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[Jintor]

Honestly, I think any of the big guys that take pitches - Polygon, Vice, Paste Mag, maybe even Giant Bomb if they're still accepting - would probably be interested in a closer look at a gatcha system so long as you can sell it to them

Keep in mind the word limit is stricter though

 

[firehawk12]

Honestly, I think any of the big guys that take pitches - Polygon, Vice, Paste Mag, maybe even Giant Bomb if they're still accepting - would probably be interested in a closer look at a gatcha system so long as you can sell it to them

Keep in mind the word limit is stricter though

Yeah, I could probably cut a lot to make it breezier. lol
Maybe I'll give it a shot and see what happens. Although already throwing it up on Medium probably doesn't help, unless I pitch something different enough I suppose.

 

[TheGeniusArcana]

Great write up, firehawk. I pretty much feel the same for the most part and it was an enjoyable read. It's always nice to see pieces on mobage/gatcha games since they're so niche here.

 

[Articalys]

When global gets 4x normal song plays, you'll save even more time. But the whales will be even more fierce.

Actually, I don't think I'd use global 2/3/4x unless I really needed to drain LP quickly; means I get less overall playtime and doesn't count extra toward song completion count. Or unless it makes the events hyper-competitive, though hopefully that won't happen for T2.

Yeah, I could probably cut a lot to make it breezier. lol
Maybe I'll give it a shot and see what happens. Although already throwing it up on Medium probably doesn't help, unless I pitch something different enough I suppose.

What kind of site is Medium, anyway? Best I can tell it's an open platform to post long-form articles. Looks like you can form small groups too and have articles published under the same group banner?

 

[firehawk12]

Great write up, firehawk. I pretty much feel the same for the most part and it was an enjoyable read. It's always nice to see pieces on mobage/gatcha games since they're so niche here.

Thanks.

Actually, I don't think I'd use global 2/3/4x unless I really needed to drain LP quickly; means I get less overall playtime and doesn't count extra toward song completion count. Or unless it makes the events hyper-competitive, though hopefully that won't happen for T2.

I'm sure the whales will play normally, but will basically progress 4x as fast as usual. I'll probably use it because I'm playing 3 versions so token events and score match events always kill me. lol

What kind of site is Medium, anyway? Best I can tell it's an open platform to post long-form articles. Looks like you can form small groups too and have articles published under the same group banner?

Yeah, it's a blog platform and it allows you to set up your own "publication". I tried to do something with Narag and a few others but as you can see, it never really came together. lol

I still wouldn't mind trying to just do something with people, because I find it's the only way that I can truly be motivated to write.

 

[ThreePiMatt]

I'm worried about my gold situation. Early on when you're just starting gold is a premium because you're constantly leveling up N's and R's. Then there was a period where they didn't release any new R's so you could stockpile gold. But the combination of Medley events, tons of new R's, and easy idolizing via seals I've dropped from about 40 million gold to about 10 million.

I've only tried tiering in like 4-5 events since this started but I might try next token event since that'll mean way more playing, more rewards, more gold.

It's funny, I was really frustrated with the game a few months ago because progression seemed largely hopeless if you weren't a whale. Constantly releasing new SRs meant you would become increasingly less likely to draw a second to idolize. Got to the point where I almost wasnt playing between events, then I was only playing because of the daily goals, but now it's back to that feverish "gotta play constantly, LP refreshes too slowly!"

What a weird game.

 

[Hexxen-Panda]

WELP. I'm ready for the deluge of feels.

 

[firehawk12]

I'm worried about my gold situation. Early on when you're just starting gold is a premium because you're constantly leveling up N's and R's. Then there was a period where they didn't release any new R's so you could stockpile gold. But the combination of Medley events, tons of new R's, and easy idolizing via seals I've dropped from about 40 million gold to about 10 million.

I've only tried tiering in like 4-5 events since this started but I might try next token event since that'll mean way more playing, more rewards, more gold.

It's funny, I was really frustrated with the game a few months ago because progression seemed largely hopeless if you weren't a whale. Constantly releasing new SRs meant you would become increasingly less likely to draw a second to idolize. Got to the point where I almost wasnt playing between events, then I was only playing because of the daily goals, but now it's back to that feverish "gotta play constantly, LP refreshes too slowly!"

