mist and earns you about 7k crowns. So with the amplifier, you'll earn 14k crowns and have 20 mist left, if you don't revive that is.

You can then spend 7kcr on another 100CE, and do the trip as many times as you want, each time earning 7kcr+100CE. So, if you do the JK 3 times, you end up with 7k+7k+7k+100CE and 0ME with a crown amplifier. With an elevator pass, you end up with 7k+7k+7k+0CE and 100ME.

Mon, 12/19/2011 - 06:19

Huhbum

hmm

@Metagenic

That's assuming you have 3 hours to burn grinding RJP(I do, and I did, but that's not for everybody).

I believe the point Algol-Sixty is trying to make here is an inquiry as to whether or not people value time spent in-game grinding for things over time spent out-of-game.

Ultimately, even with a minimum wage job(in many countries where Spiral Knights is played) it is far more efficient to go to work, earn money, use some of that money and buy CE, and use the CE to buy desired equipment/etc. than it is to go to the computer to work at a game, earn crowns with an Elevator Pass, and use those crowns to buy desired equipment/CE/etc.

It all depends on which is more valued: time, or in-game 'accomplishments'. I've been trained to prefer the second over the first, but as I get older, time seems to be more and more precious. :P

@Algol-Sixty: There's not too much difference between either scenario in those examples, except that one is contingent on the CE market, and one is not.

Edit: Oops, I forgot I didn't answer the OP's question. I would take the Pass. They're probably relatively similar in economic gain, but I would prefer the pass for two simple reasons: depth diving and level skipping.

With depth diving, I could leave/join random games until I reached a desired depth, speeding up my runs.
With level skipping, in the event that I could not/did not feel like depth diving, I could simply run through levels as I wanted.(T1/T2 on new RJP/FSC gates to eliminate fees, running through Decon Zones/etc. to save time, are two examples).

Mon, 12/19/2011 - 06:42

Algol-Sixty

@Algol-Sixty: There's not too

@Algol-Sixty: There's not too much difference between either scenario in those examples, except that one is contingent on the CE market, and one is not.

Well, that was kind of the point of my reply, Metagenic said a pass would be better, but by his reasoning alone, they really are about the same. You list other reasons why you think a pass would be better, but I tend to think the trade-offs are even more complicated than you describe.

OK, after a very small sample, people seem to think that an elevator pass is better than doubling your crowns, so let me ask two more questions:

If OOO was to offer a crown amplifier, how much less than an elevator pass should it cost in order to make the crown amplifier competitive with an elevator pass?

Second, how much should OOO be selling their heat amplifier for in order to make it competitive with the elevator pass? (Right now, a 30-day heat amplifier costs 5000CE, an elevator pass cost about the equivalent of 2100CE.)

Mon, 12/19/2011 - 06:47

Griseolar

Elevator Pass, no contest.

All that worrying about energy running out is gone - I get to play the game and actually have fun.

Mon, 12/19/2011 - 06:48

Aula

Both have advantages

Well both have advantages:

If you use the crown amplifier, you could theoretically get more crowns for CE or other stuff.

If you get an elevator pass, you wouldn't have to spend energy to go to lower levels and have more energy for revives.

Personally, I'd take the crown amplifier because crowns can be used to aquire more goods.

Mon, 12/19/2011 - 08:08

Myllakka

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I'd take the crown amplifier, 'cause once school starts up again, I'll be lucky to squeeze in one FSC a day. My mist would be more than enough for that, so might as get as much profit in that one trip as I can.

Mon, 12/19/2011 - 08:28

Spacmanz

if you had the elevator pass you could also tab people with a fee up to 500cr, so u could put a little extra cash in your pocket

Mon, 12/19/2011 - 08:33

#10

Kalaina-Elderfall

Ignoring

Ignoring materials/tokens:

Profit from FSC with no pass and no crown amplifier: ~3000 crowns.
Profit from FSC with elevator pass and no crown amplifier: ~7000 crowns.
Profit from FSC with no pass and crown amplifier: ~10000 crowns.
Profit from FSC with elevator pass and crown amplifier: ~14000 crowns.

Crown amplifier would be stronger. The flexibility of the elevator pass is nice, but doubling crowns is just absurd. Plus a crown amplifier doesn't have any concerns at all with trying to monetize your mist energy.

The existence of a crown amplifier would drive up the price of CE much more than the elevator pass did, too.

And if people could get a crown amplifier and an elevator pass to make 14000 crowns from a FSC run, the game would pretty much be ruined for everyone who didn't buy both.

Mon, 12/19/2011 - 08:54

#11

Shidara

Yeah...

I'd rather not see my friends forced to cough up 20,000 crowns for 100 Crystal Energy.
Me? I'd have both of them fancies.

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which would be better: the elevator pass or double the crowns?