JustVisiting

Thanks for the positive feedback - with forums I think you tend to get back what you put in and I like taking appart systems with lots of moving parts. There's always some new interaction you hadn't spotted before. I hope I'm not stepping on your mod toes here, but you're right about this not being the appropriate place for this discussion and I thought I'd break this of into its own thread myself so I could work through my thoughts on your suggestions

I wanted to look at the XP/Koban trade off that was being discussed here in a little more detail. Before going further, I will say that I’m not convinced there is a right or wrong answer to this – at least a right answer that could be reached without delving into machine learning systems, so personal opinion will make a difference – and that I’m using my own situation to draw a baseline. The case for other players may vary. The previous discussion was related to the value of boosters and looking to extrapolate the optimum balance from the league. Is it better to make more Kobans or make more XP? @DvDivXXX felt that I might be better placed playing without boosters and possibly dropping down a league to increase the XP gained. The first thing I wanted to look at is what value in terms of XP I would gain for playing without boosters. Here’s my results from last week (with boosters), which saw me finish 17th with 32 performances I know I could have won unplayed: My point total at position 17 was 3788. I couldn’t take any further wins as that would have put me above 16 and resulted in me being promoted, which I didn’t want this week. I could perhaps have grabbed a loss, but for 50XP I didn’t feel the risk of being inadvertently promoted to be worth it. So I’ve constructed 3 scenarios as an effort to gain a range for what a lack of boosters would do for me: a reduction in the points by 10%, 20% and 30%. I’ve stopped at 30% as I feel there is a ceiling to how much of a gain in XP can be made which I’ll point out later.* These comparisons use some assumed averages, those being 250XP and 20pts for a win. I’m ignoring losses altogether as these are XP inefficient so non-desirable outcomes. 20pts is maybe a little too high, but is a nice round number to work with and the difference shouldn’t distort things too much. 10% reduction in points without boosters This would allow an extra 379 to be earned without promotion, meaning approximately 19 additional wins and an extra 4750XP/week. 20% reduction in points without boosters This would allow an extra 758 to be earned without promotion, meaning approximately 38 additional wins and an extra 9500XP/week. 30% reduction in points without boosters This would allow an extra 1136 to be earned without promotion, meaning approximately 57 additional wins and an extra 14250XP/week. Depending on the % point reduction from not using boosters, the above shows that the XP gain looks to be potentially significant. However, there are other considerations. Firstly, as noted before the comparison, I only left 32 sure wins unplayed. This means that if the reduction in points was 20% or more not using boosters I would run out of wins available (as the point reduction allows for more wins than I left). As such the full XP gain would not be available to me and I’d have to pad that out with losses with far poorer XP to pts efficiency. Secondly, without the boosters I would have had less wins available to me overall – I simply could not have beaten all of the players I had beaten already without them - meaning that the 32 sure wins isn’t accurate. I couldn’t say what that total would have been but it would likely be far lower. Alongside the above the wins that would be the most likely to go first would be the higher level