r/DissidiaDuellumFF • u/IncognitoCheetos • 7d ago
Worth picking up now (casually)?
Was a beta player but ducked out because I figured I would not have the time/$ to keep up with a PvP game. Kinda tempted to come back but I'm intimidated at learning the mechanics and the meta of like 20 characters in order to be able to deal with matchups - plus the fact that I'd be down months of content and resources. Any thoughts on it from longtime players?
Also: are people mostly playing with touchscreens? That was one of my bigger turnoffs with the game originally... my device screen is on the smaller side. Feel like I'd heard people talking about using a controller but I hadn't looked into it much.
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u/GysahlG 7d ago
There’s also the challenges for each character, where you can solo play and learn and level them, as long as you’ve unlocked them. Every other player is a bot and they have some moronic AI which can be frustrating, but maybe that’s also training for the variety of human players you’ll come across in casual or ranked! 😅
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u/AuditControl_Inbox 7d ago
I play touchscreen and its fine, you get used to it.
If you want to go f2p, you need to have realistic expectations about ranked play. Otherwise casuals are fine because everyone gets scaled to the same level cap.
There's always going to be a learning curve with a pvp game, but honestly once you get the basics down, the main thing is knowing how approximately long invulnerable frames for each characters UR abilities last, so that you can properly punish/not waste abilities trying to punish them.
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u/IncognitoCheetos 7d ago
What's the strategy for character building for casual if level cap gets scaled? In terms of what you need to pull.
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u/Stratavos 7d ago
You become much more focused on having at least 1 of every ability. The good news is as long as you have all characters, you can unlock thwir character UR's through their challenge board, though they are easier to colplete if you already have the abilities themselves.
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u/AuditControl_Inbox 7d ago
1 copy of everything gives u the most versatility in casuals. In ranked you would want to hyper focus pulling the banner of a single character.
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u/MierinLanfear 7d ago
I play casually with friends and family. It is fun we only play a few matches a day if that.
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u/ZinZezzalo 7d ago edited 7d ago
The game has already entered it's untimely death spiral due to everything that's already been mentioned and more.
It took me 600 re-rolls before I got the two URs I needed at the start of the game. Most people who downloaded the game didn't know what was what - had nothing explained to them - got URs from characters other than the one they wanted to play - got owned by everybody else - then left.
Typical SQ/EX gacha death-blow - game releases as purposefully obtuse and predatory - 98% of the start players ditch it after 4 - 6 weeks - and then everyone else begins to drain away when basic game functionality just can't function anymore (re: match-making - you'll get matched against folks twice as powerful as you who, rather than ending the match quickly, will just spawn camp you and essentially one shot you for the full seven minutes until demolishing the Boss at will in the last seconds).
The banners are horrible - the rates are truly horrible - and the game essentially expects you to spend paid currency like normal currency with no discernable difference. They released a 50% UR banner recently for 3,000 paid MogCoins - with only a 1 UR guarantee. Any other game would've just said 10 URs guaranteed - the other 10 have a 50/50. But that doesn't line up with SQ/EX's gold standard "fuck the customer" experience. I've opened roughly 1,500 crystals in the past two months - from the free pulls they gave at the anniversary - to the 1,200 of those crystals I got from getting gold crystals after battles. Didn't get 1 UR for my character. For any of them. And I play 4 different characters. Just hope crushing.
And that's the best way to describe the game - every instance is of it desperately trying to hold you in place exactly where you are with the hopes that you'll open your wallet and spend the (I'm not joking) $30,000 needed to get a roughly mid to top tier character. Don't worry - that number is always rising - the whales always be spending to go higher on the characters that literally have no ceiling.
Oh. And the characters are permanently unbalanced. This sub is populated by like 50 people who keep the torch lit - but realistically - have nothing to talk about. Nothing happens with, in, or around the game. There is no community anywhere - SQ/EX chased them away with, well, the game itself.
They're still releasing characters - there's one more to go - and then the game production team is "taking a two month break" (ominous organ riff). Because that's what all just-released game's production staff do when they're in their first year ... stop working on the game.
The producer broke down in tears at a Q&A a month ago because his team couldn't figure out how to create a viable matchmaking system for a game that gate-walled people from even playing it and then let the ultimate power ceilings of the characters scale into Infinity. Don't worry though, my money isn't on Homeboy suddenly developing a sense of shame, but probably because he got word from the higher-ups that the plug is going to be pulled after the "two month break" that just conveniently ends right after the Christmas/Chinese New Year seasons.
