To be honest, I (probably selfishly) thought that over time, the devs at Spiral Knights would ease up on what were the old CE requirements in favor of placing restrictions greater higher Tier content that does note exist yet.. This just came out of no where.

What I think the Devs have overlooked it that "we" the players weren't playing Spiral Knights for the "Difficulty" that they seem to have originally intended. Spiral Knights was not a time consuming or even that hard of a game. I don't think many of us wanted that eather.

I don't know exactly what the Devs "want" this game to be, but we were definitely NOT playing that game. Unless they want to relaunch this game aimed at a very different player base, I really don't see many of us happy with any compromise they make.

The way I look at it, when something like an item or mechanic is not implemented and in development, the devs are the monarchs. They have free reign over anything they want. However, once a mechanic is released and is set in players minds, or an item works a certain way....unless its game breaking, then it should stay. (yes, i know they make it, and can do whatever they want, but that doesn't mean they should)

We didn't pick up this game for what the Devs had envisioned, we picked it up for what it was.

So what if they simply didn't earn enough money?? I mean guys stop being selfish. In the end this game was made to earn money. Moneygrabbers is the negative word people use to describe the change, but come on. How many are there that spend their money "just" as support. You guys who did that just aren't enough to fund this project. There are those who love this game that didn't see a reason to pay at all.

Now that I do I am glad that I can support them and also don't feel bad about wasting my cash

"Spiral Knights now costs more real money than any other MMO out there with the least amount of content."

No it doesn't. As long Mist energy exitst, the game will be free no matter what arguement you have

Firstly, you've only "addressed" one issue. The rest you let slide like they aren't there. And your solution is for us to spend MORE money after you've just screwed half of us? These are political games if I've ever seen them. Also, I think it's cute the way you say "some players were disappointed".

Why are people OK with this? "Thanks for fixing it for us!!!" Did you not read his whole post?

"There will be a fee for doing so, roughly equal to the cumulative cost of crafting that item."

So let me get this straight:

1. I craft a 2* item up to 5*. This costs me 8900 crowns and 1450CE to do total (without even considering materials).
2. By his good graces, nick allows me to pay him an amount ROUGHLY EQUAL to this to unbind it and try to sell it.
3. I've now spent some value "roughly" 17,800 crowns AND 2900CE to get this unbound item (not even including the costs of all the material components, and god knows if that's smashed into your "rough estimate"). You now expect me to SELL this item for a value greater than that...
4. ... and you get 10%.

I bet this unbinding will cost Crysal Energy (IE real money). What a joke. Pathetic. You expect us to pay you even MORE money - real or no - for your blunder? I'm not impressed.

I've had a ticket up since, and still haven't been gotten to. I'm wondering if I ever will, or if the limited time offer will happen to expire before then. At LEAST reimburse everyone for what you took from them. Just unbind everything from everyone once, if that's what it takes. The items they plan on using they could put right back on. I used several recipes for items intended to go to a different character. It was CONVENIENT having everything on one character for crafting, and you'd thus-far given me no reason to need to jump around on characters when I could just mail them the gear after the fact.

I understand your desire to make certain items more valuable and rare. Of course it should be like that, and if these limitations had been there to begin with they wouldn't be as big of a deal. I bet you wouldn't have gotten as many players though, because it's easy to see how long and how much real money everything would take at that point. And giving you that much money to play through the same content over and over isn't fun. You sold your product, and now your changing it into something totally different than what was paid for. I know not everyone paid, but lets face it, the reason a game like this has F2P is to attract people, and eventually convince them to share the wealth. THAT'S FINE. But this is getting shady.

You need money to fund a game, but if this game truly exists for the players to enjoy, why are you choosing to change it in such a way? Look at every patch change and ask yourself "Is this fun?". If the answer is almost certainly "No." then you're doing something wrong. There's no gray zone here! I don't go on the forums 24/7, but I'm fairly confident when I say that the number one suggestion/idea/complaint was NOT: "Everyone has my helmet, you should make it rarer". Sure, that tiny rarity aspect of the change was positive. But I don't think a single player would have preferred this over a new boss, or new levels, or a new ANYTHING.