players (I pick off high level wins first and beat a half dozen or so players 100+ levels ahead of me with reasonable regularity). Not all wins are equal (despite my crude estimations above). The higher the level of player you’re beating, the larger the XP prize. So the wins you cut off are likely to be the most valuable first. The higher level players generally gain me 10%+ more XP than the 250 I estimated above. These are also the wins likely to result in the fewest points gained. So it is the most efficient wins that are lost first. The above could be offset by dropping down a league tier, where the quality of player would be lower and the number of wins available would be greater. However, this has its own drawbacks. Firstly the poorer quality of player is likely to exhibit as lower level of player. Lower level of player = lower XP reward for winning. Also add to that the likely higher point score for playing against lower level players and the extra points that are made available are likely to get eaten up in less fights. *This is where I feel the ceiling I mentioned at the start is likely to come into play. Secondly, dropping down a level is going to reduce the potential Koban win. Between a 16-30 bracket placement at S3 vs D1, the Koban difference is 77/week or 308 in a four week period. Over a similar 4 week period and forgetting the considerations noted above, I could gain an extra 19000XP (10%), 38000XP (20%) or 57000XP (30%). At my current position, Level 336, it takes around 52000XP to move up a level, so this is between 0.3-1 additional level/month. So the choice here is somewhere around 300 Koban vs 1 level. And this takes us to the secondary consequence of this decision (secondary as in degrees of separation rather than second on a list). If you pick the XP over the Koban, then you have fewer Koban available to invest in Mythic girls. By my recent estimations a Mythic now costs roughly 1.6k Kobans. So that’s almost a reduction in Koban of 20% of a Mythic girl over a month. Fewer Mythic girls means a lower likelihood of being able to field the optimum team. This change is far harder to quantify in any meaningful manner, but it seems like it should be considered. My intention was to move to D2 this week, meaning that the difference between that and S3 would actually increase to 153/week or 612/4 weeks – close to 40% of a Mythic. As I said at the start, I don’t think there is a right or a wrong answer here. There is a trade-off. Different players are going to have different priorities. The purpose of this post was to help me align my own thinking on the matter and try and lay out the different factors that are worth consideration on this nuanced issue. I’m sure other members will see points that maybe I’ve missed. Right now I think DvDivXXX is likely right that I could gain more XP by going booster free in D1. Personally, I think I’d rather move up to D2 with the additional Koban gain and then drop boosters if possible once I'm comfortable achieving a 16-30 position there. This results in moving up the levels a little slower and have more Mythic girls. I’m sure others would take the higher level over the Mythic girls. My rational on this is that at the present time there is an upper level cap (500). As long as that remains in place I’m always gaining ground on the most advanced players in terms of level. So taking a little longer to get there isn’t as big a problem as having more gaps in the Mythic girl line-up, that would mean being competitive on less week on reaching the destination (keeping in mind that the Mythic girls have short windows of availability and can’t just be picked-up whenever you’re ready). That’s my take based on the above. Would be great to hear other opinions! 😊

