Sorry. Rather, the lack of balance. I'll fix that.

Thank you people. This is what I'm looking for. Debate on how to balance. Yes, I know my solutions are faulty. That's what the rest of the community is here for. All we need now is debate from the OOO side. We're waiting, OOO.

So Klipik's idea was to nullify the point of missions after completion so that the only reason to do one would be out of boredom or to help someone. Perhaps exploration. However, completely removing the cost is a bit extreme. There's a reason why everyone hangs out at the training hall once they run out of mist. Perhaps reducing the cost to 5 mist would be a compromise. Or, we could create a communist-styled system where crowns received are automatically donated to the guild. It would encourage guild membership (not that it needs encouragement) while also lessening the appeal of farming. I highly doubt this would work, though. Another idea would be to make Krogmos worth CE so there would be a CR decrease due to the increase in PvP activity, and an increase of CE on the market. maybe 5 Krogmos per 1 CE?

@ Klipik
I edited my paragraphs so they had spaces between them.

@ Eurydice
I hope you're taking it up to your boss to ask if you can discuss with us or at least send a representative to talk to us. You want feedback, we want feedback. I'm thinking that I'll give you the benefit of a doubt and wait approximately three weeks after the battle sprite update that you guys are "so busy working on" (not trying to be sarcastic, just giving you the benefit of a doubt) before I delete, or at least graveyard, this thread. SK community, you can try convincing me to keep it longer if you want to give them a greater chance.

What is the point of having missions? My first guess was to be an extensive tutorial that ran players through different monster types, damages, boss levels, and various other aspects through both read-and-click missions (that nobody pays attention to, really) and experience in various levels.
However, there is also the rank aspect that OOO is promoting via the new UI. Yesterday was the first time that anyone actually asked what rank I was, so perhaps OOO's plan to promote the rank system is working. But, seriously, what's the point? Maybe there is a master plan or ulterior motive behind this all. I'm not asking what it is because I enjoy the intrigue there. However, if there is no plan, perhaps ranking could be tweaked to fix this game.

The ranking system is (loosely) connected to prestige, another seemingly pointless aspect unless I'm ignorant of something, in which case I'm very sorry for wasting your time. I propose that prestige be used to purchase accessories. Why? The non-weapon-and-armor side, the social side, seems to be the target of the prestige concept. Prestige, the word, means basically fame. Fame, in SK, is either flashy gear or forum popularity and rarely extremely good skill. A forum integration wouldn't quite be effective. However, being more "famous" would lead to better-looking accessories. Of course the accessory cost in prestige would need to be highly expensive, but to some knights worth grinding for.

On a side note, the achievement system also seems to just sit there, but that could just be me.

@Xxpapaya
I'm not asking for GM's to talk on every thread. Just reasonably because quite honestly, several threads aren't worth glancing at. Devs shouldn't need to bother with threads like that "Nerf Stupid Posts" thread the other day (which was quite funny) (more Eury's job, I'd guess) but if there's a good think going on, they should at least drop by to give a bit of input on their view on such ideas. Still, a good point. I should have made that more clear.

@ Klipik
Yeah, they definitely have a storyline aspect to them, no doubt. I give them some credit for at least promoting the plot, even though it's none too important. Most games just give a story in the beginning that no one pays attention to.

I think I see what you're saying. CE, being the supply, would be worth less because there would be more currency in the economy through the extra mist. So somehow, there needs to be a way for OOO to earn money while increasing the amount of CE on the market. Obviously, from past failed attempts, there is no way to convince enough people to buy enough CE to do this. You seem like a smart guy at economy. Do you think that it would work if you could, say, reverse-engineer your items but only reap the CE from it? As in, if you have a wolver coat you don't want, and you "send it to the junk yard" or something along those lines where they pay you the 50 energy you used to make it, in the form of CE, in exchange for the wolver coat permanently. An item sink if you will, but also a place to redeem some CE. Would it work?

