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What Works, and What Doesn't

11 replies [Last post]
Thu, 05/19/2011 - 17:33
Copperwire
Legacy Username

Short version? The game lacks in content at the moment.

Long version? Ok, you asked for it :) Read my wall of text and like it.

Really, this game is a four commodity system. CE (bought by some but not all), Time (mostly spent by free players), Stuff (mats, tokens, recipes, gear, and crowns), and Fun (an elusive commodity, but never the less present). Overall, it works as a cycle of motivations. This cycle is effectively a social organism made of different types of players.

CE Buyers:

Some folks buy CE. This is because the cost of CE is worth less then the value of their Real Life (RL) Time. They buy Stuff with their CE, to save themselves the Time it takes to go get it the hard way. They do this because they get "Fun" out of having Stuff. Sometimes this is motivated by status and social standing - having keen gear is cool, but this does not matter unless someone else has less. Status is relative.

Free Players:

Some folks have lots of time and no Real Life currency. They spend their time to get stuff which they trade to CE buyers for CE. They do this because they get "Fun" out of playing. In addition to playing a vital roll in the economy of SK, free players also add color. They boost the numbers so that there are always players online and the game has draw as a social event.

Mixed Players:

Some players sometimes buy CE. Excitement, new fun, changes in CE value, and a good paycheck are all reasons that are sometimes compelling enough to buy CE. These players react to the market and sort of form the "lubricant" of the game.

Effectively, the game works on something like a balance between these groups of people.

If you have too many free players, the value of CE rises, and at a certain point, free play is no longer possible. If this happens, free players quit and the value of stuff rises, fixing the issue. Also, people who are mixed players buy more CE, which is worth more during a spike in CE value.

If you have too many CE buyers, the value of CE drops and it becomes very attractive to play for free.

In the end, you have a self regulating cycle of motivations ... that ultimately balance each other, as long as there is enough "Fun" to keep players motivated.

This is all fine and good. The current issues all tie into "Fun".

Players of all kinds have a life cycle.

For a new player, the initial fun is the joy of discovery. They get to play around and by the time they run out of energy they, hopefully, like the fun they had enough to invest in getting more. Some go straight to buying CE to keep playing more. Some learn the art of free play.

Not all players stick around past the early fun. The further you get into the game, the more Time is needed to see the next shiny object - be it get new gear or get deeper. This is a ramp, where there is less Fun for Time. Still, many players stay engaged through the getting gear and seeing most of the game period.

Either path, as players progress, they get gear and try out the content. On either route, at some point, players see all there is to see. Then, even the most hardcore gamer will drift away.

Of course, RL events and other games also compete for players time. Still, the end of "Fun" is the end of most players time in the game. It is like what happens after you have tried all the rides at an amusement park. You may come back next year and hope they have new rides, but you go do something else.

Before the current round of updates, and I am guessing here, I THINK the half-life on most players was 14 days of time in game or 50$. This is not bad, but its not great. In this time, you could easily get a full set of 5* gear and kill Vana a few times even as a free player. For a CE buyer, total CE to get the same gear was around 18k CE, assuming you just bought at a high price from sellers. Now, with the increase in CE costs to craft and the fact that you cannot buy 4*+ gear directly, the actual cost is lower for a CE buyer but it costs more Time.

For a Free player, I think half-life is now about 21 days. For a buyer, I would guess around 40$ will get you a full set of gear, assuming you buy all the mats and the recipes from the AU. Now, even a hardcore CE buyer probably has to spend 7 days in game, just to find all the bits needed and to level the items.

This change has a positive effect - it means people play longer. By rationing the "Fun" and slowing the progression to "Content Death", the average players time in game rises. This is good, because it means they are more likely to make social connections (a lot of what keeps players in game, even when Fun is mostly dead) and also more likely to still be here when the next round of content arrives. In addition, CE buyers have to exchange more their CE for crowns - as the AU runs on crowns. This has served to moderate the value of CE somewhat.

The down side is that players who were near the end of fun have even less reason to keep playing. The move to the AU means less trade is occurring, which also damages the social nature of the game. Players who invested heavily in recipes have seen their investments rendered unprofitable and players who were involved in trade are cut from what was, for them, "Fun". This means lots of players have quit, or scaled back play, and the social aspects of the game have taken a blow.

