Spiral Knights - Add Event Prestige Missions into Daily Rotation

Add Event Prestige Missions into Daily Rotation

13 replies [Last post]

Tue, 05/13/2014 - 07:49

Momofuku

Problem: The intent of every event mission in the last year or so is to encourage grinding it to collect the mats you need to make event-exclusive gear (Kat Hoods in this event, previously Tortodrone shells, Obsidian and Winter reskins).

The problem is that it, honestly, is a cheap ploy to force players to play the game but not out of enjoyment, it's out of necessity. We begrudgingly grind because we have no choice--we are given a 1-2 week deadline and a lot of materials to gather. It's not really fun. It feels annoying because not grinding away during the event period is a "waste" of the event.

There are a few announcements with the events which encourage the idea that the events do return and the idea is you're not supposed to get every event exclusive item within a single event period. That's fine, but they are not showing up in good enough frequency, and much of the pay off for the grind is aesthetic at best.

Solution: Relieve some of the burden of being forced to wait semi-annually to grind for event materials by adding them to the 4th slot of prestige rotation. Does not even need to be a daily rotation. A weekly rotation would be fine too, allowing the event mission to be done only once a week.

For example, opening the Tortodrone prestige mission so players who have fiendish ID tokens can use them and collect some shells. Non repeatable. Getting 2-4 shells once a week doesn't make the task of getting a Gorgomega any easier. Similarly, adding Purr Terror or whatnot into rotation so you can pick up 4 Ancient Pages once a week is not breaking the purpose of the event in general, but at least allows people to make some progress towards niche items.

Wed, 05/14/2014 - 07:43

Dandi

I couldn't agree more. Nice

I couldn't agree more. Nice idea!

Wed, 05/14/2014 - 10:30

Autofire

You are experiencing a PICNIC ERROR!

/yes Momofuku

Only once a week sounds perfect.

I'm guess the reason for them forcing people to grind is...well...people grind FSC all the time, so... :<

Wed, 05/14/2014 - 13:12

Skyguarder

Make it random about once a week and the token payout should be 1-2 tokens.

Wed, 05/14/2014 - 14:35

Dandi

I think the 4 tokens reward

I think the 4 tokens reward is good. If you have the kat event once a week it would take you 13 weeks (more than 3 months) to complete one kat cowl, and you also have the other missions to alternate. So it would take even more.

Wed, 05/14/2014 - 14:42

Dracora-Speaking

I'm about to post a large idea about "alert" style missions - similar to prestige, but they'd have their own tab along with rank/prestige/expansion/arcade. If you or others have played the game "Warframe," you'll know exactly how this might work fundamentally. But a weekly appearance would be excellent as well.

Regarding tortos: you could have fiend glyphs drop in White Collar Captives only.

Wed, 05/14/2014 - 18:02

Welux

*Random Noises*

i'm ok with the event's being something like Tortodrones or Bks, but i don't want this happening for events that are on holidays. Since what else is OOO gonna do on the holidays? it would kind of ruin the fun of stuff like Grinchlin Assault and the new Apocrean Halloween, along with the SK anniversary. Since if it were like this, instead of someone being hyped for whats coming this Christmas, people would just be like "meh, whatever, played that a ton before Christmas even came around".

And it would SEVERELY anger players that busted their rumps (including me) to get some of these holiday items. Have you played Grinchlin Assault? Have you seen how much crap you needed to get ONE weapon? Not to mention the Apocrea post patch. Ugh. that was bad news. luckily i sprang and got my Obsidian Edge before the nerf.
Sorry, getting off topic.

I like part of this idea, not all of it.
+.5

Thu, 05/15/2014 - 00:11

Teammember

RE: *Random Noises*

I'm sure holiday-specific events like Dark Harvest or Winterfest will stay holiday-specific. Not sure if Apocrea would count as this or not.

Thu, 05/15/2014 - 01:28

The-Vindicar

@Teammember

I think Apocrea could be added, because really event-specific Halloween mission is the hunt for Punkin King.

Fri, 05/16/2014 - 12:03

Momofuku

@Welux: While I understand your pain, it sets an annoying precedence if all event related missions are like this. Do you honestly feel like you are playing the game at that point, or doing a repetitive, annoying task just because you feel like you have to (since the event period is limited time only)?

This misleads the game creators into thinking the players are having fun and want more difficult missions that require significant amounts of grinding to get reskinned weapons. They look at the stats and see # of players online and average playtime are high, thus players are having fun. It does not sound like you were having fun.

While the suggestion does not nearly solve/address this problem, it slightly reduces the burden of the aggressive, 10-hour multi day repetitive grind full of anger and tired eyes. That is not playing the game. That is not fun.

====

During actual event periods, the "rotation" would be disabled and your only option would be to play the ongoing event mission. So your actual exposure to other event prestige missions is much less given that about 10-20% of the year there is an event going on.

Fri, 05/16/2014 - 13:06

#10

Dandi

Momofuku, there are many things to consider, and often we wrongly assume people already know, so posts as yours are very lucid (in the lack o a better word) and ultimately necessary.

I'll list thinks that came to my mind:

1 - If there are current missions and/ or expected grinding, the availability of prestige missions with event tokens for reward are halted.

2 - Specific holidays events should not be included, but kept to their respective time of the year.

3 - Missions should not be available daily, and not just one, but rather alternate between them.

And so on.

Fri, 05/16/2014 - 14:56

#11

Skyguarder

@The-Vindicar

"I think Apocrea could be added, because really event-specific Halloween mission is the hunt for Punkin King."

No. If the Aprocrea mission were to occur in an event prestige rotation, then the Apocrea mission would be less scary for the players.

Fri, 05/16/2014 - 16:34

#12

Plancker

@momofuku

speaking only about grinchlin assault here, but I think allowing it to be played all year round will make turn it into a grind instead of a challenge. To me that mission wasnt a grind, I liked it and barely did anything else during the winterfest event. That mission was a cool challenge which is hard to find otherwise. If it becomes playable all year (even if its only once a week or so), everyone will memorise the mission like FSC, and in the end it will become a walk in the park to everyone. Then players will only be farming it to get the trinkets and the reskins and those items will lose their rarity. I personally look forward to new events because it gives me something to do that I havent done before or havent done in a very long time. Right now Im looking forward to the next winterfest, but Im not really looking forward to the next compound 42 or legion of almire, because those became a piece of cake after doing them so many times. Thats why I also hope they will bring out more missions like grinchlin assault and keep it event-only. The apocrean or tortodrone mission are a disappointment in comparison to grinchlin assault. the former because it is tedious and invincible enemies are lame and too easy to dodge when you have shadow cloak, the latter because it was just 1 fight...

Sat, 05/17/2014 - 00:23

#13

The-Vindicar

@Skyguarder the Apocrea

@Skyguarder
the Apocrea mission would be less scary for the players.
Errrrm, what? Apocrea is about as scary as "Nightmare before Christmas".

@Plancker
Why not make two types of event missions - real event missions akin to danger missions that are hard but give you reward immediately or near immediately, requiring less grinding, and grind missions that give you tokens. During events grind mission rotation is locked, and you can try and get your rewards the fast way by playing dangerous mission, or just slowly add it up via grind.

Let's take Apocrea, for example: event mission would have you go through the plateau, giving you apocrean 5* material in the end, while grinding mission would be more like Haunted Passage with occasional Captured Souls hiding in the boxes, and it would give you tokens to buy those materials from vendors.

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Add Event Prestige Missions into Daily Rotation