seimeinotaka (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
seimeinotaka) wrote2015-09-29 08:06 pm
seimeinotaka) wrote2015-09-29 08:06 pm
On why TKRB sucks
I figured I should post this to at least publish my very unnecessary opinion on a game that DMM or Nitro will never read, but it should be enough for me to not want to destroy anything.
I'll be honest, Touken Ranbu fucking sucks.
Yes, that's right and I play it but there are several reasons why it's not really a good or even enjoyable game.
I've been since around March, so I am talking about my personal experience and what I've seen happening to my friends. I've lived every event and I've seen shit. It was so much that it was enough to spawn something that probably hit too many people a little bit too close. And the way this is going, unless they get their shit together, they'll shoot themselves in the foot.
As of September 29-30 depending on your time zone, Touken Ranbu has been on for around 9 months. It's not that long, even compared to games like KanColle and it certainly has had too many ups and downs in the short span of 4 months. I was in the March madness, when people had to wait for around 1-2 hours to even get into a server and we were greeted with blank pages because the website wouldn't even load. Amusingly, even forums got down because many were paranoid and anxious and flooded forums asking if the blank page was happening to other people. I had to personally stay up at 3am with work at 7 just to get in. Compare right now when no new servers have added and when spaces are open they slowly fill up and there's no actual overcrowding just to get into the game. I actually suspect that even a considerable amount of the fanbase has dropped the game, for several reasons below.
Gameplay issues
The game has had a share of ups and downs, half of them related to honest bad design and bad pacing. When the game started and until around April, there were 44 swords. Then, a new dynamic Kebishii (KBC), and two swords were added. These swords, Urashima and Nagasone Kotetsu, were unique in that they were not forgeable and were only drops. While an initial good tactic, it quickly showed a lot of issues that up to this day still continue to be unaddressed. The most obvious one was the difficulty of the KBC themselves.
TKRB has never had a great use of strategy, being a mostly RNG-based number with very little user input which makes it great for multitasking but the RNG can usually (and will) fuck the player up. Before KBC, any player would be able to cheese their way through with Oodachi simply because they hit 3 opponents in a row if lucky. KBC changed things in that the level would be dependant on the highest leveled sword in the party as opposed to the average used in any map. It could simply be changed if you just brought a even-leveled party, or when the difference between the highest leveled and the lowest wasn't that great, of around 5.
I personally struggled mainly because I play the game slowly and I hadn't got an Oodachi by that point, so my team was too weak to defeat them. In turn, I simply avoided them because I knew it'd end up bad for me. It didn't help that I lacked Iwatooshi and KBC infested 2 of the low level maps I needed to level up weak swords. However, it wasn't something that only affected me. Soon after a lot of complaints on Twitter, the TKRB staff wisened into fixing this. They added a campaign to reduce the levels of KBC until lv 29, along a NicoNico Event. A cynic might state that it was a way to not have them lose face in the fact that they overestimated their ability to gauge properly difficulty, which would eventually become a common trend in a lot of things they are doing.
That was not, however, the only problem. The problem also relied on the drops themselves. Even before Urashima and Nagasone, many players struggled-struggle-will struggle getting a sword, especially Mikazuki and Kogitsunemaru. The initial drop rates of the Kotetsu siblings were so abysmally low that anyone who would be a fucking asshole and showed them in PVP would get looks of hate. Along the NicoNico event, the staff decided to fix this by increasing the drop rate by 2. It quickly became a joke, since 0 X 2 = 0. While the actual drop rate was not 0, it was so close to it that any double chance was in any case inconsequential. This urged the staff to increase it to a 10-time drop rate. As of today, the drop rate of either Kotetsu sibling doesn't reach past 5% in any map and some players still lack these swords.
The introduction of these siblings started a nasty trend of boss-drop-only rewards that continues to this day.
Maps and fake difficulty
Eventually there was little to no action in terms of gameplay or events, and players cited KanColle to have several events a year while TKRB had none by May. A 5-month period with very limited content is not enough to keep players from playing. At this point, one of the biggest issues in TKRB should have been clear. The game has very ridiculous drop rates for some swords. The KAKAKA song was born because of someone trying to get the rare swords and getting Yamabushi Kunihiro instead. Mind you this was done on March, and by May many might have been put off already. Mikazuki was only available on 5-4 and Kogi in 5-3. KBC might trigger in these maps because they were only boss drops.
