Very disappointed with ELK games
Degen ELK studios.
Graphics? Great.
Sound? Great.
Concept and ideas? Also great.
Math and user experience? DISASTROUS.
I spent 100 hours grinding on Tombstone RIP. At one moment I’m down like 10Kx, but I know the volatilty and potential, and I know it will pay something at one point. It did deliever, althought I’m still down a few thousand x. And I’m planning to spend another 100-200 hours grinding on it in the upcoming 2024.
But grinding on ELK games is a completely different experience. I spent time on their games, because of their great graphics, sound and concepts. Even at 94% RTP, there should still be some big wins from time to time. I thought it would eventually pay something. I’m been tolerating their 94%-95% RTP and bad math model for quite a while, and I’m not asking much, just as little as a single 500x.
I was TOTALLY WRONG. The more I play, the more disappointed I get, and the more I get hurt. Hurt by their design and math.
And today, I just hit 2 more pairs of identical rounds, on Nitropolis 4. I’m just speechless. They got smarter this time, there is a gap of several minutes between a pair of two identical rounds, and I was playing on my phone and not recording the session. The built in replay function only allow me to replay the last 10 rounds. So I cannot provide any image/video proof since I wasn’t recording that session.
The following content may be a little out of order. I just write whatever comes to my mind. I’m sorry that it may be a little confusing to read.
Among their games, in terms of concepts, Katmandu X, Nitro 3 and 4 are my favorite. And most of my times are spent on those games.
Without bonus buys and super spins, I spent no less than 20 hours on Nitro 3, plus no less than 50 hours each on Katmandu X and Nitro 4. That’s at least 120 hours in total. From what I’ve experienced, the speed of ELK games is around 600 spins per hour, so that’s 72K spins total.
I play with Bonus Hunt pretty frequently, so the amount of Bonus I got should be at a similar level of doing 100K+ spins w/o bonus hunt.
During those 72K spins, I had ZERO 500x wins. A 400x on Katmandu X, three or four 400x on Nitro 4 is all I remember. Well, I do had a 900x base game hit on Katmandu X’s cousin which is Propaganda, and I think I made a correct move which is never play that game again.
For all other providers I’ve played: Pragmatic, Hacksaw, Nolimit, Push, BTG, and even NetEnt (I played some DOA2 and Starburst XXXtreme back in the days), a 500x usually happens once every 5K-10K spins, and 1000x is one in 15K-30K spins.
Now let’s talk about the details, what they’ve done to me.
[1]
No big wins after 70K spins, but 4 pairs of identical spins.
Nothing over 500x after that many spins is already bad enough, and I’ve caught 4 pairs of identical round (there could be more identical round that I didn’t catch), including 1 pair that’s not a dead spin, but 2x cost bonus hunt paid back 1.1x. If I keep grinding, maybe it’s just a matter of time before I get two identical bonus rounds.
[2]
False advertising.
When other provider release a new game and they label it with “High volatilty”, they’ll deliever what they said.
This is not true for ELK games. DJ Psycho, a Nolimit City game labeled 6/10 volatilty, feels more volatile than most of ELK’s 8/10 or even 9/10 volatilty games to me.
Katmandu X. 9/10 on ELK’s product sheet. A few weeks ago I deposited 400x and it took me 10 hours (6K+ spins) to win another 400x on top of it. And 2 days ago, I deposited 315x, and the entire session is played without bonus hunt or any X-iter features. 6 hours (4K spins), highest momenet 475x, lowest moment 25x, and after 4 hours, I end up with 225x balance left.
During those 6 hours, the 5 biggest win are: 126.30x(Super Bonus), 98.70x(Bonus), 94.35x(Bonus), 76.50x(Bonus), 75.40x(Bonus). And the total loss is only 80x. Oh god, what is going on? 4000 spins, with an average luck, I’m supposed to lose 200x on a 95% RTP game, and despite my top 5 biggest win doesn’t look anything good, my luck is still above the average. And they label it 9/10 volatilty? Now they’re TOTALLY WRONG.
Another thing is Nitropolis 4. 8/10 volatilty 50Kx Max Win. Nothing above 1Kx (or 2Kx with Bonus Hunt) recorded on stake. Based on the recent Dam Beavers estimation, and given the fact this game is already released 10 months, I’m guessing a total of 500K to 5M of base spins and bonus hunt spins played on stake. The Cage by Nolimit City, also labeled 8/10 volatilty, and 2 month later after the leaderboard reset, top 3 luckiest win is 5Kx, 2.5Kx and 1.5Kx. So people mus tbe really lucky on The Cage and really unlucky on Nitro 4 during the past few months?
[3]
Fake bonus and super spins.