Perhaps it would make sense if the missions were more exploration focused than achievement focused in terms of how they are introduced and explained. That way there wouldn't have to be a definite order to how the lore is introduced seeing how confusing it all is. By this, reducing mission payout sharply (though not completely) would make missions a way to explore specific levels for the point of exploration and not grinding, ranking up and not creating an income. The arcade would then become the main source of crowns and things would begin to make a little more sense perhaps. Mission intros could be used to hint at things within the level that point towards the SK lore, but not focus entirely on getting through, and rather enjoying the awesome graphics and storyline. An example of this would be the FSC intro which tells lore but not entirely (I don't recall the cursed sprites being mentioned) leaving some to be explored within. This would switch the position of the arcade and mission in terms of how they are used (exploration vs journeying (if that makes sense)) but perhaps would balance out the two.

That was quite confusing, especially when I scrolled up and saw that it was a thread regarding guild hall updates but I think I understand what you're saying. Missions won't work without a storyline. I'm not rejecting a storyline. I was trying to explain how instead of making excuses to go run levels, there could be hints of the storyline, pieces of the puzzle within each level so that missions would hint towards another bit of the story and the mission intros could point towards the hint. A knight would need to run through all of the levels to gather the pieces, thus the reason to do any levels at all. Perhaps a better example would be the echo stones and recon modules. They say there's recon modules in previous missions and they send you to gather this piece of the story. I'm sorry if you still don't understand. I don't know how else to explain it.

Ok, that makes sense. Would it work if each set of missions held a "chapter" of the lore in them? Like the missions could be grouped together as they currently are and each set (or sets) of four would focus on a different aspect of the story. For example there could be a part with the Owlite kingdom story and you would run through Candlestick Keep and the Scarlet Fortress (is the Scarlet Fortress related? It's kinda a generalized castle as far as I know.) so player could experience both but also have a bit of the lore learned there. The intros could explain some of the lore and within the level you would be able to see the books and couches on the side in Candlestick and meet the knight at the end of the level that studies from the Owlite libraries. I'm basically thinking of remodeling the mission interface structure so that there is an actual order to it all, and that the order could be related to the lore. Of course the Owlite segment of the story would need to be closer to the end for the Vanaduke section, but Candlestick is pretty much already T3 material. (Oops. Didn't mean to get into the specifics.)

I totally get it. That would be really awesome to have a split storyline. Complete agreement on the P.S. too. I'm interested in if the Swarm is related to Arkus and the city of Ur.

One of the aspects of the mission system that really made it seem linear to me is that the missions are quite literally lined up. Originally I thought they had to be played in order. This completely frustrated me when I got stuck on Frostifur Fandango. I'd like to see them come in a more set-style format rather than line segment format. Something like a block of four mission tiles that you could select from.

Let’s face the inevitable: no matter how you change the AI of a monster, the result will still be the same, because after fighting about 20 of the same monster you’ve developed a pattern, whether it’s spamming or attack and dodge (or something else). Changing a monster’s AI may make it more difficult for a while, but only until an attack pattern forms.

So let’s go to where battles are actually difficult. Shadow Lairs are different from most levels for several reasons, one of them being the terrain. I’ve seen videos and there are the chain-things that swing around, forcing players to dodge mid-battle. There are also monster spawns in inconvenient places, like spikes.Danger Missions are tough for two reasons. One, the terrain, like the flame cannons in C42, and two, the swarm of various enemies in small, confined spaces. Let me prove my point. I run RJP all the time. The second level has a four-room section. Nearly every time, people go for the top right corner. Why? It’s relatively the most difficult. Why? It’s a tight room with various enemies swarming. Then the people go to the bottom right room. Why? It’s relatively the second most difficult. Why? It’s a tight room with an indefinite swarm of enemies (mini slimes) and lots of terrain problems (spikes everywhere).