It was when the first map of Ikedaya showed up. I like to amuse myself thinking that the popularity of the Shinsengumi was quite unfortunate since in an attempt to have these swords be used in these maps, perhaps out of Saniwa sadism, the game broke. I also tend to think that world 6 as a whole is a huge mistake in an attempt to change the rather boring and basic gameplay. An attempt, but no less of a mistake.
Ikedaya changed things in that it consisted of only night battles, finally giving significance to the stealth stats and use to Tanto, Wakizashi and some Uchigatana. The first two would be quickly ditched in favor of Tachi and Oodachi, who would endure much better world 5. This first caused a huge problem, since a player would find themselves short on swords strong enough to get into Ikedaya straight away and would have to grind and level the team up. The second issue was the restriction itself, with players forced to use weaker swords with only one or two troop slots and going through at least 10 nodes to reach the boss. While the swords would be able to avoid some attacks, they still could have troops obliterated in the blink of an eye because of low Leadership stats. The third issue was the map. The Ikedaya W1 map had dead ends at almost every corner, so even reaching the boss was a miracle in itself, because of how RNG works. Before 6-1, I had been stuck a whole month in 5-2.
The final issue and what makes Ikedaya a quite loathed stage is the R5 yari. While this yari had appeared before in KBC stages, it was only in 6-1 that it was implemented constantly in almost every node. The yari is too fast to be killed and usually has 3 gold troops. This meant that every party facing it would end up receiving damage. At first, it doesn't seem like much. However, with the repeated dead ends, little to no troops and not lasting to the boss node, repeated runs would hamper the player's resources because of the amount needed to repair swords. The final nail in the coffin was the tanto at the boss node. Since the stat changes also apply to the enemy, this means the tanto is the strongest enemy unit and as the fastest, it is capable of OHKO a sword. This meant that getting any valuable drop here implied first destroying the tanto by nothing short of a miracle if the player managed to reach it. 6-1 also has 4 nodes where Kogi drops, but the drop rate and difficulty is piss poor and ass stupid respectively that it's honestly better to stick to KBC-infected 5-3.
If this wasn't enough, 6-2 included the drop Akashi Kuniyuki. Unlike its piece of fuck brethen, 6-2 is mostly linear except the beginning and the end. It features less yari compared to 6-1. However, the RNG was so bad that the staff had to fix it in days to ensure players would reach the end and not the several dead ends crowded everywhere else. The thing that took the cake, however, was the same tanto boss enemy. Assuming the player had been able to get to that node, their attempts could easily be rendered pointless if the Tanto managed to OHKO a sword, bringing the rank to a C and no Akashi drop. I know someone who even said that triggering KBC was preferable to dealing with the actual map. In a twist of irony, the very same first hated mechanic came as a solution. It's a good example of how two wrongs don't make a right and choosing the lesser evil. Since the player would try to get Akashi, they would obviously trigger KBC eventually since the Akashi drop rate is abysmally low.
A huge issue in TKRB as a whole is the distribution of drops. KBC drops were mostly Tanto and Wakizashi. The first worlds were crowded with Tanto, Wakizashi and Uchigatana, and later world 4 and 5 leaned more toward Tachi (though they would mostly be a select group), Oodachi, Yari and Naginata. In world 6 some fucker had the great idea to include Tanto and almost every sword available. The huge pool of swords ensured that every rare one had a piss poor chance of dropping, especially the "special one" that could only be obtained there. This same issue was carried in the War Training Expansion Event.
I'll include 6-3 since its relevance is minimal at this point. While reports say it's comparatively easier than 6-1 and 6-2, it is not that interesting in that players only get Mikazuki in the boss node and there are no implements of 6-4 as of the time of this writing. So in all, it's not that demanded or players have been cynical about it because of experiences in 6-1 and 6-2. It still carries the same issues as its brethen of fuck maps.
As of my personal experience, I can say that I tried several times 6-1 and grew tired of it, only being able when Izuminokami Kanesada, Doudanuki Masakuni and Ookurikara were changed to Uchigatana. I had two, Kanesan and Ookurikara, in my main team and they were high-leveled, around 82-83. This was the only way I could get past the bosses in 6-1 and 6-2, but even then I was OHKO once with the Tanto. I also dropped any ideas that I could be able to try getting Kogi in 6-1.
