Removal of Revive Farming and the Apothecary Discussion

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  • G_S_HG_S_H Member Posts: 79
    DNA3000 said:

    G_S_H said:

    This might explain the changes.

    Yes this is what I posted above in a previous comment, they lost $700 million and are forcing Kabam to fill in the gap
    This is a serious question. Do people actually think this is how companies work?

    Scratch that. I don't really want to know. Let's talk accounting, something that few gaming company reporters and even fewer game players know anything about. Here's an excerpt from Netmarble's consolidated income statement, which was probably the source of the articles numbers:



    This shows that Netmarble actually earned 40 billion won (about $31 million USD) in the fourth quarter and 46+22+21+40 = 129 billion won ($99 million USD) in 2022.

    These numbers were lowered to a 20 billion won loss in Q4 or 105 billion won loss in 2022 ($81 million USD) due to D&A. D&A is depreciation and amortization. These losses are not real losses, they are collectively depreciation and amortization costs that have been spread out over time. Amortized expenses have already gone out the door, and have already been paid: they are just being accounted for here. Depreciation losses are losses due to stuff getting old. Neither of these things are actual "losses" and in general they aren't even happening now. This is almost certainly being reported on an accrual basis (meaning: when things happen and when they are accounted for are different to simplify analysis of the business numbers).

    The biggest hit is due to non-operating income and cost. This is referenced in the article and in the financial statement as such: "According to Netmarble, such losses were caused by the “impairment losses of the intangible assets,” although it is unclear what assets the publisher meant by it."

    Impairment losses of intangible assets refers to accounting assets on the books that do not refer to material goods. Most likely, these are IP assets Netmarble has acquired over the years with an asset valuation presumed from their estimated income generating capacity. General accounting rules specify that intangible asset impairments must be recorded on income statements as a revenue item impacting net profit and loss. In effect, my understanding of IAS 36 is that when the value of your indefinite intangible assets drops in a material way that loss in value should be recorded as a pseudo-loss in revenue that then accounts for the loss in value from the asset (basic double entry balancing accounting methodology).

    In other words, Netmarble made a profit in 2022. Their amortized expenses and the amount they are allowed to depreciate fixed assets allowed them to record a small loss. The additional reduction in value of intangible assets (things that exist only on paper really) declined, allowing them to record an even steeper loss.

    Because these losses are not actual cash flow losses but just accounting losses, this may be deliberate and advantageous to the company. Without knowing the specifics, we might just be seeing a clever CFO playing the game properly. But Netmarble is not losing millions of dollars.

    [My wife is a CPA and I helped her study for the CPA exam. I'm a lot more familiar with GAAP and IFRS than I really want to be, but occasionally its useful.]
    I get that, you are right they did make a profit. The problem is that is no where near where they want to be at. you mentioned around $100 million USD($82 million after everything) in profit in 2022 compared to there profit of $200 million in 2021. That's never a good look for investors or as a company. Companies will do anything to continue to make that number go up, a 50% reduction the next year is not a good look. Regardless if it is depreciation costs its not a good look to have a $700 million dollar reported loss. There has to be more then D&A costs, they say that to cool public perception absolutely no shot thats the only reason.

    What intangible service/patent/brand/game is causing them a $700 million dollar loss or a depreciated asset irl what in the world would it be?
  • Wiredawg1Wiredawg1 Member Posts: 504 ★★★★
    G_S_H said:

    DNA3000 said:

    G_S_H said:

    This might explain the changes.

    Yes this is what I posted above in a previous comment, they lost $700 million and are forcing Kabam to fill in the gap
    This is a serious question. Do people actually think this is how companies work?

    Scratch that. I don't really want to know. Let's talk accounting, something that few gaming company reporters and even fewer game players know anything about. Here's an excerpt from Netmarble's consolidated income statement, which was probably the source of the articles numbers:



    This shows that Netmarble actually earned 40 billion won (about $31 million USD) in the fourth quarter and 46+22+21+40 = 129 billion won ($99 million USD) in 2022.

    These numbers were lowered to a 20 billion won loss in Q4 or 105 billion won loss in 2022 ($81 million USD) due to D&A. D&A is depreciation and amortization. These losses are not real losses, they are collectively depreciation and amortization costs that have been spread out over time. Amortized expenses have already gone out the door, and have already been paid: they are just being accounted for here. Depreciation losses are losses due to stuff getting old. Neither of these things are actual "losses" and in general they aren't even happening now. This is almost certainly being reported on an accrual basis (meaning: when things happen and when they are accounted for are different to simplify analysis of the business numbers).

