KC 04th August, 2012 - 00:37
Thanks everyone for your questions. Keep your eyes on the main page for the interview in the coming days.

@The Rawrcake

I have been on the internet for a long time Sir, and I have played many many games, and this is a perfectly normal responce to a major change of a widely used item.

And as they are not entitled to listen to the opinions of others, others are not entitled to sit there and swallow it,
if you want to that's up to you, but others aren't.
And sure this is a game, and I personally(as stated above) am dissapointed but will move on, this however does not mean that I will approve.
If you make a mistake, its fine everyone does, we're all people after all.
But have the guts to come out and tell that you have made a mistake or that you're working on somthing, because that's what shows you have good intentions, that's what shows you have heart and want the best for the people involved.
Being silence like this is not a sign of self-esteem, it is a sign of delusion and cowardness. It is fear of judgement for one's action.
And that especially in a situation like this where if anyone of them just took 2 minutes to write SOMTHING , even if it is "we're working on it don't worry" this thread probably would'nt have reached 100 replies and no one would have taken all that effort to cross-mach people and write letters and reports.
And as suggested by my previous comment I think that theese bombs can be good with a few small tweeks.

If you cannot realize this Sir,
then I'm afraid it is not a problem of the repliers nor OOO, but an inner conflict which I cannot resolve for you.

A fine day to you Sir

I can't. Let's be serious here. OOO spent time and money developing these new bombs. Granted they aren't all that good, but they most certainly won't get rid of them. What some of us should be doing is suggesting a way to make these bombs better. I'm sorry guys, but it's the hard truth, those bombs aren't coming back. The new shard bombs are here to stay.

You do realize the old shard bombs were also developed using time and money? Us players also spent time and money on it.

Not quite a reply from Mr. James that I would hope for. But COO is suppose to be his right hand man and so his words would lend some weight too. Here is the letter:

Dear "Eltia's real name":

Daniel James forwarded me your recently received letter and asked that I look in to the matter you raised regarding Spiral Knights.

I have had a chance to review the forum thread relating to the changes made recently to shard bombs and spoke about the matter to the development team. While I appreciate your concerns, both in terms of how these changes affect the game and how communication was handled, I will not be recommending further changes to this feature.

As you can probably imagine, balancing the development plan for a game like Spiral Knights is fairly challenging. We have, on one side, a ardent and loyal player base that are undoubtedly closer to the game than many people here, and on the other, a strategic plan outlining the direction in which we want to take the game.

The design team for Spiral Knights is charged with balancing these two factors in every decision they make for the game. In many cases this requires tough decisions; the shard bomb change, in particular, is something that team as a whole agonized over for weeks, hoping to find the right balance between change and continuity that would minimize the impact on players. I think, in the end, they made some good decisions.

Communication over matters of this sort is also challenging. As a studio, we make a practice of encourage robust forum discussion and debate about the game. This has the benefit of providing clear insight in to player preferences; however, it can also be frustrating for players when the direction we choose for a feature based on our beliefs about what is best for the game don't immediately make sense to them. It's hard to get involved in the discussion and not care deeply about the decisions that get made.

Three Rings "overexposure" in the forums is something we try to avoid; the key value of the forums, namely a healthy player community, relies in part on the freedom to discuss the game without contradiction from us. However, I appreciate your concerns over the need for clear communication on the decisions we do make. My apologies if the experience has been frustrating in this case. I hope we can be clear and concise in our communication on future changes to the game.

I hope you continue to enjoy Spiral Knights. There are several really exciting features coming in the next two to three months that I hope you will find entertaining.

All the best

Tom Schofield

COO
Three Rings

Please post thoughts and comments on this. I'll draft a response and send Mr. Schofield a reply and appreciation for his response.

P.S. for people who believed Mr. James won't listen. Well here is a counter example. For people who have been setting up petition, I hope this is something you can learn from also.

Feel free to post more. Before I send a reply I will post a draft and let you guys look at it.

