Elite Mode

Is this really all that hard? I noticed that I didn't see a single heart drop from an enemy, but everything else seemed the same to me. The mobs may have had their health increased by a bit, but FSC was still easy as ever. My gear is even worse than what I use on the normal server.

A few bugs my friend and I on Skype found while running elite. We haven't gone to any other difficulty, but we noticed:

Hearts can come from boxes or destructible objects (lamps, bushes, etc.). When you walk over them, you get the health but the heart doesn't disappear. Trying to collect it again won't do anything, but the heart image stays. Let's not forget how useless the Seraphynx's [Heart Attack] is on elite too.

Revives

Eww. As much as I like having a high-demand material that takes the place of the generic energy, the lack of half-health sharing revives is terrible.

Quoting the given reason from Nick's announcement in General Discussion:

"In conjunction with [Sparks of Life], and after much debate, we are removing health sharing revives. Our observations show that health sharing to revive downed party members ends up being detrimental to teams working to complete levels; diluting overall team health to the point of team members being repeatedly one-shotted in combat.

However, you will be able to use Sparks of Life to revive downed party members just as you can with energy now."

Without health-sharing, levels will be much harder to complete. If anything, this will cause less teamwork and more frusturation between party members. I'll use FSC as an example because, honestly, that is really the only relevant dungeon due to missions. The levels are long! If someone gets down, and then down again after their emergency revive, in the first area of a depth, their going to be sitting out for a long time. Most likely in this situation, the member will beg other members for a revive (Does not promote team play) or just leave the party (Not exactly fun for him wasting the elevator cost or the teammates for being down a member). Before this change, teams had the choice of not reviving downed players whom they felt were not worth their health to revive.

Focusing on the last line now, I hope that it's through explicitly clicking on their player icon and choosing revive. I often accidentally revive someone all the time in the current normal server, but losing some health isn't a big deal and I would have revived him eventually anyway. I'll be much angrier if an accidental click costed me a 750 crown material.

This change seems solely motivated my money, and while it's understandable to a certain extent to try and get more profit from content, this change completely kills teamwork and needs to be heavily reworked before it even looks at going into the actual server.

Alchemy Pods

I haven't delved into the specifics regarding price and drop rate, but I like the base of this idea. It gives an extra bonus to people running dungeons and will hopefully reduce the cost of crafting. Will be exciting to see a 5* alchemy pod pop up during an FSC run-especially knowing your teammates won't get it; unfortunately, that brings me to my next point.

Instanced Loot

No. Instanced hearts were great. They promoted team play and made the game more enjoyable. Instanced materials are decent. Much less "loot drama" when RNG decides to give all the 5* materials to the guy on the floor. Instanced crowns and heat is just terrible. Unfortunately, even instancing materials is really annoying when the team frequently splits up.

Originally, (Again, using FSC) players would split up at Depth 25 and each take their own room. Now, players will be forced to run through all the cleared rooms again to collect the materials, crowns, and heat before it disappears (I'm not sure if this was changed, my friend and I didn't split up). I can't see how this promotes teamwork at all. Between this and no health-sharing revives, I don't see any reason to go with a group anymore. Bad players ruining parties? Remove the reason to play in a party!

I'm not sure if it already works this way, but if materials are going to be instanced, then have distribution based on damage dealt to the mob. That is, don't have me kill a mob that drops a 5* mat for the player in the top room-or worse, on the ground without any chance of his team reviving him. Crowns and heat should simply not be instanced. If the devs feel that it was to benefit us, please share us your reasoning on why having to run over all the dead mobs promotes fun, team gameplay.

Equipment Limits

I honestly don't see the point in this. One of the largest reasons players are stuck on missions is their lack of sufficient gear for the Hall of Heroes. I don't see why OOO would be discouraging a player buying or crafting really good gear without using the missions. I don't think any pre-mission players are going to like coming back and being locked out of all their gear either. I could go on a lot about why this is bad, but I am completely lost on what positives this has.

UI Changes

Charge meter is a good idea, but I just left it disabled because I've played long enough to know how close it is. Should be nice for some, so no objections on that. Regarding the red border corresponding to health, please give an option to disable it. This is especially annoying on elite, where being left at one health with extremely limited options of regeneration leave you with a large, pulsing red border.

