Spiral Knights - Remove Missions and add the mission-content into Arcade.

Remove Missions and add the mission-content into Arcade.

9 replies [Last post]

Fri, 06/28/2013 - 04:43

Glacies

Honestly, it's disappointing to see how much the Mission UI ruined Spiral Knights. [/personal opinion]

I mean something that crossed my mind, how many people have actually tried the new compound levels? If more than once out of the entirety of Spiral Knights?

I see many "Arcade" revival topics and I feel that it really should be revived but the only way to revive it really is one simple way: Removing the mission UI.

Missions: Get rid of them

Missions turned Spiral Knights into a "Money > Fun" instead of "Money < Fun". I remember going into Arcade with random people even if they were noobs and having fun with just going through random set of levels each time. The Arcade features a random string of levels that give the player a sense of mystery surrounding the clockworks. Allowing them to play through semi-random levels without knowing what was ahead. (Unless you're a true pro)

Missions remove this sense of being able to choose your own path with a straight forward Story that really offers nothing new to the game aside from the overly-used insta-jumps to Bosses. And, no, "locking" a specific mission after completion still doesn't fix the problem because it can easily be exploited.

However, instead of removing all of the missions...

Mission Specific Additions: Adding them to Arcade:

How about we add them into the Arcade instead?

There are a few perks to the Mission UI which are the few unique-lore missions such as The Silent Legion and other missions. What would happen if we added these into a "Scenario Level" akin to the Scenario Rooms? The game had a sense of mystery wrapped around it. You never know what you'd encounter in the clockworks. Scenario Levels would add to this. With a random chance of accessing a unique-level keeps the experience high, showing the player that "There's a lot more going on than what it seems". Imagine going down into the Clockworks, only to find yourself stranded in a completely new-unknown level. Seeing rooms like these honestly, sound interesting and some of them are really worthy of it.

Prestige and Expansions: Keep them

Rather than removing these, they should stay in their own tab much like what missions do now. Giving players who currently have prestige (and also Danger Missions) the enjoyment of a quick jump if they feel like. Along with any Expansion Packs kept currently.

Content that feels new but isn't gobbled down: Compounds and future installments

Much like the first question I asked in this topic, how many people have actually run this? From what I've seen, not that many out of the entire player-base. People complain about no new content yet the content was added... and no one has actually attempted to try it out. All because Money is more important than Fun OOO could easily add more levels akin to Compounds and people wouldn't eat right through them. They'd slowly take their time enjoying their meal or even snack every so often instead of gulping it down and saying "Done". With Missions going on, people don't realize that there's a lot more in the Arcade than what the Mission UI could ever achieve.

There's not much really to add here aside from what I've said. All of it is opinion based and may or may not reflect upon other views of players. Much like I said before, I do not expect this to get great views and I understand that constructive criticism is important. I hope some people agree with me and the ones that don't express why or what could be changed. Thanks.

Fri, 06/28/2013 - 07:10

Blandaxt

I like this idea, “Mission Specific Additions: Adding them to Arcade" but I rather not see a mission I have already completed. I would rather see a new mission that is specifically design for the clockworks randomness.

You’re other ideas, I don’t agree with. The developers (probably) took a lot of time making those mission scenarios to give a storyline t the game. Removing them is really throwing away good work. They should instead do what is suggested in this post ( http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/72817 )

Fri, 06/28/2013 - 10:23

Magmaul-Ace

Well.................

I dont think they should just trow away the mission UI,more like keep it but dont let players re-do missions,with exception to missions like Silent Legion wich would be(just like boss levels) kept as a strantrum around the clockworks.

For turning regular missions into part of the clockwork's levels,yes I agree,but as sub-objectives that appears ramdomly when you enter a depth(posted this idea on that tread Blandaxt linked).

A little exception from the regular missions are those arena levels (wich dont fit in the regular Arcade levels) that should be put in their own type of levels.

Also a thing they could do is remove most of the good recipes from HoH,I mean,the only reason most people went to the arcade (when it started to get undervalued) was for recipes,and then HoH comes giving all the recipes easily for a set price rendering the Arcade even more useless!

Fri, 06/28/2013 - 11:03

Waffleconecake

simple, we rip apart the missionman!

A better idea would be to make missions into a tutorial that ends with the player exploring the edge of the gloaming forest (snarbs) so they learn how to PLAY the game. This would make them ending the missions in tire 1 still.