Well, you're getting what you wanted, especially now that you've angered enough people into quitting. Rarer items, woo! Many people have given decent suggestions on how to make these items rare without molesting us out of the things we've already earned and breaking unspoken promises. Honestly, everything you've done thus far happens to increase and prolong the cost of playing, so that's my guess as to motives.

If you had thought this patch was going to go over well you wouldn't have bundled so much nerfing together with something you knew was probably the most highly anticipated change. And honestly, I find it pretty convenient that a new employee is hired to manage player-developer relations on the same day as this obviously controversial patch. I feel really sorry for Eurydice, and if she was just there to take the brunt of the easily foreseen backlash, then you should be ashamed of yourself.

PS: Is there a ticket for getting my $40 back? (sarcasm)

*bangs head against wall*

Remember guys, they wanna keep the weps unique, so unbinding won't be there to just to be able to sell all stuff again as old, that would go against the whole fundement the devs are aiming for.

Not really. It makes selling them still almost impossible if the intention is to double the price. At that point it being Ce or CR doesn't matter. Even if you want to pass it on, it's easier to unbind the 3*version then get recipes and mats.

@ Jaouad

I also agree, majority of players are just hasty & don't really pay too much attention to the SK storyline. Just the other day when i first reached the core with a newbie party, none of them cared to talk to the NPCs when we got there. They just looked around and got on the elevator.

But that is not their stated goal. Yes, they could unbind for chump change but then what the hell is the point of binding in the first place? They would NEVER have unbind as low as that. I mean just looking at the prices:

Recipes: 1000+4 000+10 000+25 000=40 000CR
Crafting: 400+1 000+2 500+5 000=8 900CR
Energy: 1450=14,5*~4 900=~71 050CR

an unbind cost of 17 800 is totally unrealistic expectation if they wish to go with the system outlined in the opening post. If they don't, then great! I was proven wrong! If they DO, well, I'll sell unbound sealed swords+faust recipes if I ever get to that part of the game.

....also do not add another energy costing element! we need a crown sink to help drive CE prices lower not a CE sink to make it more valuable
thank you nick =)
and by a 100 ce per level i mean maybe 50 or 75. please consider our crown sink idea

I added a list to my user page archiving the ideas I've had and good ideas I've seen in this thread:
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/User:FlashbackJon/Suggestions

Feel free to post any feedback on the discussion page.

It bears repeating that this is NOT for suggestions that ONLY revert changes from the patch. Now that we have some insight into the developers' vision for the game, this is a list for suggestions that build on their changes with the intent of achieving the goals they've set while keeping the playerbase happy. We're looking for inclusion, not exclusion. Move forward, not backwards.

After some input, I'll write it up a little more formal-like and put it in the Suggestions forum (actually I might do that anyway for non-wiki types).

EDIT: @LoneKnight: Food for thought: what WOULD make the unbind cost worth it? What other benefits could you hope to gain from unbinding that would make the price (CR, CE, or otherwise) seem reasonable (if still a bit high)?

It may be worth it for bound 3* equips (basically, token equips) if it stays equal to the cost.

The point here is though, that OOO doesn't want it to be worth it. Read the first post. This is supposed to be a system in place for people with way too much money on their hands. You are normally NOT going to resell a 5* item unless there is a buyer with more than 10$ in CE. Premium goods indeed!

Don't get me wrong, I understand the motivation, but the whole "forced bind with unbind you can pay later" method is bad. It's either too cheap and does nothing, too expensive and is worthless, or just right and then merely overcomplicated for the sake of making people feel more special.

So, to actually answer the original question, it should come with an action figure that makes freaking awesome coffee and gives the best BJs ever for me to even consider it.

Can we get a new response or did you actually think the OP was enough? Please read through the thread and all the great posts that have been written in reply to the OP and give us a new response. The half hour you spend doing that would go a long way.

Pretty much.