Going to test more later. Will update with additional concerns or bugs.

Maskeraith Master Race reporting in.

Sparks of Life and Party System
Removing health sharing is what compels a lot of people to party, especially when players use it to grind for heat. (Not the most respectable exploit, but if they don't want it, you might as well take it) I advise against it.

Equipment limits
I assume these are set up to prevent crown farmer alts/weaker players from grinding higher levels than they can handle based on their armor/rank? I don't mind this much, it's rather annoying having low tier players beg me to take them to RJP or FSC lobby. If I'm getting the wrong message from this, someone correct me.

Alchemy Orbs
Give the Alchemy Orbs prices in testing. It will help our insight on the feature. Also, I hope you don't plan to use the same material icon when you launch for it. It's rather unappealing to see the Lumber Mat icons with a pink hue.

Health Indicator
I will have a few frame skips when the edges of the screen have flashes of red, but I do like that it remains when you're low on health. Maybe you could simply have the color and size of it increase as health diminishes instead? Just a thought, I can deal with it regardless.

Charge gauge
So far, it's small, it doesn't take up much screen space, and only appears when needed, which is good since I don't have to estimate the timing of my attacks anymore. Great!

Difficulty
Increased crown output in exchange for an even more difficult mission is just what end game players want. High crown yield, and a challenge to end-game strength. I have no objections there, but I hardly can tell the difference from the double crown yield. Scarce health created a small struggle.

Missions
Nothing like breaking in your new BFF like a embarking on a quest to face a ominous foe on a unique mission map. Fantastic.

Sparks of Life are found from mob drops or bought. You can only "buy" them when you're dead and it gives you the option to buy a spark for 10 CE. The spark is consumed on purchase of course.

Haven't found one yet, but I believe it was mentioned in the changes post.

So this update will fix ;

NO more free heat by revival
NO more mist crafting on alt(s)
NO more multiboxing with alt(s) for loot

Yes, we want this!

[edit to remind you to answer my questions and not to ignore them while reading all of my posts, btw I'm not spamming or using excessive formatting]

I have a few questions, none of them concerning battle sprites.

1. How much do orbs of alchemy and sparks of life cost?
2. How many orbs of alchemy are needed to craft a 1* item? 2*? 3*? etc..
3. How much do sparks of life cost?
4. Why did you remove health sharing revives?
5. What difficulty mode is on par with the difficulty we have right now? (I'm assuming "regular" or "medium")
6. Do I REALLY have to run around the WHOLE FREAKING MAP to grab my mats and crowns?
7. Why create equipment limits?

Elaboration:

"In conjunction with this change, and after much debate, we are removing health sharing revives. Our observations show that health sharing to revive downed party members ends up being detrimental to teams working to complete levels; diluting overall team health to the point of team members being repeatedly one-shotted in combat."

So instead of giving people a CHANCE to kill monsters, you're just gonna let them die? May I remind you that you can kill something and it may drop hearts, so people one be "one-shotted in combat". Why, oh my god, there's a freaking BATTLE SPRITE to make monsters drop hearts. why remove health sharing then? sounds like a money making scheme to me. "oh, no more free revives. if you die, use dat SPARK OF SHINING LIFE OMG :DDD"

"diluting overall team health"
Yes, it would be diluting it. However, your teammates cannot heal, move, attack, shield, or do ANYTHING while they are dead. I would rather have a party of 1hp (so we all have a chance to heal after we kill monsters, especially if they're enchanted by the heart attack buff thing) than have to solo with 4hp. (If I had 4hp I'd be one-shotted by nearly ANYTHING anyways)

"ends up being detrimental to teams working to complete levels"
TWOOOOOO, IS BETTER THAN ONEEEEEE.... and 4 is better than 3, which is better than 2, which is better than one.. Ever heard of teamwork?

"repeatedly one-shotted in combat."
oh, lets just give them 99999 health so they're NEVER going to die. that will NOT be detrimental to teams working to complete levels. The point of the game is to NOT GET HIT.

"after much debate"
can't I debate about it? human rights

-----------------
"We have also changed the way that loot is distributed. Loot will now be individually distributed to all players and never randomly assigned or split. Each player sees only their own loot on each level and must collect or ignore each piece. This includes vitapods.

