The CE prices have recently jumped from 7k to 9k in anticipation of the new update which will completely change the energy system. I myself made it to full 5 star without buying anything.

The Auction House is ludicrous in the 4 to 5 star range, as there is an unbind fee which easily triples the price of what it actually costs to make it on your own.

Full 5*, three sets, plus got the DLC over steam trade. It is actually free to play, if you don't mind grinding a bit. I think of it as free to play, pay to accelerate. Depends, which do you value more - your money, or your time?

The worst things in life are free

Hello, my name is TheGreatPiggy. When I play, things are manageable, Traversing thru the levels isn't all that hard, but I managed to advance.

I first notice how all the things in the Auction House are completely priced in the Ludicrous range, I mean for a gamer as myself, those things that I desire, will never ever bee a reality. At the same time it saddens me to think that there is always someone with some sort of control on others to make you feel inferior.

I did manage However to make to full 4*.
Levels are completely unmanageable to nearly impossible, and to add insult to Injury, I just learned that CE is almost 9 K Per!
Which is outrageous!

It boggles my mind to see that players are more worried about "costume gear" you know, all those accessories?

Other mmos that i have recently played have had all sorts of updates, as a matter of fact, SEVERAL updates, from either pets, new armors, and even new fighting classes and weapons.

Now there is much talk about this NEW update. What is there to come?

Has there ever been actual NPC quests? No, probably will never-ever will be.

I have been at least thru all levels, seen the core, except the shadow liar.

^I am a PREMIUM TO PLAY (Got OCH)

"I just learned that CE is almost 9 K Per!"
Yes, because of the new update, THEY ARE REMOVING MIST ENERGY SO IT WILL BE EASIER TO GET MORE CROWNS.

"It boggles my mind to see that players are more worried about "costume gear" you know, all those accessories?"
Yes, become rich, then worry about it.

"Other mmos that i have recently played have had all sorts of updates, as a matter of fact, SEVERAL updates, from either pets, new armors, and even new fighting classes and weapons."
Although I agree that OOO hasn't prioritized their updates, this year, there has been so far 2 (soon 3) almost game changing promos, events, and stuff. Play more and you'll know.

"It would be nicer if any of them added stats of some sort, but no, I've seen how some players actually fight for something so useless."
Welcome to, badum, EARTH!

"Now there is much talk about this NEW update. What is there to come? more monsters that are put in place to mob you in a single swoop, so that you can be implied to spend real money?"
So apparently, being good will encourage me to spend money...?

"Has there ever been actual NPC quests? No, probably will never-ever will be."
What game do you think this is? ? Spiral Knights has its specialty. Presenting, THE ARCADE. Something, very special.

"I have been at least thru all levels, seen the core, except the shadow liar, * cringes* and which, what I'm told, the SL is a complete and waste for CE."
Yes, so challenging yourself is not part of the game, uh huh, keep going.

"Since I just started this game, I am seriously considered in just deleting my character altogether, and find something else that at least has some sort of "FUN" factor"
Not all games have to be fun to be worth your time........

JUST SO YOU KNOW. The game is going through a serious update, so things arn't normal, if you give up on the game while you haven't even really played it, I don't know what to say.

I used to be like you. Jealous of those 5* "pros" and how much CE they can make (this was when I was in my 2*-3* days and it was before costumes and accessorises update). But after a 5-6 months of playing I got full 5* and took a lot of breaks. 5* is not supposed to be easy, there's a reason why for f2p it takes time to get top tier gear. The amount of hard work makes you appreciate it and top tier gear shouldn't be easy to obtain. Even though I got my first full 5* when CE was around 6-7k a long time ago, it still took a long time ago because there wasn't even missions during that time. I couldn't farm a lot so I did 2 JK arcade runs or 1 vana arcade run. Now today I can pump out a 5* in 1-2 weeks but that's because of all the work I do to earn 5*. Its much easier to get gear now and probably would be much easier after the big update. Learn to be patient and you wouldnt have to pay a penny.

No its not P2W, gearing up F2P makes you tough as nails. Its a gift.

~Luke

I'm a straight up F2P player... I've never spent a red cent on ANY game I've ever played. I'm 5* now in SK because I had.. 3 hours a day to play usually. Just grinding JK, when I was 2/3*. Then when I hit 4* I found the glories of FSC and it's generous money. I just do 2 rounds of that in the morning... easy 14k. Then I take a break, socializing. Then I get off SK, eat lunch, play BF3, skateboard... Then when I come back, I have enough mist to do 1 FSC run and the danger prestige mission. all in all another 14k :P so 28k per day? I'd say it's pretty worth playing this game.

