u/MythicMortis

I wasn't sure about whether or not i should post this. I initially wrote it to organize my thoughts, figured it might be good enough to actually be shared publicly.

Many CRK Youtubers have already covered these matters, but I will take a step further and analyze them to the best of my abilities and knowledge. I want to bring attention to these things because they matter. If you have something to say, make yourself heard. I am open to dialogue in the comments or in general.

Devsisters as of lately has been extremely disappointing. I do not think it is anyone’s fault in particular - I think it is a vicious circle that I will try to elaborate on in this document.

I will cover:
-Many in-game issues, briefly, that are currently under everyone’s scope (Legendaries new system, arena, new releases, performance issues, legendary costumes, AI, misleading and somewhat predatory tactics)
-Outside-game issues, lack of transparency, and what I think their existence can be pointed to.

I will try to tackle each and every single one of these points while being as objective as possible. If at any point I express my opinion on a matter, know that I do not consider it religiously correct and that it matters little to none to the final conclusions I draw.

Let’s begin by giving a look into the many issues that I often see brought up inside of the community, anywhere, at any point in time. I think all of these are valid complaints that I should tackle in this document before debating over why they persist.

THE NEW LEGENDARY SYSTEM

Starting from the Timekeeper Update, it has been planned for Legendaries to be reworked regarding how their promotions function. It has been said that they will be progressively changed, over the course of updates, to be in line with how Awakenings and Beast/Witch promotions work.

However this means that dragons and legendaries releasing in the future (which, you guessed it, is going to be the majority of new strong, meta-changing cookies) will not be available in normal gacha anymore upon release.

Not only that, but for newer players, it will be more difficult to get promotions for these cookies, since an awakened promotion requires far more soul stones than a normal one. Obviously the power you get from a singular promotion will be higher, but it doesn’t feel…nice. Like, from a progression standpoint, being stuck on the same promotion for weeks is pretty underwhelming, and I say this from personal experience with the Beasts.

Do I think this is one of the more glaring issues with the game? By all means, no. And one can definitely bat an eye on this change, although I fully believe it wasn’t necessary at all, if not to better monetize all high rarity cookies. 

ARENA

Arena has been one of the least fun experiences in the game as of late. 

In the past there have been many metas that functioned with a rock/paper/scissor scheme where the variety of comps you could use was decently large, with sometimes even one trick comps that worked remarkably well under certain circumstances.

I always thought that was fun. Being given ways to experiment with many cookies makes players more willing to upgrade and build multiple cookies, which I think is healthy for the game.

But as of lately, arena comps have been very one dimensional. There is a single, meta defining comp an individual can run if they want to find consistent success. Everything else is either remarkably weaker or completely unusable.

I understand that new cookie releases need to be powerful in order to make them appealing to spend for, but I think we’ve reached the pinnacle of insanity with the latest releases. When was the last time you saw Awakened WL or Silent Salt in a staple meta comp?  Not that they are bad, but they got outclassed so quickly that it was actually disappointing. Hollyberry didn’t last that long either. Eternal Sugar is an exception because she is fundamentally broken for reasons I won’t cover in here (and even then, even she is currently outclassed in arena).

Having so many cookies applying 30 different specific debuffs with no true counterplay and constantly applying cooldown debuffs that mess up a skill cycle means that arena becomes very RNG. Removing consistency from PVP makes the experience feel remarkably worse.

Even top players across multiple servers have expressed their thoughts on how arena is simply not a fun experience in its latest iterations. And there are plenty things that could be done to fix the issue. 

I know people are against balance changes in gacha games, but I do not think they would be too bad of an idea to shake up the meta. If you don’t want that then have arena last less time, but have something like the arcade arena buffs. Have elements matter - buff some high rarity cookies that have fallen off to bring them back in the meta - do something that forces players to experiment with how they play, instead of spamming the same comp with minor treasure adjustments and pray.

NEW RELEASES

This is a problem that somewhat ties itself with how the meta works in PVP, but to a certain extent it also hurts PVE. 

I think that in an ideal world, every new release should be, at bare minimum, a mediocre to decent pick. And I don’t think a cookie should be shaped in a way that is to make sure another cookie completely loses any sort of relevance.

