WAH!
T_T
*sniff sniff*
[I've taken the liberty of paring that "WAH!" down so that it doesn't take up ten and a half lines just for that one word. -Eurydice]
EDIT: Don't take the first part of this thread seriously. Skip down until you start seeing bigger blocks of text.
You are attacking me!!! That's against the ToS!!!!
T_T
Elaborate. Why are do you hate them?
Not new to the game, but I haven't experienced whatever it is he's talking about. Are they incredibly hard to aquire, or is he complaining about shadow lairs?
Hmm.....
Think: Carrot on a Stick.
Knights = horse
Shadow Lairs = carrot
Shadow keys = stick
Devs = person riding the horse
How many ways can the horse get the carrot?
1. Get past the stick part. If you are willing to waste your time farming off a shadow key, you are that horse that wrestles to get the carrot regardless of the stick. Of course, you broke your neck along the way, and the carrot is not as great as you wish it was.
2. Be the horse that refuses to go and whines and cries really loudly. Eventually, the person riding the horse gives in and gives you the carrot. And then you get to actually enjoy the carrot.
3. Be the horse that chases the carrot, going faster and faster and then far far into the future, the person gets tired of holding the stick and finally lets you have it. But you are exhausted from running, and the carrot is not as great as you wish it was.
Which one sounds better?
To the majority of people: number 1 and number 3 sound magnificent apparently.
Ultimately, who is to blame for there being a freaking stick? HINT: They promised in the trailer that this game was "no farming", so you could easily call them hyp.... hmmmm. Perhaps, I need to control myself and not finish the word. I got in trouble for attacks before. If you were wondering, that word is totally "Hypno" (the pokemon), obviously.
If you don't think it's worth it don't bother then.
Shadow Keys are slightly more than 30k crowns per person when the CE price is normal. I could make 30k crowns in two days off mist alone.
The key is getting other people to pool their money in to help. That's where a good guild and/or good friends come into play.
My bro got me one for me birthday, which was October. I still haven't touched it because he isn't 5* yet. But true: it is mostly P2P. If you can find players that are good at the game, they could share the price, so everyone only needs to give 400 energy.
@Flists, that's not how problems are solved. The only way to go about solving a problem nowadays is kicking and screaming until you get your way (thus number 2 on my previous post). Since of course, the majority of people love "good enough" and "fine if I don't get to play, as long as I get to stare at my character with his non-matching accessories that I got since all I do is spam easy and boring Vana for profit".
@Trae, most of them want to farm FSC because it is more worth the money. Let's say you do have those 3 great friends. "Off of mist in two days" would be farming. Of course, that sounds F2P ish, so for a P2P it is more having to wait to sell that sanctuary material, which still might not hit the cost.
Which takes time waiting for it to sell.
Which means farming to hit the 4-split key price since the material alone nowadays isn't quite enough
Which means that Shadow Lairs aren't profitable. So to all of those people that magically have 3 other people so willing to go off to the SL, you are lucky that you found 3 people who don't spam Vana for profits.
I believe i've said this before, but kicking and screaming is also not the way to get changes made. You used to post logical, well thought out (and marginally polite) requests for change. Lo and behold, gun changes came along.
People who kvetch and moan, and are generally annoying and rude do not bring about change; they bring about irritation. I saw in the suggestion forums a wonderful suggestion, that i believe should be championed: the ability to purchase a monthly pass for shadow lairs, similar to the elevator pass. The one caveat i would add would be to make it purchaseable with CE, as well. Hit up the suggestions forum, and champion that cause. You want change? Go about it properly.
Wait, what? I used to be marginally polite???????
So to all of those people that magically have 3 other people so willing to go off to the SL, you are lucky that you found 3 people who don't spam Vana for profits.
It isn't hard to find people looking for SL, after all there are sets that can only be made there (also they need to use the "FSC profit" somehow).
Here's a guide on how to easily get to SL:
1 - Stop whining;
2 - Get 450CE - Hint: Using only mist, in about 3 days (with 2 FSC runs a day), you will have enough for 1/4 of a Shadow Key and a little more;
3 - Look for a party on the forums or at Haven;
4 - Go to SL;
5 - Sell the material;
6 - ???
7 - Profit.
Number 1, yeah, I should definately stop.
Number 2 of your thing, I am not whining because it is extremely difficult to get into a Shadow Lair. That isn't my problem. The whole point of this is that I dislike how they implemented it, and think it is against what they said this game was not going to be about in the trailer: farming. I would rather not use 3 days of mist for 1/4 of the cost. In fact, I even have an elevator pass to help.
