In some ways, it's for the good. However, I see how much it affects new players, and despite being post-game, it honestly angers me when people say the decreased droprates are good. Many new players can't survive Advanced Mode without having high-tier players helping them, and Normal already has the drops nerfed to a rate that makes "Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing" look like a well-designed game. It essentially punishes players simply for being new, and I've seen just how frustrating it can make the game. It becomes nothing more than a grindfest on Normal, and adding people to their party just makes it harder on them.

Then I see people say we need to further lower the droprates for things like orbs and sparks, and... Well, I'll muzzle myself here, as I'd rather not get banned.

In the end, it adds some good things, but makes the game severely hostile to new players.

I am hardly new. Gear, I have 43 5*'s, 7 4*'s and numerous 1, 2's, and 3's. I've been here since before the "missions" were a gleam in Nick's eyes. I wasn't end game either having purchased more ce and another elevator pass prior to pokemon and was one of those users who had the ep ripped away and wasn't fairly comped for it.

This game isn't only hostile and hard/frustrating for new users. With that said. I'm going back to my island on my new game and will be waiting out the pokemon storm there. I hope this new SK fad passes quickly.

Arcade is just U S E L E S S now. Sometimes good 5* recipes had AH cost of 35k. Now what? They now cost barely cost 27k! ... ...

All right, where do you get your minerals for Sprite food and Fire crystals for heating equipment?

Exactly.

"All right, where do you get your minerals for Sprite food and Fire crystals for heating equipment?

Exactly."

Exactly from missions. Problem?
Anyway... I said in subject of making money.

I doubt this is a 'fad' that will pass. This is what OOO wants to do. It's their game. I know that's a cop-out answer, but the update was decided months ago, and them just up and changing it back is going to make things worse. I think it's well in their interests to stick with the changes rather than changing them for every Tom, Dick and Harry that don't like the changes.

The 'difficulty' argument is, in my opinion, total dreck. Those who thought it was too easy now have a difficulty option. They added this to the Arcade, too, so now there's more of a reason to use it instead of those missions.

The Arcade isn't dead. You get Orbs of Alchemy and Sparks of Life out the wazoo if you go for a quick run. Same with Fire Crystals. And the removal of Mist means you can go as far as you want now. Hell, I picked up like a dozen 5* crystals from a solo run yesterday. Just because you need to take time upgrading your stuff now doesn't mean crafting's finished. Level up once a day, you'll be fine. Learn to adjust to the changes instead of complaining about them. Hell, there's even less difficulty in crafting since they took out the requirement of CE, and Orbs aren't ultra-rare mob drops.

Stop being so melodramatic over the Battle Sprites, too. Players knew they were coming for months now, and just because they're still adjusting doesn't mean they're 'toys of the system' or whatever nonsense you're spouting off. The only reason they're fussing over food and upgrades is because most of those guys are Tier 3, and Battle Sprites are damn useless unless they're appropriately leveled. I don't even want a damn Sprite, but I still appreciate that they're there. They add a new dimension to gameplay, and you don't have to use them of you don't want to. Stop acting like you don't have a choice.

I really had to scale back the venom for this post. I am that annoyed with the naysayers.

"The 'difficulty' argument is, in my opinion, total dreck. Those who thought it was too easy now have a difficulty option. "

Difficiluty options did not game hard.
Difficiluty options only adds damage to monsters.
That game is still easy.

honestly i mainly just hate the new heating system, not because of finding the crystals but because of how time consuming it is in the long run. though the crystals seem to encourage more arcade delving, i still feel that it does more harm than good.

I just don't like it when I open the launcher/ Browser and get "Validating", "Resolving Downloads" and "Downloading Patches"
Because when I see it, I know I have to wait for an hour... D:

Edit: Oh wait, I do not like the heating system :( Bring back the old one I say!)
Nah whatever maybe they can just increase the drop rate of crystals.
Just a comment, Move along...

The Sprites were okay, but I'm onto the other stuff.

SoL are okay, I got a ton of those

OoA are also okay, as they drop from CW

But the FORGING. Please, the rates are broken. How does one fail 5 times in a row when there is 90% sucess rate? S for no mist, that encourages more grinding. You do FSC 3 times just to get enough crystals to level up ONE LEVEL. Of course, we all understand that it is there to balance out the elevators, but isn't this game already based enough on grinding? Grinding is what destroys a ton of games, as it is very boring business; people would rather try new things over farming old things just to get the equips. Of course, 99 percent of games require farming, but when the game is all based around it, it isn't really fun.

I remember this story of a game of blackjack, where the ball landed on black 36 times in a row. Everyone continuously bet on red because the probability of it landing on black again and again decreased astronomically each time. What was the probability by the time it finally landed on red?