This change means that there are zero reasons to NOT party with others. You’ll get the same amount of loot regardless of party size."

"Each player sees only their own loot on each level and must collect or ignore each piece. This includes vitapods."
no more "dividing and conquering" right? we should all stay in a group, since we have to each COLLECT OUR OWN FREAKIN LOOT. my crowns + heat would probably disappear by the time I get to the finished rooms in d25 FSC...

"zero reasons to NOT party with others"
All I see is no reason TO party with others. I have to run around the whole map and get my own loot anyways, why get more party members to increase the health of enemies? I can just 1 shot anything with my charge attacks anyways..

"You’ll get the same amount of loot regardless of party size"
yeah, except I have to run around the whole map...

--------

"One additional change to support this: going forward, players will have an equipment limit on their weapons and gear. Mission rank will prevent players from using gear deemed too powerful for their experience. For example, a 3* item would say, 'Requires Rank 5-1 to equip.'

This represents a significant change from the current way Spiral Knights works; however, we think it's in the best interests of the game in the long run to encourage players to feel like they've earned access to the weapons and gear they are using."

"Mission rank will prevent players from using gear deemed too powerful for their experience"
so what? I have to craft an entire arsenal of weapons for each star level? that's ridiculous. I'm not making a 2* set to help noobs in RJP. I guess I wont be socialising with any newbies any time soon. so much for a friendly environment. if I don't have a 2*-4* arsenal, I'll have to run in proto. pft, who cares if I spent thousands of ce to craft my 5* weapons, and who cares that the damage is lowered in the lower level tiers.

"feel like they've earned access to the weapons and gear they are using"
Sorry to burst your bubble. I actually HAVE earned access to the weapons and gear I am using. I crafted it, heated it, crafted it again, heated it again, crafted it again, and heated it again... Oh yeah, don't forget the endless grinding to get the cr and ce and mats needed to craft them.. again and again.

There are many questions needing to be answered. I await your response.

[edit to remind you to answer my questions and not to ignore them while reading all of my posts, btw I'm not spamming or using excessive formatting]

Well that escalated quickly.

One orb? when i checked the alchemy it asked me 3 orbs 2 stars for the troika, 3 orbs 5 stars for the volcanic plate. so i really doubt it just 1 (maybe only in 1 stars items but idk because i didnt checked the 1 star) just saying. now i will leave the rest of the post being feedback

Well, I had a much larger block of text (yes, larger than this one) about the topics of this thread, but it said pretty much the same thing as almost everyone else. Shuichi/132 and Coalitu/61 in 83403 (previous all-response testing thread, forgive my lack of linking derpyness) stood out in particular, homing in on exactly what I was going to say. I agree with everything in those two particular posts, and anything I say would just be a differently worded redundancy.

One thing's for sure - people are selfish, and cold - a revive and material collection system like this will do exactly the opposite of promote team play, due to every reason and more stated in the two posts cited. And honestly? I love the health revive system as it is now. It’s spiritual…

This next part is just my personal reason, as well as a group reason, for liking the health revive as it is: I read a book series, called Young Wizards, by Diane Duane. In that series, any healing magic came at an equilibrium cost of some kind, and the healer would feel their patient's pain, to some extent (this was especially seen in "Deep Wizardry"). This stance is not uncommon, in the much-loved "Firefly" series, a villain (Jubal Early) said that a surgeon "should be shot, or lose a leg" in order to understand the pain. Losing your HP to heal is painful; it deals more potential damage than most enemies in the end-game, depending on your defenses and available health of course. Halving your HP to give life to your friend in Spiral Knights is a beautiful thing, symbolic of sacrifice, pain, and trust. Losing that would make me very sad. I cannot emphasize enough how wonderful it made teamwork flow, and the bonding that occurred from intricate strategical implementation: as the revive system works now, it functions perfectly well as a basic difficulty calibrator - sometimes my team would die and revive each other, on purpose, to reduce our health and have the thrill of one-hit combat. This would still be doable (affordably -.-), if we were to equip our proto, but this eliminates the option of just deciding to get on with the run in our efficient gear later, in the same run, if we just wanted to have a challenge in one room. We often bring totems up to the last room in D27 for the fun, annoying challenges that brings, though that's off topic. Knights deserve to be able to push their own limits, in order to be better fighters for Spiral, and protectors against anything to come, like the hellfire and swarm below, or the slimes falling from above on their mysterious meteors. HP modifying is one of the ways our limits can be pushed, and our talents honed. And anyway…would you rather help come from the caring heart, or the cold wallet? So that’s my personal bit on the proposal I like the least.