I’m going to take Sugar Swan and Millennial Tree as prime examples of cookies that are designed specifically to outclass other cookies. 

Millennial Tree’s skill reads as follows:
“If there are no Defense Cookies on the team, Millennial Tree Cookie will use Nature's Protection. “

In other words, Millennial Tree becomes much weaker if there are defense cookies in the team. Ergo, for the time he was released, if you’re using Awakened Hollyberry Cookie (very likely since she was THE defense cookie at the time), you will be at a disadvantage. 

Sugar Swan’s skill reads as follows:
"If there are no other Healing Cookies on the team except Sugar Swan Cookie, she will instantly revive a fallen Cookie. "

In other words, if you’re running other healers in the team, you lose Sugar Swan’s most prominent asset. Aside from the fact that I find said asset to be extremely toxic for arena in general (it single-handedly killed one shot comps), once again, the skill was designed with the idea of completely removing Pure Vanilla from arena. I do not think it is as bad as Hollyberry, since PV definitely had a long stay in the arena meta, but it doesn’t make it any less terrible.

Designing a cookie in a way that they make an older release completely worthless to play is a HORRIBLE design choice. People may spend money and invest in these cookies - and this philosophy is just a middle finger to them. It doesn’t mean that the newer releases should be weak, or on par with the old one, but at the same time, it shouldn’t be made in a way that punishes you for using a specific cookie. It doesn’t feel nice at all.

On the other spectrum, lately epic cookie releases have been extremely underwhelming. Aside from Epic Cookies specifically designed for Guild Battle, all new releases end up being extremely niche in modes that never or rarely return, or just straight up useless.

Ash Salt and Croissant Cookie both have extremely underwhelming skills, ESPECIALLY Ash Salt Cookie. They’re epic cookies, they’re not supposed to be broken, but we have plenty epic cookies that can be worthy replacements for players who don’t have a higher rarity cookie, or that serve a role that no other cookie really fills. Linzer, Rebel, Star Coral, Menthol, Twizzly, are all good examples. 

It doesn’t feel good to unlock a brand new cookie you like and build them, only for them to be remarkably terrible. Ash Salt is one of my favorite recent releases, and I was baffled at how bad she was. Agar Agar is an older but very much equal example (especially with how much she was hyped up). 

THE PERFORMANCE ISSUES

I’ll briefly cover this point, not because I think it doesn’t deserve extensive elaboration (it very much does), but because there isn’t much to say about it.

A game should be able to run somewhat smoothly across multiple devices. The more devices are able to run a game, the more likely it is it will build a solid fanbase.

I want to mention that when I was first introduced to the game when Awakened Dark Cacao was released, a thing my friends had made very clear was that “the game may turn my phone into an oven”.

I am not joking. This is their own words. To be introduced to a game like this is…far from inviting.

Still, my phone is very good, so I managed to run the game somewhat smoothly, but eventually I figured I could move on PC to make my performance better.

Even on computer, the game is a bit choppy. So I can only imagine what playing the game on a lower end device must feel like.

Optimization should be one of the main things a game tries to look into, as it is an essential way to retain players. People take smoothness very seriously - if your game doesn’t meet standards for a majority of your potential public, then you have serious issues.

All Devsis games have this problem, truthfully - optimization is one of the main reasons why OSmash failed. When you have a competitor as powerful as Brawl Stars, whose optimization is at least decent, having your game release laggy and choppy really buries your chances. Why would I play Ovensmash if I have a staple like Brawl that runs better on my phone?

LEGENDARY COSTUMES

I feel like this is one of the more prominent issues with the game, especially as of lately. 

Cosmetics have always been awful to obtain in CRK. Costumes above all. It took YEARS to make it so that you couldn’t get duplicates from special banners - something that should have never existed in the first place.

But now there still is an even worse problem. Legendary banners have no pity. You could, potentially, pull hundreds of times, and not get the featured costumes. And though I say potentially, this happens WAY TOO OFTEN to be remotely acceptable.

