Interested in reviving the game?

[Nythand]

Do you think if you had the money for instance, you could purchase the rights to spiral knights and update the game into a sort of 2.0 version? What would you do to the game? Just as a thought experiment.

[DarkCrystalMethod]

Years ago there was a rumor that they were making Spiral Knights 2... Not sure if it was official source but I thought I saw it mentioned here or in an announcement.
Anyway, whats killing this game is not enough people who actually enjoy it telling others to try it. We're an unused source of publicity for the game that still not many have heard of. The videos on the steam store are ancient as well, they are teases but those who know, know there's so much more. Anyway, I'm not a publicist, I just play one at the Auction House.

[Pastel Junkie]

Originally posted by DarkCrystalMethod:

Anyway, whats killing this game is not enough people who actually enjoy it telling others to try it. We're an unused source of publicity for the game that still not many have heard of.

How much did GH pay you to type this lmao

We're not the problem. The problem is a game that's entirely inaccessible to new players. You can rant and rave about SK from the top of the highest building and people will still only install it to unlock their Spiral Sallet before dropping it entirely, because there's nothing to retain them.

We've received barely any fresh content for years, and the content that's there is bad. 95% of the game is hard grinding just to get to the point where it starts getting good. Sure,you always have the option to just throw money at the screen instead, but why put money into a game you're not even sold on when there's a far easier third option, just not playing the game at all.

[Mickmane]

I'd have a level editor for players added. I suggested they add that plenty times before.

- Sell base editor pack for 4ke or something. Special features could be in prize boxes even. Base pack with floor (corridor and greenery), traps, button, elevators, base monsters.

- Players would design levels, everyone could play them and rate them. (Loot would be fixed, or temporary, to prevent abuse.)

- Devs look at the highest rated levels and incorporate the good ones.

Maybe letting people decide whether they want the old system with Mist, no Fire Crystals, and elevator cost, and what we have now would help?

[Sebastian]

Originally posted by X-Dress:

the content that's there is bad. 95% of the game is hard grinding just to get to the point where it starts getting good.

no.
I actually replayed SK on a new char for a different reason a short while ago. I got to 5-2 with not just zero grinding, but with just the gear I was given; also, I got enough cr and orbs to proceed right past 5-2.
that leaves what, 4* and 5* HoH as hurdles? sure, not ideal, but still passable. besides, once you clear 4* HoH, you get T3 clearance, which is all that really matters.
the problem with the grind (which is in totality just fine compared to many other MMOs) is that it comes in big, sudden steps.
this brings me to what I would do with SK, quoting myself from an older thread:

Originally posted by Sebastian:

I gave progression a bit of a thought.
I do like that progression is linked exclusively (or almost if you dont count sprites) to the gear that you have. but the way it is now, there are certain points where you just get hit in the face by a wall you have to essentially grind over.
lets think of a way to smoothen out this grind.
first off, yes, you can buy stuff with cr, but most people dont seem to want to spend their hard earned money on just progressing.
what if we used something that is similar to xp, in the way you cant really "spend" it, but only automatically use it. yes, I am talking about heat.

think about it. when you dont need orbs or fire crystals, it is because you are heating your equipment. when you are done heating, you need orbs or fire crystals to forge or craft.
we need something that turns heat into those items.
call it the "thermolytic condenser" or some equally fancy name. what it does is simple, it collects heat if and only if nothing else on you is taking any, automaticaly. every few lvls worth of heat it spits out your choice of an orb or 12 fire crystals, of a fitting rank.
as an example, a 5-2 rank player could choose to get an advanced orb or 12 3* fire crystals.

this way heat is always useful AND you can grind the rarities you need essentially anywhere. it also gives a (mostly) RNG-less way of getting these rarities, meaning you always feel like you are making progress.

on missions:
now that gear progression is fine, lets think about missions. essentially, I would shift a lot of earlier missions later on, condensing the 1-1 to 5-1 range of missions and stretching the 5-2 to 6-2 range.

also some more general suggestions:

Originally posted by Sebastian:

• improved art assets, such as higher polygon count models and higher resolution textures, without changing the art style.

a good example for better models is comparing regular raiment style armors with the black kat raiment. it has noticeably better models. some of the older models are unpleasantly sharp at places due to a lack of polygons.

• PvE coliseum content

large wave based arenas, minigames, boss rushes, other extra challenging content that isnt part of the clockworks. you can even have it give a different kind of krogmo coins that gety you other stuff than regular ones. I think I made a suggestion about something like this once.

• higher difficulty options

just ways to make the game harder, such as improved AI, increased monster damage/health, multiple statuses per lvl and more. do not increase overall difficulty though, as not to drive away more casual players.