I cannot tell you what real effect these changes have had at a financial level - OOO might be able to, but even so, the long term effects are going to take time to see.

The problem is that regardless of what kind of player you are, the game requires more Time and there are less reasons to be social in it. Ultimately, this is a reduction in "Fun". The only way to counteract this is New Content. If this does not happen, and fairly soon, the organism that is the game culture will take a serious hit. Looking at other MMO's, this can kill games.

So yeah, there is a wall of text.

- Copper

Thu, 05/19/2011 - 18:55
#1
ajericho
Legacy Username
On the nature of Stuff and Fun....

I would add that there's another element to having Stuff; it adds variety of gameplay. Each bomb line plays differently from the others; similarly for the swords, and for the guns. Having a different mix of weapons for every Clockworks run generated Fun even if monsters and new scenery/puzzles were lacking. It's not merely about collection.

Now that the crafting costs have gone up, that "Stuff" Fun is over; it's costly now to acquire different weapon lines to play with, and even paying players aren't fountains of cash. I suppose by 5* you should choose only one path, but that seems rather boring.

I'll also note that I've seen pure-paying players, and many tend to only have "the best", and wonder why anybody would try to use a Brandish when perfectly fine Divine Avengers are available; so Stuff and paying player don't necessarily align with each other.

Thu, 05/19/2011 - 20:47
#2
Leviathan
Legacy Username
@Copperwire

Agreed on every single point, line by line.

Thu, 05/19/2011 - 22:25
#3
MeSako
Legacy Username
Ive never run out of fun for

Ive never run out of fun for this game.. and I have only bought about 3k CE in total.
I have a blast every floor I do, even if I keep spamming the same tier over and over every evening!

What kind of player am I, couse I couldnt se it up there in your wall.

Thu, 05/19/2011 - 22:42
#4
drmchsr0
Legacy Username
I think I've never got up to

I think I've never got up to 6K CE, to be honest, and I have yet to run out of fun... ... ... yet.

Most MMOs are social in nature to begin with, and the staying power is social (clannies, etc...)

But nothing beats going into a dungeon, forgetting you equipped a Flourish instead of a Brandish (or Calibur), dying repeatedly on the floors preceeding to the Jelly King and then trying to kick some Jelly King tail before watching the party drop dead from trying to defeat the Jelly King... ... ...

... ... ... while wearing 2-Star Gear. And then laughing so hard at the irony and the fact that you had insufficient energy to revive the party.

Ergo, Jelly King Runs are fun.

(I'm in agreement on all your points, especially the content one)

Thu, 05/19/2011 - 22:43
#5
Copperwire
Legacy Username
@ MeSako

For every generality there are always exceptions. I was sure not trying to make a list of every possible kind of player; at best I painted a rough picture of how the economy works. They aren't paying me, you know :)

If you have to have a category from the OP, it is a "Mixed Player" with a relatively low amount of time in the game.

I'll take a few guesses though, just for fun:

You play for about 1-3 hours a day. Your total playtime is under 10 days. You spent ~10$ in two 5$ buys. One was spend exploring and the other getting 3-4* gear. You are a person who is motivated by "play" more then "status" or "twinking". If your lucky, you have made a few friends who consistently play about when you do.

I'm glad you enjoy the game. In some ways, I think you have it right - and will have more fun then most.

Thu, 05/19/2011 - 22:44
#6
Dogrock's picture
Dogrock
Short version? The game lacks

Short version? The game lacks in content at the moment.

That's been the crux of many a debate in the past, and unfortunately the game still had that "easy to acquire everything" feeling that was much more appropriate for testing purposes in the Preview. This is no longer the Preview, but the ease remained until now. I wish this had been picked up earlier as a design philosophy issue to fix, but that's not how it always happens.

Thankfully new content is most definitely coming. I've got no idea what content comes first, but it's a safe bet that there's more weapons, bosses and Core stories are on the table waiting to arrive in game.

By the way, well written post.

Fri, 05/20/2011 - 04:38
#7
Raspberry's picture
Raspberry
Content

Good assessment of the community, Copperwire.

When the game went live to the general public, the beta testers were given a few days head start. (ref: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/1990)

Many of the betas essentially hit t3 and 5 star gear in less than a week. A good portion of the betas and early players did their own material farming, recipe hunting and gear leveling to get to t3. There was no one to make gear for us.

