New Mythic Books and Gift Increases Price of EXP/Affection + Decreases Market Slots for Cash Items

[Dramut]

How do you actually know whether it is actually a majority or whether this majority has simply been bought, on social networks it is easy to buy positive or positive answers so that the appearance arises that it has been positively accepted?

the difference is that you can't buy positive answers as quickly in a forum as in social networks.

[Tom208]

Knowing that a child in fourth grade can do the math to figure out that mythic items are worse than the previous situation in the market, I really doubt that anyone can be happy with the current implementation of mythic items.

[holymolly]

Guys...are you even reading what George said ? I mean I´m unhappy with the mythic items myself but jessh guys..

Let's try to read his statements, shall we?
People have different opinions, I think that's already clear, right? That there are significantly more active players than us forum members is also clear or? I mean, how many members does this forum have? 400? 500? less? Let's say there are 1000. How many are 1000 compared to all who play this game ? Pretty little! For example, my account has the number 844437 and I play this game now since March 2018. Just to provide a comparison, an account I recently created for testing purposes has the number 3842509. Of these, you can certainly forget the majority, but if we now look as a comparison, at  the number of people who regularly fill out the surveys, then we´re talking of people in the range of 10-15 thousand. How many are we forum members in comparison? Quite little, the minority to be exact, as George already said. We saw that just the other day with the latest MD. Most of the forum members didn't like the change, but the majority of the survey respondents voted for it. It's kind of the same thing with mythic items.
George never stated that he's sure that the vast majority likes mythic items. He just said that we can't rush to assume that all players feel the way we do here on the forum. In fact, George doesn't like the mythic items as they are now either himself (I've quoted the comment he made a few days ago, just so that @SoggyShorts f.e. has answered his "mod bias" question). Does that sound like bias to y´all or like someone you expresses critic were it´s needed? To me it sounds like the latter (and I´m pretty sure almost if not every other mod of the English forum has said something similar about the mythic items)

On 6/16/2021 at 10:20 AM, GeorgeMTO said:

Whelp, I'll lead it off here. Mythic Books & Gifts in their current implementation of being quite numerous in the market and having such ridiculously high koban costs is absolutely abysmal. It makes getting the same amount of affection even more expensive, so anyone who currently couldn't afford to do market refreshes to solve their affection/girl exp gap will now fall even further behind due to the reduction in both how many books/gifts they can purchase with ymens per refresh, but also because the mythic gifts are almost universally worse value per koban than the average market refresh would provide.

 

The silent majority of the game doesn´t have to be a forum member, a discord member or a social media follower. Obviously there are different ways of communication/ to obtain feedback. The Discord members and social media follower alone are also a minority just like the forum. What counts in the end is not the opinion of an individual like me or one of you, but what the majority wants. And the key point, which many here probably don't quite grasp, is that we don't know what the majority wants at the moment. So we should not jump to conclusions in that regard. That is what George is trying to convey here.

For my part, even though I highly dislike the mythic items in the way that they have been implemented, I still cannot dispute that they do still offer some kind of benefit for some people. F.e. less clicking and time consumption..and that´s probably something that a lot of players would appreciate (myself included but not for that price ). Thus I can see that there may be some "positive" feedback about this highly anticipated but abysmaly bad implemented new feature.
Nevertheless there´s a lot of work left for KK in regard of those mythic items .. that´s something that probably all of us can agree on and I´m pretty sure the majority would aswell.. but let´s not just asume that the forum is the only feedback channel there is ok?

Anyways I didn´t want to offend anyone but the way some of you misinterpreted / didn´t even bother to read George´s post did bother me a bit to be honest ..

 

[SoggyShorts]

32 minutes ago, holymolly said:

but let´s not just asume that the forum is the only feedback channel there is ok?

Fair enough.  I labored under the misapprehension that this forum was the primary feedback mechanism.  Since I don't do any social media outside the couple of games I play, that tends to be a black box for me.  George cleared that up, as did you.  I express gratitude to people when they correct a thinking error. @GeorgeMTOI apologize if I stretched your patience.

