There has been a lot of ranting and raging about the recent changes and how they didn't fix old problems. The recent announcement of PVP finally coming back reminded me of a conversation I had with pinto the first week or two after official release. We basically agreed then that PVP fixes everything.

A short list of the problems plaguing Spiral Knights:
1. Not enough content
2. Item balance
3. Not enough materials sinks
4. Not enough crown sinks
5. People complaining how few things they can do with mist

A caveat, PVP only fixes things if its implemented properly. By this I mean it costs CROWNS not CE, and it is at least fun enough to get some if not most of the players to play (we concluded that team based and tactical PVP would put all the great aspects of SKs gameplay in the spotlight, but thats for another topic).

How PVP solves these problems:
1. This is the complaint that is at the forefront of the SK experience. We have a great game, but there isn't enough of it! How do you fix that without devoting endless man hours in the continual addition of content? Make repeatable (not REPETITIVE) content! PVP is its own organism. Competition in an environment that gives the player options (read: balanced and diverse) will always be organic and ever changing. Provided there isn't a single dominant build, there will be a flow in the metagame and constant investment must be made by players to adapt and thrive. AI is static and once beaten, beaten forever. But the intelligence of players is not the same. Battles dont always play out in the same way. This is practically the content Holy Grail. Content that reinvents itself with no additional investment, save for a few balance tweaks now and again.

2. I have to admit things like Leviathan > CIV wont be fixed by pvp, but at least most other concerns such as armor sets that weren't viable before (read: everything that isnt Vog) suddenly becomes MUCH more appealing to play with. For starters, the fact that players can make full use of EVERY damage type and MOST status effects and exploit every advantage that brings means that you would need to have a more balanced defense suite rather than just stacking fire resists and normal + elemental defense. If everyone went in with Vog gear, you will get owned by shivermist busters, venom veilers, flourishes, sentenzas, gran fausts, archerons the list goes on and on. A meta game will develop to counter new builds and counters to these counter builds. This would mean that most gear would have a use in some situation making things come closer to a balanced state than if PVP didnt exists. It also brings us to point 3, materials sinks.

3. Materials are overflowing and the implementation of AH (a more efficient free market) did not help to stem the oversupply. But given the assumption that point 2 (item balance) holds true, more materials will be consumed and this will help reinvigorate the materials market. This is because PVP will allow more gear to be end game viable. When before, you get a Vog set and the weapons of your choice with decent UVs you have been done with amassing gear (unless you are a completionist/collector or something) now youd want a back up set of gear for the situations in PVP where Vog set doesn't cut it. Provided that AT LEAST one other set of armor becomes PVP viable (say skolver gear for example), you have effectively DOUBLED the amount of materials needed to reach end game gear. If items are balanced to the point that you have a multitude of options, then consider the problem solved. It also sinks more CE (even with pre patch crafting energy costs) and makes OOO happy as well as games economy.

4. Lets face it. Stratum crafting, the original end game crownsink, is a failure (understatement of the year). Crowns keep getting infused into the system with every dungeon run. The energy market and AH sinks crowns but, by my estimation, it is not enough. Making PVP cost CROWNS means that you get a new sink. While it may not be as significant as say a fixed stratum crafting system, its yet another way to drain crowns from the game and can only help the economy.

5. Lastly, making PVP cost crowns (at least one of the modes maybe?) means that everyone has something to do after expending mist. You might say "well that doesn't make us any money!", but think for a second. An example, a new player finishes of the last of his mist on his first day of spiral knights. he wants MORE obviously, its a great game after all. He doesn't want to spend money just yet, hes only tried it for an hour, and his attention span is too short to wait another day for more gameplay and he turns to other distractions. He would have quit in the current system (like so many of the friends I've tried to invite have), but say instead he stumbles upon the hypothetical PVP arena. He sinks the few crowns he has amassed into the low tier arena and has a blast enjoying more content. He sells of materials to fund a few more rounds. afterwards, he is into the game hook, line and sinker. Congratulations! you've just made a new long term costumer! I have to say that person would have been me if my friends that are already geared didnt treat me to a free run of tier 2 (in proto gear!), that extra bit of content was all it took to turn the game from some thing cute but otherwise not worth my time, into an all consuming addiction.

