Regarding rebalancing: http://forums.spiralknights.com/node/508
So I think the rebalancing is a failure.
I've got a set of Jelly armor/shield (2 star), and a blaster (2 star), and a slow, strong sword (Brandish, 2 star) with what looks like a three strike combo (2nd strike does more damage, knockback, and followup step, third strike is a fast followup).
I can wade through the top 7 levels, no problem. I found that from 1-3, all the damage dealt, hits to kill, etc, was constant for a given monster, whether it was depth 1 or 3. (This was while soloing). Ditto for depths 5-7, but this was a different set of damage per strike, hits to kill, etc. It's like two different, constant-difficulty sub-dubdungeons.
Nothing in this area was particularly a challenge, except haunted passageway. Generally, all I had to do was charge and swing. Graveyard, and maybe one other I had to do just a little cautiously -- Spawn, kill, move to the next. (I may have taken graveyard just a little too cautiously.)
So far, so good; this is a 0-1 star equipment zone, and I can solo it with no problem, even on a low frame rate system.
So what about below Moorcroft, above Emberlight? This is supposed to be a 2-3 star area, so this is supposed to be where I run with this equipment. Twice I joined a party finishing the last 2-3 levels of that area. My "threat indicator" was solid purple -- badly outclassed and overly deep on the last level. It was NOT constant on all levels -- unlike 1-3 and 5-7, which were basically constant difficulty, this area seemed to get harder with each floor.
Next, I joined someone for a two person run from Moorcroft down. I joined after the party lobby, so I didn't get the +2 vitapod. In the 6 or 7 levels that we played, I think I saw three vitapods -- one was a +18 (and I think it was a treasure chest with an energy door), two were +4. That, along with the +8 that the person I joined had from the party lobby were it. So my previous observations of seeing one per floor is no longer valid.
This was on a Microsoft Windows machine. A "Geoforce 4 in name only" video card that still does high frame rates on high quality.
The threat color kept getting worse. For the most part, the "just charge and swing" strategy worked. Instead of leaving hearts behind, I was taking damage and healing. But it worked well enough. There was a death, and a revive from my party mate. And a break to recharge to full.
Then came the next group of 4. I think it started with a red threat; this is the level group that winds up solid purple by the end. Here I had to stay at range and shoot. Two or three levels in, on Blight Boulevard, we got clobbered. After spending several revives trying to revive my partner in battle, and being unable to kill anyone (and I don't recall if it was healers or regeneration totems), I gave up when the revive cost went up to 160.
So ... what's my conclusion?
First, levels 1-7 are just too easy for 2 star gear.
Second, while 2-star is supposed to be in the range for levels 9-12 and 14-17, it just isn't. It certainly isn't at the deeper end, and was giving me trouble before then.
If I were playing with two-star, it looks like I want to stay only to the 9-12 zone. That means that at crossroads of adventure at 13, I want to head back to town. Right now the party cannot split up, so that means I'm a party pooper. I either force everyone else to return, or I have to quit (which I understand gives me a penalty), or I have to solo.
But it seems worse than that. I'll check again, probably tomorrow, but it seems like there's perhaps 2, or at most 3 of those 4 levels that are actually "challenge but doable". Since I cannot keep going up, down, up, down, to stay in the doable area, I'm forced to go through "too easy" and "harder than I want" to play.
The conclusion here is that you have four grades of equipment, but only 2 real grades of play zones in the arcade. The only star level of equipment that counts is 1, 3, and 5 star equipment (or 4 if you don't have 5 star available). Zero star is obsolete as soon as you stop running firefly, and it really does not upgrade (no one star recipes). Two star equipment seems to exist only to upgrade to three star, and does not seem to serve any other purpose.
So what's possible solutions? If you want two-star and three-star people to play together, then two-star people have to be able to play there -- that really means you can't have big differences between the two levels. Or, you need a way for two star people to play more than just a couple of levels and then say "I'm gonna die, I wanna go home".
Yes, my next step will be to upgrade to three-star. Troika recipe seems craftable, and I don't know the armors well enough (wiki page seems to be both incomplete and out of date.) I may just upgrade my jelly set -- piercing (Bramble! Spikes! Too deadly!) still seems to be the nastiest thing out there, but elemental is starting to be noticeable.)
EDIT: Bramble is no longer piercing! It's no longer "Jelly is great!". Do I want the better normal armor, do I want to get elemental, or do I want to guard against floor spikes? Yuckie.
Wow, do you even play the game? You seem to be posting a lot of long posts... Lol sorry I just wanted to say that...
They are still working on rebalancing everything, so please be patient.