because this update goes blatantly against what would be required right now to make the game, on long term, acceptable for low cashers.

people like me had, so far, the illusion that with enough time spent on the game was possible to achieve the same or close to the same secondary stats of a whale at a certain point for move 2-3-4 (beware, i'm talking about secondarystats only, not of primary stats) and so to not be nuked anymore in 2-3 rounds, but in 6-9, on a very long perspective, by them.

this update removes this illusion (that i know very well it was an illusion, but was there) and is a very big mistake by oasis since they are telling to all of us low cashers that our money are pointless not only now but also on long term.

the result is a lot of us will stop spending altogether because now is really pointless and so the only money they will get in perspective are the money whales give them.

what you say was true if after shisui appeared they began to cut by half every single price of any single older features.

adding this feature of the level 11-13 refinements and of level 13-14 runes was perfectly fine if people like me (low cashers that play since early 2.0 or late 1.0) at this point of the game had full level 10 refinements in move 1 and 2 and level 8 at least in move 3 and 4 and full level 12 runes in move 1 and 2 and level 10-11 in move 3-4.

we are nowhere close this goal, not now nor in the close perspective.

Are you really suggesting blame on the f2p for asking for new content? What a laugh! You know friggin well that when f2pers are asking for new CONTENT they aren't meaning ("Oh, please Oasis, introduce something in the game that only whales will monopolize on, oh please!"). They were asking for actual game features and stuffs missing from previous versions!! Not brand spanking new crap that just happens to be the new avenue for them to make money. Get real man.

I'd personally be more against rune stones than refines. Keys are available everywhere and propably thats the most efficient item to get from moon shop. Because of that players have more incentive to stack p1 (because they actually have resources) which delays filling the gap between your own p1 and p234 even more. If I dont want this, why dont I simply neglect lv13 14 runes and * to upgrading p234? Because cave keys are easily obtainale and current p1 stacking meta of other people will force me to upgrade p1 to stay relevant. Now if refines are mostly unavailable (and they arent efficient that much, see below) its good to have them, because you can hoard those items over time and when the time comes, youll actually have something to upgrade. It doesnt hurt YOUR account progression as much as runes.

One key rebate (1050) gives about between 1/3 to 1/2 progress from lv11->lv12 stone, which on average makes 2-3 rebates to upgrade 1 rune. If leveling costs followed same pattern as 11->12, then it would take 3-4.5 rebates to upgrade a single rune to lv13, and then 4.5~7 to get that rune to lv14. I dont even have full 5x lv12 yet, and at this point i dont want to be forced to upgrade p1 even more.

China had yellow refines in sun coin shop for 200/1 in the picture, which makes it the most cost efficient item after bond scroll packs. It takes 1500 refines to lvl up and stat increase goes from 665->910, which is 245gain (490with max purification). That takes 94.5k coupons to lvl up a single refine (shop price). Lets break that into smaller numbers. Would you pay 9.5k cp for 49 of each secondary stats for jsut 1 position? No. Thats (more or less) equivalent of 7 bt pills in stats, so youd get around 100bp. Considering the cost this feature has pretty bad efficiency ratio (10cp:1bp), not as bad as battle armor but still its on lower end of the spectrum.

Problem with those features will lie solely in where those refines will be available and at what price/ammounts. If they won't be s*fed to players in crazy ammounts in recharge events, nobody (ftp folk) will care, same as with advanced threads. If they are event only (not activities like swb, spacetime) we are good. People who spend for them sure will get better p1, but that ammount of money could have been invested more efficiently. That applies to people around your bp, theres no point in competing ftp with whale and saying the gap will be larger because thats obvious and you shouldnt even think of competing with whales in the first place.

Tl;dr refines are good as long as they arent given away in hundreds in recharge/spend events. For low spenders their implementation isnt end of the world, its just a feature that will increase one's power in a year or so for the first time. People who are against this are whales, who dont want to be forced to spend a lot of $ on non efficient feature just because you will find mroe competitive whale who will do so.