I finally got to the core today and my only 4-star gear was a mighty cobalt helm and tempered calibur and while I died a couple times and ran away from a couple fights, I managed to get all the way down all by myself without a whole lot of difficulty. Since now my gear is even better if only from levelling up a couple times, it only gets EASIER from here! (excepting particularly difficult levels like battle arenas and lord v)

I hope that when Spiral Knights is 'done' the gates are much deeper; gear can have up to 5 stars, so I'm hoping for five tiers, with the final journey to the core having some real nasty encounters even with great items

I wouldn't mind a pwipe as part of this preview event either, since there's some lowbie gear i'd love to use but have no reason to try right now

Maybe it's premature criticizing this proposed change, but for me, if I were a new player, the equipment requirement for tier access would worsen the game. Spiral Knights is at its most fun when the enemies are much stronger than me, and I have to act cautiously and tactically to survive. I enjoy solo runs in dungeons where I am in deep over my head and would die in a hit or two. You might respond that I could still play that way, but I'd just need to level up high-star equipment and remove it afterwards. The problem is that getting the resources necessary to get that high-star equipment in the first place would require grinding in easy dungeons. I suspect that, if I had created my character after this change was implemented, I would have stopped playing the game before tier 3 due to boredom gathering resources necessary to access it.

It would be silly to demand that Spiral Knights cater to my playstyle. However, I think we're at risk of losing something that makes Spiral Knights unique among MMOs. SK has twitchy, actiony gameplay, and you don't necessarily have to take damage as you fight monsters. Strictly speaking, armor isn't necessary. Lag aside, a skilled player can dodge most attacks, which makes the game feel more like a platformer than an RPG. And this is fantastic - it makes combat exciting! But if I have great equipment, though, this aspect of the game becomes unnecessary - who cares if I need to dodge if my armor absorbs the damage anyway? I think SK has a good thing going with its gameplay right now, and I'm worried about these new, equipment-emphasizing changes ruining it.

Forgive me if I am taking this wrong but, I believe you can still solo levels with low equipment. I think you just need to get the badge first, then you can go back to the dungeon with whatever you want. Again, correct me if I am wrong.

Also it doesn't seem like a lot of grinding honestly; I don't think that's an issue. There's basically no grinding right now as is, unless you consider getting 4* stuff to Lv10 to forge 5*. Plus, apparently you can skip these parts anyways if you're an experienced player (which makes sense).

Perhaps make these badges "account-shared"? For example, if we get even one character on our account to Tier 2, or Tier 3, we would not need to do it again on another.

ideally, you could either
-go to class all semester and earn your grade the hard way (earn X tokens and accumulate gear of X rank and get the badge) OR
-test out of the course and receive full credit (complete EG a depth 20 arena solo, without dying, and get the badge)

Do you have to have the equipment bound to you?

Or could a guild have a "tier pass" party, where they give a set to one person, that person gets the pass, then passes the gear set to the next person, until everyone is tier pass'd?

I also do not like this approach. And, I understand the goal.

How about the guard giving you a warning: "Friend! Your equipment is too weak for you to survive down here on your own. Either come back with some friends, or prove that you are the one in four thousand that can survive with weak equipment." In other words, instead of "Not permitted", "Give a warning that you're not ready". That will solve the goal of people getting into trouble that they are not ready for.

I, for one, welcome being always in Haven and being able to go to Emberlight freely without a 7 day limit.

as it is, people or will need to grind to get those high star gears 4*, or will have to buy CE for money to sell it in game for crowns...and also, more grinding or real life spending if you pretend to make the entire set. i don't think that a game of this stile should ensure grinding in any way...

Yet again another update that doesn't address the real issue regarding Haven, and that's that nobody who's a vet wants to play below Haven or Moorcraft because of low reward payouts.

Learn to herp before you derp. That doesn't actually encourage people to play under Haven. Everyone will just take the gate down to Emberlight.

Will we need all 4* equipment to access tier 3 at all or just to take the shortcut to it? I've been happily managing deeper than Emberlight with my 2* Demo Suit.

Just in case you guys missed it:

Forgive me if I am taking this wrong but, I believe you can still solo levels with low equipment. I think you just need to get the badge first, then you can go back to the dungeon with whatever you want. Again, correct me if I am wrong.

- Chronus

Chronus - You are correct, once you obtain your badge, you're free to do whatever you like.