What a weird game.

I think the game was okay before. It's actually a bit fairer now with the seal idolization, and probably the last step they will make when the game is near the end of life is letting people trade SRs for URs or something (you can sort of gamble Rs/SRs by buying blue tickets right now).

I never found the MedFes perks worth getting, at least not the big spender higher drop rate one anyway. The EXP one and event point one are okay if you just want to grind a bit faster.

 

[ThreePiMatt]

Yeah, I stopped the Rare boost perk but still use the support and skill boost ones along with event point boost. Probably ought to save my money.

 

[W-00]

Did they ever fix the rare boost perk? I remember when we first got it that there was talk about it actually lowering the gold/silver rate.

 

[Crescent-]

Did they ever fix the rare boost perk? I remember when we first got it that there was talk about it actually lowering the gold/silver rate.

Someone on reddit said that it increases drop rates more on chafest than medfest. I'll link it when I find the thread (the thread was made around a month ago).
These 2 links should help:
Medfest
Chafest

As for medfest I think it still increases the drop rate but by a very small percentage. Personally for me gold rewards seem to drop more if I play on specific hours. I got 5 scouting tickets last medfest on JP, all from playing around 11 PM (with 8 gold rewards in total iirc, and that is without the boost. Keep in mind that I'm an F2P player).

 

[Articalys]

I wrote a thing on gacha because I wanted to think about how I play these games:
https://medium.com/cultural-panopti...se-free-to-play-games-a866dce1649a#.yn2zeeid8

I've just been thinking of how fairness and letting go has made me enjoy Love Love despite the fact that I'll probably never get a smile UR. lol

Okay, I actually had a chance to read this now, and it's a good overview to someone unfamiliar with the mobage gatcha system. Granted, I only play one such game -- this one -- and don't plan on picking up any more anytime soon, though a couple are still in my sphere of interest (like GBF, but last I heard the translation was still spotty and getting an account set up was a bit of work), so my perspective approaching things is a bit different from yours.

The part in the conclusion about ignoring the gatcha and just playing the game is what I pretty much had to force myself to do from day 1, because I knew if I even dipped my toe in it was going to be hard to stop (and because the first couple times I tried 10+1 I had shit luck... though with improved odds in 4.0, you never know). And so far, considering the proportion of whale players to others of different dedication levels, I feel like I've been able to get along well enough competitively with mostly the event SRs, some of which I've idolized.

I'd like to think I'm detached enough in some way to view the rarer gatcha cards purely in terms of their gameplay strength, not for which character/design they are, and thus as somewhat interchangeable, which helps with being able to fight off any minor pangs of regret for when cards slide out of the main gatcha window (and besides, they all cycle back around in limited scouting eventually, like you point out with the FFRK example). I guess on the flip side there's whatever value you can attribute to showing them off as your center and seeing them/hearing their quotes on the main screen, but the novelty of those probably wears off quickly so I manage to not worry about it. That and there's plenty of sites where I can view all the card art any time I want anyway.

So setting aside the gatcha entirely, the other main way players make use of the paid currency is through tiering the events, with its other main function -- to recharge LP. (This of course brings up the other element of mobage that people can find exploitative -- energy meters -- but that's something I'm not qualified to discuss at length.) Unlike the randomness of gatcha, technically, with enough time, money, and effort, any player can tier any event (provided that few enough other players have the same idea, of course). So this is the pay-or-ignore wall for a large number of players as well, and the one I had to fight harder to resist at first, when I was also still deciding if I wanted to save up for gatcha rolls or not.

My playing style for the first handful of months was to just get the event SR from points, which I think I was mostly able to do with natural regen, though I may have needed 1 or 2 gems once or twice. About five or so months in -- long after my first few gatcha rolls burned me off the system -- I had stockpiled enough gems from the many ways the game provided them for free that I decided to start tiering for cards whose design I liked, which were sporadic enough that I was able to still slowly have a net increase in gems. About four months after that, I broke the pattern and tiered for a couple cards to fill gaps in my team strength, and then after skipping tiering in the event after those two (for reasons I forget), I've tiered everything since. And I still haven't spend a cent on the game.

