Spiral Knights - And suddenly, it all made sense.

And suddenly, it all made sense.

10 replies [Last post]

Mon, 07/08/2013 - 12:32

Fehzor

WHAT IF, and this is a big what if-

The problem with the "pay wall" that players hit is in T3 players helping them?

If I go out of my way to help the lowly T2 knight beat the royal jelly, then he can advance.. but the lowly T2 knight couldn't have, wouldn't have, been able to beat that jelly king without my help. So he gets to go on, and he can beat that jelly king and then the roarmulus twins and then.... actually, I'd be willing to carry him all the way to vanaduke. So he doesn't even need to do anything. Just by existing and playing a tiny bit each day, by messing around and never learning, he'll make it to T3.

So why don't we have a ton of late-game T3 knights that don't know how to play aside from the fact that we have a few P2Pers that are like that?

Because they hit a pay wall.

So instead, you see all of these T2 knights getting stuck and complaining. To get to the end of the game, it takes all of 4 5* items. If they don't budget themselves horridly via vendoring gear, excessive CE reviving etc... then it'll cost them about 1100 CE per 5* item to craft their way to the top, +25 cr each... if they make 2 weapons, a sword and a blitz needle, and go the wolver to vog route, that SHOULD get them there in 5500 CE and 125K cr, which really isn't a lot considering its the entirety of what they need to beat the game with, minus the fact that once you beat the game its fun to try new things and get stronger.. 515.5K crowns.

If they farm the jelly king, they get 11K per day, which would take them about all of 46 days. A month in a half minimum, maybe 2 months if they don't play daily but the energy system is designed to make you play every day.... but if they earn back their mist worth in crowns every day, they'll take 55 days to get all of the energy, and then the 125K shouldn't be too far off after that. So maybe 2.5 months if they're a slacker.... but chances are, they'll play more than I said, and that most of that play will be farming or looking for recipes, and that they'll get it in that month and a half.

So then why are they so sulky all the time? Because they hit the paywall too quickly! The content of the game isn't easy for them, but people help them through it too quickly, and they get to that grind or leave point.... and thats what makes them leave.

There are 9 levels between 4* and 5*, before the 8-2 hall of heroes

There are 16 levels between the 3* and 4* hall of heroes... but this includes 2 boss levels. If they were to earn say, 1 item from each boss via tokens, that'd get them to about 35/3 more levels played. = 5 + 7 = 12 more. So really, thats like 26 levels.

Play two levels a day, as well as visit the arcade a few times (and break even on mist energy + a bit more) and then you'll be doing fine in terms of money... but rushing the missions will easily leave you without content, hungry for more.

Rather than making the game harder, why not force players to gain the skills? I mean, 26 levels should be enough to get to 4*, and after that, you have a ton of levels and a ton more levels to replay and enjoy to make 2 months to beat vanaduke entirely reasonable... not only that, but players can get gear that makes these levels way too easy via the auction house...

Mon, 07/08/2013 - 14:01

Canine-Vladmir

/derp

i just used alts.
/loves Canine-Vladmir-Il
---
which, helped me alot, right? Because i would be fighting monsters meant for a party of twos.
Worst mistake ever though is when i made a party full of alts: Canine-Vladmir (me), Canine-Vladimir, Canine-Vladmir-Il, and Canine-Vlad.
Got full lag and monsters had alot of health. oh yea, my computer crashed.
---
Thats what i tell every new guy who asks for help, "what you need is to make yourself an alt and go party together. if your F2P, open the two screens at the same time so the ME doesnt disapear from the Alt."

Mon, 07/08/2013 - 14:17

Fehzor

If only there were a difficulty setting to do exactly what you just tried with the alts... but it would feel more legitimate, like you weren't trying to find some kind of a loophole to deal with the energy system.

Mon, 07/08/2013 - 16:08

Spiralviperr

Flaws, your theory has them!!

It took me a whole year to get a full 5* set.

...but it took my cousin 3 weeks >_<

I can solo all of the levels of KoA (besides boss) with no deaths.

