Spiral Knights - The update balances out the game

The update balances out the game

20 replies [Last post]

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 16:31

Jaouad

Legacy Username

You guys need to realise that beforehand everything was affordable with little effort. This kind of killed the lifespan of the whole game. An MMo is supposed to have a long lifespan. They still haven't expanded the game, but this will add more struggle and effort to the progress. I think most of you are just whining for wanting everything so quick. I say pour some money for a few weps, and once you have them just go all out wih them while earning cash through dungeons and the auction house and whatever.

Now with the update, people will actually have a reason to buy energy instead of not. I just got pushed in pouring 5 dollar into the game. And you know what? It felt good to be forced to pour some cash instead of having the choice not to by doing a few jelly runs. Why do I feel satisfied about this? I feel that the developers earn the cash at least. Since before the update, I had no reason to pour a lot of cash in the game. Now I do, and i'm glad to feel that I didn't just spend money for nothing compared to before.

5 dollar 89 for 1600 energy. It was totally worth it. This is one of the few MMO's I actually enjoy and I wouldn't play anything else so for me the comparison of how much another game costst through monthly fees doesn't matter for me at all. They all suck for me anyways.

As long theres mist energy, the game will be free for anyone, and making profit of dungeons will be never impossible. The choice is yours:

Wanna progress quick, pay money

Wanna progress slow but still enjoy, don't whine and keep earning energy by workarounds

Edit, member says: "You're not addressing the issue of equipment binding. That absolutely kills a big part of the endgame content: buying and selling endgame equipment."

I wanted to add that. The equipment binding ain't a bad thing if they add some sort of mechanic that should unbind weps for a fee (energy or crowns)

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 16:43

kakelgis

Legacy Username

You talk like this was the

You talk like this was the only way to increase the longetivity of the game before new content is added, and like the in-game CE market has no effect into it.

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 16:45

kevomatic

Legacy Username

You're not addressing the

You're not addressing the issue of equipment binding. That absolutely kills a big part of the endgame content: buying and selling endgame equipment.

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 16:45

Jaouad

Legacy Username

You shouldn't feel bad about

You shouldn't feel bad about only using mist energy. I know some like to play longer than just an hour or two but if you have a problem with that, just spend some cash. Don't overcomplicate things. Seriously

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 16:47

Jaouad

Legacy Username

"You're not addressing the

"You're not addressing the issue of equipment binding. That absolutely kills a big part of the endgame content: buying and selling endgame equipment."

I wanted to add that. The equipment binding ain't a bad thing if they add some sort of mechanic that should unbind weps for a fee (energy or crowns)

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 16:49

Digitalartificer

just no

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 16:52

LCBelgarath

Legacy Username

LOL

@Jaouad ..."You guys need to realise that beforehand everything was affordable with little effort. This kind of killed the lifespan of the whole game. An MMo is supposed to have a long lifespan. They still haven't expanded the game, but this will add more struggle and effort to the progress."

SERIOUSLY, if people don't want to buy equips they don't have to, no one is forcing people to reduce their playtime, removing what most of the late-game players were doing with their sk-time DID reduce the playtime WITHOUT giving people the choice...as magnus has been fond of saying they cut out the end-game.

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 16:54

kakelgis

Legacy Username

You shouldn't feel bad about

Am I missing something? Is there some way to increase the cap to 800 Mist Energy or something? Because that's how much energy five-stars cost now. Even three stars cannot be crafted with pure ME anymore, and four stars are at 400.

How did you manage to entirely miss my point? My point is that increasing CE cost was certainly not the best way to do this; Increasing material costs would be. I'm pretty sure several players also suggested an increase in material costs. Materials have literally no other uses right now, and some are barely even used for anything. (Spark of life is only used for Storm Driver)

If there's any reason that an energy cost increase would work better than a material or crown cost, then I'd like to hear that. I can't really think of anything myself. (other than making it look hella expensive to newer players to "force" them into buying CE with real money)

CE Market: It's more likely that the CE market will eventually rise to higher prices. Can't jump to any conclusions right now, however.

