Spiral Knights - Threat level system - Harder Arcade content for veteran players

Threat level system - Harder Arcade content for veteran players

6 replies [Last post]

Sat, 04/06/2013 - 20:11

Aumir

Why do you create this?
This suggestion is due to people asking on how bring Arcade back and make it interesting. Even if random scenario events make them more beautiful, the reason most people would get back to it would be two reasons: Challenge and profit. This intends to cover both of them, and I hope you like this. And I do like to make suggestions for this game, even if I don't play it that much anymore : )

What do you suggest, what is the "threat level system"?
After you do certain game events or accomplish certain tasks or achievements, you will be noticed as more of a threat by our enemies in the Clockworks, even the Swarm may see you as one and try to take you out.

Each one of those will generate changes in them that will try to make each random Clockwork expedition harder, and of course if successful due to a higher enemy army to defeat will mean more benefits to you. If you make it out alive, of course. The Arcade would get much more difficult than regular Mission levels depending on your threat level - though then the Arcade would live to its namesake difficulty.

As this is for random Clockwork levels, this wouldn't modify boss stratas.

You would be able to check your actual Threat Level to the Clockwork creatures in a new tab in your personal Knight info of the same name. There, a list that would get larger the more things you accomplish with a description of what you did to attain it.

This is the actual list of what I think may work, with effects included:

1. Mission Mode Threats:
a) Snarbolax defeated: "You have slayed the king of Gloaming Wildwoods, Wolvers will remember your name. You know their howls are directed to you, more than ever."
Effect: 1 more Beast type enemy spawns on every spawn in Beast related stages.
b) Royal Jelly defeated: "You destroyed one of the havens of the Slime kingdom, and Slimes see you now as a powerful being... and they want you to join them!"
Effect: 1 more Slime type enemy spawns on every spawn in Slime related stages.
c) Roarmulus Twins defeated: "After checking the footage of your fight against their greatest creation, the Crimson Order has added you to their list of targets of interest."
Effect: 1 more Construct/Gremlin enemy spawns on every spawn in Construct/Gremlin related stages. Not accumulative.
d) The Silent Legion cleared: "After freeing Arkus, you feel like you disturbed something you shouldn't."
Effect: 1 more Fiend type enemy spawns on every spawn in Fiend related stages.
e) Vanaduke defeated: "The cursed legion of Almire rages, shaking in their fiery cries the forces of the Undead in Cradle."
Effect: 1 more Undead type enemy spawns on every spawn in Undead related stages.

2. Prestige Points Threats:
a) 5000 points badge: "As someone who made enough expeditions to earn a badge, you are no longer just a normal Knight. Which makes you a more appealing target to monsters sadly."
Effect: One more stage related monster on normal enemy spawns. Excludes party button ones. Higher chance of Danger Room on normal Clockwork levels.
b) 10000 points badge: "You earned your second badge, and of course a few more followers from the enemy army. But they don't want to cheer you..."
Effect: One more stage related monster on normal enemy spawns. Excludes party button ones. Higher chance of Danger Room on normal Clockwork levels.
c) 15000 points badge: "Your third badge is even shinier, which attracts jewelry loving creatures."
Effect: One more stage related monster on normal enemy spawns. Excludes party button ones. Higher chance of Danger Room on normal Clockwork levels.
d) 25000 points badge: "The fourth badge was a tad longer to get... which meant you had to slay a lot of enemies. Their friends await you in the Clockworks somewhere."
Effect: One more stage related monster on normal enemy spawns. Excludes party button ones. Higher chance of Danger Room on normal Clockwork levels.
e) 45000 points badge: "What a pretty badge! It only required you to slaughter mountains of enemies. Speaking of which, they now hate you with a passion. Expect revenge, somehow."
Effect: One more stage related monster on normal enemy spawns. Excludes party button ones. Higher chance of Danger Room on normal Clockwork levels.

3. Achievement Threats:
a) Bronze survivor: "You made it! You have learnt the basics of fighting! Your enemies though feel that you cheated and call their friends to gank you."
Effect: One more stage related monster on normal enemy spawns. Excludes party button ones. Carries over to Tier 2 and 3.
b) Silver Survivor: "That was a good fight. Your enemies though think otherwise, they go back angry to their homes and speak about this horrible Knight, which gets some valiant enemies to want to hunt you."
Effect: One more stage related monster on normal enemy spawns. Excludes party button ones. Carries over to Tier 1 and 3.
c) Gold Survivor: "You made it safely to the Core after beating elite enemy armies. Your name is now in the Hall of Shame of the enemy armies. Expect more of them as they don't forget!"
Effect: One more stage related monster on normal enemy spawns. Excludes party button ones. Carries over to Tier 1 and 2.
d) Cradle and all: "With a reason or not, you went ahead and reached the Core in one go. Though, to get there you had to beat a lot of innocent creatures. Well, at least the first ones. The entire Cradle hates you a bit more now."
Effect: One more stage related monster on normal enemy spawns. Excludes party button ones.
e) Dauntless Delver: "Congratulations. Was it worth it? Because you broke the hearts of countless monster families. You monster of monsters."
Effect: One more stage related monster on normal enemy spawns. Excludes party button ones.

