Spiral Knights - The Arcade, Missions, and Progression

The Arcade, Missions, and Progression

7 replies [Last post]

Thu, 10/25/2012 - 23:06

Mookie-Cookie

Greetings,

I'm sure most of us, if not all, have some concerns over the lack of use of the Arcade, grinding of high payout missions, and game progression. A lot of suggestions have been made towards how to make people go to the Arcade. Unfortunately, quite a lot of them are forcing players there, not trying to entice them there.

Before we get into that, let's look at the main problem that causes the Arcade to go unused: missions.
Missions are repeatable adventures with relatively stable crown payouts. Their main problem is in their re-usability: people will do the high-payout ones, like FSC, over and over.

Also in doing so, they get many materials and minerals quite quickly.

My idea is that missions should be changed to have fixed payouts, that reduce upon completing a run; which then resets the next day.
For example, say the mission King of Ashes (FSC, for those unsure), the payout is 8k, and is ONLY given if you do the whole thing. Part payments will be given for having to leave, but that'll affect the payout for your next run. Some sort of system would also need to be in place in the case of disconnecting, as to what that is, however, I haven't thought about it much.

Alongside the fixed payouts, missions do not offer material or mineral drops, only heat. For materials/minerals, you run in the Arcade. In doing so, you promote the Arcade as the place to truly advance, yet missions still offer their own rewards, as a single mission is likely to have a higher payout than an Arcade run.

Now, in terms of the SK progression curve, there's been call for the removal of HoH so that Basil becomes more attractive, and SK goes back to the "good ol' days". I highly disagree with full removal, so instead of just saying no; I propose a half-way solution: The HoH offers a single upgrade branch for every line, whereas the other lines are only available from Basil. In doing so, people still have the option of upgrading without grinding Basil. Extending their loadouts, however, will require Basil runs.

Overall, these changes will do a few things:
- Get people back into that underused Arcade.
- Discourage grinding of high payout missions.
- Offer basic advancement easily, and full advancement with a more difficult path.

Please, feel free to agree or disagree (with your reasoning as to why); as well as any questions.

However, please avoid any personal attacks. Keep it clean.

Thu, 10/25/2012 - 23:09

Softhead

Also,

Make there be arcade tier progression as well.

Thu, 10/25/2012 - 23:25

Severage

I absolutely love the no minerals/materials point you made. This will prevent Flame Souls from dropping to vendor selling price from over-grinding of KoA, along with other things like Reaper Ribs, as well as prevent those "auto-sellers" from pumping minerals into the Arcade for something they don't care about.

Also glad you thought the HoH compromise was do-able. Sorry if I seemed too forward in those other posts. =p

Anyway, good luck.

~Sev

Thu, 10/25/2012 - 23:40

Mookie-Cookie

...

Make there be arcade tier progression as well.
What do you mean?

I also think, though it may be too late now to add it in...should've been from the start, that Missions' rewards be slightly lowered with each run in the same day. Something like 20% reward decrease per run. This doesn't really encourage Arcade as much as it does variance in missions, but still I see little wrong with it.
That's what I intended. It's not really intended to promote the Arcade, as such. It's more to get people out of missions, and reduce grinding.
In doing so, however, it might be quite complex to set up a system for part-finishes, or joining later in the run. There'll be a bit of math for the server to work out.

I like the HoH compromise, as it did add a bit of a twist to the game. I just felt full removal was too harsh. I apologise if I seemed to get a bit "over the top" about it. :D

Thu, 10/25/2012 - 23:44

Severage

@Masterofkings:

Oh, my mistake, I completely missed that line that said it was reduced every run. lol

50% is a bit steep, but on the other hand, it makes sense. An F2P player only makes two KoA runs a day, so now we will do something different with our other 50 ME.

I've never been a fan of the HoH, but I do remember so long ago when I struggled to get recipes. I've never been a fan because by the time it came out, I had the recipes I needed, and it destroyed my main source of income from the Arcade, being F2P myself. So, because of my bias I wasn't opposed to completely removing it. The compromise is better for everyone, though.

~Sev

Fri, 10/26/2012 - 00:35

Darkbrady

I'm not sure just reducing cr

I'm not sure just reducing cr payout would work, from teh devlopers perspective I mean. It'd be awkward to code in, I imagine, and reckon there'd be more simply applied solutions to limiting mission repeats; there's been a couple already across Suggestions, such as limiting them to one a day.

Otherwise, /agree

Fri, 10/26/2012 - 00:50

Mookie-Cookie

It's not just a reduction in

It's not just a reduction in cr payout, though. It's also a lack of materials and minerals, the bare essentials of progression in SK.

Plus, not really. A knight simply holds a variable for number of runs completed for each mission. That variable is used by the system to determine the payout. Like:

payout = max(minPayout, fullPayout / min(1, runsCompleted));

The complicated bit lies in part payments, where the above becomes...

payout = max(minPayout, (fullPayout / min(1, runsCompleted)) * (endDepth - startDepth));

BUT, in the case of disconnects, the server needs to determine whether to pay, or not. Which, is the most difficult part for OOO.

In case you take that the wrong way, I'm not shooting you down, I'm just saying the coding behind it is actually quite simple to implement. I'm actually more worried about OOO implementing it wrong, mind you; as that would cause an uproar.

Fri, 10/26/2012 - 04:58

Little-Juances

Special treatment for disconnecting players is too complicated. How to tell if indeed there was a problem or the user did soemthing on purpose (unplug the cable?) to take advantage...

Search

The Arcade, Missions, and Progression