Also, duckroll would probably be happy if more people switched to TB, aka the official sequel to The Last Story. lol
No, I'm saying TB has that exact problem - lots of power level to grind and literally nothing to use it on for months on end.
About levelling curves and catching up and whatnot - yes and no. You're simply not going to catch up to day 1 players because of the stamina mechanic (Think about it, a month is 14480 stamina they have potentially spent that you don't)
On the other hand, things simply become easier to grind. 1 stamina then isn't equal to one stamina now (It's worth far more). There are some very obvious slingshots, and event rewards in terms of 3 and 4* orbs get more and more plentiful as it goes by. (To answer your question, no, Global has been far more generous than Japan if you synchronize their starts)
There's also very obvious catch-up events, like Festival of Gold and the upcoming Soul Break Fest (not as cool) and Orb Dungeon (very cool) that have rewards/stamina far outpacing everything else in the game.
My point is, you can have played 30% total stamina of a Day 1 player and gotten 80% of the power level (especially around the events mentioned above) and that percentage creeps higher and higher, despite what you may think you're missing in terms of rewards.
Analyzing the boss fights themselves, it's pretty clear that while dungeons keep going up in difficulty (as they should - that's progression) events tend to hover around the same difficulty for each tier.
The first event that had a boss rush incidentally was Rinoa (although it was simply Stage 10 featuring 3 bosses, rather than a designated boss rush) Virtually no one beat that with Mastery. Not me. Not Wazzy and the FF8 5* Parade. There were some crazies out there who pulled way more FF8 gear and literally threw multiple Mythril at each boss to buff enough to clear the entire thing, but that's besides the point.
The event after that featured Red Dragon, which a lot of people struggled with as well (not counting VIT0 shenanigans). End bosses after that generally got easier, and then harder again, but never breached the difficulty level of Red Dragon.
Boss rushes have similarly been around the same difficulty since they were introduced. So have EX+s since
they were introduced.
I think in terms of progression, the idea is for newer players to aim for, in terms of increasing difficulty tiers:
A) Get the event characters (literally doable within the event timeframe from a fresh start - a.k.a. in line with the draw of the game even at a casual level being collecting FF characters)
B) Get the event MCs (a little harder)
C) Beat the event final boss and beat the event boss rush while burning Mythril. (If you can beat the final boss, you definitely can clear the boss rush burning Mythril as nothing is singularly harder than the final boss in terms of stats)
D) Beat the event boss rush without burning Mythril and clear the EX+ without Mastery
E) Clear the EX+ with Mastery
The fact that they're adding EX++ and then Misfortune tiers rather than gradually increasing the difficulty of the above bullet points lends credence to this theory. That's the progression/carrot-on-a-stick despite prior events being gone forever.
So basically, if you can do B), your goal for next events should be to do continue to do B), and aim for C). If you can do C), your goal for next events should be to continue doing C) and aim for D)
Remember my friend? We just beat a boss rush for the first time ever. (throwing Mythril at it every stage).
Your problem is (and I'm repeating myself here, apologies) you're trying to do too much too fast.
If you're really interested in at least getting a decent leg-up in the game, I'd suggest doing whatever you can in events but also focus on beefing the shit out of your max Stamina (meaning classic dungeons as far as you can go) in preparation for dropping Mythril on the Orb Dungeon. Like seriously, that thing is going to allow you to craft and hone a very large percentage of everything everyone has right now, missed 4* rewards or not.
Remember, it's one thing getting free 4* stuff. It's another honing them to r3 which is when they start getting useful (outside of obvious exceptions like Shellga/Protectga) and the Orb cost for those hones are far greater than the initial craft.
edit:
Additional thoughts w.r.t. later posts in the thread:
I've got in terms of summons past r1:
- Valefor r3
- Phoenix r2
- Ramuh r4
- Carbuncle r2
- Kirin r3 (lol)
The only -ja I have honed to r3 is Waterja, and it's a staple in my lineup. Firaja and Thundaja sit at r2. I've not even crafted Blizzaja yet. Reasoning for which has been mentioned multiple times in my -aga/mage meta analysis posts.
So no, I doubt the guy in the video has a shit ton of honed -ajas on top of his summons of which I'm sitting around the same ballpark outside of r2 Alexander. The video looks like overkill, to be quite honest. In the end, you're going to be able to somewhat compensate for lower power levels by simply getting luckier with sheepskin sleeping all three, and then sleeping whoever's left alive when the first one wears out. It's not going to let someone with a single r2 Biora win, but a leg up is a leg up.
edit2:
I think I'm gonna hone Valefor to R2 for this as well. And Shiva to R3 too, probably
Screw Shiva tbh. Join the Ramuh cult.
(simply because Ramuh helps with Omega Weapon lol. Yes I'm aware there's no 4* ice summon)
