"SPIRAL KNIGHTS IS SAVED!!!!"
Grey Havens: Oh, I wouldn't say "saved", more like "under new management"
TLDR Broken servers, latest event was completely broken, no compensation given. Multi-boxers and game exploiters are rewarded. It's impossible to play the game casually and obtain the new items. They keep releasing "updates" which are limited time events which force you to play due to FOMO (fear of missing out).
Sorry to do this to my childhood game but as a live service game, this game has failed. Let me explain why this game mechanically doesn't work for me as a casual player:
To start, they recently had an "event" where you had to grind the game mindlessly for hours and hours on end to get a new weapon - this is huge because there hasn't been a new weapon in the game for basically years, and the weapon is a highly chased after weapon type which people have been asking to be in the game for years. However, the game was literally unplayable for about a week of the TWO WEEK event due to server issues (you can see yourself in the reviews starting August 22nd onwards and the game forums). On top of this, in the unofficial Spiral Knights discord, people were advised to not even login to the game at a certain point in the event because there was a game breaking bug which straight up DELETED your items, and the devs still haven't fixed this yet.
I get it, there's issues sometimes in live service games and such. But if you go to a restaurant and they serve you an uncooked chicken, you would at least expect some compensation or an apology or SOMETHING. Every single other live service game I know would reward you with some kind of currency or items or whatever if there was server issues/game breaking bugs. We got absolutely nothing - no event extension, no compensation mail or anything.
On top of this, the week that I did manage to play the game, I played for exactly 15 hours and I only managed to farm about 50% of the total amount of items needed to craft the max version of the new gun (and the last 50% takes longer to get than the first 50%). Today i logged in and managed to buy another 10%, but now the prices for the materials needed to craft the gun will only rise, and I'm currently broke in game so I'm basically stuck at about 60% of the progress needed to make the new gun until they roll out the event again (could be months - we dunno).
Talking about events, I played the game recently during the "Black Kat" event, and legit played for about 30-40 hours plus grinding the event trying to find rare enemies to drop a specific item. I didn't get a single one - This is probably the first live service game I played where I've put that much time into an event and actually got nothing to show for it. It literally would have been more efficient to farm FSC (the endgame level) to make currency and just buy part of the Black Kat set. On top of this, players were hosting the boss fight for the event at 150k+ in game currency a pop (about 8~ hours of casually grinding will get you 150k), and you had to do multiple of these if you wanted to get all the items. This is actually wild to me - like a new player literally cannot participate in the event! Also, this is so toxic and greedy! Where's the community that helped each other that used to be in the game back in the old days?
I can go on and on but to top if all off, the devs actually reward players for multiboxing the game. To explain, I can run and complete the endgame dungeon FSC and get about 3-4 tokens a run, and as a casual player it would take me about 30 mins or so. What a lot of players do is multi box the game and almost quadruple their rewards by quadrupling their tokens earned. It's the same thing with the recent event - players multi-box the game client to double/triple/quadruple rewards. Sorry to break the 4th wall, but I am a human with a life and it's literally impossible for me to play the game enough for me to even acquire the event items that the game markets as "updates" unless I was to multi box which I refuse to do.
Here's my feedback - devs, please reduce the time needed to farm events. It is not an "accomplishment" to play the game for 50 hours straight within a 2 week period. I played this game back in 2012 and the game was way less predatory and time consuming than it is now, even with the elevators costing energy to go down. Secondly, the black Kat event just needs to be permanent. Who cares? The Black Kat gear would go from being super rare to being rare. Also, the recent spike storm event needs to be expanded upon and be made permanent or something, like maybe have it be a special option selectable in the clockworks or be a weekly storm thing - like an actual update. Also, remove crystals and orbs needed to level gear. Back in the day you simply went into a level, and leveled up gear by using it. Who cares? It makes things less annoying. Also, please get a community manager or something to address issues with the community as soon as they crop up. I promise if changes are made for the better I will make the review positive and encourage others to play, but as of right now I can't recommend it to anyone I know. Thanks.
