The vast majority of my CE goes towards alchemy... like thousands worth. It's ridiculous how expensive it is. Either remove the CE cost for it or decrease it significantly.
Having it cost this much also destroys new players who are deciding if they should continue playing the game and maybe buy some CE down the line. It significantly inhibits their play time... 50 ce just to craft a 2 star item.
Do something about this. You have a fantastic game with great potential but this is a major flaw.
Yeah, this was a pretty dumb thread, my bad.
Wheelchairboy is just jealous he didn't make this thread first.
You have got to be kidding me with this.
My only objection to energy cost for Alchemy is that it means that if I want to create an item I can't adventure the same day unless I pay cash to do so. As a new player it is a hard sell to convince me to drop cash on a entertainingly shallow (and extremely expensive if I start playing regularly) game. And since I didn't play yesterday I'm less likely to play today which in turn makes me less likely to play tomorrow. I don't mind them gating progress but it seems counterproductive to gate the ability to play.
The CE system is punishing to new players who can't subsidize their energy with a portion of their loot from the clockworks and is just going to continue to get more so as inflation increases.
dreampod:
As usual, it's someone who doesn't know how the system works who's complaining about energy. Just trade crowns to get energy for crafting. Click on the energy icon in the lower-right corner of the screen, then switch to the Trade tab. Today it was 4k credits for 100 energy. I have 3* gear on two characters, at like 48 hours of played time total, and all I've spent is 75 cents for the second account.
OnmyojiOmn:
I appreciate the suggestion and was actually aware that you can trade crowns for energy but you need to remember that for a player still stuck in tier 1 that 4k is 2 full days worth of crowns. I earn roughly 2k per full trip with around half of that coming from depth 6 & 7 which I can't reach a second time so assuming no revives or treasure rooms (I usually do challenge rooms though) I can make 2.7k a day. That makes buying energy with crowns to delve a losing proposition (unless I'm trying to get heat) because I'm not earning what it cost me back and materials that I get are nearly valueless so I can't sell them either. I know once I get access to tier 2 that buying energy with crowns becomes viable but getting there without spending money is going to be very slow.
I'm sure that when you were at this stage the lower energy prices made occassional buying viable (I hear legends of 2k prices) but the prices compared to my earning potential are a major roadblock.
Are you selling the mats you find? Price them reasonably and you should be able to make half again that much per day if you spend the time spamming trade chat. You could do what I did and buy the minimum 200 energy for 75 cents, which permanently makes it a paid account. Paid accounts don't share mist with free accounts. Make a second account and do something different, like guns or bombs, and use it to farm more crowns.
Two days of play time to buy an upgrade or two is completely reasonable for free players in my opinion. It's true that energy was 2700 when I started playing, and I do realize that was an advantage, but it shouldn't get that much more expensive before it stabilizes. Energy will need to hit 8k or 10k before the system breaks, and I don't think it will.
You have to consider that the audience for these games isn't people who refuse to ever spend a cent. It's the people who are willing to spend "a few dollars" per month. That's 1600 energy.
Another thing: people who have been playing since release have recommended skipping 1* gear and going straight to 2*. I don't think that's good advice any more, with energy being more expensive. New players will have an easier time getting into t2 if they get some upgrades right away.
OnmyojiOmn is absolutely correct. If you're assuming that your only source of crowns to be the actual coins you're picking up off the ground, you're actually missing out on the most profitable aspect of your tier runs.
If you're patient enough to hop through Haven instances, advertise carefully, and play the market in a savvy way (this means watching and learning, but that's okay, because it becomes part of your play experience ..... and thus, lengthens the time you can play and actually be productive), you'll make a lot more on your mats than you will on the "base" crown profit of each level clear.
You'll make enough, in fact, that making your character self-sufficient in terms of energy will become a simple matter.
I disagree with the original idea, but it got me thinking..
What if there was a newbie "mission" that taught players more about alchemizing, and made their first alchemization cost no energy (similar to the mist tank reward, but restricted).
Why not stop their lets just remove Crowns and Ce from this game?
Yeah, everything should be free!
And while we're at it, Vanaduke is just too hard. OOO should give him only one HP, so everyone can kill him! And make everyone invincible. Why play a game you can die in? Then we'd truly have a fun game.
I don't think there is anything that says you can't have a second account devoted to crafting or farming.
But why force us to create a second and third account? Each account can have 3 knights, why not just give each of our 3 knights their own supply of mist? Isn't that the same as me having 3 separate accounts?
And at that point, why bother forcing us to juggling around 3 separate accounts, why not just give us one knight with 300 mist energy per day?
Sorry I don't have any answers for you. I actually think the current mist energy/crystal energy scheme is an interesting way of giving casuals a nice casual game, and giving those who want more a way to get more. So far, I like this F2P scheme, then again, I'm nowhere near end game.
I spent 2 euro's today (2 dollar something) to boost myself a little bit in progressing. This got me powerfull and made me collect a lot of crowns resulting in me being able to spend the crowns on energy as well.
I reccomend anyone to just stop being greedy and spend a little bit of money to really go all out. This way you'll have all the time to explore and learn about the game. 2 euero for 750 energy. I bought it morning and played maybe 6/7 hour straight today(yeah it was that addictive)
I still have 650 from buying with crowns. I think if you want to enjoy this game in its full potential, you have to see it this way. You have to Spend a little bit and invest some money so you can "earn" the energy at the same time.
