So, after a while of playing through Spiral Knights, I found that the arcade is a little more... stale, than the story missions. The story missions have special arenas, rooms, and other qualities that make them different than say, an arena level. In shocking sentient sentinels, you have to fight (spoilers) Sputterspark's Sparkcaster. Why not have a scenario arena with the Sparkcaster? I just think that the arcade gets stale the longer you play. Throwing in these rooms could get players more invested in Spiral Knights, and thus, having them play more, and pay more. What if your going through the elevator and you go to a level called "Hidden Grove", you won't know what to expect. What if you walked in to find it was a level filled with lumbers and silkwings? That is what the clockworks should be, not knowing what to expect. Also, more random levels, by that I mean those depths of the clockworks that have treasure vaults, but it's completely random which level it will be. Except, not all of these will have treasure vaults. Now, what to fill these weapons with? Well you could add... (first anem is level name, second name(s) are level themes)
Hidden Grove - Monarch Manifestation, Field Frenzy, Wooden Titans - Levels with all varieties of lumbers, some silkwings, and possibly wolvers.
(construct name) Factory - Firery Furnace, Freezing Fridge, Tesla Terror, Radioactive Wasteway, Factory floor - Levels that have one kind of construct (Gunpuppies, Retrodes, Scuttlebots, etc...) and some gremlins.
Schemer's scrapyard - Junkyard jockeys, Scrap-filled frenzy, Reincarnated Sentinels - A junkyard like level filled with breakable blocks and Retrodes.
Gremlin Sinergy Plant - Dark deeds, Sinful sinergy - A level flled with Gremlins, Devilites, and Constructs.
Rabid Rapids - Diseased Distillery, Plagued Pen, Waste warehouse, Cursed Cavity, Plagued Pond - These levels are a polluted river, with waves moving quickly down the bank, hence the name, Rabid Rapids. Each Theme is different, Diseased distillery is gremlin themed and has a large turbine with a battlepod at the end. Plagued pen is wolver themed and has an arena at the end with a cave that will repeatedly spawn alpha and normal, rabid wolvers. Waste warehouse is a fiend themed level with a warehouse at the end with filled with blarfuls (poison devilites) and you have to make it through the warehouse. Cursed cavity is undead themed and has graves around the river. At the end, there is a fenced of grave yard with the river running through it which requires a key, the two halves of the grave yard are connected by 2 bridges. The gaveyard is an arena filled with Drouls and Vile Deadnaughts. Plague pond is slime themed and has a large pond at the end of the level that can be walked through,and poisons you when walked in, and has a party button in the middle. You will fight through an arena while slimes spawn out of pool.
Cold blood Coven - United in cold blood - This is a forest level like the Gloaming Wildwoods, except filled with Chromalisks and there variants.
Ancient Ruins - Moss Monsters, Giant Grove, Old engine - (Who says old things truely die?) This is a rare level, it contains mostly removed enemies (oiler barons, Cattywompus, Tortodrones, Sloom, Sloombargos, Vog cubs, maybe even gold enemies), it is filled with ruined structures and takes place in a jungle like area.
More to come soon!
I hope that OOO will actually consider my idea!
I really like this. With some more input and a bit of refinement this could turn into something very special. I personally have been to just about every type of level layout in the clockworks and been though many of the "Scenario rooms".
I have been thinking about the variety of the clockworks' many environments and how rare it is that the clockworks "mixes it up" anymore. The clockworks was supposed to be (I am fairly sure) an everchanging dungeon that was never the same twice. New surprises lurked around every corner as the inside of a planet waged war against your party of four or less. Now it seems that the clockworks has gotten somewhat repetitive and is used only to get resources (fire crystals, orbs, materials, recipes from Basil, minerals for sprites, heat and crowns) and not for adventure, exploration, surprise, and challenge like I think it was intended. This is amplified by the "freedom to explore" update because people can just gate hop until they find what they want.
People will use the Dark Harvest and Kataclysm events to spam various gates and missions and find what they search for, but they aren't looking around them, just toward the goal.
Adding more levels and themes, like yours, will hopefully bring back some of that mystery, uncertainty and fun that was around at the game's start. I have an idea that could go along with yours and will make a separate thread on it.
Good job and I hope that the developers are either considering it now, scheduling it for the future, or already working on something similar to your idea.
~Elt