So NS2 uses a energy system or key system, which puts your progress at a fixed rate. I dont think theres anything inherently wrong with this, but all of the reviews from the app store and Reddit seem to bash and hate this idea and I understand why. With that said, I think theres a very simple solution to this. So when you fight a boss in a main adventure dungeon you have to use a key to fight it. It uses the key whether you beat the boss or not. It takes 3 keys to finish a dungeon given you dont fail the boss fights.
R/nonstopknight: Playable with one thumb and designed to instantly pick up and enjoy – the never-ending quest of Nonstop Knight awaits!
Then there are shard and coin portals which cost 3 keys to enter. The issue that people have with this is that you have a cap of 10 keys. They take 20 minutes per key to replenish, so a little over 3 hours is what it takes to completely refill your keys. Most energy systems in games give a generous gap for sleeping without capping on energy for the above casual players that want to be as efficient as possible.
You can't do that with how the key timing works. On top of that, 10 keys will give you 10-15 minutes of gameplay before you have no reason to have the game open. Killing trash mobs before a boss fight does nothing for you, literally. Which im not saying is a bad thing, but with how the first nonstop knight is, this game is a very different change of pace. Personally, even with the annoying key system, and small amount of content (its in soft-launch, little content is to be expected) I still love the game so far, ive only had it for a few days and im at 130 power for anyone who will understand that.
But the key system needs to be tweaked. Good news is that solutions to this are very simple, im not a game developer by any means but the fixes would just be a matter and replacing a few numbers in the code.
My proposed solutions or ideas are these: 1. Add a cap increase every other level. Ill assume this game has a level cap and that that level cap is 50. So the endgame key cap would be 35 in this hypothetical. So now when you get near endgame, the key cap would easily not be wasted through sleeping and you can play for significantly longer periods of time, at a time.
Another idea is to possible double the key cap to 20. I dont think the 20 minute timer is much of an issue, I just think the key cap needs to have some sort of rework. Of course this is a business so they would need some sort of monetary value. Perhaps, dare I say it, you could buy a raised key cap? I know this wouldnt be a perfect solution for an average or f2p player, but it would be better than nothing. While on the topic of money, key refills should be lowered to $1 instead of $2, especially with the current system.
$2 for an extra 10-15 minutes of playing is silly, if it were a dollar, I think they would out profit the refills being sold for $2, regardless of how the key system is managed.Im pretty damn tired as im writing this so apologies for poor formatting and possibly jumbled sentences, but hopefully this would catch someone at kopla games attention or at least get some discussion going so that when this game goes global, there will be a smooth player-friendly progression, and hopefully there will be a reason or incentive to always be playing, rather than opening the game in small spurts. Not everyone are basement dwellers with no work that just sit home and can login once every 3 hours to use keys and never sleep as well.
Wtf were the devs thinking? You have a life and go to work and stay at work 8-10 hours for which you cannot login and check the game during this time. They need to rethink their system or just increase the key cap or time for it to recharge so you can go 8-10 hours without having to login.like Idle Heroes which has 10 hours loot cap from being offline and AFK arena with 12 hours cap before you have to collect your stuff.