...and my cousin... well... he stopped playing after he got full 5* :(

/sad Goldendragonic

Mon, 07/08/2013 - 16:34

Qwez

A 3 random points I'd like to point out

Spiralviperr, You didn't know anyone that was a good player when you started, had no good advice on what to do and things when you started out. You had to learn all by yourself. Your cousin knows at least you as a high-level player, and could use you as a resource to greatly accelerate his progress.
Also, progression was much slower before missions and this guildhall madness in the past couple years where nearly every player is in a guild (physically or mentally) and can get guildmate help to accelerate progress...

Perhaps I should stop helping players progress to KoA through the T3 missions. Or... perhaps OOO should ramp up the difficulty of T2. The only notable increases of difficulty in T2 are Kats, Mecha Knights, Gun Puppies, Gremlin Thwackers. In T3 there are far more dangers from each of the enemies. There's a huge skillwall at T3 too that takes time to overcome. I remember when I first got to T3, I said, "NOPE! I'm outta here." them kats were scary q.q... It took a while but I learned how to deal with T3 Kats, then I painfully learned how to deal with all the other T3 enemies, a huge skillwall to overcome(even though it has been lowered by nerfing devilites, wolvers, zombies, etc.).

The nature of missions allows players to progress much faster than they could otherwise progress. Normally in the Arcade, if you stop about halfway in a run, you don't get to the next strata and you lose out on the majority of the payout. So if you are a crappy player, you get crappy payout. However with missions, you can start on the next strata(ie. RJP) and still fail, but get a much higher payout because you started on the more profitable strata. Missions allow crappy players to gain more, and as a result they can stay crappier players.

Mon, 07/08/2013 - 23:08

Ewbte

._.

Maybe if boss missions were unrepeatable..

Mon, 07/08/2013 - 23:14

Fehzor

Then what? Then people would be forced to play the arcade? Then they'd sit there cursing the fact that they couldn't just press a button to play the boss?

If I recall correctly, before the mission system people still farmed firestorm citadel and the jelly king. Sometimes they had to do 2-3 levels, but they got around it by having 1 guy solo the 5 levels leading up to FSC.

Mon, 07/08/2013 - 23:18

Etharaes

(Witty Topic Goes Here)

@Spiralviperr
Same thing happened to me, Spiralviperr. I had a friend join this game. At first, he only did the first couple missions then went back to other games. A little bit later, he started playing. I took him on some FSC runs, and then he made some friends. Basically, it evened out into a pattern of playing FSC every day. For the 5* Hall of Heroes he used Ancient Plate Helm and Fang of Vog as his 5* helmet and weapon respectively.

He also somehow managed to become a Guild Master of the guild Embermist Scavengers after about 2 months.

Go figure.

@Fehzor
I entirely agree.

~Ethanol, second biggest fan of Winmillion (Qwez will always be the first).

Tue, 07/09/2013 - 21:51

Dirigible

-_-

I run the arcade to grind crowns and get to FSC (to beat everyone up to Vanaduke and then leave), just as I always have since I first hit tier 3. I've never really gotten bored of SK ever, so yeah, I'd blame it all on missions and replayable boss levels that turn the game into mindless mish-mash without variety.

Tue, 07/09/2013 - 22:10

Heavy-Dragon

I like this.

Stop helping the newer knights so they can learn how to survive and grind, instead of getting discouraged when we drop them off in front of the HURRDURR HALL OF HEROES missions or bosses they cant beat or whatever.

Wed, 07/10/2013 - 22:36

#10

Klipik-Forum

Welp.

I don't think the pay wall is caused by acceleration. Why? Because I had possibly the slowest progression of a non-inactive player in SK history, taking from the Steam launch in June 2011 until this spring to get to 5*. I learned mostly everything by myself (PvE wise), and only got dragged through FSC once or twice with 3* armor and 4* weapons just to see what the place looked like. Regardless, when I got to the HoH mission between Defender Elite and Champion, I still needed to grind for weeks. Because OOO decided to put the best farm on the other side of the pay wall.

The real problem is the missions. They don't ramp up the difficulty between checkpoints enough to make you take any time getting there. Once I finally got around to clearing the 4* HoH, I sped through all the missions up to the 5* HoH with minimal problems (except Return of Ur :<). The missions should be a curved ramp, but instead they're just a staircase. A ton of easy levels, and then a boss and a pay wall.

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And suddenly, it all made sense.