It wasn't supported, like Klipik said. I asked them in one of the "ask the guy that programs stuff questions" threads.

But would it really have been so bad for Nick to have came up with a new vision of what it would do? Or for Nick to have done something to make it closer to what he wanted? It doesn't have to be perfect. The game sure isn't right now, what with Chaos and Mad Bomber, with loose items being called "traps"- like the cautery sword. It never was.

I honestly wouldn't bank on it being changed ever. Fixing the game balance might "make the game less linear" or something. And besides, the game gets worse over time, not better.

Beta/First year- Cleaner look- the only "costume" type things were rose regalia. Now we've got pirate hats and fugly green versions of everything, things like that. Back then, it was just gear. , Different content (Tortodrones, fish hats, slooms), harder content (wolvers could bite you), more balanced. Harder to advance through the game/attain starting items meant a longer game experience.

Now- Fugly and blue (unless you're particularly tasteless, then it looks better) + unnecessary amounts of costume armor, less balanced (due to new items that outclass existing items), "hard content" is spam- rather than 6 wolvers with the ability to turn their head you get a dozen nerfed devilites and 20 lobotomized wolvers. There are some new enemies, like almireknights, but these are not in the actual game, rather, in the side missions that we use to get a number that means nothing rather than CROWNS which ADVANCE YOU LINEARLY in the game.

Most "new enemies" are not actually so incredible for 3 reasons-
1. They are fodder to kill. Gremlin Knockers are the perfect example- "New gremlin thing!" and we'd mastered them in 10 minutes. Same goes for battle pods. New swarm enemies? I'm thinking about... 70% chance of this happening to them. Casual should != Entirely easy.
2. They are copies of older enemies with slightly upgraded abilities and different graphics. Almireknights = mechaknights+flourish, gitm's boss = battle pod + tentacle things (which could have been used much more creatively, mind you.) These are good, but should not be the greatest thing ever.
3. They are underutilized. They are placed not in random levels, but in specific places where you can only fight them once. There is no "battle pod level", or "random bombie encounter" on any levels. You can fight a ton of different things mixed in most clockwork tunnels. But you there are no randomly spawning battle pods in clockwork tunnel levels. It's as if the enemy doesn't exist. Arkus, bombies, battle pods, almireknights. Especially arkus. Why don't we fight other half-trojan half-knights?

To be fair, the devilite buff was called for though. Devilites were noticeably harder, even before all of the other monsters got nerfed. The devs might have good intentions, but sometimes I'd rather they not try to fix things that aren't broken when there are other things that could use some love. A lot of love, to be exact.

Because OOO is busy with other stuff. If cause enough of a rant about it they might.

Crits on iron slug? That'd kind of be a disappointment. It takes 20 shots to kill anything with it, so it'd be like "BIG DAMAGE" and then you'd be doing like... 2 times as much barely any damage as before. I mean, if it does get "balanced" it'll likely get one of two treatments-

The "Chaos" treatment: FOUR TIMES THE STATISTICS

The "Suda" treatment: The charge is more usable now.

That is, overdone or underdone. Things are rarely ever fixed to be balanced. Take for example this-http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/47402

Skelly series: Still inferior to kat hats and snarbolax armor.
Magic Cloak series: Still made for the same reasons that it was when it had stun weakness.
Drake Scale series: Was only given a reason for use when C42 came out.
Chaos set: Was only given a reason for use when it's offensive stats were doubled.
Justifier set: Is still only crafted by "experienced gunners", and is often considered slightly worse than nameless, which benefits from freeze resistance (seen as better than stun) and elemental damage (which is generally more of a threat than piercing)
Shadowsun set: Is now crafted all the time. Balanced.
Deadshot set: Is only crafted by experienced players, as it is a bad starting armor due to being good for 1/6 of the monsters, which it WRECKS, but only if you're a gunner. Oh, and most players aren't gunners.
Nameless set: Is still crafted. No real change. Freeze resistance doesn't do much for it, and did not
Bombastic Demo set: Bomb CTR helps you WAY more than bomb damage. Fire resistance helps you way more than freeze resistance. No one to very few people seriously use bombastic demo.
Drake scale shield: Poison resistance does not trump being able to shield non-projectiles when almost all levels consist mainly of 2 types of damage- Normal+[X] and [X], where X is piercing/shadow/elemental. Drake scale shield guards against Piercing/elemental- you don't want to defend against [X] and [Y] when there is no to very little [Y] being dealt and more normal+[X] being dealt.

The bottom line is that OOO has no idea how their game works, or at least is trying to make something that doesn't work, and is failing miserably.

How players go through Spiral Knights

Given that their goal is to conquer all the bosses and craft a 5* set, then to look like a boss while maintaining familiar gear, they begin by farming for CROWNS that are needed to progress to 3*. This is done inefficiently through boss runs, because min-maxing the entire game is not easily done by players that are new to the mechanics of the game.

Players need to get CROWNS because they are told that they need GEAR to progress. To get GEAR you need energy and to get energy you need CROWNS. Materials are massively inflated, so hunting them down is a serious no brainer. I routinely hand out materials to guildies if asked for them (as long as it isn't "Hey Fehzor, build us 8 statues of the roarmulus twins." To that I say "Maybe after I build myself 8 copies of the pets with roarmulus materials.")

There is linear progression in Spiral Knights because players are placed on a track-- the Mission System. The arcade is less profitable, and is overlooked by most as a waste of time. Sure, all players go through it at one point, but once they realize how long it will take them to progress off of the crown output from the arcade (keep in mind that utilizing one's friends to purchase 4 polaris recipes to make 50-60K cr per 2-3 runs is unintuitive) they abandon it for the boss missions, which have a clear cut and distinct reward that pays well.