Though these proposed revive changes do open up the potential for like, Classes of knight, or something (Spiral Knights needs something beyond striker/guardian/recon in lockdown and bomber/swordie/gunner in my opinion) – like a Medic/Healer/Mender could have the old HP revival system, somebody else could have an elaborate pickup distribution, gatherer type behavior, and another general benefit booster class... I had some fun jotting down ideas for classes, if the change goes through, I’ll post a thread about it in ideas after it’s public.

What I like: the charge bar, the red-accent screen of “you’re almost dead there, watch out.” Though they are also annoying, I know my CTR parameters, and I don’t like distractions, especially when I’m about to die. Toggles solve everything! Most of the universe is based on layers of yes and no, +/-s… (I almost shed a tear of happiness when you guys made the weapon scroll wheel an option in the menu-that wheel is useful for new people, not for vets. Thank you sooo much *overreaction gif*). My problem with the red screen – sooo, I officially have red blood clouding my vision? Or is the color of a knight’s pain-rage… red? I want blue blood, cause of that beating heart on the revive screen, or no blood, cause I’ve never seen blood in SK, it’s too cute. Just little explosions and dust puffs. Something I have always liked. Never add blood to Cradle. Blood is not cute. That’s a rant for a different proposal that I hope will never occur.
Any new material I like, because it adds to the “ooh what’s that shiny I just got?” pleasure of the game.
I like the sprites. Wrong thread :3.

What I love: difficulty level. But it wasn’t hard enough. Also, I can see random parties taking a bit longer to form, though I don’t random anymore, so I have no personal peeve with that.

What I want: INSANE difficulty levels. I want this game so hard that it would make me cry if I were a child. I want shadow lairs that are the most horrific, merciless places to be in the entire universe. This mode would have no hearts, no vitas, no pills, no remedies, ever. The seraphinx would mew sadly if its 2nd ability were used, and it just wouldn’t activate (and not cost a cool down). Enemies attack quickly, hit hard, and go down slowly; taking so many hits you lose count. Their projectiles are as fast as our Antigua line bullets. Minis would spawn faster than you could kill them. Some enemies might even have a set % damage dealt, ignoring your defenses, and draining your HP like a kid with their parent’s credit card in a mall. Only crowns and materials would drop – no heat. Cause you’re not going in there with something not fully heated, unless you want even more of a challenge (insane!). Spiral Knights is cute, Insane Spiral Knights would be vicious torment with a side of adorable.

A suggestion to the drop distribution proposal: have materials gravitate (“suck in”) toward a knight, like crowns and heat. That would help reduce the gathering time, at least a tiny bit. And be a little creepy. Is that gel core moving?! EEK! It’s jiggling! RUN!
Or…have a general image of “material” be dropped, and have it shimmer all rainbow-y with potential of what could that be? As long as one person touches it, a random (or just the same one, though that’s boring) droppable material of that monster class is given to everyone in the party, depending of course on tier. It would look a bit dull and uniform in parties, but it would only happen in parties - soloing, the drops would appear as what they are, with their (current) normal art. Materials are picked up quickly anyway. Make the default shimmery image pretty enough, the uniformity will be less agitating if its appearance lifespan is short. Example of mechanic: Player A touches shimmering rainbow material that dropped from a Voltail in T3. Instantly, Player A gets warp dust, Player B gets sharp fang, player C gets warp dust, Player D gets a spark of life. The shiny material image is visible to every party member, and is gone once someone picks it up.