...well, this started as a short response to your article but grew into its own sort of rambling, half-coherent piece, huh. If the logic doesn't flow 100% that's probably because I'm half-asleep right now too, so I do apologize. Maybe I'll come back to it later and fix it up once I can improve my writing skills.

 

[firehawk12]

Okay, I actually had a chance to read this now, and it's a good overview to someone unfamiliar with the mobage gatcha system. Granted, I only play one such game -- this one -- and don't plan on picking up any more anytime soon, though a couple are still in my sphere of interest (like GBF, but last I heard the translation was still spotty and getting an account set up was a bit of work), so my perspective approaching things is a bit different from yours.

Thanks. GBF is actually pretty well localized, and it does the standard "connect to Facebook" thing if you want to make the process easy. But maybe it's better not to go down another rabbit hole. lol

I'd like to think I'm detached enough in some way to view the rarer gatcha cards purely in terms of their gameplay strength, not for which character/design they are, and thus as somewhat interchangeable, which helps with being able to fight off any minor pangs of regret for when cards slide out of the main gatcha window (and besides, they all cycle back around in limited scouting eventually, like you point out with the FFRK example). I guess on the flip side there's whatever value you can attribute to showing them off as your center and seeing them/hearing their quotes on the main screen, but the novelty of those probably wears off quickly so I manage to not worry about it. That and there's plenty of sites where I can view all the card art any time I want anyway.

The one thing that no wiki has, at least as far as I know anyway, is the special dialog that you get from each card and stories. Yeah, they have the text, but not the actual audio files. That's actually why I like Kancolle, since it's a web game and people immediately rip all the audio whenever a new shipgirl is introduced.

So setting aside the gatcha entirely, the other main way players make use of the paid currency is through tiering the events, with its other main function -- to recharge LP. (This of course brings up the other element of mobage that people can find exploitative -- energy meters -- but that's something I'm not qualified to discuss at length.) Unlike the randomness of gatcha, technically, with enough time, money, and effort, any player can tier any event (provided that few enough other players have the same idea, of course). So this is the pay-or-ignore wall for a large number of players as well, and the one I had to fight harder to resist at first, when I was also still deciding if I wanted to save up for gatcha rolls or not.

This is something I didn't cover because while it's part of the whale system, and is also part of the skinnerware problem in the Garfield article (although he frames it in terms of limiting play, as opposed to creating artificial scarcity and forcing people to spend money to compete with each other). But yeah, it's the other side of f2p in Japanese games that drives monetization. I basically ignore it in the games that I play that have it (basically rhythm games, although Kancolle has ranking too), so in that respect it affects me less than it probably does for most people. At least Love Live has sort of made this fair by letting people use seals, but the hooks are there to get you to pay to play more if you really want to do it.

My playing style for the first handful of months was to just get the event SR from points, which I think I was mostly able to do with natural regen, though I may have needed 1 or 2 gems once or twice. About five or so months in -- long after my first few gatcha rolls burned me off the system -- I had stockpiled enough gems from the many ways the game provided them for free that I decided to start tiering for cards whose design I liked, which were sporadic enough that I was able to still slowly have a net increase in gems. About four months after that, I broke the pattern and tiered for a couple cards to fill gaps in my team strength, and then after skipping tiering in the event after those two (for reasons I forget), I've tiered everything since. And I still haven't spend a cent on the game.

I think there's something to the multiple hits you get from pulling on gacha multiple times. I'm sure that's why slot machines work so well, because it's so easy to just keep going and going and they can be cheap enough to sit there for hours if you want.
(The only time I played slots, I was stuck for basically 5 hours because I kept winning small sums)

...well, this started as a short response to your article but grew into its own sort of rambling, half-coherent piece, huh. If the logic doesn't flow 100% that's probably because I'm half-asleep right now too, so I do apologize. Maybe I'll come back to it later and fix it up once I can improve my writing skills.

No worries!

 

[chrono01]

What's the best way to use my N Seals? I have like 300 of them, and a few SR I could idolize. Which skills are the best to go after, when idolizing SR?