Fri, 06/28/2013 - 11:41

Batabii

No. missions make the game way better. Just make it so people can't grind boss runs all day and night.

Fri, 06/28/2013 - 12:23

Leafblader

mooooooooooo!

I agree with larry.
Just remove boss missions.

Fri, 06/28/2013 - 13:17

Shidara

Incoming nonsense!

@Waffleconecake
And remove all the higher-tier missions? Removing content which is already scarce enough as it is? It's the beta-syndrome all over again!

@Blandaxt & OP
What if, instead of removing Missions as a feature, integrating them into the Arcade? For instance, take The Silent Legion mission, which you can accept from A) Kora through a communcation uplink (available either on-demand or in the Ready Room), or B) from Feron or some other NPC. Now, what's the difference? The difference is that instead of getting warped directly to an instance of set levels, you have to form a party in the Arcade and a Scenario Level will be made available when you reach the Mission Depth whereby you and your party can A) enter automatically via a prompt (presented only to the party leader when the Mission is active, more on that later), or B) wait for it to show up in the rotation*. This way you can still have the storyline progression that the Missions introduced while still running through the Arcade, by running through the standard Arcade Gate levels until you reach the destination of your assinged Mission.

* This ties in with Glacies' original idea.

So, onto 'active Missions'. By interacting with the 'Mission-assigner' (see above) you can accept a Mission that you're eligible for. Whether you should be able to accept multiple missions or be restricted to only one at a time can be debated, but in the case of Mission-based levels being prompted upon arriving at the target depth only the party leader can send their party into the level if they have it as their assigned mission. If Mission-based levels are determined by level rotation the ignore this rule.

In the case where Mission-based levels are determined based on level-rotation, a nice way to keep things fresh is to have different Missions in different gates. For instance, The Silent Legion could be available in the Onyx Lion gate, but An Occurence at Owlite Keep would be available in the Diamond Falcon gate and so on and so forth. (I chose the names at random, since I haven't been online to see what gates are currently active.) That way you'll get to explore different gates before you can move on to the next set of Rank-Missions, meaning that you can't just run through the same, known-and-mastered levels to complete all missions in a set.

My apologies if it seems like I'm thread hi-jacking, but I felt like sharing these ideas since I really would like to see the Arcade populated again. It was what kept me playing during my early Knighthood after all.

Fri, 06/28/2013 - 17:40

Blandaxt

Well..

@shidara:

The reason I want to keep the arcade and missions separate is because they require a set amount of mist or energy to complete. If they are added to the clockworks, the average knight progression to 5* would be a bit slow because they would have to travel a set amount of levels to reach the mission objective and they would also need more energy to complete the mission levels. I feel that missions should stay as an extension of the game on its own that provides knights with a quick access to end game gear and a good storyline that keeps newer knights engaged in the game. I feel the arcade should have something new every week that will keep older/newer knights engaged so that they don't have to feel the repetitive grind just to meet the financial crown output that the FSC boss mission provides. If we were to combine these two things being the arcade and the missions, it would have to be balanced so that the average starting player can still feel that progressive ascending rush that the missions give.

For example, I created a new character and was able to make him reach full 5 star gear (azure set) in less than 2 to 3 months. If new players can't progress at this pace in that amount of time or close, well it will feel that missions cannot provide the bonuses to the new players that they do now.

Fri, 06/28/2013 - 20:52

Waffleconecake

@Shidara

What content? there are like 4, maybe 6 "special" missions in that are not DLC, or prestige (I was excluding them). any of the "special" levels could either, be part of the tutorial or added to the arcade as a special variation.

Fri, 06/28/2013 - 21:41

Klipik-Forum

The mission system introduced three things into spiral knights:

-A way to better present the story.
-A better guide to players as the progress through the game.
-A UI element that serves as a platform for "special" levels like prestige missions(dailies), expansion missions(DLC), and events.

However, the missions themselves also introduced some problems:

-Ease of repeated accessibility to the highest-paying areas, thus jacking up CE price massively.
-Ease of access to a number of recipes, further lowering the need for arcade/basil runs.
-Extreme linearity of progression and a tighter restriction on who could progress where and when and how far.

So the problem lies not within the actual mission system, but the mission content. Instead of removing the missions... fix them.

Search

Remove Missions and add the mission-content into Arcade.