Wanker 2 collapse on Test server

[Moe Overload]

So, I've been creating a bunch of alt accounts on the test server and I've noticed that there's been a complete collapse of the Wanker 2 bracket recently.

Wanker 1: I'm not sure how many brackets there are within W1. I've identified 8 of them in season 13, and 8 of them this season (season 14). In both cases, I got one duplicate. If I only got one duplicate in that time, the laws of statistics would indicate that there's a lot more W1 brackets. W1 brackets tend to add 6-7 new players each seasons, and promote about 10. In season 13, I measured about 54 new players, and 74 promotions (one bracket had only 3 promotions, pulling the average down. The rest of the brackets has 9-11 promotions).

Wanker 2: This is the first season that I have one of my alts in W2. We can calculate how many brackets there are in W2 based on the change in W3, so the numbers for the past seasons are accurate, but the current one is an estimate. A day and a half into the season, only 52 players have any points whatsoever. So, it's completely possible that we're witnessing a complete collapse of activity in W2. However, the fact that we're at 103 players per bracket makes me think that the season 13 drop to 4 brackets could have been just a blip of inactivity resulting 480ish W2 players, that then got bumped by up to 515ish players. We'll know for sure in just under a week.

Wanker 3: I have just my main account on the test server in W3. Season 10 was easy to identify how many players were in, and it's been a multiple of 15 this entire time, without any surprises (except for the drop in the number of W2 leagues resulting in W3 growth being slower than expected. We would have been at 510 W3 players if there were still 6 W2 brackets during seasons 12 and 13).

 

Season	Wanker 1	Wanker 2	Wanker 3
10	8+	6	3 (375 players)
11	8+	6	4 (420 players)
12	8+	5	4 (450 players)
13	8+ (854 players discovered)	4	4 (465 players)
14	8+ (804 players discovered)	4 (probably, 103 players per league)	4 (465 players)

[_shal_]

This is not only a test server phenomenon, by the way. I've got two main server accounts parked in Wanker 2, and it's usually the case that the season closes with 25-35 players on zero points. At the moment the two brackets I'm in have 59 and 55 zero-pointers. I've also got an account parked in Wanker 1 and I haven't seen the full 15 promotions there in quite a while, either, and it's been as low as 5 (IIRC). So Wanker 2 may already be shedding players there as well.

[Habi]

if that continues and kinkoid continues to scare away players with their new "features" then we might never see D2 or higher on live. the growth of player pool on the highest tier is already really slow and if i understood it correctly 2-3 tiers below (~S1) it is already stalling.

[[CNO] BananaJoy]

i heard also of players who have a decent level but dont parcipate in the league cause lack of strength cause they dont find good items. the low drop rate of monostats is also a problem which influence indirectly the leagues. 

[Moe Overload]

The birthday paradox states that when you have N number or buckets that are randomly filled, you need to start worrying about duplicates at sqrt[N]. This might imply a total of 64 W1 brackets. I think that's overstating the numbers, but it might not be the case. There are are 1764 active players. Subtract 465 in W3 and 412 in W2, and you're left with 896. That matches the eight W1 brackets I've discovered, except that the starting size is 100-101, not all of those 1764 players have reached level 20 yet, and I've still got a list of players that I saw in the previous season, but not in the current one.

I think we can safely rule out inactive accounts not being included in the leagues. I know that's something we experienced during the league beta (You've been inactive, you'll be included in a league next season), but I don't think it's enabled now that the leagues are live. There are 3404 total players at level 20 or above. Subtracting the same numbers from the total, we're left with 2527 players in W1, the vast majority of them inactive. Subtract some players from that to factor in new people joining, and we're left with ~2500 players in W1, or 25 brackets.

In short, modelling W1 is sort of pointless because of how full of inactive people it is. There is sound logic to not prune it, but that ends up meaning that there needs to be more people joining the test server each week and getting to level 20 and joining the league and doing at least (which guarantees promotion) than there are people becoming inactive in W2 and dropping out. Now that I have an alt in W2, I'll be able to get more details. But honestly, I'd prefer if Kinkoid just released this information. It's fascinating stuff for me.

[Mr.Goodfellow]

12 hours ago, BananaJoy said:

i heard also of players who have a decent level but dont parcipate in the league cause lack of strength cause they dont find good items. the low drop rate of monostats is also a problem which influence indirectly the leagues. 