Honestly, if you’re gonna instance crowns and heat, the missions could have a consistent, set payout “check” from spiral HQ in the mail in addition to the monster and box drop rewards. Not much of course, because I relish the fact that this will eliminate freeloaders from game play, but it’s more to make up for the people who might suddenly be in a hurry and miss things, wanting to finish the whole mission and go. 500 crowns would be the max “check” for a mission, I think, for FSC. Other missions would have smaller checks, FSC is just the number one mission done, so it’s my example. This would make up for most vanished crowns on the floor, as well as pay out more shinies for diligent gatherers, encouraging more gameplay while still having minimal effect on the market, considering the overall loss of income due to this change if it is implemented. To even get a check, you have to be in the lobby to start, and finish the entire mission. Checks would be given at each clockwork terminal reached in the Arcade, thanking you for your explorative efforts - assuming that the player started at the lobby or the previous town, and didn’t just join in. Just a thought. Some other MMOs do this, and they work out fine.

No personal comment on the crafting orbs. They just seem to be an unneeded step…I can’t give more feedback than that without knowing their drop rates and pricings.

Thinking on this thread in general - there must be at least one other person, if not dozens more, who agree with any one post on here but don't say anything in the feedback thread at all - similar to how YouTube videos have far more votes than comments. So…

I have a question to ask of those in charge reading these forum posts: Why not have a voting/poll system in addition to the feedback thread, just like you did with the weapons and enemies in previous polls? That would get a lot more responses (since many people don’t bother with long wordy posts, or even short comments), and sure, someone could rig the votes (that poll with the mountain dew was hilarious, inappropriate, but hilarious), but still, why not? Is it because it’s a super duper secret preview? I think it would be helpful and more fun for players, interactive-wise. Even non-testers can have a general opinion about a thing and vote. Of course it would not be as “valuable” as the immersive feedback thread, with words from players actually playing the content, but I feel something like this would help the community bond, and help give the devs a better picture of what “The People” want. In the future, you could also have a poll series, one before playing, one after, or for non-preview people, one before reading the forum, and one after, and just a general poll. Again, this would be fun, and probably useful, especially since this change is just…enormous. More people need to be involved.

Also, I understand that pricing these things is a delicate issue, but it would still help feedback a lot. Or at least significantly reduce the rage (if they aren’t super expensive).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TL, DR:
Minor things- good, but could be better with toggles.
Major Changes – bad. Common quote to describe part of the proposals: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Progress through change is far different than attempted advancements that are the equivalent to derpy mutations in nature: Darwin says, out with you. Change is good, if it’s needed, and/or beneficial. The major drop distribution, crafting, and revival change proposals are neither of those, at least to the bulk of the player base.
Personal suggestions section.
Y u no do simple poll? Plz.
Put more into preview so I can feedback more. Yes MORE. MORE THAN THIS OBESE BLOCK OF TEXT.

Right, let's get some of the more controversial stuff out of the way first.

Orbs of Alchemy: This I don't see becoming a major in ASSUMING that OOO balances out the payement and drop rate of the varioius orbs. This should be easily managable and could otherwise prove to be very beneficial for newbies.

New Reviving Mechanic: This is where things start to get iffy, though I have a few ideas in mind for this as well that actually HELP benefit the new system greatly to a point that it may be worth taking over the old one. First, let's re-iterate: quite a few people have already mentioned that the health sharing system DOES create some interesting team work situations between other players; mainly with the whole 'pick me up buddy' situation. It's really allowed me to gauge just what kind of person the players are like that I'm with, and most ARE usually willing to share their health because hearts are almost always bound to drop at some point or another.

It's been a great way to make friends, or at least part of the process. Part of the reason for this is because someone is sacking some of their own health to get you up rather than have you use some of your precious energy to do so. That, and to get the extra help.

On the other hand, I do admit there are times when this sort of thing begins to feel VERY strenous on the whole party, mainly with when everyone's health reachs a VERY low point, enough to usually be killed in one or two shots. This would be mainly in danger mission (More or less C42) and certain danger rooms and/or arenas. And then we have some party members dropping pills to help get resurrected, which while useful, doesn't provide the best of all combat flow. At a glance, Sparks of Life were described as a handy reviver consumable, and of course, the obvious idea that comes to mind is that NO ONE wants to reliquishes that; as a result, the teamwork ressurection no longer feels possible. People will just want to hug all the sparks normaly.