Events
Until June there had been no events in TKRB. The first happened to be around the unfortunate time of the plagiarism scandal that severely affected Nitro+ and DMM enough that they gave charms and Emas to the players in apology. I suspect it's the reason for the quite terrible reward token. The first event consisted on a series of 100 floors with increasing difficulty. The first 50 were meant for all players, including newcomers, as a way to gain experience at little risk and with the promise of guaranteed Hakata Toushirou when beating floor 50, as well as koban, to use in backgrounds as of that moment.
The second half was meant as a challenge, with questionable rewards in terms of troops. This half was also plagued with yari, which brought back the issues in Ikedaya. Several players would have been quite affected by trying Ikedaya in the first place and going to a limited event which needed a lot of resources and tokens could have proved too much. To add insult to the injury, the reward was a banner in the original citadel background. I believe that at this time, the staff was dealing with the plagiarism issue and it was their main priority so all time and resources went to investigating this issue and getting it solved as soon as possible. Remember that there were two, first with the designs of some items like the charms and gameplay visuals. The second was the allegations of fan-favorites Kashuu and Yasusada's designs being plagiarized. The first one was rendered as actual plagiarism, the second (taking place later) was not.
The actual time investment, resource use and little reward caused several players to be discontent with this token of appreciation. The event itself didn't have rare swords as a bait to get players to actually play the game and to some, the koban wasn't very needed.
The second event, War Training Expansion was comparatively a better event. At this point, I'm cynic enough to say that if you are to compare true garbage with half-garbage, half-garbage will be seen as better, since it's a matter of perspective. That said, the event was a good improvement. It featured 4 maps and depending on the player's needs, they could camp in one map to get the sword they wanted. The first map was to level up weak swords. Second map was to get Urashima and Nagasone, proof that the 10 rate is still too low. Third map included Hakata and Akashi, for those who were fed up with 6-2 or had missed Hakata. Fourth map included different drop rates for "rare" swords. "Rare" is a loose term here, since they didn't include Kogitsunemaru, the most infamous of them all, or the rest of 4, only featuring Uguisumaru. Rare-ish Hotarumaru was missing as well. Instead week one had Uguisumaru, week 2 had Tonbokiri, week 3 had Iwatooshi, and week 4 had Mikazuki, Atsushi, and Hirano. There was also a small chance of getting Nihongou, which would be like a bonus.
It might be my own perception but I still fail to see how Hirano and Atsu are considered rare, especially versus Kogi or the other swords. In weeks of forging, I spammed the ALL 50 recipes and I got my share of both swords while as of today, I've yet to get Kogi. Also, many wanted to get Nihongou, myself included, only because he'd be available in 6-4 and seeing the pattern of douchebaggery of Ikedaya as a whole, yeah. In any case, the idea behind this event was good, it's just that the execution lacked in some parts. As per usual, the maps were flooded with the R5 yari, which is most likely a way to make players remember the fact that they can use real life money to buy resources and tokens, seeing the final campaign was a discount on these items if you bought them with your actual money. TKRB had always featured these microtransactions, but it's only until today that they pushed them so blatantly, especially with no token campaigns and any of the sort that would help the players recover what they would spend in a single run.
The biggest issue in the event was the actual drop percentage. The idea of increased chances was in all honestly a thinly veiled lie. Akashi had higher drop percentages in 6-2 than in E3, it was just that E3 was more feasible since there was no restriction in your party and it had fewer nodes and less detours. The same was for any sword. I kept trying for Tonbokiri and found that the increased chance was from 0.1 to 0.8 in the actual Tonbokiri week, which wasn't any better than if I had camped on 5-3. It didn't help at all that the maps were infested with tanto drops which always do more harm than good, seeing tanto don't yield many scrap resources and you encounter them everywhere.
The reason KanColle's events are so successful is that they feature several new swords and the drop rates are higher. Not to 10% but enough that the fans keep trying AND there's a higher chance you get someone, ANYONE new. TKRB's piece of shit drop rates only guarantee that some get the swords they look for but many don't. However, the event did try to implement different restrictions, such as level and the swords in party dictating moving patterns throughout the field so that a player wouldn't try to Oodachi cheese through most of it.
That said, the event was very resource-heavy, so any newcomer would have a hard time getting their levels up AND fishing for any rare sword they would most likely miss. I was honestly quite lucky in getting Akashi and Nihongou but my luck was not the luck of many.
