Spiral Knights - Why the Cut of Health Sharing Killed Teamplay

Why the Cut of Health Sharing Killed Teamplay

23 replies [Last post]

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 02:14

Avarito

Hear me out on this one. (anyone who's not into reading a quite long post skip to the 'aaaaaaaand' part)

I've read one of this a few days ago and basically everyone was bashing on the original poster for being an idiot who doesn't know how to play the game and is only begging for someone to carry him.

I don't care that much for stuff like that. I don't want to farm items, crowns, whatever. My knight is pretty much selttled so far and all the stuff I want, got 5* gear and everything. I'm only trying out other weapons by now just to figure if they suit me more than what I have.
I know my game and in which levels I can compete and in which I can't. Also in which difficulty.

BUT (hehe butt...)

let me set up a little scenario for you guys:

Playing some arcade for the fun of it, groups open to join for everyone.
I smash my way through the levels like a boss. Maybe need my free revive, taking some damage through the game. Still manage to reach every elevator yet.
Random dude joins me. Some friendly words are exchanged.
Arena comes up.
We be serious buisness for these mobs! FARM THE BRICK OUT OF THEM! YEAH!

nope.
While the other guy keeps his game cool and plays quite well I suddenly stand no chance. Don't know what happened. Done this a thousend times on this difficulty. What the hell is happening?
End up wasting 5 sparks of life. Doesn't sound much? It is for me considering I went arcade 1-29 twice yesterday and once today. 0 sparks were given those days...(maybe I did something wrong? Difficulty Advanced)

So I figured:

The more players there are in a group the harder the enemies, right?
As long as I play by myself and can stand those mobs. As soon as someone joins me I can't.
This would be okay if the one who joined me was able to share his HP with me. But he couldn't.
He could have given me a spark once in a while but let's be honest here:
You wouldn't give sparks to a random dude either. At least I know I wouldn't.

HP to resurrect someone I don't know? Sure why not?
Sparks? Nah, let's wait until he uses one of his own or leaves...

***Aaaaaaand that's pretty much my point here.
I personally don't want to play with randoms anymore because it makes the mobs significantly harder (maybe my mind is playing tricks on me? feel free to tell me).
Therefore I die a lot and need more sparks (I really don't want to go back to Haven only because I died the third time... call me an idiot for that).
Therefore I really enjoy playing alone. Goes with my flow, I can compete in the arcade.
I really don't want any random guy to join me.
And that is where teamplay died.

So tell me guys, am I completely wrong?
Have sparks of life affected your teamplay considering randoms?

Last I ask you to have a friendly and reasonable discussion with me.
As said in the last thread I saw about this topic there was a general bashing of the dude who opened that thread.
I felt like I was watching 12-year olds... Nobody brought up arguments, not even the OP. Have some brain and dignity, I beg you.

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 02:35

Tyrahs

So true

You are absolutely right!! I only play with friends since THE Patch.. Teamwork died.

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 02:42

Swinweflue

Yes

Those Sparks are just to get more Money form Players, same goes for Orbs and Crystals..

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 02:48

Little-Juances

Again, I wish there was a way I could sell my 304 sparks to the unlucky that never find them :/

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 03:24

Avarito

yeah, i really bugs me not

yeah, i really bugs me not being able to trade rarity items. fire sparks fill my inventory to the max. i hate it :(
if not being able to sell them in the AH at least let me trade them with players. or AT LEAST to marchants. just to get rid of the stuff I don't need.
actually I'm planning to make another thread about trading rarity items. maybe.
if so I guess I'll post a link in here.

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 03:30

Neilpalad

Maybe

When I was like party of 4 It was quite easy at the arena I used 1 sparks and the other guy too but the 2 are just fine. Also sparks kind of helped me in SL wasted like 25 sparks and no energy wasted (its a party of 2).Its kinda great with sparks of life just my opinion.

Dont rage at me....

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 03:48

Mickmane

No.

"Have sparks of life affected your teamplay considering randoms?"
No.

Well, the other day I opened the Party when I was in an arena and dying a lot all on my own. But no one joined. I'd have liked some help.

(At one time a friend said; "You're a support character, that's why you're dying so often alone." I'll stick to that. ;P (Though, seriously, I am the worst player ever.)
Any friend to help with the arena, even one who dies a lot too, and it would have gone with a smaller pile of Sparks. I do bombs mostly. There was no one to take down the frozen Robots (who let them into the Slime arena anyway?), and I kept getting poisoned...