^^This... all day long.    I cannot compete in the Arena or in Leagues due to being under-geared.  I had a miracle drop of a monostat just yesterday and unfortunately, it didn't replace any of my lowest level gear, but it boosted me about 1800 Ego.  I figured if all my other gear were up-to-date, I would have about 15,000 more Ego.  But right now, i cannot compete with most who are around my level.  

The devs made it easier and faster to level up - which is great! - but they didn't account for needing the gear to drop easier and faster too so we can have a more enjoyable playing experience.  If everyone had better access to the gear they needed - yes, everyone would be bolstered - but everyone would have a better game experience (win or lose) as they would feel their character is at least progressing. 

Right now, this is just a miserable experience and I feel like I'm stalled and not going anywhere.  I actually cringe every time I level up as I know my gear just got a little worse, I'm not going to get any improvements anytime soon, and I'm going to be facing higher level opponents with even higher stats than me.  

[casey]

17 hours ago, Mr.Goodfellow said:

^^This... all day long.    I cannot compete in the Arena or in Leagues due to being under-geared.  I had a miracle drop of a monostat just yesterday and unfortunately, it didn't replace any of my lowest level gear, but it boosted me about 1800 Ego.  I figured if all my other gear were up-to-date, I would have about 15,000 more Ego.  But right now, i cannot compete with most who are around my level.  

The devs made it easier and faster to level up - which is great! - but they didn't account for needing the gear to drop easier and faster too so we can have a more enjoyable playing experience.  If everyone had better access to the gear they needed - yes, everyone would be bolstered - but everyone would have a better game experience (win or lose) as they would feel their character is at least progressing. 

Right now, this is just a miserable experience and I feel like I'm stalled and not going anywhere.  I actually cringe every time I level up as I know my gear just got a little worse, I'm not going to get any improvements anytime soon, and I'm going to be facing higher level opponents with even higher stats than me.  

Would it be more enjoyable for you to lose with a Ego of 180000 earned quickly , Since I started playing, this game has been for players with a lot of patience and if you changed  it          and made it easier for the Johnny come latelys,  you would alienate the long time dedicated players.

 I'm quite confident that the percentage of new players who are still playing after 1 month  is well below 50% But if they persist generally there is a low quit rate after that. 

A little over 2 months ago (by mistake) I started a second playing account and using the experiences gleaned from my first account I'm now @ level 97 with an Ego of 59000

and am totally uncompetitive in a Sexpert 1 league, I don't know how this compares to your current situation but I'm having more fun playing at this level than I'm having with my

original account where I'm fighting for a top 4 finish in Sexpert 3 league with an Ego of 220000

Well we all have our opinions on what would make this game better thanks for sharing

[Mr.Goodfellow]

2 minutes ago, casey said:

Would it be more enjoyable for you to lose with a Ego of 180000 earned quickly , Since I started playing, this game has been for players with a lot of patience and if you changed  it          and made it easier for the Johnny come latelys,  you would alienate the long time dedicated players.

 I'm quite confident that the percentage of new players who are still playing after 1 month  is well below 50% But if they persist generally there is a low quit rate after that. 

A little over 2 months ago (by mistake) I started a second playing account and using the experiences gleaned from my first account I'm now @ level 97 with an Ego of 59000

and am totally uncompetitive in a Sexpert 1 league, I don't know how this compares to your current situation but I'm having more fun playing at this level than I'm having with my

original account where I'm fighting for a top 4 finish in Sexpert 3 league with an Ego of 220000

Well we all have our opinions on what would make this game better thanks for sharing

Thanks for your thoughts.  And true, fun is defined by the player.  

My main account (Nutaku), i started 8 months ago and am now level 213.  It was going fine until about level 125 when gear started drying up.  RNG began to be more fickle.  But as you said, this is a game of patience and I am a patient person.  However, a couple months ago when the devs made leveling up easier, I am now out-leveling my gear more rapidly and literally cannot compete in the arena anymore -- it takes 2-3 days to complete the dailies because I cannot get opponents close enough to even battle -- that's not fun.  I should be in Sexpert 2 (or maybe even 3)... but I just got demoted from S2 because I literally could not compete -- that's not fun either.  I see lower level opponents with higher stats and egos passing me by -- an insult to the injury.  I don't mind losing... it's gonna happen.  It's what makes the challenge fun.  But when all you do is lose and you can't keep up with the lower leveled opponents or even your own leveled opponents, that's no fun.  And it's aggravating when all it would take to improve it is a little bump in the drop rate of the monostat gear.

