CROSS×BEATS (iOS)

So, that's about ~$60USD spent for 弾丸と星空 and $129USD spent for Garnet Howl.
...so, ask yourself:
Is it worth paying nearly $200USD for two songs that you can only play while the servers are running?


Wow, that's really sad...
I've also been observing this current Random Select Festival, and here's what I've come up with:

Despite my edited last post, I still haven't spent the money on the current 777 PREMIUM TICKET sale yet; I've decided to hold off and use my FREE TICKETS until the 31st of this month.



My hard-accumulated PREMIUM TICKETS: 250 USED = 50 ROUNDS
REGENERATED FREE TICKETS: 60 USED = 12 ROUNDS

Random Select Festival Results (as of today):

RSF's 5 Possible Outcomes:

1. Random Song (owned)
2. Random Song (not owned)
3. Blue ULC
4. Green ULC
5. Yellow ULC



I first used all of my PREMIUM TICKETS (250) in one day: RSF OUTCOME:

Random Songs (owned) - 45 occurrences
Random Songs (not owned) - 5 occurrences
Blue ULC - 0 occurrences
Green ULC - 0 occurrences
Yellow ULC - 0 occurrences

Time not recorded; no special notes.


Then after I ran out, I decided to use FREE TICKETS (60) only: Next 2 days RSF OUTCOME:

Random Songs (owned) - 4 occurrences
Random Songs (not owned) - 4 occurrences
Blue ULC - 0 occurrences - 3 occurrences
Green ULC - 0 occurrences - 0 occurrences
Yellow ULC - 0 occurrences - 1 occurrence

Time Noted: The ULCs occurred at two specific time phases:
Time Phase #1 - 5~10 minutes past the hour (eg. 08:05~08:10)
Time Phase #2 - 5~10 minutes past the current hour's half hour (eg. 08:35~08:40)
*To support this, I've also observed a friend's time of acquiring a yellow ULC, which also occurred within the 1st Time Phase.

Additional Notes: Changing difficulties per RSF attempt seemed to yield more random "not-owned" songs to show up, but none of them turned out to be ULCs.


So, statistically:

Out of my 50 (PREMIUM TICKET ROUNDS) + 12 (FREE TICKET ROUNDS) [62 ROUNDS TOTAL]:

USAGE: 310 TOTAL TICKETS USED (62 ROUNDS PLAYED)

Total Occurrences
Random Songs (owned) ------------->49 (79%)
Random Songs (not owned) --------->9 (14%)
Blue ULC ------------------------------>3 (5%)
Green ULC ---------------------------->0 (0.5%) [Theoretically]
Yellow ULC ---------------------------->1 (1.5%) [Theoretically]
TOTALS ===================[62] (100%)

....so in theory from a statistical standpoint and further additional calculations, I can say that for every 300+ TICKETS spent on RSF, there should be a 40%~66% chance that it will yield a Yellow ULC, and a similar chance goes for the Green ULC given the circumstances and hypothetical time constraints.

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Annnnd stop.

Lemme ask a question: How is the current scheme Cross Beats uses any different than what BEMANI arcade games do?
Really, think about how much money players spend to unlock everything in VOLZZA, or how long it takes for players to go from start to finish through copula's current event, or even how much money was sunk to try to clear OtP when it was still locked?

Also to refute yous claim of "Cross Beats data is on the server, BEMANI data is on the machines", that is, in fact, wrong. Many of the unlocks, your ability to play certain songs on certain difficulties, and even certain user options are directly tired to E-Amuse, which is... oh. How surprising. It's on a server. If some cataclysmic event happened at KONAMI and those servers where lost all that information would be lost, the same as if Cross Beats were to shut down it's servers.
This is all a moot point anyways because no one except for Capcom knows their End-of-Life Plan. They could release an offline mode patch for all we know.

Some people like me accept this and treat Cross Beats like the Arcade game it secretly is.

Also on your entire math spiel, I'll just say this: You have presented Gambler's Fallacy at it's finest. Unlocks happen when they happen, and nothing controls them. The only thing we can do is either buy more tickets in a vain attempt to increase our odds of getting a new song or do nothing at all and whine about the Ransai scheme (also Yellow Unlocks are rarer than Green Unlocks).

