User blog:The CookieRunner/July 2016 - 3rd Issue

Issue #3

Published 30 June 2016

Welcome to Cookie Run Wiki's monthly newsletter, The CookieRunner! The CookieRunner is dedicated to giving out important updates on the game, as well as tips for the game, both in LINE and in Kakao. Yes, this newsletter will talk about Kakao stuff as well. But Kakao stuff will be limited to this newsletter, and nothing will be spread to the articles unless it's very important.

This newsletter will also be selecting fan art that we think is amazing and worthy enough to be featured here. Do you have any amazing fan art that we would like to see? Please comment down below! We would love to hear your suggestions.

''Some bits of text will be exclusive in the PDF version. Be on the lookout for such pieces of text!''

Subscribe!

{| style="padding:12px; margin:auto; border:2px solid #DC2121; background-color:#EFB2B2; " cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3";"valign="middle"; width="100%"} == It's Here! The Dragon Has Awoken! ==
 * By T And J Kids.



For 85 days we waited, and 85 days we had anticipated this season. Now, after 85 days, it is here. Devsisters proudly presents the seventh season of LINE Cookie Run, under the name of Wrath of the Dragon! This season mainly focuses on balancing the Cookies, Pets, and Treasures and updating the layout of each episode. It also brings the Cookie Run story forward: the dragon has awaken and the Cookies have to fight it before they can advance to their freedom. It also sets free the Sea Fairy Cookie, the mysterious figure previously known only to be a mysterious person.

What's New?
This has been mentioned in our previous CookieRunner May 2016 issue and this blog post I created in April, but this time it's more detailed, since everything is in English now. However, only a few features will be covered; the main features would not be covered, unless for more clarity.

'''Set Your Nickname! '''

Upon first entering the game, you will be asked to set your league nickname. The nickname will be used for the league rankings, which will be explained below. Your LINE name will automatically be chosen upon first entering the game, but you can change it to another name if you want. For example, I decided to put my league nickname as "PepperSoda".

'''League Ranking! ''' Yes, it's different from the old Medal System we used to have, but what does the league do exactly? Well, it is a feature that lets you compete with other players worldwide. Unlike the previous medal system, this feature lets you see other players' scores within fifteen different rankings. To benefit from this and earn yourself some medals, you can earn medals based on your rank class and the ranking you are in within each class. The higher the rank class, the more medals you get. This is the same with the class ranking, but with smaller rewards.

Take note that your league depends on your previous results, so that means if you score 2M in a game and end up in a high class, you have just played only once. Further scores will make your class go down.

'''Sorting Out Treasures! ''' One of the most helpful features we have got this season is the ability to sort Treasures by their ability. I think this helps us to find the Treasure we wanted faster, easier, and more effectively.

The list is divided into eight main categories: rank, magnetic, coins, lift/revive, energy, obstacle, jelly pts., and Power+.


 * By default, the rank option is selected. Basically, it sorts Treasures by rank, just like back in the previous seasons.
 * The magnetic option lists all Treasures with magnetic aura first.
 * The Coins option lists all Treasures with Coins first, the Treasure with the highest Coin bonus listed as the first Treasure.
 * The lift/revive option lists all Treasures related to lifts and revives first.
 * The Energy option lists all Treasures related to Energy, be it revives, extra Energy for relays, or just extra Energy in general; first.
 * The obstacle option lists all Treasures related to obstacles, be it destroying or going through obstacles, first.
 * The Jelly points options lists all Treasures related to Jelly points first.
 * The Power+ option lists all Power+ Treasures (marked by the Power+ banner) first.

'''Loading Tips! ''' Back in April, I called this feature... no I didn't name it. But now it has an official name: Loading Tips! What this does is replace the iconic "Preparing the escape..." message with a trivia or a tip. Mostly it's tips, but from time to time you might come across some trivia.

These are some examples, with the comparisons between the translation from the Kakao version mentioned in this blog post and the actual tip.