Also, I started 2 new accounts (1 on Hentai and 1 on Test) in October.  They are levels 93 and 84, respectively.  Currently, the Hentai account is much more fun to play as it had lucky drops with gear and I can at least compete in the arena and complete the dailies, and can also compete in the Leagues (sometimes i win, and sometimes I lose) -- this is fun.  My Test server account is scrapping for any gear it can get and is having a miserable time in Leagues... but at least the Arena dailies I can still complete in 1 day if I pay attention and don't miss any turns and use boosters.  But I can progress and I feel like I'm going somewhere -- this is still fun.  

My Hentai account is 53k ego -- that's 6000 under you and we're relatively the same level.  Every level up you get 100-200 Ego.  I am sure your gear is not all up-to-date either but even if I was your level, I'd still be ~53,800 ego and well under-geared compared to you and couldn't compete at all.  But I am in Wanker 3, doing right well, and will probably be promoted to S1.  I will probably have a difficult time in S1 but I don't mind the challenge -- if I can compete somewhat and my account can grow and progress forward and not stall out like my main on Nutaku did.  

....So I do have a semi-veteran and newbie take on all this.  But despite defining what is fun and what is not fun....

It's a fact that the game is unbalanced when it comes to gear.  We used to level up at a slower rate, but it took a long time to get the gear to give us our power.  But when we got that gear, we could use it for longer since it was slower to out-level.  People were more powerful for their level ranges.  Right now, we are leveling faster and there was no increase in drop rates for our much-needed monostat gear.  So when we do get our miracle gear drops, we out-level them way too fast.   And if you have NO luck with the RNG, you're screwed and fall significantly behind -- not just bottom of the pack, but completely not anywhere near the pack.  This needs to be fixed to keep players interested and not drop out of the game.

[casey]

You will be surprised how long a good mono stat piece of equipment is useful, on my original account I picked up a good mono stat equipment item @ level 120

and didn't get anything better until about level 210

I am enjoying getting crushed in Sexpert 1 but I think I'm doing well enough not to be demoted, to give you an idea how much I'm overmatched in Sexpert 1

There is 1 player below me @ level 87 another 10 levels higher @ level 107 and the majority of the remaining players are at least 80 levels higher than me.

I know it's not my place to give playing tips but if you want to do well in the leagues and pvp battles, I will suggest 2 ideas

The first is if you can afford it buy the monthly pass (60 Kobans daily and free harem earnings cash in) it makes the game much easier.

The second is when you first start and are at a very low level play 10X great Pachinko as often as you can while it is cheap to play. (it gets expensive fast)

And as a bonus suggestion whenever you get a good equipment item at the very beginning in either hardcore or knowledge specialties keep it.

Hardcore currently is the strongest specialty. but what you will find is if you specialize in hardcore then when you play great Pachinko

the best equipment that will drop will be either knowledge or charm, conversely if you specialize in knowledge your equipment drops from great Pachinko

will have better equipment in hardcore and charm categories.

Once you have picked up a couple of nice equipment from great Pachinko then choose your specialty either hardcore or knowledge (preferable hardcore)

So you can sort of outsmart the game algorithm because you get one free specialty change.

[snowman22]

@casey is correct on strategy (and on gear longevity, my 1st legendary lasted me over 100 levels.) I would just like to add two opinions:

• being competitive in PvP is not as expensive as people seem to think. If you allocate 10% of your income to GPx10 and 10% to buying stats you can maintain a decent PvP setup and still have 80% for affection and whatever.
• My suggestion would be "always prioritize buying stats". Gear decays, stats do not. Gear can be the wrong class, stats are always the right class (even if you change class). A great alpha can get superseded by a new, more powerful girl (causing all cash invested in her to be written off, what is beyond legendary anyway?), stats are yours forever.