Nitropolis 3’s fake Super Bonus is already well known.
And Nitropolis 4’s regular bonus is also fake. If you hit it without X-iter, or with Bonus Hunt win, the minimum win is 15x. If you buy it, this number is 35x.
Meanwhile Nitropolis 4’s natural super spin doesn’t look real to me. Comparing the real one with a price tag of 25x, natural one have a much higher chance being a dead spin, and gives less 2×2/3×3/big nitro reels. My sample size on this is small, because the natural one isn’t very easy to land, but when the regular bonus is fake, I choose to doubt about any feature we got in game.
[4]
Endless tease that almost never lands.
Dead spins.
They’re supposed to be dead. But no, ELK refuse to let them stay dead and want to do something about it.
Remember Gulag also have such kinds of intentionally failed big wins (dead spins with double xNudge, or xSplit interacting with 2 scatters), on a frequency of once every a few hundreds of spins, and I’m cool with it.
But for Nitropolis 4, it’s multiple times within 100 spins. Some of them are just ridiculous: even if it hits, it’s only like 20x-50x, and the ratio between intentionally fails and actual hits is low enough to cause frustration.
Example:
Random symbol (In this case, Q and A) got spammed everywhere except one or two reels. This happens very often, despite that some of them will only give you 15x-30x even if it connects. For the image with a bunch of Q on reel 2-6, even if there is a Q on reel 1 it would be only 38.4x. So even after player buy the bonus for 100x, you’re still teasing them on some 30x-40x wins? How pathetic.
Other things for Nitropolis 4 aren’t friendly to players as well.
During the base game, the “Nitro Wild” have a very high chance of applied to a nitro reel on reel 5-6 if possible.
During the base game, I’ve got countless Super Bonus tease, but only one of them hits. For any other providers, if the Super Bonus is hard to get, they’re not going to tease you nonstop like this.
Although the game rule section mentioned if a retrigger occured during a bonus, and there’s Super Bonus symbol involved, then Super Bonus is awarded. But for both Nitro 3 and 4, I just never had a chance to witness one of such event. Most of time it just act as a blocker, to prevent the “Nitro Match” effect from creating a big win.
[5]
Other issues about player experience.
Take a look at this. I found this when I was searching for some Nitro 3 big wins with Big Nitro or Both Ways+Nitro Match X-iter features. Didn’t found what I want, but I found this. Nitropolis 3, Bonus with a total of 36 free spins, but sorry, only 1 of them comes with a win.
https://youtu.be/-UPCNAkv1XY?si=7aCSaZuo0QhjMSNI
It’s not only Nitro 3. Many of their other games works in a similar manner. Jeff and Scully, it doesn’t feel like bonus buy anymore. More like buying 1 bonus spin that will hit, get 9 dead spins for free. And if you’re particular lucky, one or two of those 9 dead spins might pay you a few pennies instead of being a completely dead spin. It’s also pretty common on Buffalo Toro.
If you win too much before the free spins begin, there’s a risk that the entire free spin part doesn’t pay you anything. For natural free spins, the minimum win is 15x and this happens pretty often. But even if you buy the bonus directly, such risk still exists. (This one ends with 4 rows and no safety level so you know what happened)
What’s next?
I’ll give their games 2 more chances, to prove themselves being worthy to play. Will record some data and share it on a new post once it’s done.
1. Nitropolis 4.
I’ll deposit 2000x ($260 total), 500x each with 4 different crypto on my stake account.
Then I’ll use those 4 different profiles to play Nitropolis 4 on my laptop simultaneously. The entire session will be recorded so that I’ll have video proof if any more identical rounds appears.
The session will end, if at least one of the following conditions are met: (a) A 500x base bet win happened, or (b) I detected a total of 3 pairs of identical rounds, or (c) All 4 profiles run out of money.
Worst case scenario, I’ll lose $260. Just think it as a cost to do those research and experiments.
2. Cygnus 4.
I’ve bought some bonus in demo mode, huge thanks for BWB providing a demo mode with bonus buy available.
One thing I’ve noticed, is that Bonus buys can go worse than before. 100x Bonus can end up with <10x, and 500x Super Bonus can end up at 20x-40x. This leaves more spaace for bigger wins, and should increase the volatilty a bit. But the experience for 25x cost super spin is still not very great.
I’ll play some Cygnus 4. I’m considering doing 10K spins and record some numbers meanwhile, and see how they’re doing.
If I can’t get a satisfying result, then I’m done with ELK and won’t spend a single penny on their games, until they improve their math and user experience.
The only thing I would question is why you feel the need to give them another chance at this point. I think you already know what the outcome will be. Eventually you will probably hit something at least reasonably decent but that would probably be a disaster for you long term if this meant you carried on playing their games as a result.