There certainly are players that don't even attempt to min-max. I was one of these players. I was just trying to do stuff randomly, because I didn't really care about beating the game. I was just here to mess around. Would you like to know what happens to them? They find the players that DO min-max the game to any extent, and chances are these players will be the ones from above. They will have better gear from grinding the "correct areas" and will go on to lead others into joining the boss-farming, until that is ingrained into their ideas of where to go for money.

The same goes for gear. Everyone has wolver armor- branching out is risky. No one wants to farm FSC for 2 days only to get an iron slug that handicaps them, or something like plate. This means that there is only one path through the game that is reliably followed. There are other paths, but GAME THEORY. And it goes something like this-

-Starting out, first few missions, figuring out the basics through having them shoved down the throat.
-Messing around and discovering that the energy system, which is now sneakily hidden, dictates everything. Most players leave here.
-Those that still want to play now look at various gear paths. They read up on it, and ask dumb questions like "Which brandish is the best for fighting things that are weak to shadow" and then end up finding out the same bit of information, that is, that they should craft wolver etc. Most players are sword-users. Those that aren't get gunslinger or bomber armor. These are common, but cannot compete with wolver. A minority will want to feel special, and will go for something like chroma. Most of the time
-Crafting that one piece of armor that they chose, which is almost always wolver, gunslinger or demo, into it's final form. And by final form, I do mean vog, skolver, volcanic demo, nameless, or shadowsun. No one makes snarbolax/merc demo as their first armor, because starting out going to shadow lairs is a bit much. No one makes mad bomber because chaos, no one makes bombastic because as I said above, it's lacking in many ways. No one makes justifier because namelss is seen as a better first armor.This part takes forever- you have to basically just grind and fight everything, and you can only manage to get one of your armor pieces up to par, because you want to make the big money at FSC as fast as possible. It's a basic concept, really. The extended ability to earn money is better than the things money can buy for you.
-These players then get to 4*, and are stuck before firestorm citadel. FSC used to be hard to get to, you'd have to find a good party, and not many could do it. A whole group of 4* players does not typically bode well in FSC.
-After getting to 5*, there is little to no incentive to craft other armors/weapons. Rather, to roll on those armor/weapons that you have. Some players craft many items to use, but many get comfy using their brandishes and would rather just look cool. So most people invest in things like cosmetics or Unique variant rolls.
-Then OOO does something that angers them, example given- makes a bad looking UI, removes shard bombs, makes content that they aren't let into without several million crowns like shadow lairs, and they leave.

How [I think] the Devs Want/Think Players Should/Do Go Through The game

Based mostly on Nick's most recent funny- http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/77721#comment-681155

Players start out at the crash site, go through and learn about how to do stuff. They then play a little of the missions, and a little of the arcade. Log on, fight whatever you like (and players like bosses) and then be happy.

Items should be crafted for what people have trouble with as well as for any other reason- if I have trouble with wolver, I should make anti-beast armor from the drake scale line. In a casual nature, I should buy CE whenever neccessary, and then use it whenever I need it- like I would at a traditional arcade. Want to play pac-man? You put in quarters. Want to play Spiral Knights? Give it 20 bucks. You'd pay that much for any other game, if you valued it enough. Spend this on the variety of weapons and armor that you need and would like to try out. Spiral Knights is an MMO though, so after your 20 bucks of CE is gone, then you should be able to budget another 20 bucks on it- but you wouldn't have to so often or at all if you didn't want to- the game is constantly paying for you to do stuff, especially if you have a job and a life and aren't just playing SK all day and night.

20 bucks is 7500 CE- which gets you about 5 5* items, disregarding mist/heat/whatnot. But in terms of 4* items? You can make 12 different ones. 3* items? 37. So you could get a lot out of one 20 dollar transaction. If you don't try to get to T3 and beat the game immediately. There are about 12ish distinct lines at 3*. If you tried out half of these to see "what your play-style was" or something like that, and then chose of these 2 or perhaps even 3 that you wanted to continue with because you liked them- then you could end up making 6 3* armors, 3 4* armors, and then 3 5* armors. This would cost you 6*200+3*400+3*800= 4800. Which leaves room for mistakes in that 20 dollar purchase. After that, the player is essentially "done" with the game, and can do whatever.

There is a spectrum of players, not just F2P or P2P. F2Pers can play for a while, but should not expect new items often. P2Pers can play for a while, but will have to either buy energy or budget themselves if they want to get more stuff eventually. And it might be that you just need a little bit of money to get started- the game allows for you to spend 2.50 USD on just enough for that crucial upgrade that you might want. There is no "you must spend this much", because of microtranscations, and the game is meant to accommodate that.

But more importantly- players shouldn't be grinding ever. Nick stated that a while back when the game was new, pointing out the lack of formal levels tied to characters, and if you fought enemies randomly- as if you were going through the arcade blindly- then you might need extra armors.

Under this logic, hiding the money might entice players into the above.

Of course, we'll never know what the devs want of us, because they don't say- this isn't a problem until we're having content, e.g. shard bomb changes, forced upon us. Then we're like "WTF", someone gets banned, a few leave, and new players come. Etc. So don't take my word for this, I'm still trying to figure out why the dev team does the things that they do.

I'm entirely convinced that Callahan could have its damage increased by something like 50%, maybe even 100% and still remain balanced. OOO's idea of balance seems to be "change the way stuff works" rather than adjusting numbers. But adjusting numbers doesn't take any dev effort, and often would go a long way toward balancing things, so I have no idea why they're so opposed to doing it.

Iron Slug probably still wouldn't be balanced with a 100% damage buff, but it would at least be a start.