I just realised, the reason OOO didn't tell that they would give Sparks of life for mist tanks before the update, is because people knowing it, would've used them up for crafting/buying slot upgrades. Shady.

Btw, now that there's no mist, everything in the supply depot cost 100 more energy than before. It's okay for alchemy orbs, because they drop, but the Trinket Slot token now costs three times as much than with mist, and the weapon slot almost twice as much. The shadow and silver key is also more now. I'd say to reduce their prices by 100 ce, or let them drop too from boxes, at least the slot upgrades.

I like the idea of everybody getting every mat but it isnt necessary. Make the rarities and what not for everyone like tokens.

ALSO MOST IMPORTANTLY - Having to pick up my coins is ruining the game. Like in FSC I have to run into every room and every place get my coins, which makes it take sooo much longer. I have talked to many people and we agree it sucks. Also think it is making the game alot laggier.

Actually it's only 100 energy, if you count with the old 10 energy/revive. The supply depot is simply overpriced.

I'll be honest, I wasn't all that big a fan of the energy system, but something I loved about it was that it let me help my friends get equipment when I didn't need any. I wasn't just supporting my guild, I was supporting the people in the guild. With this latest patch, however... It frustrates me to no end.

I like the idea of free elevators, and I appreciate that. I LOVE the new battle sprites. I won't even argue about the new revivial system. However, the crafting orbs and heat crystals REALLY infuriate me. It's not so much their existance as the fact that 1) they're bound when you pick them up, and 2) the new instanced drops can literally make it so one person can hit the jackpot several floors in a row while leaving another player out of luck. If they weren't bound, I wouldn't complain, but they are. I want to be able to give my pickups to someone who NEEDS THEM, not let them sit in my inventory like the useless proto equips.

And on the instanced drops themselves, please let whomever designed it know that it feels utterly broken and unfair. For the past few floors of my current run, I've gotten a TON of crystals, but my loved one (whom I play the game with) has gotten very little. There's no balance at all, and it honestly feels even worse than the old system.

Please, start really balancing the game. As a long time gamer, it's hard for me to find something to hold my attention as long as Spiral Knights has. I don't want to lose that feeling.

Forge system sucks... I just can't complain myself because, I have most of the things in this game, excluding royal jelly/bomtastic/status flourishes/iron-tech bomb/black kat cowl
Really, I wouldn't even start another knight with this forge system in place (mostly the probability), I'll just keep having my ordinary unlimited fun with my fully built player, and my sprite, Divinity, but I'm less discouraged to even attempt to craft another piece of gear, unless the devs decide to throw in a 5 star spur.
But as others complain of this forge feature, I don't think I would bother having my friends play this game if they don't already have a knight that's fully built, at least ones who like to progress at a linear rate rather than depending on drops to level their stuff, not everyone has time to grind that much, I have that kind of patience since I play games where the goal is to slowly build for utter success, where you'd build a player for nearly two years on any game, and slowly make it stronger, and in some games, richer.
But, however, anyone who just likes arcade classic fun and not caring about their gear, I would probably recommend this game regardless.
anyone who's played MMO's before knows it takes time to get fully equipped or leveled, in this case, your sprite, and your gear takes ample time to level and upgrade, people are angry now because they are older players who knew what the old system was, while the new one is expensive.... give it a few days, and keep playing on elite mode, the update came nearly 1-2 days ago, give yourself time to loot these newly added items, elite mode gives the best loot drops and don't be so impatient, it's not a race, just enjoy the game, if not, then spend money and boost those items, you have all day considering elevators are free, some things don't stay the same forever, people will quit, others will deal with it, ultimately its up to you as a player to decide how you will cope with the cons of the update.

Welp, someone's told that already. Now I have a feeling that testing on Preview server been running for very few reasons - to find bugs and get some donate money from peoples who wants to check update earlier.

