Spike Event Suggestions

Things that have been annoying this far:

- Needing to stop for each individual spike for 1.5s, this makes solo player's time investment worse because they have to stop and collect each spike individually.

- The fact enemies have priority pick-up. I can't see any solution for this, it makes sense why they have priority pick-up, but with the new system it makes it gameplay wise worse.

- Bomber only knights have to choose between charging their bombs or picking up a spike in arenas or hoards of enemies. This makes their chosen gameplay style from challenging to impossible.

Suggestions for improving the event:

- The new way of collecting spikes makes me feel less likely to playing the event for fun, I rather have the spikes be a reward of completing the depth than a material I can pick off the ground, just give it the properties of minerals.

- Add back the Spike slot, the ones that said they find it pointless, did it because it had no purpose, you could give it some purpose by integrating it as a new usable slot. With the integration of this new throwable spike mechanism, it could be added just as an useable and it could be connected to the spikes you have collected through out the level. ( this could be done if the spikes become a reward upon going down the elevator )

- A lot of people have been asking for spikes to give their knights a boost, I was thinking about it and you could introduced something like: An attack damage bonus and attack speed bonus that got similar stat boost like the Frenzied Firestorm from Drakon's 3rd ability for 7-8 seconds with the downside of taking 25% damage from the knight's maximum amount of health on each spike consumption, this damage could be a progressive damage that is taken during the boosts duration or it could be instant damage upon the boosts ending. ( this to be at the choice of each knight in the party )

- Make a separated Gate for this event. There is the 5th empty slot in the Arcade selection UI, this gate could just be a event temporary gate that just matches the monster family theme of the event, it could also be randomized but with it's depths shuffled every 1-2 days so knights feel like there is something new to explore.

- Also on the note of when to run the event: The event could alternate with slime casino having 7-10 days every 2 months, this could be one of the ways of running the event consistently.

I actually like the new ideas, but the execution of these ideas wasn't there to deliver.

Limit the quantity of spikes an individual enemy can get?

Change colour depending on the Monster Type level it holds for the month?

(IE : Gremling : Orange. Fiend : Purple. Beast : Yellow. Ghost : White. Construct : Gray/Silver. and have already Pink whit slimes)

maybe a limit of 3 spikes stacked per enemy?

If they´re going to give more life to this, definitively they need to create more recipes and items that use these has main ingredient.

Maybe Spikes could boost an stat randomly instead of boost all of them for each spike.

Most of the other ideas given are peak.

Wish they made Armor set of each color whit bonuses against said monster types whit the sheen of each color.

I have mentioned this before and I am happy that you guys did actually adjust the spawnrate of spikes depending on difficulty for this iteration, however I believe these changes did not address the main issue present which is the fact that Elite difficulty does not give adequate rewards for the challange it presents. If anything, this slight increase in spike spawn rate further increases the difficulty without offering a proper reward for it.

In my opinion the best way to fix it would be to implement a chance for one spike to drop multiple spike materials upon breaking. For example: Normal stays as is (maybe a slight decrease in spawnrate), Advanced difficulty to have a small chance of dropping 2 materials from one broken spike, Elite to have a medium chance of dropping 2 and a small chance of dropping 3 spike materials from one broken spike.

Other than that I agree with the ideas/problems mentioned in this thread, especially the pick up priority mentioned by Dark, I like the idea of the spike being throwable too it adds a new mechanic, I also really like the way alt funneling had been addressed.

One thing I would wish is for all of you at Gray Havens to take more time with implementing new ideas like these. Using the preview is a brilliant idea but we need more than one day to give you proper feedback.

I understand that you may feel pressured and that you are a tiny team but I feel like it would be better for you and for us if you took longer with some of this. We waited years, we can wait more if we get thought through, substantial and tested updates.

I like these ideas for how to rebalance the event. But I feel we should get the Spike deposits, spike boxes, and spike missions to help with getting them faster. On top of adding more weapons. I would love a shard bomb based on the spikes too. But for the melee weapon, what should it be like? And can we try making a new shield out of these spikes too?

Generally I think there's an issue that needs to be looked at for how Spikes are dealt with when on the ground. Aside from what was said about them being SUCKED into the next enemy, if the enemy is at the max Spikes available, the aerial Spike Strike should generate 1 Spike for that tier just like it was done via throwable - because more often than not, in the robot arena fights, it's next to impossible to get them solo without them being wasted.

For a Melee I'd imagine something like a Thorn Blade since it's effectively already a spike... just make it Elemental and voila....

Perhaps I'm throwing my hat into the ring too late, but since future spike events based on the other enemy types are slated to appear, I figure its worth a shot.

Much like the rockets fired out by Mortafires, perhaps spikes could fall out of the sky, with a grace period and indicator before they touch down.
upon landing, the spikes would cause a shockwave, dealing high damage and knocking back knights and enemies alike. In doing so, the area around a spike becomes cleared almost immediately, and an observant knight can position themselves near the blast radius and grab it while the coast is clear.
Not only does this present a new thematically fitting hazard that knights need to watch out for, a lucky spike fall could actually cripple a gathering of monsters, tipping the scales in the knight's favor for a change.

Although this does not necessarily fix the underlying issue of certain enemies becoming unmanageable with multiple spikes, at the very least, it aims to reduce the frequency with which this frustration occurs.

I like The-Clownster's take on this.

It's an interesting take but the amount of damage spikes do would have to be greater than the amount they heal a monster upon acquiring them... thrown spikes ATM deal enough damage to OHKO a lot of monsters or leave them with a sliver of HP left so we'd have to figure out exactly how much damage they should deal when falling.

The other issue is that it's hard to play around.... you can lead the monsters away from the falling spike so you can try and get it first... but once the spike lands all the enemies are going to make a beeline for it.

You could try to lead them into the spike's path but if it doesn't KO them then they just get a good chunk of HP back... furthermore if multiple spiked enemies head to the spike and die then you have whatever survives on top of a large collection of spikes and getting super amped.

You could camp the spike drop but you're forced to shield and be extremely careful of timing otherwise you'll just get swarmed and die with the spike potentially breaking your shield (and good luck if you use SSB).

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I agree something needs to be done but I feel like it really should be much more simple... like spiked monsters slowly taking chip damage or having knights automatically hoist the spikes they run into without needed to click and interact.