You can see that in guild mates list.

I'm not a tester, but...

THIS
"We have also changed the way that loot is distributed. Loot will now be individually distributed to all players and never randomly assigned or split. Each player sees only their own loot on each level and must collect or ignore each piece. This includes vitapods."

...and THIS
"In conjunction with this change, and after much debate, we are removing health sharing revives. Our observations show that health sharing to revive downed party members ends up being detrimental to teams working to complete levels; diluting overall team health to the point of team members being repeatedly one-shotted in combat."

Make absolutely no sense to me!

I mean, if you're on a party and decide to go separate ways to clear rooms quicker (RJP, FSC), now you lose the loot the other player gets? AND if you die you can't be revived without using the equivalent of an energy revive? Why are you doing this, OOO? this DISCOURAGES TEAMWORK!! I understand you have to make money, but this way your pockets would benefit a little from the new revive mechanic but suffer MUCH BIGGER LOSSES for all the players leaving the game. And I thought you wanted to bring new players in, not say farewell to current ones.

@egpnd
it's for bromance time.

Loot Distribution: Although I haven't played through the preview with a party in tow, having read other people's responses and the description itself, I've already formed a very strong opinion of this. I realize this is to help deter alt farming, which I admit can be problematic to the economy to a degree (A single person using another knight on another account to 'double' the amount of loot he gets), and obviously getting the alt killed is the easiest means to do this. With the system, players would have to bring their alts along, making things much more combersom, and thereby acting as a good deterent to alt in the first place.

Of course this is gonna have a backlast effect that rather falls close to DRM. Companies use certain security measures to prevent piracy, cheating, etc, but at the same time, the method they use ends up frustrating a great deal more of the community itself. Generally speaking, if that occurs, the DRM isn't worth it. And as it, that seems to be the case, especially with how there are multiples paths to normally take, such as in tunnels, Char court, Decon zones and so on. Not only would it be annoying for other players, but it also dilutes the idea of team work; by that, the party splitting up and working to get the section done as fast as possible. And obviously it's going to encourage more soloing, which is not good.

I'll admit that we do need to take care of alts, though admittedly I have yet to come up with any better ideas combating them.

But perhaps I'm going at the wrong angle at this. Having re-read the loot distribution system description, Nick does say that shouldn't be any reason for players to NOT to party with other members. Since we're trying to equalize the amount of loot everyone get's, or at least the chance, how about this. Leave heat and crowns as is; everyone will still get them when one person picks them up. That sort of loot has never changed, and is fine. The mat is usually the issue; the more players there are, the less likely the chance you are to get the mat.

Henceforth, with the chance for mat drops being all equal between players, why not just make the mats assigned to other players faded, not invisible. This means those mats are assigned to another player, and will always go to that assigned player no matter who picks it up. This way, players can pick up those mats for other that are already at anothe part of the map. Honestly, I'm not sure why we just say that everyone has an equal chance to get these mats, even if it does make other multiple mats appear alongside others from a single dead monster (Excluding Giant lichens).

Equipment Limits: i think at this point the best way to avoid frustration on other players to make existing players an exception, and only news have this sort of issue. That, or send all existing players a means of compensation (I.E a mail filled with 1*-4* gear, so they can access missions when they have to). Beyond that, I do see why your doing this; there is some sastisfaction in being able to finally use a better weapon. The only problem I foresee is if someone makes their 3* weapon into a 4* and they're not yet able to use 4*, then their suddenly jipped. Besdt solution; they can craft 4* until they reach rank. Assuming the limits with the ranks is fair, then that should be tooooo much of an issue.

While doing SL Snarby run, I noticed that nobody from monsters ever dropped vitapod. Then I noticed that I'm carrying +3 HP Vitapod from T3 levels before Terminal. Is there something wrong with Vita drop? Not that it matters here, where death is slap on a wrist, but still, I love my silver health. Played on Normal

My thoughts:

Alchemy Pots: These being bought with energy anyway, I don't see this being a problem. Set these up so they're worth 50 energy each, and cost 50 energy to buy. This does nothing but make crafting cost less should someone find alchemy pots in the clockworks. If you're crafting a 5* item this means you need to have 16 alchemy pots, which can either be found in the clockworks or bought with CE/mist from the supply depot. This way crafting cost only goes down and the system becomes more versatile. If you're crafting one of the lesser items that take 10 energy, take that energy amount directly out of the player's CE or mist as it currently is. I think the vast majority of players would be all for it if set up this way.