• better gear balancing

it doesnt have to be perfect, but right now gear balance is terrible.

• deeper depths

no, not opening the core or whatever, but just extending the playable depth. maybe a sort of tier 4 without it being an actual new tier.

• better party system

let players name their party, for example letting them name it "farming basil" if thats what they want to do, so people know what the part leader is intending to do. party finder gets filters (difficulty, depth, arcade/mission) as well.

• expanded guild control

let guild leaders make up their own ranks, assign them rights as they please and so on. let players actually own rooms in the guild hall to do with as they please. stop limiting what goes into storage (cannot add tickets and consumables for some reason). higher degree of customization in guild hall layout, beyond just adding wings.

expanding on PvE coliseum: https://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/114737#comment-1031847

PvE arena? yes please!

I want the arena to be at least as difficult as the DaN arena.
I thought about how it could best be done, so let me add some ideas for it.
first of all, a couple players (probably leave it at four) gather like for normal PvP. they then go into a lobby, again just like in normal PvP.
then, a sort of slot machine appears with four rotating things (what are they called again?). two to three will set on monster families, while the other one to two settle on statuses. these will then be used in the arena. this is done to not make normal damage weapons overpowered due to completely random enemies.
then, they get dumped into the arena starting area. the knights have about a minute to select their gear. they also get to pick up a vitapod (to make heart pendants not mandatory) and heal on a pad. after that, they exit onto the main arena area. this is a large square, bigger than the vanaduke throne room. in the middle is a party button. once you step on the button, the fight begins.
the arena then spawns blocks, monsters and other things in set patterns. the knights then have to kill all non-respawning enemies to finish the wave. each arena configuration has two to four waves. once the fight is done, the knights have a short time (10-20s) to get back on the party button. if they dont, all but the button gets covered in a deadly mist. once everyone is back on, the arena reconfigures, removing old blocks and such and replacing them with a new configuration. because this can lag players, they get a five second grace period in which they are invincible. this goes on for a couple times, depending on how hard things are supposed to be.
once the last wave of the last arena is done and they step back on the party button, knights get to collect their reward, the changing room reopens and... they can keep going right away. the wheels spin, a new theme is chosen and they have another minute to go on. each time they choose to continue, things get harder. at higher levels, crazy things can happen.
what crazy things? several respawning trojans? no, we already had those in the previous arenas, now we get bosses. yes, bosses. imagine lord vanaduke himself. but no, it doesnt stop there. how about having him be on a respawn pad? to keep things fair, he dies at the end of the first phase. you can also encounter the royal jelly and the snarbolax (who spawns with at least one beast bell, dont worry) and all of their SL variants if you get unlucky.
the arenas can also use some of the newer features, like healing totems, to make the fight more interesting. or how about a respawning gremlin mender surrounded by indestructible blocks?
unlike DaN, monsters hearts and consumables. hearts are there to make seraphynxes not mandatory.
the reward at the end should consist of a good amount of crowns, some krogmo coins (or whatever you want to call it) and possibly some further rewards.

and a little extra:

Originally posted by Sebastian:

also, a small feature I would like to see. chat control. right now you can only enter and leave zone and trade chat. I want it so you can turn off all kinds of things from collection messages in chat (♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, did you know you got another LIGHT SHARD?!?!?!?!?!?!) and other automatic messages to turning off specific sources like guild chat or lockdown chat (both enemy and team, seperately).

I also have various ideas on other matters, such as adding to events to make them always worthwhile to attend to (why bother with halloween once you have the authentic masks, to get more hallow junk nobody wants?) or even introducing a new weapon type, but I think that does it for now.

[Red Lotus]

I would love to see something new in this game. The game is awesome but it's 5 years in maintance mode. Also devs who are maintaining this game are killing moded lauchers for it. I would help to pay for it revival

[Count of Dank Memes]

Originally posted by Dwarfty:

Do you think if you had the money for instance, you could purchase the rights to spiral knights and update the game into a sort of 2.0 version? What would you do to the game? Just as a thought experiment.

Here's my points if I acquired the SK game.

1. Introduce two new pets to use blue and green minerals

1.5. Reintroduce/bring back the ability to convert your minerals into crowns with 1 mineral being 50 crowns

2. Add not only new weapons, armor and shields, but also add new story content to the game. Continue finding the hopefully surviving members of the Alpha Squad, and discover what the new source of energy to restore the Skylark back into working order.

2.5 Add new free story expansions and events to make the content even more diverse while having the option to do event missions like March of the Tortedromes and Apocreans. It has to be expensive to do them outside of the intended event time-window but at least gives incentive to do them more often then to wait.