Thanks. I started using it 2-3 weeks back but had never noticed this. Could you enlighten me as to what benefit there is to knowing the historic distributions of poses has been on the champion? Most of the data in the script seems to have some application, but I'm not seeing one for that.

So, an update that wasn't detailed I'm guessing. Earlier today (at least that's the first time I've seen it) the Champions (not Club) started showing this field: If I'm understanding this correctly, this is % boosters for specific positions outside of the 100% booster that matching the champions position grants. Have I just missed this in a previous update? It's not impacting all of the Champions by the looks of things:

I will also be interested to see what impact a 90%+ drop in the MyP drop rate in the PoP will have on the attitudes to buying boosters in the shop...... The ability to get these boosters from orbs has just been substantially reduced. That said, I still feel there's plenty of opportunity for those who are prepared to buy them in the shop.

I *kind of* disagree with you about this. I, personally, have used boosters from reasonably early on - long before legendary boosters were superior to epic and in fact, even back to rare boosters. I do not think that was/is a bad strategy at all. It all comes down to whether you are having to spend Koban to get them and if so how much. [Note - it wasn't until S2 that I started targeting 16-30 rather than just moving up each week, so I probably over-spent Koban wise a little in the first month or so while getting to this level and having to buy Rare boosters. After this though, I'd moved up to Epic boosters and was mostly picking these up from other sources.] Your assertion is that you shouldn't use boosters pre-D2. I'm in D1. I could probably manage D1 without boosters now and still finish 30+ (I end up having to leave around 100 natural regens unplayed each week atm with boosters), but when I moved up I could not have. This is symptomatic of the approach I have taken throughout. I'm effectively always in the bottom 10% of my league in terms of level. Two weeks ago I was the 2nd lowest level player in my bracket. Finished 16th. Last week I was the 14th lowest out of 108. I finished 17th. Finishing 16-30 in D1 (which I have every week since moving up) wins me an extra 77 Kobans over the same finish in S3. If I was to buy boosters in the shop that's an extra 5 boosters. While I do pick-up the occasional Cordy, I don't buy 5/week. Most of my boosters come via orbs. So I could have continued to play non-boosted in S3, but I likely would have banked less Kobans and gained less XP sitting in a lower league. This has always been the real balance for me - milking the most Koban out of the league, with the knowledge that if I push up too far I may get more Koban in league prize, but it could make the XP Daily Contests more difficult to win if I don't have enough wins available and as I have a decent success rate with them I want to keep them accessible. That Koban source is a bigger opportunity to bank Kobans than the league for lower level players. And to win the XP contests, it helps (a LOT) to be able to beat higher level players in the league. And boosters make that a lot easier. So even if you end up spending all of the gain from moving up a league on boosters, if you're winning more Koban in the XP DCs you're still coming out ahead. The reasons I only say "kind of disagree" is that i) I would be the first to admit there have been some errors in my strategy as I learned and ii) I'm not sure I'm a good model of your standard player. Throughout my time playing (ten months to the day) I've tended to use boosters. Some of that may have been misguided, specifically because you've made me question my approach in Seasons (I'm now tinkering with alternative strategies to see if they work for me). I thought the boosters helped me get further through Seasons faster using the non-optimal approach I was using (playing every natural regen). Getting through Seasons helped a lot in terms of winning DC, getting the girl in the LC and getting through the PoA. It now seems to me that I could have achieved the same results by playing less in Seasons but winning more Mojo on each individual performance. So I would concede that my use of boosters to help progress through Seasons early on may have been misguided. But this was also the lesser of the reasons I used them. Alongside this I have unusual work/life conditions. The time I have available to play is likely radically different to many other players. That likely makes me more competitive than the majority of players of an equal level in the lower leagues and exaggerates the benefits of the boosters for me (if I can be available more frequently to look for good battles then I'm going to get more out of the boosters). It may well be the case that if you removed the early misconception and the current work/life flexibilty that my view would be more closely aligned with your own on this issue.

If the figures @430i posted above are reflective of the overall current drop rates - and I believe they likely are - then you're talking a 40% drop in 10xGP and a 90+% drop in MyP. It's time to change strategies. Even for the hoarders, the MyP, 10xGP, Items and Ymen stashes are not going to be sustainable at the former usage levels. It may even be worth letting the next few weeks of DC go, while people deplete their stashes without the possibility of replenishing.

*Sigh* Those are very strong deviations away from the previous trend. So by the looks of things, KK realised that the GP orbs patch was being received very negatively, so undid it. But they wanted to achieve the same overall results in terms of killing the orbs being given out, so they adjusted the drop rates. #Hoodwinked.

Yes. I've had 3x MyP since the GP orbs were removed where previously it wasn't uncommon to see 3x from a single 7h round. But I'm reluctant to draw any conclusions at this stage as it's still a small sample and looking for others experiencing the same introduces selection bias (as those who aren't are less likely to respond). That said, it's trivial to change the drop rates and is easily disguised as the automatic response is going to be 'it's just the RNG'. If the objective of the GP orbs was to dilute the MyP orbs, then simply increasing the drop rate of the 10xGP/tickets/shards and reducing the MyP drop rate would be a far more subtle way of doing it.

So, nearly 6 days in, 3x/day: I've received the XP once. Still a small sample size, but it seems unlikely that the XP is at 50%+......