I’ve seen people reach absurd levels of chance multipliers in Black Sapphire’s gacha. 

https://preview.redd.it/kyu246g73v7h1.png?width=1441&format=png&auto=webp&s=f5c19fa7379a6827d8a8a985aa5da09298abe5b6

What the hell is this?? How can it be justifiable for a player to burn through such an absurd amount of resources without getting anything in return?? 

This isn’t my screenshot, but I am not too far from reaching this situation either. There is no reason why these gachas shouldn’t have a guaranteed pity.

And if they’re not going to give them a guaranteed pity, then they should make them release in the rainbow shop crystal much faster. Or make rainbow cubes easier to obtain. Or, at the bare minimum, slow down the releases of legendary costumes to make it easier to save up rainbow cubes. Lately we’ve been getting a new banner every 2 weeks and it’s just impossible to keep up without getting absurdly lucky.

AI

Yes, DEVSISTERS has been caught having ties with AI. I’ve recently seen many posts backing up these accusations with some proper evidence that clearly points at it.

https://preview.redd.it/72tom8g73v7h1.png?width=1148&format=png&auto=webp&s=f722c1b8024e6fff147acb585d67d591e113bb3a

https://preview.redd.it/ddlnijf73v7h1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=8043a39c73b5bb56d66e698eb665f8e7c382ea0b

Above are some examples of official content from the Devsisters Gamehub featuring the use of AI. I’ve seen theories that this might have been AI enhancement and not AI generation, but whatever it is, it doesn’t make it any better.

I am aware that such advertisements are done by companies outside of Devsis, and not directly involved with them, but Devsis should be more careful with who they hire. They’re already in a bit of a bad situation, and the last thing they could need is AI allegations.

Just to make it clear, though - there is no evidence that DEVSISTERS THEMSELVES have used AI in any shape or form. So, please, give the benefit of doubt everyone.

MARKETING AND IN GAME SHOP

This is an actually meaningful issue that I do not see many people speak about. I suppose it’s because it is a recurring issue in many gacha games, but I truly think it should, at least, be pointed out. I’ll speak from my own personal experience.

I am an occasional spender. I do not mind paying stuff in games I like a lot, as I am not against supporting developers for their work. It’s just how mobile games work, after all.

I have never been too inclined to spend in CRK, despite liking the game. Even during updates featuring cookies I like a lot, I held back from doing so.

The deals that the shop offers you are, most of the time, extremely inflated in price. I will use Rainbow Cubes as an example because GOD I hate rainbow cubes, but this can be applied to many things in the game. 

https://preview.redd.it/eywd5df73v7h1.png?width=390&format=png&auto=webp&s=7c8e34ee0878f205e27c100feb23ae8bce8f0a10

9k Rainbow Cubes are priced at 53 euros. Want to know how many pulls 9k pulls equal to?

30 costume pulls. That is actually a depressingly low amount for such a ludicrous price. The chance of getting anything meaningful from 30 pulls in a Legendary Gacha is basically zero. 

Everything in this game is SO overpriced. Crystals also follow a logic akin to this one, and don’t get me started on kingdom backgrounds or tree/train station skins reaching prices far beyond 50 euros.

There never IS a reason for me to buy anything in this game because the value to price ratio just isn’t worth it. Unless you are a whale, it is never a good idea to spend money in this game, if not for the featured cookie pass (and even then, it isn’t a low price, even though the rewards aren’t too bad).

I really don’t think that the deals are in any way inviting for the average players who is somewhat responsible with how they spend money. I would even go as far as to call them predatory, given most of the time the rewards you’re given don’t even guarantee anything meaningful, but that’s a debate for another time.

And again, in a time where Devsisters is in a bit of a pickle with money (not bankrupt, like many people assume, but definitely struggling), I am surprised how there aren’t more good deals to actually GIVE people a reason to spend. 

THE OUTER ISSUES

This is the most important part of the document. I’ll be sure to explain my point of view very clearly in a way that can be easily grasped by whoever is reading.

As of lately I feel like there has been a never-ending drama wave between the developers and the western community. To clarify, the western community is the VAST majority of the community as a whole. Obviously there are Korean fans, but I am willing to confidently claim that at least 70% of the CRK global community is american/european. 

This, indirectly, also means that the majority of CRK content is made by people from this part of the community. Fan content often functions as free advertisement for companies - it expands the IP’s popularity and potentially gets more players involved. More players means more customers. That equals revenue.

