Spiral Knights - On A More Serious Note: The Past, Present and Grim Future of Spiral Knights -Veteran Player of Almost One Year-

On A More Serious Note: The Past, Present and Grim Future of Spiral Knights -Veteran Player of Almost One Year-

21 Réponses [Dernière contribution]

dim, 08/28/2011 - 01:41

Chris

First I would like to add that my IGN is "Chris", many of you know me as the Guild Master of Knightmare and one of the oldest players still playing spiral knights. I am making this thread because I have seen every phase of this game, and I know I don't speak for myself when I say that it has been going downhill for a while. I would love some GMs/Devs to at least consider my feedback and possibly even post a reply.

I started playing Spiral Knights after me and my friend IRL Exegunso got our long awaited beta invites. I have played almost every major MMO for extended periods of time since I was 12 years old (19 now). I wanted a game that wouldn't consume my life (like WoW), had a more mature community (unlike runescape) and wasn't money hungry (like League of Legends). Spiral Knights DEFINATELY fell into this category at first. I remember my first impression of the energy system made me think the game wouldn't go far, as I would have to keep spending money to play, or could only play for 100 energy a day, but once I bought my first $.75 worth of energy (200ce) I saw that you can work for energy in-game via crowns.

I would like to point out that I have absolutely no problem with the energy system, as long as it is kept in check.

Recently, as many of you have noticed, OOO has decided that they want to make it EXTREMELY hard to acquire energy in means other than purchase for $$$.
Some examples of this:
1. The update that increased the costs of 4 and 5 star recipe energy costs by a ridiculous ammount.
2. Decreasing the crown return rate on levels.
3. Making 4 and 5 star items cost ridiculous ammounts to unbind.
4. Taking massive crown fees on the auction house, making it hardly worth using.
5. Reduced material worth due to less items being crafted due to higher crafting energy costs and high unbind costs.

This has made the game boring once you have farmed vanaduke and gotten multiple pieces of 5* gear (I'm up to about 30 pieces of 5* gear bound to me that I don't intend to sell, and over 100 pieces or so that I have sold)

Spiral Knights is nearly impossible to "grind" for your gear. As in 90% of the levels in the clockworks, you actually lose crowns (using CE to complete the levels). This brings players to abusing exploits such as looping arenas to make constant profit.

If I were on the OOO Dev team, here is how I would have changed the game, before the auction house update:

Instead of increasing existing energy costs on crafting and lowering the cost of recipes (this over values energy and undervalues crowns), I would have introduced new and harder content.
For example: OOO could have implemented a "Tier 4" that goes down from the core. This Tier 4 could require you to be in all 6* gear to enter. 6* gear could be obtained from a basil vendor who is at the core. 6* recipes could cost 90k crowns a piece, and cost 800 energy to craft, as well as multiple 5* materials. This new and harder Tier would make players rush to get into their 6* gear to gain access, which would make energy sales skyrocket. Tier 4 could have a new boss that would be considerably harder than vanaduke, and give awesome rewards. This would make people rush to get into Tier 4 even more. Tier 4 could drop 6* materials, which would be used to craft other pieces of 6* gear that could only be bought from a basil terminal in Tier 4.
These changes would make the game more exciting for all players, but especially the veteran players who have been in 5* gear for ages. So many of my long time friends have started to play less, found other games, or completely quit playing Spiral Knights because of the lack of new updates. Does OOO want Spiral Knights to become a game that is known as a money pit that gets boring fast? That is how I'm starting to view it, and to be honest if nothing changes in a few months, I will probably start telling people not to try the game out.
I have probably spent about $100 on Spiral Knights and I'm sad to see where the game has gone. It seems that OOO has turned into another company that is going to ONLY update to make money, rather than improve their game.

I will probably add more to this if/when I think of it.

dim, 08/28/2011 - 06:32

stupysays

Legacy Username

@killaizsik

I hate to sound like a negative commentator but if you can't manage to earn more crowns than you are losing by utilizing your ME maybe you have a fundamental flaw in your gameplay strategy.

And now we move to discuss things in a civil manner on a point by point basis.

1. The update to costs via crafting only changed the overall pricing of the crafted item by a difference of 5000cr per crafted 5* from a 4* item. The recipe difference helped alleviate this cost. As someone who lost 980kcr in recipe differences I was perturbed but understand the fundamental idea behind the decision.

