Club Champions (critique and game design)

[Pelinor]

The Club Champions feature is based on the Champions game feature with a few design changes.

1. The reward for completing a stage (beating him) is a random number of shards (instead of a piece of legendary equipment) towards getting a legendary 5-star girl

2. Unlike Champions, Club Champions is a team effort designed to allow all members of the club to participate

3. After getting the girl the reward is a single legendary affection item (instead of 10 kisses, when completed, in Champions)

The feature is obviously designed for the players over level 400 who no longer have a place to use their HH tickets. Winning the girl when you are in the 300's is doable (six of us did it against Chad). Getting the girl if you are below level 300 is a multi-month process (unless the RNG gods smile on you)

IMHO the feature has flaws and is misssing any element to promote club cohesivness and growth. This topic is a place for us to share what is good and bad about the feature and explore ways in which it could be improved. Keep your comments civil when discussing ideas and suggestions. If you need to vent make it a seperate posting so we can offer you a towel or drink.

Edited March 4, 2021 by Pelinor

[Pelinor]

As a conceptual idea the Club Champion idea has merit but I would have called him a Visiting Duellist (keep your thoughts pure) since the dude is not the club's champion and he goes away, to be replaced by another Champion at the end of each month (+/- the 24 hour cooldown period and koban spending).

Edited March 3, 2021 by Pelinor
added a touch of humor

[Pelinor]

Comment Critique: Rewards.

Shards are given as the reward for beating the champion until a player gains 100+ shards and gets the girl. This reminds me of the least popular of the Pachinko games (Mythic Pachinko) where you play three games and get 10 shards plus two other items (avatars or legendary) for the cost of 840 kobans. The average shard drop for players in our club has been 7.1 per champion defeat and I strongly suspect this is by design and not the result of bad RNG returns.

The game dynamics say most players under level 400 will not spend kobans for any of the Pachinkos on a regular basis while those above level 400 start spending kobans because of their increased koban income. Still, and with that caveat in mind, 840 kobans would roughly equal 7-9 HH tickets in the minds of the majority and should merit a similar reward.

Once you obtain the girl the results are similar to a single Epic Pachinko game where you get a single legendary item or girl for 540 kobans. The key differences are you already have the girl and with Club Champions the item is always a legendary affection item. Using the reasoning shown above the 540 koban cost feels like 4-5 HH tickets.

Lets try a different approach and play a Sex Champions stage (I'll use Morningwood for my example). For low to midlevel players a stage will take 5-15 tickets with a guaranteed reward of a legendary equipment item. With the Club Champion our club spent an average of 20.74 tickets this last time around and the rewards was 7.1 shards. The "smell test" under both methods of figuring things out (pachinko and regular champions) screams of imbalanced play for almost everyone.

Edited March 3, 2021 by Pelinor
fixed a typo

[Pelinor]

Comment Critique: Participation

When any player joins in towards defeating the interloping Champion they receive a monetary reward per ticket used. The reward is roughly equal to what they would receive when battling a regular Champion. In addition to this they add to the number of impressions needed to achieve victory. Those impressions are expressed as a "shard range." The shard range can be as few as 1-2 up to 1-100 (depending on how many players are involved in the group activity). On the surface this looks good, but the sad fact is the floor is always one shard, no matter how many are contributing and no matter how much a player devotes in obtaining a victory the games RNG could still deem the expenditure as being worth a single shard.

Participation under this feature is also something which must be sold to players 50 levels (or more) below the highest level participating member. Sold on the concept that helping the club win is worth the price, in tickets, which they provide. The easy way is to provide a single ticket if you know it is going to take a year or more before you get the girl. The single ticket gives you a small amount of cash and at least one shard (three if you're lucky).

Participation at the higher levels depends on what their ticket reserve looks like and how determined they are to win, no matter what the cost or reward which, as I said above, could be a single shard for investing dozens of tickets towards the goal!

Last, there is no "Teach us Master" element involved where higher level players could help out a willing participant in achieving results they might otherwise be unable to accomplish. Taking all of this into account a club must struggle to discover and navigate a path where every single player in the club doesn't feel like they are being cheated or put upon to help the highest level players get another girl, at thier expense.

