Poker release notes 3.23 (Banzai 2.0)

[Stubbe-Unibet]

Previous release notes can be found here.

Release date: 13th December
Next release: 17th January

BANZAAAIII! Your favorite short-stack poker game just got even better! The visuals have been changed completely, we've added a bunch of new features and the game has been made even faster with 5 handed tables and more aggressive kicking of players when being inactive. 

Merry Xmas and happy new year!

Promotions

Still running/upcoming from previous release(s):

• Time Based Jackpots 20th Nov– 18th Dec
• Penalty Hero 20th Nov – 18th Dec
• Winter Bootcamp 28 Nov – 1 Jan 2023
• Celebration MTT Leaderboard Weeks 24th Oct – 1st Jan 2023 (10 weeks)

Included in this release:

• CG Banzai 2.0 Launch Campaign 19^th Dec – 31^st Dec
  • Free Ticket give away presented to player via new client gift animation (19^th – 26^th Dec)
    • Segmented giveaway (not all players will receive something)
  • XMAS Missions (19^th – 31^st Dec)
    • Each day a new mission primarily pushing Banzai 2.0 cash game

Ticket gift animation:

• Slobberknocker PKO MTT Series  8^th Jan 15^th Jan
  • Winners receive a unique avatar:

• Global XP Race 2^nd Jan – 5^th Feb (5 weeks)
• January Mission 1^st – 31^st Jan

  

Coming in January release:

• Banzai Flips 23th Jan – 28^th Feb
  • New take on King of Flips – Banzai Flips!
• Cash Game Banzai 2.0 Casino Brands Launch Mission, 23th Jan – 26^th Feb (5 weeks)
  • Banzai 2.0 weekly missions for Casino brands
• Daily HexaPro Race, 6^th Feb - 12^th March (5 weeks)
• February Monthly Mission

 

New features/Improvements

New Banzai 2.0 game format. In this totally re-vamped version of our short stack Cash game you start off as a white belt novice, eager to improve your belt status and ultimately become the Sensei. You move up in grades by going all-in at the tables while also trying to accumulate the biggest stack in the cash game pool which earns you the unique Sensei title.

You start the game with 10 BB and max 5 players at the table. We allow up to 4 tables per player and stake. 

Few of the changes:

• Banzai added as main menu element next to HexaPro (previously it was a cash game sub-menu)
  • New game selection UI with arrows to navigate between pools
  • Available pools initially: NL1 (PARK), NL5 (DOJO) and NL20 (ARENA)
  • Each pool has specific designated background
  • Game Lab shortcut (new dedicated Banzai section)
  • Top 3 current stacks shown in lobby (just 2 on mockup though)

 

• You can level up your avatar during gameplay:
  • 9 levels in total (from white belt -> black belt)
  • If you play multiple tables, you will have multiple avatar journeys
  • One meter to track your closeness to the current Sensei and one meter to track your belt progress
  • When you level up there will be a mini-animation to show that your avatar levels up:

• To become the Sensei of the cash game pool you need to have the biggest stack (minimum 50 bb)
• Instead of your alias each player will be given a random Banzai 2.0 name. There is a list of pre-defined aliases that is given randomly at table (never 2 same alias at the same table).
• All players start with the same avatar at every new game/table/instance (karateka with white belt): 

• New buyin dialog:

• New “Squeeze the ace” functionality – if one hole card is an Ace you can choose to slowly reveal it by tapping or dragging:

• New chat emoji gif´s (5 new) especially made for Banzai 2.0 fighting theme. Check them out!

• New game lab section and pages (currently two Levels):

• New bet button layout for mobile portrait, only available for Banzai 2.0:

 

• If there are big pots you will see a thunder animation when all-in, if even bigger pot there is a VS screen:

• New “Play Again” dialog:

• Sitout – 90 seconds and after you are kicked from table. Banzai 2.0 is separated from global sitout timer. 
• Added 2 new settings:
  • Enable/disable the Ace card squeeze
  • Enable/disable the new portrait bet buttons
• Banzai 2.0 is separated from NLHE School in Game Lab not to mess up the stats there

 

• Finally, we also have a non-Banzai improvement: Game Lab Hall of Fame L2 improvement
  • To just show the “real” biggest cash game pots here (and not only huge bets that are not called) we will only show pots that go to show down here. 

 

 

 

 

Downtime 

We are updating Unibet Poker server side on Tuesday 13/12/2022 05:00-06:00 UTC.

Games will be paused during update.

New SNG tournament creation disabled 1 hour before update.

Update may be finished earlier.

[psrquack]

34 minutes ago, Stubbe-Unibet said:

 

I'm a little bit confused, but this one should be a full house, shouldn't be?

Edited December 7, 2022 by psrquack

[Andy-Relax]

It's a mockup with all the screen elements on it, not a production screenshot

[Stubbe-Unibet]

I should add that Banzai 2.0 will not go live right after the release. We will first be testing it with a small group of players and if that goes well, we are probably looking at a Thursday release

[norman]

• Daily HexaPro Race, 6^th Feb - 12^th March (5 weeks)

once again €10 and €25 players are together?