Of course I have no qualms making SOME of the PVP content cost energy. but make it the more competitive modes that cost CE and the more casual ones cost crowns. Its the really competitive players that are willing and able to spend money to compete, and the more casual players that just want a few more things to do to pass the time.

-edit-

ADDENDUM: How to Maximize the Benefits.

The positive effects I stated above WILL be true with the implementation of ANY version of PVP no matter how good or bad. However, the better executed it is, the more significant the benefits. This is contingent on one condition; that the most number of players participate in PVP as is possible.

Here's why:
1. The more people play, the better the "hivemind" becomes, making for a much healthier metagame, prolonging the longevity of PVP without the infusion of new content (i.e. arsenal expansions, new PVP modes etc.).
2. The better the metagame, the more builds become viable. meaning item usefulness/balance trends closer together
3. More gear is viable, more gear is made.
4. The more people pay the entrance fee to play PVP, the more resource is sunk.
5. Having non energy content means fewer "mist whiners"

That was pretty obvious, but I felt it had to be stated for posterity. Now onto the meat and potatoes...

How to maximize participation:
1. Have something for everyone.
-and -
2. Keep PVP from stagnating.

These two thoughts are closely interrelated so i shall discuss them together.

We can learn alot from spaghetti sauce. It stands to reason that more game modes means more gaming niches are filled, meaning more player participation. Not every game mode is for everyone and it would be foolish to think otherwise. More players playing pvp means more resource is sunk (see 3 and 4).

The benefits of having several modes transcends this however.

On the content side, more modes means more different playstyles to be learned and mastered, effectively doubling or tripling content with the total developement input being comprised of a few modifications to the rules scripting and maybe some balance tweaks down the line.

More pertinent to item balance is the fact that different strategies need different gear. For example in CTF, area denial is important so bombers are going to be valuable, but for T/DM or FFA, you want to be killing as much as possible so the traditional sword/gun combo would probably be the best option.

So how do you most EFFICIENTLY implement this? To maximize the number of builds that can be incorporated into as few game modes as possible, you will want modes that are objective driven to force players into using strategy rather than pure brute force. Also, team based modes will allow players more freedom in going for niche builds since a player's weaknesses can be effectively covered by another's strengths. Having different builds means a healthier metagame that keeps the gameplay interesting for longer. On suggestions for how you can implement casual and competitive game modes that keep with these principles, I shall leave for other people and other threads).

BUT at the core of all of this is BALANCE. I have to stress that there are many more different factors that contribute to "balance" aside from just item balance (i.e. rules, stage layout etc). All the most long lived games are such because at thier core, they are balanced (a prime example being DotA). Adding a competitive component will tend to shift things closer to a balanced state by bringing to light the usefulness of gear in specific situations and how these allow players to explore different builds and strategies. I am under no delusions that ALL gear will be on equal footing. Hence the importance of the devs steping in and actually start doing something about how the game is balanced. It doesn't have to be done all at once, it could be staggered throughout several patches BUT it has to be done (again, see DotA as an example). Although I'm pretty sure the competitive element PVP brings will make the dev team more amiable towards finally getting around to doing this.

Summary of Main Post
1. PVP = endless/self-sustaining content.
2. Items useless in PVE are actually useful in PVP.
3. Making more items useful (see #2) means more items are made, sinking materials
4. A crown entry fee is a crown sink (minimal, but still there).
5. The addition of non-energy content (see #4) means fewer "mist whiners".

Summary of Addendum
1. More participation = more impact
2. More game modes = more participation
3. The most efficient way (i.e. least dev time consumed) to maximize benefits is through team-based, tactical, objective driven game modes.

(wall of text i know, and most people dont like to read, let alone think. for that, i am sorry. but i really think this is something people, especially the devs, should hear if they havent thought of it already. so to that end, i think its worth it. If youve read all the way here, I thank you for giving my thoughts some time and welcome your comments below.)