I'd also like to add that as always, the initial implementation of this feature is not going to be the final. We will continue to develop it in order to meet the needs of all of our players. There probably exists solutions beyond what we have in store to allow 'hardcore' players to obtain a badge in a different way from other players who need more guidance. But anything like that will not be part of the initial release.

- nick

You only need to wear the required stuff once (to "pass the test", if you like), and forever after you may do as you please.

...That still means that we need to craft the required 4* gear at least once. Which is expensive.

Soloing in 2* armor is quite easy, especially in tunnel levels, where the hallways allow you to pick enemies off one by one. If you're not being hit, then most armors provide exactly the same level of value: none. (I've taken to picking things for the bonuses instead, but even there, it's not actually essential) One helpful solution might be to have bonuses to improve as star level increases: for example, a 3* gunslinger hat shouldn't provide the same Ultra charge time bonus as its 5* variant. (And if a "low" bonus isn't enough to be noticeable, then the problem is really with the low end of the scale)

The other option, of course, is to make dodging-heavy tactics less effective, through a change in level design. (Deep levels = fewer easy chokepoints, and more reason to charge in swinging)

the main problem is: if you batled so hard to get a full 4* set, why you would want to change your equip to a lesser tier? it's ilogical. people here don't do emberlight with 2/3* equip because they simply want to harden the things, they do this for convenience, as it is more ocnvenient to spend less in equips this way, to buy energy later (at least, that it is how i see the things here).

If my 3* armor offers great bonuses, but I have to switch to a totally different upgrade path and re-craft a separate series of 1-->4* generic unrewarding armors in order to advance to the next tier....

Then yeah, I would definitely switch back to my speed/damage bonus armor at the first chance I got. (regardless of whether it offered good defense stats: because the best defense is clearing the field of enemies before they have a chance to attack)

it's totally ilogical to grind your way to a full 4 set if you will never use it, because of the bonus of the 3* that you are using. you only need to have it 1 time to be able to acess it every other time, but, we don't want to spend a hell lot of money/energy just to buy an useless set, so we can continue to play as we where playing previously. Also, to top the fact that we will not use the iten anymore, we would not eern be able to trade it to someone that might use it, because of the iten binding. the issue here is that some people can't spend on CE, so these people will need to grind mindlesly through the months to be able to buy/make the set, hoping for a rare 4*drop, and cursing the game every time they die for random reasons, making so only those capable of pay, or those that are really hard headed to be able to visit emberlight.

I think part of the issue they are going after David is that sometimes the armors can change dramatically between their upgrades. I'm seeing a lot of speed boost examples here which is where the Drake Scale equips give Sword Attack Speed Increased: High but the Wyvern Scale upgrades give nothing of the sort. I think this is more a problem with the armors and helms still being subject to rebalance. Many people would gladly have inferior defense for other attack bonuses. This rolls into the player ability concept where many of the more veteran players right now tend not to take too many hits so that high defense scores don't mean too much.

Though I do think that the armor tier gate keeper idea does seem flawed because it ignores player skill level. I would prefer to perhaps see a mini-boss challenge to award this badge. This has two pronged effect of not alienating those who are a little too attached to their equips and also preventing an energy loaded newbie from crashing through with no real skill. That's why I liked Vanaduke so much; you had to be good at the game to get by him, not just loaded up with high-tier equips.

I do like the way everyone will start in Haven now and will have to get some sort of ride down to their desired level. This introduces another crown sink into the game (pauses to hear the peanut gallery groan). You all have probably noticed that the energy market is inflating rapidly again. Basically there's again too many Crowns being dropped in the game and arena use in the upper tiers is dropping off due to Antigua-based weapons roflstomping people. People are willing to continually outbid people because they have 50K+ Crowns and nothing else to do with them. Then again this could just be the trend of the last few major content releases where people initially spend huge amounts of Crowns in obtaining new items and when saturation is reached (or your ideal equip) your Crowns build up.

Okay okay, I've got a like. The opening up for randomly instanced NPCs in sub towns will be really fun. It goes with the whole "Only a true explore will discover all it's [the clockworks] secrets." Also I think my pointing out of the (possibly) new Crown sink can count as a like.

The payout level is likely to change again. First it was too high, then it was too low, now were a little less too high and the next round might be a little less too low. I think once all the content is in place a final aggressive round of rebalancing will occur. If it leaves everyone pissed off then you probably made a good compromise.