Spiral Knights has fallen from the great game it used to be, we should all know this by now. The player base has dropped dramatically and the in game economy is getting demolished as you're reading this right now. It's because of the giant cash walls placed in the game to make people buy energy, then they want more for said energy, raise prices, then making the cash wall even larger because that means people converting crowns to energy must pay more. The reason people keep buying energy is because the lack of diversity. The game is pretty bland. People don't want to grind that much in this game because it's essentially the same thing every single level you complete. You get 3 types of weapons that do 3 different types of damage each. 3 different types of armor protection. The weapons and armors get paired by everyone almost identically because there's the bad armor and the few sets of good armor, likewise, bad weapons and good weapons. There are 6 types of enemies, each weak to and inflicting it's own combo of damage. Undead are weak to Elemental and deal Shadow. Fiends are weak to Piercing and deal Shadow. Jellies are weak to Shadow and deal Piercing. Beasts are weak to and deal Piercing. Constructs are weak to and deal Elemental. Gremlins are weak to Shadow and deal Elemental. That's nearly all you need to know about your enemies. Then there are weapons. Swords, Guns, and Bombs. Swords are strong but risk being hit (Except for the Winmillion which can't be used as effectively because it stops at 4*). Guns are overpowered as ever and need nerfed badly (Don't even deny it, you and I both know it's true.) Bombs are weaker but have an AoE attack.
Three Rings, step up your game. You're making tons of money from this game's cash walls. Make some more content. To clarify, making a new promo box every month is not new content as it adds nothing but vanity and no gameplay difference. There's so much potential in this game and it's being held back by monthly promo boxes. I'm not joking or exaggerating this fact, check the last three news updates on steam if you use it. It shows the dates and the news that's happened. At the time of this post, it is "Feel the Frenzy!" "Happy Anniversary!" and finally "Effulgent Equinox, Everyone!" The dates in order as stated before, are 4/8/15, 3/25/15, and 3/8/15. Coincidentally, in the description of the Equinox announcement if you read more, it says it end on 3/24/15. ONE DAY before the Anniversary. They probably foresaw this as SK is four years old, but in the Anniversary description, it says it will end on 4/7/15. ALSO one day before the next, being the Frenzy promo. Frenzy promo is dated to end on 4/21/15. My money's on another promo on 4/22/15. But we sidetracked quite a bit there, back to the original subject I had in mind. If you decided to put actual effort into this game, the community would grow immensely, guaranteed. Why not make a new weapon category, and on it's release, have 4 weapons to start and gradually work your way to more. I think 4 would be a good place to start because it'd be one for each damage type. Normal, Shadow, Elemental, and Piercing. This actually perfectly segues us into our next subject.
If you take a stroll through this Suggestion category on the forums, you'd see people asking for more weapon diversity. Heck, someone has a petition up (At the time I'm typing this.) for a 5* Winmillion. For those who don't know, the Winmillion is a sword in which shoots a ball after it's swing, making it a sort of sword-gun hybrid. Anyways, I really didn't want to get into this, but people have been decimating the suggestions with Dual Wielding or Akimbo weapons. I know that you dread both of these ideas due to how overpowered the Winmillion would be at 5* and the awkward mechanics with Akimbo weaponry, but that doesn't mean you can't implement ANYTHING new other than promos. Why not more heavy swords? Or that new weapon category? Or more Coliseum modes to play? Or mission types? Or missions in general? Why not get another arcade gate and new boss? Speaking of which, that'd be a GREAT way to bring in more weaponry and armor.
Why not more bosses? With how long it's been since RT was released, I think it's a good time for another boss drop. We have 8 bosses in this game, not including those bosses in the missions that an AI can handle alone. There's also 1 DLC boss. 4 of those 8 are Shadow Lair bosses, or just carbon copies of the actual bosses with more damage and are harder to defeat. How to get to these Shadow Lair bosses? Oh right, a cash wall. Back to our current subject, why not more bosses? It's not like you have to give us both a boss AND Shadow Lair boss at once. This would be great for you guys, though. An extra boss means another boss token currency. In turn, that means more weapons/armor/statuestuff to buy from the token trader. Shouldn't even be that hard. Why not make an Undead or Fiend boss depending on what you guys consider Vanaduke, since he works with Undead but is in fact a Fiend.
If you do actually take this into consideration, Three Rings, it would be doing everybody, including you, a favor. It would help us meet that entertainment we once found in this great game. It would help you, the developers, economically from increased population buying their way through the cash walls. I'm not saying Promo Boxes monthly isn't working as a cash cow, but you and I both know it's running dry. But please, do NOT rush this. If you do rush this, it will ruin the only shot you had. And rushing it would be using that one single shot, and shooting yourself in the foot. Take your time. And don't let another Gunner Update rage happen. Don't announce a release date until you're polishing it up. Don't announce something unfinished, sometimes you'll get lucky, but the Gunner Update got delayed quite a bit, so just be careful this time if you actually do it.
I, Hillary Clintonia, precedent of the militia of Cradle hereby denounce this thread an utmost disgrace to the Three Rings family. This is a Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, not a chicken coop! Three Rings must construct Cash Walls, as one has heard the famous saying, "Survival of the fittest". Survival it is! We of the Cradle Planet must fight to achieve clearance to these Cash Walls. We must pay thousands of tax dollars to instigate our well-spent time here in Spiral Knights. Why else must Three Rings create the ever-more useful Promotional items?
Promotional items are of our pride and honor to fashion our relics of treasures we have received from the Promotional Prize Boxes. The beautiful Soaked Aura, for example, is a 1000-year-worth relic that is meagerly traceable to the human senses. Its importance is beneficial to the whales of the Spiral Knights community.
I believe we can make a better choice.
I believe Three Rings can make daily Promotional events.
I believe in Three Rings' power to restrict access to premium content towards free players.
I believe we can die from being rained on in the "The Ancient Generator" mission.
I believe what people don't want to believe.
Because I, Hillary Clintonia, will make sure only I believe.
-HCia