2. Decreasing the return rate for crowns to certain levels, aka: Jelly King/Arenas was that a larger percentage of the F2P players were earning enough to purchase many more shares of CE and had driven prices up to 7-8kcr+ for 100ce. This was to curb farming behaviors that drove up CE prices.

3. Making the cost of 4* and 5* items higher to unbind was a way to keep the game from collapsing from entirely too many players reaching the end game content, growing bored and leaving. The fact that 3* items are not bound upon crafting stands testament to the fact you can help another player get a head start without completely screwing up the economy and power leveling. As is, there is a large number of players who have purchased their 5* gear despite these costs. So if you've seen them then obviously the model doesn't matter much. People will pay if they really want to.

4. The Auction house is a risk/reward model and is to be seen as a crown sink. You as well as a large portion of the player base from preview and initial launch are sitting on a veritable fortune, no doubt of gear/crowns/ce. The auction house is meant to be a crown sink and it's doing it's job fine. If you weren't overly concerned with listing your lowest bid price to be too high you were still likely to move your item at a markup. The listing fee is returned and you get charged the fee at the end of the transaction. I've continued to make financial gain. If I can, then you most certainly can too.

5. Lowered material costs may be difficult on newer players but they supply higher end players with a large volume of materials that we use to craft, then put out gear in the hopes for uv's at a markedly lowered price that allows newer players to then be better equipped to move into end game content. If you've crafted any number of items for UV's and then flooded the market then congratulations, you assisted in this "fail" economy you hate so much.

6. OOO Saw the initial problem with unbound equipment with their first sale of Rose Regalia in the following weeks. Many players, myself included hoarded these items and sold them for a fantastic profit. The reason those items are bound now is so we DON'T gouge the other players. Allowing players to unbind those items to make a profit starts to open an entire can of worms that I think is completely unnecessary. They're supposed to be a visual representation of our participation in the game. A visual cue to how we supported OOO, even if they are now making $50-100+ for every set being sold to a new player that wants it (via purchase of CE to get from us older players) I doubt they want the items to get to the point that it affects the economy like runescape party hats. As an avid MMO fan such as yourself you understand the implications behind that. If you are so upset that you can't unbind something to either make a profit, or give it to someone else then hindsight is 20/20. You had the desire to initially wear it, no one forced your hand into putting it on. As for the bombhead masks? Those are supposed to be a reward to YOU, not a means of additional income. If it's in regards to the double bombhead mask issue? Then it's a valid concern but the masks should be vendor trash essentially not unbound then used to turn a 5-6k ce profit.

Enjoy your day at work sir, and I hope that maybe another perspective from a fellow lover of games can provide fresh insight and perhaps elucidation.

-Repartee

dim, 08/28/2011 - 07:48

jooozek

Legacy Username

@killaizsik

Find a profitable hole to fill.

dim, 08/28/2011 - 12:06

Orangeo

Wow, the OP has no idea what

Wow, the OP has no idea what he's talking about, and the only sources of credibility he posts are the facts that he was in the beta and that he's played RPG's for seven years. I'd love to write a rebuttle, but sadly stupysays got everything I noticed.

dim, 08/28/2011 - 17:44

Chris

@stupysays

1. The problem with increased energy cost on crafting and reduced recipe cost is not that people lost money is that it makes crowns worth very little and energy worth A LOT. This is what causes the increased energy price, which is what causes the game to degrade significantly.

2. The decreased return rate on crowns per levels is just OOO's attempt to make more money. They want even their P2P players to not be able to make crowns in any other way other than buying them with CE they have purchased. Increasing level difficulty is a much better solution to curb farming, as many people will be spending energy to rez. Jelly King used to be hard, even in full 4* gear, I don't know if you were playing before his nerfs, but he was quite a nice boss. Now I can easily kill him with a party in all 2star gear, why is the boss of tier 2 killable in the minimum requirement to get into the first depteh of tier 2?

3. The increased energy cost on items will not fix the terminal endgame problem, the only solution for this is to add new endgame content. We haven't seen a content update in over a year, they just like to give us silly bosses that anybody can easily beat and farm all day long, for new and not so great items. With the current system, players rarely even reach endgame as it would take months to do so without buying energy with $$$. This is causing a much greater turnover than people being bored in endgame.

