Even though I don't have access to the Test Server I would like to say some of my own feedback regarding what has been posted. I will start with sprites.

Key: a number with a colon after it, for instance 1: means that a suggestion has appeared on that topic. A number with parentheses around it, for instance (1): means that a new suggestion has appeared, connecting to the suggestion without parentheses.

1: Drakon: Via what I have seen the Drakon will be the most popular sprite, because of it's 1: high damage, 2: it's high usefulness for each Shadow Lair except for RRT, 3: and it's skills.

2: Seraphynx: Via what iIhave seen the Seraphynx will only be chosen by 1: Girls, 2: those who want to help people rather then hurt monsters (there are few of that type of people), and 3: people who think the heart attack actually works. This is because of 1: it's cuteness, 2: most people prefer to damage the monsters, and 3: because most people will think the heart attack works, until they learn it doesn't.

3: Maskeraith: Via what I have seen the Maskeraith may be popular for the following reasons, 1: Those who are like recons, 2: The hex has very high damage, and 3: and because of looks.

4: I hear that battle sprites are Crowns/Heat/Material/Mineral sinks. A way to fix this is to either (1): Decrease the stuff needed to make what is needed to quickly revive sprites. (2): Make it so the sprites take less heat to level up. (3): Make it so sprites take a new type of drop to level up, I was thinking about something similar to heat.

Now for the other stuff, starting with the orbs.

Keep in mind that crafting with the high as hell CE prices is what makes you money. People want to craft something quickly because they are, 1: not patient, 2: are in a rush to do something, 3: are tired of missions, or 4: they want to get through the mission quicker, so they buy CE, a heat amplifier, and an elevator pass so they can level it quickly, and craft it quickly. So unless the orbs are either 1: expensive, 2: able to be bought with the P2P specials (starter pack, explorers pack, ETC), or 3: have a very low spawn rate, many people wont be buying CE. And remember that the current alchemy system is one of the few things that are the same about the original Spiral Knights, the one before missions and all the other updates.

Now for the loot system.

There are some good things and many bad things about this. I will start off with the good things. Good thing number 1: Everyone will get each vitapod, material, each piece of gear, and most likely each spark of life/orb. Good thing 2: This will make it so people are encouraged to stick together, encouraging team fighting and playing in missions. Now for the bad things. Bad thing 1: Everyone will have to collect their own crowns, heat, and everythign else, making it so runs will be longer and remove the reason to play in a party. Bad thing 2: If a dead person isn't revved before the party hits a party button then they will miss the previous loot, making it so they will beg for a revive, annoying party members and making leader remove that person, also removing team play. Bad thing 3: The party will have to stick together, well you might think, this will encourage team play, and parties have to stick together on party buttons, well wrong. Using Firestorm Citadel as an example the party will normally split up on Charred Court, and some rooms people don't want other party members to come in, for instance the Rocket Puppy room because party members will wake up the puppy, killing the party, and removing the reason for team play. Overall I have one suggestion to make to fix this, to combine the systems. Make it so when 1 party member picks up a crown, an ember, a piece of gear, a material, everyone will get that item, make it so the heart/vitapod system is same, except that a vitapod will only be removed from the player that picked it up's screen.

Now for the difficulty settings. NOTE: This is a long one because of its complexities, and because of other stuff. IF YOU DON'T READ ALL OF IT OOO's I MAY CALL YOU LAZY!!!

There is a difference between fake and real difficulty. Fake difficulty is when the illusion of more difficulty is added. Real difficulty is when actual difficulty is added. The difficulty of the tiers and the Shadow Lairs (normal for Tier 1, Split for T2, Ranged attack pure for T3, Pure for Shadow Lairs), is real difficulty. Making it so monsters just deal more of the same dmg and keep everything else the same is fake difficulty. Here are some ways to fix this, 1: (this will help a lot) Make it so that the rate of hearts/pills/vitapods dropping decreases as the difficulty gets higher, so health giving stuff is rarer on elite, then it is on easy/normal, 2: (this wont fix it entirely, but it will help the rest), Make it so all attacks have a 100% chance of dealing the status on elite, and a lower chance of dealing status on lower difficulties, (for instance caravon will always deal fire with it's slash, a trojan will always deal shock with its attack buff) AND make it so the difficulty shifts up or down for tiers, so Tier 3 will have Shadow Lair difficulty on elite, same as it currently is for normal, and Tier 2 difficulty on easy. Tier 2 will be T1 on easy, Tier 3 difficulty on elite, and same as it currently is for normal. Tier 1 will have Tier 2 difficulty on elite, same as it currently is for normal, and the damage on easy will be half as much damage on easy, 3: (this will help A LOT) Make it so monsters behaviors change as difficulty increases. This would be solved by making it so monsters of the next tier will spawn on elite, same monsters of that tier on normal, and monsters of the previous tier on easy. Tier 1 will be different on easy, so monsters will either be slower, dumber, or both. For Tier 3 on elite the monsters will (1): Be able to track players, (2): Turrets will fire 7 bullets, 1 more on each side, and rocket puppies will fire 2 rockets, (3): Make it so attacks that seek players, for instance, rocket puppy rockets and the howlitzers after death attack,wont explode till they hit a player, (4): Make it so monsters appear smarter, for instance a trojan would know if a player has charge a blitz needle and will try and block the blitz needle, or a monster will know an attack is coming, dodging that attack (this will be easy for monsters to dodge handgun attacks), (5): Monsters can see player health, making it so monsters will target weaker players first, (6): Monsters can track players when attacking, for instance a monster can make a sudden turn when deploying it's attack. (7): Make it so the target sign that has appears when a monster is homing in on you, doesn't appear. 4: (this is a suggestion for shadow lairs) Make it so the Shadow Lair difficulty is locked at elite. This will make the Shadow Lairs funner, and harder. 5: (this will make players want to play on harder difficulties), Cut loot in half on easy, keep it same on normal, and double it on elite, for instance the King of Ashes mission gives 7-8k crowns, make it so on easy it gives 3.5k-4k crowns, on normal it gives the same ammount, on elite it gives 14k-16k crowns. Same will be said for heat. Materials, Vials, Hearts, and Vitapods will be unaffected. And the chance of gear dropping will be affected. And make it so that the prize wheel can drop rarer stuff on elite, and more common stuff on easy, for instance a lockbox pops up on normal, make that lockbox a mirrored lockbox on elite and a 50 crown on easy, make all crowns higher on elite, and lower on easy, make all materials double materials on elite none on easy, and make it so on elite, Mist Tanks or fully crafted gear can spawn.

