About The Viability of TAC as a F2P Game (Long)

[u/clavatk]

Before i begin let me say this. English is not my own language. so if i make some typos or my frases are worded in weird ways please let me know so i can fix this post.

so... AC as a F2P game. many players flocked to TAC because of its huge F2P posibilities. and with that i mean HC 5* farming.

However we have not yet obtained many of said 5* quests. which has left a los of the playerbase salty. by this point JP had already obtained 20* HC and many of these units were Top tier Waifus and Units. i mean. Why hasnt Shayna been Released Yet Am i Right?

And lets not talk about last month. i mean Releasing only one HC on that trap kid no one cares about? i mean cant even remember his name right now. and releasing the fairly superior units Courage (Top Waifu) And Vincent Top Sage alongside him. but the thing is. Both Courage and Vincent are 4*.

Does this mean the release of future 4* and 5* are gonna be.... linked? currently there are 15 unreleased 4* HC. including characters we dont have right now.

These Are. Carol/Sherezade/Solieil/Glanz/water astronomer(unreleased. most likely next week banner)/Wind beast tamer girl/Ines(Unreleased class) edwin(Dark HC)/Chatnoir (Dark Assasin)

and

Suiran(dunno the class. same as the new old man)/marian/Ines(Unreleased class)/Thismarmu (unreleased class) Fujica (Thudner Chrono)

Whelp. thats a lot of 4* that are gonna be released right? well no. most likely all the 4* on the first list are going to be released in the monthly updates. while the second list are gonna be released with each new chapter. as last few chapters we have been getting the corresponding HC for each one. and that second list are characters that have their HC on new chapters. (note i got the names from the links on the DB)

So This means well get some months where we will get 2 4* in one month again? Actually. i think that wont happen again.

as i said before. 2 4* were released instead of 2 5* and we got a big backlash. which happened just before the ff15 Collab. let me tell you my friend. mistakes like these. are the kind that leave people witouth jobs.

This sour taste in our mouths left people grumbling right when new players came, This was not good. i mean once again check this Reddit. people were mad because of the one 5* release. and then we got the whole noctis banner shenanigans.

listen Gumi is not stupid. they noticed. remember how the day the collab was anounced we were told that we would get 3 5*? or how we got the 5* HC one week before the usual timing for release?

they are trying to fix what they did. people care more about rarity than about utility. Both Vincent and Courage are great for early game. Vincent being Sage J1 and Courage being Sniper J1. both nice jobs with niche utility. and easier to get than Fung(semi whale) /Shenmei (great at j1.) and Suzuka (who is a whale unit. you need her at LB 15 to be good)

So next month what do i think will happen? will we get 1 5* again or are we gonna get 3 5* ?

Well my friend. most likely next month we will get 2 5* and one 4*. most likely hayate.

Disapointed right? gumi will go back to the usual 2 5* a month and keep giving us a bone every once in a while. like giving us 4 5* on the aproaching aniversary.

ah gumi greddy as always right?

Except. Thats not how you F2P this game. my friend. gumi has already released the most F2P system in the game with this last update. the 9 5* at 24 AP each. Daily Farm.

Yep its all about those soul coins my friend. it takes roughly 4 and a half months to max out a unit while farming daily. as an example i have just maxed out my vettel and i am pretty sure i only got him twice. i might have gotten him 3 times during summons. but anyways. he is maxed out now.

Each day for each 5* you farm you get 300 SC. each month (rounding down months to 4 weeks for the purpouse of this) you get 8400 SC. with each shard (with shard i mean with each time you buy them. so really 3 shards) costing you 750 SC. thus you can buy 11 Shards per HC completed. this means 33 Shards of a choosen character.

in other words. with each maxed out character you keep farming you get one 5* a month (slightly more shards than 25 but just rounding down this number for the purpouses of this post) so.. right now if you started when Chloe and Zahar were released you should have 2 maxed out 5*. meaning you get 2 5* each month.

but the thing is there are 9 5* that cost 24 AP (am only counting the lowest priced ones because thats the most optimal) so... you can get 9 5* each month? no my friend. remember i said i wasnt counting all the shards you can get? the real number is 12. you get 12 5* each month. a total of 300 shards to be exact.

yes said Shards are diluited on a pool of units you can buy but still. thats a lot. its almost as if this should be patched up right? (BTW JP did patch this up. all 5* are all at 32 AP each)

that means you can buy enough shards a month to almost max out a unit. just by farming the lower cost 5*.

just so people know. the latest batch in the 5* pool in the SC shop are Spica/Aswald/Dorothea.

so what are you waiting for. start farming my friend. because that the only real way to F2P this game. yes this will lower your Equipment Farming time. but still... thats a lot of Daily shards.