 * Translation: Rockstar Cookie and Mint Choco Cookie have their own wonderful music, as opposed to the normal background music.
 * Actually... Mint Choco Cookie and Rockstar Cookie play their own tune while running.
 * Translation: Cookies' Flaming Hearts can be obtained from Mystery Boxes.
 * Actually... Cookie's Warm Hearts can be acquired through Mystery Boxes.
 * Translation: Prophet Cookie's prophecies seem like they come out of his beard.
 * Actually... Did you know that Prophet Cookie's prophets come from his beard? His crystal ball has nothing to do with it!
 * Translation: If you do not collect the rewards, the rewards will fade within a certain period.
 * Actually... If you do not accept the rewards within time, they will disappear.

Any Differences Between This and the Korean Version?
There are not many differences between the Kakao and LINE version, but there are some that might be interesting.

Getting the Crystals for the New Season  The most exciting difference of all is free Crystals! In the Kakao version, you were asked to type in a coupon code to get 200. In the LINE version, everyone gets 100 for free! Yes, once you've gone into the game, you'll get this snazzy reward to celebrate the new season. If you had preregistered for the new season, it's a bonus: with the 100 and the  5 in place, you'll have  200 and  5, or  335 in terms of value.

A Reeeally Long Maintenance  From 9am June 27 to 5pm June 28 (GMT+9), Cookie Run underwent a very long maintenance to help prepare for the new season. While we had witnessed in the Kakao version that it took 13 hours for maintenance, it took a record-breaking 30 hours of maintenance in the LINE version. We did not know what was the exact cause of this long wait, but it made some people mad.

Devsisters has even created the hashtag "#WrathoftheMaintenanceNotice" to prove us how evil the maintenance notice really is. What did the Cookies do during that time?

They Changed It to An S!  Do you remember White Gold Drop? It was introduced back in September as a Package Deal-exclusive Pet along with Lime Cookie. In its early days, it was considered an E-grade Pet, later joined with Bean Drop Duo. This was the only thing exclusive to LINE at that moment. Now, it is changed to an S-grade Pet like in the Kakao version, and is placed next to Mr. Limeguard because of release dates.

The Mystery of Another Level Trophy  No, I'm not talking about another trophy treasure. It's the level 80 trophy, which is in the series of reaching-a-certain-level Crystal Treasures. Strangely, although it's there in the Treasure book, players who have reached Level 80 still cannot get this Treasure, unlike the Kakao version. Reasons for this is unknown, but could it be because we have to have a higher level cap in later updates or because Devsisters is trying to give more privilege to the Kakao version? We may never know.

Conclusion
This season has some difficulties especially for the new players, but who knows? Maybe it might turn out to be an interesting season for us, and an exciting one too.
 * }

{| style="padding:12px; margin:auto; border:2px solid #723FAD; background-color:#D5CEFB; " cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3";"valign="middle"; width="100%"} == A Review on the New Season ==
 * By Kevsuc

Welcome everyone, and welcome to Wrath of the (Red) Dragon season. As you can see, almost the whole game aspects are changing - things can start messing up for some players. The world is changing, and so Cookie Run. Here's some recap of those "changes" in Cookie Run.

Coin Farming
Most of the treasures that help producing coins are not changed, even this time Adventurer Cookie has been dramatically evolved from the useless Mystery Box collector cookie, into a coin farming cookie. This is good, because during the hiccup of the new season, everyone might be fell short of money to upgrade many things (particularly, for upgrading treasures that will eventually fail). Veteran players need to adapt with the change in grinding, and rookie players need to get a new farming method that is much easier (Adventurer Cookie is very easy to unlock rather than Mint Choco or Cheesecake), so this change is a win-win solution.

Rebalancing of Cookies
Right before this season, I would say we had a terrible time where one cookie, most likely the newest to release, had overpowered every previous cookies on all four episodes, generating a ridiculously high score. Even worse, it will be superseded with another cookie that generates even more ridiculous high scores when they are released the next month. Veteran players would be bored and tired with this monthly core, while the rookie players, unable to gain their attention to the game because they would only have the access with the older cookies, somewhat cannot even match with the overpowered cookie.