The next event, in an unexpected turn, was a summarized version of the Underground Event which had happened only a few months ago. While it was meant to showcase Hakata's special abilities, it was met with quite a few raised eyebrows because of the rehashing of the worst TKRB event to date. Unless someone had missed Hakata or wanted Koban, there was little need for the event and the proximity of quite the resource-heavy month is questionable itself.
Now, we're finally getting a sneak preview of new content, and it's a honest trainwreck. At this point it's obvious that the TKRB staff is bad at gauging difficulty. Twice already have they had the need to tweak the difficulty of the event, which is even more dictated by RNG than ever and were strategy is of little use at all. This event is an obvious beta to the actual stage that will be implemented but the flaws are more than obvious now. The fact that the draw of two enemy cards of the same type in a run is an instant defeat without any way to prevent or change this is the most glaring issue, seeing that a good run can be cut short simply because of RNG. Not to mention that a player will lose beads if they are sent back. Other issues are out of the player's control, such as the arrow and bomb cards which can easily wreck a party simply by drawing them at a bad time.
While the game was very RNG based, this now completely leaves the player at the game mercy with the only options being deciding the formation or deciding to retreat. It's a very messed up Russian roulette in which the chances of drawing enemy cards increase with every turn and an unfair defeat. Assuming they don't wreck the swords in the actual map, it's still an unfair mechanic that will continue to put off people. And the thing is, several have already dropped the game because of the mechanics. An unfair RNG with little things to do is the best recipe to disaster. People aren't crowding to get into servers anymore and the popularity of TKRB is in the fanworks and not the game itself.
The event also has severe limitations, such as limited tries per day unless one wants to spend Koban but the rewards are honestly garbage. There are no drops and the only swords at of now are Hirano and Urashima, but the chance of getting 2000 beads is so obnoxious that someone might as well try their luck with KBC.
Microtransactions
To conclude this whatever it is, I want to address the issue of microtransactions. TKRB is a free game but the player can speed up their progress by spending money to get resources, more slots. Back in the day, I was young and naive and thought it could be good. So I've actually used real-life money to buy Emas. They are worth fucking shit.
Emas don't guarantee anything and most of the time they seem to be stuck on getting 1:30s. Don't even bother with the money, you're better of setting it on fire and watch it burn for shits and giggles.
I'll be honest, Touken Ranbu fucking sucks.
Yes, that's right and I play it but there are several reasons why it's not really a good or even enjoyable game.
I've been since around March, so I am talking about my personal experience and what I've seen happening to my friends. I've lived every event and I've seen shit. It was so much that it was enough to spawn something that probably hit too many people a little bit too close. And the way this is going, unless they get their shit together, they'll shoot themselves in the foot.
As of September 29-30 depending on your time zone, Touken Ranbu has been on for around 9 months. It's not that long, even compared to games like KanColle and it certainly has had too many ups and downs in the short span of 4 months. I was in the March madness, when people had to wait for around 1-2 hours to even get into a server and we were greeted with blank pages because the website wouldn't even load. Amusingly, even forums got down because many were paranoid and anxious and flooded forums asking if the blank page was happening to other people. I had to personally stay up at 3am with work at 7 just to get in. Compare right now when no new servers have added and when spaces are open they slowly fill up and there's no actual overcrowding just to get into the game. I actually suspect that even a considerable amount of the fanbase has dropped the game, for several reasons below.
Gameplay issues
The game has had a share of ups and downs, half of them related to honest bad design and bad pacing. When the game started and until around April, there were 44 swords. Then, a new dynamic Kebishii (KBC), and two swords were added. These swords, Urashima and Nagasone Kotetsu, were unique in that they were not forgeable and were only drops. While an initial good tactic, it quickly showed a lot of issues that up to this day still continue to be unaddressed. The most obvious one was the difficulty of the KBC themselves.
TKRB has never had a great use of strategy, being a mostly RNG-based number with very little user input which makes it great for multitasking but the RNG can usually (and will) fuck the player up. Before KBC, any player would be able to cheese their way through with Oodachi simply because they hit 3 opponents in a row if lucky. KBC changed things in that the level would be dependant on the highest leveled sword in the party as opposed to the average used in any map. It could simply be changed if you just brought a even-leveled party, or when the difference between the highest leveled and the lowest wasn't that great, of around 5.