UNLESS there is something that ENCOURAGES spark ressurectoin (Lets just roll with that term at the moment). Come to think of it, I was originally very concerned about the ORbs of Alchemy, as the mention of them made me thing rage crafting would be in severe danger; however, after seeing that there are different TYPES of orbs which are obviously going to relate the star levels, there's a chance we'\ll see different types of sparks. Some sparks are very common, but very poor for personal use (Say, something you could get with just mist (10 maybe); however, these common varients work MUCH better when used on other players. The more full reviving sparks can be very expensive, and you don't want to use those as often. Heck, we could have very cheep, more common party-ressing only sparks coupled with the more expensive, full resurrection variants.

But perhaps we can add a bit of the old system with the new, no? After all, health sharing does have the above mentioned benefit, so perhaps when riding normal and advanced difficulty settings, we can have a modified version alongside the spark version. Ok, so that seems strange, but let me explain: A knight can still share a dead knight who's already used up his emergency revive, but, in assuming the player has lots of health, it won't be as affective as the original version. In other words, they won't use up half of their health ressing, maybe less, and it will become less and less effective each time that knight is ressed. Right up until they now require a spark instead of health.

This mechanic, rather following the number of ressurection this knight has through on their current level, follows the amount of health they've been given. So if they could only bee given a pip of health the first time, then they get more the next time, though I can see the last stand issue cropping up because of this again.

Still, the old system has some merits that may be worth plugging into the new, at least for NOrmal and advanced difficulty settings. For Elite, the old mechanic becomes moot with the removal of heart drops (Excluding the chance of possibly getting some out of 'Heart Attack'). With no health drop, I can see health sharing becoming very problematic very very fast, as part of the reason used this mechanic so often was BECAUSE hearts could drop.

That's it for me at the moment. I'll probably talk about the whole new looting system at a later time. The ressing system and what could come of it was really on my mind at the current moment.

too much twitching and kights are dragged away throughout the clokworks, when i got to the gremlins they were all walking and crossed away from the map and walked on air and appeared right behind me and attacked me so did constructs and when i got to the last mission i was faced with The Collector who did the same thing and when i defeated him he just kept moving on the floor and battle music was still on, i did a double dash and i belive thats all.. and some enemies were harmless to my attacks mosty in fiend tests.

Ok, to me...everything except the new difficulty settings are unnecessary in my opinion. I have been hearing quite a bit of complaints about the new revive system, the loot distribution, and even the new complicated player screen etc. There are 2 major things that OOO should really give attention to.

Revive System: The free revive at the beginning is a good addition, but revives after that just doesn't roll for me. You have to pay ce just to get up or else your staying dead. Honestly, I would just leave the run instead. The biggest downside to this addition is the fact you can't revive your dead teammates by sharing health anymore. This also means no sharing heat for those players who need heat. Removing the fact that you can't revive others by sharing health pretty much ruins the whole reviving system.

Loot Distribution: I do not know too much about the loot system yet, but what I do know is that now, you have to pretty much walk over to every single spot where enemies drop things just to get it for yourself. Before, crowns is collected and given to everyone in a party regardless who picks it up and I was cool with that, but this is not the case this time. This pretty much makes Depth 25 from Firestorm Citadel for example more time consuming. Instead, where most players would split up to make the level go by faster, you pretty much have to travel in a group from one room to the next or else...your not getting you crowns or materials. To me, this addition is not great at all.

As for the new player screen, I think there is NO need to make it more complicated. Before, it was plain and simple and I liked it. No need to focus on something that most people are ok with. Just so you know...

Overall: Honestly, aside from the new difficulty setting, there is nothing else that really needs to be changed. I really hope that those other unnecessary things will NOT be added when the new update comes. OOO, stop changing things that most players are fine with. Stop giving us things that will make the game LESS enjoyable...STOP IT!

I will keep this short and sweet with some suggestions

New items
Put the actual price they will go for before I can properly give an opinion. Removal of health sharing is a very bad ideal. Perhaps implement the new system along side the spark of life system allowing us to use both but perhaps alter it slightly so that some heat will be lost on top of the the heat given to the player who health revives every time this happens.

Diff modes and loot distribution
Nothing much to add about diff modes at the moment, will go on a shadow liar run later to check.
Loot distribution is a rather bad ideal. individual mats and crowns means that players must run around to collect. Firstly, crowns and heat still have a disappearing time. This has to be removed before implementation of this system is even feasible. Secondly this means that players will either have to be glued to each other during runs. Or that players will have to run around after they completed the objectives. This is counter productive towards groupwork. My suggestion is either retain the old system, or set that any missed mats, heat and crowns will be transported to the player when they go down the lift, perhaps with a small penalty to lose mats and crowns .