3. Improve server and game stability and connection. Hate when doing a run on vanaduke and my game just crashes.

[WeavileParty_at_Fennec]

I haven't played too long into Spiral knights but I love it, recently got it because I was bored and saw it was free on steam. I was so shocked to see this game I played as a very much younger me still up and running with peeps still on it goofing around. I played and got reattached and then I looked into the community hub and saw people making art and It feels wonderful. I hope this game can get a good future for itself on day from people who care and actually want to work on a world they love for others. But alllll my heart aside, a small feature that I have atleast felt might help is a SPRINT FEATURE with a COOL DOWN, like the dodge feature!

[Sebastian]

Originally posted by WeavileParty_at_Fennec:

But alllll my heart aside, a small feature that I have atleast felt might help is a SPRINT FEATURE with a COOL DOWN, like the dodge feature!

backfire barrier.

[Count of Dank Memes]

Originally posted by Sebastian:

Originally posted by WeavileParty_at_Fennec:

But alllll my heart aside, a small feature that I have atleast felt might help is a SPRINT FEATURE with a COOL DOWN, like the dodge feature!

backfire barrier.

Yeah... that does count as a sprint but that is behind a Ultimate Evo Crystal (525 energy) and the sprint from the arena is much better.

[WeavileParty_at_Fennec]

I see, will look forward to getting that one day Frens .o.

[The Saddest Healer]

I would greatly decrease the need for leveling up weapons with orbs and forge shards and just have weapons evolve via a weapon skill tree system.

Add new weapons and armor..maybe even make a Gremlin playable race.

add more enemies and zones.

basically a lot of decrease grinding increase player control stuff.

And to make that money, I would have a cash shop that would function similar to the one now where you can use crowns to buy energy but the focus would be on selling armor skins and pet skins maybe junk to put in your guild and boosters..No selling power.

But still have holiday events so people can get free stuff.

Honestly, Spiral knights base is a good game that just needs some sand papering in some areas..But most of what they done with resistance on enemies, gear and all that I like.

What I mostly dont like is having your way to "Level up" be locked behind something that almost feels like pw2 If you aint willing to grind the same areas over and over.

[DangerousArmyGuy]

Originally posted by Count of Dank Memes:

Originally posted by Dwarfty:

Do you think if you had the money for instance, you could purchase the rights to spiral knights and update the game into a sort of 2.0 version? What would you do to the game? Just as a thought experiment.

Here's my points if I acquired the SK game.

1. Introduce two new pets to use blue and green minerals

1.5. Reintroduce/bring back the ability to convert your minerals into crowns with 1 mineral being 50 crowns

2. Add not only new weapons, armor and shields, but also add new story content to the game. Continue finding the hopefully surviving members of the Alpha Squad, and discover what the new source of energy to restore the Skylark back into working order.

2.5 Add new free story expansions and events to make the content even more diverse while having the option to do event missions like March of the Tortedromes and Apocreans. It has to be expensive to do them outside of the intended event time-window but at least gives incentive to do them more often then to wait.

3. Improve server and game stability and connection. Hate when doing a run on vanaduke and my game just crashes.

For new pets, I would like to have the Valestone one be made of ice and plants, while the Moonstone pet would be a modified Battle Sprite from before they were mutated by the Core (the ones you see in the lab), but gain more and more battle augments until they're pretty much living weapons.

[Toa Rahkshi]

I would make "Spiral Knights 2: Return to Cradle"