As such, it is important for Devsis to keep these players close, and to try and find a common ground where both parties have a gain from the game itself. 

The feedback that these players provide is a very important resource that the developers can use to improve their game, or find solutions to problems that exist and that require solving. 

Not all feedback is good feedback - the developers have to be provided with feedback that is objective, genuine and not insulting/useless/personal to the single user, and not the broader community.

Cookie Run Kingdom has an official Discord server that is actively backed by Devsisters. Alyssa, the community manager, is present within this server.

The server has a feedback channel that is meant to be a way for players (once again, mostly from the Western community) to speak their mind freely about how they feel about the game. Point out things they like (because positive feedback is also important) and things they don’t like.

The importance of this channel is further elevated by the fact that, at least from the looks of it, a sizeable portion of Devsis’ employees do not know English. Even in their live streams, where they speak about future updates, they always speak Korean and make use of English subtitles.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with what I said, thus far. Everything is perfectly reasonable and, in an ideal world, it should be a perfectly functional system.

The problem is that, most of the time, Devsis seems to be COMPLETELY ignorant about issues regarding the game. And I am not entirely willing to simply assume they are playing dumb, because the most glaring issues (like the performance issue) have reached them.

I will take a moment to write down the definition of a community manager.

“A community manager is a marketing professional who builds, grows and manages a company's online community by engaging customers and fans through social media and live events. In other words, they are the “bridge” between customers and companies.”

Though I am sure that there are more people working behind the scenes, Alyssa is the main face of the CRK community managers. They are the person we see the most in these social media and live events, and the person we have an easier contact with.

One of Alyssa’s tasks as a community manager, as you may have already figured, is to read through the feedback inside the server’s feedback channel, discern good feedback from bad feedback, and report what they gather to Devsisters.
There are, however, a few things that lead me to believe that this “bridge” I’ve mentioned before is not functioning as it should. 

The more glaring issue here is that as of lately, the moderation team, who I believe is supposed to assist Alyssa in these matters, has grown a TERRIBLE habit of deleting feedback. I am not sure what leads them to do so, but regardless, even if the feedback is not good, they should NEVER feel entitled to do such an action, unless what they are provided with is very obviously not constructive in any way. 

Moreover, even reading through the feedback channel very casually, you’ll easily see that some of the issues I have reported above are repeated several times, across multiple messages and different users.

I find it REALLY hard to believe that this feedback is simply going unnoticed. It cannot be. So either Devsis is actively ignoring it (which would be quite asinine), or they’re not being made fully aware of it, or at least how important it is. 

An instance that comes to mind is the drama we’ve had with JesterGoose and a few other arena top players. For those unaware, they utilized an exploit within the arena’s high level matchmaking to consistently get matched against bots and reach very high trophies.

This was not done out of malice. Months before, these high level players had reported the issue in the feedback channel (with MASSIVE support from the community), but had received no answer nor fix in game.

What led them to make use of this exploit in this coordinated effort was the lack of response from the developers, a desire to shed light on a situation that made the game at a high level less competitive.

Some of them got banned (not even all of them, which I find really strange) and as of today I am not sure if the issue has been fixed or not (although I believe it has, but I might be wrong).

Point being: things should have never reached this point. These players should not have felt the need to do something this risky due to a lack of response. 

I do not mean to accuse Alyssa of anything. I do not have evidence to prove that they are not doing their job right, and that they aren’t a capable individual. I will simply state facts based on the current situation.

It is clear to me that things are not being communicated well, or that there is a choice to totally ignore what the larger community has to say. I believe the way the feedback channel is being handled is not helping fix this issue in any way.

The latest drama featuring Croissant and Timekeeper was, in my opinion, a prime example of things being handled in a very poor way. The moderators failed to explain the situation in a constructive way, and Alyssa failed to express themselves in a way that wasn’t offensive and, honestly, close minded.

Timecroi was described as a “problematic ship”, and was banned as such. Other than the fact the ship has existed for a long time, and therefore it is strange that they’d address it only now, there are other ships that could be labelled as “problematic” that didn’t end up receiving the same treatment. For my own sake, I will not mention the ships I am thinking of, and I will simply say that, at its root, this decision was certainly hypocritical. 

