Feedback from a middle-ish player

[Nolan84]

Joined Dec 8, 2018, so almost 3 years in.  Currently level 354, and 394 girls in harem.

I spend some money here and there, not a whale, but not FTP.
Yes, I am aware that I am not the audience KK is trying to reach when changes are made to the game.
These are my opinions about my experience with the changes over the years.

The game has changed quite a lot since the time I started.  Back then I really enjoyed the Adventure mode, and the scenes, and the girls.  This was back when event girl drops were just a villain grind until you just got the girl - no shards/attraction, you just crossed your fingers and if lucky got the entire girl after only a few tries.  But sometimes you could spend a whole event and not get anything.

This was changed with the addition of the shards/attraction system, which I think was a good change.  Now you could gauge your odds, measure how much combativity you would need, and whether you would need to invest Kobans in your search (and roughly how many).

Also at the start PVP wasn't too worthwhile to a player of my power (or lack thereof), the Mojo system didn't really mean much to me, and the daily rewards were pretty underwhelming (and sometimes unreachable if I couldn't win).  I think the change to Seasons really gave worthwhile rewards and tangible progression (and I love me some progression).

Adventure hasn't really changed per se, but the energy investment per chapter has really bloated.  If not investing Kobans it can take 3-4 months to get through one whole chapter (including using energy from other sources like seasons).  It's just a bit of a slog.

The introduction of Mythic rarity girls evoked a mixed reaction from me.  One the one hand, strong characters are really fun, I really like seeing big numbers when dealing damage, and I like winning.  But adding a new rarity tier can also be off-putting.  You know right out the gate the whales are going to get all of them and max all of them out.  In my case I'm not affected, I'm nowhere near the level to compete with whales.  But it felt like KK targeted their behavior when they limited the number of shards/affection available for each mythic release.  Now there are a limited number of these girls available - and if you make something even more exclusive then whales will make sure they are guaranteed to get the exclusive girls.  That's not to say it's impossible, I have 3 mythic girls in my harem, so if you plan for it and save up resources it's doable.  And, as I'm sure some will be quick to point out, "there are always shards leftover at the end of each mythic event," and you are correct.  I'm more referring to the approach than the result - the approach being "make some events/systems more profitable by targeting whales."

The moment Places of Power was added in to the game, I immediately knew I needed to increase them all to max level, and from that moment on every Koban I earned was invested in PoP until all 3 were level 10.  This was a huge boon to a player like me, and I saw a quick rise in my own power and the number of girls in my harem.  This was great.  This was fun.  This made me want to play more.  And this made me more willing to spend money.

Club champions are also a bit of a mixed experience.  If you want any of the girls from the club champions then you need to be a member of a club that is both capable and willing to continually defeat the champion (or spend a ton of resources and defeat the champion yourself, and hope you don't get bad luck and still only get 1 attraction).  This is one event that I really got burned on more than once.  This happened back when you had to defeat the champion within a 24 hour window, unlike now.  One day I invested a ton of resources (exp books, affection items, tickets, and kobans) to defeat the champion probably 100 times, and was #1 in my club for the performance, and my listed rewards were something like 1-40(ish) attraction.  When the champion was defeated, I earned 1 attraction.  Not a good feeling.  A few days later I tried again, invested more of the same kinds of resources, and this time the listed rewards were something like 1-20(ish) attraction, and AGAIN I earned an eye-watering 1 attraction.  Finally when I tried a 3rd time I got an amount of attraction that was more relative to the resources I invested.  But there was a problem - I still needed about 5 more attraction, but it was the last day of the month.  If I reset the champion and defeat them myself it's going to cost a lot of resources, and even then I'm not guaranteed 5 attraction, what if I get burned again?  But I also didn't want to wait 2 months for the girl to rotate back in.  So what did I use to acquire this girl?

Dating tokens.

I'm sure you can already see where this one is going.

Having started in late 2018, I don't think it's unreasonable for a middle-ish player to not play every day.  Some months I am very diligent, but there have also been a couple of times where I really don't play at all for a month or three.  There have been times where I've looked back at the events I've missed and regretted missing the chance to get a particular girl from a particular event.  I don't mind waiting around for her to come back and try again, I've done that more than once.

So it probably comes as no surprise that when it was announced that dating tokens were being removed, and it was in the patch notes, and there were several weeks of advance notice, coincided with a time that I wasn't actively playing the game.  And upon my return they were nowhere to be seen.