And it's not kinda nice, as long as there already been pointing at how not nice are new loot system and what's the bad points of changed revive system. Everyone should run all together, so no one will miss their loot... and it completely ruins the fun and makes any run slower, because now players can't split up to check 2 different rooms in same time. And this oftenly happens not only on FSC, but in Clockworks as well - levels aren't clearly linear, and now speed aren't really much different from same run at solo.
Revive system also been pointed on Preview server, as I remember. No more same revive fee is nice, and there's really no need in it the way it's been before, because players not been very greedy about their mist. But currently I have a good bunch of Sparks instead, all of them - rewards from missions. And I saw none in Clockworks at the moment. And if your knight fall - only thing another player can do is land you his own Spark. As long as you don't get 2 extra Sparks everyday as you do with mist, that you can completely regenerate in 22-23 hours... even with emergency revive this system tooks pretty much of team element from the game. Sharing health with another knight is not that expensive as using energy for his revive or even using own Sparks of Life. And heat share also been a good thing about all this. And health sharing revives don't even makes gameplay worse, not making it harder. Because everyone always can find some hearts to restore health for self. And now that element was broken.

As a result - you must be pure solo player, so you can leave at any moment you fails horribly, or incredibly experienced player that never dies no matter on which level and depth he/she is(and such player should team-up with same kind of players. Another bad point - if some newbie says for help, you can't provide as much of it as before, because there's higher chance that he can possibly don't learn anything. Basic thing before - helping teammates, and now it's been as careful as you can, or you gonna say "bye" to your greed and waste all your Sparks). Why you can't change a look on it? Make Sparks more expensive, but return health-sharing, as example. And give back crown-heat looting system, then one picks up, and everyone gets. It's been not that bad at all.

And vials... why story of Vitapods happens again? Why should peoples to just sit and deal with it? As it's been said before - you can't even drop vials to just clear your slots, like unneeded low-level health capsules(still, they're actually pretty useful on any of level). Along with all the good things, there's been pointing on not the best things at all, on even Preview server, and why you don't even listen?

My biggest issue (really the only true issue I have) is the flashy red with low health and damage. It hurts my eyes, like, a lot. It would be awesome if it were optional.

I'm worried about gate construction, too. You guys did such a great job at reviving the arcade, but with three of the minerals being used for sprite food, it's going to be super unbalanced.

The forging... Meh. It's actually fairly easy to find fire crystals, you just have to be playing in the right tier/stratum. I don't have much of an opinion on it, though I certainly don't dislike it.

New alchemy: I haven't come across ANY orbs in tiers 2 and 3, and have only found 3 in the first tier. I am disappoint.

I feel that the new alchemy and forging requirements balance out nicely with the deletion of the previous energy system. (Just make sure to change what the Energetic Knights have to say!) It might take longer, but I feel that it'll give people something to do other than JK/Vana runs when stuck at HoH.

New mats: I can't find dead gold anywhere. The wiki says kats drop it, but I've been out kat hunting and haven't found any. Is it MEANT to be a rare drop?

Love love love love LOVE the battle sprites! I'm surprised how many people got Seraphynx- I thought Drakon was going to be the most popular for sure! I hope you're able to let us get the other sprites soonish- I want Maskeraith too!

Nitpicks: sometimes enemy info won't display in the top right corner. Random as far as I can tell. Seraphynx, at least, is super small in the level up window. My Seraphynx doesn't follow me as closely as other's. I can be standing in the same spot as a party member, and mine will be about a square and a half, two squares behind theirs. Does she not love me!? QAQ

That's all I can think of right now, I'm sure I'll have stuff to add later.

P.S. Hector in Moorcroft Manor still doesn't have his name displayed.

I spent some more time in game ... and as much as I want to feel negative about some things in this update ...
Pulsar those battle sprites are cute. You just can't be mad at them.

Personally, I don't even find the forge to be that bad. I play everything on elite, and find plenty of the little heat things. Always pay full price, and you never have to worry.

There are still problems though. Many of which have been around for a very, very long time. OOO, before releasing any more content, please go on a bug squashing rampage. And Server Lag is still the biggest problem with this game; fortunately this patch didn't make it any worse!

Loot should not be instanced per player. I don't know what the logic behind this was, but in practice it's a team-work killer and general annoyance.