Remember... I didn't make this thread because I need advice on how to get into a Shadow Lair. If I did, I would have said "Ahhh shadow keys. Too expensive. Help meeeee." I have my echo stones, I've done it before. I have everything that I need, I have no interest in the armor, the whole point of getting on Spiral Knights for me is to have fun. With the hassle of finding players and getting the key together, it starts to ruin the fun. It reminds me of the days when I was waiting a lot just to fail in a raid in World of Warcraft. My first time in SL Snarby was the same: except that nobody in my group had plans to go to a Shadow Lair again after getting their costume piece, expecting to succeed the first time since a Shadow Key ruins any progression of endgame content. The whole reason it is difficult to find people who want to go to a SL just for the challenge is completely due to the Shadow Keys.
What makes this more frustrating is that everything has been nerfed and buffed excessively to make the normal clockworks easier. They are just no longer a challenge. The last fun in this game for me is A. Shadow Lairs, or B. Danger Missions. Shadow Lairs have blocked off the fun, and Danger Missions have only a chance to be a replacement. (Danger Missions. There is hope!).
Oh, got it. Sorry if I didn't get it right at first, english is not my first language so I make some interpretation mistakes from time to time. :/
Sadly you're right about that part. It's rare for people to repeat Shadow Lairs after getting the armors because of the key's price, even if Unknown Passages and the SLs themselves are nice. But it has been implanted for quite a time, it's improbable that it will change now... Although when the Danger Missions arrive maybe there will be no need to go on SL just because of more challenge, let's just hope it's as we are expecting.
Let's say I'm a bored endgame player with nothing to do, and there's this difficult, tough-to-get-into dungeon that sounds like fun. I talk to a few similarly bored end-game players, and figure out that they're able to do a run this weekend, which is a few days away. I derp about until then doing whatever it is I normally do, until when the weekend rolls around, the money I've made from that is enough for my bit of the entry fee, and we're all set to go.
The above describes me perfectly, and moreover describes everyone I've ever gone into a Lair with perfectly. If I'm at the stage of the game where I'm going to spend 450 CE just to walk in a door, I'm not going to be at the same stage of the game where I need to be saving resources for gear, which means I'm likely to have some disposable income about. Additionally, actually getting people you trust together to do something that takes more than an hour to accomplish is usually not all that simple (as anyone here who plays tabletop RPGs can relate to), so you have plenty of time to gather resources "naturally" without resorting to grinding the same mission over and over.
Consider this as well: anything in the game that requires resource expenditures requires "farming" to a certain degree. Making a 5* item from its initial 2* form, for instance, costs quite a bit more than a Shadow Key, and F2Pers are going to have to put a lot of time into the game to get there. One could even make the argument that regular clockworks content requires farming, since you have to expend energy (and therefore crowns, for F2P) to access it! That's the nature of better things in games: players must work to get there, otherwise the reward seems cheap. You can certainly argue that the work/reward balance isn't satisfying, but complaining that it requires work at all is ridiculous.
Shadow lair rewards definitely aren't enough to justify the cost/risk, even if you never have to revive. On a rabid snarbolax run this week, each member of my party earned 7-8k crowns, plus the chance to make a 5* item. Sure, I didn't have to pay crowns for the 5* recipe- but this "reward" amounts to spending hundreds of CE on a shadow key for the chance to spend 1130+ CE on crafting an item. And while interesting, those items often aren't much better than regular-game armor, either.
That's a shame, because if they weren't so expensive, shadow lairs would be pretty fun to play. I could see running them more often if they were affordable. The pricing system of OCH is slightly better, where the 5* reward can be crafted directly after a set number of runs (no precursor needed), and you don't risk a very steep CE cost for every *attempt* of a mission that you may not be able to finish.
assembly shadow lair party in these days is extremely hard, i need go shadow lair too, but all who i ask just say:
he: shadow lair? for free?
me: no u pay 1/4 key price
he: sorry not profitable...
grr ppls care only about proffit..;(
"Let's say I'm a bored endgame player with nothing to do, and there's this difficult, tough-to-get-into dungeon that sounds like fun. I talk to a few similarly bored end-game players, and figure out that they're able to do a run this weekend, which is a few days away. I derp about until then doing whatever it is I normally do, until when the weekend rolls around, the money I've made from that is enough for my bit of the entry fee, and we're all set to go."
So you talked to a few similarly bored people. In your guild? In general? Some of your friends?
First issue you will run into has already shown up. You have to have a few... or 3. Let's hope they don't care about profit.
Secon issue has shown up as well. They are able to do the run "this weekend, which is a few days away". I don't play a game where I wait a few days. I don't derp about. In fact, I didn't even derp about on World of Warcraft when I played. They actually cared about their players enough to want to give us something to do while we wait for our raids.
And the third issue, you pretty much just worded it in a way attempting to evade the farming factor, "the money I've made from (derping about the past three days)." This implys that if they would have been able to go sooner on the Shadow Lair, you would not have had the money.