Okay, I lied about sleeping this morning. I stayed up for an extra hour or two crunching these numbers. I bored even myself while writing up the detailed background so I deleted it.

Here are the numbers!

Recipe Price:

• ★☆☆☆☆: 250 crowns
• ★★☆☆☆: 1,000 crowns
• ★★★☆☆: 4,000 crowns
• ★★★★☆: 10,000 crowns
• ★★★★★: 25,000 crowns

Alchemy Cost:

• ★☆☆☆☆: 200 crowns/ 10 energy
• ★★☆☆☆: 400 crowns/ 50 energy
• ★★★☆☆: 1,000 crowns / 100 energy
• ★★★★☆: 2,500 crowns/ 300 energy
• ★★★★★: 5,000 crowns/ 750 energy

Unbind Fee:

• ★☆☆☆☆: N/A
• ★★☆☆☆: N/A
• ★★★☆☆: N/A
• ★★★★☆: 450 energy
• ★★★★★: 1200 energy

15000 + 450x = 450x + 450x
x ~ 33.33

40000 + 1200x = 1200x + 1200x
x ~ 33.33

Note: 3333cr/100ce is the equilibrium price

Obviously, at higher cr/ce rates, the crafter effectively has to pay a higher fee. At 4700cr/100ce, this is roughly 15% of the first-craft price. In my opinion, this is still very acceptable. Certainly, we can all agree it's better (for the economy and longevity of the game, in alignment with the devs' vision for its future) than the ~60% profit from before and definitely better than the projected ~30% fee with the patched crafting formula and its associated unbinding fee.

IF the purpose is to make items rarer, rather than more expensive

why not make there some sort of incentive to remove some of the currently existing items from the game. Some sort of UV:high benefit of combining two 4*-5* items. If you could combine two 4* or 5* items and get your choice of one of three random UVs to add, you'd see fausts and avengers being purchased up in droves and combined for good UVs. This would work two fold. Firstly, you'd be taking 4-5* weapons and armors OUT OF CIRCULATION, making them more rare. And by making it an attractive and perhaps better method of fishing for UVs you'd simultaneously take out the low level crafting that floods the markets with excessive amounts of weapons and armors. So you are attacking the problem at both ends!!!! Removing higher * weapons from the top, and ceasing the flooding of the market with lower * equipment that is currently being made in an attempt to UV hunt.

Or

Simply allow UV's to be purchased with a somewhat high amount of CE. come up with a number that allows for the developers to not lose money (in that people are currently blowing through a ton of CE in UV chasing), but at the same time, again, killing off the tendency for people to flood the market with goods derived from failing at getting a UV. so you won't have one person making avenger after avenger after avenger, making it less and less rare.

(i think the first idea is better, personally. It would allow me to continue to spend my jelly tokens on sealed swords, craft into faust, combine in an increased effort to make UVs. And this system would work even if you looked to bind weapons to the user in the future. Also, it works to affectively make equipment become more rare, which is a tough task to do at this point....cat out of the bag....toothpaste out of the tube..etc...)

UNIVERSAL TOKEN.
Make there a universal token that is accumulated, a sort of achievement token. Jelly king runs? 3 JK tokens and a Universal token. Vanaduke, 3 vanaduke tokens and a universal token. Arena rooms, a Universal Token at the end. A slow accruing token, and once you recieve 100 tokens, you can trade them in for rare and awesome equipment. The idea being, its a token that can be earned by playing the myriad of different paths the game has to offer, accrues slow enough that its an achievement to collect enough to trade in for a peice of equipment. Equipment you traded for would be bound instantly and permanently. Then make the selection of gear to trade for fairly robust. 5 swords, 5 guns, 5 hats, 5 shields, etc..... Thus rarity ensues. Sure, everyone and their brother would be running around with 1 universal token peice of equipment, but there would be a great variety in what we chose. By making it completely untradable it would be a status symbol as well. if someone had full universal token gear and weapons you'd know that they played the waaaaaay too much, lol. It would allow for constant accrual of an overall goal, within the confines of grinding individual goals---as jelly runs would contribute to the overall goal off uni tokens, as would vanadukes, as would just random ventures into T1, T2, or T3. In affect, you could create a whole wing of the game thats as symbolically resonate as the Fang of Vog (or whatever) weapon.

or in affect, do what we presume was intended to be the case with Sealed Swords, etc....in which you thought they'd be much rarer, harder to get, more highly prized, and more of a status symbol. You can't really fix what was erroneously designed in the first place (While my first suggestion would undo some of it!!!!!!) but its a great chance to learn from your mistake and correct those short falls moving forward, as you put new and exciting content into the game!!!!