I think our experiences of the game have differed fairly significantly here. I was able to max out the 6 Temp PoP pretty early on. The PoP do scale and the lower levels require far less to run. I had to avoid using the auto assign, to ensure I maximised my capacity, but I was able to do so. I also hadn't upgraded the Perm PoP fully, but still, all the Temp PoP running consistently plus the Perm PoP I had access to at the time. I actually worried that hitting Heroes University and opening up the 3rd Perm PoP would prevent me being able to run all at once, but was comfortably able to run that as well. But even setting that aside, simply because a player cannot play all 6 Temp PoP at once does not mean that those resources aren't for them. As mentioned in my previous post, I found the Temp PoP Ymen pretty critical to being able to sustain enough of a balance to buy XP/Aff. As the imbalance in those is what a LOT of players complain about later, starting buying early seems pretty important. I don't agree with you on some of the above (shrug). Primarily because I think you're over-estimating how long it takes to access 9xPoP. I was using 6xTemp PoP before I had access to all 3 Perm PoP. Your assumptions seem strongly rooted in the concept that a) you're going to be past the need for Ymen or tickets before you can access all 9 PoP and b) that PoP are only valuable to, and as such the rewards should only be targeted at, players who can run all 9 at once. I don't feel those assumptions are necessarily true. I totally get that these rewards become garbage to you as the game progresses. But I don't see it as at all unreasonable to have various Temp PoP targeted at players at different stages. The Ymen is already piling up for me. The Champion tickets I can see going that way in the near future (though I've been using 9xPoP for several months now (4-6?) and I still find the tickets useful right now). That's fine. I've just progressed from where I was when those particular PoP were useful to me. It doesn't make those PoP irrelevant in the game, it just makes them irrelevant to me. Much like your attitude to the Harem cash. I'm quickly approaching that stage myself (I was literally thinking that it's becoming a pointless burden to claim this cash yesterday), I don't believe I will be putting that effort in this time next month. But that doesn't mean it's a reward I'd like to see taken away. It's far too valuable in the early stages of the game. And helping players through those early stages is part of what helps replenishes the pool of active players in the latter stages of the game and keeps it interesting. I guess it's just a case of different experiences/pov.

I understand that you're at a place in the game where these rewards are garbage, but I think its worth considering that not everyone is. For me - at level 335 - I don't have any of the Club Champion girls. Prior to the change in battle system, these were 2nd tier 5 stars (I already had enough newer, stronger 5 stars), so not really worth the effort. With the change in battle system, I'm now very engaged with getting these girls. For me the tickets are far from garbage. They're still likely one of the least valuable returns, but I wouldn't want to see them removed. Likewise, when I was around level 200, the Ymen wasn't useless. Buying all the Aff/XP in the shop would quickly have drained my Ymen supplies without the Temp PoP. And there was always the PoA spend at the end of the month. Of course this has changed for me now, but I still understand that the Ymen rewards have value for lower level players. And the Legendary Boosters - I could still use more Cordys (I'm still stock piling MyP orbs, so haven't spent any in around a month). For players who have not yet maxed out their Perm PoP the Legendary Boosters save them 15/90 Koban a pop. This is again a need that goes away as you advance, but that Temp PoP will be valuable for some players lower down the level progression. Different stages of the game present different challenges and different needs. Not every reward is targeted at every level of player. The rewards have to support the entire ecosystem of players. That said, Epic Books/Gifts? That seems a pretty paultry reward even for lower level players........

Tbh, while I don't consider this a good change, I don't think it's anywhere near as significant as the short lived reduction of the drop rate on the MyP or GPx10 in the Perm PoP was last week, nor do I feel the change is as significant as the Mythic Boosters could be. Legendary boosters are next to worthless for anyone with the Perm PoP maxed, but they do save Kobans for lower level players. And I accept that it's not possible to create single features that pleases every player at every stage of the game. With Epic Books/Gifts, the difference in generation rates is so inconsequential as to be non-relevant. Overall I'd say that for many players these Temp PoP are barely worth switching on. I wouldn't bother if I wasn't already going to be in that screen. So while I'd say this week is a loss for players, given the reduced occurence of the EpP and Koban Temp PoP's, across the two weeks imo most players are coming out ahead.

To update the above for DvDiv's 5SP strategy, the additional 5th booster, which you only gain 6 shards from, would save: 14.56x6 = ~88 fewer fights 88x1.8 = ~159 fewer Koban 159-90 = 69 additional Koban saved And you'd have 5 extra shards left over. And you'd have to do half as many fights overall.