I lost thousands of $ playing their games initially oblivious to their payout structure. I give thanks to you and profitablesloter as your posts on here corroborated my own suspicions about their game play and made me quit them for good.
On another note, bear in mind that the stake info is good but the lucky wins are the biggest x stake multiplier from the base game, whilst the big wins are typically high roller monetary amount wins. This means min stake Elk bonus buy big x/ max wins might not be captured in either category. You can see this with retro tapes, which I'm sure has a bonus buy max win pretty much every hour or so, with the last recorded max win on dec 7 (from base game).
I completely agree with you here. I have flagged Elk for years now, as i used to play them a lot in 2021-2022. I actually hit the 1000 coin a month ago on pirates 2. Cant believe it. But that happy moment was quite short. I then tried Katmandu x for the first time, a few days after. Then played it 2 more times with a few days in between. Got 1 lousy bonus in a humungous amount of spins over 3 sessions. We talking maybe 2000 spins. Lost approxiametely the value of 70% of that coin value. And i can honestly say, how i feel about it: Elk wanted their money back fast. It matters if u win big in one slot for some providers. The crappiest providerrs dont take the risks to do anything else. I am confident it works this way, as i have played daily now for 6 years. I am confident its not all about one Slot - one RTP, and thats all. Its more calculated than that. And Elk is to me, one of the most obvious providers. And thats probably why they try so hard to put effort into the cool effects and in a way ”awkward layouts and mechanics”. To keep your focus away from the real deal, the money counting stingy / greed situation.
i would also dare to say, Elk is probably the provider who focus most in programming in what you are gonna miss (big hits, bonuses). To me that says it all. Its a real party pooper.
i think their best slot was made early, voodoo gold. When they started to make sequels and when they start to get overly fancy and when they started to join the focus on maxwin addvertisings first day of release and then your player point of view experience is so far away from it (for example crappy superbonuses), thats when they lost me as a loyal customer.
i am really losing faith in Hacksaw now lately as well, with the 300% cost per spin and many many bad bonuses, baiting and milking, simply because i feel they are doing it over a period of time now. Not just a couple of days. I feel it is pretty much repeatedly ongoing for a long long time now (from player pov).
Its when you see certain patterns and you start feeling, something isnt right here. Then when you see it over and over, particularly have to re-deposit and re-deposit for same outcomes, i believe its time to actually trust your gut feeling. Its easy to tell others, then stay away from those slots then, and the provider knows that. But in my opinion, when you have spun a lot and got experience, its when that borderline of what is disguisting and what is a bad day has been crossed numerous times, its when you know what a good provider is about.
As i said before, despite ups and downs and happy and less happy times, i have never felt this way with 1) push gaming 2) pragmatic 3) old no limit
I trust even Thunderkick and Play N Go more than hacksaw after year 2023. used to love hacksaw.
Elk is just too obvious to me so i hardly mention them anymore. They should make children games, without money :)
and hacksaw can just focus on making entertaining games, without money, for inmates facing long time ….lol
@hxlohar
that 36 spin bonus
omg first i wanna say, omg thats bad for the player (which ofc it is - horrible). But this is way beyond that, its so stupid that its a huge fail from the provider. That re-trigger +16 is insane!
seeriously the Worst i seen so far by Elk and i seen a lot.
oh my freaking gawd, thats horrendous lol
I actually spent 10 days one time to get a bonus on voodoo gold. Pretty much every day 4 hours a day until i got the bonus. By the time the bonus arrived, it nearly matched the basegame hit i had day 6.
True story
@hxlohar
The worst at all is a way how predictible outcome of bonuses are. If you hit decent one in the middle of the bonus it's over, 3-4 dead spins incoming. RTP 94% is a joke
I have never won anything over 200x on an elk its the only provider that I have never had a big win on even with 2 super bonuses on nitropolis 4 were terrible just seems impossible to get a big win so I stopped playing them watching streamers buy super bonuses and best results seems to be a 100x profit
@irid4n
This is true for most of the bonus.
But, there are some exceptions. When buying a 100x cost bonus, there's a very small chance (1%-2% at most), you'll get a bonus with better treatment, such as multiple big wins (like 40x, 80x, 600x, then another 200x), and that's how I got two 900x from 100x bonus buy.
If you hit the bonus naturally, the chance of getting those kind of bonus should be lower, I'm guessing a value below 0.5%.
Another joke I found today. Buying for a regular bonus, get a super bonus instead, then it turn out to be a fake one and ended with a terrible result.
I have never won anything over 100x. Looks good i like the graphics - but not my go2 provider so far
YEPP! Elk is decent for bonus buys pretty solid 80-90% back most of the time. But for spinning NAH