[Moe Overload]

On 12/23/2018 at 9:26 PM, snowman22 said:

@casey is correct on strategy (and on gear longevity, my 1st legendary lasted me over 100 levels.) I would just like to add two opinions:

• being competitive in PvP is not as expensive as people seem to think. If you allocate 10% of your income to GPx10 and 10% to buying stats you can maintain a decent PvP setup and still have 80% for affection and whatever.
• My suggestion would be "always prioritize buying stats". Gear decays, stats do not. Gear can be the wrong class, stats are always the right class (even if you change class). A great alpha can get superseded by a new, more powerful girl (causing all cash invested in her to be written off, what is beyond legendary anyway?), stats are yours forever.

My prioritization was:

• Get some points into stats to be competitive against people that haven't put any in.
• Buy gear whenever there's an improvement available in the shop (as long as it gives a decent chunk improvement compared to the cost of the equipment.
• Boost the level and affection of the main girl.
• Boost affection to everything that will pay for itself in less than a year (all starter, common, and rare girls to max stars. Epics to 2 stars. Legendary to 1 star.
• Max out stats (maintain a 5:1:1 ratio of your primary stat to the other two until you max out the primary).
• Play GPx10 whenever the casino contest is available.

Meanwhile, the girls that epics and legendaries that haven't had their affection maxed out in this process get put in the omega slot, and they slowly gain affection. Then I upgrade them when they're ready.

[ZackMacKenzie]

The fact that it is the holiday season could be a factor in why so many accounts aren't doing leagues ATM.

TBH, I've recently been considering doing something to slow down my level advancement.  I've noticed the gear issue mentioned, but also that girls are qualifying for stars faster than I can accumulate money to pay for it.  Also, the last thing I'd want to do is slow down the rate I gain kobans.  It seems to me that the best candidate for that is skipping league play.

[Chthugha]

If you want to slow down leveling and koban gaining, then you should just refrain from doing missions...

[ZackMacKenzie]

1 hour ago, ZackMacKenzie said:

Also, the last thing I'd want to do is slow down the rate I gain kobans.

 

10 minutes ago, Chthugha said:

If you want to slow down leveling and koban gaining, then you should just refrain from doing missions...

That's the LAST thing I want to do.  I want to KEEP kobans, not lose out on them.  The 150+ kobans per day from missions is far too much to lose relative to the XP.  Do missions provide more XP than anything else?  Yes, but they are also the primary source of kobans.

Looking at everything else, the best place to lose the fewest kobans while forgoing as much XP as possible is Leagues.

[_shal_]

Of course, if you don't do league, then you don't really have a "gear issue" to resolve anymore... That aside, I suspect you're going to pay for this approach with significant koban losses down the line, when you eventually find yourself fighting a couple of league tiers lower than you could have been on full-speed levelling, with the accompanying lower weekly rewards. It may not look like much when the comparison is between Wanker 1 and Wanker 3. Sexpert 2 versus Dicktator 1, on the other hand...

On another note: Slower levelling means less money income from the arena in the long run. Unless you're going to stop doing that in order to reduce the incoming XP as well, I suppose.

 

Edited December 26, 2018 by _shal_

[Chthugha]

10 hours ago, ZackMacKenzie said:

 

That's the LAST thing I want to do.  I want to KEEP kobans, not lose out on them.  The 150+ kobans per day from missions is far too much to lose relative to the XP.  Do missions provide more XP than anything else?  Yes, but they are also the primary source of kobans.

Looking at everything else, the best place to lose the fewest kobans while forgoing as much XP as possible is Leagues.

Ooooooh, you meant it that way. I thought you made a summary, and this was the last thing in the summary you wanted to do. Language written down is very susceptible to communication mistakes.

[ZackMacKenzie]

6 hours ago, Chthugha said:

Ooooooh, you meant it that way. I thought you made a summary, and this was the last thing in the summary you wanted to do. Language written down is very susceptible to communication mistakes.

True that. I think the stats are 7% of meaning is the words themselves, and 93% is intonation, volume, pace, facial expression, body language and other non-verbal cues.

But to be fair, I seem to be prone to being misunderstood in all modes of communication, and sometimes need to be shown when something I said/wrote is ambiguous.  That's why I apparently came across as demeaning or sarcastic (not really sure which) when I was trying to say "you are leaving big shoes to fill - not sure they'll find someone to adequately fill them" in your moderator resignation thread...and didn't know until someone reacted to it with a 'confused' emoji.  Sorry.  🐑

[ZackMacKenzie]

16 hours ago, _shal_ said:

Of course, if you don't do league, then you don't really have a "gear issue" to resolve anymore... That aside, I suspect you're going to pay for this approach with significant koban losses down the line, when you eventually find yourself fighting a couple of league tiers lower than you could have been on full-speed levelling, with the accompanying lower weekly rewards.

