right now, I am totally laughing like [wheel]
http://imgur.com/g0oT3gW

*Facepalm*

But somehow it makes sense. It's a player driven market, right?

What did you say about russian players?

Russian guilds be crazy patriotic.

Far as this mist alt service..

if the guy has the time and his service is bought...

let it be.

People do that all the time.. even that grinder app takes alts into account.

I agree that they shouldn't do that in other people's parties, but even before this I'd see people start a party, invite their alt, then open it up to get others to help them out.

Why would I want to bring someone else along just for them to drag down the party
and and get free crowns and mats for doing nothing even if they are tabbing me.
But Grantgalitz he is a few suggestions.Make sure you are party leader so you
can kick any of these noobs if they try to join.
Second if you want to have someone tab you make your own alt, and bring him along
so that those double crowns and materials go to you, or have a noob friend you know well
come and tab you so you don't feel guilty about carrying someone.
Bringing these losers to a party not shows them being lazy noob but also shows that the person
who brought them is stupid. I agree with what you are getting at
Grantgalitz, but there are ways around this instead of just complaining about it.

I would have to agree with End-Of-Input. I'm one person who can run FSC+Vanaduke with three deadweights and use an Argent Peacemaker for Vana with no issues, but if I wanted to run deadweight I would just bring in my alts. I don't need an energy tab, so don't offer me such a trivial thing.

I had a friend who said he would tab me through a run. I had no problems with that, so I invited him. Then he wanted to invite his alt, as he would be the "tabber". I instantly refused, because now you are using me for your benefit, and that I am not cool with. I didn't turn him down outright though. I gave him a choice...

"You can bring your alt, but if you (the main account) die by any means I am switching to solo instantly."

The alt account was dropped. Problem solved. If you are not a part of my core group (we've been playing together for 6-7 years now in various games) then you don't get alts brought into my runs!

As to the service for beginners, actually a pretty ingenious idea. If the service is out there someone is willing to pay for it. Keep it up!

well search that term at fb, they had made a serious business page for that lol

I bet OP is mad because he didn't think of it first.

It's not abusive at all though, it keeps armor prices down and keeps material prices up at a fairly good price so they're worth selling for new players who need the money, while making UV'd armor accessible for the late-game players who want them.

You might want to use /reportknight

That's why wolver coats are so cheap. O.o

Players are not being FORCED to use the Mist Knights. There are choices for players with no mist. Some choices, like begging, aren't the best choices and should be avoided completely, but choices like asking a guild, a friend, or a service for assistance is viable. Therefore, a "business" like what the Mist Knights offer is valid.

Will it hinder the growth for new players? It shouldn't, unless they (both service and player) abuse the system.
Will it keep the player involved? Yes, as the player has an increased amount of time playing.

A different problem arises with a service like this, somewhat hidden and may or may not affect Spiral Knights. Energy systems, like the Mist Energy, are commonly used to get a player to STOP playing the game for long periods of time. This energy system is used when the amount of content in a game isn't extensive, so Mist Energy extends the life of the game for a player by having the player stop playing. Strange? Not really. In all truth there isn't an extreme amount of content in this game.

How does the service affect this? Players can stay in the game for a longer period of time, getting farther in the game in less amount of time. If this service was big enough it would have an affect with the lifespan of the game per average player. You will need a huge amount of knights to do this though.

As of right now, I don't see any problem with it. It's by no means game-breaking, and at its current level it could even be engaging more players to enter the game. It's something we should keep an eye on, but we shouldn't shun it outright.

I don't see anything wrong with it personally. I mean, you carrying your own alt through say FSC isn't against ToS now is it?

Though I do hope anyone using the service asks the party beforehand if it's ok to bring in a dead weight since it does affect everyone they're playing with (what with making the floor harder and whatnot).

Well, using (and abusing) alt's mist has a long history (predating Steam SK release). e.g. crafting, tabbing, revives and the latest invention is mist rental. Since nothing has really been done about it, I'm going to assume Three Rings is OK with it. (And if they are not, as in the case that someone has been mist crafting with 170 alts, it's a loop hole in the ToS that Three Rings needs to close. I don't see this is the user's responsibility.)

You know what this mist rental service reminds me of? One day, you were driving on freeway and your car broke down. You being a cheapo, didn't pay for CAA, ended up forking out a fortune to one of those drive-by tow trucks just to tow your car to the nearest garage.

Does it hurt your wallet? Of course. Is it illegal? No. Is it ethical? That depends on where you come from, really.

Moral of the story: use mist rental service at your own risk. Better yet, burn mist on your own alt. or buy an elevator pass. (That's like paying CAA membership.)

Only boss runs? I wonder what happens if you kick him after reaching the boss level. Those boss tokens really pay for themselves. Vanaduke's tokens themselves are worth 3k crowns - almost the energy cost of the entire run! Would he hold it against you?

Still, a lot of people seem interested in his service. I say if you have a problem with it, instead of using your mist energy for tab'ing a beggar or wasting it on full health res'es, give him some competition ;)

I wish I had had his services while I was still level 4* - I could solo FSC up to the boss, but constantly ran out of energy. Even when I offered to pay far more generously than what he was asking for a tab per level, even after receiving several testimonies that proved I could handle myself in FSC, few were interested, and almost everyone seemed suspicious. Nevermind that runs were that much faster because I was actually helping out, and they were getting a bit above market value for CE for their mist energy, an asset usually worth half that much.

they really should. It's exploiting the system, pure and simple.

