Spiral Knights - Returning player starting from scratch, here's my thoughts

Returning player starting from scratch, here's my thoughts

12 replies [Last post]

Tue, 05/12/2026 - 18:45

Clown-Fox

First of all, I am getting very much needed dopamine from playing this game with my boyfriend. Having a great time, big blast of nostalgia for me and my boyfriend who never played it is enjoying it too. But we've been talking about our experience, and we generally agree on a few problems we've been seeing as we've been progressing through the rank missions.

1. Orbs of Alchemy are such an unnecessary tax. If they dropped in the clockworks in any real quantity such that you just sorta Had a stockpile or could run Arcade a time or two to get what you need to craft anything, I would feel differently. But the fact that you need multiple thousands of crowns JUST for the energy for the Alchemy Orbs any time you want to craft feels AWFUL.

2. Green and blue minerals. Veteran players have told me they do nothing. I remember they USED to be used to change the clockworks but for now they're just a distraction for new players who don't know better?

3. Crown rewards don't feel higher the deeper you get in the clockworks. Actually, I feel the opposite. I got hard carried to the core way early and my honest observation was that each of the three tiers paid out about the same amount of crowns, but they took longer each time.

4. Extra weapon slots and trinket slots. Why the heck are these rentals??? Feels scummy and bad and awful and I hate it and actually this shouldn't be an energy transaction in the first place.

5. So much Legacy Unobtainable Content. I've been wiki diving to see what endgame gear I might wanna angle at, and a nonzero amount of the stuff I've been interested in is... Just not obtainable any more because it's from an event that ran once years ago. Cosmetics are equally hard to get my hands on, and yeah, maybe I'm early in the game to be worrying about the fashion endgame, but some of the prices for things I see on the auction house seem completely unobtainable.

6 (honorable mention). People have mentioned and I absolutely see the world where story missions outpace the arcade for farming in an unfun way. I happen to really like the arcade! It's a really cool gameplay loop! But if the story missions can fast travel you right to a particular rigged floor yeah I can see where that's High Efficiency Farming if there's one that's really lucrative. This hasn't negatively impacted MY play experience, and in fact, farming the Slime Sovereign mission has been only good for me, but my third eye is open to the endgame where everyone plays one mission forever.

Wed, 05/13/2026 - 07:00

Promethiean

Agreed

Preaching to the choir I'm sure. I'm gonna go off some of your points...

1. There needs to be more things where we can get orbs from. Events, a Prestige Shop, or anything really. Maybe a boost in a droprate for certain orbs too.

2. So correction: Moonstone and Valestone currently have ONE use. They can SOMETIMES be turned in to the daily Prestige mission whenever it pops up. Other than that, yeah it's a shame you can't deposit them anymore or use them for any type of crafting.

3. Yeah, and to add onto this, Radiants don't appear as much as they should still.

4. I'm for the argument that atleast one Weapon Slot and one Trinket Slot should be permanently unlocked. Or atleast give a way to get these slots in a different manner. See number 1 again about orbs - should apply to these slots too. I can see the argument that they aren't that much but it changes gameplay through a 30-day timer which is awful. So if I take a break or I can't play for 30 days, my gameplay is forced to change? Kinda sucks

5. This point is one I'm half and half on. The more people that come to the game, the more the cosmetics will most likely come to you. But on other stuff? People like rarity. It's hard to not. Flaunting something that you can't get anymore? It's why old cars in the real world are flaunted if they're in good shape. My best advice is to wait this one out because a lot of the community wants reruns of certain content. Currently, the SK economy is just crazily volatile and more people need to know that. Merchants will and can get a profit off the ones who don't know what's going on.

6. Yeah, Vana is the most ran mission that absolutely outspaces the Arcade right now. I play arcade for the fun of it with less profits which is fine. I want more fun WITH the profits in it too because Crowns are so important to have, so hopefully they do update Arcade to be more profitable! Maybe even more challenging!