50/50

That's called Gambler's Fallacy.

Granted, failing a 90% chance 5 times in a row isn't exactly the same, but it's the same in principle. You didn't strike a one-in-a-million loss, you just struck a one-in-ten loss five times.

It's their own private toy that they want us to hand them our money over for and they don't see it as our game with our time, effort, cash and other resources like all those electric bills incurred during play invested into it.

I woudnl't say that. It's probably more like there are a majority of people that wanted things like a completely new energy system or something and at the same time, OOO didn't want to risk any portion of their profit at all, so the voice of the very small minority (and the very rapidly shrinking) is drowned out. I mean it is ultimately business, but in order to do business they need to please the most people possible.

Of course, it didn't work out too well for those of us that like the game a little better a year or two ago.

It's a free to play game. If you hand over your money it's not their fault. Besides, you should not be whining about change. Change happens. It's not good or bad, it's just different. I'm rather tired of seeing this happen everywhere I go, where the very vocal minority of a community wants a developer to sacrifice their artistic integrity 'because change is bad and I hate it'. If they change it back it'll just get worse. Far worse than Fire Crystals and Alchemy Orbs could EVER make it.

I'm rather tired of seeing this happen everywhere I go, where the very vocal minority of a community wants a developer to sacrifice their artistic integrity 'because change is bad and I hate it'. If they change it back it'll just get worse.

Didnt OOO add the spiralmons and made much of the changes of energy BECAUSE of an overwhelming majority of players asking for them? I think they sacrificed that already.

Also, on the success percentage with forging: I never go below 100% now because I had a similar thing happen to me but only in 3 attempts with 80%. What a waste of crystals that was. So now I grind crystals even more then I ever did with ce to not have it fail on my and waste 2 FSC runs worth of crystals :v

CE's not absolute useless right now. It still have some uses (one example being weapon slots and trinkets slots which I don't have yet, and the ones in the AH leaped in price like crazy ever since the update). I don't have a problem with the revives, since I still occasionally get a spark once in while (those treasure vaults are now more worthwhile what with boxes dropping rarities), and I don't really die often. Emergency revive is pretty generous. Removing health revives... I barely noticed the difference. Might be because I solo too often, though.
The forge system was a bit tedious at first, but then I came to cope with it since I was in no rush to level my equipment. The only annoying part might be getting a 4* to 5*, but again, I'm in no rush to do that. Heck, by doing many arcade runs for a certain 5* recipe, I've already leveled a Faust that I obtained after the update from 1 to 10 and still didn't get the Gran Faust recipe yet, and now I'm starting to rack up in shining fire crystals without trying. As for leveling 5* weapons, I don't see a reason why to rush that. The first few levels for 5* equipment is still relatively easy, and leveling the equipment mostly only affects its power, and at the most minimal levels ever. Getting one to 5 and 10 just makes it gain a little charge bonus or health bonus, so meh. I also lost the reason to complain about the forge after luckily getting a single radiant forge box, because what's inside those forge boxes are usually literally insane in value (not everyday you get a 3 variant ticket and a bunch of rarities by opening a random box).
Battle sprites, I really don't see the reason to complain about this. If you don't care about the battle sprite part, then it barely affects you at all. If you do, then it may give you some incentive to party play since minerals are apparently shared by all from what I heard. I for one welcome the battle sprites.
Free elevators makes it less annoying when I die from lag or sudden disconnection.
Overall, the update's pretty nice. Although my view may be pretty bias. But as Scamall said, changes are usually just "not the same", not good or bad.

I'm completely free to play, and just look at my character: http://imgur.com/a/2OtCr

I haven't paid a cent yet, and I probably won't anytime soon. It is very, very possible for F2P people to thrive in Spiral knights. Honestly, I feel like I should have paid OOO by now. I've had 2 something years of fun, and I will probably continue to do so, and all without paying a cent. I've paid for games that cost 40 dollars, and yet I play this game more than anything else. Why? Because this game, despite its flaws, is fantastic. Unlike any other MMO's I've played, this game actually lets F2P players have a chance to do everything they want. The community is helpful and kind, the support from the Devs and GMs are fantastic. To some extent, they listen to the community. You wanted pets? Fine. You hated mist energy? Okay, we'll remove that! But you'd be idiotic to think that they would both cater to the community and not try to make a profit. People need to eat. People need to make a living.