Fortunately, I don't go where I die a lot all that often. So I have way over 100 Sparks still, I can be reckless about using them up when I'm in a too dangerous place for me. It just is no fun.
Running through a place for boxes, or playing the one easily accessible Stratum 6 level that isn't Fiend or Undead is ok alone. Anywhere else I'd like company.

Before the update, I didn't want to play with randoms because they tend to seriously spoil my fun. I like to play with friends.

Now at least it wouldn't cost me Mist anymore, so I'm very slightly more likely to play with randoms.

Therefore, the actutal answer is slightly closer to Yes than an absolute No. But in the reverse way of what you were talking about.

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 04:21

Niichi

The problem I have with this argument is that it implies that health sharing is the only thing that counted as team work before the big update. It was something I benefited from before, but it was not the only reason I played in groups. Now we have SoLs I think playing in groups is better because people seem to revive quickly now instead of waiting on someone else to do it for them and in circumstances where the group would have faced energy revives before we no longer face increasing costs each time. Or costs at all, unless your rate of SoL usage outweighs the amount you receive from drops. Your example of no SoLs in full 0-29 runs is really unlucky. :(

Of course, this is written largely from a tier 3 perspective. The people I've mostly played with (encompassing guild, friend and random) don't seem to have a problem reviving themselves. How this affects the lower tiers is harder for me to judge, although I admit that I have seen some people at those tiers have a harder time in terms of SoLs. I think there might be some benefit for health revives to exist at the lower tiers, but I'm much happier with tier 3 relying entirely on the SoL system.

The more players there are in a group the harder the enemies, right?

At its core the difficulty stems from more enemy health, but having another person that changes other aspects. You have to be aware of attacks being fired off that aren't actually aimed at you but you may accidentally walk into the line of fire. Spawns may trigger by the other person. But then this is offset by the benefits, like not everything in the room is focused just on you, certain party members may be filling special roles you normally wouldn't etc. If the party overall is good then it should work out easier than being solo, but if you're very used to solo play then you may be approaching party play from a solo perspective. Like assuming an enemy will die in X hits but they die in Y, so a hit that never would have happened does or relying an attack patterns based on the assumption that everything is focused on you when it isn't. This may not have been the case for you, but it is worth considering if the person you were with was good.

his would be okay if the one who joined me was able to share his HP with me. But he couldn't.
He could have given me a spark once in a while but let's be honest here:
You wouldn't give sparks to a random dude either. At least I know I wouldn't.

HP to resurrect someone I don't know? Sure why not?
Sparks? Nah, let's wait until he uses one of his own or leaves...

The only problem I have with reviving randoms is that the system to do so is kinda awkward. It's tricky to do it in the middle of a battle without getting yourself hurt or killed in the process. It's true that some players would be less willing because they don't have a stockpile of SoLs and that's fine. Players no longer expect other to revive them (at least in tier 3 for the most part). I don't get "rev plz" flashing up from randoms now.

I must admit though I haven't really seen people in tier 3 runs start requesting SoL revives or appearing to quit due to no being able to revive themselves.

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 05:33

Sirius-Voltbreaker

I think

Best of both worlds would be instead of bringing back energy revs keep the er but bring back health reviving. So someone can revive you with health or sparks. And maybe bump the price of sparks down to 25

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 07:11

Smur

Health reviving did make

Health reviving did make reviving more personal and fun/challenging, but it's still entirely possible with life sparks. As long as we get out of the mindset of "what's mine is mine", life sparks can function in the same was as health reviving, just better

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 07:14

#10

Orbwanter

Well, the other day I opened the Party when I was in an arena and dying a lot all on my own. But no one joined. I'd have liked some help.

Most levels have a section that, when crossed, will prevent people from being able to join your party randomly or through the party finder. For arenas it's completing the final wave of the first room.

I must admit though I haven't really seen people in tier 3 runs start requesting SoL revives or appearing to quit due to no being able to revive themselves.

I play in random parties almost exclusively and see the occasional person who dies twice and immediately drops from the party before I can use a spark on them. I've had to start announcing after opening danger rooms that I'll revive anyone who's dead at the end.

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 07:28

#11

Iron-Dragon-Guild

Teamwork

sounds like you are going to have to work on your ability to adapt. maybe work on some communication, and implementing some Team tactics, like saying 'everybody run clockwise in this arena'......just things a leader and champion might try their hand at. just saying....dont rely on there always being a medic around to save you, sometimes you have to make do with what you've got. good luck!

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 11:44

#12

Glacies

"You wouldn't give sparks to a random dude either. At least I know I wouldn't."