To be honest, the main issue with the update is the permanent bind when upgrading. Most of the endgame market consisted of premades, and it helped the game since players would purchase CE to buy those. If only the energy crafting prices were increased, but the binding wasn't added, this would create even more profit for Three Rings from CE purchases.

Paying a fee or something to unbind items would work fine. But permanent bound, and just leaving it at it? Nope.

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 16:56

Jaouad

Legacy Username

I agree about the binding

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 17:08

Tsuyoi

Legacy Username

@jaouad The problem isn't

@jaouad

The problem isn't only playing with mist energy. The problem is having to grind for ridiculous amounts of time to afford 800ce if you don't want to pay cash. Also, your logic is completely ridiculous.

You're essentially saying you LIKE being FORCED to pay cash to the game company? Wat? How before you didn't have to, since you could easily do jelly runs, but now that you have to pay cash, your HAPPY? I'm sorry, the rest of us don't share your mentality. We'd rather have the option to happily farm jelly king instead of paying $5 for 1 tier3 piece of equip, which is what 3k ce gets you about now.

You completely sidestepped the complaints of the players, instead focusing on how YOU prefer this to other RPGs, YOU won't play anything but this, and YOU enjoy the fact you have to pay the company money.

"They still haven't expanded the game, but this will add more struggle and effort to the progress. I think most of you are just whining for wanting everything so quick. I say pour some money for a few weps, and once you have them just go all out wih them while earning cash through dungeons and the auction house and whatever."
WAT
The games been out for weeks. Other companies push out weekly new content for their micro-transaction games. They've had plenty of time. Instead, they've been thinking up of ways to make more money off of us. You want us to spend money to get all the high tier weapons to do... what? Run through the same dungeons we did for weeks? How would they help in auction house? We spend real cash to earn in game money to do what? Bid on 2-3* items we already have since we can't buy anything higher than that?

No thanks. I'd rather not spend money getting gear on the HOPE that they release better content in the future (note, they have NOT even promised us any such new content).

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 17:29

#10

Bangslash

You know what game is NEVER gonna be popular?

"You guys need to realise that beforehand everything was affordable with little effort. This kind of killed the lifespan of the whole game."

Hey, guys, I just heard about a game called Chess. Even in your very first game, you get eight pawns, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, one king, and one queen (which is CRAZY overpowered, btw, and needs nerfing for balance). Even worse, you can only upgrade your pawns, and only in the middle of a game. And that doesn't even carry over to the next game!

And you can't even buy additional pieces or buy level ups or ANYTHING. Your not even allowed to bling out your pieces with custom costumes.

It's just crazy. I don't think this Chess game is gonna be able to keep anyone interested for more than a week or so.

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 17:30

#11

Tsuyoi

Legacy Username

Chess is free. This is not.

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 17:45

#12

Zingman

Selling 5-star equipment is

Selling 5-star equipment is "endgame"? That's a pretty poor "endgame" imho.

I'm fairly certain that we're nowhere near "endgame" in the developer's vision. The current "endgame boss" (Vanaduke) only has one status it can inflict (fire). This is also a big part of the reason why the gear seems imbalanced at the time.

It's fairly easy to conceive of a Tier 3 boss(es) for the other status effects (freeze, poison, shock and curse). A Tier 4 boss (and the true "endgame boss"), i.e. one at the "core" (which is currently sealed) would be capable of causing/inflicting multiple status effects. As such, Tier 4 boss may be impossible to solo, since it would conceivably require a coordinated effort by a team of 4 players, each one maxed to the hilt in one status effect, which would require 4 different sets of armor. Vog (fire), Skolver (freeze), Valkyire (poison/curse), Divine (fire/shock/curse)

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 18:56

#13

Bangslash

Chess is profitable. This is not.

"Chess is free. This is not."

Chess is a multi-million dollar industry. I don't think this game's going to break even.

Have you heard of a time when the sum of the number of players in the four gates exceeded 4,000? I checked a few times tonight, and the gate census was consistently below 1,000.

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 19:43

#14

xasper69

Legacy Username

Not worth paying for

"The games been out for weeks. Other companies push out weekly new content for their micro-transaction games. They've had plenty of time. Instead, they've been thinking up of ways to make more money off of us. You want us to spend money to get all the high tier weapons to do... what? Run through the same dungeons we did for weeks? How would they help in auction house? We spend real cash to earn in game money to do what? Bid on 2-3* items we already have since we can't buy anything higher than that?