Mr. James is dodging the question and not giving us clear reasons for this change. If they believe that we do not understand the changes then can they please actually elaborate on their reasoning?

This "Just trust us!" BSing is not an encouraging sign for the state of spiral knights. The point of the forums should be for communicating ideas between developers and players. At this point the "suggestions board" is pretty much a second graveyard due to a lack of feedback from OOO.

OOO could remove bombing completely in the future and continue to say that it was to ensure SK is "Fun and balanced"

Eltia however really deserves a medal for all of his/her devotion to this issue.

-

Cleaver is actually a really nice guy. While he isn't clear of any criticism, since much of the stuff happening in the game is most likely directed by him, as far as changes go within the game, the people on the board only see those things as positives. There's no real details to them.
The actual results of these changes aren't of any particular consequence to them, because they don't play the game. It is just a tool for making money that they fund and market.

However, one line in that letter kind of bothers me in particular:
We have, on one side, a ardent and loyal player base that are undoubtedly closer to the game than many people here

Not only is there some grammatical errors, but it's basically saying that the community knows best and they still continue to go ahead with things they already know the repercussions of. If I was trying to defend my decisions, that's literally the last thing I would admit.

But, as usual, I'm sure the Shard Bomb changes were just a small part of a much larger update. Just like every other big change this game has undergone, the little things will make more sense in retrospect.

"We have, on one side, a ardent and loyal player base that are undoubtedly closer to the game than many people here, and on the other, a strategic plan outlining the direction in which we want to take the game."
And still, you decide to go against the "loyal player base that are undoubtedly closer to the game than many people here"?

"The shard bomb change, in particular, is something that team as a whole agonized over for weeks, hoping to find the right balance between change and continuity that would minimize the impact on players. I think, in the end, they made some good decisions."
If you wanted to find it so hard you could read the effing test feedback... You guys totally ignored all that was there.

"however, it can also be frustrating for players when the direction we choose for a feature based on our beliefs about what is best for the game don't immediately make sense to them."
Then why don't you guys just explain better? That explanation about bombs do AoE, guns shoot, etc are flawed and we already told why, but still you guys keep quiet as ever.

"Three Rings "overexposure" in the forums is something we try to avoid; the key value of the forums, namely a healthy player community, relies in part on the freedom to discuss the game without contradiction from us.
Yes, you're right. But when we are discussing about updates and asking everywhere for answers from the developers it would be quite nice to actually get an answer or even a feedback on the suggestion forums. You guys are far from "overexposure", but are so damn quiet that it wouldn't hurt to be a little more active on the forums.

The new bombs are hardcoded so that no enemy can be hit by more than 3 shards at the same time. This hardcoding is pretty buggy so enemies sometimes get completely immune to further damage from the bombs until you stop comboing them.

It's pretty safe to say that removing 1-hit KO was a pretty major factor in the shard bomb replacement, so turning them into just that is out of the question for OOO.

Hadn't realised that, not much of a programmer here lol, but I've seen you've made your point tho a 1 shot bomb would be too powerful, however either the damage of the nRSS needs to be buffed or something else needs to happen because right now the nRSS feels underpowered as well as inferior to the original. That and the new code needs to be tweaked if it's buggy D:. I haven't really tinkered with the new bombs, I'm suffering from "lack of content" syndrome.

Side note: Also, really? Nitz? if you wanted to make my name shorter go for Nite ~_~.

At number 1, that is just feeling like an attempt to control OOO now... >.>

I still don't get what this is for.

Just asking questions of the first GM that popped up a head in this thread.

That letter is complete BS.

It also seems like they don't know it's underpowered...

To preface: I am a bomber. I don't gun. I don't sword. I have a few and they occasionally get used, but really: I'm a bomber.

I will now say: I didn't really like the old RSS. Yeah, it dealt good damage and was neat and etc etc etc, but I didn't like it. I was excited for this bomb update.

