2019 Spring Event Wrap Up Thread

[Etrigan]

I can't really say this event was 'bad'; I managed a full hard clear, got all the new drops, and finally dropped a Tashkent to complete my Kandex. But I did notice that they ramped up some of the new mechanisms that have been introduced in the last year, and I don't like the trend I'm seeing. Which is,

In my opinion, ALL of the recent (year+) changes to the game are designed to punish experienced players.

Bear with me. Multi-segment maps, in general, significantly discourage pre-clear farming.

Delaying EOs discourages jumping in early, since fleet locking can't be finalized.

On that note, it used to be that the last event map allowed any ships to be used. Then the last map got it's own lock, and recently we've had more locks than maps. All ads up to needing to really be sure of the fleetlocking for everything up to and including the last map before you start the first.

Late friend fleets discourages running the maps until the ffs are implemented, and IIRC FFs have NEVER been implemented at the start of the event. Friend fleets this time were particularly obnoxious, in that the best FFs ALL had historicals, meaning if you ran historicals you were GUARANTEED a shit friend fleet. Great for newbies who may not have them, but stupid for late-game Ttks. As others have said, All the hype build up for Akagi, I K2'd and hole-punched her in anticipation, and once FFs were implemented I never used her.

Totally agree on the Hard-mode awards, especially for the last map. Hard mode should get you the hard mode medal, not gate important gear behind the difficulty.

Now granted, most of these are only problems if you're aiming for that hard-mode medal. But that's why I said they're punishing for experienced players. It's not all roses for new players; the lack-of-old-event-equipment struggle real. But the way I see it, all these new changes are heading in a bad direction. That may be because my biggest lack of resources is time - when the choice is starting early but screwing myself, or sitting out the first one or two weeks until enough info is out to plan my fleets, it gets really aggravating.

[goesto11]

@ofi123 I farmed with CTF on Casual, and it was... meh in terms of passing rate. High 70s% as I recall which is nowhere high enough given cost and 1.2% drop rate. 110 sorties. No drop. Not cheap at all, and we're kind of back to where this started in terms of issues with E-4 farming. I don't think that farming issues at E-4 can be simply resolved with "but Fast+ option available". Again, I'd have to spend more RE for a Fast+ fleet just to farm E-4. That's not a good solution IMO. Cut the costs and/or increase the drop rate.

As for Fast+ only for Easy/Casual farming, I"m not so sure about that. Know someone who used Fast+ for CTF chipping on Hard and said it wasn't that bad compared to normal CTF route for chipping. Now this was with E-4 Friend Fleet which helped, but I've seen comments elsewhere (e.g. reddit) where a few post recommended Fast+ as the way to go for E-4 Hard chipping. As you know, the CTF chipping was by far the worst part of E-4.

You mention 4-5. I use Fast+ and it's overall noticeably easier. Lose DA (not sure why anyone would drop T3 shells on CA(V)), but overall works just fine, and better than the longer route option. I tried the longer route and pretty clear to me that Fast+ is the way to go for 4-5 so RE used on some ships. At least with 4-5 though, always can use same fleet which is my point. Again, perhaps some overlap, but not necessarily 100% event after event.

Yes, I can see Fast+ becoming required for clearing, but to me that bleeds into P2W given historic bonuses, lots of locking (more fleet locking these days), etc. RE rewards won't keep up with 1-2 RE parsed out here and there. Again, I get the impression that devs are looking at profit margins a bit with some events. If I need to buy RE for Hard clear, that may be the end of KC for me. Slots & maybe a ring here or there - fine. RE is pushing it too much for me.

Mentioned Hard/Medium mostly in terms of free to play because not F2P will always choose Casual/Easy. Some may still want to try and clear all Medium or a mix of Hard/Medium.

In the end, to me, we are back to where we started. I agree that Fast+ was a nice option for some players, but disagree that Fast+ as an option nullifies all issues with E-4 farming. It's not a solution for many players, especially those who didn't get every single RE reward since introduction and/or not willing to pay for extra. May have to agree to disagree on this.

----
@Ink20: Possible yes, but probable? Used a lot of different ships (I think all CAV and 3/4 BBV for example. Used a few AV as well. How many AV are 100 sloters keeping?) = have to be spot on with what one kept for 100 ships to have a chance at Hard clear for this event. 6 fleet locks not helping 100 sloters either. Again with historic bonuses, fleet locks (and unlocking phases used more ships), etc. make it increasingly difficult for 100 sloters to get Hard or even Medium clear. I think that's by design.

- - - Updated - - -

Totally agree on the Hard-mode awards, especially for the last map. Hard mode should get you the hard mode medal, not gate important gear behind the difficulty.

Glad I'm not alone on this. Original way was better IMO.

I don't think Friend fleets have ever been implemented right at event start, but I suspect they will now since players have control over whether they get a friend fleet or not. If FFleets are introduced along with maps, that will help with fleet lock planning sooner.