Now for the revive system.

Quoting from nick: "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." This is very, very, very, very, VERY WRONG. Health sharing revives PROMOTE team play, the only reason to remove them is 1: To make it so people HAVE to buy Sparks of Life to revive, making it so people buy more sparks of life with CE (proving OOO's is greedy), and 2: To remove the reason to play in a party, so people have to solo, and we all know that those who solo spend more CE ib revives (well most of them), (also proving OOO's is greedy). Removing health sharing revives makes it so that people 1: People won't revive other party members, because they cannot collect their heat, so people will be unable to get extra heat, making it so they buy Heat Amplifiers (another reason that proves OOO's is greedy) 2: Makes it so that heat sharing is removed, 3: No one will play in a party because (1): They will beg for other people to rev them, eventually either being kicked, or the other party members will leave, making it so they don't play in parties, 4: The health sharing revive achievement won't be able to be earned. And I also hear that sparks of life are going to be 50 Energy each (also proving OOO's is greedy). The emergency revive is a good idea, but make it so people can choose when they want to use it. And make it so that players will be given extra loot if they don't use it, for instance another prize wheel, a Mist Tank, ETC.

Now for the equipment limits.

Adding equipment limits makes it so people have to do missions to use the free/promotion gear, for instance the gear you get from bosses, the gear from OCH, the gear from Margrel. This will make it so players can't get 1 set of gear and use it for missions (for instance the Ancient Plate Set and a FoV from FSC), an that they have to make gear of each star level to progress, so you have to make 4 star gear to become a defender, making it so people 1: HAVE to do missions, and 2: HAVE to get Orbs of Alchemy to do progress in the game and use higher starred gear. BOTH of these reasons show OOO's are greedy in a way they want us to have to do their missions, and there is no way to bypass star certification by doing FSC a lot for instance. And what if people just don't want to do missions? Why punish them? What if someone only has 5 star gear and has sold all other gear, what do they do then? If someone has no 0-2 star gear then they can't get past snarbolax. WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO PEOPLE!!!

Now for the level limits.

I've heard about these, and I DON'T like them! I've heard you have to be the rank of a mission, to do that mission. This will prevent people of defender elite and lower from doing vana, and bypassing missions for equipment limits (see the previous topic) This will only show that OOO's is very greedy.

Overall reason for this. This update mainly appears to only make OOO's richer, and also to prevent lower ranked people from doing FSC for more profit so they can make gear quicker. This also appears to be preventing 1 Spiral Knights strategy that is starting to spread: Multiboxing. Multiboxing involves going into a mission with your main, and alt, then going in and killing the alt, then soloing with your main account, doubling crowns earned, and you can willingly collect heat from an alt, and making it so the level is 30% harder, providing a greater challenge for veterans of the game.

A message for OOO's:

IF YOU WANT MORE MONEY EITHER 1: GET ANOTHER JOB AS WELL AS YOUR CURRENT, OR 2: MAKE MORE GOOD GAMES THAT AREN'T F2P. DONT TURN F2P GAMES INTO P2P GAMES! IF THIS UPDATE HAPPENS AS IT IS HALF OF EVERY SPIRAL KNIGHTS PLAYER WILL QUIT SK, MANY OF WHICH MIGHT BE THOSE WHO HAVE GIVEN YOU MONEY! I HOPE YOU GET THE MESSAGE!!!!!!

Edit: The testing feedback forum is for feedback based on a player's experience on the preview server. Please keep posts in the appropriate feedback threads.