Black Friday Deal Discussion

[Z-Wave]

Here's a copy of the Feedback I wrote on Discord. I hope you're not serious about this, @Noacc, or are you? (or did I get it entirely wrong?)

My feedback:

Something is probably wrong here (or it's really not a good deal, especially for Black Friday). Here's what I mean: You say that the original price would be 60€, but if I calculate

   1.980 Kobans
+ 2.700 Kobans (= 1.000 Energy)
+ 1.050 Kobans (= 100 Combativity)
---------------------------------------------------------
=5.730 Kobans

I end up with 5.730 Kobans. I can buy 7.200 Kobans regularly for 50€ and have greater value than what you say is a regular 60€ value. Even if I pay 12x 5€ on the worst deal of 500 Kobans, I end up with 6.000 Kobans which is still better than 5.730 Kobans + 5M Ymens (in my opinion).

So basically in your deal, I pay 15€ for the 1.980 Kobans (wich is pretty much the standard price) and get the 3 other resources on top for free. But given the relatively low value of Ymens, Energy and Combativity, it's really not a good deal if you're serious about this. But maybe it's a bug and you actually have a really good Black Friday deal for us (e.g. 5.000 Kobans for 15€ or something similar). 😉

 

What do you think about this. Please correct me if I got anything of this wrong and it's actually a good deal in your opinion.

[DHarry]

The deals are getting crappier. Probably to see how far they can take this. The original deals must have sold well. 

 

I'm leaving it.

[linkdream]

[jaybee]

Yeah, the only way to fight this is never to buy those deals that offer the standard price for kobans with this 300% 400% value crap.
Remember that it's the standard price, if you really need kobans that much, you can buy them deal- and bundle-free at any time you like.

[Cantrix]

Agree. Kobans are the only thing worth buying as they give you resources, when you need them.
But seeing they continue offering those types of bundles, i can assume there are "users" willing to buy them. Not going to use the derogatory marine mammal term, just gonna say: Kinkoid leave Moby Dick alone, before you loose your player's respect.

Edited November 28, 2019 by Cantrix

[DHarry]

Well, there have been bundles that were worth it. But the success of those probably made them think how much they can squeeze from us. Probably some algorithm told them they were too generous. 

[ShadowHaamu]

Only ones that might benefit from this deal is newer players, who still actually needs energy. For most old times, that 1k energy is quite useless.

 

[DvDivXXX]

Regardless of whether we agree with their estimation of bundle value or not, there have been bundles marked as low as "200%" and others as high as "2000%" (or even a bit higher than that, IIRC). So this super special deal they themselves estimate at a 400% value can't be all that great.

The price itself is also a factor, beyond value. You could offer me a 10,000% value deal at €50, and it could actually be insane value for its price, I'm still not willing to spend 50 bucks in one go on this game. A deal at €5 or less is much more likely to be considered, even if the value is "only" estimated at, say, 2000%.

Both factors are equally important in my eyes, and to catch my interest, you need to hit the sweet spot where it's not too much money for a pretty good value. To elaborate, I bought a couple of low-cost bundles that had great value in the past, but I never even considered the Starter Offer, despite its €5 price, because one x10 Epic Pachinko spin all by itself isn't appealing enough to spend real money on as far as I'm concerned. At the other end of the spectrum, I feel that the bundles we unlock with each new world on the adventure map might have consistently great value, but they get way too expensive pretty fast in my opinion.

In this particular case, the deal doesn't have an impressive value for its price, and €15 for one deal is above my budget anyway...

Edited November 28, 2019 by DvDivXXX

[nope1]

my ninja village deal is 24.99....

[_shal_]

2 hours ago, DvDivXXX said:

Both factors are equally important in my eyes, and to catch my interest, you need to hit the sweet spot where it's not too much money for a pretty good value. To elaborate, I bought a couple of low-cost bundles that had great value in the past, but I never even considered the Starter Offer, despite its €5 price, because one x10 Epic Pachinko spin all by itself isn't appealing enough to spend real money on as far as I'm concerned. At the other end of the spectrum, I feel that the bundles we unlock with each new world on the adventure map might have consistently great value, but they get way too expensive pretty fast in my opinion.