[psrquack]

39 minutes ago, Andy-Unibet said:

It's a mockup with all the screen elements on it, not a production screenshot

It would be awesome if you could change it to the right one. Thank you.

[Stubbe-Unibet]

18 minutes ago, norman said:

• Daily HexaPro Race, 6^th Feb - 12^th March (5 weeks)

once again €10 and €25 players are together?

I don't believe there'll be any changes to the buyin segments. @Seb-Unibet can confirm.

11 minutes ago, psrquack said:

It would be awesome if you could change it to the right one. Thank you.

Irrelevant to the game and features highlighted so not going to spend time changing this 🙂  NLHE rules haven't changed.

[GotKot99]

Banzai 2.0 avatars and graphics remind me of good old Double Dragon game - cool 😎

 

[FreedoM]

11 minutes ago, GotKot99 said:

Banzai 2.0 avatars and graphics remind me of good old Double Dragon game - cool 😎

 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/394310/Punch_Club/

👆I get reminded of this! 🦸‍♂️

Edited December 7, 2022 by FreedoM
+Gif

[psrquack]

37 minutes ago, Stubbe-Unibet said:

I don't believe there'll be any changes to the buyin segments. @Seb-Unibet can confirm.

Irrelevant to the game and features highlighted so not going to spend time changing this 🙂  NLHE rules haven't changed.

If so, then I'm happy we are not co workers.

[cris1285]

Sick! 😅 The coolest design ever for poker. 

[norman]

49 minutes ago, Stubbe-Unibet said:

I don't believe there'll be any changes to the buyin segments. @Seb-Unibet can confirm.

oh nooo.. maybe 2,5x €10 players points then? its so frustrating to have to grind 2,5x more than €25 players.

[Stubbe-Unibet]

1 minute ago, norman said:

oh nooo.. maybe 2,5x €10 players points then? its so frustrating to have to grind 2,5x more than €25 players.

Points have to be relevant to rake/buyin amount. I don't think we should have a €10 game count as much as a €25 (then €25 players would never win the top positions on the leaderboard, despite paying more rake than the €10 players) but I'll let Seb reply to this one 🙂 

[Stubbe-Unibet]

8 minutes ago, cris1285 said:

Sick! 😅 The coolest design ever for poker. 

Glad to hear you like it! As someone who's played a fair bit of video games - even if a bit too young for the games/style this design is inspired by - I'm a big fan as well 🙂 

[Tom Siddle]

Is it true the rake is increasing?

How can this possibly be justified in this game? 
it’s all in every 30 seconds for €20 each so €1 being taken every single heads up all in as opposed to €0.4
Most people already losing in this game and some losing a lot, and not a large amount of players play this game so how on earth can rake being getting even higher 

[Tom Siddle]

2 minutes ago, Tom Siddle said:

Is it true the rake is increasing?

How can this possibly be justified in this game? 
it’s all in every 30 seconds for €20 each so €1 being taken every single heads up all in as opposed to €0.4
Most people already losing in this game and some losing a lot, and not a large amount of players play this game so how on earth can rake being getting even higher 

This for banzai 

[norman]

come on Seb, separate €10 and €25 players in the next hexa leaderboard 🙏

[Stubbe-Unibet]

Just now, Tom Siddle said:

Is it true the rake is increasing?

How can this possibly be justified in this game? 
it’s all in every 30 seconds for €20 each so €1 being taken every single heads up all in as opposed to €0.4
Most people already losing in this game and some losing a lot, and not a large amount of players play this game so how on earth can rake being getting even higher 

"Even higher". It's 1% today 😅 Competitors have +5% for similar games.

I think you're explaining exactly why the rake needs to be higher: we don't have enough players playing it the way it's working today. A higher rake does not necessarily mean less traffic - quite the contrary in this case (that is the expectation at least).
I agree 5% isn't fair, but 1% also doesn't make sense for us. Below the new rake:

Copy and paste from another thread:

Looking at current winrate probably isn't going to give you an accurate picture of future performance. The 2.5% might mean a few of the higher volume players will stop  and for sure it should mean more casual players, as it's promoted more; gets its own 1st level menu item (see picture in OP of lobby) and just becomes a more fun game with the new features = games should be softer. 

But yes, as mentioned in the previous post, we can't really do any promos for Banzai today, because of the low rake. The 2.5% will make it possible to do promotions on this format as well.

As you can see in the first post, there're already a few promotions planned for the format 🙂 

[Tom Siddle]

I don’t think anyone who plays banzai cares about promotions they just like playing banzai cos it’s fun.

Now everyone is just gunna lose. 
The few winners at this game will struggle to beat 2.5% rake in a game that is so incredibly fast, it’s the fastest Holdem online cash game I’ve ever seen, and the dumpers obviously just gunna dump even more now probably.
Surely good marketing is always beneficial regardless of the rake it’s not like oh rake went up but no worries we are marketing better now.

 

[Stubbe-Unibet]

10 minutes ago, Tom Siddle said:

I don’t think anyone who plays banzai cares about promotions they just like playing banzai cos it’s fun.

