Spiral Knights - Adjust heat gains for Tier 3

Adjust heat gains for Tier 3

22 replies [Last post]

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 13:14

Ilikiki

Hello, devs!

Right now, the difficulty increase that comes with going into Tier 3 does not match the amount of heat that is obtained in that same Tier. A full run of Tier 2 is both less expensive and more productive right now in terms of heat gain than Tier 3 (or, at very worse, identical).

This was tested by having two separate Sealed Swords and going into two roughly similar patches of stratums in Tier 2 and Tier 3, solo. From the first stratum to the Terminal, the Sealed Sword in Tier 2 went up 3.3-3.6 heat levels, while the Tier 3 one was somewhere in the 2.5-2.8 range. That's... ridiculous? Absurd?

You can actually sort of see the difference as well, because a monster in T2 seems to drop a few more heat orbs than one in T3. The only levels in T3 that seem to produce any substantial amount of heat are the Firestorm Citadel, and even then they're not as good as the Jelly King.

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 13:38

Metaknight

It does seem to me that the

It does seem to me that the heat/crowns are less lucrative at the start of a tier than the end of it, which is fine, but as you said, the latter half or tier 1 / tier 2 shouldn't be less profitable than the first half of tier 2 / tier 3, right?

Maybe its on purpose to encourage the players to not abandon those tiers once they've passed them? Not sure really, but it does bother me when I do a Tier 1 to midway through Tier 2 run, and the profits aren't as good for those last few floors as they were before Moorcraft Manor.

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 14:02

Ilikiki

That's not the point. The

That's not the point. The point is that the overall gains for heat in Tier 2 are roughly equal or better than the overall gains in Tier 3. Try it out sometime.

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 14:08

Metaknight

I'm not Tier 3 yet so I

I'm not Tier 3 yet so I couldn't comment from experience on that.

So you mean the start to finish amounts. What I said still stands though, it seems odd that end of Tier X is better than start of Tier X + 1.

But yeah I would be disappointed with the same. And the Tier 2 run shorter / less expensive? Guess I'm not missing much then except materials.. :)

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 14:11

Kawaii_Desu

Legacy Username

Yeah, if you decide to never

Yeah, if you decide to never do Tier 3, you'd be missing out in Firestorm Citadel, one of the best sources of Flame Souls and crowns.

But yeah, as far as I know, Tier 3 is more for crowns and Tier 2 is more for heat.

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 14:19

Jalok

No wonder why a lot of people

No wonder why a lot of people convinced me I shouldn't fight in tier 3! Like you said, not only you get less heat. But you get less loot! Experienced players told me that I would earn a lot more money (by doing the Jelly King levels) if I just fight in tier 2, than in tier 3!

That doesn't make any sense, devs! The whole point of going to tier 3 is because it is much more difficult, therefore you would be rewarded more loot and heat! Not the other way around! Trying to discourage challenge in your own game? Lol! xD

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 14:21

Ilikiki

Kawaii_Desu, you don't "miss

Kawaii_Desu, you don't "miss out" on anything. You can do a lot of Tier 2 and occasionally make a Firestorm Citadel run every so often. Right now most people seem to just be content doing Jelly or arena-heavy or undead stratum Tier 2 runs.

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 14:43

Dorael

Analogy

Let me make a WoW analogy. You can do 25 daily quests a day in WoW per character. The level 85 dailies give 13 gold and require dealing with mobs that have roughly 80k health and can actually kill you at 85. The level 80 dailies give you 13 gold and require dealing with mobs that have roughly 10k health and might be able to kill you at 85 if you afked on one for an hour. In addition to the latter presenting no challenge or difficulty whatsoever you can also do more level 80 dailies in significantly less time than it should take to do level 85 ones. From a "balance" perspective, one would think that they should either lower the gold gains from level 80 dailies or raise the gold on the 85 ones. They have chosen to do nothing about it.

My theory is that, in the current economy, 13g is a good return for a daily done in their minds. It has nothing to do with risk or balance in terms of individual quest difficulty but in the big economic picture. If they gave more gold for 85 dailies it would inflate the gold currency too much. So they didn't increase the gold return for dailies beyond 80. As to why they didn't lower it for previous content, I imagine that they just don't care. There are other reasons to do 85 dailies over 80 ones (namely rep and achievements). If someone wants to go back and farm 80 dailies faster for gold I don't think Blizzard cares much. I think the situation is similar for heat here.

I'll admit it does seem odd that T3 gives noticeably lower heat. I imagine they were just aiming for it to be the same and may have fallen on the lower side to be safe.

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 14:56

Ilikiki

While your analogy is

While your analogy is interesting, I'm not interested as to why this is made in this way. I'm interested in it changing to a way that makes more logical sense.

As for a balance perspective, it would be a problem if we could... trade heat. But we can't. Thus...

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 15:20

Dorael

Heat Market

Heat is actually the limiting factor in making 5 star gear for me. I'm rolling in everything else requirement to crank them out.

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 15:26

#10

Hazel

Tier 3 is entirely pointless

Tier 3 is entirely pointless unless you're doing Vanaduke at this stage in the game, or going for recipes. And I've had Basil not sell 5-star recipes at all about ten times.

Tier 3, from Emberlight to The Core, gives less than 5k crowns, and got my level 7 levi blade from the beginning of level 7 to very barely just over level 8. The big heat fireball never shows up at all in the entire tier, from what I've seen.

So basically, T3 is garbage and should either be removed from the game, or provide some incentive to doing content wherein monsters hit four times harder and have twice as much health.