I assume Early Access Weekend was not just to reward the betas for helping to build the SK Wiki along with advanced testing of the SK product. Betas donning 4* and 5* gear are active walking advertisements to an incoming set of brand new players! The early players produced how-to videos on Youtube to demonstrate (brag) what can be achieved and how to achieve it with various gear. Thus, the fact that the senior players achieved endgame so fast was contrived from the start by SK management.

Furthermore, monsters and bosses were nerfed to make it easier for new players to get to the content that the senior players had already conquered. Once you get to endgame content, there really is nothing holding you to the game other than enjoying crafting for others. Crafting became the endgame content past Jelly King and Vanaduke. Crafting helped cement guild relations. People were not just crafting to sell, but crafting to exchange wares between guild members to make adventuring safer and more cost effective.

Now there is no real need for endgame guilds big and small as a good portion of the skilled players have the the talent and gear to basically solo or duo T3 content. The thing that brings us oldies back to lower tiers is leveling 3 star items that would not do so well in T3 content. The purpose of leveling gear is to garner as much heat per floor without dying.

I am not boycotting the game intentionally at this moment. I usually purchase CE for crafting purposes and occasionally sell a few items a week to help pay for recipes. Since the option to craft for friends, family and a few customers a week is gone, I don't really have a reason to purchase CE for crafting unless I want to make UVs. As things are, I am fine without UVs and can solo most of the T3 content with under-leveled gear.

If you are a high level crafter, you learn how to play gimp in higher tiers. To make things interesting, some of the guilds and veteran players held contests for gimp adventuring relying more on skill and teamork to overcome odd challenges. Some of the crafting veterans held impromptu contests for new players and donated their own crafted prizes. Aw gee, we got the idea from the developers who held prize raffles to try out new gear toward the end of Beta testing in March. SK community has become one of the most helpful and fun communities my family and friends have seen on the internet.

Hopefully, the developers and management can help the community regain its delightful ambiance and trust.

(edited...accidentally truncated original reply...sorry)

Fri, 05/20/2011 - 08:23
#8
opaopa13
Legacy Username
This is the most well-written

This is the most well-written post I've seen on the forums.

I want to add that, for me, the joy of Spiral Knights was playing with friends I already knew. I have a friend in Chicago, two friends in Boston, a friend in New Jersey and a friend in Hong Kong. Spiral Knights served the same basic function for us as Civilization IV, Dominion and D&D have in the past -- an excuse to stay in touch and have shared experiences together. I loved how easy Spiral Knights makes it to play with a friend who's just started playing, either by playing lower tiers in old or scaled-down equipment, or by crafting them better gear. I loved the feeling of progressing as a group, such as buying a friend the Graviton Bomb recipe and knowing he could now make them for everyone.

So for me, the patch weakened our playstyle, because now learning a 4* or 5* recipe benefits only yourself, not the group. I'm worried three of my five friends have quit because of it, even though they probably would have never given "bound items upgrade into bound items" a second thought had it been in place from the beginning. I think they're being silly -- if running gates isn't fun, then there's no point to progression. If running gates is fun, then the rate of progression is a secondary (albeit legitimate) concern.

Even if this patch did hurt my playstyle, that's just my playstyle. Too bad for me, but I don't respect Three Rings less for caring more about their playerbase at large than my personal preferences. It was certainly a gutsy move, and I hope it pays off in the long-run.

Fri, 05/20/2011 - 09:03
#9
novareid
Legacy Username
Kudos on making an

Kudos on making an intelligent description of the current state of the game. Everyone needs to read this.

Fri, 05/20/2011 - 09:03
#10
novareid
Legacy Username
Kudos on making an

Kudos on making an intelligent description of the current state of the game. Everyone needs to read this.

Fri, 05/20/2011 - 14:19
#11
Droganis
Legacy Username
Good post

Very well written.

I'm still on the fence as to whether to continue, but that's more due to lag issues and waiting to see what things change/unfold with this patch release. I will admit that I have cooled down a bit on my response to the patch, and that maybe things aren't as bad as I originally thought, but it still has pulled some of my previous interest out of the game. But this can also lend people to re-evaluate just what their end game goal is. Maybe I'll just go ahead and start trying to buy every recipe in the game like I had originally considered doing? We shall see...

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