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Yes, I had already figured that out three months ago. CAPCOM should have just released an update for CROSSxBEATS (iOS) to upgrade it to CROSS BEATS REV. (IOS)(International) rather than making the machine...pricing's nearly the same, and/or maybe they should have given CROSSxBEATS (iOS) an aesthetically identical REV. update...that way, money could be milked both ways (in the arcades and at home) at nearly the same pricing, especially with the lustrous new appealing interface (compared to the original CROSSxBEATS interface).


Actually, the CROSSxBEATS (iOS) song and video data is stored locally on the device, but is programmed to have ping sessions with the server. If CAPCOM someday decided to make the game offline, which I hope, then the reverse engineering required wouldn't be a problem. They'd just need to make some moderate changes to the code, as well as replace events with an all-new unlock system. The problem with this is.....knowing that business is business, they are going to want to monetize even more on top of the revenues already earned when the server was running, and they won't just give us a premium game to buy at a one-time fixed price with over 200 songs (almost 200 as of today) contained inside. The most acceptable humane decision they could make would be to offer music packs in the form of In-App Purchases; veteran players would jump on this like white on rice because spending 600JPY for a pack of permanent songs would feel better than spending 6,000JPY for a single song, even I would buy them (all)! In any case, this is all bad speculation, as most companies will just take the money and run...but thankfully we have somebody who can speak for the human side of business to some extent---Naoki Maeda.

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Just wanted to throw my two-cents in on this whole discussion: Personally, I've always viewed CxB as the iOS equivalent to an arcade game; Hell, it's built from the ground up to be as pay-to-play as possible. On the surface, there's nothing wrong with that IMO, and for the most part, I'd say that it's entirely fair to compare CxB to the current BEMANI lineup in terms of song unlocks. Both have events that you have to spend money to play through in order to get songs, which is fine.

Miss a song or two during such an event? No problem; You'll have another chance to get it down the road, in one form or another (Dellar/Frico/whatever it is IIDX is calling them these days, SPT exchanges in CxB's case, etc.). Granted, there is the aspect of having to spend extra money to grind out enough music game fun-bux to buy older songs, but that's whole other point entirely.

I'm pretty much just preaching to the choir here, but the main issue for me with CxB isn't so much the game's pay-to-play nature. It's more the fact that a significant number of the game's (arguably) best songs are only obtainable if you're willing to gamble away potentially hundreds of dollars on the off-chance that RNG happens to be in your favor. Just the very idea that one could spend thousands on the game and never see any return just screams 'wholly unfair' to me.

But, yeah, in any case: TL;DR, RSF is broken, pls nerf


Forgive me for the small rant; It's just the JP iTunes card-shaped pit in my already-small college student budget makes for a pretty compelling reason to piss and moan...

+1 on Byte's words.

Personally, I've always assumed CxB is just a form of Arcade+Slot machine app, far from other games' primal concept, and I'm ok with that.

During 2015 I've been saving some money to buy a couple of appstore giftcards and get some cb in order to buy special ticket packs (specially 777sets) and keep them in order to use them on a future high-drop rate RSF. But I'm giving up in that idea. Personally, I think Capcom should do a certain type of SPT Exchange event using just RSF exclusive songs. Honestly, I'm willing to pay a somewhat high amount (let's say... 80000 or even 100000spt each one) if the method would allow to get such songs without so much "random factor" involved (spt mechanic).

RSF was, is, and will always be, BY FAR, the worst idea Capcom added within CxB universe. That thought won't change.

To finish with this, I got GARNET HOWL after 450 tickets or so, and this morning I got Into The Cave (Another Edit) after another 600 tickets or so.

Later.

Senpai Slam was indeed not the only new song added during this month's RSF.

Oh, hi there REVen-G, long time no see.

Another song has just been introduced into the Random Selection Festival.

KOTOBUKI / REVen-G

It is another remix from a BGM set similar to AKATSUKI. You have a low chance of getting this as a regular play or as a Yellow unclock challenge.