I was thinking the most beneficial one would be the "scores increases by a certain amount after a certain number of notes" effect, since those work regardless of whether you keep the combo going, or get a few "Great" instead of "Perfect" in there. Obviously stats matter too, so I'll aim to idolize the ones with that skill that have the highest stat in their perspective attribute.

I could use them on tickets to try for my second UR...but knowing my luck, I wouldn't get anything. I'd rather idolize the SR cards that I do have, at least I'll get a guaranteed something out of it. :/

 

[firehawk12]

I think it depends what gaps you have. I like having one healer on each team just in case, and with the new bonus that gives you points if your health is full and the skill activates, they aren't liabilities anymore (although I think that might be for URs? I can't remember).

I feel like going for score isn't worth it if only because the top players probably have multiple idolized URs on their teams so there's no way to compete anyway. And the combo savers are given out often enough that you should have plenty - but I just use them in a team that I use to get combo S-ranks on new songs.

I guess the long game would be to save 500 of them and idolize a UR...

 

[chrono01]

I think it depends what gaps you have. I like having one healer on each team just in case, and with the new bonus that gives you points if your health is full and the skill activates, they aren't liabilities anymore (although I think that might be for URs? I can't remember).

I feel like going for score isn't worth it if only because the top players probably have multiple idolized URs on their teams so there's no way to compete anyway. And the combo savers are given out often enough that you should have plenty - but I just use them in a team that I use to get combo S-ranks on new songs.

I guess the long game would be to save 500 of them and idolize a UR...

Wait, you can idolize a UR with them? When I went to Special Practice, I didn't see my (only UR) Smile Honoka listed, so I didn't think it possible.

And yeah, I'm finding it difficult to rank higher in songs now, since so many have had better luck (seemingly) with pulls than I have. I often times get full combo and everything, and still come in fourth place with the person in second having a much lower combo than I.

I have 300+ Love Gems saved for Devil Nico. I won't be tempted to spend them until she arrives. Maybe I'll have enough N Seals by then to idolize her right away, if I actually get lucky in obtaining her that is.

 

[firehawk12]

Yeah, you can idolize URs with any type of seal. I think it's 20 SR seals and 5 SSR seals (which are being given out in JP now as score rewards... but this is just making the rich richer, so Love Live has Reaganomics in it now lol)

For score match, sometimes the bots will have high scores. I'm not sure how that works really. But against real players, the top thousand or so are going to have big whale-based teams.

I kind of wish the tournament mode was put into the global version, where everyone was on the same footing and your performance was based entirely on your ability rather than on your team. But I guess there is not reason to do that in global if they aren't going to do a live tournament here.

 

[chrono01]

Yeah, you can idolize URs with any type of seal. I think it's 20 SR seals and 5 SSR seals (which are being given out in JP now as score rewards... but this is just making the rich richer, so Love Live has Reaganomics in it now lol)

For score match, sometimes the bots will have high scores. I'm not sure how that works really. But against real players, the top thousand or so are going to have big whale-based teams.

I kind of wish the tournament mode was put into the global version, where everyone was on the same footing and your performance was based entirely on your ability rather than on your team. But I guess there is not reason to do that in global if they aren't going to do a live tournament here.

Thanks, I appreciate the information.

Yeah, I wish the score events were based more on skill too (well, you do get a score increase if you combo well, but it only affects the event points earned but not the song points themselves), but I guess there's not much I can do. I'll just hope that my future pulls are more fortunate and I finally achieve the dream of having a tri-color UR leader team. Well, I'm almost there now, but my Pure leader is only an SSR. If I could get that Devil Nico, I'd have a Smile UR, Pure SSR, and Cool UR. I would be okay with that.

Spoiler

I'll never get Devil Nico. ;_;

 

[firehawk12]

I'm still chasing a smile UR after all this time, so I know that feeling. lol

 

[chrono01]

I'm still chasing a smile UR after all this time, so I know that feeling. lol

Our day will come, we must be patient.

...At least, that's what I keep trying to tell myself. :/

 

[firehawk12]

Our day will come, we must be patient.