Assuming that there's a significant amount of positive feedback, can we agree that this release was at best polarizing?  At least as polarizing as the CC release?  My own recency bias is in play ATM because of the CC.  That's what George corrected.  I have no first-hand knowledge of this since I'm not in the Beta program, but don't these types of issues point to too narrow a Beta program?

I do realize that there's a great deal of alchemy involved in balancing free play against profit, and that delighting players, which ensures a game's long term viability, means challenging them and rewarding them for interaction, NOT necessarily by always giving them what they want.  But there are logical flaws and math errors in this release that more eyes would almost certainly have caught.

I still find the loss of Market slots lamentable and remain of the opinion that Market refreshes are a widely used work-around for the lack of availability of XP items in the game.  I believe that the forum has blown up as hard as it has over this release, specifically WHERE it was released, because that work-around is something of a sacred cow.  It's the primary way in which those of us who assiduously top of our girls get it done because no other feature in the game delivers XP items in sufficient quantities.   I'm far more sensitive to the loss of XP items than Aff because Aff items tend to be readily available, or at least several orders of magnitude more available via GP single spins and to a lesser degree, villains at certain tiers than XP items are.  XP was crunched before this release.  More so, now. 

I'm asking if there's a way to be part of the solution.  Perhaps more eyes, a greater spread in player levels and a broader cross section of paying and non-paying players (I realize I am making some assumptions there) would contribute to that alchemy I mentioned.

[Pelinor]

1 hour ago, holymolly said:

And the key point, which many here probably don't quite grasp, is that we don't know what the majority wants at the moment. So we should not jump to conclusions in that regard. That is what George is trying to convey here.

I'll agree with your point to a large extent. I am certain what this minority reports view is and barring a full SEO report, this forum represents roughly 25,000 members of the games player base (using your numbers). My point is this minority expressed as close to unanamious disapproval as I have seen in any social platform.

Quote

It takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved negative experience – “Understanding Customers” by Ruby Newell-Legner.

A 5% reduction in the customer defection rate can increase profits by 5 – 95% – Bain & Company.

It costs 6–7 times more to acquire a new customer than retain an existing one – Bain & Company.

 

No matter what this forums percentage of the player base is, the clear indicator is Mythic items had a very bad rollout which will cost a lot of effort to fix.

[Coyle]

I'm one of the ones negatively affected by this.  I use those free books to level the girls as needed and having the mythic whammies blocking slots is a massive downgrade for me personally, greatly increasing the amount of time it takes to level them (I never fell into the refresh trap so those blocked slots *really* hurt).  I've already canceled the auto renewal on my card.  Looking at all the button clicking that would mean now once it expires, especially with the flood of 1 stars, I have a feeling I'll lose interest fairly quickly even in the f2p.  I'll likely just finish up the season then head to the next game.  Life's too short to deal with badly implemented monetization.  

 

Ouch, really painful:

Edited June 20, 2021 by Coyle

[Dramut]

where can you actually find the survey on this topic?

[jelom]

About the forum, there are around a hundred people that regularly post in the forum. Surely there are many more people that just reads it (as I did in my first year). Compared with the people that regularly plays the game (less than 100000 in HH, add another 50000 in Nutaku and 10000 more in other sites), they are a minority, but that doesn't mean that they cannot be taken as a rough representation of the players opinion, especially of the most dedicated to the game, think of voting polls of just 1000 citizens getting accurate results of millions of votes, for example.

What is very important in this occasion is that we have seen a lot of non usual forum users appearing this time to say they are very upset with this change, especially with the mythic items taking slots of non mythic ones in the market, and some of them are so frustrated that they are taking drastic measures, as not renewing their monthly card or they are even thinking in leaving the game.

Perhaps with time this new feature can be improved as it happened with other ones before, but in the meantime people will keep complaining loudly.

[SoggyShorts]

I apologize in advance; this is likely to be a long-ish post.  Today's contest is well-timed for me to test a theory, so I wanted to see if we've been "playing incorrectly" by using Market refreshes to keep our harems topped off.  This, after learning that not just I, but my entire club has been "doing the CC wrong;" if I'm doing something that violates the devs' intent, then doing it correctly should alleviate much of the pain.  I see that now with the CC and I want to see how this works out with the subject of this thread. 