Spark of Life revives: Nobody seems to like this. Having to have a new, special item to revive is entirely detrimental to gameplay. I think most players would like it very much if it was [b]added[/b] to the existing revive system where we can either do health sharing revives, energy revives, or use the Spark of Life. Add it to the existing system, [b]don't[/b] replace the existing system with it.

New Loot system: Nobody seems to like the idea that you have to go get your own crowns and heat independently. Everyone seems to like the idea that everyone gets the material when it drops. I suggest keeping the Loot system just like it is now, only making the materials behave like crowns and heat do now. One person picks it up, everyone gets it, everyone's happy.

Equipment limits: Why, just why? Do away with this.

Loot system: This is pretty annoying. Why did you change that? It saved much time when parties splitted. Now, you have to go EVERYWHERE to take what you deserve. It was already perfect OOO. Don't try to fix what wasn't broken.

Equipment limits: There are many ways to avoid noobs earning crowns in vana. Being free to choose which weapon you want whenever you are made the difference whith another games.

Difficulty levels: There are many ways to make levels difficultier. Removing hearts and changing stats doesn't really makes a difference. Please, change the UI's or something like that, and for example add the mender's attacks. Also, we need a way to know the difficulty of the party we are joining.

Red ring of death: Make it optional. It makes playing impossible.

New items: If the ce prices stays the same or decreases...

I have not been able to play with fellow knights on the test server, as it seems no one is ever on but me.

That being said, part of the problem with this NEW loot system, is that the crowns will vanish before everyone has a chance to collect them. That means if you take too long to clear your area (perhaps you died and need a revive), then by the time you can run around collecting crowns, they will have vanished, leaving you with the bill for the level, and no meal to go with it.

In the end, everyone rage quits because they pay for a level, and get nothing in return (or at least next to nothing). Who would anyone play a mission, or arcade run that only netted a small number of crowns.

Ok, maybe that's taking it too far, but still. I would be very unhappy to be lying dead on the floor while my mates get all the loot.

Please don't do this... it seem bad for everyone.

Rating has a good point there with the loot. I'd say make it last just a little bit longer before disappearing, though, rather than just prevent it from disappearing altogether.

The red flashes are seriously one of the most annoying things ever. Especially once you get down to 25% health. Please let us disable this.

For the reviving system... Will the new Sparks of Life (you might want to rename them... SoL is not a great acronym, lol) always cost 10 ce? Or will we be able to buy them in bulk from Kozma at a (slightly) discounted rate? Like buy 5 or 10 and get one free or something. And we'll still be able to use Sparks to revive other players, as you said, but will we be able to do it the same way we did with the health sharing? By walking up to a player, pressing x, and giving them a spark? Because it's kind of hard to stop the game otherwise and go to a menu.

Nitpicky: I have the far right BS attack set to right shift, which is too long- it overlaps with the first vial. Can you shorten it to R Shift, maybe?

Yes, because while you're dead and not paying for your own mistakes, you're not actually helping the team. In fact, you're working AGAINST it, since your mere presence increases the HP of enemies.

FIRST question, i know u all took alot of time to think of new updates and change the game system, but will u really consider it and remove these changes if majority of the player is against it and pointing it out the bad sides afterall u all have put alot of effort into making it?

SECOND, i dont see anything promote TEAMPLAY but more energy spending. after going through each of the comments this is what i think: Will other players revive me if i die? NO. Will i revive other players if they die? NO. i dont mind sharing heat and health, that is teamplay. if they complaint about other members dragging them down by sharing health, they can go SOLO since they are pro.