Maskeraith's Invisibility power needs to at least allow the player to charge up an attack. Currently the only use is to sneak away and grab a heart; there is practically no point in going invisible to sneak past something or avoid battle since the game only rewards you for killing things. I say drop the defense buff, shorten the timer if you must, and allow the player to attack.

The UI.

Like Randomzz said:

forge = sucks. Wasteful [redacted]

loot system = double sucks. annoying as crap, slows down teams on ANY level, [encourages me] to want to solo all the time. (I thought team play was encouraged???)

no heat revs = sucks. what's the advantage to teams if they have the same cost to rev me as I do myself?

everything else = good

Teams are no longer a viable option. They slow you down, and provide no positive value (other than comradery). If I have to go to every corner of the map to pick up coins anyway, I will just run solo... that way I'm already there when the kill happens, and I don't miss out on crowns.

That being said... I still love this game! Overall, this is a great update! The Forge is questionable, and a little confusing. Sprites are cool. No energy fee elevators are AMAZING! I get that same elevator pass sensation of peace when delving the clockworks... ahhh, so nice and refreshing. I'll have to get used to crafting costs, and I'm concerned with heat issues. It was fun to get a PILE of loot in my mail box (Vanguard rank), even if I don't know what all of it does...

I can't wait to continue my quest for amazing loot and fun times on Cradle. I just hope I can find a true love locket before they fix the rare drop rates... :)

So, we are never gonna have to pay the fee to go down in the elevators anymore?

Hmhmh...

maybe you missed today's update that added sprite food machine at the town square.

well, from a totally technical standpoint, since elevators are free to go down now, obviously team revives have been removed. players who are desperate enough may have alternates that they can log in and revive themselves for free, and since these alts can leave the dungeon and re-enter at no energy cost, this would break the revival system.

though yes, this problem could be solved if the parties were locked, shadow-lair style. also, if each floor had a reinforcement room, where all party members must be inside in order to allow the invitation of new members. though these solutions might take quite a while to program. in the meantime, let us mourn the death of teamplay in SK till it hopefully comes back again.

I knew that team reving would make people leave, but I agree, it seems like it's for the better...

Unless..

Give the Jelly series healing powers! A Jelly wearer may bestow a certain amount of pips to allies. If they do not have double this amount, then the jelly user cannot split his/her HP up.

Anyway, for why I came here:

I don't really like how the minerals are playing out. The pet foods seem to be encouraging extreme biasing when picking minerals because you have to have the correct minerals to level your sprite. Even if you don't need the two other minerals, you will still see people getting them so that they may sell that food. This might have adverse effects on the arcade, but we'll see.

What I wish was that any minerals used in crafting sprite food could become depleted versions, so there would be Depleted Dark Matter, Depleted Crimsonite, etc. Depleted minerals cannot be used in crafting and act as half of a non-depleted mineral. (So you need two to make up the amount of one and to receive the crowns which one would give.)

This way, the Arcade isn't completely chocked of it's supply of Crimsonite, Dark Matter, and Luminite. I feel things will get even worse for the Arcade if Moonstone and Valestone become requirements for crafting food, but that is pure speculation.

While having battle sprites is a great implementation to SK, there are some major flaws in the update.

1. Mist Energy
While having no mist is good if you want to spend all your time in the clockworks, the removal of mist has cost certain items to be inflated dramatically.
Example: Trinket Slots
Since I am stingy person with mist, I would use my 100 mist + 50CE to buy my trinks. Now? I have to spend all 150CE (now called "energy") to buy it. On top of that, if I buy two trinks, the cost is 3 times the amount now than was before (since I buy the next trink on the next day).

I also assume items such as shadow keys and sliver keys are more expensive since there is no 100 mist to spend. Devs have to lower the cost. Not dramatically, just a little reduction in energy that's all.

2. Forge
Oh wow, what are the devs thinking? Was heating equips too easy or something? Now when I heat my equips, i have to use "fire crystals" to make my equip go the the next level. Why? Why? The leveling system was good the way it is. Now you make heating equips harder. Thanks devs. Furthermore, when I want to level say 3* equips, I would go to JK and level it to Lv 5 in two depths. Now? Well, after one depth, i have to open my forge and pray that my forge is successful (if I don't go for 100% success rate). Now it takes even more time to level my equips. While I don't need anymore equips, I know now that is is going to be a pain in the ass to get my 5* equips.