Edit: Master Chart of KOTOBUKI

Lv 90 with a BPM 70-280

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm27909835

Sorry. Just updated with the correct link. I posted the video for standard earlier...

Eek! This looks pretty much impossible especially if you don't want to have to pause the game near the end to adjust the hi-speed setting!

New Year's login bonuses are active now! ((that's a lot of premtix!!))

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3rd Yellow Unlock, also a RSF Ex: Break Down (2nd Edition) - STD

This marks he first time I got 3 yellow unlock on a single event. Around 3500 Premium Tickets spent so far

OMG Hido, all I can say is congratulations on your 3rd yellow ULC in a single RSF's duration! 3500 PREMIUM TICKETS....my goodness, that is around $210USD right there....so that's around ~$70USD per song. I hope that you can get at least one more before the end.

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Calling it quits on this Ransai after a very frustrating day of getting nothing at all.
Got Senpai Slam, OKONIKUKOD, and 覚醒 ∞ awake！
Total spent: TOO MUCH.

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I've decided to go premium one last time; I will have purchased both 777 sale packages + additional PREMIUM TICKETS....this will bring my total purchase history of CROSSxBEATS (iOS) to around $180USD, which is the most I've EVER spent on any mobile app! This Random Select Festival marks the turning of tides in the way I will handle myself in CROSSxBEATS (iOS) in the future; I will truly be heading back to strictly using the FREE TICKET system.

My friend got 11 songs from this RSF; he had around 1200 PT to spend, and currently still has over 400 to spare. Since he only started playing in mid December 2015, he didn't have many songs, apparently, so the amount of songs in your current library may have some effect on your chances....but our song libraries only a difference of 20+ songs, in any case, he was EXTREMELY lucky this RSF. I only have 47 out of 172 songs.

Me? For this RSF, out of 87 possible green/yellow ULCs, I only got two yellow ULCs after spending ~900 PT. That's very low, and other people like Hido and Darkstorm091, an even lower success rate, so it appears. Maybe my 1.5% chance Yellow ULC theoretical calculation has some accuracy to it; either way you put it, the Yellow ULC chance is still low.

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NEXT EVENT HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED

New Year Festival. High Score Attack mode.

This time there is only one Sub-Event reward song:

- stardust (game edit.) / MINIKOMA (500.000 points on personal score)

Ranking prizes are mainly Premium Tickets and Support points. Sub-Event reward for 5 million points is 50 Premium Tickets.

That's all for now.

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Thanks Trip Machina. I also hope to get at least one more RSF Ex (SPLASH, KING STUN, Senpai Slam or KOTOBUKI).

On my case, I normally buy a certain amount of big sales/777 set throught the entire year and spend them all at once on RSF with some special addition or when I see the drop rate favours me. Personally, I think it's a huge possibility every player within the game has an "advantage skill" since the very first moment his/her account is created. Players like Poochie can get the exclusives songs no matter what (yep, I already think that's more a factor/skill than randomness overall). In my case, I think the skill/gift my account has is that I always... AND I REALLY SAY ALWAYS find rivals with really low RP (0.0 most of the time) during 98% of he events. Even those friends I get paired with on Tag Battles can't explain why this "miracle" happens (saying they always find really strong rivals whenever it's not a Tag Event).

Although this is a good point, if capcom would make me choose, I will try to switch my "skill" to get Ex more easily, even if that would mean I would have to face +1900 active users on every single event onwards. It would really be ok with me anyways. But things are not that easy I think.

I still have around 3200 tickets to spend... I'm still thinking what to do next befpre the even ends on January 4th. (Just for the record, I began this RSF with 6844 Premium Tickets).

That's all for now, later!

UPDATE: Got Hypersphere after another 350 tickets or so. Reaching 4000 spent tickets with 4 RSF Ex. Maybe I could go for a 5th one, as I still have around 2900 premium tickets to spend.

They must really love Attack The Music. MINIKOMA is another artist from the label and the full version of stardust is found here:
http://shop.attackthemusic.com/album/minikoma

Also the Moonrise cut in CxB sounds slightly different than the album version

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I guess it's just "friendly partnership", like it happened with previous labels such as unBORDE.