4. Every game other than Spiral Knights has a normal auction house currency burn system of 1%-4% and some games only have a listing fee loss. 10% is absurd and makes it extremely hard to make profit selling anything. When recipes costed 45k crowns each, and items cost less energy and more crowns to make, people rarely had tons of crowns laying around. Now just about everybody I know has like 2m crowns sitting around. What am I gonna do, buy 100 recipes that I will never be able to craft because one piece of 5* gear costs nearly 6k ce in total costs?

5. Lower material costs is only due to the fact that nobody crafts items much anymore in comparison to before the unbind and energy cost updates. I used to be able to sell a sun silver for 40k crowns, now they are worth like 2500 crowns? Even less reward for playing the game.

dim, 08/28/2011 - 21:26

Chris

@stupysays

doublepost

dim, 08/28/2011 - 18:59

stupysays

Legacy Username

@killaizsik

1. The other updates instituted took care of the fact that crowns were seen as less viable as spending currency. Crown sinks like UV rolling (Which to be honest has proven semi-profitable and quick) have brought up the value of crowns themselves and even blast network operates as a crown sink (I'm not a huge fan but people have enjoyed it). That was apparent within the first few days of UV rolling and the remarkable drop in Crowns to CE pricing. it didn't stop the prices from rising but as long as players maintain using more than 100 energy per day to play then the CE market will continue to rise at the same rate.

2. The decreased rates make sense. People were earning around 6-7k cr+ per JK run. Between that and tokens for sealed swords players were making profits hand over fist. As for decreasing farming actions they have indeed increased the difficulty of runs, look at the majority of updates for arenas. Turrets no longer have a blind spot, healers heal more often, monster hit boxes were enlarged and new monster types were introduced. Arena's in a stratum for a single run(IE: waiting for arenas) are still a great form of income for crowns. As for decreased difficulty in regards to JK? It's because of new/bosses new content. WoW did the same thing with content to make it more accessible to the lowest common denominator in games. That will never change as a function in MMO's.

3. It was never meant to be a complete fix to the problem but as a stop gap measure I have to say it's working fantastically. It's slowed the progress of players into end game play and allowed them breathing room to make new content. Snarbolax/Roarmulus may not seem overtly difficult to you and I but they marketed to the newest player demographic, Steam players who are relatively new to the game. As for player turnover rate I still see a large influx of new and up and coming players. Instead of going into detail over how difficult it is in comparison to initial launch(when let me be frank it was possible to make so much cr/ce as to be ridiculous) we'd be better off as a community giving tips and information to new players to decrease their ME misuse. Teaching newer players HOW to beat arenas will help them be more profitable then merely decreasing spending costs on what should effectively be set as the leveling system for gear.

4. The auction house rate may be high but it's because of the exact thing you're lamenting. You're sitting on a total of 2 million crowns. And I know players who have upwards of 5-10 million crowns on their account. They want you to use the AH because it's:
a.) New player friendly
b.) Less server intensive. Imagine the bazaar forums being flooded with stores for mats of every kind. It's not a pretty sight.

The listing price is higher than other games but that's because as pointed out the community is flooded with cr. It's ridiculous, but if the community is indeed flooded with cr then where is the problem with making gains in this game. That's so contradictory it hurts. It's honestly not that difficult to convert Mist to CE. Even if you have a TERRIBLE run you should be able to make a return ratio of 70 ME to 100 CE and that's if you're a terrible player. Doubling your ME to CE is around par the course. If you're telling me a new player that comes in and spends 4 days. That's four days of saving/not self rezzing can't afford the ce cost for a 5* that is insane. That's poor spending habits on their part then.