    The biggest hit is due to non-operating income and cost. This is referenced in the article and in the financial statement as such: "According to Netmarble, such losses were caused by the “impairment losses of the intangible assets,” although it is unclear what assets the publisher meant by it."

    Impairment losses of intangible assets refers to accounting assets on the books that do not refer to material goods. Most likely, these are IP assets Netmarble has acquired over the years with an asset valuation presumed from their estimated income generating capacity. General accounting rules specify that intangible asset impairments must be recorded on income statements as a revenue item impacting net profit and loss. In effect, my understanding of IAS 36 is that when the value of your indefinite intangible assets drops in a material way that loss in value should be recorded as a pseudo-loss in revenue that then accounts for the loss in value from the asset (basic double entry balancing accounting methodology).

    In other words, Netmarble made a profit in 2022. Their amortized expenses and the amount they are allowed to depreciate fixed assets allowed them to record a small loss. The additional reduction in value of intangible assets (things that exist only on paper really) declined, allowing them to record an even steeper loss.

    Because these losses are not actual cash flow losses but just accounting losses, this may be deliberate and advantageous to the company. Without knowing the specifics, we might just be seeing a clever CFO playing the game properly. But Netmarble is not losing millions of dollars.

    [My wife is a CPA and I helped her study for the CPA exam. I'm a lot more familiar with GAAP and IFRS than I really want to be, but occasionally its useful.]
    I get that, you are right they did make a profit. The problem is that is no where near where they want to be at. you mentioned around $100 million USD($82 million after everything) in profit in 2022 compared to there profit of $200 million in 2021. That's never a good look for investors or as a company. Companies will do anything to continue to make that number go up, a 50% reduction the next year is not a good look. Regardless if it is depreciation costs its not a good look to have a $700 million dollar reported loss. There has to be more then D&A costs, they say that to cool public perception absolutely no shot thats the only reason.

    What intangible service/patent/brand/game is causing them a $700 million dollar loss or a depreciated asset irl what in the world would it be?
    It’s black market units and fraud. The whole reason they changed the Gifting event this past Christmas was due to that. They lost as they said over 700 mil on it due to black market unit fraud
  • Wiredawg1Wiredawg1 Member Posts: 504 ★★★★
    Pikolu said:

    Wiredawg1 said:

    DNA3000 said:

    DNA3000 said:

    DNA3000 said:

    37v417 said:

    What a disgusting money grab. Shame on you, you vultures.

    How much are you planning on increasing your spending after this change? Because I wasn't planning on spending more because of this change. How exactly is this going to make money? Who's going to be spending more?
    This is just wrong DNA. Do you not remember before the revive path? In most cases, it was drop an Odin or don't complete the content. This is an awful change.
    I have never spent cash to complete any content in the game. I have no plans to start any time soon.
    Bro, you haven’t completed any content.
    I'm sorry: who are you again, and what have you done that I'm supposed to care about?
    That can also go towards you too. Who are you and why do we care what you think? See how not nice that was.
    What did you do to get DNA upset? Literally have never seen them respond that way to anyone on forums.
    Wasn’t me. My post was in response to exactly the same thing he said to someone else
  • SavingPrivateDataSavingPrivateData Member Posts: 57

    “The biggest change you’ll see is to revive drop rates across Acts 1 to 3 (Prologue). There are a number of factors that led to the current near certain drop rate of revives in 3.2.6. These drop rates have always been higher than intended.”

    So actually it is a bug that favors the players am i right? It shouldn’t be higher than intended. That’s why they fixed it LOL.