Still, there is the issue of FFleet composition. I also burned an RE on Akagi K2. :/ Well, not totally a waste I suppose. Anyway, one issue with Friend Fleet may be historic bonuses on a given map. If friend fleets are to help much, perhaps need ships that get historic bonuses as well to be sufficiently effective? Just a guess. Could also be part of the map theme as well maybe? I suppose they could just code that Friend Fleet ships gets 1.x bonus regardless of whatever the map historic bonus may be. Not sure if that's too troublesome or not, but at least that way could have different Friend Fleet comps and players don't have to worry about using certain historic bonus ships.

[Ghoulvarine]

A summary of my history of KC events. Pretty interesting to me now that I look back on it.
W15 H-H-H-H-N <--- my first event; not bad when I just joined towards the end of F14
Sp15 H-H-H-H-H-H <--- pretty happy to have done my first all-hard clear
Su15 H-H-H-H-H-H-N <--- burned out dropped to N
F15 H-H-H-H-N <--- when the only difference between N and H is the medal
W16 H-H-N <--- again the only difference is the medal
Sp16 H-H-H-H-H-H-N <--- 3rd time in a row for the same reason
Su16 H-H-H-N <--- 4th time is a charm
F16 H-H-H-N-H <--- choosing between catapult or range 10 LBAS
W17 N-H-N <--- you can't bait me with 3 more screws
Sp17 H-H-H-H-H <--- wanted the Hayabusa 64th
Su17 H-H-H-H-H-H-H <--- really wanted the swordfish mk.III (this was true hell)
F17 N-N-H-H <--- something is up when you start N and end in H; it's like F15 to Su16 but in normal operation
W18 H-N-N-N-N-H-N <--- this one's a doosey; got a combination of reasons like above when dropping difficulty
F18 H-H-H-H-N <--- kind of burned out in the end to try and get the Ju87c KMX skilled
W19 H-H-N <--- having a +4 on the equipment is not really enough to make me go the extra
Sp19 N-E-E-E-E <--- well there's a first for everything, like starting 4 days before event ends

[DLRevan]

Embedded Tweet

New expeditions are being implemented, so here's to hoping they'll at least be solving that resource race problem. Tho given the last batch of new expeditions, I'm not holding my breath.

[ofi123]

@goesto11

I did mention drop rate is what matters. Fast+ is just an option for farming choices, like easy/casual farm first vs hard clear first, just option for players for farming. Since it's an option, I'm all in for more options as long as the base wasn't changed in accordance to this extra option. Since we can only extrapolate the drop rate, we can hardly say if the fast+ route change the drop rate of Fletcher compared to other rare drops in past events. While things like this events boss setups strongly seemed to be set for friend fleet is not really an option but a downgrade.

@goesto11If anything it's just the drop rate that matters. If the drop rate is the same as new rare ships as all previous events, that's pretty much just RNG.

But yeah, drop rate for new ship should be higher, either the base rate is higher or increasing rate for every number of A/S ranks milestone achieved.

For passing rate, I got over 90% with 5 sorties being in easy. So I'm assuming it's our setup that cause the significant difference?

Also, tbf I didn't try CTF fast+ for chipping due to the power spike of enemies. From 1 opening torp to 3-5 with gold for 2 nodes and that buffed Ru pre-boss scared me. Though in retrospect after I went out of SAN and used pre-boss+sparkling I could have tried fast+ with ASW support.



@DLRevan

Unless they are increasing the soft/hard cap, it matters little unless it's bucket/mat with better resource gain. Especially with most of the nest efficient expeditions being short duration.

[DLRevan]

@ofi123 We really need both, so one thing at a time.

Also, better gain helps mitigate during events as well.

[Ghoulvarine]

@ofi123 I think the soft cap increase will be of significant improvement because it helps everybody. The hard cap is dependent on circumstance. I myself never reached hard cap for anything other than steel. If I can't amass up to the hard cap now, an increase to it doesn't help someone like me.

[ofi123]

@Ghoulvarine

Personally hard cap doesn’t affect me, but with the number of players stocking up to cap between events it’ll be helpful for them. Especially for the pioneers.

Soft cap would help a lot for me who either ranks/LSC until about a month before event. But unless they increase it significantly which I seriously doubt so, the effect would not be very significant for anyone who stockpile past the cap for event.

For me in terms of resources, instead of caps I’d prefer they increase the regen rate. As long as they don’t increase sortie and repair costs, I don’t mind they increase development and construction costs slightly. I doubt this will ever happen though.

[goesto11]

@ofi123: We may agree more than I thought. As for passing rate, hard to say. Some got better than I did, some about the same from what I read here and there. it might be somewhat due to load out, but using pretty much what other people were and I've got good if not great equipment. Didn't you farm with Fast + anyway? That's should give different results for passing rate.

[ofi123]

@goesto11

Wait, were you farming in fast+ or normal CTF route?