5. Material costs being too high was another form of stopping the new playerbase from getting into the game. The fact that you make 2500+cr per sunsilver still means a net gain of 40-50 ce. And a new player who purchased it gets his sun silver for his leviathan blade. It's not the crafting issue that's at fault for the prices being so low for materials. It's the larger number of end game players. Preview and initial launch showed critter carapaces were making a fortune, you know this and I know this. It was a hot commodity because it was used for what was at the time some of the best equipment. Only a month later carapaces dropped from their ridiculous price, not because of crafting costs but because enough players progressed to the point where they didn't require those ingredients and could then flood the market.

dim, 08/28/2011 - 19:15

Bekjan

I think that the only problem

I think that the only problem is that a lot of people are already 5*. Since they can earn enough crowns by doing JK/FSC/recipes they can afford CE even for 8k-10k crowns per 100 ce.
So I also think 6* and/or 7* mats/items should be introduced as well as the new t3 or t4 bosses.
Seriously I am getting bored killing Vana and JK. I remember first time facing JK was really exciting, now it is routine. BN also became boring.
I don't want to critiscize OOO, but if they don't want to lose older players, then they should make a major update.

PS: Not only new players can give $ to play. If there are really new awesome items, older players can also pay $ to get items(IMO).
-------------------
Bekjan

dim, 08/28/2011 - 19:15

Glowing-Ember

PvP, if implemented properly,

PvP, if implemented properly, will have unlimited replay value.

dim, 08/28/2011 - 19:19

Nitez

T4 idea

I get what your trying to say about the CE market inflation and all and as a full 5* equipment guy I do want more content.
your prices are a bit outrageous tho I mean really 90k crowns? how about the old 50k and for crafting change the current 5* equipment to like 4k crowns and 600CE, and the i guess 6 or 7k crowns and 800 CE for the ideal 6* equipment. Also the inflation of the CE market can be solved by OOO HALF-running the market. I mean they should input some CE every now and then to maintain the CE market while keeping F2P users happy and still earning money from P2P players.

lun, 08/29/2011 - 19:25

#10

Chris

Cant even read that last post

Cant even read that last post by Stupy
So much stupyness LOL

Anywho, in rebuttal:

Each jelly palace level used to give 2500-3500 crowns. This is equal to tier 1-3 arenas and should be higher than them.

The problem is that the game is flooded with crowns, crown sinks do not remove this, only decreased use for energy will remove the crown flood. The game was far from flooded with crowns before the increased energy cost on crafting update.

One piece of 5* gear costs over 6k CE unless you buy all the recipes and make it yourself. Let's do the math, you can make a maximum of about 15k crown profit per hour on mist energy (this is in full 5* gear mind you). It would still take 25 hours of play to get one piece of 5* gear (if you farm crowns at the fastest possible rate). Reality is that new players make less than 5k-10k crowns per hour. I feel that 75 hours to get your first piece of 5* gear is quite insane.

For one, critter cara's dropped in price when they increased the drop rate and lowered the star and made them buyable for 5 primal sparks. Not because of less demand for them. Please get your facts straight before you say them.
The number of end-game players didn't make the material costs go down, the number of 5* items being crafted did. I would guess that there is about 95% less 5* item crafting now than there was before the energy and binding change. This has completely crashed mat prices.

dim, 08/28/2011 - 21:40

#11

Bigfootm

What Dark Ritual?

>> One piece of 5* gear costs over 6k CE...

Don't lie. It doesn't even take 4k.

50
200
400
800
+____
1450 Energy

1000
4000
10000
25000
+_____
40000 Crowns=About 800 Energy @6.5k CR per 100 CE

Materials can be obatained through dungeoning. People give heat for free sometimes. (Made my Skolver coat and cap in one hour and 10 min each due to this)

400
1000
2500
5000
+____
8900=About 130 CE@6.5k CR per 100 CE.

Total is...

1450
800
130
+____
2,380 CE

That is NOWHERE even close to 6k CE. If you buy the mats, it's comes to about 2.5k CE.

CE is a little high, but it will go back down.

lun, 08/29/2011 - 02:16

#12

Jeffreysgf

I agree partially

1. Yes, the increased energy cost of 4 & 5* gear is ridiculous and makes them very expensive and difficult to obtain. It uses significantly more CE, and less crowns, which lowers the value of crowns, and raises that of energy. This makes getting energy from crowns harder.
2. Doing this is fairly neutral, with the only problem being the crowns already in circulation, they should of had it lower from the start, but now slowly, due to there being less crowns being generated, the value of crowns is increasing. This is a good thing, but only minor.
3. Yes this is a problem, not so much the cost, but because people then don't need to buy the recipe, removing a crown sink, and because it uses energy, meaning energy now has more uses, and thus is used more, and has a higher value.
4. Completely disagree, the game needs more crown sinks, the AH helps get rid of crowns, removing them from the economy and making each crown worth more. If anything I would say it should be higher.
5. The main way I see this relating is by it not costing as much on AH and therefore not taking in as many crowns. I don't really see the problem with material costs.

lun, 08/29/2011 - 12:06

#13

stupysays

Legacy Username

@killaizsik

You disagree with the content of my post and immediately move to jeering and backhanded insults? That's fine.