One of the biggest problems I saw with this update was the suddenness of it all. In previous FREE MMOs that I've played, developers would warn players or give them a heads up about changes that would significantly alter gameplay and in-game choices weeks in advance. Following this logic, it should have gone without saying that Spiral Knights, in which gameplay can be affected by paying real money, would do the same if they took the time to consider the ramifications of their patch on players (payers, especially). An alternative would have been to unbind all items along with the advent of the patch, as someone also suggested.

Had we known of these changes ahead of time, I highly doubt there would have been this many ragequitters/complaints. We would have had time to prepare for it, to level our items enough to upgrade into unbound items, to know to not make certain decisions powered by real money. So sure, it may have been a slight oversight on the devs part to not let players in on the know, but if they truly intended to spring this on their players then I have to say that that's pretty shameless and sketch (I'd apologize if the former were true).

People before me have mentioned pretty good ideas, and I support the ones that I took the time to read and remember (items only obtainable (binds on purchase) with real money).

Also regarding the unbinding issue - If prices for items that people are trying to unbind are going to double with the system Nick suggested, wouldn't people just grab their own recipes and craft it at lower cost?

I've thought about this update some more, and I'm pretty sure I just didn't want to admit to myself that something bad has happened and they're just trying to milk the cash cow before this game goes away. I can't think of any other reason that they would commit to a patch like this. If there is a good reason, then they're obviously not going to tell us.

No one really believes OP's reasoning, do they? Prior to the patch, everyone was having a blast, even though there was a terrible lack of content. No one was complaining about the rarity of items. Hell, I thought it was great that there were items like Blackened Crest that were drop-only and I assumed they would add more items like that to the game. Now that's rarity.

Can someone explain to me why they would screw over the entire player base ("surprise! you just lost a lot of in-game currency without warning!") and raise the real-money cost of playing - all in the same update - if the game wasn't running out of gas?

From byce:

"No one really believes OP's reasoning, do they? Prior to the patch, everyone was having a blast, even though there was a terrible lack of content. No one was complaining about the rarity of items. Hell, I thought it was great that there were items like Blackened Crest that were drop-only and I assumed they would add more items like that to the game. Now that's rarity."

You're absolutely right. Unfortunately, some people DO believe the explanation behind this patch. They are, clearly, the minority, but they're still insisting that these changes were for US, and that this unbinding thing is an actual compromise. Ignorance is bliss, and they were having as much fun playing this game as the rest of us. I don't want to let it go either. But it's clear now the devs are sitting cross-armed at getting such resistance to this, and they don't plan on revoking or truly compromising at all.

I've never once heard the complaints that the devs claim drove them to these decisions. Most players were busy building all kinds of gear or fishing for unique variants, and they were HAPPY doing so. Eventually this might have become a problem that needed addressing, but like many pointed out, some new content, new rare drops and/or higher ranked items would have fixed all of that. All while giving players NEW things instead of limiting the old ones. I'd really like to see any thread that implied fixing high-level item rarity was a priority desire of the community. Honestly I don't think they exist, but even if there ARE a few, they are in no way evidence that this type of change should overshadow all of the other player requests or ideas. And again, this was the worst solution to that problem anyway.

They haven't once addressed the holes punched in their excuses, or commented on the ideas here that would accomplish what they claim to want WITHOUT limiting the players like this patch did. If this wasn't pure greed, we'd be hearing SOMETHING other than "You can pay us even more to KINDA undo SOME of this".