But regardless of whether or not you think Timecroi is a problematic ship, and regardless of the fact that this community takes its ships WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY TOO SERIOUSLY (AND I MEAN IT.), you cannot disagree that things could have been handled in a far more professional way. There really was a complete lack of dialogue from both sides.

These mishaps from the team make it difficult for me to give the benefit of the doubt in the fact that what they pass to Devsisters might not be completely in line with what the community actually says. And this is a huge problem.

Repeatedly ignoring the feedback dedicated players have to share with you leads to them getting tired of the game. No one likes being ignored, especially when they’re backed up by many people who share similar concerns.

This is an especially bad time for this to happen because of the very poor performance of Ovensmash (which was supposed to be their next big hit) and Episode 15 of BY (the climax and culmination of CRK’s entire story up to this point).

I do not think Episode 15 was bad - rather, I simply think it could have been much better. What should have been an ending that was both satisfying and written to make people curious about the next storyline seems to have underperformed, based on revenue and public discussion around it.

I will personally say that I felt like White Lily’s death was really undeserving for everything the character has gone through. I know some people will say otherwise, and it is perfectly fine, but I do not believe the character should have been tied to DE’s death.

The implication that the death of either DE or WL would cause the fall of the other makes for a very unsatisfying plot device, as it implies White Lily could have given her life at the very end of BY 2, and spare everyone the whole hassle of the following episodes. 

There are other glaring issues with episode 15, but this document’s point is not to point them out. The point is that Episode 15 has been evidently poorly received by a greater margin of the community, and that is bad news.

Mix that up with Devsisters desperately pumping out new games, hoping to get a CRK 2, and it is no surprise that their current economic situation isn’t great. And that ties as to why the updates feel less polished and more rushed, why they’ve given up on the french dub of the game, ecc. ecc.

MY CONCLUSIONS

Ultimately, I believe that the main thing that needs to be addressed in order to eventually tackle all the above-mentioned issues, is to try and create a more transparent channel of communication with the players.

It might be true that players don’t always have the right answers for problems. But it is true that no one knows how it feels to play a game like they do - and that input is extremely important. I could fix a lot of the aforementioned issues. 

Players need to be heard. And their voices need to be valued. The longer this situation where they are constantly ignored continues, the worse things will get moving forward. It’s time to take it at face value - the current system just isn’t working.

Thank you for reading, if you’ve reached this point. Do not hesitate to talk about anything you might want to bring up in the comments.

Might as well make one since the amount of these introduced this update is OBSCENE. I will edit the list if anyone in the comments points out a bug I didn't know of which is very likely. So help is appreciated. I know Supercell sporadically reads this sub so here's hope that this will be of help. But maybe it's wishful thinking.

RT marks, under certain circumstances, increase damage by an obscene amount. I am not sure what it is that triggers it.

Ball is faster --> dash dribbling is impossible (maybe intended with the "ball fix"? Very bad either way).

8Bit turret paired with Ruffs treat massively inflates any brawler’s damage

Damian speakers don’t break against respawned brawlers, making them stuck in place.

Lola’s clone deals so much damage for no reason

Every aimable projectile gadget resets unload (this was patched at some point, I think? It’s back now, and brawlers like Shelly can deal 9000 damage in less than a second its so silly)

Colette can STILL get 75% damage reduction from teleports

Because of how they “””fixed””” Colette, if she uses 2 supers in a row the normal effect of Mass Tax does not reset

Meg does not recover all her health when re-entering super

Bibi and Frank can unload 3 ammo with just one by activating hyper and attack (frame perfect)

Najia snakes deal damage on spawn for no reason

Sirius didnt get his health nerf lol

Kaze’s geisha super recharges her super way slower than its supposed to

Jacky’s hyper lost the extra slow range it used to have

Melodie’s hyper notes do not work with her Fast Beats star power (this is an old bug they still haven’t fixed)

Gigi’s super does not charge itself completely when hitting 2 brawlers on the way back (also a bug and the reason why she is still freaking buns)

I'll add more if I missed any. Supercell fix your game what even is this