THIRD, loot issue. i dont mind if one of the member getting gear drop. it's just like lottery. i know this is mostly not what everyone thinks. but the next thing, running all over the place to collect money,heat and loot is plain stupid. money loot can just remain the way it is, not instanced money. since we are playing as a team we should share it equally. and if u want to update, please make it better, not worse.

FOURTH, crafting. if the prices for crafting remains the same, basically i dont think anyone will complain it

FIFTH, my personal opinion. I stick to this game because it's the way it is. I like it the way it is. u can release update by making it better or dont release it at all. u thought of the downside of current gaming system but did u thought of how the updates will worsen it instead of just thinking about the benefits?

finally, goodluck with the changes u might attract a new crowd of gamers but might lose the old ones. (yeah and then someone will say dont play it if u dont like it, no one cares. but i played this game for more than a year now, and i can tell u really liked this game but it turned out not to be my favourite one anymore. what do u think?)

"(I'm considering the fact that we can no longer use Mist Energy to do our crafts or exchange for somethings in Supply Depot, only use in elevators)"

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Where was this stated? 'cause I missed it. It's not in effect on the preview servers where everyone has 0 CE and infinite mist, perfectly usable for getting stuff in the supply depot.

Which of forum rules did I broke? I would like to know the reason why my feedback message have been deleted.
Maybe because there was some reasonable questions, which was asked so many times before?
I think everyone has a right to get a honest answer. And I got only spit in my back.

At least I know that you saw my message, that is enough I think. Thanks.

I have yet to see any alchemy orbs and or spark of life drop on any levels, if they were to drop 1/30 or 1/40 runs I could see this as a good addition but as it is right now it looks like a way to limit mist to only elevators which in turn looks like a money grab.

The weapon limit looks good but will cause big problems without grandfathering in existing players not meeting the criteria.

Also, as many have said, the new looting will prevent grouping, automatically adding to inventory is the best suggestion I have seen yet.

Pretty sure sparks and orbs are only available through the supply depot atm (I haven't seen a single one of either drop after many, many runs). I think the question of whether or not people will see them as a 'cash grab' is going to depend a lot on pricing and implementation, neither of which are set yet. Even if we couldn't use mist to buy sparks (which I think it highly unlikely) as long as they aren't going to be bound-on-aquire the market price is going to be ≤ 10ce. Anyone can trade cr for ce, and even if they are a relatively rare drop the entire party will be able to pick the spark up, so you're looking at a rev costing somewhere around 700cr if it were implemented as is in-game right now. Assuming that we can buy them with mist, however, the market price will be substantially under 700cr per rev--and that's really not much of a cash grab. Also, as other people have already pointed out, while 10 energy per rev puts more initial energy cost up front, it's substantially cheaper than the current cost of multiple revs in the later stages of the game.

Anyway, tldr; doesn't seem like a cash grab.

I'm ok with sparks and orbs both as long as they, 1.) are still purchasable with mist, and 2.) are not bound-on-acquire, as depending on pricing they could ultimately lower the cost of reving and crafting for most players. I really don't like the changes to loot, however. I guess it's OOO's prerogative to combat dragging alts if that's what they are trying to do, but I agree that it will have a negative impact on team play as an awful lot of the veteran players aren't going to want to slow down their play style to wait on teammates who are poking along. From my experience thus far, it doesn't feel any different if you are playing solo (duh), or playing through more linear CW or mission levels where the party has to more-or-less stick together, but it's definitely a crappy feeling having to backtrack to a branch a teammate took and arriving just in time to see all the loot disappear. Maybe the drop time could be extended to give players more time to grab the loot that has dropped?

well, nice improvements.
first of all, i appreciate your idea to replace revive with spark of life.
usually when you go deep in shadows, you have to get much energy, because if you die too much you have to pay 1000 ce for just revive! when i started to play, that was too bad for me. i even exceed pay limit two times!
with constant 10 ce pays that would be the best. thank you!!!!
now newbies may focus on costume or upgrades instead of paying real money.
so i suggest to add more costumes and weapons. and suggest costume shield. e.g. i have venom striker, green military jacket and some green shield. and sometimes shield is awesome in appearance, but very bad in defend.