- Make it not free to play from the get-go, charge the full $60. It won't rely on so much grinding. Plus more content from the beginning.
- Completely re-do the customization. Warframe has the customization pretty well done, IMO, so I'll just rip it from there - no Bound bull crap. Re arranging armour/clothes to promote freedom of choice in your character.
- Overhaul combat entirely. More gears and gadgets to use besides the boring Hack and Slash. Grappling hooks, gas grenades, gliders, shock absorbing exo skeletons, etc.
Bring back the old revive system rather than spark of life. Make it a rock paper scissor type damage: Bladed weapons won't do anything to machinery, but will decimates naked gremlins/beasts (normal against jellies/aliens). Blunt weapons destroys machines but does nothing to jellies/aliens (normal to gremlins/beasts). More ideas like a realistic stamina limit like the Total War series used to do: you Knight fights more sloppy the more tired they are. The vision can even be slightly blurred and the screen wobbles and shakes harder the more tired your knight becomes. But it should take a lot to make your knight that exhausted. Conserve energy like real life, choose your fighting style - will you exhert more energy in rapid succession, or treat it like a marathon and save your energy till the end of the run?
More different type of movement, crouches, dodges, backsteps, jumps, and all other moves to combine for combos. Nothing like the dark souls series where players just spam the damn roll button. This will be much more refined.
- Create entire stories (yes plural)Encourage fan made stories. Not just one big one, but multiple adventures, some more mature or silly than others. Setting does not only take place in Clockwork Terminals, but on the surface of Cradle too. Maybe even an in fighting within the Spiral Order or something.
Perhaps there are other knights in the Scarlet Fortress who fight against the Spiral Knights. Their signature look could be gold and red.
Perhaps there are were-wolf warriors who worship that forest level boss (I forgot the name). Maybe that's how the Spiral Order got the Wolver Armour, from this war with the native werewolves.
- Progression: Gonna sound super weird but I imagine my SK 2 to have zero level ups. Just like in real life, if you want the gear, work for it (or in SK 2's case, dive into Cradle, accept odd jobs, find rare trinkets, sell them, or assassinate enemies) and earn the Crowns to buy the gear.
Your knight fights better the more he trains (PvP), and practices. Your beginner knight with 2 hours of experience will fight (have movements) like a beginner fighter would in real life. As you play with that knight more, their movements become quicker and land more of a punch. Movements will be less sloppy and executed better the more "experienced" your knight is. Your experienced knight does not get tired as easily, and if they do, they still fight better than a tired beginner knight.
The aim is to basically create different elite knights for different roles. The typical fighter, the bomber, the gunner, the elemental, the cybernetic, the espionage, etc.
Some missions won't even be possible if you're just a run of the mill sword and shield knight.
- Speaking of PvP, incorperate all sorts of matches, gladiator matches, obstacle courses, boot camp competitions, rewards, accolades, even real posters of actual "winners of the week" on Haven's town center. These would be more ways to earn Crowns and secret armour or weapons. Quarterly a year, a Champion can be crowned and be given the Azure Guardian (renamed "Azure Champion") armour set or something like that - making it more prestige.
- Level design would be both randomly generated, just like in Age of Empires 2, for free play - or pre made by my fictitious devs for story modes. More options to platform, descend or climb. If you don't have the right gadgets/gears, some secrets/loot are missed. It should be a balancing act because your knight only carries so much gear, including weapons. You could choose the option to have no weapons and explore freely, even unarmoured at your own risk.
And yeah, you could do odd jobs that seem mundane for the average player, but it would be for the sake of immersion: like lumberjack, stone masonry, foreging, hunting for food for Haven, painting buildings etc.
- DLC's will be more focused on specific regions of Cradle:
"Black Forest" for the beast levels/storyline, includes armor sets based off the real life Teutonic Knights.
"Secret of the Scarlet Knights," as mentioned before, the Scarlet Fortress can be its own story. This could include armor sets based off the enemy faction, the Scarlet Knights.
"Hellfire and Brimstone" for the center of Cradle story, including armour sets and weapons of the enemy faction, the Alimirian Crusaders.
Maybe a "Battle for Haven" DLC with some enemy force invades Haven and depending how the players do, it will determine the outcome on whether the Order leaves Haven or rebuilds it - leading up to Spiral Knights 3 :)


These are just some idea that came up with or borrowed from others since 2012 lol Not saying it's perfect. This is just if I had all the money in the world to take over this franchise.

Seriously, I used to love this game. I played it back before Heat became a thing, and launched it from the browser. This will always have a special place in my heart, fond memories from my late teenage years <3

[DarkCrystalMethod]

Steam Workshop for playing someone else's custom missions would be nice(and an appropriate multi-depth quest-builder and map editor to make such missions).

[Mickmane]

Originally posted by Nikra:

I would make "Spiral Knights 2: Return to Cradle"

...

These are just some idea that came up with or borrowed from others since 2012 lol Not saying it's perfect. This is just if I had all the money in the world to take over this franchise.

Seriously, I used to love this game. I played it back before Heat became a thing, and launched it from the browser. This will always have a special place in my heart, fond memories from my late teenage years <3

Sounds like a too different game to me. :) (I won't jump on individual points, there are just too many. Not saying they wouldn't be fun for many people in a different game, it's just really not SK anymore.)

I was drawn into SK by Steam Winter event 2011, when they still had decent events on Steam. You could earn Coal by doing tasks in various games. (I forgot what you could do with Coal.) One task was: "Throw a snowball at another player in Lockdown." In SK.

Got stuck in the game. Traded my coal for CE via Steam trade. :) (Back then that was possible and perfectly fine with the TOS.)

Played for around 20 months. Still peeking in now and then, mostly just chatting in Haven.

I'm just glad I got my 5* gear fully heated, anything new is just fancy and in no hurry.

All my friends wandered off to play other games. Fortunately they're still friends on Steam. :)