Equipment limits
If this is as i read it that 5* weapons and armor wont be able to be equipped by people of lower ranks. then i can only say that, when my friends who quit for 2 years or more come back, i will have a good laugh before helping them clear their missons. If i am wrong about this and its to limit characters who havent clear enough missons to not be able to enter higher ranked missons. It isnt a really good ideal especially when i always bring my weaker guild members to FSC or such.

Additonal notes.

Regarding crafting of materials for sprites. Add the ability to craft more than one at a time. Its getting annoying to click and wait for the crafting screen and we have super food now. I shudder to imagine how annoying it will be when we dont

The Alchemy Orbs are an EXCELLENT idea. This means people can buy one orb per day, and still have mist left over to play! It's reducing the price of crafting into bite sized pieces. Absolute genius, developers!

-Crowns are not common and i can loose a lot. I think we can share with alive players.
-I see hearts in party, but i already used it
-When i collect coins i see them in player
- I went in solo but teammates pets left with me
-Mini jellies give crowns, boss farm with jellies respawn
-Yesterday on elite difficult i didn't get hearts from monsters, i thought that it's cool feature, but today i see hearts from them.
...to be continued

i prefer this model
1* :10 unit of energy
2* : 50 unit of energy
just the same as the old system? see below.
3*-5* : 100 unit of energy + those energy orbs (3*=1; 4*=3; 5*=7)
you could see what i did there. literally speaking mist (or crystal rage) crafting is still possible and the orbs will be the direct replacement for crystals where higher stars alchemy happens.
moreover, i hope the orbs will be dropped as loot or be available at elevator prize wheels (both low chance). finally, the orbs at kozma should only be available for exchange with [100 crystal energy each but never mist] to prevent abuse.

I don't usually comment on the forums, because overall, most changes that come along with the game are things that you can adjust to, over time. But, I do feel the need to bring up a point about team member revving. It's an integral part of teamwork and game play. I know that so many players in SK pride themselves on their abilities, and their minimal deaths. That's great. Rock on. Get down with your bad self. I also realize that it's frustrating for a lot of these people when they are in a party where team members might not be able to stay alive. We've all been there. However, I think something to keep in mind is that no one is MAKING you rev anyone. Anytime a party member or I have felt we couldn't rev a party member without jeopardizing the entire team, we don't do it. We look for more health before lending a hand. Chances are that, if you're playing with friends, they'll understand the method behind your apparent selfishness.

Bottom line is, revving isn't some terrible feature that destroyed any parties I've ever been in. And, when health HAS run low because of revs, it's lead to more laughs than rage in my circle of friends. Might just be a matter of how I personally view game play. But, overall, revving always has been, and should continue to be a VOLUNTARY action. It's something I'm always willing to do for friends, and they are willing to do for me. It's a team/friend building feature that has helped me become more aware of my own play style, and has encouraged me to participate collectively with my team members, instead of constantly looking out for myself.

A last note on revving, I have friends in countries outside of the U.S. where the lag is so strong and SO constant, that they sometimes cannot avoid multiple deaths. Take away our ability to rev them, and leave them to the lag, and, no doubt they would be discouraged from playing. They need to be able to rely on the understanding, and support of their friends/team members.

Proud Kong pleb since 2011 here, just a chunk of opinion on the chance you guys might be listening.

New items
I'm pretty fine with this. Revives have a fixed price now, which is cool but reduces the urgency of messing up if you've got loads to spend. Alchemy Orbs are okay, but removing the option to craft with mist hasn't warranted the best of responses. Of course, those issues are offset somewhat by the fact that they can drop.

The removal of health revives is a little on the down for me, but I disliked the fact that some just revive others for the sole purpose of heat, so I think it's great you guys cracked down on that.

Difficulty modes + new lewt distribution
I love the first idea. Added challenge to spice up the game a little with some extra rewards on the side makes me feel as if I've actually earned what I got. I agree with posts in this thread that you should only limit these to the Arcade, because quite frankly I don't like that people only ever go to missions; it easily gets stale there.