next is difficulty changes. i thank you!!! now i can play complete missions again for personal chalenge! i suggest to add this thing to game: completing all game in 3 difficulties gives special sign to knight(near name) and marks as achievement.

i didnt used alchemy, but i think that is very nice idea. now i dont have to play same missions/leves just to obtain more crowns to exchange it for energy. now i just have to play!

now about revives. i think thats good idea, but not completely. first i agree, that when i share my energy i slowly moving myself to death. when i have few energy cells and next hit kill me, whats the difference if i not revive other knight? but if i have several energy cells and next hit kill me only when i share my energy - thats very and very bad.
i suggest, that in party knight must be shocked for 2 minutes(or something) then he can be revived.
or i suggest that revived knight receive only 1 or 2 energy cells.
on other hand i dissagree. when you revive, you receive heat. so other knight "pays" for revives. my idea for revives after some time should be good, so heating for revives will be saved.

so, its time for equipment limits. i think that would be very good idea. so rich newbie with recruit rank will not have more abilities than poor pro player with vanguard rank.

well, i think your hard work will be appreciated not only by me, i now see, that overall gameplay will be more interesting and less boring(i saw some knights, who wanna more events or improvements).
once again: THANKS!!!

p.s.
i forgot that there is chance for mistake on each level, i mean you can die once every depth without penalties. thanks for that!

With the update coming soon, I feel that energy will become a dead market. The sparks of life already killed heat revving, but that is a positive to energy, you have to do ce revs for everybody now = more demand for energy.

Elevators take energy already = already in ce market

Crafting with the orbs of alchemy will kill ce completely. Unless someone tries to keep ce at 7k crowns, ce prices will drop, ce will become weaker, prices for uved items will go way up, and more people will start using crowns as the main currency again = boost to cr, negative to ce.

I think I summed that up nicely.

FSC dictates CE prices; crafting does not. FSC on elite will payout a lot better, so prices will raise after the inevitable promotion and P2W players buying CE to level their sprite.

REVIVES: Revives costing a fixed 10 ce amount is nice... free, full health revs are good. Disallowing party revs, not so. and certainly is not a way of encouraging team play as you said. You cannot say you are encouraging teams, and put this in. Teams, in most cases (from experience); serve to add a little extra firepower, and help ensure the party does not fall apart. You are necessitating that we ourselves pitch in to our own success with what is, in the grand scheme of things, real money. Yes, REAL money. because even if it is bartered, it still initially came from a PAID source that may have changed hands 10, or 100 times but it is REAL. You are now requiring money be put on the table if you are not full 5*, or happen to have a better connection and fast fingers. And as far as your "Observations" go, paid revs are ALWAYS more frustrating than health revs. It makes loadouts more linear for those who wanted health to act as medics (i hate linear loadouts... i cringe every time i am asked in FSC: "do u hav blitz?" as i know a kick is soon to follow); And, being as it removes a party mechanic, does NOT improve team play, only bank made.
RANK REQUIREMENTS ON ITEMS:
thank you... thank you for making me clear my schedule for the next half-month so i am not stuck in proto. I needed that. BADLY. Honestly... i have exactly 327 hours invested in this game (15 i9n the preview), i stopped counting FSC runs at 40, i have even invested about 8 bucks into your benefit check, and you are going to leave me with nothing if i do not work up to vanguard. I was a recruit when i heard of this today... and quite honestly; i half lost faith THEN and there. I had half begun to say goodbye to all my guild members. If they had not motivated me to do them, and ensured me i could (i am a soldier as of now, by the way) i would no longer be a working part of the community. Based on my rate of progress (made it to soldier over 5 hours time), i WILL make it, but this is still ridiculous. And that does not account for an uncalled for number of your BETA testers who never had ANY of these rules who have not played and may pick it back up. As well as any inactive people you may have. This change may very well be the worst of the bunch. It is a stab toward those who are casual players, it is a stab at beta testers, it is a stab at people with less time on their hands, it is a stab at those who spent their time getting equips out of the way before rank, it is a stab at everyone but; guess who? Your bank account, and the site hosts that bill you. And your taxes, and ANYONE that you are paying with the money you make off of people panickedly buying energy to make their way up. They will be proto-locked. Revs are not free, so they will be forced into buying their every rev while doing 5-2 in proto. not to mention the amount of energy they are inherently required to get up there. Does not prevent alts, and inversely only earns you MORE money than you do on the people who pay for 5*. It also broadens your audience, and lowers that pretty little 7.6 rating on IGN. But, all in the name of money, right?
DIFFICULTY:
SURE! how about we make it even MORE fun for free players, and make the main way of earning money for those who dont dump a surplus of 20$ into our game worthless? THAT SOUNDS GREAT! Sure it takes an hour to run vana; but who cares? Let us make it so the vana they are used to is the one no-one does, and throw in one where defenses are meaningless, you earn only about 1k more than normal, and you only survive by hacking? PERFECT! (if you do not get that this is sarcasm by now, you never will and i am getting support from sheldon dylan couper) Honestly... vana ALREADY takes enough time to grind. We already work hard enough for our bread. Now you make it harder? if you do this, there better be a removal of the binding system shortly following. Otherwise, NOONE will ever get to 5*. Except, of course, those whom invest their money in the game repetitively. They may sell off their ce for the unfaltering average 7.2k ce prices, selling in bulk to people who genuinely need it just to crawl a more painful vana run to buy a 5* full set while the rest struggle just to get 4* now. this is the clearest example of the P2W future of spiral knights this update promises. This also has nothing to add to team play... it does not detract, but no addition. For those who have no shadow lair experience (a P2W addition), it will only make their F2P life a bad one.