...At least, that's what I keep trying to tell myself. :/

I shouldn't complain too much... I have 9 UR in the Taiwan version. It's why it's my favourite. lol

But yeah, just gotta roll with it and don't freak out too much like the guy on reddit who nuked their account after not getting Nico using 1500 loveca.

 

[Crescent-]

Wait, you can idolize a UR with them? When I went to Special Practice, I didn't see my (only UR) Smile Honoka listed, so I didn't think it possible.

And yeah, I'm finding it difficult to rank higher in songs now, since so many have had better luck (seemingly) with pulls than I have. I often times get full combo and everything, and still come in fourth place with the person in second having a much lower combo than I.

I have 300+ Love Gems saved for Devil Nico. I won't be tempted to spend them until she arrives. Maybe I'll have enough N Seals by then to idolize her right away, if I actually get lucky in obtaining her that is.

Cards listed in special practice are only the ones able to be idolized, in your case since you don't have the dupe UR nor the number of seals needed to idolize it, the UR won't show.

For me, I use seals to idolize the next higher tier (R seals for SRs, SR seals for SSR/UR) since getting 500 rare seals takes a while, and you can use it to idolize 25 SRs (or 12 and re-idolize for extra skill slots).

As for which cards to idolize, I use this handy website to sort the effectiveness of the cards. You can sort them based on scorers/healers/perfect lockers, and even transfer your card data from School Idol Tomodachi if you have an ID there.

 

[ThreePiMatt]

Cards listed in special practice are only the ones able to be idolized, in your case since you don't have the dupe UR nor the number of seals needed to idolize it, the UR won't show.

For me, I use seals to idolize the next higher tier (R seals for SRs, SR seals for SSR/UR) since getting 500 rare seals takes a while, and you can use it to idolize 25 SRs (or 12 and re-idolize for extra skill slots).

As for which cards to idolize, I use this handy website to sort the effectiveness of the cards. You can sort them based on scorers/healers/perfect lockers, and even transfer your card data from School Idol Tomodachi if you have an ID there.

I think I'd rather they show the card but grey it out if its not eligible since it makes it easy to refer to what I have.

 

[chrono01]

I shouldn't complain too much... I have 9 UR in the Taiwan version. It's why it's my favourite. lol

But yeah, just gotta roll with it and don't freak out too much like the guy on reddit who nuked their account after not getting Nico using 1500 loveca.

Nine...nine...nine UR!?

Wow, such luck. Why can't that be me on Global? ;_;

Cards listed in special practice are only the ones able to be idolized, in your case since you don't have the dupe UR nor the number of seals needed to idolize it, the UR won't show.

For me, I use seals to idolize the next higher tier (R seals for SRs, SR seals for SSR/UR) since getting 500 rare seals takes a while, and you can use it to idolize 25 SRs (or 12 and re-idolize for extra skill slots).

As for which cards to idolize, I use this handy website to sort the effectiveness of the cards. You can sort them based on scorers/healers/perfect lockers, and even transfer your card data from School Idol Tomodachi if you have an ID there.

That explains why my UR didn't show up. Thanks for the confirmation!

I'd do the seals thing too, but I'm a collector so I could never part with my idol after idolizing her.

Thanks for the website, BTW. I'll definitely keep that bookmarker and use it as reference for future idolizing.

 

[W-00]

Nine...nine...nine UR!?

Wow, such luck. Why can't that be me on Global? ;_;

Is that really such a stunning number? I've got eight (not counting Xmas Maki) and I've been playing for just under a year. And without any IAP (until the $3.50 promos a few days ago, but those just gave SSRs).

 

[chrono01]

Is that really such a stunning number? I've got eight (not counting Xmas Maki) and I've been playing for just under a year. And without any IAP (until the $3.50 promos a few days ago, but those just gave SSRs).

For me, it is. I've been playing since launch, and I only have 1 UR (that's with spending money, occasionally). Well, one legit UR, not counting the promotional ones.

 

[Anony]

been playing since launch-ish and i have 4 URs only, not including promos

the luck is real sometimes, just go on reddit and see those multi-UR pulls happening all the time

 

[ThreePiMatt]

I've gotten 7 legit URs, two of them were the same cool Umi which I kept them both for a while then my Cool team became pretty strong on its own, so I idolized them. While I certainly wouldn't call myself a whale, I've probably spent a couple hundo on the game over its lifespan.