Anyways, I hope GH sees your message and considers it. I always appreciate people voicing their opinions and I always try to respect what people have to say because I want to see the game from their point of view. There's people that want the game to stay the same mechanically, those that want to feel PP, those that want a challenge, those that just want fun! I'm the former. I just want it to be fun through more variety. Which can take a while but I want to believe in GH :)

Wed, 05/13/2026 - 09:41

Clown-Fox

@PrometheianAt least wrt to

@Prometheian

At least wrt to old rare content
I was really interested in trying out the Tortofists, but they're event exclusive and have no non-event equivalent. Sucks that there's actual gameplay with no permanent equivalent. I'm much more okay with legacy cosmetics (or "near-cosmetics" with a unique charge attack or smth) than I am with things with actual real different gameplay.

Wed, 05/13/2026 - 08:52

Promethiean

Event Running

@Ollieowl

Yeah I'm a little surprised there isn't an event running all the time on a rotation. It confuses me lol

Wed, 05/13/2026 - 12:50

Clown-Fox

Additional thoughts wrt to weapon slots and the damage trinity

So I've been thinking more as I've been playing and I really really think Promethiean is entirely correct, you should have THREE slots for free.
There are three damage types. There are three weapon types. It makes zero sense to only have two weapon slots.

Wed, 05/13/2026 - 13:42

Refraizen

Hrmm..

I feel like some of this is not a problem when you reach vanguard / can get run parties in FSC in the current state of the game.

1.) Orbs are a completely necessary and suitable obstacle for progression. You CAN find them and I think the drop rate of them should be increased a bit, but realistically even without buying them you can get your gear and go from scratch to 5* in about a week or two of playing, a bit longer if your average playtime is very casual but I know people who've been content with this progression from scratch (f2p as well) with an hour of playtime per day. When you're able to grind out as much cr as people normally can after you've hit FSC boss, orbs are an absolute non-issue and people end up with hundreds of 5* orbs as well.

2.) This I agree, we could have more usage.

3.) You DO get more crowns for later tiers but it's not a crazy immense difference. It's meant to even out your general crown income based on your tier of gameplay, especially since this is a game where you can just get carried through. There's been suggestions that we're hoping to come through (like arcade being more lucrative in general), but again, this is kind of not too relevant currently as you can similarly get carried through FSC (which rewards 8kcr + 3 tokens) for a total of 11k per run in an average span of 20-25minutes.

4.) I personally feel trinket and weapon slots are fine the way they are, I would have an issue if they only lasted like, a week. But realistically you can pay for an entire MONTH's worth of a trinket or weapon slot in literally 20 minutes. If you don't play enough to grind this much for the value it provides, there's no point to even having these slots. Reducing the need for these slots however minor also does take away some usage of energy which is something that would not benefit the game currently.

5.) Actual gear equipment is not a problem. The only one is the well-known orbitgun and mixers which are frankly unaffordable for 99% of the playerbase. Other than that, there is no base equipment you can't obtain from the game in some form with relative ease (not including reskins, which are a cosmetic payment and a luxury). Cosmetics and fashion though are perfectly valid, it's kind of the driving economy of this game and we're always wanting easier obtainment of these especially since there's so many and no better way that it's currently resupplied, so that part I agree.

6.) Refer to 3! I really agree, I wish there was more incentive to arcade especially because it's more fun as it rotates around. Makes the game way less repetitive.

Wed, 05/13/2026 - 14:51

Clown-Fox

@Refraizen

1. We are simply not playing the same game. I cannot possibly imagine grinding even one piece of equipment in a week without converting crowns to energy.

4. That's 20 minutes a month you could be doing anything else. Just because it's not bad doesn't mean it couldn't be better.

Wed, 05/13/2026 - 15:08

Clown-Fox

@Refraizen, addendum

@Refraizen

Started looking into how viable it would be to power through the story to get to FSC to fix my economy and uh
I need 5 star everything to even access FSC?

So the existence of FSC as a money grind is not a justification for a bad experience for new players.