CONCLUSION:
There was already the calm encouragement for donation.

This game is a fun experience. The community is nice, the art style is something i have come to love, it has a decent story, and i am all for anything that does not require payment for all it has to offer. Do not change that. There are places i could go and take my potentially-to-be-spent money besides here if you do... but i don't. We don't. We could go places like this one soon to join the free-to-play 3D mmo roster: http://www.aq3d.com/, but we like it here; we really do. Don't change that, or everyone WILL leave. Look at the statistics: about 4 posts in the ENTIRE feedback forum actually support it. out of 39. Think about that. that is 1/10 people... who like what you are doing. take your player number, divide it by 10. That is your future population. The bit that does not care about this. DO you actually read that forum?

A spokesman for the hopefuls seeking to be heard,
~DestroyerOfTheNorth

Edit: Constructive criticism and feedback only please.

Very well... everyone who cares may see the full and original post here: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/83677

The goal here, in all honesty, was to be heard. This was an attempt to do so, as clearly previous attempts were not actually given any true measure of attention (that is why i listed it as being on behalf of many; not simply because i found my opinions important. And i was not aiming to come off as standing for literally everyone... clearly speaking (or typing, if you prefer) in a charismatic manner is not appreciated. Then again, this is the internet....). Providing a worst-case-scenario such as 90% leaving justifies need to look into things... it is a statistical probability, in that it is not by any means illogical to assume that if people do not like the game following an update, they will leave. It is important to have foresight when reading these things, as a developer; and recognize that you need the support of the majority of your playerbase on everything you do. That is why i presented that information. It shows them why they need to listen as it could be an eventuality... simply put.

This was written days ago, initially as a letter to support under general inquiries (a lot of it at, say, 3:00 am; to explain any grammatical issues). I am as of now a defender elite speaking here, but in any case, i was simply pointing out that some players just chose not to do these missions, and some never even had them, and that it has become a requirement which will be negative to the players pre-update who have yet to reach 8-1 (post-update will not matter as much... they will not know it any different. Though, on a sidenote, this will slow progression for them). I did not have people "drag" me to FSC (i didn't go around begging for it if that is what you mean, by any stretch of imagination... and never even asked outside of the guild); i simply joined when others in my guild had a space, or even joined in on other money-making missions. If i would ask, i wouldn't do it to an extent similar to begging, it would simply be asking if anyone felt like doing it. In addition, invites would also be sent to me when others would want people to tag along.... and i almost always grabbed at these unless i was simply out of energy. But, i digress... the point in saying that was to convey that all who DIDN'T, including pre-mission-update players, will have many problems following this change.