 

[firehawk12]

Nine...nine...nine UR!?

Wow, such luck. Why can't that be me on Global? ;_;

On global I only have 4, and no smile, so yeah. lol
On JP I have... 6 I think. 3 red, 2 green, 1 blue.

Just goes to show how RNG is really RNG, and with a 1% drop rate you really just never know.

 

[Articalys]

The one thing that no wiki has, at least as far as I know anyway, is the special dialog that you get from each card and stories. Yeah, they have the text, but not the actual audio files. That's actually why I like Kancolle, since it's a web game and people immediately rip all the audio whenever a new shipgirl is introduced.

Yeah, I forgot about the side stories, which are definitely a bigger piece of content for the gatcha cards. Actually, I had probably intentionally blocked them out for that reason since I know I'm missing them... then again, they pale in size to the regular story updates that everybody gets.

This is something I didn't cover because while it's part of the whale system, and is also part of the skinnerware problem in the Garfield article (although he frames it in terms of limiting play, as opposed to creating artificial scarcity and forcing people to spend money to compete with each other). But yeah, it's the other side of f2p in Japanese games that drives monetization. I basically ignore it in the games that I play that have it (basically rhythm games, although Kancolle has ranking too), so in that respect it affects me less than it probably does for most people. At least Love Live has sort of made this fair by letting people use seals, but the hooks are there to get you to pay to play more if you really want to do it.

The one nice thing about the LP system when I think about it, I guess, is that when you use gems to recover LP, the more you've played (and therefore the higher your max LP is), the more value you're actually getting for your "money". It accumulates slowly -- very slowly -- but accumulate it does. And to be honest I don't know how other games handle energy systems vs. gatcha systems, but since SIF uses the same currency for both, and the game gives out lots of free gems to entice people to get hooked on the gatcha, by foregoing the gatcha you can use all those freebies to get tons of extra playtime, which is worth a lot more to me.

I think there's something to the multiple hits you get from pulling on gacha multiple times. I'm sure that's why slot machines work so well, because it's so easy to just keep going and going and they can be cheap enough to sit there for hours if you want.
(The only time I played slots, I was stuck for basically 5 hours because I kept winning small sums)

I mean, part of my rationale to drop the gatcha early on and use gems for tiering was the economics of the odds are stacked highly against you, and how 50 gems is the minimum to guarantee an UNidolized SR, whereas you can tier an event and get a guaranteed idolized (albeit a bit weaker) SR for much less. Now that 4.0 made things a BIT fairer -- and I now have 900 gems and have a more or less even return on spending in events (though the current DiaRuby event is showing that things might be heating up) -- I might spin every now or then.

 

[Articalys]

And chiming in on the UR discussion: feels like any talk about that should be prefaced with how many gems/tickets you've spent. Like, I can make the dramatic claim that I have a whopping zero URs, and curse you all for your luck.... but I've also only ever done about three 10+1s and used maybe, I dunno, a handful of tickets, so it's a perfectly reasonable outcome.

Now, those of you who rarely do draws and have multiple URs, I hate your guts.

As for URs, I have 8 legit URs, 3 smile and 5 cool. The surprising thing is I'm F2P and 7 of my UR came from single pulls, either through scouting tickets or blue tickets. Initial Chika was the only one I got from 10+1.

This is exactly what I mean by that.

(no hard feelings tho)

 

[Crescent-]

That explains why my UR didn't show up. Thanks for the confirmation!

I'd do the seals thing too, but I'm a collector so I could never part with my idol after idolizing her.

Thanks for the website, BTW. I'll definitely keep that bookmarker and use it as reference for future idolizing.

I was a collector as well, until I got stumped in my smile and cool team. I have idolized SR and UR on the team, and the only way to improve them is to switch out PL/healers for scorers.

So I practiced weak healer/PL SRs to idolize my URs. Just got to idolize my first (and dream) UR Christmas v2 Eli last month. I'm even tiering the last 3 events just so I can get more fodders to idolize my other URs.