No thanks. I'd rather not spend money getting gear on the HOPE that they release better content in the future (note, they have NOT even promised us any such new content)"

I think this is the main problem... not CE, mats price, 4*-5*binding, etc... the bottom line is it's not worth paying or playing because this game has very little content. I'd say probably nobody would hate the recent update and people would gladly pay IF SK had more interesting contents. But then again this is suppose to be a F2P game. I haven't played any other F2P though so I can't compare.

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 19:45

#15

aeolianmode

Legacy Username

To sum what you said: 1.) The

To sum what you said:

1.) The promotion of the longevity of a MMO is to increase the grind, or as you said "struggle," rather than add more content
2.) Being coerced to spend money is a good thing

I see nothing that balances the game. In fact, you just promoted reasons why this patch was terrible.

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 19:58

#16

Metaknight

Yeah way to artificially slow

Yeah way to artificially slow the game down, rather than actually make it longer. This update just stretches out the already thin amount of content. Face it, the game is pretty anemic right now. If selling stuff was the endgame for people (who had their 5* equips already), its because people had to INVENT THEIR OWN ENDGAME(!!) because they had nothing else new to do. Wanh wanh.

If people were exploiting the system or whatever, the devs should've done a better job anticipating those in the first place, rather than pull the rug out from under players without a heads up.

Personally, the bindin issue doesn't effect me. The crafting CE costs is what gets my goat. The increase was too radicial to be kosher. If 4* went to 250 and 5* to 400/500 CE, that would've still been disappointing, but more reasonable at least. Then they could wring us out for 200/400/800 in a subsequent update. :P

Oh and the auction house fees are a bit lousy too. Should be lower. Cuts into profits of selling, which makes sellers have to go higher, which makes buyers less interested.

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 21:00

#17

balticbear

Legacy Username

"You guys need to realise

"You guys need to realise that beforehand everything was affordable with little effort."

If, and only if, you were willing to spend significant amounts of time (to slowly, slowly turn 100 CE into enough crowns to buy another 100 CE and come out 500-1000 crowns ahead, repeatedly) or spending significant amounts of money.

For me the almost 2 months of play and moderate CE purchases netted in just enough 4* gear to squeak into tier 3 two days ago. What should I expect with "reasonable effort" to get there, 6 months, a year? There isn't enough to hold my interest for that long if I can't even switch weapons because I only have two 4* ones.

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 21:12

#18

Raul

I agree with most of what you

I agree with most of what you said, however CE Alch should NEVER be 800 for a 5* maybe an 8* MAYBE.

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 21:21

#19

nearo

Legacy Username

ohey,

I agree with Skype on this occasion~ CE should never ever be so high, the binding might be major hate, but the CE inflated costs is the real problem.
and I could imagine paying that for a 8* 8)
Yeah, if SK wants rarity, make higher star gear, it might be more work in the short run, but it sure beats inflating.

*edit* Jao do you hear yourself though? 5 dollars for one pixely item that doesn't even do that great in most cases; or maybe you'll use a few revs in vanaduke in a bad party with that 5 bucks? sure good groups dont go that high, but lots of runs can go that high real quick.

Wed, 05/18/2011 - 21:59

#20

Raul

The extreme problems I am

The extreme problems I am seeing here is that OOO wants to keep us from buying our way into the end game, however this doesn't effect me and actually made them more money then they thought.

They are hoping increased CE cost will lead to overall profit, OBVIOUSLY, and to think otherwise makes you a fool. However, it's too high and there is too much a gap which will lead to more problems and less profit.

I propose making mats more rare and in higher quantities, except for shards, lord knows they take enough lol, especially for uv crafting. I also don't think there is a issue with shards atm, they are extremely common and everywhere. However, if you do that return ce costs to their previous state.

If you don't I propose do the above I propose the following;

3*150
4*300
5*500

That should ensure increased profit, and more comfort among the player base, heck you could even make 5* 400 instead.

The AH needs fixed for MULTIPLE reasons that are already being taken care of in it's own thread.

Search

The update balances out the game