I, too, like to have faith in the developers of a game to do the right thing. But i had opinions i wanted stressed, and it seems plenty of others also wanted across (again, hence "on behalf of all of us"), that were simply ignored... cast aside. I feel they simply need more attention to the amount dissapointed for this... i do not lack faith that they will do what is best, i lack knowledge that that is so. And trust does not go as far as fact, and can easily be shattered by the facts hidden that kept captive your trust (before you call out grammar here, i am attempting to be poetic. It is more charismatic in my opinion).

Additionally, as far as the difficulty goes, that was indeed a slight error on my part. That was based off the assumption that normal mode was, indeed, "normal" (i.e: what we are used to (what? did you expect me to, off of second nature, stand there and see if they would kill me as quick as they do in a normal run now? I was just testing for the earnings that i heard were changed....)). I am sorry for that error in my analysis. All i did was read the original post of changes, and do the run on normal to emerge with only 5k. The post on where the current difficulty was placed was not read by me until after this letter was sent. I did not change anything for the simple reason that i wanted it known that i was not making any sort of joke when i said it would see itself being posted here. I wanted it to be known that the letter was in, and hoped that if anything was to get response, that would; and i was hoping to use this as a form of letting people know for certain whether OOO was or was not purposely ignoring us... in that regard, if there is a chance OOO will hear my message (basically everything that was in quotations before that last quote i just added for the heck of it at the very end of the forum post), why not take it?

Edit: Admittedly, it did go a little into the "flame-mail" area of the spectrum... it was slightly induced by me being upset when i figured out what the changes were beyond the existence of sprites. I will apologize if it seemed much too abrasive or even a little arrogant, but i was simply trying to get my points across in a way they would hear. OOO if you happen to be reading this, i do apologize on that note, but the facts of the matter still hold true that many want these things changed for the sake of not wanting to spend even longer progressing, or to protect the little dying shreds of team play that SK manages to hold on to. And, as for the difficulties, i request a little more clarity on naming, in regard to the note that normal is, in fact, easy mode. You may confuse any player who didn't know about where the current difficulty stands. I will repeal anything that was a physical offence, but do get level with your playerbase... to really get the feel for things, i would suggest creating a non-vanguard and non-dev alt, starting at recruit. Play through with these restrictions set on yourself... and, without buying an energy pack, make it to 5*... and then vanguard. It is truly very unrefined and well thought out currently in those eyes; those eyes are about half of the people who play the game. The rest (in descending order by percentage) are a few who buy occasionally if at all (which inhabit most of your testing servers), already have everything, and then, you have that tiny shred that is unquestionably doing what could be called "paying to play". This is the demographic of a free-to-pay game, as such, you must look into the eyes of all of these people and ask yourself if you are making it good or bad for them. Using, as an example, a game development office (Something you are likely on established grounds with). You can't please everyone: Give the lower roles in the heirarchy in an office an raise, and higher roles will request one... but you can't focus on such a small part that simply has a loud voice that the majority is ignored (giving great insurance to these high roles and noner at all to the lower ones, no matter how hard working). You need to either a. compromise and meet them halfway, or b. go for the bigger part. (If your lazy programmer who never revises bugs quits because you gave the harder-working, but under-payed interns a raise; then you can just hire up a new one from one of those working to take that role.... alternatively, you can give him more vacation time; and still give them a raise to improve morale of everyone and insure no-one leaves.) Neither is a worse choice, and sometimes, you can't choose between both, but if the option for EITHER exists, go for it.

Zeyez, if I remember correctly, you can access more Supply Depot items as you get farther into the mission system. New players haven't been able to buy their way to 5* outside of the Auction House. I think the limits are because of the AH in particular.

Loot system sucks!!

lalalaaaaa just waiting for an answer.
now I can use my 69696969 alts to buy sparks of life and sell them :D.
if I can't sell them, then ur making this a solo game. =3
what's your move?

Oh good, someone else knows their basic econ. :D