Games are suposed to be fun.
I dont understand why we should spend some money on a game, but everyone does as he/she wants.
Jaouad you said that we shouldnt be greedy and spend a little bit of money on the game, but some people cant and i think that there are better ways of spending money.
OnmyojiOmn you said: You have to consider that the audience for these games isn't people who refuse to ever spend a cent. It's the people who are willing to spend "a few dollars" per month.
Do you really think so-.-''? Let me ask you one thing: Then why isnt this game P2P????????? This game is FREE, for people who DONT pay, its obvious.
The only change i suggest is to lower the ce cost for everything for example, 2 star item- 30 ce
Players would play longer each day and it would be easier for everyone.
Yes, that's what F2P means. What you think it should mean isn't relevant. There's nothing wrong with energy right now.
OmyojiOmn, again, is absolutely correct. "Free-to-play" has been defined as an industry wide system of "you can log in and experience a limited amount of content for free, but if you want everything, you have to pay."
There are MMOs out there, thriving and successful even as we speak, that have far more restrictions than Spiral Knights does in terms of their actual "free" content, that get away with placing that free-to-play label on themselves. There are also MMOs with less restrictive systems. In the end, only the quality of the game in question ever seems to determine their actual success.
You can play Spiral Knights for an entire character career without spending so much as a real-life cent. You just have to know how to do it. Sometimes this means quitting earlier than you'd like and waiting until the next day, but most of the time it means understanding that your 'real' income comes from the loot, and not the initial crowns profit you get out of a single tier run.
Spiral Knights is free to play. It's not free-to-do-whatever-the-crap-you-want-in-the-game. There's nothing morally or ethically wrong with this, nor is there even really a major threat to the success of the game there. Anyone who has any trouble grasping this concept has little-to-no experience with this particular genre of video game. Go and look at the top 15 titles in the F2P market right now, examine their business models, and understand you're either going to single-handedly lead a revolution (that will kill the industry, by the way) in which F2P has to mean that a company can't charge anything for anything, or suck it up and realize there's nothing unreasonable about it.
...oh, and by the way....
I dont understand why we should spend some money on a game, but everyone does as he/she wants.
Almost all games cost money. Have you never played anything outside of a dinky little free flash puzzle game before?
This self-imposed psychological block that some people have in which they think an ONLINE game should be something you never have to spend money on is the source of most of these energy complaints, I find. They're the folks that scratch their head in confusion at the whole WoW phenomenon. People that think nothing of spending $9 on a 2-hour movie, $6 on a coffee, $7 on a greasy lunch from a drive-through, but would rather take a rusty nail in the eye than spend $5 on two weeks of entertainment from an online source.
Suit your darn selves, but try to understand the cognitive dissonance involved in your little bias. It doesn't make any kind of sense. The people that make these things need to make money, and they can't afford to feed themselves unless they do. What do you suggest they do?
Well put, Duke. It's been a couple of weeks since Spiral Knight came out. The market has been more or less stable, other than the increase of Crystal Energy costs from 3k to 4k and certain updates. I personally find that Spiral Knights is a game you can play for a long time, if you have the self-control to use only in-game currency. I, also, personally do not have that self-control, so I resort to money.
It is most certainly not unfair, and most certainly not impossible. You just have to be more patient at the start. With a good run at lower tiers and businesses they make for themselves in the game, they can not only make enough money to run it again, but they can also net a sizable profit. The Spiral Knight MMO is a bustling world of commerce, adventure and friends. Get a few buddies and play for a while, and when there's no energy, just log out together and wait for the next trip.
Spiral Knight is a rare sort of game, who gives you free access to all of its contents, whether you pay or not. And like Duke says, the developers have to have their due for their efforts, which, it seems, is not at all negligible. If you don't want to pay, I suppose that is your prerogative. And, as Duke and Omyoji implies, "Nothing in this world is free." Going by the logic that online games should be free always, then mineral water should, also, be free. It is just water. Should be free.
Having a second account for crafting would be untenable. You would never be able to use the gear you crafted as it will become bound and untradable. For 4* and 5* items the second account would need to adventure to generate the heat needed to craft.
There is currently no danger at all of SK mandating a crafting-dedicated account to be optimal.
An auction house would make making crowns a lot easier. I'm just saiyan. Then maybe people who don't feel like sitting in trade and spamming what materials they're selling could actually make some crowns, which seems like a concept a lot of people in this thread can't / refuse to grasp.
EDIT: But that doesn't stop OP from being wrong.
If it cost LESS energy to craft things, people would craft more in hopes of getting a UV, which would in turn reduce the glut of materials on the market, and thus make them profitable to sell again. As it is, most people (the not insanely rich) will just craft once and then leave it at that.
Not zero energy, just less energy. As it is you can burn through five/ten dollars worth in no time.
Retniwreven: Five dollars is 1600 energy. I don't think I've used that much in almost three weeks of playing. Two characters in 3* gear, 50 hours of played time.
I'm aware. I used that much yesterday crafting things in an attempt to get a UV.
It adds up quickly.
The actual need for CE comes from alchemy. Removing it wouldn't do any good. This isn't the flaw you are looking for.