My theory is that the only available source of bulk XP and Aff that the game gives us is GP.  Yes, there are other sources: villains at certain tiers, Seasons, missions, but I mean bulk.  Large quantities, albeit in small denominations.  I couldn't test GP10's because I have orbs, so I did GP singles.  I'm level 351, so a single spin cost me 621,500 ymen.  So, 1,609 single spins equal 1b ymen.  For (relative) brevity, I'll only focus on the XP item economics.

The results surprised me a bit.  Those 1609 spins netted:

118 XP items (17,250 XP)

243 Aff items (18,090 Aff)

Pretty well-balanced, despite a 2:1 Aff vs XP item drop rate.

And of course, that 1b ymen wasn't actually spent, just used since I get ~70% of it back during the next Sell Items contest.  That's my long-term average from having done GP single spins for months before turning to Market refreshes.

But this isn't the whole story.  My current XP deficit is 496,158 and my Aff deficit is 207,789.  This is why I mentioned upthread that I'm much more sensitive to the loss of XP via the Market than Aff.

If I've been "playing wrong" by refreshing the Market, how many times would I have to do what I just did to close the XP deficit?  Well, 496,158 / 17,250 = 28.8 times.  At a cost of (300m ymen x 28.8) 8.64b ymen.

My current XP deficit is somewhat of an outlier because I went bonkers yesterday in a vain effort to win the LC.  Got plenty of girls but had few XP items with which to level them.  The majority of the herd is currently 3 levels behind and I have 7 girls at lv 1, untouched.  That's not a completely unreasonable scenario, but still an outlier because my play style changed because of the LC.  They're contributing ~150k XP to that deficit (149,862).  If I remove them entirely and recalculate the number of times I have to do 1609 GP single spins, I arrive at 346,296 / 17,250 =  20 times.  x 300m ymen = 6b ymen.  If I divide that by the average number of levels that the girls are behind, I would need 2b ymen per level to keep the girls topped off via GP singles.  GP10's are ~10% cheaper if you buy the spins, but that doesn't really change the conclusion.  

This is utterly unrealistic.  These are hideously expensive XP: (300m ymen / 17250 XP / 2=) 8695 ymen per XP.  Compare that to the Market costs that were calculated upthread. I haven't been "playing wrong," and either has anyone else who refreshes the Market to level and upgrade their girls.  It's the only cost-effective(ish) way to do it, and it costs kobans, lots of kobans, to do it.  Fewer if you buy a plat card, but winning a contest by doing this constitutes a rebate for doing something that is expensive in both kobans and ymen. 

In addition to "We haven't been playing wrong," my second contention is that by providing a disincentive to refreshing the market, KK has squarely shot themselves in the foot by removing a steady koban drain for assiduous and well-funded players, as well as one of the major reasons for those well-funded players to buy a platinum card.  We don't need the Market refresh discount anymore.  

[Kenrae]

20 hours ago, jelom said:

About the forum, there are around a hundred people that regularly post in the forum. Surely there are many more people that just reads it (as I did in my first year). Compared with the people that regularly plays the game (less than 100000 in HH, add another 50000 in Nutaku and 10000 more in other sites), they are a minority, but that doesn't mean that they cannot be taken as a rough representation of the players opinion, especially of the most dedicated to the game, think of voting polls of just 1000 citizens getting accurate results of millions of votes, for example.

That's not a good comparison, on voting polls they go a long way to be sure the chosen people are a good representation of the whole, and also random. We forum user are a biased representation, the fact that we take the time to write means there's different type of players you're not going to get here, we're much more uniform than the whole. For example, I'm sure the percentage of minmaxers who do the maths is much bigger here than on the whole playerbase.

Having said that, I've never seen such unanimity here before, and I can't understand how they're able to do such an horrible implementation of a change.