Wed, 05/13/2026 - 18:20

Promethiean

@Refraizen

I mainly would want just one weapon and one trinket slot opened after a certain time in the game. The 4th weapon slot and 2nd trinket slot would still be paid for - either that or make the timer only drop when you log on or... Well there's a lot that could be recommended. It's not necessarily a large problem but the game feels somewhat lesser when you don't have more than 2 weapons once in Tier 3. Seems like one of the "Mobile Game" designs that was left in from the past. Getting 4th weapon slot and 2nd trinket slot through energy feels like a better tradeoff since energy is "volatile" (it will never hit 10kcr hopefully ever again) but that's just me. Another thing would be if they gave more ways to get these slot unlocks like a.. Prestige Shop perhaps (I'm a broken record at this point). Any way it's done I don't mind but I feel like we're so used to paying for our Weapon and Trinket slots that we're set in it staying that way.

But either way, the slots are kind of on the bottom of a list of other things that should change first. More variety in what to play and Balance changes are the main problems most people want changed

Wed, 05/13/2026 - 21:42

Clown-Fox

On purchasing weapon/trinket slots

As someone with no attachment to how the weapon slot and trinket slot system worked in the past,
It feels really scummy and scammy for it to be a monthly fee no matter how nominal. I would grind the crowns for it even if it was like 2000 energy if it was a one time purchase but I'm just genuinely not playing the reindeer games of this monthly purchase nonsense until I am so thoroughly post scarcity on crowns that I can buy the energy without putting even the least noticeable dent in my wallet. Until then I guess all the trinkets the story missions are giving me are useless rocks in my inventory and when an enemy spawns that's not weak to one of the two weapons I have equipped I'll go cry because I'm so far from post scarcity that it doesn't seem attainable.

I'll put it this way
The game being monetized this way makes me feel LESS inclined to put money in, because I don't want to support that kind of business practice.

EDIT: I say the evening before putting money into the game because I am a weak willed little thing

Thu, 05/14/2026 - 02:55

#10

Promethiean

@Clown-Fox

Yeah the game was built on somewhat scummy practices but it seems to be changing little by little. I feel like slots are bought this way to make sure not everything is F2P, but slots are not something I think puts money in GH's pockets anyway. What it really does is make players play the game which can be important to note. However, my personal opinion is that if one weapon and one trinket slot was unlocked permanently somehow (maybe through a very tough challenge) then I think that'd be more beneficial to player retention.

No one likes the chore of "oh I guess I'll get my slots back again" but people will tolerate it more than others.

Thu, 05/14/2026 - 03:36

#11

Clown-Fox

oh no mid game crowns are actually the worst huh

I'm now running up against crafting my first four star gear and I'm actually a little overwhelmed by the work I'm looking at

I've run enough arcade to know to expect a return of about 100 crowns per minute spent.

JUST the blueprint, before going into any ingredients, is 10k, which is a solid hour and a half of farming.
Plus 2.5k to actually put the ingredients together
And of course
Alchemy orbs my beloathed, which cost a staggering 400 en = 16k crowns JUST for these pieces of garbage
For a total cost of 28.5k crowns, which amounts to almost 5 hours of work for ONE piece of gear.
(Small edit: JUST deleting the alchemy orbs alone takes a whole 2 and 2/3 hours off the time, hmm interesting)

"But the story gives you elite alchemy orbs!"
Actually 6-2 gives you an insulting 3, one at a time, over its entire course, one of which only comes AFTER expecting you to ALREADY have a full set of 4 star gear.

This is entirely huge yikes, and it's made only worse by the RNG involved in some of the blueprints I'm looking for being only available through Basil.
I really really like the actual gameplay but this grind is like actually too much and I play warframe

Addendum: I feel like the truly core issue is that as I am progressing further into the star rankings I am not meaningfully getting better rewards but my costs are increasing anyway.

Thu, 05/14/2026 - 04:41

#12

Promethiean

@Clown-Fox

Yup! Which is why I wish they'd do events that give out actual materials like Orbs and Crystals. It's a bottleneck for new equipment which I feel like every person who doesn't have every piece of equipment is doing. I understand it's F2P but it needs a boost sometimes to make it FEEL like F2P all the time. If that makes sense

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Returning player starting from scratch, here's my thoughts