With JP giving seals as rewards for song rankings now, if I tier every event then I can idolize a UR every 2 months (3 SR seals from song rank + 4 SRs sold every event) which is a pretty good pace imo. Though you'll have to part ways with the event SRs.

As for URs, I have 8 legit URs, 3 smile and 5 cool. The surprising thing is I'm F2P and 7 of my UR came from single pulls, either through scouting tickets or blue tickets. Initial Chika was the only one I got from 10+1.

This is exactly what I mean by that.

(no hard feelings tho)

I've had countless 1 SR pulls from 10+1 though. A friend of mine probably suits your statement better. He has 6 legit URs from 8 10+1 pulls and 1 UR from single pull (yes, his luck is that insane. Every time he pulls a 10+1 I'm expecting at least a UR and an SR). And he's only been playing for around 8 months (and now inactive).

 

[firehawk12]

Yeah, I forgot about the side stories, which are definitely a bigger piece of content for the gatcha cards. Actually, I had probably intentionally blocked them out for that reason since I know I'm missing them... then again, they pale in size to the regular story updates that everybody gets.

You can at least read them all I suppose. It'd be nice if they got ripped at some point, although I have no idea what kind of files they are. But they're nothing major either way I suppose. The URs also have special dialog unique to whatever their wearing.

The one nice thing about the LP system when I think about it, I guess, is that when you use gems to recover LP, the more you've played (and therefore the higher your max LP is), the more value you're actually getting for your "money". It accumulates slowly -- very slowly -- but accumulate it does. And to be honest I don't know how other games handle energy systems vs. gatcha systems, but since SIF uses the same currency for both, and the game gives out lots of free gems to entice people to get hooked on the gatcha, by foregoing the gatcha you can use all those freebies to get tons of extra playtime, which is worth a lot more to me.

GBF, FFRK and Imas work the same way essentially. Although GBF has like a thousand different currencies, so the currency for refilling stamina is also the currency you use to refill health in a battle.

But it's definitely another money sink for the devs.

I mean, part of my rationale to drop the gatcha early on and use gems for tiering was the economics of the odds are stacked highly against you, and how 50 gems is the minimum to guarantee an UNidolized SR, whereas you can tier an event and get a guaranteed idolized (albeit a bit weaker) SR for much less. Now that 4.0 made things a BIT fairer -- and I now have 900 gems and have a more or less even return on spending in events (though the current DiaRuby event is showing that things might be heating up) -- I might spin every now or then.

The problem is that you basically need a UR of all three colours to make it worth it because of the center skill. It's only when you get all three that you can just forgo the gacha altogether, although as you say, the event SRs are generally weaker than the ones you get from the gacha.

 

[Labrys]

The problem is that you basically need a UR of all three colours to make it worth it because of the center skill. It's only when you get all three that you can just forgo the gacha altogether, although as you say, the event SRs are generally weaker than the ones you get from the gacha.

I feel like this in somewhat fixed by the new skill system; adding a few skills to an event card can make them as viable or even in some cases more viable than an idolized gacha card.

 

[firehawk12]

I feel like this in somewhat fixed by the new skill system; adding a few skills to an event card can make them as viable or even in some cases more viable than an idolized gacha card.

All the items I've seen seem to only increase the raw number of the card, but the UR skill increases the power of all cards in your deck by a set amount. Is it possible to make up for that difference using the new items alone? Of course then you'd need RNG and to spend seals on increasing the number of slots in each SR.

 

[Crescent-]

All the items I've seen seem to only increase the raw number of the card, but the UR skill increases the power of all cards in your deck by a set amount. Is it possible to make up for that difference using the new items alone? Of course then you'd need RNG and to spend seals on increasing the number of slots in each SR.

There's smile/pure/cool veil which increases all card's power by 2.4% iirc. Costs 4 slot though. There's a 3-slot equivalent which increases all card's power by 1.8% but I forgot what the skill name was. Those skills are pretty rare drops though. I heard the drop rate for the veil skills are only around 0.25% each (so 0.75% in total, and that is from the 4 million boxes).