"Additionally, actually getting people you trust together to do something that takes more than an hour to accomplish is usually not all that simple (as anyone here who plays tabletop RPGs can relate to), so you have plenty of time to gather resources "naturally" without resorting to grinding the same mission over and over."
Same deal of wording it in a way that eludes farming. Your friends are able to do it later, and you use that time in order to farm. Let's say they can do it now? What will you have to do beforehand?
And third, how the heck are you gathering resources "naturally without grinding the same missions"?? Are you paying constantly or playing with the market?
Remember, they said in the trailer that this game was not a farm. It was meant so that you got on and you got in and you started playing. They've horribly dumbed down missions by nerfing every normal clockworks monster, and on top of that proceeding to buff the crap out of guns and bombs instead of nerfing swords. So any mission is pretty much not a challenge and has gotten to the point of being ridiculously boring for some people. Shadow lairs are the last option, and those are blocked off and require time getting a group of willing people together and farming.
The game really does need a difficulty boost though - Vana used to require you go through 4 extra t3 levels to get to it (usually fiend). Although you might have been able to get a boost down - at least one person in your party had to make that trip and if they were alone that was usually costly for revives.
Vana also used to be hell for 4* players so it would cost them extra in revives.
On a good day you would have some extra mist left over - now you can put two runs in without breaking a sweat on a full mist tank.
The enemy nerfs are one thing but the lag nerf really made everything easier - lag used to be the hardest enemy in the game. You would fear Vana's hammer swing not because of the damage but because the lag was so great will the ceiling tiles animation coming down.
IMHO King of Ashes should be combined with The Gauntlet - this would make it so you couldn't farm it twice a day and help to increase it's difficulty. Vana and trojans need a heath buff. (and possibly falling tile damage needs to come back)
Either that or KoA has to put out only 5.5kcr instead of 7.5kcr (sad but necessary truth to see other content get played more and see CE prices drop)
I don't mind the pay wall for shadow lair content however - it slows down the playability of them leaving them fresh. (With Vana payout being broken though it makes people not want to play them which is a problem)
I do wish the system was different however ( I made a suggestion thread about this a while back ) where each person has to buy a 450CE key instead of one key per party at 1800CE. This would help with getting smaller parties together (or even solo) to do a run without breaking the current economics of the system.
edit - here it is: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/41751
"I don't mind the pay wall for shadow lair content however - it slows down the playability of them leaving them fresh."
Yes, fresh and unplayed. That is the way of the Spiral Knights, folks.
@The-Rawcake - I realize you're just in a whiny mood right now but read the rest (context is everything)
Is this a wacky text effects thread? Because boy do I love wacky text effects that make messages hard to read. So sad Eury edited your masterpiece.
A Tier 3 run with a couple nice recipes has both variety and enough profit to at least cover the mist I used to get through it. It's true that I'll run FSC sometimes in the course of my weekly playing, because it's where a lot of friends and guildies are to be found and social interaction matters, but FSC is challenging and interesting enough to where I don't mind. There's plenty to do while I'm "waiting" for a bigger event.
All in all, I get enough money from playing like I normally would, with my priority being having fun and not just making profit, to get my part of a Shadow Key every three or four days. Since I work, date, study, cook, et cetera outside of Spiral Knights, I usually don't even have time to do them even that often... and that's fine. This is a casual MMO. It's built for people who play casually. If you like it enough to play more than that, you can be a good person and pay; if not, mist is perfect for the amount of time that the target audience is likely to spend playing.
I'll reiterate a key point that you seem to have missed:
Consider this as well: anything in the game that requires resource expenditures requires "farming" to a certain degree. Making a 5* item from its initial 2* form, for instance, costs quite a bit more than a Shadow Key, and F2Pers are going to have to put a lot of time into the game to get there. One could even make the argument that regular clockworks content requires farming, since you have to expend energy (and therefore crowns, for F2P) to access it! That's the nature of better things in games: players must work to get there, otherwise the reward seems cheap. You can certainly argue that the work/reward balance isn't satisfying, but complaining that it requires work at all is ridiculous.
But there is nothing more boring than wasting time getting people willing to make a non-profit from a Shadow Lair and try and have fun at the same time and not suck.
It all reminds me of trying to get a 40 man raid together in World of Warcraft pre-bc.
>.>
I'm sorry, but they aren't really a good friend if they ain't willing to give up a bit of income for some SL fun. Also, why do some more boring FSC grind instead of some SL fun?
Did I mention SL runs are fun and the cost of two days worth of farming is worthwhile for the run?
we will not cry with you, attention (not gonna say it in here). you should have had a double-bladed battleaxe.