User blog:Pgrobban/The rise and fall of Cookie Run

I have never really been a good writer, but I feel like I want to discuss the state in which CR is in nowadays. Also, I don't know how much of what I say is true since I don't live in a country where CR is popular, let alone LINE.

Last year, when I first started playing CR, it felt new and exciting to me. Farming basically didn't exist for me since I didn't have anything that could generate a magnetic aura, and I didn't have enough friends to send me enough hearts. I competed with the same two girls for a score over and over, but it felt satisfying to break your own record. CR back then was more about skill and perfection in your run.

Some time later, just before season 4, those things changed. Well, first of all, I added a bunch of random people so I could get those heard-earned cookies that I've been dreaming of, even though I don't really like social games where they make you do X with friends. Oh, well. Cheesecake Cookie was released, making coin farming finally a viable strategy.

Crystals became cheaper, or should I say, less worth. From a cost of 100 crystals to upgrade your treasure cabinet to a mere 30, you now didn't have to decide whether one treasure was worth keeping or the other - now you could have both. I joined the wiki and by the time season 4 was released, I had about 200 "friends" and 5-6000 hearts to my disposal.

But things changed. CR now became less of a game of skill and strategy. Episode 1, which we knew inside and out thanks to our muscle memory from the previous seasons became ridiculously easy, and the increase in scores happened dramatically. Soon we had players reaching 100 million points, more than 10 times of what was the average in the previous seasons. Coin farming, XP farming, and even Auto Farming became easier since treasures were more easily obtainable. We all had a crystal engine running, so sooner or later, we could afford buying S-grade treasure chests and just improve our engine even more.

CR has become more a game about collecting than running. Sure, we still see new records being broken every week, but we see the same combis being used, same strategies during the runs. We see that the last 3 cookies released (Cherry Blossom, Orange and Lime) are OP and some treasures are becoming OP now to the point that they had to buff older ones to make them worth keeping.

I think that the developers are seeing a decline in the number of active players. Although the wiki is relatively big and has a lot of articles constantly being updated, we are still a vocal minority of all the players. My hearts have gone down to only about 100 per week, the players I'm passing has also been halved, and the same people are always in the top positions. Where did the others go? They announced that the game has been downloaded 50 million times, but how many players are actually active? I doubt the number is much higher than 10% of that number.

Finally, the other week we saw the introduction of package deals. Now, any freemium game has this and I wouldn't mind it - except.. it's the only way to get an exclusive pet and treasure. To me, that screams that the devs are desperate for money, and they do this by catering to the hardcore group of players. Sadly, I am one of them so I gave in and bought the packs...

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm as excited about the next season as the next guy, but CR has lost what made it so special in the first place. Somehow CR lost its soul as we are eagerly waiting for the next OP combi while farming, collecting treasures and grinding our way to one of the many currencies in the game...