AND FERREALZ! with FREE elevators in this update? I will be making WAY MORE than 28k a day now thanks to it. VANA GRINDIN ALL DAY YO! 100k a day easyyyy. So, as you might realize, things are never gonna really be b ad for us F2P players because guess what. Any P2P players can get at me because I can do just as well as they do, and not have to pay.

That is all I have to say.

I'm (mostly) a F2P player. I have bought Elevator Passes in the past and on one occasion bought CE, but right now I'm running off Mist and I'm almost always poor as hell, though I have a method of income and you should too. Sell mats, minerals, collect boss tokens, buy boss rewards and sell the rewards to vendors... things like that.

___

It boggles my mind to see that players are more worried about "costume gear" you know, all those accessories?
It would be nicer if any of them added stats of some sort, but no, I've seen how some players actually fight for something so useless.

I have costume gear. It's really not that difficult to get and most of my accessories are actually relatively cheap, like 20k-50k per? Accessories are mostly reserved for players who can afford it, and if they can't, save up for it. We humans are a very vain race and it's natural to want costume gear.

____

I did manage However to make to full 4*, and that's when everything changed.
Now Levels are completely unmanageable to nearly impossible, and to add insult to Injury, I just learned that CE is almost 9 K Per!
Which is outrageous!

I'm assuming you reached T3 then. T3 is less forgiving than T2 is, do bear that in mind.

The CE prices skyrocketed when Nick announced the removal of Mist and gave a rough Update Date on this announcement, naturally people began panic buying and demand increased pushing the prices up.

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Now there is much talk about this NEW update. What is there to come? more monsters that are put in place to mob you in a single swoop, so that you can be implied to spend real money?

There are difficulty modes for levels and missions, yes. You don't have to spend real money on the revive cost, the revive cost stays consistant throughout your run and you get a free revive per floor anyway. Just don't do a difficulty you're not equipped, or have the skills, for.

____

It puzzles me, how some of you find it entertaining to be ripped to shreds, and call this entertainment.

If you don't improve your skills to get better on the harder difficulties at the game, how can you claim that the game is entertaining at all?

____

So, with that in mind, why even bother doing it? It's really idiotic to go and expect to spend soo much CE on something nearly impossible to do.

Shadow Lairs and other endgame levels really aren't as difficult as you claim, you just got to have the right equipment and a good team who can hold their own in a fight and, most importantly, know when to shield. Dying is an large part of the game, it's going to happen at some point and it does have penalties; it's why you try to avoid it happening. With the new system revives (Sparks of Life) get dropped by monsters, so potentially Revives are going to be free, and you get revived with "a generous amount of health", which current Shadow Lairs tend to lack when revived because of health dilation.

____

Since I just started this game, I am seriously considered in just deleting my character altogether

Bye.

f2p here
easily got 5* gear, easily did shadow lairs, but now I'm too lazy to grind for money. I do a bit of buying and reselling, just enough to fund my rolling addiction.

I dont see the problem here. Granted i am a quote, "pay to play full 5 star player" and appaerently thats a bad thing.

Its not a rip off if you view it like a logical person. Every item in the game (excluding crimson hammer add on) is available to all players, meaning anyone can get a hold of them. If your free to play you just need to take your time and save up.

And if thats not good enough seriously consider getting a job so you can get $.

If it wasnt for pay to play players you wouldnt have half the stuff OOO's has updated to, i do my job and support their work because i like it. Theres nothing wrong with that.

Am I supposed to feel sorry for you guys?
Instead of playing SK for 3 hours that one day you could (*gasp*) go do a minimum wage (roughly 8$/hour) job for 3 hours.
Holy s***! I just made 7500 CE in 3 hours!

No matter what you are or wherever you go. Always remember, everything can be achieved through effort and devotion. If one really desires something so direly, he/she/it should not be complaining about the prices but working their backs off trying to get whatever they desire.

I highly recommend broken-recording the Royal Jelly Palace.

"I did manage However to make to full 4*, and that's when everything changed.
Now Levels are completely unmanageable to nearly impossible, and to add insult to Injury, I just learned that CE is almost 9 K Per!
Which is outrageous!, for a f2p gamer like me, the peer pressure to spend real money on this game is great, and is something that I refuse to do so.