I personally struggled mainly because I play the game slowly and I hadn't got an Oodachi by that point, so my team was too weak to defeat them. In turn, I simply avoided them because I knew it'd end up bad for me. It didn't help that I lacked Iwatooshi and KBC infested 2 of the low level maps I needed to level up weak swords. However, it wasn't something that only affected me. Soon after a lot of complaints on Twitter, the TKRB staff wisened into fixing this. They added a campaign to reduce the levels of KBC until lv 29, along a NicoNico Event. A cynic might state that it was a way to not have them lose face in the fact that they overestimated their ability to gauge properly difficulty, which would eventually become a common trend in a lot of things they are doing.
That was not, however, the only problem. The problem also relied on the drops themselves. Even before Urashima and Nagasone, many players struggled-struggle-will struggle getting a sword, especially Mikazuki and Kogitsunemaru. The initial drop rates of the Kotetsu siblings were so abysmally low that anyone who would be a fucking asshole and showed them in PVP would get looks of hate. Along the NicoNico event, the staff decided to fix this by increasing the drop rate by 2. It quickly became a joke, since 0 X 2 = 0. While the actual drop rate was not 0, it was so close to it that any double chance was in any case inconsequential. This urged the staff to increase it to a 10-time drop rate. As of today, the drop rate of either Kotetsu sibling doesn't reach past 5% in any map and some players still lack these swords.
The introduction of these siblings started a nasty trend of boss-drop-only rewards that continues to this day.
Maps and fake difficulty
Eventually there was little to no action in terms of gameplay or events, and players cited KanColle to have several events a year while TKRB had none by May. A 5-month period with very limited content is not enough to keep players from playing. At this point, one of the biggest issues in TKRB should have been clear. The game has very ridiculous drop rates for some swords. The KAKAKA song was born because of someone trying to get the rare swords and getting Yamabushi Kunihiro instead. Mind you this was done on March, and by May many might have been put off already. Mikazuki was only available on 5-4 and Kogi in 5-3. KBC might trigger in these maps because they were only boss drops.
It was when the first map of Ikedaya showed up. I like to amuse myself thinking that the popularity of the Shinsengumi was quite unfortunate since in an attempt to have these swords be used in these maps, perhaps out of Saniwa sadism, the game broke. I also tend to think that world 6 as a whole is a huge mistake in an attempt to change the rather boring and basic gameplay. An attempt, but no less of a mistake.
Ikedaya changed things in that it consisted of only night battles, finally giving significance to the stealth stats and use to Tanto, Wakizashi and some Uchigatana. The first two would be quickly ditched in favor of Tachi and Oodachi, who would endure much better world 5. This first caused a huge problem, since a player would find themselves short on swords strong enough to get into Ikedaya straight away and would have to grind and level the team up. The second issue was the restriction itself, with players forced to use weaker swords with only one or two troop slots and going through at least 10 nodes to reach the boss. While the swords would be able to avoid some attacks, they still could have troops obliterated in the blink of an eye because of low Leadership stats. The third issue was the map. The Ikedaya W1 map had dead ends at almost every corner, so even reaching the boss was a miracle in itself, because of how RNG works. Before 6-1, I had been stuck a whole month in 5-2.
The final issue and what makes Ikedaya a quite loathed stage is the R5 yari. While this yari had appeared before in KBC stages, it was only in 6-1 that it was implemented constantly in almost every node. The yari is too fast to be killed and usually has 3 gold troops. This meant that every party facing it would end up receiving damage. At first, it doesn't seem like much. However, with the repeated dead ends, little to no troops and not lasting to the boss node, repeated runs would hamper the player's resources because of the amount needed to repair swords. The final nail in the coffin was the tanto at the boss node. Since the stat changes also apply to the enemy, this means the tanto is the strongest enemy unit and as the fastest, it is capable of OHKO a sword. This meant that getting any valuable drop here implied first destroying the tanto by nothing short of a miracle if the player managed to reach it. 6-1 also has 4 nodes where Kogi drops, but the drop rate and difficulty is piss poor and ass stupid respectively that it's honestly better to stick to KBC-infected 5-3.