Yeah, this is one of those no-clear-cut right or wrong situations and is more of a trade-off issue.

16 hours ago, _shal_ said:

It may not look like much when the comparison is between Wanker 1 and Wanker 3. Sexpert 2 versus Dicktator 1, on the other hand...

I have no expectation to reach Dicktator 1, or at least not until Dicktator 3 is well-populated. Is that overly pessimistic? Maybe, but I'd rather be pleasantly surprised than bitterly disappointed.

16 hours ago, _shal_ said:

On another note: Slower levelling means less money income from the arena in the long run. Unless you're going to stop doing that in order to reduce the incoming XP as well, I suppose.

I see it more as a delay than a loss, but no I have no intention of giving up on Arena play. PvP ranking is the only one where I'm able to break the top-1000 in the weekly rankings. I even came close to making the top-100 once.

But I already see PvP differently than those whom I've seen post about it. Most talk about wanting to maximize their mojo by any means necessary. I don't see the point beyond bragging rights. Maximizing it gets you some benefit in the weekly Mojo rankings. Accepting whatever battles are presented even when the are likely losses keeps your mojo in line with your real power level and on rare occasion actually earns some surprise XP/Affection for you and your girls. Unless I'm mistaken, that means you face less daunting opposition in Contests. At this stage in my HH career I estimate that the benefit I receive from better Contest results is probably greater than the loss I incur from ToF rankings.

Besides, I haven't even given up on leagues yet, I'm just thinking about it. And if/when I do, it won't be a long-term thing. I'd only do it long enough to amass enough money to pay for grade boosts and one of those 100 * 10x GP binges and then go back to business as usual.

 

Getting back to the topic at hand, I'd wait until after Orthodox Christmas before assessing whether any League has collapsed or not. I figure play has declined while people are celebrating and spending time with family. I imagine people don't want to risk having to explain to grandmas, daughters or bosses/supervisors/HR why they have smut on their phone at their party. 

 

 

Edited December 26, 2018 by ZackMacKenzie
correct typo

[Moe Overload]

A few updates to the previous season, and adding season 15 to the mix. Wanker 2 ended up having 5 leagues last season. So, it's not in a total collapse as I had thought (I thought we were down to 412 players in W2 last season). I have 2 alts in W2, bracket sizes are 123 and 124. That means it's too large for there to be 5 leagues. It should be 4 leagues because a net loss of 20 players is more believable than a net loss of 120 players. However, I forgot to see how many players were inactive and were going to demote in W2 last week. If W3 stays at 480 next week, we'll know there are 4 this season, if it drops to 465, we'll know it was only 3.

I have 9 alts in W1, but two of them landed in duplicate leagues, so I only have 7 unique ones discovered this week. I'm not planning on making any new ones this season, so I doubt I'll get more info. I think my earlier math was accurate that we have about 25 (possible now some more) brackets in W1. The fact that I discovered 9 unique W1 leagues last season rules out that everyone has to be active. Also, I've seen a few high level players with 0 points multiple seasons in a row in the league, so it's safe to say that the formula for the number of players in W1 is (Total players over level 20) - (Total players in W3) - (Total players in W2).

 

 

Season	Wanker 1	Wanker 2	Wanker 3
10	8+	6	3 (375 players)
11	8+	6	4 (420 players)
12	8+	5	4 (450 players)
13	8+ (854 players discovered)	4	4 (465 players)
14	9+ (951 players discovered)	5 (~515)	4 (465 players)
15	7+ (708 players discovered)	4 (493-495)	4 (480 players)

[test_user]

Having zero points in a league demotes you, right? I spent two weeks in sexpert 3 not being able to progress or even with kobans because I'm just not powerful enough. I might get to move on this time but I've actually been considering dropping down to a lower league and aiming for 16th to 30th place so I can get a decent amount of kobans. Sometimes it makes sense to try and aim to be a big fish in a smaller pond. I wonder if there are other players in the leagues you discovered that have a similar thought of holding back to have things work out better.

[Moe Overload]

The early reset definitely reduced the bracket. I'm trying to get some stats on the new brackets pulled up.