Edited March 3, 2021 by Pelinor
finished a sentence

[Pelinor]

Comment Critique: Ongoing Commitment

Until someone gathers enough shards to get the girl their commitment is straight forward (clear), beat on the champion/duellist until the objective has been achieved. Once achieved the reward to continue is a single legendary affection item, the most expensive item being a pair of panties worth $625,500. To gain this prize the higher level player (in this case higher level refers to a player at or above level 300) is expected to gleefully invest multiple HH tickets to help others get the girl.

Some players will do this because they like beating the club's opponent but the disgust with this "finisher's reward" is found on more topics in the forums than anyone can reasonably keep track of. What is needed is an award system that provides a satisfaction with doing the job for these players. Without such, clubs will start seeing defeat, not because the club is small but because the club members who have the resources feel both insulted and cheated by the game system. It is clear this aspect of the feature requires a radical shift if it is to remain a viable aspect of the game. 

Edited March 4, 2021 by Pelinor

[Pelinor]

Proposal 1. Rewards grouping

Instead of a simple shard award lets consider the idea of reward groupings loosely based on the Pachinko games.

Under this system participating players would receive both shards and one item (epic or better) per ten tickets invested (up to a maximum of five items) towards visiting champion combat.

Players would also have the option of gifting tickets to other members of the club with a maximum of ten tickets per player gifted and a second maximum of five in club donations. Put another way, you can give 5 club members up to 10 tickets each. Each gift/donation of ten tickets would be worth another item reward for the giftee. Thereby limiting the number of items any single player can recieve under this system to shards + 5 items (combat) + 5 items (club support) = shard drop + 10 items.

Example 1: I use 50 tickets in direct combat and stop. My reward is the shard drop plus five items of some type (epic or better)

Example 2: I use 20 tickets in combat. Then I gift 5 club members 10 tickets each so they can participate. My reward is the shard drop plus seven items (2+5=7)

Example 3: I go nuts and use 100 tickets in combat then gift 5 of my friends the maximum 10 ticket gift. My reward is the shard drop plus ten items (maximum combat bonus is 5 plus the 5 gifts = 10) 

[SoggyShorts]

I believe that many of the imbalances and disincentives you speak of (and with which I wholeheartedly agree) could be remedied by the simple expedient of removing the ticket requirement and enforcing a 15 minute cooldown (no koban refesh).

In this way, weaker players who have the time to "no-life" the duelist can do so while not suffering the opportunity cost vs the sex champions.  The impression burden could thus be shifted to the player base that would otherwise consume far more resources than stronger members, and since those players are also frequently ymen-strapped, they would have incentive beyond a better shard "range" (I strongly disagree with the 1-shard floor) to hit often.

The timer would still ensure that stronger players help to defeat the duelist, but we would be able to more effectively manage position in the impression ranking to give the larger ranges to the aggressive junior players because they did a larger percentage of the impression.  Removing the ticket constraint could effectively increase participation, turn an onerous resource drain into a resource pool, and make the feature far more team-playable while increasing overall engagement with the game, which is good for the developer's bottom line.

The finisher reward is ridiculously anti-cooperative.  It helps to create a "got mine" mindset in which players consume large numbers of tickets (quickly, fueled by kobans) in order to beat one another to the largest possible shard range, and once they have obtained the prize, not hit for the remainder of the month.  Or worse yet, hit once for their aff item (so far, we haven't seen that in our club, but I'd bet that it happens). 

It is my belief that the CC wasn't designed to be played cooperatively at all.  The reward structure, impression and shard dynamic point to something competitive.  Since normal Clubs, clubs with level spreads and a mix of F2P and paying players, you know, 90+% of the clubs in the game but apparently not the beta testers, cannot sustain the current model, CC will at some point be relegated to a dusty, disused corner of the game.  Newbie: "What's this club champion thing?"  Club owner: "It's crap. We haven't bothered with it for 6 months.  Safe to ignore."

[Pelinor]

Comment Critique (and response)

Having tickets as the price of admission in a club activity does seem odd, but under the games current level of development there are few viable alternatives. As constructed the feature does little to promote player interaction and contributes nothing directly towards a clubs development. True, each player is awarded "contribution points" for competing against the duelist but those points mean zero since neither the player or club can use them. Under the present system those points mean nothing to the player or to the club.

What the CP's do offer is another game element which can be developed into a true club interaction resource for both the club and player. This game element has been ignored in all discussions concerning the feature and hasn't even been mentioned by the KK staff!