Good day knights. (yes, long wall of text incoming...)
I'm going to make another and even more extreme suggestion that I think it would improve the game even more than my last one! Basically there's something that drives off the new players at their 1st playthrough. And if you guessed it right, it's the elevator costs! Basically, many new players find this game exciting and fun, until they get slammed in the face with "loloutofenergygobuymore". And people simply detest that and leaves. In fact, this problem is so bad, my guess is that only a small fraction of new players actually come back after the 1st mist tank. You all felt this way, you play this for the 1st time and you suddenly run out of energy. You want to play for longer, but the loloutofenergy thing won't let you unless you pay real money for it (or trade it for CE, with is really silly considering you'd still be on tier 1). And people simply don't like that, it sounds like an average Zynga game. And Zynga games are awful (yes, even Farmville).
So my suggestion would be that, for the sake of this game and all newcomers in particular, to remove the elevator's energy cost. It sounds insane, I can tell that. And well it is, since if this idea was putted in practice the CE prices would skyrocket all the way to the next dimension, and if nothing else changes, making crafting 3* or higher gear impossible for the f2per, turning the game p2continue2p to absolute p2w. Which is even worse...
Solution for this? Simple, since you need energy to craft, how about being to craft stuff without it aswell? Just make an NPC, a blacksmith gremlin on preference, that allows you to craft stuff. Of course in order to be profitable for 3rings/SEGA, the CE crafting should also be available and it has to be more advantaging then Cr crafing and here's a few things I suggest that I think it's fair compared with CE and crown crafting.
- CE crafting has a higher chance of getting UVs, crown crafting does not at all. Instead, the player can talk to Punch to get one if the player wishes so.
- CE crafting has to be cheaper compared to now (half to current value from 3* and higher to be fair), in order to incentive people to craft stuff from there. For crown crafting, It requires the double of the mats (maybe even triple for some, since it's relatively easy to get most of them), and a fair price that does not require an enormous amount of grinding like it happens now. Something like this (of course we can discuss about it):
1* - 500
2* - 4000
3* - 10000
4* - 25000
5* - 50000 (edited)
- CE crafting should no longer require heating, which means you can craft all the way to the 5* without the obligation of binding it, given you have enough energy for it. Nothing changes for crown crafting on that.
Of course not just the crafting that needs a change to keep the game as normal as possible, although it is the most important, but also there's gotta be other changes to incentive people to pay money for the game asides from promotions. Solution is also simple: make stuff purchasable with CE a lot cheaper (better value for money means a bigger incentive to spend real money on the game, you all know that):
- This goes specially with the keys, on particular, the shadow lair ones, since the CE is no longer possible to obtain with real money.Actually, for that key, it should be also purchasable with crowns too to make it more fair, but with a relatively expensive price compared with buying it with CE. (400CE for it, while with crowns it would be over 100K cr);
- Unbinding should be cheaper to about the following values (sounds fair?):
0* - 5 (because why the hell not?)
1* - 25
2* - 50
3* - 150
4* - 300
5* - 600
- Slot unlockers could also be cheaper (100 for trinket - for a good reason below, and about 200 for weapon slots);
- Heat and Krogmo coin boosters also get a cheaper price (half the value should be alright).
- Yes, even the weapons sold directly on the supply depot should be cheaper too, not too much compared to the costs of crafting though...
But wait, some of you will ask: "What's the point of having the CE-cr market if the prices will go so high? No-one will simply buy the energy now, it's pointless..." Well, in that case it's simple: get rid of it. If it's useless now, then we don't need it. More, it can turn to be a good thing, since energy seller/buyers tend to rely on the market's price and removing such guide would actually be useful, since there will be a wider variety of offers than it would be possible with it. And more variety means a better chance of being capable of buying energy, although it certainly still be far more expensive than now... Doesn't mean it shouldn't be possible to trade it now though...
Also some of you will ask about the mist tank. Since elevators are free now, why do we need it anymore? Easy, there's still may applications for it:
- Soften up the costs for CE crafting
- Revivals when everyone is ded in your party (costs should be higher, about the double though)
- Buy trinket slots.
And there's a reason to be able to buy trinkets with mist. It has to do with lockdown and heart pendants. And speaking of which, since they're only craftable by the Krog's alchemy machine, there should be also recipes purchasable with krog coins in order to not make it exclusive content for the p2pers, making the pvp even more p2w than it already is. Same thing goes for the weapon status boosters. Remember, people should only pay money to skip the grinding or to get a fancier character, and not to get an unfair advantage over f2pers.
And there's another thing important that I'm sure many of you will tell me and complain about - elevator passes. Since there would be no elevator costs, they would become useless... So, for those who bought it just before the update, they should have the value of their passes redeemed to an appropriate amount of energy value for them. And for those who had one but it has already been used long ago, please go away. You paid to get a month free of elevator charges. You got your full month for free earlier than anyone else, so you shouldn't complain about it... This part is just for those who didn't took the full time and advantage of it.
And for those who still think it's a terrible idea, I have something for you: less limitations means more fun, more fun means more people, more people means more wallets, more wallets means a bigger chance for them buying something with real money! Think about it. And not only that, but it would be very likely to make Spiral Knights one of the best, if not THE best free mmo out there! Maybe even better than maplestory! Maybe... Seriously, how many reviewers dropped a few points on their final score because of the energy limitation? A lot of them! And it's not just the own website's reviewers that bashed the game because of that, so the the players did too. I can show about 10 or even more links that proves this right. Or just google it, it's easy to find anyways.
So in a nutshell: In order to make the elevator cost removing viable:
>Make stuff craftable without energy aswell
>Cheapen the stuff that cost CE (and make shadow lair keys purchasable with crowns too)
>Remove the CE-cr market (still make the CE tradable like always though), if possible.
>Compensate recent elevator pass purchasers with equivalent worth in CE
And to make things even more exciting, this should be implemented on the same day as the Core would open (implying it will ever happen ;_;)
And I think that's it. And now I should run away from people who wants to feed me to the wolvers because they think my idea is stupid. Also apologies for eventual engrish and typos.
Thoughts? /run
EDIT: Please keep the wall of texts to a minimum...
I know ye're trying so hard and I look only a little and scrolled down, trying to do an conclusion.
There are pros and cons of whatever ye make, ye know.
People would just be very tired of looking these suggestions, I say...
So, just let it rest, 'boyo.