I feel the opposite for the revised loot distribution. If anything, it promotes that you go alone or you have to stay in a normally uncoordinated mess of 2-4 players everywhere when we could have just split up and did parts of an area separately and have no lack of mats. But then I read that this will detriment multiboxers. Hmmm... Carry on.

Rank limits on gear
I will start of by saying I know a guildmate who has done so much for our guild and never ceases to make the game more enjoyable for everyone. He's a very active member, and all around great guy. But of course, he just grinded his way though without ever even touching the missions. What does that spell for someone in a situation like that with the upcoming update? Absolute doom, and possible quitting.

This means you're punishing those who have invested their time and effort on their equipment but just simply did not do missions. And of course some returning players will also have to face the dread of doing multiple hours worth of missions with sub-par gear.

All in all...
I would say what's coming up gets a 6/10 out of me. I think what was announced might have been a little of a money sink (further limiting the utility of mist). That, and our guildmate will be wallowing in despair if we don't get him to at least Def Elite soon. Just know I believe you guys will at least try to make up for setbacks.

I also understand that content is subject to change. I hope you take the time to listen and take note of feedback to help better the future of the game, and I thank you for all your efforts.

How does this prevent alt crafting again?

I also figured we could use alts to obtain Spark of Lives in numerous quantities since it is supposed to be obtainable from the Supply Depot.

- I don't like the new loading screen text placement. I think it's just a glitch, but it looks ugly and displaced

I don't get the reason for the bonus rev. It seems silly to me, it doesn't really add anything, it just gives people a chance to screw up once.

Here is an interesting scenerio:

Two players in a party (can be more but two for the sake of simplicity).
Player A dies while Player B continues killing monsters that drop loot.
Player B steps onto a Party Button before Player A revives.
Player A doesn't get the loot between dying and the Party Button.
Player A is not happy while Player B does not care.

I see that this new system is to prevent either alt dragging and/or a lazy part member from being carried so it has its benifits, however I do not see how any of the positives could ever outweigh the negatives. This is simply a flawed mechanic.

Obviously, we're trying to put an end to all of the ways ALTs are abusing free mist. Got that.

Does it serve any real purpose now, other than to pay for elevators?
In this new world, what exactly can mist now be used for?

Please just call them Alchemy Orbs (AOs) is a much simpler, shorter way of saying the same thing, as is the acronym.
Requiring multiple orbs per craftable item just feels messy, however,
I imagine this has been done to help balance out the drop rate frequency, however it makes the math for purchasing them somewhat more convoluted.
If there are different levels of AOs, and you need the same number / crafted item level... the pricing can be made to align fairly closely.
L1 AO = 10 CR, L2 AO = 25 CR x2, L3 AO = 65 CR x3 (a wee bit cheaper), L4 AO = 100 CR x4, L5 AO = 160 CR x5.
Pricing should remain consistent or very close to current costs.

Gear restrictions - fine with that. There's that old adage about learning to walk, before you can run.

Restrict "difficulty" settings to clockworks only. They need the love. If people want to do missions, let them grind the exact same difficulty.

Loot Distribution - no.

Applying a solo (I have to go and collect everything that drops everywhere) operating system to a party dynamic is just dumb and annoying.
The advantage of a party is that you should be able to cover more ground faster, not play "hold the rope" and stay together.

I would rather see all collectible items go into a party "pot" and then have it divided up at the end using some type of "shares" system. This would be applicable to materials, items and crowns and heck, heat too.
For items and materials - do a separate split by item level.

Requirements would be:
- character has to be active / fighting / killing enemies. Mechanic already exists in Blast Network - if you don't play - you get DQ'd. This solves the "drag along alt" issue since they won't get anything for being there.
- players who are dead, lose shares proportional to the time they are not active. This should help with the "dead guy got good loot" problem. They may still get some, but they have lower chances to get things period. It also means players are more likely to revive themselves (which is the only option now).

More later.

The problem I see with that 10CE orb, is that currently - you can only buy 1 of anything with CE.
Want to make a 5* - sure - just visit Kozma 80 times...

yeesh.

They would need to overhaul the system or at least have an option to buy 1, 5, 10, 50, 100 etc.

Also, can anybody answer me, what is the level of difficulty with the crown drop we have currently?

Current difficulty is "Hard".

Or make a checkbox for it.