4. Danger Mission Threats:
a) Legion of Almire beaten: "The elite armies of Almire wish for revenge, their spears will hunt you eternally from now on!"
Effect: Chance to spawn an Almirian Shadow Guard on every enemy spawn in Fiend/Undead levels. Excludes party button ones.
b) Compound 42 beaten: "Looks like some remnants escaped Herex's lab and they seem to be able to remember you! They creep at every corner of the Clockworks. If it is warm enough, of course."
Effect: Chance to spawn a Toxoil on any Fire level on every enemy spawn. Excludes party button ones.
c) Heart of Ice beaten: "Some Devilite analysts state that your performance was what broke the deal with Maulos. As such, you now have a bounty on your head: A holiday week to the one that hunts you."
Effect: A random Devilite may spawn on any normal enemy spawn, in any level. Excludes party button ones.
d) Ghosts in the Machine: "You thought what you did was that, you'd pretend you were done with that place. But it seems there isn't now any peaceful place."
Effect: Chance to spawn a Shocking Bombie and/or a Static Deadnaught in any Shock level on every enemy spawn. Excludes party button ones.

5. Extra Dungeons Threats:
a) Shadow Gloaming Wildwoods cleared: "Once you stare at the abyss, the abyss won't stop staring you back with its maw open."
Effect: On Tier 3 Normal Clockwork levels, +5% chance of spawning a Swarm mob, fitting type depending of stage.
b) Shadow Royal Jelly Palace cleared: "No one will bless the queen, they will curse you instead."
Effect: On Tier 3 Normal Clockwork levels, +5% chance of spawning a Swarm mob, fitting type depending of stage.
c) Shadow Ironclaw Munitions Factory cleared: "The end of days of Haven will have to wait for later, although you now risk to be terminated a bit more."
Effect: On Tier 3 Normal Clockwork levels, +5% chance of spawning a Swarm mob, fitting type depending of stage.
d) Shadow Firestorm Citadel cleared: "After vanquishing Vanaduke, you can't help but wonder... have you defeated the master or the apprentice? You have a bad feeling about this."
Effect: On Tier 3 Normal Clockwork levels, +5% chance of spawning a Swarm mob, fitting type depending of stage.
e) Killing a Ghostmane Stalker: "The Crimson Order now won't hold back any longer with you and will track you actively, thanks to your deeds."
Effect: Chance to spawn a Ghostmane Stalker and/or Mortafire on every normal spawn on Construct and Gremlin levels.

Notes:
- Swarm mobs that stalk you will drop Crowns/Heat went beating them once, but will continue stalking you until party button/elevator.
- Fiend levels get Swarm Zombie due to not having a Fiend variety.
- I prefer "killing a Ghostmane Stalker" instead of beating Crimson Hammer due to the rare spawn of them that sometimes happens in C42. Also, due to CH not being avaiable free yet outside Steam.
- Yes, that means that a normal 4 Wolver spawn in a Wolver Den, with full threat level will mean you may get 15 enemies instead. Without taking into account random spawns. Still, big rooms with one time spawns would get their +10 enemies spread out.
- Threat level in parties is set to the lowest one instead of the highest one, to avoid exploits.

Possible cons:
- Arena hunting would be dead, though that would make the other levels much more attractive and get back variety. It would be for the better, in my opinion.
- Lag. Even I lately have seen worse performance ingame while testing the new interface. May get better optimized as time goes on.
- Enemies are still at our current nerfed difficulty. Though this fits with current politics of "hard content= higher number of enemies" that Danger Missions and Shadow Lairs have.
- Elevator pass + invite on lowest depths among veteran players= Lotsa Crowns: I got nothing really, they would do that anyway in FSC right now. At least it would be more challenging than doing a dungeon we know for the 1000th+ time.
- Highly cluttered spawns in small rooms: I think this may be for the better. As explained above, the biggest change would come from small "regular" spawns, big rooms that don't have separated spawns won't get that different. And those small spawns suddenly aren't that forgetable, suddenly 12 Kats instead of 2 in Scarlet Fortress. And let us not even think if it is in Candlestick Keep. Maybe cut the adds from special stages? Though that would ruin a bit the purpose of making Arcade difficulty higher.
- Too many Crowns, CE would rise! > Yeah, but maybe Crown payout of extra enemies could be reduced. Anyhow, a maximum threat level Arcade means waves after waves of lots of enemies... so it may be "balanced" in a way?
^Also please note that +5 enemies are added due to Prestige Points, you aren't required to unlock that exponential increase in enemies. And +2 enemies are unlocked with the full Arcade trip.