Now everyone is just gunna lose. 
The few winners at this game will struggle to beat 2.5% rake in a game that is so incredibly fast, it’s the fastest Holdem online cash game I’ve ever seen, and the dumpers obviously just gunna dump even more now probably.
Surely good marketing is always beneficial regardless of the rake it’s not like oh rake went up but no worries we are marketing better now.

 

I feel like you completely ignored what I just wrote above 🙂

Your assumptions about current winners are not correct. We have of course reviewed the data at a player level, when determining what the ideal rake level would be.

It does not make sense to do any marketing of a game with 1% rake. With the new format, the game will be more attractive to the casual players (no, the rake increase does not make much of a difference to these), we'll promote it  (both through real-estate in client but also promotions, as already mentioned) and overall it'll just do its job better and serve as a proper mobile alternative to HexaPro (there are some assumptions here of course, and I can't say exactly how it'll evolve or how good the numbers will be). Will it be better for everyone? No, almost definitely not. There will be some players that - despite the softer player pool - will be worse off, but I'm okay with that; we can never please everyone 🙂 

[Tom Siddle]

@Stubbe-Unibetthere won’t be a softer player pool, you’ve just guessed that with no evidence, basically made it up.

1 to 2.5 in a game so lightning quick is a massive difference. 
Sorry for coming across a bit abrasive, I won’t say anything more, just have to see what happens over time. 

[fornicator99]

Sweeet! That's quite a lot to process, didn't expect so many changes. I like the majority of features but I'm unsure about some:

1) Don't know about random name. What does it add to the current status in which people who want to change it do it and people who don't, don't. I saw a lot of recs and also regs that seem quite attached of their username. Why force it?

2) “Squeeze the ace” - why only an Ace? What value does it bring? There are a lot of contexts in which an Ace doesn't mean anything. I think you should be able to show both cards - people like to show a good bluff now and then, especially recs. Imo, this is a basic feature, that should have been implemented long ago.

Other than this, it seems great, I see a lot of potential. Dig the special school section for Banzai, the normal one is not really useful for this type of game.

Also, what does Casino Brands Launch Mission mean? Will this game be pushed to casino players? Would be really nice, that's exactly the type we want here 😅

Fingers crossed, guys!

[SCOBY]

If it were also cheerful, the avatar would be suitable for me, of course, because I will always hope for the best place in any competition.😉

[Stubbe-Unibet]

1 minute ago, Tom Siddle said:

@Stubbe-Unibetthere won’t be a softer player pool, you’ve just guessed that with no evidence, basically made it up.

No, it will be a softer pool - I'm not just guessing here. We will have more unique players in the game and the share of total hands that are played by decent short-stack players will become smaller. Especially if you're right about your previous assumptions - they contradict what you're saying here - it'll be significantly softer.

3 minutes ago, fornicator99 said:

Sweeet! That's quite a lot to process, didn't expect so many changes. I like the majority of features but I'm unsure about some:

1) Don't know about random name. What does it add to the current status in which people who want to change it do it and people who don't, don't. I saw a lot of recs and also regs that seem quite attached of their username. Why force it?

2) “Squeeze the ace” - why only an Ace? What value does it bring? There are a lot of contexts in which an Ace doesn't mean anything. I think you should be able to show both cards - people like to show a good bluff now and then, especially recs. Imo, this is a basic feature, that should have been implemented long ago.

Other than this, it seems great, I see a lot of potential. Dig the special school section for Banzai, the normal one is not really useful for this type of game.

Also, what does Casino Brands Launch Mission mean? Will this game be pushed to casino players? Would be really nice, that's exactly the type we want here 😅

Fingers crossed, guys!

Random name. We felt this was a good fit with the rest of the mechanics and the focus on building a game that is good for the casual/bad player. As you say, there're some casuals who don't change their alias as much as they should, and this will help protect them, as they can't be instantly identified when sitting down at the table. But I get your point and there're of course downsides as well.

Squeeze ace. Bit of misunderstanding here. You can't show your cards at the end of the hand. This is just a slow reveal of 2nd hole card when 1st hole card dealt is an ace. Small feature to create a bit more excitement.

Casino brands. Unibet is part of Kindred Group, which also have several casino focused brands. We will be adding this game to several of these brands (one of the reasons the fields will be softer 🙂)

[fornicator99]

3 minutes ago, Stubbe-Unibet said:

Random name. We felt this was a good fit with the rest of the mechanics and the focus on building a game that is good for the casual/bad player. As you say, there're some casuals who don't change their alias as much as they should, and this will help protect them, as they can't be instantly identified when sitting down at the table. But I get your point and there're of course downsides as well.

 

fair enough

3 minutes ago, Stubbe-Unibet said:

Squeeze ace. Bit of misunderstanding here. You can't show your cards at the end of the hand. This is just a slow reveal of 2nd hole card when 1st hole card dealt is an ace. Small feature to create a bit more excitement.

Oh,  got it now,  my bad. But, since we are here, is this a particular reason for not having this ability? I think it would be quite appealing to recs without exposing them too much. My 2c.