When I think of forge, I immediately think of UVs. Why didn't they use the forge to get UVs or something. Not make heating equips harder.

3. Loot Distribution
Yes, most of us, if not all agree that the loot system now is in shambles. Why don't devs listen to the us crying out "DON"T USE THIS LOOT DISTRIBUTION!". Did that think we would suck it up a deal with it? If you want us to have all the materials in party, why don't they implement the system that everyone receives the item when someone picks it up. Just like the crown system before. If one player picks up 10 crowns, we all pick 10 crowns. Why couldn't they do that for materials? Was it too difficult to code it or something? I cannot fathom why they didn't do this in the first place. I distinctly remember if one player picks up a token, we all receive that token. ...WHY CAN"T THEY DO THAT FOR MATERIALS??? If it is too difficult to code that, OK that is totally understandable. If not please devs, fix it.

4. Revives
Boy o boy. Spark of Life - decent idea. Gets rid of the exponential increase of energy cost. I have to admit it is a good thing to put in. However, no health revives, bad bad idea. I know Nick says that revival system before was "detrimental" to the party, I think, who cares? So what I get one shot in the face by a puppy? I didn't care. Because I know one of my buddies would rev me right up. If sparks of life and health revives were in, the system would be much better than now. Of course if that were so, the sparks of life would cost a bit higher (since the cost does not increase) but that's fine. Now when I go with a party, without revs is essentially 4 players working alone in a group, not a "party". Plus with the pathetic loot system now, the word "party" is rather a stretch now. Say goodbye to teamwork devs, because you have just killed it.

5. Alchemy
Orbs are an interesting idea BUT without mist, it could be potentially more expensive for players to craft items if you don't find any when playing in the clockworks (I haven't personally calculated nor checked if this is true so correct me if I am wrong). Other than that it is fine.

With these flaws in mind the SK now have far plummeted to the depths. The old SK was great. Really great. Why change key features in the old SK that was obviously not broken or terrible in the first place (health revs may cause strain to some but I personally didn't mind it). Hopefully devs, you would at least consider or even LISTEN to us before implementing your updates. If you piss of the community, you WILL lose veteran or new players.

I still cant believe what you admins did to screw over the leveling system. Leveling should be free! you shouldn't have to leave every level to forge something! also, they charge WAY to many crystals! I have to buy new crystals every time I get my strike needle to level up! to pacify people, you should make it never get more than 5 10 15, otherwise the game becomes way to expensive. If you are running low on money or something, find another way to make it besides making all in game stuff super expensive! I am really pissed about the fire crystals.... Everything else though (besides loot and no more revives) is great!

let's see:

bad ones:

the energy was removed=sadly,horrible

the craft now needs orbs=not bad but after me isn't the greatest idea

the weapons level up whit fire crystal=horrible=and it have a chance to don't succeed=double horrible

now the party members can't rev one each other=horrible,sucks,sadly,etc

the good ones:

added sprite to the game=Veryx100 cool

the elevators now work without energy=good

the rev now works whit spark of life=all right i think.........

the first rev (or EC or how it was) is gonna make alone after dieing after some time=ok this is cool

That's all i think but after me you can put the mist back and the elevators should work whit energy again but not whit 10 mist maybe whit 5 mist is better and we can play more :). But after me what was whit the crafting and elevators whit energy it was perfect is was simple.But whit orbs and crystals is a little bit hard not for me but maybe for the beginners.Because not a lot of people ride what is at the mission ,,Learn to craft".

I read one line that "all items are BOUND." Does that mean we cannot trade with each other anymore? The value of sharing is caring is completely disregarded and removed?! I am one knight that lends things to others if they need help and I would still have a pleasure for helping them out. BTW could someone explain to me about the new system lately and what's been going on around here? The mist tanks should still have a purpose in the game like it should be an alternative for the orbs of alchemy or revivals. To completely abandon the original use of energy is just nonsense. The should be uses for the mist tank. However, the idea that the elevators doesn't require the use of energy is quite remarkable. I'm positive more knights would play Spiral Knights more often.