And that would be it. Hope you like it! Even if I think I covered the usual cons, but still feel free to discuss and feel free to propose adds/modifications : )
Too tired already to translate it today in the Spanish forum XP Will do it tomorrow...

Sat, 04/06/2013 - 20:44

Tgfbn

this is a good idea

Sat, 04/06/2013 - 21:10

Qwez

Seriously? a Static Dreadnaught? Those big-crazy reviving enemies? as a rare, normal spawn? and I thought Black Kats were bad to have the chance to spawn in place of a kat anywhere.

Relatively well thought out, good job.

Sat, 04/06/2013 - 21:17

Fehzor

Ok. So here is my thought on this- yes. It is a good concept. But I feel like it relies too much on the "one more enemy spawns!" because I've done most of these, and this would make each level have like 50 extra enemies per encounter. IDK about that. If me+zeddy+Drdrj+Soral, whom all have most of these ticked off, are in a party, we shouldn't end up with 20 enemies every step where there should be 3. But 6? Yeah, sure. But that should be rare. Instead, use things like "more health" or "more speed", like the champion enemies in the binding of isaac. Things like that. It needs to be subtle, so as not to throw off the game entirely. But this is awesome. I've seen it before, but it's still awesome.

And another thing- 1% chance of finding an unknown passage instead of a normal level when in stratum six. Should give some kind of rareish item at the end.

Sat, 04/06/2013 - 23:09

Enfeebler

Maybe a something more like this?

Your idea seems to be perfect for solo play but could be oppressive in a 4 member party with 4 veterans. But that made me come up with a small fix to 'threat level system'. I thought about something like this:

You could unlock different achievements, similar/same to those you mentioned, I'd add to your achievements some like kill a ' X monster' Z times and kill X monsters in row. By 'in row' I mean w/o taking a damage, not a problem for solo, in party every player would have own streak count; kill streak would be counted in one Clockworks' expedition). I'd also change the 'rewards', instead of so much additional monsters we could simply buff them. Add some HP, ASI, dodging frequency, range, damage, status strenght etc. Of course you could come up with more achievements but let's get to main point, so to the way it could work.

Party leader after making a new party would have a tab where he could tweak/enable all/some of those bonuses. Everyone else in party would get notification in chat box that difficulty has been changed. Like "click 'some button'/HERE to see the changes". Additionally there could be pop-up window with those changes but it could be too annoying if party leader couldn't make up his mind. Also there would have to be added something to party finder so you won't get into hardcore run by mistake. Maybe 'more details' button next to every party?

If you played Gemcraft Labyrinth you can probably imagine how the window could look like. If not I'll put here image of that 'battle settings'.
http://oi48.tinypic.com/2cnjn21.jpg
Obviously it would look a 'little' bit different but you get the idea.

Tue, 06/18/2013 - 09:19

Jenovasforumchar

more varity but i like the idea

i really like the idea behind it, but i would like to have some more varity into this:

instead of only adding one monsters of the same kind everywhere there could be
- any randome monster with a randome status attack aswell (eg. a shock greaver in a spawn of poision jellies.)
- like in other posts suggested status change like more health, movement, attack speed, and all things you can get by attack uvs, too
- better defense 'monsters realized that their defense is not enough anymore': they get all this UV stuff a player can have on their amors, too
- status monsters could get an additional status on status attacks (eg. zombies with breath that stuns and sets players on fire)
- randome revives on killed monsters (the Rocket Puppy died... not.)
- blockades that may appear at set places with a randome chance (at both sides of a trap as soon as you walk over it. you need to destroy the blockade before the traps activates once more or the trap will get you)
- spawning rockets falling from above
- stealth monster aside cromas (stealth jelly :D). could be connected to gremlins since they are the technologic enemies.
- longer active time of traps / shorter cool down of traps
- explosive blocks with status effect (only to knights?)
- mines instead of these Zelda-like bushes you can walk over.

and so on. after all i would recommend anything that increases difficult somehow, but there needs to be an option to players if they want to disable it.

Sun, 06/23/2013 - 06:52

Blandaxt

LOve the idea

This idea is not bad, but as everyone has mentioned, it needs more variety so that it does not become a grind fest (although, any grindefest besides FSC i like). I know you can't come up with all the ideas for the variety, but at least you know what general direction were talking about. Again, love the idea, hopefully get more supporters.

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Threat level system - Harder Arcade content for veteran players