So I’m suggesting that within the clockworks, we can make levels harder and battles more fun, not by changing the way monster fight, but by making the area unfairly stacked against the knights. Corridor battles and chain-of-room battles (top left section of the second level of RJP style) can be made much more challenging merely by adding gun puppies, greavers, spikes, or other turrets. For example, there is a section in one of the compounds where it would be really easy if not for the 6 or so gun puppies that are unreachable by sword or bomb, which I had been using at the time. I was forced to take this area seriously with much dodging and running and I had not had that much fun on a T2 level since I started it with my underpowered gear. I give OOO credit for that segment of the compounds. Yet, they can make T3 so much more fun by amping up all of those weak spots.

@Klipik
My apologies for not seeing that before. I tend to ignore large amounts of links after clicking a couple.

@Thegreatpiggy (and Klipik)
That's an interesting idea. Do you think OOO has achieved that? I've been seeing Polaris nerf topics since about when I joined, but there's also new lockdown loadouts that have been popping up. It seems that from this perspective, weaponry could possibly be used to create this perfect imbalance but I'm not sure how well it's working out for OOO (if they're even trying. My guess is that they're trying to create perfect balance instead.).

I could see OOO doing that using events, like one event would overall be weak to a certain type of weaponry (gun, for example, or a certain status, but it would have to be done in a way where the player would see the power behind that specific status that nothing else has so that he is drawn to craft that type of weaponry. Not like elemental damage because everyone already has all three types covered) then a couple of events later make the overall event weak to a different type of weaponry. They could even do this using maps. Like League of Legends adds champions, SK could add maps that would give bombers, for example, an edge over the other types so more bombs would be made. They could even just be Lockdown maps.

@OOO
Hey, it's great to see that you've been more active in the suggestions thread. I'm hoping you'll make your way around to this thread because I'd like to get some discussion going. Maybe you think we already have discussion. We do, but we can have so much more if you can describe to us the reasoning behind some things, maybe throw in some of your own ideas that are a bit rough on the edges so we can help sand them off. The community can seriously help you guys (no offense). At the least, give us a chance to help.

Not only that, SK is mainly a PvE game. And we need more weapons because seriously, all you need is an elemental brandish of your choice, GF or acheron, blitz needle, final flourish, and polaris and you can do anything. I haven't had enough time to watch the second video but I'll get around to it tomorrow.

Yes, maps that favor bombs also favor polaris and brandish users, but that's because polaris is essentialy a shocking-grenade launcher and brandishes are swords that launch a row of small bombs in any one direction. FoV can also be classified as a pseudo-bomb, but is quite a bit more dangerous for the user. But I'm getting off track again. Thanks for pointing out the perfect imbalance concept anyways.

It’s interesting that you brought up LD because I just played a round of that earlier. Personally, I suck at it as much as I suck at BN and that’s a lot. However, I have read up on it and I do know a lot of strategy (or should I say “strategy”) even through I’m probably the worst at implementing strategies.

Let’s go through the general overview first. There’s Blast Network, the, as they say, awkward middle child (which I don’t enjoy using since my friend is a middle child) who doesn’t do too well, nor gets much attention even though there’s quite a bit of undeveloped (or unused) potential. Blast Network is mainly a game of strategy, and complicated strategy at that. The little brother Lockdown, on the other hand, is quite simple. Capture the points using any means necessary that you’ve earned from your clockwork journeys. Lockdown gets all the attention he wants. Some say that LD is a mini-game, but it fits rather nicely with its cousins Arcade and Missions as part of the main game that is played. If anything, BN is a mini-game because the game is rather small in popularity. Otherwise, BN is just as great. Then there's Super Brawl the big brother who got sent off to college and is never coming back because he was just too good. And there you have it: the SK PvP family.