If they intended to seriously fix it, they'd have announced it by now. No one expects a real solution this instant (unless it's rolling back the whole patch), but at the very least we should be hearing that they INTEND to fix this in a way that doesn't just involve more options to give them money. Any reaction would at least let us in on their intent, but I think they want us sticking around hoping they might change their minds. If they'd admit they made a mistake and told us they were planning on fixing it in a reasonable matter, I might actually believe they were trying to help in the first place (despite how painfully obvious it was that this patch would be a big slap in the face).

Hm... While the point of this update was to fix the rarity issue for items, I don't think this was the right approach to it. IMHO, the purpose of increasing energy costs was due to, at least in part, the desire to increase the income from the game. CE is directly linked to real money anyways. However, I think it was also to make it more difficult to obtain higher level equipment. Nick's post definitely holds some truth in it. The "rarer" items are definitely becoming overwhelmingly common. I believe this to be jointly caused by a few factors. I'm pretty sure all of these have been discussed previously.

First, trading. As stated in Nick's post, people are buying their way to the endgame. Unless trading equipment is entirely blocked (as is now) or other ways to prevent insta-endgame, that's just something that will happen in a game. Simple fact of life, people find the easy way and use it.

Second, equipment imbalance. There are so many equipments that go virtually unseen because they are completely underpowered compared to the overly common ones. Who really ever needs pierce defense or poison resist? Also mentioned in a previous post, Nightblade vs Faust and Nightblade vs other Brandish variants. Faust causes curse and is better for Jelly King. The other Brandish variants cause status effects and the Nightblade doesn't make up for that.

Third, the fact that there is an endgame. People will play the game and at some point reach the endpoint. Since the game virtually stops there, as more and more people reach the endgame, it follows that more people will have access to the rarer items. Which brings us to the fourth point.

Fourth, lack of content. There have not been very many expansions that allow for different gameplay. Once you reach tier 3, the game pretty much ends. People can go for completion (get everything), but without variation in gameplay, it becomes boring rather quickly. I think PvP would be a good option for expanding the possibilities, but the game needs something for people who are not entirely interested.

There may be more, but those are the main reasons I see. Points three and four can be combined.

To address the rarity issue again. Jelly Gem equipment are common because Jelly King is easy to defeat. It has been pretty well established how to defeat it anyways. Curse, Fire, Poison, Focus King. Also materials are way too easy to get. And there's no easy way to get rid of them and crowns. I suppose crowns can be converted into energy.

Can we please get a response from Nick?

@ Proteus
It's going to be a long while, if Ever. When they do respond, its a dodge.

I think we should keep bumping this thread until we get a reasonable response from nick.

I agree. That is how I feel, too. The devs at OOO should really respect their fans more. It's really unfair what they did, and how they are treating their paying customers.

This player was a big fan before the update... even making videos to help out beginners! I think his blog post reflects how many of us are feeling:

http://www.spontaneousderivation.com/2011/05/21/spiral-knights-my-hearts...

I posted this in another thread already, but let me sum it up again here if you happen to only read here.

What this patch did:

a)more expensive to produce a single piece of 4/5* equipment, even for someone who crafted it himself and never planned to resell
b)removed option to make up money by reselling
c)removed option to buy cheap from a reseller

->decreased demand for 4/5* materials
->decreased demand for heat
=>decreaded motivation to go down the clockworks

->increased cost to craft
->increased crown/ce demand
=>strenghtened grind/cashsink aspect

under these aspects, perhaps combined crafting cost should be LOWER than what it used to be for a crafter who only crafted for his own use.
Because you know, that was the most expensive way to ever make items. And now it's even more expensive for EVERYONE.

edit:
just a rough production cost estimate for people to understand easier what I mean:
100% is recipe cost+fees in the old system; mats disregarded

old system:
self use only crafter pays: 100%
resell crafter who breaks even at 5 sales, after 5 sales: 0% (his sales actually pay his full costs, or more)
made item purchaser: 40%

new system:
everyone: 120%