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 15:40

#11

Ilikiki

You must not know the game

You must not know the game very well yet. It's not DIFFICULT to get a lot of heat into weapons, if you know what you're doing, but it does take a little time.

The problem is also unrelated to what you're talking about. My point is that right now, the risks outweigh the rewards re: Tier 3.

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 15:43

#12

Hazel

"You must not know the game

"You must not know the game very well yet. It's not DIFFICULT to get a lot of heat into weapons, if you know what you're doing, but it does take a little time."

I'm more than aware of the proper method to level items. That test was done with nothing but level 10 gear on except the sword in question.

Tier 1 gives less crowns/heat than 2. 2 should not give literally double the crowns/heat Tier 3 does. This should be common sense to absolutely everyone.

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 15:45

#13

Icee

Sounds like Tier 2 gives too much heat

Based on how quickly I'm leveling my gear in tier 2, I'd say it's more likely that Tier 2 gives too much heat rather than Tier 3 giving too little.

Drop the heat in Tier 2 to give players a reason to challenge themselves in Tier 3. Alternatively, if the developers want players to reach tier 3 at the same rate they do currently, make 4-5* gear level much more slowly in tier 2, but more quickly in tier 3, but leave 3* gear leveling as it is.

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 15:49

#14

Hazel

The crown/heat gain

The crown/heat gain transition from T1 to T2 makes mathematical sense. It should make sense going from T2 to T3, aswell.

If they nerf T2, none of it will make sense at all. If they nerf everything but T3, it'd just be stupid.

So, buff T3 or make monsters in T3 hit exactly as hard as monsters in T2.

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 15:51

#15

Ilikiki

Hazel, correct. Tier 3 should

Hazel, correct. Tier 3 should give a lot more than it currently does.

Icee, there's no real reason to change anything other than Tier 3. Tier 2 isn't really broke, neither is Tier 1. Tier 3 is.

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 16:07

#16

Dorael

Not linear

But there's no real reason that tier progression needs to give linear gains. The fact is that someone has to run T3 for recipes and mats in order for the best gear to be available. Tier 2 is a stepping stone, it makes sense for all the gains to increase. T3 is the current end game content, it doesn't have to be anywhere near as rewarding because there's currently nothing beyond it. That it is the primary/only source for certain things is enough.

And yes, someone can point out the token vendor but tokens would nowhere near cover the demand for 5* mats if no one ran T3.

Edit: And yes, you can heat things more quickly running T2. In doing so, you don't get 5* mats from your runs. Like I said, I'm rolling in everything but heat right now. Are you saying you've got plenty of crowns, energy, mats, and heat to make lots of 5* gear yourself? I could make a dozen 5* pieces right now if they didn't require a level 10 4* prereq. Right now, heat is the limiting factor for me. That doesn't mean it's hard for me to get. It means Three Rings doesn't want to me just constantly crank out 5* gear.

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 16:07

#17

Hazel

No, I'm going to have to say

No, I'm going to have to say that challenging content should be rewarding you with more than the opportunity to spend huge money and maybe make a fourth of it back.

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 16:11

#18

Dorael

Potential

The potential for profit is certainly there. I'm a F2P player and I'm ridiculously wealthy right now. Not only would I have an absurd amount of money if T3 gave more heat but a lot more people would have 5* gear now too. I'm pretty confident there are other players who are in the same situation I am. They just don't want us to be progressing that fast though, probably for good reason. There's balance of a bigger scale involved here.

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 16:12

#19

Ilikiki

Actually, if you run Tier 2

Actually, if you run Tier 2 all the time and focus your stratum strategy accordingly to get roughly the tokens that you need, by the time you have your level 10 item, you should be able to manufacture your 5* item with little difficulty.

And Dorael, if it being the "only source for certain things" was "enough" then the vast majority of players wouldn't feel like going down to T3 wasn't worth it. And for the most part, they're right -- going down to T3 is not worth the energy investment right now. It's not like you're guaranteed good drops just by going -- I've gone a number of T3 runs without ever seeing a 5* material, for instance, especially if I'm in a sizable party of 4 where materials are split in the first place.

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 16:32

#20

Dorael

5* stuff

I'm not talking about making 5* stuff for myself. That's easy and you get plenty of heat on the way to T3 (doing T2) to heat up your primary gear set. I'm talking about heating different gear sets or items to trade. If you're not playing the trading game then no wonder you don't think it's worth it.

You're right that there's no guarantee you'll get 5* mats. That's the thing, sometimes you do, sometimes you don't. If there were linear gains on heat and crowns in addition to 5* mats, it would all add up together to be too much though. 5* mats go for more than enough to cover T3 runs even if you only get one in every three runs. If you turn that mat into a piece of gear though then it's on a different scale altogether.

Edit: I'm just going to leave it at that. I don't really feel like arguing with people on how they should make money, and this isn't really the forum to be arguing anything anyway. This is Suggestions, you've posted your Suggestion, that's enough for me. Fight the good fight.

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 16:50

#21

Pupu

Legacy Username

Crown gain being the same is good for the economy maybe.
Heat gain being low has no purpose. I have played the game quite a bit (115 hours according to the login clock), and I have yet to get all of my 5* gear to level 10.

Probably my own fault for not enjoying Tier 2, or farming newbies for heat :B

Wed, 04/20/2011 - 21:25

#22

Ilikiki

Just did a Tier 2 run and

Just did a Tier 2 run and went into Tier 3. The full Tier 3 run gave me less than a fraction of the heat that all of Tier 2 did. (I did not die / get revived and lose 30% heat -- I actually revived others a bit).

Please fix this.

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Adjust heat gains for Tier 3