I give Sparks of Life to random people all the time as long as they aren't begging saying "Revive Please" every 1-2 seconds non-stop.

It does promote teamplay, but it puts much more emphasis on your own actual skill than relying on your teammates:

Can I handle this room? Can I take on this enemy? Can I survive this depth without dying?

You should only be dying on average once per depth, hence the free revive.

I think the problem you're having is aside from a select set of Enemies (Mostly Fiends), once you gain a set amount of people, enemies stop flinching under normal circumstances so you can't just rely on standard attacks to stop them from attacking. You do need to adapt to this change.

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 12:41

#13

Quaquonfaes

I really don't undestand the point of this, I mean, I undestand why was the forge put in, to compensate for the elevator fees, but why these?

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 12:51

#14

Shamanalah

my 2 cents

Heat revives was taken out to prevent people from heat boosting like we used to. Anyone who played back then know that 3 people giving you heat on Vana = 3* to 5* in one FSC (really, it did).

With the new heat system they had to thought of something to break this down and they thought of spark of life.

Meaning that this prevent teamwork is an illusion. You can still rez people with your own spark of life, if you do well then you can rez others. HP rez only helped bad player, it hindered good players into reviving everyone.

How many times did I rez'ed someone and told him "go rez the others" and he charged away, leaving my and half my life to rez someone else to drag me to 1/4 my life, I get hit and the whole party dies. That's really solo play from the pro-side and "teamplay" from the weak side don't you think?

At least now people don't go somewhere that is not their level. Even if I go around on a FSC elite run in 3* doesn't mean you can too. I gauge my team, my strenght and decided I could go 3*.

Teamplay means everybody contribute, HP rez means the pro does the work and the weak keeps dying. That's what happened back then...

Edit: Funny enough, some people don't even dare to play with me as I never leave Elite, they know they can't do Elite and I have to boost their morale up by saying "don't worry, you are with me, you won't use any Spark of Life" before they finally come into Elite runs... Plus you can buy rez at a decent cheap prize compared to before and the 1000 ce roof o.O

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 12:50

#15

Warp-Master

I can confirm that around T2 people generally don't have Sparks to spare. These people are probably pressing the Return to Haven button a lot.

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 17:54

#16

Notgreatpig

Sometimes..........

I have a choice for people like you:

Have things as they are now, or

Have the old forge system, old revive, old alchemy sytem, BUT have mist energy, have to pay somewhere near 120k for a 5 star item (from 2 star to 5), have your battle sprite almost never level up, and have to waist energy everytime you go to Haven from a mission?

I would like to see what the community thinks. May the odds be ever in your favor.

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 15:31

#17

Skykillerthefirst

I agree

I don't think that the health share stuff was removed to take money from players, because if you farm enough you can get a lot of sparks and use them whenever you die, and honestly with the health share still here along with the spark revive and free revive it might be a bit OP. I still do think that maybe if they could think of some way to re-add health-share yet still keep it all balanced out then that would be great, like maybe if you could only use a couple sparks on a level before you have to start using 50 energy for revives when your in a team. Just my opinion, it probably would have a flaw, but I think that it would be nice.

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 15:43

#18

Skyguarder

I only have 22 Sparks of life, honestly...

/cry
/sad

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 17:51

#19

Hmmnm

Make revives exponential

It's kinda weird to be able to revive 100 times in a level if you farmed enough beforehand...

You know how reviving used to take 10 energy the first time, 20 energy the second, 40, 80, etc?

We should put that back into the game: 1 spark needed to revive once, 2 sparks the second time, 4 the third...

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 18:10

#20

Skyguarder

No, it should only take one Spark of Life to revive. If it doubles, you should do something about the revival blast.

Fri, 09/20/2013 - 19:31

#21

Sirius-Voltbreaker

hmmm

NO. First off most t2 players have no sparks, and it woukd be too punishing. Try thinking of someone that isn't you.

Sat, 09/21/2013 - 14:17

#22

Ehhoe

@Sirius-Voltbreaker

Ummmm... I am T2 right now and I have used about 10 sparks of life on myself since I started playing. (still use them on my friends...which keep dying...even when I put the game on baby-core) And I always play old normal (now advanced), well, I sometimes play normal so my friends will play.

Sat, 09/21/2013 - 19:08

#23

Sirius-Voltbreaker

I said most.... Not you...

I also don't like that whenever I waste sparks on someone they don't help much. And when I told my friends that I wasted my sparks on others, they ridiculed me for being too nice and that I had to be greedy.

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Why the Cut of Health Sharing Killed Teamplay