Spiral Knights - I'm terribly confused at the reception of the new patch

I'm terribly confused at the reception of the new patch

7 replies [Last post]

Wed, 04/25/2012 - 21:24

Mindspark

This new patch with Emberlight Adoption Agency with monster pocket accessories is getting really bad reception. I honestly don't understand how someone who supposedly paid over 9000 USD on this game suddenly wants to quit because of this. I understand how some would view as a crown sink, but these are the first promotional accessories outside the Auction House that could be purchased without buying a pack of ce or a direct transaction of ce. Looking proportionally at several of the past accessory promotion, I think this is a bargain deal.

In the Auction House, some of these accessories were being sold for roughly 100,000 crowns. In this scenario, I am not referring to the player based prices, but rather the prices OOO set. You had to buy 3,500 ce with 9.95 USD in order to get Valkyrie Wings. To get a Monster Pocket, it would be roughly 2500 ce, assuming the ce market is set at 7000 crowns per ce. ~2692 ce if it was set at 6500 Crowns per 100 ce The value to obtain a Monster Pocket is less than that of Valkyrie Wings. I didn't see anyone complaining about Valkyrie Wings being a money sink.

Biases within this calculation and logic chain would be the fact that players set Valkyrie Wings at 100,000 crowns, which is cheaper than Monster Pockets, which are 175,000 crowns. I am running the calculation and logic chain on the condition that the player does not use any of his/her hard earned crowns and instead had bought ce with real money and sold that ce for crowns.

In my personal opinion, I think the Monster Pockets are quite cute and worth every crown. As stated above, these are the first promotional accessories outside the Auction House that can be bought with crowns. If anything, OOO is doing us a favor by allowing F2P players get in on the promotion without the aid of P2P players. With the logic brought from above, I don't see why we should be raging now than before.

Alright alright. Most of the hate isn't directed at the Emberlight Adoption Agency. I understand the reductions caused by the patch that make it harder for players' gameplay. But for the hate directed at the Monster Pockets, read the above.

Wed, 04/25/2012 - 21:28

Batabii

tl;dr wall of text much?

tl;dr
wall of text much?

Wed, 04/25/2012 - 21:31

Mindspark

There Batabil, I separated it

There Batabil, I separated it into paragraphs.

Wed, 04/25/2012 - 21:35

Encross

The issue is not over the

The issue is not over the silly little accessories. It's over this:

"Unique Variants
You can now ‘lock’ Unique Variants in Punch’s shop when purchasing the two and three UV tickets. Locking UVs will retain them while you roll for new ones!"

That means that those double maxes that were oh-so-rare before are that much less rare now. And their value drops like a rock.

That's why people are mad.

Wed, 04/25/2012 - 22:25

Mindspark

To cover the rest of the

To cover the rest of the patch:

New Character Creation:

So now old players want the ability to "recreate" their knight with new eyes and height and possibly add a few new accessories to their proto set. I understand that players would want in along with the new players, but giving them the opportunity for free wouldn't be a very good business model for height modifiers and a few eye changes. I am in full support of an idea for a paid opportunity (obviously with crowns,) as it can bring people in.

But problems from this will arise that players whom had already purchased height modifiers and the few eye changes included in the character creation process will believe their crowns were wasted on something than something that can take two for one. Then they would cry out, demanding a patch for them too. But, giving out a refund wouldn't be a very good business model either, thus there really is no perfect solution. There would perhaps be lots of complications involving a solution to a solution to a solution and etc.

As of now, I see no problems with a couple of aesthetics added for new players. The Height Modifier isn't really noticeable if you run through the clockworks or stand around in Haven. But if you were to stand next to a player, you could notice it, just slightly. As for eyes, only adds to overall aesthetics if you obtain a helm with open visor. Not that many would notice, or care, if you battle through the Clockworks.

UV locking:

OOO responded to how players would gamble away money from UV tickets, sacrificing several good UV's in the process. It is believed to be easier, but didn't really go out to the old players well. They had wasted thousands of crowns just to find the perfect UV, and I understand the frustration to finding out that you could've kept those UV's.

What can you do really? If you bought, say, a subscription, only to find out there was a 75% deduction in prices the next day. You would get frustrated that you could've wasted money, but what can you really do? Quit your subscription just because they lowered their prices? Take advantage of it and embrace it to its full extent. It can save you massive amounts of time than before the patch. Think of it this way: If they never came with the patch, you would continue gambling away with your money, pouring it out of your wallet just to find the perfect triple UV's. But when they came out with the patch and "reduced prices", you suddenly quit. If you kept on rolling with it, it would save you more money than spent in the former.

As stated several times in the forums, people wasted lots of money, but refer to the example above and be glad that "prices were reduced". Imagine the money that you would've wasted in the former when you could save in the latter.

Overall lackluster:

I admit, it does seem OOO is coming out with updates that seem to impact the game less and less. In the past, the biggest patches available to F2P were the Gloaming Wildwoods, The Ironclaw Munitions Factory, the Drone family, Shadow Lairs, Mission system, and accessories. And then the rest were small promotions and collectables.

It has been tad boring without new game patches that impact the game, but imagine how long it takes to program new bosses, the level design, special "triggers", and new items as boss rewards. It takes lots of time eventually, and they release small updates as to keep us satisfied, just a little, but not enough to stop the tidal wave of boredom.

Let's give a similar example in the above issue: Would you rather have a game with big patches that come with a several month time span in between each patch with no other patches, or would you rather have big patches that come with a several month time span in between each patch with small patches in between? True enough that alot of the patches that have come out are crown reductions and nerfs, but those would be included in the former's big patches.

If you complain that they aren't releasing patches quick enough, let's see you try to program an entire boss stratum from scratch.

Thu, 04/26/2012 - 00:08

Flists

People are pissed because

People are pissed because they feel that because they got their awesome UV'd gear by spending tons of money, other people should too.

Thu, 04/26/2012 - 00:27

Fehzor

UV locking and modifiers for

UV locking and modifiers for eyes and height are very valid complaints- it costs 100K crowns simply to pay for eyes and height alone, while new players are essentially given it for free. Similarly, the chances before hand of getting 2 or even 3 max UVs on one thing were quite ridiculously low, and are now plausable. However, there are people who paid far more than 100K crowns for their triple max UVs, and thus have the right to be angry.

People feel like they got jipp'd. I myself would have loved to be a 'short' knight, and to have happy looking eyes. But I shall forever remain normal height with normal eyes, as I'm not willing to pay 100K for something that essentially doesn't do anything noticeable. It feels kind of like the company which we've all supported (F2P with time, P2P with money), is now betraying us, and this makes some people angry. I kind of predicted it anyway. (See the latest development patch, for April 2012)

I've suggested that they change to them, but I doubt they'll even read it. (http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/51912)

Thu, 04/26/2012 - 00:49

Jennytheturtle

I just spent 50k cr on happy

I just spent 50k cr on happy eyes when a new player could get them for free TT

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I'm terribly confused at the reception of the new patch