If this wasn't enough, 6-2 included the drop Akashi Kuniyuki. Unlike its piece of fuck brethen, 6-2 is mostly linear except the beginning and the end. It features less yari compared to 6-1. However, the RNG was so bad that the staff had to fix it in days to ensure players would reach the end and not the several dead ends crowded everywhere else. The thing that took the cake, however, was the same tanto boss enemy. Assuming the player had been able to get to that node, their attempts could easily be rendered pointless if the Tanto managed to OHKO a sword, bringing the rank to a C and no Akashi drop. I know someone who even said that triggering KBC was preferable to dealing with the actual map. In a twist of irony, the very same first hated mechanic came as a solution. It's a good example of how two wrongs don't make a right and choosing the lesser evil. Since the player would try to get Akashi, they would obviously trigger KBC eventually since the Akashi drop rate is abysmally low.
A huge issue in TKRB as a whole is the distribution of drops. KBC drops were mostly Tanto and Wakizashi. The first worlds were crowded with Tanto, Wakizashi and Uchigatana, and later world 4 and 5 leaned more toward Tachi (though they would mostly be a select group), Oodachi, Yari and Naginata. In world 6 some fucker had the great idea to include Tanto and almost every sword available. The huge pool of swords ensured that every rare one had a piss poor chance of dropping, especially the "special one" that could only be obtained there. This same issue was carried in the War Training Expansion Event.
I'll include 6-3 since its relevance is minimal at this point. While reports say it's comparatively easier than 6-1 and 6-2, it is not that interesting in that players only get Mikazuki in the boss node and there are no implements of 6-4 as of the time of this writing. So in all, it's not that demanded or players have been cynical about it because of experiences in 6-1 and 6-2. It still carries the same issues as its brethen of fuck maps.
As of my personal experience, I can say that I tried several times 6-1 and grew tired of it, only being able when Izuminokami Kanesada, Doudanuki Masakuni and Ookurikara were changed to Uchigatana. I had two, Kanesan and Ookurikara, in my main team and they were high-leveled, around 82-83. This was the only way I could get past the bosses in 6-1 and 6-2, but even then I was OHKO once with the Tanto. I also dropped any ideas that I could be able to try getting Kogi in 6-1.
Events
Until June there had been no events in TKRB. The first happened to be around the unfortunate time of the plagiarism scandal that severely affected Nitro+ and DMM enough that they gave charms and Emas to the players in apology. I suspect it's the reason for the quite terrible reward token. The first event consisted on a series of 100 floors with increasing difficulty. The first 50 were meant for all players, including newcomers, as a way to gain experience at little risk and with the promise of guaranteed Hakata Toushirou when beating floor 50, as well as koban, to use in backgrounds as of that moment.
The second half was meant as a challenge, with questionable rewards in terms of troops. This half was also plagued with yari, which brought back the issues in Ikedaya. Several players would have been quite affected by trying Ikedaya in the first place and going to a limited event which needed a lot of resources and tokens could have proved too much. To add insult to the injury, the reward was a banner in the original citadel background. I believe that at this time, the staff was dealing with the plagiarism issue and it was their main priority so all time and resources went to investigating this issue and getting it solved as soon as possible. Remember that there were two, first with the designs of some items like the charms and gameplay visuals. The second was the allegations of fan-favorites Kashuu and Yasusada's designs being plagiarized. The first one was rendered as actual plagiarism, the second (taking place later) was not.
The actual time investment, resource use and little reward caused several players to be discontent with this token of appreciation. The event itself didn't have rare swords as a bait to get players to actually play the game and to some, the koban wasn't very needed.
The second event, War Training Expansion was comparatively a better event. At this point, I'm cynic enough to say that if you are to compare true garbage with half-garbage, half-garbage will be seen as better, since it's a matter of perspective. That said, the event was a good improvement. It featured 4 maps and depending on the player's needs, they could camp in one map to get the sword they wanted. The first map was to level up weak swords. Second map was to get Urashima and Nagasone, proof that the 10 rate is still too low. Third map included Hakata and Akashi, for those who were fed up with 6-2 or had missed Hakata. Fourth map included different drop rates for "rare" swords. "Rare" is a loose term here, since they didn't include Kogitsunemaru, the most infamous of them all, or the rest of 4, only featuring Uguisumaru. Rare-ish Hotarumaru was missing as well. Instead week one had Uguisumaru, week 2 had Tonbokiri, week 3 had Iwatooshi, and week 4 had Mikazuki, Atsushi, and Hirano. There was also a small chance of getting Nihongou, which would be like a bonus.
