I have been obsessed with Pipi Shrimp Legend recently. I wanted to be a casual retirement player, but I found out that the game's Shrimp Kun Competition actually has competitive depth. I did a little serious research on the version updates and the strength of the spirit beasts, and I will post here to talk about balance.
Let's talk about the general environment first. The current mainstream lineup of the “Shrimp Kun Competition” in the Dongtucun Division basically revolves around two routes: one is to push the flow at high burst speed, relying on the AOE of late-stage spiritual beasts (such as Caiyi Kun) to clear the field in seconds; the other is to control the consumption flow, relying on the slowdown of the Night Shrimp and the continuous blood loss of the Drunken Shrimp. But I have to say that the current version's low-speed streaming is a bit over the top. Cai Yikun's damage coefficient has not been reduced since the last minor update. Combined with the “Spiritual Beast Feed Acceleration” talent, the formation speed is too fast, making it difficult for the disadvantaged side to delay until the later stage. As an old e-sports viewer, this reminds me of a certain version of LOL where AD was too strong and had no room for counterattack. The official should give Cai Yikun a damage attenuation mechanism or increase the forward swing of his skills.
The balance at the operational level is also worth complaining about. The distribution of emergencies in the Spirit Beast Factory is uneven. For example, the trigger probability of the "shrimp infection" event is too high, while the occurrence rate of high-risk and high-reward events such as "cheat theft" is too low, which makes everyone more inclined to hang up conservatively and lack variables. I think we should refer to the BP game of KPL and add more strategic options, such as allowing players to consume resources and predict responses in advance before the event is triggered, instead of purely looking at faces.
In addition, the attenuation curve of idle income is somewhat stiff. In the early stage, every time a building is upgraded, the income increases exponentially, but in the middle and later stages, the slope drops suddenly, forcing players to play random games such as "Zuixian Tower Answering Questions" or "Spirit Beast Blind Box", but the difficulty and reward of these two are not proportional - the answer question bank is old, and the blind box explosion rate is cheating. In fact, it can be designed as a battle order system similar to the King of Glory. The income threshold is adjusted through season tasks, so that both hardcore players and casual players can find their rhythm.
But having said that, Pipi Shrimp Legend is a free idle game, so it's good to have such a highly active competitive section. The production team Wuhu Lehaha has been adjusting the data. After the critical hit rate of "Roasted Quankun" was reduced last time, the usage rate of the unpopular spiritual beast "Clam Spirit" has increased significantly, which shows that they are still paying attention to balance. I just hope that the next major update will pay attention to the survivability of controlling the flowing spirit beasts. After all, a healthy environment should allow for more flowers, rather than one version and one set of answers.
Finally, let me shout out: Does anyone have a blue sticker interpretation of the legend of Pipi Shrimp? I can't even copy my homework🤣