P.S. Hi Benny~! [I didn't forget. ;P]

Ok, now that I've had time to experience all the new changes and figured out what levels to farm for specific things, I'm not raging so much. Overall, I like most of the changes.

THE FORGE

The turning point in my feelings for this feature was when I got my first Forge Prize Box (a Radiant one). It contained a 5* Orb of Alchemy, 50 Radiant Fire Crystals, and a 1 Variant Ticket. So, the Forge is still a pain, but manageable, and the rewards are nice (if you're lucky enough to get them).

The one thing I would change would be to allow higher star-rating heat crystals to forge lower-level gear (as an optional check-box or something). For instance, if you're low on 3* Fire Crystals, you could click a check box on the Forge to use 4* or 5* Fire Crystals instead. It's a pain to have to farm lower tier levels to heat up new gear, and it flies in the face of your stated goal to get players to try out new gear that they might not have otherwise used. (I will be copying this to a Suggestion thread.)

Oh yeah, and add Arsenal Stations to each depth of the boss levels. It sucks not being able to gain heat in the later depths of boss levels because all your gear is full and waiting to be forged.

CRAFTING CHANGES (ORBS OF ALCHEMY and MIST REMOVAL)

Orbs of Alchemy are great. They *almost* balance out the removal of mist energy for crafting. The only problem is that it makes 2* gear SO MUCH more expensive to make (without free mist energy). This was a primary method of UV generation, and it benefited new players with a constant supply of cheap 2* gear on the auction house. I haven't tried farming for 2* orbs yet, and I probably won't.

Now, I can rage-craft to my heart's content, but I have to sell much higher to recoup the costs. Other than 2* gear, I fully approve of the Orbs of Alchemy since you can buy them for the same energy cost as the old crafting system, so it's just an alternative, farmable ingredient. I will probably end up using energy for much of my future crafting, but the occassional Orb drop will do nicely to reduce costs.

Not having Mist energy to reduce the price of Suppply Depot items is kind of a bummer, but I think the other changes more than make up for it, such as:

FREE ELEVATORS

Awesome. No more $6 a month to play unlimited levels! I felt the compensation for existing Elevator Passes was more than adequate, too. I'll have to consider buying more energy in the future as a "thank you" to OOO for this feature (and to continue to support the development of the game).

BATTLE SPRITES

Mostly useless at lower levels. Nice perks at the higher levels. I'd like to see a chance for stun added to Seraphynx's primary attack (and any knockback removed, if there is any) to help keep monsters in its path. It's incredibly difficult to hit anything with it in the first place (other than large, slow things), so I rarely even use it. Maybe I just need more practice. Also, Heart Attack needs a much higher chance to drop hearts. Maybe it gets better at higher levels, but it doesn't seem to make much of a difference. No comments on the other abilities/sprites (yet).

Also, food is kind of a pain, though it's good you only need it once per level. As others have stated, it will totally screw up gate construction since it uses (only) 3 of the 5 minerals. I suspect a lot of mostly Construct theme gates in the near future, which I guess is alright since I just got my Polaris. :p I'm not sure what the solution is here, since using shards would make leveling your sprite too easy and drive up the prices of shards for crafting. I just wish I had bothered to research sprites before the patch, so I could have been farming Luminite in preparation.

Of course, I eagerly anticipate the ability to gain more battle sprites, though I can wait since I'm still working on Mew-Pew the LASERCAT! :p (Thanks to a random party member for inspiring that name.) I wonder what the Moonstone- and Valestone-eating Battle Sprites will be like...