1. The reason they differentiate the pay out scale is because of the stratum breakdown. That would be the main factor that allows lower geared players to actually make positive earnings. The lowered earning rate was what you were complaining about initially. Stratum 2 arenas at depth 6-7 make more than stratum 1 arenas. That's a simple concept you should already know. As for the earnings of the JK run itself I pulled in 6.7kcr total. Averaging out to 3250 cr per the first 2 levels. For that run it's completely legitimate.

2. The problem with crown flooding isn't that CE prices is too high for crafting or even unbinding. If you really were worried about the crown flooding you could always just purchase more ce from the market itself. Good bye crowns, hello inflation.

New uses for cr will be instituted, if lockdown follows the same basic model as BN it will require a cr deposit per match. This and the other small implementations will help raise the value of crowns. Nothing can be done now with older players and their large stock piles of crowns until a new function can be introduced for us to waste crowns on and increase it's value.

And on that note we partially go back to point 1. You complain about the market being flooded then immediately ask for a certain run to be more profitable. Please think on how contradictory those two statements are.

3. Your cost breakdown is what exactly? 6kce for a single piece of 5* is incorrect.

Cost of recipes in total -
40250 cr
Cost of crowns per * level -
8900 cr
Cost of ce for all transmutations-
1450 ce

Total cost excluding cost of materials in ce conversion with crown rate of 6300.
780 ce + 1450 ce = 2230

A better rounded figure of 2450 will suffice for the probable cost of materials not on hand (this is a fair breakdown as a player that has access to 4* weapons has probably gathered enough tokens to pay for some materials and the majority of the others are cheap). A little over a third of your original estimation.

If a new player given an average of 7.5kcr per hour of mist energy used means it would take them on average 20 hours of game play to move from a 2* weapon to 5*. That's purely off playing with mist energy. Less than a month of game play consisting of a single hour of play per day on mist alone. 75 hours is a gross exaggeration that triples the required time. Even with a scaling earning system as his gear gets upgraded would perhaps push it into 28 hours. Less than half with a buffer of 8 more days.

If you're going to do a cost analysis and come up with a figure it might help to do the math initially and not throw a number out at what appears to be at random.

4. Critter carapaces drop rate was terrible initially and they did drop the star rating/added it to brinks, but that doesn't change the fact that any and all materials start degenerating in value over time. Your example is only one of many things that helped with the decline in value for materials.

One of the largest factors is players who proceed past the point of requiring those materials themselves. There may have been a smaller portion of the gaming populace who used their tokens to purchase materials but the likelihood is that a lot of them, myself included were saving them for defense trinkets and were more likely to farm what we needed.

As for the decline in 5* crafting it is easily explained by the fact that people are no longer selling 5* items to newer players due to the binding patch. Players were making a large profit by continuing to abuse this system, myself included. With the advent of the patch that is no longer profitable.

As any players that have reached end game have pretty much crafted everything that they need, the decline in crafting occurs as well. As of now I only craft items that I think will be beneficial to my particular style of play or for vanity/novelty sake.

You thinking that the increased energy costs is what killed the material market is flawed, especially if it's due to a lack of 5* crafting. The need isn't there when the players who use those mats to craft no longer NEED to buy them. They can simply play and when a new item appears they can use the materials they have on hand. A larger player base who has already reached the full growth of their character have no need to purchase anything.

So we higher tier players flood our market with mats because it's common knowledge that selling can net you even a little gain.

---------------

So to borrow a turn of phrase.