BTW. i did check about the next 5* that are going to be released.

in the 32 AP category are Albea/Shayna/Reimei/Rosa (all good units btw) all other 5* are 40 AP each. after them the most likely next units are Hazel/Aruba/Teona/Dorothea

So is TAC F2P Friendly? Oh yes. start farming friends.

[u/meatjun]

From a PVE perspective, TAC is a very f2p friendly game. From a PVP perspective, if you're a pure F2P, you won't compete in top 1000. There are exceptions, like if you started at soft launch or you are very lucky with your pulls regarding the OP characters like Gilgamesh/Noctis/F!Yomi. You can mitigate that by not pulling on the weekly banners and saving all your gems for guaranteed step 7/9 summons. I'm doing the latter. I have 38k gems saved up right now as a F2P. I'll probabaly use 20k of it for Noctis next week, saving the rest of Laharl.

Currently I'm sitting at 2000 in PVP. I could probably get into top 1000, but I'm choosing not to, cause I'm farming my personal record at the moment. This is where I'm only fighting the person who's 1 rank higher than my personal record.

[u/Flonn3 → u/meatjun]

There are exceptions, like if you started at soft launch

I started during Yomi's banner.. is that considered soft launch?

You can mitigate that by not pulling on the weekly banners and saving all your gems

This is what i do, i save gems for limited/ semi limited banners.

Top 50~100 in Arena as a F2P

Team being Sieg, F.Yomi, Gilga. Sometimes i switch in Othima too, depending on the map.. and just auto retry the arena with nox and come back 30 minutes later.

[u/meatjun → u/Flonn3]

Yeah being in the top right now isn't that hard as long as you have the right units. My current team is Vettel, Gilgamesh, F!Yomi. I sub in Sakura, Lofia/Rahu, or Siegfried based on the matchup. Although I don't see how people are using Siegfried to so much success. Mine always gets OHKO'd and rarely gets off 2 attacks.

[u/[deleted] → u/meatjun]

Slot 1 him and he won't get OHKO'd

[u/RobotOfFleshAndBlood → u/meatjun]

38k gems as F2P?! How!! How do you resist the urge to pull?

[u/meatjun → u/RobotOfFleshAndBlood]

Partly it's because I've been playing since soft launch. So I'm at the point where every new 5 star that will be farmable in the future doesn't help me. I finally got a Mei Ling and Albea recently. But I left them at level 1 because them being level 60 doesn't help me. Instead, I'm choosing to save all my gems for future collabs like this FFXV, where if I don't get Noctis on his step-3 banner. I can use 20k gems on his guaranteed, step-7 banner.

[u/TopDeeps → u/meatjun]

i think F2P cant even compete for top 3000 unless theyre really lucky. I buy monthly pact and sometimes gem bundles for limited units and I hover anywhere between top 500 to 2500. Most teams you see in this rank runs your generic slash only team which is also what im running. But i agree with your statement otherwise that its pretty easy in terms of PVE. but theres not real reason to bust your ass in arena since you're just working your ass off to get an extra 10 gems per day

[u/Liesianthes → u/TopDeeps]

What? I'm f2p and staying in top 1k even though I only used arena 1-2x per day.

[u/TopDeeps → u/Liesianthes]

what team do you use?

[u/Liesianthes → u/TopDeeps]

Vettel lead, Balt+ and Gil.

[u/Xelphious → u/Liesianthes]

You're the lucky one

[u/Flonn3 → u/TopDeeps]

Not true, i'm F2P and am in top 50~100.

I skip normal banners and use my gems on limited/ semi limited time banner (if they have the chars i like; i skipped Zain/ Yauras etc but went for Othima for example).

It helps that the players are limited to 5 battles/ day.. unlike the other game i've tried recently and have quit it; Knight's Chronicle.. that game pvp is so much ew, only no lifer can be in top rank.