    False, also is this another new account?
    Yes, he JUST closed my discussion from last year when they temporarily nerfed farming in 3.2.6
  • DOC83DOC83 Member Posts: 33
    edited March 2023
    I also agree with you kabaam in recent times revive farming has gone up. It is true because of the state of the game. Even if you are skilled the game will glitch at least 3-5 times in a longer fight. That means more chances to die and use a revive. You cannot just perfectly fight the way through a quest. There are so many game lags and input issue that revive farming is becoming more necessary in the recent times. The input issue and lags are still there yet you guys have stopped giving compensation for it. First fix the game and the input issue then think about making such player moves. Poor focus on what areas to work on the game. This makes me wonder the whole input issues was intentional and kabaam doesn't intent to fix it. As their data showed people are spending more revives and health pots nowadays due to this issue which might have increased thier revenues. And they dnt intent to fix this.
  • BigPoppaCBONEBigPoppaCBONE Member Posts: 2,386 ★★★★★

    I’ll say it again just for the sake of emphasis but a real compromise to the problem of content being blown through with enough revives is just to nerf Hercules. Most people don’t want Hercules nerfed but his existence is bad for the game design. You’re crunching the numbers and you’re seeing that it should be about this difficult if you’re using this champion, or much easier if you use Hercules. Most people are taking the Herc route, and by nature it’s inflating the difficulty of the content you’re designing because you don’t want to make it too easy.

    For example, I did a couple of my EOP runs with my objective champions from the start. It was over ten times more difficult to get through the first four fights that way than it was for me to bring a 5* Hercules at the start and just turn my brain off instead. You had to make EOP that difficult, because of him.

    You guys want to nerf him anyway, but you’re afraid of the backlash. But I honestly think the majority of the playerbase would rather you just get it over with and nerf him so that way you don’t need to design ridiculously difficult content that you pretty much have to revive farm just to get through with Hercules

    This is a vicious cycle that Kabam set up. The poor controls and the BS nodes mean you're probably going to die so you might as well use a nuke champ to do as much damage as you can first, potions are everywhere but super suck vs revives that are consistently in a few places that are easy to keep track of. If I'm only using revives, I need a bunch of them, so I'm going to where the revives are, and I'm going often. In many cases, using one revive is cheaper, faster, and objectively more beneficial than filling up with a zillion potions AND a revive for your nuke champs. I can't dip out of the content and go grind for revives, so I need more than I think I'll use, just in case.

    If Kabam would make content that didn't favor nuking it down or figuring out the cheese, people wouldn't pursue the nuke or chase cheese.

    If Hercules was nerfed to be less than optimal, I would use someone else and still nuke it if that was the most effective route that cost the least and I still wanted to complete the content. If Hercules was still great, just not as, I would probably still use him if he was the best option I had at a useful rank and sig level. I'd use Immortal Hulk but Kabam chose to give him a double dose of all the weaknesses and unreliability they didn't build into Hercules and I still like OG nuke Corvus, but the content that has the good rewards doesn't favor him anymore. There are niche cheese solutions that most players don't have at a useful sig and rarity and the supreme skill solutions that only a handful of players can use effectively. So until Kabam gets more creative and less punishy, people will keep using the best tool available.
    Players will seek the simplest solution to the problem at hand whether it’s Hercules, Corvus, or whoever. That’s their prerogative. The difference with Hercules is that a single 20% revive in his hands is going to go much much further than that revive in Corvus’s. Because Hercules is this way, the entire mindset of creating the content changes and the difficulty has to spike up to accommodate the cheese potential. Nerfing Hercules is going to make a large chunk of the playerbase sore but it’d be ultimately beneficial when you’re able to use your favorite champs with a little bit of skill again instead of tossing revives at Hercules until your path is cleared.