"Please get your facts straight before you say them."

lun, 08/29/2011 - 13:46

#14

Kennergy

5* Item Clarity

I understand where he gets 6kCE for a 5* item. It does cost over 6kCE if you intend to SELL the item. That is another 4kCE just for the unbinding cost, making it 6230CE to Buy Recipes, Craft, and Unbind. It is almost twice as much CE to unbind than it is to just craft the darn thing. :/

lun, 08/29/2011 - 14:45

#15

stupysays

Legacy Username

@cz666

The real issue is that unbinding shouldn't come into the picture he specifically stated "One piece of 5* gear costs over 6k CE if you buy all the recipes and make it yourself". Not that he intended the item for resale.

He just didn't do a breakdown.

lun, 08/29/2011 - 14:52

#16

Bigfootm

What Dark Ritual?

@stupysays

I already had done the math in my above post. Why make another?

lun, 08/29/2011 - 15:04

#17

stupysays

Legacy Username

@bigfootm

Hadn't seen it when I started writing in response. That's all. Sorry about that then.

lun, 08/29/2011 - 14:59

#18

Bigfootm

What Dark Ritual?

I figured that. XD

lun, 08/29/2011 - 20:41

#19

Chris

@ Stupy and bigfoot

I said 5* items cost 6k+ ce if you don't buy all the stuff to make them yourself. It's not easy for somebody with all 2* gear to farm d23 basil :)

Sorry to burst your bubbles, but i'm 100% right.

And the cost of farming basils, farming or buying materials, farming bosses and working your way down into tier 3 from being in proto gear is much greater than 4k per piece of 5* gear.

lun, 08/29/2011 - 20:58

#20

Bigfootm

What Dark Ritual?

I can see you edited your post man. Look at Tge times.

lun, 08/29/2011 - 22:35

#21

stupysays

Legacy Username

hmm...

@killaizsik
It's all right with me if you want to change the content of your posts. But if it costs you 6kce on average to make a 5* then perhaps you need to think of a new game to play.

Brandish on AH-
1400cr
Cost of recipes on AH in sequential order via buyout/adding cost of initial brandish at buyout-
1400+ 5290 + 12900+ 32000 = 51950 = 824ce

Cost of transmutation+recipe costs-
39000cr+1400ce = 2020 ce +824ce = 2844ce

I wonder who's going to purchase over 3.2kce worth of materials but let's see. Who knows, maybe you are 150% correct.

Cost of purchasing all necessary materials through the AH via lowest buyout+previous costs-
Green Shards - 40 x 73 cr = 2920 cr
Beast Scale - 12 x 125 cr = 1500 cr
Monster bone - 8 x 150 cr = 1200 cr
Frost Gel - 1 x 24 cr = 24 cr
Rocket Sprocket - 4 x 12 cr = 48 cr
Iron Wood - 1 x 160 cr = 160 cr
Hailstone - 2 x 84 cr = 168 cr
Perfect Snowball - 2 x 113 cr = 226 cr
Everfrost - 1 x 1750 cr = 1750 cr

7996 CR = 127 ce

2844ce+127 ce = 2971 Amazingly not 6kce. At all. And this is being completely lazy in finding your own materials. 100% purchased at lowest buyout on the market when I wrote this up.

So we have a player who's managed to go down into the clockworks for 28 straight days to earn this prolific amount of crowns (average amount earned) and can completely save his own materials and craft it at half the cost of your original estimate with the only work he puts in is heating it. Which ironically earns him more crowns as he does so.

if you're spending 3.2kce in materials maybe you'll want to buy from me? I can certainly do with making a load of profit.

@bigfootm
Let him do what he wants. It doesn't change straight mathematical fact.

I made my points and I'll stick by them. I'm not sure where you're getting all of your costs Chris but with the incredibly cheap cost of materials and even the price listing for the AH and recipes even WITH a markup I can't even begin to conceive how you're losing so much money. Maybe I'm naive to the ways of the world but as someone who made the majority of their money playing the market and crafting/heating for others I'm pretty sure I know the costs. If you'd care to enlighten me though it would be appreciated, I don't mean that sarcastically. I've done the math on my side. If you have an answer I really would like it. And I don't think a blanket response of "Because I'm right" actually counts as proof. If it does then I think in all honesty that none of us needed to suffer through that initial post.

Recherche

On A More Serious Note: The Past, Present and Grim Future of Spiral Knights -Veteran Player of Almost One Year-