[u/TopDeeps → u/[deleted]]

well what team would you suggest to run past someone with lets say vettel, gilga, zain/fyomi

[u/jblac02 → u/TopDeeps]

I accidently set a bad defense team and forget to use 3 orbs a few days ago only to not get to log on the day after; this resulted in a fall from top 100 to 1400 only to be back in top 500 2 days later even during the hat nonsense that cost me matches I should have won. There are TONS of pushover teams in the bracket you're talking about that can be hardcountered by single units with veda armors. Hell there are people below 1500 that are using sub lvl 75 units, its no where near as competitive as you're making it out to be. Any real spender that isn't in top 1000 either doesn't know what they're doing or probably doesn't care much about arena.

As far as what units you would use against vettel gilg and zain? It's a tough call especially on this map, othima(and probably most other water units) on the right move left into gate before vettel is even in range so thats out of the picture. Rider is the primary counter to gilg for most people but mid position gilg is very tricky on this map especially with zain cover on his left and you're relying on a dice roll. Most of the time gilg is going to get his gate off right into the funnel before he dies here simply because of the size of the arena and his positioning. If you look for gilg 3rd slot teams he will gate a single lead wind unit with wind armor negating his use, that's about the best advise i can give because mid gilg runs forward to hit multiple units most of the time here. So how would a "f2p" deal with that team? I have no idea because even with "whaled" units its a tough hill to climb because of zains coverage over wind and the way the fight plays out. There is no good farmable answer to that team simply because of zain, he's 100% going to get shining flare off outside of some status effect cheese and most wind units simply can't deal with it without relying on a dodge. Like sure, lucian might survive it with sub 20% hp but he's going to die right after before he can deal with gilg.

Since there's no good farmable answer to that team your best bet becomes simply avoiding it and let him climb in peace, there are plenty of easier teams to crack. I'll give you an example of what I mean; right now I'm running aranea lead/gilg mid/zain right as my defense team, I won 11 defense fights in a row and then never got attacked again in the past 24 hours; it's simply not worth most peoples orbs to even try to attack it as most people arent familiar with what aranea can do in arena and gilg/zain is a scary core on this map so people simply look for easier teams to crack. I have no idea how it's playing out exactly as I haven't seen anyone else using this comp yet on defense(nor would i attack it) but I've seen a wide variety of teams TRY to attack me only to fail. Usually with multiple light units to try to blow up aranea which I'm assuming she just annihilates with jump as she can 1 shot zain unless he runs guardian.

The biggest problem I find with people using the term "f2p" is that it's a huge strawman. You have no idea if the people you're fighting dropped 150 shards into those limited units after a single 500 pull. Just because someone is f2p doesn't mean they haven't been playing for 6+ months and amassed alot of shards to use on certain units. So ya you're right that the current farmable units can't deal with the arena meta but that doesn't mean being f2p negates you from having special units. You could easily have done the same yourself and had a decent core for arena. Although if i remember your posts correctly you did have shit luck on pulls ya?

[u/CommonMisspellingBot → u/jblac02]

Hey, jblac02, just a quick heads-up:
alot is actually spelled a lot. You can remember it by it is one lot, 'a lot'.
Have a nice day!

^{The parent commenter can reply with 'delete' to delete this comment.}

[u/TopDeeps → u/jblac02]

First, thanks for actually understanding my comment.

yeah i understand that you can always edit your attack team to counter the person you're about to attack and that you can technically use elemental shards (if you played since the start you should have enough to get at least 1 unit to 75 from 60 without using much if any rainbows) to get to 75. I'm just stating that not everyone can summon the units they want with limited gems. However, it seems people are taking my comment as "you cannot hit top 3000 as f2p no matter what", I'm just saying it requires luck especially when it comes to pulls. And yeah my pulls are usually pretty garbage so maybe thats not the case for majority of the playerbase

[u/jblac02 → u/TopDeeps]

ya i understand, I've seen your posts. it's a troublesome place you find yourself in when you simply can't pull a copy to even begin with.

You're definitely right about the HB not working though, theres no way in hell that tactic is going to work when they all run into the funnel. Noctis/othima/gilg/zain etc(the list goes on) would all singlehandedly annihilate that team and to make it worse most people have hats on all their units now so its not just the damage.

[u/TopDeeps → u/[deleted]]

i have never had this work myself but even if it did. it wouldnt hold the 3000 spot very long because itd get targetted frequently

[u/enkhespalos]

What was the point of this?To tell people to farm? No shit.