Edited June 21, 2021 by Kenrae

[jamanga]

On 6/19/2021 at 8:04 AM, jelom said:

The new announcement of limiting the slots of mythic items is a step to reduce the problem caused by mythic items in non mythic ones. I would consider 2 or better just 1 slot just for mythic items a good solution. They would still appear for the people that wanted them, but don't interfere so much with the legendaries. And when they star to appear as rewards in other parts of the game (it could be in PoA, PoP, Seasons, or champions) hence not costing kobans, then the new items could be a good addition

The interesting thing about this new feature is how *universally* loathed it has been received. Quite a feat!

I agree re: single slot - most I've had is 6 mythic so far (which sucked) OR how about each "refresh" regenerates more than just 8 equipment/books/affection... say 12 slots with 2 being mythic. Problem solved and everyone is happy.. well almost everyone you know what I mean

Edited June 22, 2021 by jamanga

[jamanga]

.. oh and please also consider: if we are a level 300+ player, we are only interested in legendary books/equipment or affection in the shop. I think this is part of the reason that feedback on this topic has been so strong - I am getting so many girls (esp. legendary 3*) that I'm becoming disillusioned that I will ever be able to level them all up... which is only further compounded by this recent change.

[Dramut]

 

let's put the whole thing together.
Players complain that the mythical items are taking up space from other items.
the players did the math and came to the conclusion that the mystical items are a loss of XP and attractive points.

The fact that many are angry with it is because the mythical items Coba's cost and not normal in-game currency, like the rest of EXP / affection.

The players suggested an extra shop for the mythical objects and the mystical objects also in mirrors and not in Coban.

The players also came up with the idea that you can get the mystical items as a reward for participating in the guild battle.

From the moderators came the objection that the people who complain about it are in the minority and that the majority that you would accept, the majority are those who have either already stopped or simply do not take part in the actions such as in the forum or social networks participate and not give an opinion on the topic.

that's about the thing that comes up when you read through all of the posts.

 

[Kenrae]

1 hour ago, Dramut said:

 

let's put the whole thing together.
Players complain that the mythical items are taking up space from other items.
the players did the math and came to the conclusion that the mystical items are a loss of XP and attractive points.

The fact that many are angry with it is because the mythical items Coba's cost and not normal in-game currency, like the rest of EXP / affection.

The players suggested an extra shop for the mythical objects and the mystical objects also in mirrors and not in Coban.

The players also came up with the idea that you can get the mystical items as a reward for participating in the guild battle.

From the moderators came the objection that the people who complain about it are in the minority and that the majority that you would accept, the majority are those who have either already stopped or simply do not take part in the actions such as in the forum or social networks participate and not give an opinion on the topic.

that's about the thing that comes up when you read through all of the posts.

 

Maybe you should read it again because your last paragraph about the moderatos is completely and utterly false.

[Dramut]

Am 20.6.2021 um 02:34 sagte GeorgeMTO:

Nein, ich glaube, Sie haben meinen Punkt übersehen. Das gesamte Forum ist eine Minderheit. Nur weil hier alle der gleichen Meinung zu sein scheinen, heißt das nicht, dass JEDER so denkt. Wenn sie Feedback erhalten, das darauf hinweist, dass die Leute damit zufrieden sind, können sie es nicht sofort rückgängig machen, da dies auch diesen Spielern missfallen würde, also müssen sie die Balance finden. Nur weil das Forum sagt, dass Kinkoid etwas auf eine bestimmte Weise reparieren muss, heißt das nicht, dass es die beste Option ist.

that is my point of view as I understood it, if that is meant differently in any way, I do not mind if I am corrected.

Edited June 22, 2021 by Dramut

[Platinumstar]

i do not like this new Mythic items it makes it a lot harder to level up my girls then it was with out them i 4 or more items every time i restock the store

[GeorgeMTO]

4 hours ago, Dramut said:

that is my point of view as I understood it, if that is meant differently in any way, I do not mind if I am corrected.

It was already corrected multiple times in this forum. Perhaps your translator is at fault, but in that case all we can really do is say you need more English skill yourself then if you're not able to understand the existing explanations, as that's the only language this part of the forum caters to.