 

[GoXDS]

I feel like this in somewhat fixed by the new skill system; adding a few skills to an event card can make them as viable or even in some cases more viable than an idolized gacha card.

but can't you put those same skills on the gacha idolized? the average Event SR will always be worse than the average normal SR even after skills (assuming same slot count). the +stat ones that give a static increase just makes the different smaller (%-wise)

 

[Labrys]

This was speaking more from a general level, like for instance take an event card like Happi Honoka, max level with max bond she's at 5260 smile; put a smile kiss on her and she's 5460. If your center UR is, let's say, Bride Honoka who's leader skill is smile points up by 9% + 2nd year's smile points up by 6%, having Happi Honoka may be more useful than Job V2 Nozomi who's at 5420 max level/bond. Granted you could like you said put the smile kiss on Nozomi, moving her up to 5620, but she'd do nothing for the leader skill bonus.

I sort of rambled there but I guess in short my thoughts are it gives more life in terms of team building.

 

[firehawk12]

There's smile/pure/cool veil which increases all card's power by 2.4% iirc. Costs 4 slot though. There's a 3-slot equivalent which increases all card's power by 1.8% but I forgot what the skill name was. Those skills are pretty rare drops though. I heard the drop rate for the veil skills are only around 0.25% each (so 0.75% in total, and that is from the 4 million boxes).

So... rarer than getting a UR, but also you get more chances.

Of course, since the whales get more chances at the loot boxes, you'll have 9 UR teams with all 4 slot UR skills. lol

 

[Barrylocke]

Oh god, I'm back in Idol Hell again.

 

[BGBW]

This week's comic didn't really need translating at all…

http://llsiftenfes.tumblr.com/

 

[Barrylocke]

So speaking of getting back into SIF, how did you guys spend your massive increase of LP when they did the EXP requirement changes? I have 1695 LP from jumping from Rank 79 to 103 and no idea what I'm gonna do with it.

 

[firehawk12]

Use it for the next event. At this point, you'll definitely tier at least. lol

 

[elhaym]

Yeaaaaaah, I blew like 1700LP in the next event over 3 days, heh.

 

[Barrylocke]

I guess I'll wait then. I didn't do much with this event and its over halfway over so I'll wait til the next one so I have time to properly blow the LP on it. I just hope it's not a Token event. I'm normally cool with those but with all that LP it would probably be nauseating even for me, lol.

 

[GoXDS]

I guess I'll wait then. I didn't do much with this event and its over halfway over so I'll wait til the next one so I have time to properly blow the LP on it. I just hope it's not a Token event. I'm normally cool with those but with all that LP it would probably be nauseating even for me, lol.

well, I think you're in luck. iirc, last event was Token so should be either Medley or Challenge next. Medley would actually make you play longer compared to Challenge but eh. also, it's not too bad if it was Token since there is a fresh batch of songs in Aqours now, too. the LP overflow was definitely painful though... if you're insisting on wasting as little LP as possible, then try playing at 5 AM for 2.5 hours straight x_x

 

[elhaym]

Everyone else dropped because seriously, eff this chart, and this will never happen again outside of score match.

 

[Hexxen-Panda]

And on the very same day I browsed the rice section of my Uni library, I was blessed with my very first UR, the Rice Goddess.

Praise Be.
(Now what do I do with it? Idolize it? Spend Gs leveling it up?)

 

[GoXDS]

And on the very same day I browsed the rice section of my Uni library, I was blessed with my very first UR, the Rice Goddess.

(Now what do I do with it? Idolize it? Spend Gs leveling it up?)

nice nice. obviously lvl it up. but if you have a ton of N/R to lvl up first, you can deal with that first. there's no immediate need to idolize yet, especially if you're not gonna lvl it first. especially with Score Match behind us, no need to rush building up your team

 

[Articalys]

I just realized, when you think about it, in solo play, there's no need for crazy strong teams from a non-bragging POV; with friend boosts and now especially idol skills, you can put together something that can S-rank most songs with just event SRs, even unidolized ones. For Medleys, you had the score boost if you needed it. And up until now, the only two places it mattered in a direct, head-to-head manner competitively were for Score Match and for Token Event song ranking tiers. Maybe that's why they added new song ranking reward sets to all the events.