To quickly answer this: - Yes looking at the savings from the SP booster. (the AM that was there was a 'too early to be thinking error') - These are from my actual results rather than looking at theoretical averages from elsewhere. So the originial Kosts (hehe) in Kobans are the ACTUAL costs (starting balance - finishing balance) rather than buying every single fight. So these will have factored in natural regen and likely leftover Combativity from the previous month. Perhaps even some of the Seasons Combativity from the current month. - The Kost of Combativitity is counted per fight rather than per refill (36/20 = 1.8 Kobans). - The Kost of the SP booster is accounted for in the 'Net Saving' line. If each shard requires 14.56 fights, reducing the number of shards needed by 11 reduces the fights needed by 11x14.56 = ~160/SP. If each fight Kosts 1.8 Koban, this means that you save 160x1.8 = 288 Koban/SP used. However this fails to account for the 90 Koban spent buying the SP booster. So, reduce the saving by 90 Koban, giving a Net Saving of 198 Koban/SP booster used. - So the total saving for 4xSP boosters is 198x4 = 792 Koban. This reduces the price of a Mythic over the 2 events from 2399 Koban/Mythic to 2399 - 792 = 1607 Koban. - Covering that as a f2p player is very achivable imo. Assuming a 30 day month the Koban income is approximately as follows: 25/day completing contests = 750 Koban Seaons = 70 Koban Leagues (16-30 finish S3) = 308 Koban Daily Calendar = 25 Koban PoP = 150 Koban (estimating a payout of 5 Koban/day) Total = 1303 That leaves a deficit of 304 Koban that you need to make up from Daily Contests and the standard monthly Mission events that provide extra Koban (I know this is a fixed amount that could have been accounted for above, but I haven't looked to see what it is). That's only ~a top 4 finish 2-3 days. As a f2p I manage significantly more than that. If you move up to D1 leagues instead of S3 there is no deficit, so even counting the increased price you came to you would be able to cover it with the Missions or Daily Contests. It is fair to acknowledge that if you're lower than S3 it's going to be tougher, but the lower leagues are quick and easy to move up through and it's arguable whether you really NEED Mythics even in D1. But even saying you get nothing from leagues, that still leaves you with more than enough to cover a Mythic every 2nd month with a bundle of extra Kobans to spare for upgrading PoP (to date I looked to pick-up one every 3rd month, in line with when KH Mythics were being released). Though some of the savings would be off set as you would get less Mythic Pachinko orbs, Champions tickets and Dating tokens. Hope the above makes sense to you.

This is over a small sample size I realise, but I thought some others may find it interesting. I ran through the figures on the two Mythics I've picked up so far and here are the results I'm getting (on Nutaku, so x6 Koban cost for HH, and using single fights rather than 50x): Original cost 4798 Total Fights 2912 Fights/Shard 14.56 Fight Reduction/SP 160 Koban saving/SP 288 Net Saving/SP (-cost) 198 Total Saving (4xAM/Mythic) 1584 % Saving 33% Previous cost/Mythic 2399 Current cost/Mythic 1607 Rough estimation - if the above holds true it's in the ball park of f2p players being able to afford to pick up a Mythic/month. Doing so would be tight in Affection terms, leaving you not a great deal of room to upgrade other girls, but is possible. That booster is a HUGE positive in terms of levelling the playing field. And my previous belly aching about how tight the Koban margins were for f2p players is somewhat moot.

Lol - I never realised that. Never had reason to try! Very useful to know.

Younger players would also need to watch out for the regular Boss girls as well. The first 3 worlds are clear for me. But after that I still have some of the 2nd/3rd Tier Boss girls to collect. Buring through SP shards on low value Boss girls would be unavoidable unless you've cleared the world or already have all of the girls for a Tier and have some ways to go before opening the next Tier. I also suspect that some of the reissue events are going to start occurring on the further through Villians. So this may impact mid-low high level players as well.

It's also worth considering single battles vs 50x blasts in this scenario. If you're doing singles, you'll play exactly 11, then reboost. If you're doing 50x, you are going to overshoot at points and get some shards after the booster has been used up. So you're less likely to hit the 50 exactly and likely to walk away with more than 5 extra booster shards left.