As for the sprites... No, they are not a requirement. It is only so crazy right now because they have just been released. I'd like to point out to you that the feeding is quite charitable. I'm F2P and only had 2000 crowns when the update was released. Now, my pet is lvl 53 and still going strong, earning around 3 lvls per day, and I'm honestly not that much of a nolife. Besides that, I already have obtained 2/3 of the ultimate evo catalysts required for the ultimates. Even though my pet Maskeraith is only 4*, it serves me remarkably well. I can become invisible and run away from battle or destroy already weakened enemies, along with dehabilitating single enemies. P

Namely, that the devs are leaving a bad taste in the community's mouth. No! This is, in fact, the opposite. They removed CE, they added several features the community suggested. What more do you want? The dev's to spoonfeed you crowns and free stuff? As I said, the devs need to make a living, but they are still trying to cater to the community. They are trying to balance it so that people will want to buy if they get impatient but are still able to play the game without any problem.

As for the alts... [Horsefeathers]. This update isn't all about shanking the alts at all, I can play without my pet without any problem. I don't need to rely on it, my Panoukla is just support. As for the puppeteering, that is what moderators do in every community. They remove alts, it isn't like the Spiral Knights forums is unique for doing it.

Now I don't even understand Lord-Bacon's second to last statement. At that point, Bacon just sound like a befuddled conspiracy theorist.

Now, the game is certainly not centered around the sprites. It is only like that because it has just been released and everyone wants to try out their pets. This isn't irregular. The very same happened with the missions. History is a wheel, and it repeats itself. Only the context changes.

I've found that I like this update, it gave me more choices, and having more choices, at least for me is nice.

One of the initial things I liked about SK is that it didn't punish me for wanting to play solo. But it didn't punish me for playing with a group either.

Now I have even more choices, I'm not held back by the desire to invest my energy only on the things that will help me maintain or increase that energy. I can try new weapons, I can toggle the skill level to suit my mood (I'm only a bit above average so playing on elite and improving is still a meaningful thing to me as much as being able to turn it down to advanced or even normal for some of the danger missions).

I played with groups a few times for the first time in well over a year and actually enjoyed it because my peers were again interested in exploring everywhere and breaking all the things. I can decide to play in T1 leveling up baby gear just to experience, or go and do something in T3 without having to weigh out which one is more worth my time in energy.

For the people who don't like the pets, don't use them, no one is forcing you.

I think the only thing I wasn't too keen on at first was forging, but in retrospect it doesn't bother me as much as it initially did. It used to take me ages to fully heat up a 5*, if I hadn't experienced some forging failures I would have maxed out a brand new 5* (from 1-10) In less than 2 days with relatively little actual playing. (even if I used 100% every time it'd still be faster than than the old system).

Honestly I don't feel that this update has changed a lot in the game other than giving people more choices and freedom, sprites aren't really that big of a thing in the long run (although they do add some variety for gameplay style). I do hope that they add some more floor plans and missions and things though, because I'm already getting worn out on doing things I've been in many cases doing since Beta. Yeah I could try my hand at shadow lairs, but I'm not really good or rich enough to do those things nor do I know 3 other people to do them with me. (And I'm certainly not rich or skilled enough to try to solo them...although that could be a goal I set for myself?)

Most of the people not liking this update kind of are amounting to sound and furry to me, but that's the nature of forums in most games so I'm not too surprised. I bet most people are happy with the changes, because most people do not post in forums or comments they just play and enjoy.

more good then bad...

the heating/forge system is the only thing i hate... after the current to pieces i'm lvl'ing/heating i'm never going to make an item again :(

it just takes for ever :s and farming the crystals to use in the forge isn't fun (even less fun when you need to run stratum 2)

and every time i get hit the game lags... if they just kept the healthbar where it was i wouldn't even need the damn red glow around my screen...
don't use my sprite skills all that often but still lvl'ing it :) wich is kind of fun way to burn through usefull materials.

but if i was still in the process of gathering and lvl'ing my gear (all of it) i would probably have quit by now...

I understand what Forging is supposed to do; act as a speed bump for poopsockers. But it's a freaking Great Wall, not a speed bump. Between it and collecting Alchemy Orbs, getting tier 5 gear grinds to an absolute stand still.

I agree with one of Bacon Lord of Whatever's post about the game being about the Clockworks. I had kind of figured that the missions system would still have you traveling through the 'works to get to your mission destination, with missions appearing as strata kind of like bosses. But instead you just teleport right to the mission. I bet many of the newer players have never been to the arcade, or find it redundant.

Other thing I would like to see is the return of enemy difficulty, a rescinding of the nerfs dealt to Retrodes, Alpha Wolvers, Greavers, Menders, etc. With no cost on gates, the only thing keeping players from running straight through with no resistance is enemy difficulty.
And there is no enemy difficulty anymore.