The rebalancing of all the Cookies, Pets, and Treasures is a very good move, to make each episode needs to be high-scored with a unique combination, otherwise offering rookie players more ways to gain a high score that could match or at least, closer to the veteran's high score.

<font size="5" face="Century Gothic">15% Slower Energy Drain
Is this really a bad move? I think so, 25% SED has been around us for more than two years, and I'm sad that this has been changed. However, after trying that random boost in several episodes, it's not bad at all - the energy drain and length of stages of each episode has been changed as well. 15% SED is still significant enough and needed for high scoring and long running.

<font size="5" face="Century Gothic">"Fast Start" Random Boost Removed
No debate; there's no way we're going to use Fast Start as the random boost.

<font size="5" face="Century Gothic">Medal System Revised
Woo hoo! We're going to get medals twice a week! But, wait a minute, the exchange rate has been doubled as well. As Cookie Run is clearing up some changes in the Medal System, I can see the direction. The devs progressively wanting for us to play more actively with cleaning the medals leader-board twice a week, while tweaking the Medal Exchange Center so they can be more useful for active players. The more active you play, the better medals you earn. As long as the points system is not being infiltrated with overpowered Cookies, then Medals will be a great ways for rookie players to get rewarded better.

<font size="5" face="Century Gothic">Bye-bye 800M High Scores
I am seeing it as a technical reason rather than streamlining all the ways to generate points. One glitch on the Kakao version of Cookie Run shows that once you reach 2.17 billion points, it will start decreasing instead of increasing. For you coding experts, you have been hinted why! If the dev aren't doing anything to stop those inflation of high scores, then one day we will suffer that limitation of scores.

<font size="5" face="Century Gothic">Hidden Combinations Removed
This is a total backward changes to Cookie Run. With more than 60 Cookies and Pets, it will be kind of boring that we could only match one specific Cookie only with one specific Pet. Furthermore, rookie players suffer because their arsenal isn't complete yet - they might have one Cookie but may not have the matching Pet because there are more than 40 Pets to be hatched and upgraded. For veteran players, it also "shuts down" our creativity in mixing and matching Cookies/Pets.

<font size="5" face="Century Gothic">Redesigning Episodes and Stages
Certainly, we are totally bored of the old layout - maybe some of you might have just remembered the jump/slide pattern too much simply because we're doing the same thing over and over. The fresh pattern of layout would give us a challenge to play and remember the challenge, however I can see the patterns are not random. In my opinion, this will be a problem in the future, because once again our objection of the game is not to avoid obstacles and holes, but to remember the running pattern. That's when you lose the fun of the game - because we will not get the element of surprise that would make each run different and unique.

Also, I would like to mention, suddenly all obstacles are animated. This is cool somehow (especially to show this off to your 10-year-old nephew) but for me it's more likely to be annoying. What happened to the current style of obstacles? They are too flashy, excessively animated, and for some occasion those obstacles has a similar color with the game background, giving the chameleon effect that tricks those with visual impairment or who missed the focus. However, a salute is being given for Ghost Pirate's Island of Coins. Patterns aren't changed at all, but I see more golden and giant coins than ever before, giving a better option for rookie players to gain money.

<font size="5" face="Century Gothic">Turning Non-blessed Treasures into Blessed
Well, it depends... The nerf of Treasure's effects makes blessed and non-blessed treasures only leads a slight change, while the price of turning them (1,000 Mystic Gem + 100 Crystals) for me is too expensive, but it's all worth to keep blessed treasures you get from risking 99 Crystals still precious and exclusive.

The Mystic Gem requirement of S-grade treasures only is another problem for me. For rookie players, obtaining, upgrading, and evolving S-grade treasures requires a lot of Coins. It's a lot, compared to how they should manage to purchase and upgrade 60+ Cookies and Pets. Most of the time, rookie players lacked a good arsenal of S-grade treasures, preventing them to collect Mystic Gems, and giving a slightly better chances for veteran players to recycle their unused S-grade treasures into Mystic Gems. I hate to say this, but in the end Cookie Run is well-designed only for those who grinds coins a lot or owns the money to buy Crystals.
 * }