With the greatest of respect, and while I understand your anxiety, I don't feel that this has actually been a substantive barrier. The MD events have been pretty consistently varied with all days of the week getting some: Dec Mon-Wed Jan Mon-Wed Fed Thur-Sat Mar Thur-Sat April Mon-Wed May Tues/Sun June Mon-Thur July Fri-Mon, Fri-Sun Aug Mon-Thur, Mon-Wed Sep Fri-Mon In terms of frequency (numbers in parenthesize represent the frequence that the event ended on that day, likely providing ample available shards - doesn't include reissue events): Mon 6 (2) Tues 7 Wed 6 (3) Thur 4 (2) Fri 5 Sat 5 (2) Sun 4 (1) On that front I think KK have actually done a reasonably good job of not excluding anyone by rotation. And with the format currently employed, even if you HAVE to play on a start of the event day, you've got a window every couple of hours to blast 50x. Increases the cost by a couple of hundred Koban, but still achievable. The other point in this respect would be that as you have to be hawking for unboosted opponents in D3, if RL prevents someone from accessing the MD events, chances are it's also going to stop them competing in the league too.

I didn't realise that it was a revelation that a) I'd struggled with at all or b) qualifies for the use of the adverb "finally", but thanks for the positive vibes 👍

In all fairness, I should roll back the above a little. I made a tweek to my booster usage from 2xLedgendary Cordys + 1xChlo to 2xCordys + 1xGin and recovered half of the lost impressions. It is still down, but not as substantially as I initially though.

@GeorgeMTO Apologies - the previous post wasn't brilliantly focused in nature. The core point is that the game mechanics are now stretched so tight for f2p players with the introduction of Mythic girls, that if you Kobanize a feature that isn't going to ultimately return more Kobans than the investment, the feature becomes an undesirable investment. If the answer to the reduced Champions impressions is 'spend Kobans on the new booster for Champions performances', the Club Champions become far more difficult for lower level players. The Kobans cannot really be spared from elsewhere.

I agree, that is the likely answer - "buy the new Luxurious Watch Mythic Booster". However, the point would remain the same as with the issues highlighted above - if young players spend Koban on the Booster, they're saving less. Aggressive saving will get a lower level f2p player a Mythic girl in 2-3 months. 2-3 months of grinding is a LOT for a single girl. 4-6 over a year. If you have no Mythic girls you're not likely to be able to compete when you move up to the top leagues. This dynamic is only going to exaggerate now that there seems to be a clear intention to continue releasing a Mythic girl every months. In a few years it'll be nigh on impossible to compete in D3 regularly without a dozen or more Mythic girls. If the idea is to encourage players to spend more on Boosters for other aspects of the game, then the f2p/lower level p2p players are going to have to choose between gaining Mythics and trying to get any worthwhile return from the Champions performances. We're already almost certainly going to have to spend 540/90 every ~2nd day for the AM booster*. While getting those 5 star Legendary girls out of the Club is unquestionably useful, I suspect banking the Koban for the Mythic girl will ultimately benefit f2p players more. Without having increased the availability of Kobans, the 'spend more Kobans' option ultimately, again, benefits the old players who are taking home big league prizes. These are the players who can spend more Kobans without it detrimentally impacting their ability to remain competitive. For everyone else, this approach unquestionably pushes the game fruther towards the full blown p2p. I would also suspect that these are also the players with the least to gain from participating in the Clubs anyway, as they already have the girls and are getting just a little Affection each run through. -------------------------------------- *As I'm only in D1 and not looking to advance this week - there seems to me to have been an exodus from the upper leagues as D1 has been flooded with level 400+ players in the last 2 weeks for me, making it tougher to compete already - I'm going to see this week if I can still hit ranking 16-30 without the AM booster. I'm consistently 16-20, but things seem to have got a lot tougher over the last 2 weeks. I'll hold off on the AM booster until I'm looking for advancement and then go through the same process in D2 to see if I need it on all the time.

It should have occurred to me, but it didn't. I've just done my first challenge in the Club Champion system since the roll out. The removed Legendary booster slot has made a BIG difference. If the first ticket is anything to go by, I'm doing less than 2/3 of the impressions/ticket that I was on the last pass, with a stronger team (pretty lucky team draw). It took my club 7 days to do a single pass (though I do suspect that many member may be trying to re-stock their ticket wallets after the PoA at the end of August), so if this reflected for other players we're going to be getting 3-4 plays through a month tops. I might gently suggest - as I do think KK follows these conversations - that moving back up to 4 Legendary slots with the 3 Mythic slots may be a little more cluttered visually, but would probably be better for the game. Otherwise a review of the Champion impression targets may be worth consideration.