I had plans for those dating tokens.  Missed potential.  Not only that, but the sources that gave me those dating tokens (villain battles, pachinko orbs, etc) now gave me nothing instead.  It was just unceremoniously taken away.  At the time they claimed that they had been removed "temporarily," but we all know that is false.  They are gone.  And it feels bad.  And things that feel bad are bad for the game.

I don't have much to say about Pantheon, because it's not much of a system.  It's another resource for whales to spend money on.

I'm going to try to only give brief opinions of the really recent changes, I think they've been discussed at length.

To summarize my opinion, it feels like things are being taken away, and that feels bad.
Places of Power isn't as valuable as it used to be.
Pachinko isn't as valuable as it used to be.
You can claim that the girls drop rate is unchanged, but even if that's true the value of Pachinko is still worse than it was.
Equipment isn't as valuable any more, and those came from "great" orbs.
"Mythic" and "epic" orbs can now drop gems, which feels like I won nothing.
If I spend an "epic" orb with the potential to get a girl, or epic equipment, or affection items/exp books, but instead I get 70 gems of a random color, it feels like a waste.

As for the gems system, again it just feels like the target for this system is the whales.
Did I spend the free gems awarded to all players?  Yep.
Are my formations more powerful now?  Sure.  A lot of them are all level 450.
But then I reached a feeling of "Now what?"
I can't get any of my girls to 500, I don't have enough gems.
And the thought of getting any of my girls to 750 is laughable.
I thought it made sense to have your girls' power be related to your character level.  It was tangible growth whenever I gained levels, which is gone now.
Additionally, leveling any new girls is a pain, even if you have enough gems to max them out it takes too many clicks to get from 1-450 (having to re-awaken them over and over).

I don't like things being taken away.  And I no longer feel the tangible progression that I used to feel.
It's a shame, I really used to like this game, but as it stands I'm leaning towards playing less or not playing, instead of diligently playing.  And I definitely don't plan on spending more money on this game.

It just feels like another example of a company prioritizing profits over player experience.

Edited November 21, 2021 by Nolan84
minor correction

[jamanga]

Thanks @Nolan84 - a very detailed and informed response which I back up whole-heartedly. Like you, I have spent a lot of time and some money with this game and am going to scale back. Best wishes. 

[DvDivXXX]

On 11/21/2021 at 7:41 PM, Nolan84 said:

almost 3 years in.  Currently level 354, and 394 girls in harem.

This implies either very casual play, or one or more long break(s) from the game along the way. This doesn't invalidate your feedback, but it's worth mentioning. Had you been active daily for all this time, you'd be at level 450+ with 800+ girls today, which would change the impact of the various changes, and your feedback, greatly. I started 9 months after you and I'm level 443 with 838 girls, though admittedly I'm a hardcore player (on a low budget, close to F2P). Of course to each their own, and you play as you like. I see you elaborate on your approach to the game over the years here:

On 11/21/2021 at 7:41 PM, Nolan84 said:

Having started in late 2018, I don't think it's unreasonable for a middle-ish player to not play every day.  Some months I am very diligent, but there have also been a couple of times where I really don't play at all for a month or three.  There have been times where I've looked back at the events I've missed and regretted missing the chance to get a particular girl from a particular event.

That's a casual approach for sure. I'm not sure how representative it is of the average player's, actually. Probably much more than my own, come to think of it.

[WalkerTexass]

I started in 2017, played for like a few months, and now back since september.

I am lvl 230 with 101 girls XD, that's quite a long break

[Тёмный Властелин]

@WalkerTexass Are you using the same account you did back in 2017 now?

If so, does that mean that Kinkoid doesn't remove accounts? I thought I read somewhere that they remove accounts after 1 year of inactivity or smth. like that.. 🤔

[DvDivXXX]

8 minutes ago, Тёмный Властелин said:

I thought I read somewhere that they remove accounts after 1 year of inactivity or smth. like that..

They do but it's been implemented in the past year or so (off the top of my head) so this might explain this odd case.

[WalkerTexass]

When I tried to log with my old account, it was not found at first. So i created a new account with my mail, and it gaves me back my account. I saw something like phoenixmember in the url, and when I play hentai clicker my nickname is "lostaccount" for what ever reason.