And then the CE market goes back up to 90Cr:1CE because everyone wants to join in on the grinding. Or more realistically, at least 150Cr:1CE before 2014. And since Nick and friends appear to have no plan to fix the road already driven past there will be more missions to grind and reskins to waste money on. Because the ten year olds with access to credit cards want it.

Why would the value of CE go up when you would have to purchase less of it to grind? I'm not sure I see your logic, Luguiru. If anything, Mist Knight Rental would bring it down. The amount of people selling CE wouldn't change, but the amount of buying it would decrease.

People would consume only mist to pay their elevator fees while pumping out crowns by the thousands within hours. The amount of CE sitting in the market may not change but with crowns drowning everyone in inflation all prices go up because each crown is less valuable as an item in the market.

You would already know this if you were here when elevator passes first showed up. Or before the guild hall update. Or before Punch. Pick whatever applies to you.

[[double post]]

Chances are people who are already farming all the crowns they want for recipes are already running alts, but all the people who just choose to pay for their crowns will have no interest in these services, because they will already have the assets to pay for elevator passes. This service will appeal to newcomers who are trying to work up to the missions, but not to those who are not casual players, because they will gravitate towards alts. Those casuals will craft the same end tier gear they would have crafted in the past, but they would have much less of a reason to purchase CE just so they can do some advancement missions or do a run with their friends.

If people did use this service for grinding, those who would grind FSC with their alts would inflate the market even more because they would share the wealth between themselves and their alts, whereas those who rely on this service will receive less crowns from a single run and have no reason to purchase CE to advance their casual playstyle, with all the wealth centering around Mist Knight Rentals. For the people who would ordinarily have had no alt out of lazyness, it would increase the supply of crowns, but it would also decrease the demand of energy for level progression.

Let's look at FSC. A run is roughly worth 3600 crowns for an energy value of 72 CR per CE. For a Mist Rental users, this might seem like a gain of 3100 crowns for FSC assuming a 500 cr charge. Keeping in mind that a complete FSC run is roughly 10-11k (taking tokens into account), this would correspond to a roughly 30% increase in crowns. But for each two runs, of those 100 CE one would remain unsold. For each two runs, the would be energy consumer is now getting 30% more crowns, but the energy seller is selling 100% less! And all for what? So the grinder can purchase 30% more of what he would have originally purchased. For a 5* recipe, 25k crowns + 5k craft + 57600 (800 ce at 72 cr per ce) would equivocate to ~88k total cost, or roughly 8 normal runs or between 6-7 runs with the 30% bonus, which is roughly 6. For 8 normal runs, they would have had to purchase 400 CE + 800 CE, or 1200 CE. For the 6 30% bonus runs, they would have had to purchase 800 CE. From 1200 CE to 800 CE, that's a 33% percent loss in demand right there.

Of course, the situation gets worse for crowns once these people reach the endgame. The percent loss of the energy sellers ends up far less than the percent gain of the grinders, but as we have already established, recipes are not where the crown sink is. If it was, missions and elevator passes would not affect it.

The sink is with the Guild Hall.

Those who grind levels for weekly upkeep would be purchasing ABSOLUTELY NO CE. Nada. Nothing. Nothing for furniture, nothing for chairs, nothing for decorations. 100% loss. From 100 x n CE to 0. Those who sell CE for things like weekly upkeep, would suddenly find a notable lack of buyers. People wouldn't be buying CE to finish their levels for their upkeep, they would have 30% more to invest in their guild hall, but need absoltely zero CE to grind it. Of course, the people who pay for CE can already pay for elevator passes, and they don't really get any advantage at all from Mist Knights Rent user. People who buy CE with money do so because they don't want to grind for it. They would be forced to lower the prices for CE.

That means, if what you fear is true, if a plague of people would begin grinding with this service simply because they were too lazy to get alts, that there would still be a far more major loss of energy sales. For that minor population of people who grind without alts, you would get crown inflation, but you would also get energy inflation from lack of demand, and factoring in how the current crown sink is designed, it would affect energy sellers much more than it would affect energy buyers.

Alts have existed since the beginning of Spiral Knights. The sky is blue, the space is black, and the stars are bright, and this last sentence is meaningless.

Luguiru's last sentence was an awesome TL:DR summary of his point. I don't understand why you can't see the point he's trying to make, it almost seems as though you're arguing just for the sake of argument...I know dozens of people who buy CE to go on runs, it's still insanely profitable. Take that away, and the market is affected. I'm not saying letting people PIMP their alts is wrong, I'm just saying Luguiru makes a very valid point

Let's rule out who won't be using this rental service:

• people with elevator pass;
• people with mist well access;
• people with 5-7 digits CE and are not afraid to burn them;
• people with their own alts.

Alright, so whatever we have left are people who are essentially not spending real money on this game. The problem isn't exactly created by the users of the service, but more about the problem caused by the rental service owner because he is essentially cloning the income of his customers for his own usage, while charging his customers a nominal fees (this is the beautiful part, isn't it?).

I can see this as a smart business plan that is not excluded explicitly by the ToS (and so GM SWAT can't raid him), that impatient F2P would use and indirectly causing Three Rings to lose some sales (F2P would think twice before buying elevator pass). The owner could use the cloned crowns to buy cheap CE, transfer to a new alt and do whatever he likes.

I think the problem here is with the crown cloning and random loot distribution. Once the mist rental alt is in a party, the customer has no way to stop the inflow / cloning of crowns, and loots being distributed into the rental alt.