BN doesn’t seem to need much rebalancing at all. In fact, everyone has exactly the same things as everyone else. The only things that can give one player an edge over another are skill, luck, and energy for those energy revs. Skill can only be balanced by classifying players by their experience in BN; no amount of clockwork running will help a new player, unless the new player in question doesn’t even know the controls. Unfortunately this will not work due to the lack of players overall. The highest amount of player I’ve seen on BN is 12. Overall. Like both free-for-all and team (no one was doing GvG). So separating BN is not going to work. The strategies in BN are rather difficult to create and even tougher to implement properly. Sure, there are players that are great at it, but those players play BN a lot (or similar games). My proposal is to at least run the new players through a tutorial on BN strategies or throw in some easier maps

LD is about as balanced it can be for the moment. The most I can think of are the separate elite class that some other thread I saw was talking about (probably a link from Klipik) or adding more weapons that can viably be used. Yes, OOO, we need more weapons. All the good weapons are a bit overused and the others just can’t compete. If you’re doing that cycling perfect imbalance idea that Klipik and Thegreatpiggy were talking about, you’ve taken a couple of years to do just the first step of the cycle (aka from the preview event to current day SK). Also, while we’re at it, I’ll throw in that the elite class idea will likely increase your income.

I tried these out last night and I just have to talk about it now. OOO, you did a beautiful job on both of these. Perhaps its just me, but I see both of them as what they were made for. Dash is more defensive and Bash is more offensive. I did an RJP run (as always) and Dash saved me several times. Bash was also great for the rush into battle. One of the things I found annoying was the disability to bash through a triangle of slimes in my way, but I'm assuming that Bash runs off similar mechanics as the shield bump. I also became a bit more reliant on these than I expected so I did die a few times, but nothing worth mentioning as they were both fun to use. The control scheme was annoying; I set E as bash and space to dash. I think it'd be much better to double click shield to bash and double click a direction to dash, but that could just be me.

On to the balancing issues here. Armors have just become near-obsolete. The only major hits I took were when I was adjusting to the dash-n-bash controls and when I got blocked by the slimes. Ranged weapons have just received a buff because gunners can now jump out of harm's way more easily, but this also takes a bit of skill out of the game. I don't consider it anything to worry about though. Swordys also received a buff as they can now be like strikers with the ability to stun. I believe I'm seeing a power creep here. Knights just got more powerful and monsters just got nerfed. What I'm waiting for is for the monsters to become more powerful. In a way, this is more balancing than unbalancing because armor defense will (eventually) become greater and more useful. There will be a greater division (eventually) between T2 and T3.

All that needs to happen is the buffing of monsters. Not all, but the weak ones (eg. slimes). True, there will be many rants about monsters being OP, but I'd say that's good. Players will be forced to use more skill and the game will become more exciting. Eventually it'll all die down. When was the last time there was a monster buff? June? They buffed the Gun Puppy accuracy in Tier 1 and no one complains anymore. In fact, gun puppy accuracy has been one of the most put-up-with attacks that are actually difficult. Nobody complains about bullet hell unless they're actually in it and they don't complain elsewhere very much because the adrenaline rush and the excitement of dodging the massive influx of bullets is one of the most engaging, yet somewhat common, parts of the game. Maybe it's just me, but I enjoy dodging the three-spread of bullets that come from gun puppies. I enjoy slipping to the side while shooting it down. I enjoy running around a turret, trying to beat its turning speed so I can hit it from behind. I enjoy watching myself getting killed by just barely having my hitbox tapped by the edge of a bullet. I can't explain how exciting it is to be battling a Giant Lichen Colony and just barely getting hit and killed by a spike that it shot.

Hm. I guess I got off topic there. My point is, in response to bash-n-dash, there should be a power creep and it's currently the monsters' turn to be buffed.

@Klipik
Sorry, yeah, you're right about Brawl being bloody and unbalanced but it would definitely be fun. At least for a while. Then the complaints would pour in like crazy. So no, Brawl isn't coming back and for good reason, I agree.