[Drackomut]

In order to solve the problem that is currently at hand, I would suggest that the mythical objects are available in mirror currency and not in Kobans, in addition I would suggest to build in a function where you can exchange Kobans  for mirrors, such a function has been missing here for a long time .

I think everyone would be happy with that.

Edited June 22, 2021 by Drackomut

[pinja]

...

[SoggyShorts]

This thread and the shitshow that started it are now 11 days old.  11 days have seen quite a ...transformation in my little microcosm.  Maybe like attracts like and everyone I know in this game is an incessant complainer.  I sort of doubt it; even the longest-term players, the committed cheerleaders for it, are quiet.

What I DO know is that among the 15 or so people I routinely communicate with, a small number I know, but this game isn't conducive to sidebars with non club members, seven have dropped Patreon support and let their cards expire.  Some have downgraded to silver, most have just stopped supporting the game entirely.  Our club's normally vibrant chat... the place is a tomb.

The game's XP and Aff system is broken.  It's been broken for the year I've been playing it (almost to the day).  Apparently, it's been broken for a lot longer.  This ...rollout was a nerve punch.  It diminished the only viable work-around to this broken part of the game's dynamic.  The consequence for me is that I don't want to level.  I'm at 352, and every time I do, the XP and Aff shortfalls become larger.  2 weeks ago, I was nearly caught up on XP.  Now, I'm 600k in the hole.  I don't want to acquire new girls right now because I can't do much with them.  Yes, I could click GP singles 3,200 times.  That would net enough XP to max one legendary 3* girl and, after selling all the junk back, it would "only" cost 600m ymen.  Pass.  That's insanely boring and utterly unsustainable.  I've played assiduously and aggressively for a year and I've done well.  476 girls in the harem, and I've spent a pretty good amount of money to get to that point.  Now, full-stop.

F2P is a short step away from "Free to Play Somewhere Else."  Committed players are losing commitment.  It's immaterial to me at this point whether we few, we (un)happy few forum users constitute a majority or minority of players.  My reality is much closer to home: this Let-Them-Eat-Cake rollout, and the utter lack of timely responsiveness to complaints on the part of the developers, has crushed morale and activity in my club. 

[Blabla07]

From the latest patch notes :

Citation

Mythic items will appear less often in the Market

• Books
  • Level 81-200: a very small chance for Mythic items to appear
  • Levels 201-350: 1 slot for Mythic items
  • Level 350+: 2 slots for Mythic items 

• Gifts
  • Girls 41-200: a very small chance for Mythic items to appear
  • Girls 201-300: 1 slot for Mythic items
  • Girls 301+: 2 slots for Mythic items

Sorry, but every single slot taken in the regular market is still one too many  😞 ...

[Biru]

1 hour ago, Blabla07 said:

From the latest patch notes :

Sorry, but every single slot taken in the regular market is still one too many  😞 ...

Yeah... I'll get two Of those placeholders evertime now with lvl 378... That really sucks...😒 before the patch you could get lucky and don't have them in your market and now you have two EVERY time... 

At my lvl I don't think that this is an improvement in any case. 

[spinnie]

Having 2 slots taken up by something I'll never buy is still to much.

Give an option to opt out of from seeing them at all please.

[SoggyShorts]

The central issue of the broken XP and Aff system remains unaddressed, despite the big update.  Market refreshes, the work-around by which we get it done despite this lapse, still cost 25% more in kobans than they did before the feature was implemented if we're over level 350.  Fail.

Speaking of big, that's one BIG menu!  Shame that if you happen to be on a villain, the crumb trail overlays the Home button so you end up on the world map unless you click in just the right spot.  With all that real estate, even this gameplay update is ...fail.  I'm grateful that the CC shard range was made to go away though.

[Miccia]

As it turned out, they continue to make fun of us.

I did not take measurements but on average before I got 2-3 red books and 0-1 gifts.
Now they have done nothing but reduce the red books to increase the red gifts.
You have to get them out of there !!
Put them where the hell you like, I saw for example there are red books to buy in real money, good, very well, I hope many buy them, but remove them from those slots in the market !!!

Edited June 23, 2021 by Miccia