I don't really understand foregoing the starter offer. You will pretty much not see any other offer with a better kobans/€ ratio, no matter how long you're going to play. I'd be curious to know what low-cost bundles you've seen and purchased that had better overall value. I do know that there are some randomly offered bundles nowadays that get close, but from what people have observed, the really good ones only go out to people who've never spent money before, so chances are you're not going to get any more of those.

As for the world bundles, yeah they're (getting) expensive, but I look at them as an upfront payment for the 5 months or however long it takes to get through a new world. Granted, for players who are still catching up on old worlds and going through them at significantly greater speeds than the original releases did, it gets rather more expensive.

Edited November 28, 2019 by _shal_

[DvDivXXX]

31 minutes ago, _shal_ said:

I'd be curious to know what low-cost bundles you've seen and purchased that had better overall value.

Very early on (I think I was around level 60 at the time), I purchased this:

It's by far the best bundle I was offered, and indeed that was back when I was purely F2P.  Of course, I outgrew the legendary set pretty quickly, but even that was still very useful at the time, because I had no decent equipment to speak of, and this gave me a solid base from which I was able to grow further. 4M Ymens might not seem like much now, but at the time, it was a fortune! This entire bundle helped me power through a good chunk of the early worlds, acquire and level up my first few big moneymakers, put my long-term strategy in motion, and jump-start my overall progression in the game. The kobans alone wouldn't have had anywhere near as big of an impact, imho.

About a month and a ton of levels later, I also bought the World 7 bundle, which has a similar value and had a similar impact on my game at the time. I took that one because looking at the list, I decided it was the very last one cheap enough for me to afford.

The Starter Offer might have a better koban/euro ratio, but value is relative to the use you can make of it. Early in the game, getting a bunch of kobans but nothing else wouldn't have helped me progress all that much. Now that I'm slowly but surely heading towards the middle game, I have enough kobans saved up and I get enough by playing the game that I don't really need to buy more. Maybe I'll buy it someday when I'm in the late game, if I can afford it. It's still good value in and of itself, I agree. Although I find the silver card more compelling.

Going back to the main topic here, it's interesting that Kinkoid estimated the base value of this €4 bundle at 20% more than the current €15 Black Friday offer...

[fenronin]

Since only the kobans are usefull (also combativity but only when there is something like epic or legendary days) this is really not worth it's basically the same price

[Zorba the Geek]

Black Friday, like all the so-called event days, is basically a fraud everywhere and, apart from some genuine bargains, things like flowers, perfume, cosmetics, high end digital devices and top-of-the-line feminine apparel all tend to be actually more expensive.  There are some enticements that are basically of little value.  The one exception I saw was in EB Games who were selling the SIMS 4 games and expansions for about 30% below normal retail value.  Great Xmas gifts for my foster daughter who is very into this game.

From my perspective, Black Friday (an American retail construct designed to capitalise on Thanksgiving) has, just like Halloween, no validity here in New Zealand, but, for all this, seems to be embraced by just about everybody, including mobs of kids going door to door dressed up in sheets and costumes plying us for our teeth-destroying sweets on 31 October every year.  They could be seen as an example of American cultural and capitalist imperialism being thrust on the rest of the western world as if (to the Americans) it is always a good thing.  I don't agree and see the entire American system (socio-economic and political) as deeply flawed and there is virtually nothing we should adopt here.  All these sales events have become an excuse for retailers to open our wallets for us.  Their currency is devalued by their frequency and they are no longer special occasions.

I just turn a blind eye to it all and remain resolutely unconvinced - and unencouraged.  HH's Black Friday 'sale' is no different.

[Chthugha]

I agree there. Keep that bloody commercialism away. We have our own holiday in the Netherlands (Sinterklaas, incidentally also where the name Santa Claus came from), which is celebrated on December 5th/6th. It is the time of the year for sales. Shops make massive amounts of money leading up to it. That's fine, because it is similar to how other countries celebrate Christmas... with lots of presents. Nowadays the commerce already forces that Christmas with presents idea on us as well. And now these Black Friday things come here as well. Why would we take something related to a holiday we do not have? I am seriously baffled. The result is that small shops feel pressured to also have a sale, even though they cannot do that because it leads to losses. To take it one further. Valentine's Day. What a crappy way to earn money is that. You are shit to your girlfriend. You don't give her enough flowers and nice things. Here, a day where you can  make amends, because you forget to think about it during the year. And all those commercials and the public opinion basically force you to participate. Or people will think you are a jerk.