REVIVES

LOVE the revive changes. As infrequently as I am defeated in the Clockworks, I collect tons of extra Sparks of Life, so I can afford to revive A LOT when attempting tougher challenges (like soloing danger missions, over 20 revives on my first attempt, lol). The free revive once per depth is great! It makes mistakes much less painful. Oh, and no more spending half my health to revive careless teammates = no more running Clockworks in a party with a constantly low health bar = much less punishing party play = I don't have to solo all the time = great! That said, it would be nice to have the option to revive with health, but having the option feels like an obligation to use it, so I'd rather not.

Also, no more escalating revive costs! YAY!

INSTANCED DROPS

I like it on principle, but many of the levels were designed with shared loot in mind. (Looking at you, Treasure Vaults!) It's really frustrating to wait for party members to run around collecting drops (especially players who sit there shielding or afk while you do all the work). The only solution is to kick lazy/slow party members. :/ Not sure how I feel about that.

SIDE NOTE

I think it's time for OOO to upgrade the SK servers now (or just add more). I have never had such terrible latency as I do now with so many players online at once. Haven is fine, but when I go in the clockworks, even alone, the latency during peak hours is sometimes unbearable and always annoying. I have NEVER had such constant rubber-banding issues and missed/unregistered attacks before. Oh, and the forums take forever to load sometimes. Get on those server upgrades! I'll buy more energy when I get a new job, I promise! :)

I think some treasure blocks should drop mist energy, because it takes way too much time to collect crowns to buy energy from Supply Depot.

Yeah... HUD Changes
What I would have liked to see from OOO was SHOWING CURRENT CROWN AND ENERGY AMOUNT
You think they'd say: "You know, its really easier to be able to glance instead of fumbling with buttons"
OOO, I am dissapoint.

Keep in mind that this is just my two crowns.

If i fail to forge an item 5 times in a row using 20 4 star sparks, I am just going to give up until something more fair is implicated.

With that many sparks you would of had been able to upgrade it (the third option shouldn't be more than 100). I have to agree with the fire crystal droprates: I can only get 15-30, depending on whether or not I get a Treasure Vault or similar box-heavy area, when playing on Elite. More if I'm lucky. I seem to have better luck with five star crystals than four star, although that could be because the Copper Titan is worth going into.

The Sprites are, uh, minimally useful at low levels, but I recently was in a run with two guys with Drakons that had Ultimates. Let's just say I myself felt minimally useful.

I don't know why drops are rare, but the lack of Crimsonite is probably due to bad luck (I find a fair mix of minerals). If you aren't doing so already, you should try feeding your sprite with Mats and only feed it it's favourite food when it needs to level up. There's a more detailed thread post in New Recruits somewhere.

As for everything else, the amount of caps is probably going to attract attention for the wrong reasons.

I've mentioned it elsewhere, but i would like to see elite prestige missions offer more prestige points.

Alright, my feedback on the update:

Sprites: Seems well enough to me. A few bumps in the road, but most of the serious bugs seem to have been resolved.

Rev system: I find way more sparks than I use, even in Elite. The new rev system isn't all that bad, though I haven't run into any rev-begging noobs yet...

Loot system: I would strongly prefer having a loot system like it used to be. One person picks up heat, crowns, mats, rarities, everyone gets it. Vials and vitapods remain the way they were. I'm actually wondering if having individual loot like this isn't contributing to the lag problems...

Forge: Cool way to try to get bonuses from heating, but it can make heating more time consuming, complicated, and possibly even more expensive than it used to be.

Rarities: Sparks and Orbs were a great idea, but the heat crystals, not so much. While I'm on the topic of rarities, [b]I really wish I could sell them[/b]. I have over 30 Eternal Orbs of Alchemy, nearly 600 5* heat crystals, and over 90 sparks of life. I really wish I could sell the rarities I find in the clockworks, just like anything else I find there.

Wondering why instant revs were removed from Lockdown?? I don't really use it that much, but there are times when I really don't want to sit there for 25 seconds to wait to come back to life automatically. Maybe if I could use all the Sparks of Life I find in the clockworks...

I never understood what mist tanks were for or the mist wells? I'm still relatively new to the game so please explain to me what the new changes mean for my character. Also what's the point of having energy when there are crowns? I find "Energy" in general extremely annoying! Why cant I just buy things with the crowns I work hard to earn?