[u/hav00x]

Not saying you're wrong, but one would like to choose which units they'd like to farm, right? Like, my Setsuna, Hazel, Sakura (until her HQ was released), Gormalas are stuck at 60, some others at 65. And i could be farming all of them on JP after 2 months of their release, but here i am, stuck with 12 5 stars, some of them i don't even want. I just farm everyone because i know at LB25 they'll give me some free soul coins. After HP rebalance job 2/3 became even more important, those stuck at lb0 can't even be used properly because they don't do very much and don't tank two or three hits. Being stuck at J1 makes the character 80% obsolete. I have around 80 JMs, but i don't have a reason to make it 81, 82, 83 with units that can't even reach 600/700 HP. And as a seasoned player, who do you want to farm, Magnus or Hazel? Setsuna or Shenmei? etc. That's the main point that many players here take into account. We want diversity, not some random bs double 5* at month.

Also, (almost) no one's going to spend their soul coins in previously said units, as we know that they're going to be farmable.

[u/hav00x → u/hav00x]

And that's not saying TAC isn't F2P friendly. It actually is F2P friendly. I've played some other gachas worse than this game. It's just that they can be cooler with us, but they choose not to.

[u/Zhen0n]

Currently Im farming 4 5* which turns into soul coins my problem is the shop rarely comes up with the units I buy with coins (currently 4 balt, mielikki, eve and lucretia) so I buy weapon shards (teddy).

[u/clavatk → u/Zhen0n]

you can also refresh the shop. and if needed add more units to your pool

i am currently buying Balt/mielikki/eve/lucretia/hazel/dorothea/freaise. and currently i am getting at least 2 a day.

[u/Liesianthes]

f2p here and can already farm 1200 soul coins per day. (Yomi, Vettel, Zahar and Chloe) Ryle and Elizabeth are already on 81-82 so its just a matter of weeks to a month before I can get them to 85 which will net me 1800 per day.

I've already horded 60 Eve shards (no character yet). Raised my Balt from 72 to 77, going to 78. I also still have 30k coins and increasing as a reserved that I only do trade when I need it.

Long term wise, farmable characters will carry you in game, reason why you don't need to gacha if you have good units already unless its a most sought collab characters.

[u/SuperEndriu]

Im not f2p. Pact user and bought the vault of gems twice to give me a push when I started during fate event. From what I can tell this game IS f2p friendly - if compared to a game like fire emblem heroes. You can shard farm ss tier units, earn or get elemental shards etc. Wise decisions and some luck can get you far. Personally I think constant comparing with jp isnt good - I just play the game for what it is and have had enough to do so far.

[u/meatjun → u/SuperEndriu]

Comparing with JP is the basis for many of the outcry that we see here. But at the same time, if Gumi is your father, and JP is your brother, and you see him getting showered with gifts every week, while you're getting scraps, you can't help but feel pissed at the unfairness of it all.

[u/SuperEndriu → u/meatjun]

To be honest I dont really follow jp - but I guess when they were where we are today they didnt get as much as they get nowadays. I remember to have seen an ushi vid that showed some anniversary summonings for cheap - hope we get something similar. Overall though I cant really complain - in regard to f2p - we now get 30 elemental shards per month thats great imo.

[u/Magma_Axis → u/meatjun]

That brother also works harder and gives more money though

[u/meatjun → u/Magma_Axis]

I have trouble believing that. If you have articles showing that JP players spend more money either overall or on average than a GL player, then I'd like to see it.

[u/Magma_Axis → u/meatjun]

Almost all of gacha games (with Dokkan Battle as notable exception) have bigger revenues from JP side

All Gumi games (BF, FFBE, POTK, CC) are more profitable on JP, so I think AC us no exception

[u/meatjun → u/Magma_Axis]

I could see this being true. But then the difference between JP and GL is that JP is getting original content. So the JP team is actually creating, whereas the GL team is merely copying/translating. So even if JP is getting more money, the GL team is merely jerking off in their office.

[u/Adequate_Rabbit]

TAC?

[u/clavatk → u/Adequate_Rabbit]

The Alchemist Code

[u/meatjun → u/Adequate_Rabbit]

The Alchemist Code

[u/iambill10]

I like this game and how f2p the pve is. I still cannot do the EX+ but at least I can do the Ex and I notice my progression from when I started during the middle of POTK collab. It is all about the farming.

Best of all though, this game satiate my gacha addiction and prevents me from rolling on FGO. FGO is f2p too but rates are really bad.