It might be my own perception but I still fail to see how Hirano and Atsu are considered rare, especially versus Kogi or the other swords. In weeks of forging, I spammed the ALL 50 recipes and I got my share of both swords while as of today, I've yet to get Kogi. Also, many wanted to get Nihongou, myself included, only because he'd be available in 6-4 and seeing the pattern of douchebaggery of Ikedaya as a whole, yeah. In any case, the idea behind this event was good, it's just that the execution lacked in some parts. As per usual, the maps were flooded with the R5 yari, which is most likely a way to make players remember the fact that they can use real life money to buy resources and tokens, seeing the final campaign was a discount on these items if you bought them with your actual money. TKRB had always featured these microtransactions, but it's only until today that they pushed them so blatantly, especially with no token campaigns and any of the sort that would help the players recover what they would spend in a single run.
The biggest issue in the event was the actual drop percentage. The idea of increased chances was in all honestly a thinly veiled lie. Akashi had higher drop percentages in 6-2 than in E3, it was just that E3 was more feasible since there was no restriction in your party and it had fewer nodes and less detours. The same was for any sword. I kept trying for Tonbokiri and found that the increased chance was from 0.1 to 0.8 in the actual Tonbokiri week, which wasn't any better than if I had camped on 5-3. It didn't help at all that the maps were infested with tanto drops which always do more harm than good, seeing tanto don't yield many scrap resources and you encounter them everywhere.
The reason KanColle's events are so successful is that they feature several new swords and the drop rates are higher. Not to 10% but enough that the fans keep trying AND there's a higher chance you get someone, ANYONE new. TKRB's piece of shit drop rates only guarantee that some get the swords they look for but many don't. However, the event did try to implement different restrictions, such as level and the swords in party dictating moving patterns throughout the field so that a player wouldn't try to Oodachi cheese through most of it.
That said, the event was very resource-heavy, so any newcomer would have a hard time getting their levels up AND fishing for any rare sword they would most likely miss. I was honestly quite lucky in getting Akashi and Nihongou but my luck was not the luck of many.
The next event, in an unexpected turn, was a summarized version of the Underground Event which had happened only a few months ago. While it was meant to showcase Hakata's special abilities, it was met with quite a few raised eyebrows because of the rehashing of the worst TKRB event to date. Unless someone had missed Hakata or wanted Koban, there was little need for the event and the proximity of quite the resource-heavy month is questionable itself.
Now, we're finally getting a sneak preview of new content, and it's a honest trainwreck. At this point it's obvious that the TKRB staff is bad at gauging difficulty. Twice already have they had the need to tweak the difficulty of the event, which is even more dictated by RNG than ever and were strategy is of little use at all. This event is an obvious beta to the actual stage that will be implemented but the flaws are more than obvious now. The fact that the draw of two enemy cards of the same type in a run is an instant defeat without any way to prevent or change this is the most glaring issue, seeing that a good run can be cut short simply because of RNG. Not to mention that a player will lose beads if they are sent back. Other issues are out of the player's control, such as the arrow and bomb cards which can easily wreck a party simply by drawing them at a bad time.
While the game was very RNG based, this now completely leaves the player at the game mercy with the only options being deciding the formation or deciding to retreat. It's a very messed up Russian roulette in which the chances of drawing enemy cards increase with every turn and an unfair defeat. Assuming they don't wreck the swords in the actual map, it's still an unfair mechanic that will continue to put off people. And the thing is, several have already dropped the game because of the mechanics. An unfair RNG with little things to do is the best recipe to disaster. People aren't crowding to get into servers anymore and the popularity of TKRB is in the fanworks and not the game itself.
The event also has severe limitations, such as limited tries per day unless one wants to spend Koban but the rewards are honestly garbage. There are no drops and the only swords at of now are Hirano and Urashima, but the chance of getting 2000 beads is so obnoxious that someone might as well try their luck with KBC.
Microtransactions
To conclude this whatever it is, I want to address the issue of microtransactions. TKRB is a free game but the player can speed up their progress by spending money to get resources, more slots. Back in the day, I was young and naive and thought it could be good. So I've actually used real-life money to buy Emas. They are worth fucking shit.
Emas don't guarantee anything and most of the time they seem to be stuck on getting 1:30s. Don't even bother with the money, you're better of setting it on fire and watch it burn for shits and giggles.