I now have to tell you, I like these bombs EVEN LESS than I liked the old RSS. Their DPS is too low on the damage ones, the ones with status aren't as useful as the haze bombs, they get buggy when you stack up shards (enemies stop taking damage--I mean, c'mon, what other attack pattern are we supposed to use?), shards disappear into walls...

The end result is that these bombs aren't fun to use. And that makes me not want to play.

I've got three of the new shard bombs now, and I'll probably get them to 4*. But I don't know how much I'll use them. That's kinda sad.

Sincerely,
Cheshireccat

I guess 8 pages isn't enough for us to get a decent answer? :/

I wonder what would happen if everyone sent in a customer support request about this.

Since they respond with private responses instead of replying in a public domain.

Totally not a bump. Rather, I'm going to pose the first argument that comes to mind against this change. Probably been posted before, but plain bump posts are lame.

In a game that relies so heavily on weapon-type affiliations, every weapon type needs to have at least one weapon that works well in every situation. But right now, bombers have no job against vanaduke's mask, RT, or any other number of small, single-target monsters, like turrets. Hence, you cannot change all bombs to be area effect. Bombers shouldn't have trouble dealing with boxes, switches and crystals. There should be bombs that work for those, too. RSS did all these things to at least decent effect. Hence, it should be brought back.

These bombs still suck. At least fix their damage since you ruined the best bomb a bomber had. Bombers are such a joke to fight in LD now.

You know what would make my day? You know what would make everyone's day? If the next patch had:

• Fixed shard bombs. (FIXED if not reverted. I still sometimes am thinking that giving these bombs a chance is a good idea. They just need to be fixed.))
• Guild hall update.
• Stun fix.

Am I saying I am going to throw a tantrum if this doesn't happen? Nope. I just am saying this would make me start floating. :D

BTW, I just went through a whole lot of thread pages in general discussion looking for Nick's admittance of broken stun.
What I noticed is all the way back to beta, there are plenty of threads with shadow copy still on.
What singled this thread out to have shadow copy turned off?

Back. I hate these new shards.

Yeah I found it.
It was some interesting reading though going all the way back to beta.

Acck - Today at 4:44am:
Look folks, 3 questions very badly need answering.
None of questions have been answered by the Devs.
None of these questions complain about mechanics or request the item be restored.
1. Why did you put bugged status on RSS?
2. Why did you remove Elemental damage?
3. Why did you allow and possibly encourage the abuse of the compensation scheme? [referenced here, Hyperion's smile is the biggest insult ever, http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/61815 ]

Aphrodite - Today at 6:05am:
I realize there are players who are upset with the changes that were made to the bombs at the beginning of August. I can assure you these changes were made to improve the game. The developers do not make changes to the game mechanics lightly, because they realize that players are used to the game functioning a certain way, and that changing that can be difficult. However, after reviewing the data from the bombs, the team decided it was best for the overall balance of the game to make these changes.

1. I assume you are referring to the stun bug with this question. The developers did not intend the new RSS to be a buggy bomb. They are working to track down the cause of the stun bug and fix it, but it is providing difficult to nail down. I do know this is a high priority for the developers.

2. There was a whole line of new shard bombs added to the game with that release, including one with pure elemental damage (the crystal bomb line). I know it can take time and money to level up and craft a new bomb. I see you have a super crystal bomb in your inventory. While it isn't the same as the old RSS, it should prove to be a good alternative if you are looking to do elemental damage. If you don't like the style of the new shard bombs, there are still the area affect bombs. You have options.

3. We sometimes forget that people will take advantage whenever they can, but we did not intend people to 'ragecraft' in order to earn an outrageous number of UV tickets. The UV ticket event is frustrating for everyone involved, and we are taking steps to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Yes, I understand this is a frustrating change for people who relied on the RSS for lockdown or delving into the clockworks, and it is difficult to change. However, the team honestly feel this is an improvement to the balance of the game overall, and more in line with the original intention for the bombs. Please let me know if you have any other questions!