Anyway, back on topic; the bundle is terrible, don't buy it.

[DvDivXXX]

1 hour ago, Zorba the Geek said:

I just turn a blind eye to it all and remain resolutely unconvinced - and unencouraged.  HH's Black Friday 'sale' is no different.

That was one long borderline off-topic rant to arrive at this one line agreeing with us that this deal is bad. ^^ I largely agree with you, though, for what it's worth.

And New Zealand is at least an English-speaking country! Can you imagine that "Black Friday" has been a thing in France as well, for the past few years? ^^ It came out of nowhere, and stores actually call it "Black Friday" in English, not translated (even though most people here only have vague notions of English at best). But it seems to be taking off anyway, for some reason.

All that aside, regardless of the occasion, there are good deals, and there are bad deals. HH is no exception, like most games, to be fair. This particular bundle is a miss, but they also offer great deals sometimes. Just like events, game features, and so on. We've had spectacular ones, and some that were... let's say less than ideal. Overall, the game is still improving over time.

[Zorba the Geek]

4 minutes ago, Chthugha said:

I agree there. Keep that bloody commercialism away. We have our own holiday in the Netherlands (Sinterklaas, incidentally also where the name Santa Claus came from), which is celebrated on December 5th/6th. It is the time of the year for sales. Shops make massive amounts of money leading up to it. That's fine, because it is similar to how other countries celebrate Christmas... with lots of presents. Nowadays the commerce already forces that Christmas with presents idea on us as well. And now these Black Friday things come here as well. Why would we take something related to a holiday we do not have? I am seriously baffled. The result is that small shops feel pressured to also have a sale, even though they cannot do that because it leads to losses. To take it one further. Valentine's Day. What a crappy way to earn money is that. You are shit to your girlfriend. You don't give her enough flowers and nice things. Here, a day where you can  make amends, because you forget to think about it during the year. And all those commercials and the public opinion basically force you to participate. Or people will think you are a jerk.

Anyway, back on topic; the bundle is terrible, don't buy it.

Great post!! Our thoughts are in accord.  Santa Claus - St Niklaus, perhaps.  I understand he was more than the patron saint of gift giving, but of kindness and love to all, especially concerning the suffering of children.  How much we have forgotten that in our neo-liberal world of today, even how much we are expected to atone for a year of neglect of our spouses or bfs/gfs.  Maybe, to be fair, this is not true for everybody.  Even worse for me are all the flowers that have been cut and sold for enormous sums, only to die a few days later.  Here in New Zealand the red roses are bred and raised to have no scent whatsoever.  Even the wonderful sweet clove smell of carnations is lacking today.  How rotten is that; the big charm of roses and carnations is their beautiful and unique perfumes, but women still hold the new breeds to their noses and sniff by some involuntary reflex in some wishful thinking that they are still fragrant.  It is symbolic of the emptiness and superficiality of the commercially-driven lives we lead.  And yes, it didn't take me long to realise the bundle is a crock!  The way for HH to get the message is for a lot of people not to take up their 'offer'.

[Zorba the Geek]

18 minutes ago, DvDivXXX said:

That was one long borderline off-topic rant to arrive at this one line agreeing with us that this deal is bad. ^^ I largely agree with you, though, for what it's worth.

And New Zealand is at least an English-speaking country! Can you imagine that "Black Friday" has been a thing in France as well, for the past few years? ^^ It came out of nowhere, and stores actually call it "Black Friday" in English, not translated (even though most people here only have vague notions of English at best). But it seems to be taking off anyway, for some reason. 

All that aside, regardless of the occasion, there are good deals, and there are bad deals. HH is no exception, like most games, to be fair. This particular bundle is a miss, but they also offer great deals sometimes. Just like events, game features, and so on. We've had spectacular ones, and some that were... let's say less than ideal. Overall, the game is still improving over time.

The English and French have always been at war over something, especially the pre-eminence of of their languages.  Since HH is a French company(?) this issue seems very pertinent.  But off-topic rant indeed.  I completely agree with you.  As I said to Chthugha the message to HH whether or not we like the bundle is how much we take it up.  If we don't do this they may do a rethink.

[Mihai]

Black friday sales are horrible, even the "good stuff" like nice TVs get specd down for Black Friday LMAO! You don't buy what you researched weeks/months in advance, because they downgrade it for the sales.