    Once Kabam nerfs Hercules, then what? We'll enter a golden age of pure skill and enlightened low tier champ play that someone else finds aesthetically pleasing? Or will it be next nuke champ up + a revive? A YouTuber doing an itemless speed run with Hercules doesn't mean that Hercules is too op for me to fumble around with. Whoever I use, it's going to be with a bunch of revives. I don't have the time to waste honing my skills with suboptimal champs at a game I'm not getting paid to play because some rando thinks I have it too easy and need to suffer more so I "get good".
    For me, once the stack of nodes gets past a certain point of complexity, bs, and meter watching, I'm going to assess the nukability and the cheeseability and proceed with the most effective for me option I have available.
    Where am I saying that you have it too good and should step your skills up with other champs besides Hercules? I’m saying that BECAUSE Hercules exists, they’re making content harder to accommodate for that. You wouldn’t need to search for the nuke options if you didn’t need to nuke the content due to how difficult they made it. The other existing nuke champs don’t benefit even nearly as much from said revives as Hercules does and is therefore a non-issue. The devs themselves will tell you that Hercules has been a nightmare for them and they’re taking it out on the playerbase in every other way except for nerfing him because they’re afraid of the backlash that would cause
    I wasn't talking about you in particular, but randos in general that advocate nerfing Hercules for reasons that don't make sense.
    How likely is it that Kabam will stop stacking annoying nodes on nodes on nodes if Hercules isn't as good? How likely is it that after they nerf Hercules, they don't change anything about fight design and they quickly introduce another champ that's clearly more effective in more content than other champs, either directly through new release or indirectly by synergy, so players have something to chase? I know which one I'd put money on.
  • Ayushman1999Ayushman1999 Member Posts: 32
    If you want to make these changes then atleast increase revive inventory capacity, revive %value in 4 hour free crystals, stash expiring time...and so on.
    @Kabam Miike
    @Kabam Zibiit
  • PixelbiegerPixelbieger Member Posts: 1
    Only read the first three pages of this thread. I don't know how to sort my feelings. Playing this game as F2P since 8 years without missing a single day to login!
    Whoever at Kabam thought this would be a great idea to come around, what is wrong with you?

    This could really be the ignition for me to leave the game. Can't do hard content without revives, wont spend a big amount of units therefore.
  • CoppinCoppin Member Posts: 2,601 ★★★★★
    I find it quite interesting ..
    The only YTber who is kinda "Ok" or happy about this new change is the only F2P YTber with an audience.. and lately has only been doing Battleground Videos...
  • CyrillFromTulaCyrillFromTula Member Posts: 49
    I spend 17 revives in 2.2 eq tb difficulty exploration because of broken inputs. In april i must spend 2 weeks to farm that much just to explore eq? I don't have anything censorship to say about this...
  • BollandBolland Member Posts: 75 ★★★
    Kabam, if you make this change then the game dies.

    I’ve never seen such an out of touch idea for this game. I am outraged! A disgraceful decision that has ZERO benefit to your consumers playing the game.

    Do not implement this change!
  • ZilliaxerZilliaxer Member Posts: 85
    Mauled said:

    Mackey said:

    Something I'm genuinely curious about in particular is this ..... "This frenzied revive farming trivializes difficult content like Carina’s Challenges and Eternity of Pain because Summoners simply spam revives" ...

    OK, I get my head around that to some.extent or other but I am.still able to go and spend an obscene amount of money on units and buy revives that I can "simply spam" ..... so that's is no reason to be doing it, it's just an excuse (not even a plausible one). And this company (and their white knights) wonders why we don't trust what they say. They're quite literally.lying to our faces while asking for money

    Ah because that generates them money. Which makes everything ok.
    Defenetely agree with you,dude
  • pikapika Member Posts: 74
    This revives nerf is probably the worst move you *Kabam* could make, even worse than if you had nerf herc or any top champ at this point.
  • SyndicatedSyndicated Member Posts: 640 ★★★
    With this, we can confirm that Kabam loves money, right?

    Apothecary is mediocre in comparison.
  • ThorkiThorki Member Posts: 57 ★★
    Alright I'm done with this game. This move is so anti-player its honestly laughable. What in the world were you thinking? See ya, you've lost a player and a wallet.
  • SavingPrivateDataSavingPrivateData Member Posts: 57
    edited March 2023
    I love the insinuation by one person above, that revives are helping new players make Cav, with 1*s.

    I’m mediocre at best and revive farming helps me ENJOY the game. It has nothing to do with progression. I work on progression by repeating the content till I get it right.
    Not everyone has the same roster, so when someone responds to these complaints with “get good”, they’re just trolling, IMHO.
    Toxic
  • Mcoc_Play3rMcoc_Play3r Member Posts: 38
    Damn, did Kabam literally just deleted all my post regarding the dissatisfaction on this change? Wow…
  • G_S_HG_S_H Member Posts: 79
    edited March 2023
    Someone said that it was black market unit modders from christmas event that costed them $700 mil

    theres No way its black market unit fraud that costed them $700 million lol, the last gifting event brought them in $15 million dollars that month $700 million in black market for one event is insane lol
  • TerraTerra Member Posts: 8,330 ★★★★★
    Absolutely worthless change and addition.
    Only to line the pockets of the company more.
    Truly shame on those who greenlit this addition.
This discussion has been closed.