It boggles my mind to see that players are more worried about "costume gear" you know, all those accessories?
It would be nicer if any of them added stats of some sort, but no, I've seen how some players actually fight for something so useless."

Eh? Have you just hit Tier 3? It's always been a jump higher than Tier 2, lol. [old man voice] Back in my day, we'd try to play gates to Tier 3, carefully avoiding fiend gates just so we could get to Basil for a -chance- at finding a recipe that we could sell for a profit or use ourselves.

Also, as nice as it would be if costumes actually added stats, it would further throw the game down into pay-to-win land (and as much as people would whine and comment about UVs's, their differences are very slight in comparison to careful gear-picking and things like trinket slots, which are common enough). In every F2P game I've played, costumes and individuality have been one of the things that those games have monetized the most off of (because otherwise, you'll look just like everyone else -gasp-), and as non-paying players, we can't really criticize that lol. Also, having those 'unique' armors from Shadow Lair runs is pretty much a costume draw as well, and that's partly why people play them XD.

I actually haven't logged on in about a week since I'm on a vacation of sorts and not near a desktop, but CE prices tend to fluctuate surrounding big patches. During the Punch/UV update, I predicted CE prices would drop, and they went from 7-8k down to 2-3k before spiking back up (awww yeaahhh profit). Eventually, after this update, we'll see how the true demand for CE balances out.

I'm kind of glad about the free-elevators thing. One of the biggest deterrents for me playing gates again was that it'd make me feel like I was losing out on possible money I'd otherwise be getting from Vana, despite Arcade gates being more interesting to play. It sounds horrible, but in the end, I still played based on my CR/CE lol. The next most interesting thing for me was Lockdown, since I do like playing versus other players (T3 isn't the P2W hell that lesser skilled players would like to make you think it is, either). But with the gate fee gone, awesome- I'll be playing Arcade again. If I die, I'll start it over again, so what? It feels more welcoming to play again than an "oh, out of Mist today, game over ;_;"

For anyone who has traversed through the game without spending money, you have to admit, the transition from 3* to 4*, and 4* to 5* is LOOONG, it's BORING, and it takes a LOT of work. Honestly, I would of quit during that portion of the game if it wasn't for the old X-mas promo where the Explorer's Pack was $2.50, and I spent $10 on the game. It's even worse now because players don't get access to FSC until they've already hit 5*.

I remember the old days where it was considered a Rite of Passage (A sort of "Trial by Fire" if you will) to go on a scrappy FSC run, dressed in your snugly Ash Tail coat, swinging around a 4* Avenger, and flailing a Gigawatt Pulsar whenever something surprised you... Oh nostalgia *_*

Pff. Gigawatt pulsar is new.
Back in my day Argent Peacemaker was the best gun for FSC/Vana..blitz was noob!

@Grimranger

Oh man I remember dem cool kids swinging their shiny Silversix. I was so jelly because Basil refused to sell me the recipe!

I had a friend (who retire already), that told a couple guys that he was a "she".. 1 week later he had full 5*.. Those guys pay him everything and invite him to FSC and give him heat.. Just because they though he had boobs...

This is absolutely pathetic...

I mean, WHO would give all that CE away? Just because of that? :o

F2P is possible, it's just a GIGANTIC pain in the ass.

I didn't spend money in this game except for both operation OCH and the Guardian armor pack, because it was on sale on steam for something like, $2.00 or $3.00 USD. Otherwise, everything else I made took forever to build. I've been playing since SK came to steam, and I still don't make bank like all the other 5*s.

But once you get to 5* and can reliably farm FSC, it becomes much easier. The worst parts of the game are between 3* & 4*, as none of the levels really provide the payout to craft with the increasing cost curves of your gear, but still difficult to grind.

I swear, it took me - quite literally - months to get my first set of gear to tier 3.

Can't say the community is that helpful either. Complaining about limited play time, energy costs, and all the other blatant and shameless content-padding that occurs in this game is defended on here like a bunch of superstitious village peasants on a witch hunt during the Dark Ages.

"Dull grind-quest? Lies, thou must pay your time-tithe to ye GODS by showing thou utter devotion to grind 30 hours a week, lest thou be deemed unworthy of playing! For 'tis not thy game's fault, 'tis ~YOUR~ fault for not having the aptitude to appreciate it as rich children and grown-men-with-a-bad-case-of-asperger's do! THOU ART BANISHED FROM THIS HALLOWED GROUND!"