I just hope this song won't become " banned" from RSF for future players, as it has happened before (all the unBORDE songs)

UPDATE: Alright! RSF ended a few hours ago and I must say I'm quite satisfied with results despite ticket's spending has been the most massive one I've done since I started my account. Since I'm still on vacations, I won't be able to upload images for at least 2 more days, but I'll leave a writen report of the event and its outcome.

- I had 5290 premium tickets when both 28th RSF and 777 Sets were announced
- Decided to buy the 2 777 sets allowed, so I was planning to start the event with 6844 Premium Tickets
- Got GARNET HOWL on Standard difficulty when the counter was around 6455 premium tickets (Around 400 tickets spent). Unlocked when it appeared again (Blue ULC) on the same difficulty a few days later.
- Got Into the Cave (Another Edit) on Hard when the counter was around 5835 premium tickets (around 620 more premium ticket since GH and around 1010 premium tickets overall)
- Got Break Down (2nd Edition) on Standard with the counter around 3380 Premium Tickets. That's almost 2455 premium tickets spent since I got Into the Cave (Another Edit). Total spent amount was near 3500.
- Got Hypersphere on Master when the counter was at 3015. I got it again as a blue ULC when the counter was around 2950 and unlocked it. That's around 360~430 premium tickets spent between previous NM and this one, and 3860~3930 as a total spent so far.
- When the counter was around 2400, I decided to buy 2 super lucky sets (57PT+1000LE each one).
- Got Reseed on Standard difficulty at 2320 or so on premium ticket's counter. Around 750PT spent since Hypersphere and around 4680PT as a total overall.
- Finally, got Anomie (Axiom Style) almost 15 minutes before event's end. My counter was at 286 Premium Tickets. That's almost 2035 premium tickets since Reseed's and the final total amount was, more or less, 6700PT.

Honestly, I once thought about using all my saved premium tickets through an entire year on a special RSF, and I think this was the chosen one. As I said before, the results were more than I myself expected (I thought I wouldn't get more than 4 yellow unlocks no matter what). During this years, I'll try using mostly free tickets and see what happens.

See you later

You have certainly earned my respect, Hido, you've certainly been rewarded decently this past RSF...I just wish that CAPCOM can make RSF more reasonable when it comes to chances of getting Green and Yellow ULC, as the current stakes are equivalent to that of a fined-tuned casino slot machine, aka low as hell; it's like the "payout" for Green and Yellow ULC is set to such an abysmal ratio like [1:100] or something. It does not feel fair when there are people spending well over $400USD with such low chances to get at least ONE or TWO out of 50+ obtainable songs. Although I still have over 500 PREMIUM TICKETS remaining from my last "Lucky 777" purchase, I've decided to once again revert back to using the FREE TICKET system religiously.

To be honest, I laughed at the announcement of KOTOBUKI being deemed a "low chance" obtainable song, as if obtaining any other song is any higher...I don't know how I'm going to approach the next RSF, but I'm going to have to create yet another algorithm to keep my PREMIUM TICKET spending low.

For now, I will continue to stay up-to-date with events, continue collecting support points, and avoiding spending PREMIUM TICKETS unless there's reason to do so. As for future RSF's, I will need to enforce a high level of discretion when it comes to using PREMIUM TICKETS. RSF lasts around one week, so:

1 week = 7 days; 1 day = 24 hours.
Average Sessions per day = 3 = 30 FREE TICKETS used
Average FREE TICKETS used after RSF = 210

Since spending a few PREMIUM TICKETS between these sessions might add up to more than you may imagine, I think it would be a safer bet to wait until the last day to spend PREMIUM TICKETS on RSF to have better accuracy and control over your spending limit with those tickets. BTW, they haven't done away with the ocassional SPT song exchange events, have they?

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Someone posted a video of KOTOBUKI master full combo with 11 cools

Insanity on a flatscreen!

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Is a HELL of insanity, oh c'mon CRAPCOM!! That is NOT a 90, please, even Hesperides is easier than that!!