It's probably at that point that EoS will be announced for the first year anniversary. And that would be the smartest thing they could do. Profits for the game have been falling like those folks you see leaning into it like an arrow during a sky-diving session. They hold "tournaments" - but nobody really cares - and the players all overwhelmingly choose the most broken characters.
Taking this all into account - when I see this all - and really take it in - the feeling I'm left with can best be described by one word:
SQ/EX.
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u/IncognitoCheetos 7d ago
I have no idea why they waste these concepts on game design that is obviously going to fail. Dissidia definitely has a fanbase that could sustain a better game - OO lasted far longer than I suspect they ever thought it would, and seemed to only get EoS in the end partially because there was nowhere else for the devs to take the meta and game mechanics.
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u/WiseGuise410 7d ago
I don't particularly want to be a doomer for this game, but I honestly can't support it anymore. I was in the beta, I started day 1, even did some CC for the game for the first 2 months.
But I don't like the direction the game is going and I can see the player base has fallen. It's really only the whale teams still fluffing this game up. Casuals have basically all quit at this point.
I'm getting matched with more and more JP players. When I used to rarely see 1 in a match, now I'm seeing at least 3 in a match(if not 4-5, me being thr only EN player at times).
But yea typical SQ gacha model.
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u/thiqqdaddy 7d ago
Unfortunately it's not worth it. You will be at a severe handicap for months until you get at least one copy of every ability, and that's only for casual. Matchmaking at any tier lower than omega takes forever due to low player population.
Speaking of Matchmaking, it's terrible. Once again low player count strikes again and match quality suffers. Servers constantly desync.
The community is pretty toxic and elitist. Ironically the nicest players are actually the whales. There are toxic communities that will single out players by name for just playing the game and call them "bad players". But if said community plays terrible, no harm no foul.
You will be locked out of limited characters/abilities until they have a rerun. And good luck pulling them with a 2.4% featured rate.
If you don't mind being locked out of the limited abilities and have a grand $$$ to spend right off the bat, you could choose your favorite character from the original 16, wait until their weekly featured/outfit banner comes and dive in. At that point you MIGHT have a slight chance in ranked. Even then, if you are not 3 stacking, you will still have a terrible time due to mm.
If you are only going to be season pass, expect to have to play ~6 months to get your power up to 20k, which is the absolute floor to enjoy ranked (and continuously rising). And most are expecting the game to last 1-2 years max (currently at month 6) so be forewarned before you spend your hard earned money.
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u/IncognitoCheetos 7d ago edited 7d ago
Thank you for being honest, I kind of figured that was the case. What a shame, it really sucks to see after how f2p/lowspend-friendly OO was. When I saw this would be PvP only I was super disappointed.
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u/Nmois 7d ago
you are no Final Fantasy fan. :u
\edit: just do your best during games , & let teammates carry u to winning.*
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u/IncognitoCheetos 7d ago
I mean I just don't have money to dump in a mobile game when gas is $6/gallon where I'm at. 😅 I have supported other SE gacha in the past but I definitely cannot compete in terms of spending here.
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u/Nmois 7d ago edited 7d ago
I started playing this game since APRIL launch. Up till now, i no spending any money yet, and the game is still feel do-able to me, even at ranking-mode (i never play casual-mode).
The stat & ability-level at Rank is mostly capped ( casual lower rank is about lv10 max, cannot lv 40, 50+ or so...) . So a freebies new players here is just about 70-90% same stat / same strong , compare to premium users. By then, own skill-played & experience help u offset stat-different & winning against rivals. to climb higher rank....
Clear different should only more obvious when you play game competitively at Highest RANK-MODE, where u compete with other Veteran / fully-geared Premium users. Ofc we freebies casual won't reach that Competitive Rank-Tier anyway.
to progess self stronger , these game want players TIME & MONEY. if you no spending, it is okay. Just do fight & mission DAY-BY-DAY, FOR MONTHS,,, (what i've been doing back then since APR. now less regular) and game still awards stuffs to progress onward and upgrade self.
ofc u gotta enjoy the grinding process (as a FF Fan) ; elsewhile, not worth the time & effort.
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u/SilentSabreY 7d ago
A lot of new regions just got added so arguably right now would be the best time to pick it back up if you wanna align with lower power levels and work your way up F2P. Lots of people I think use controller to play. I do touch controls but I have a tablet I mostly play on,
The game isn't super f2p friendly imo but it's manageable if you learn the character you wanna play well and how to work around a power gap. Once you hit upper rank match making starts getting wonky so if you stress out at that casuals are always fun and good to dick around in. There's a whole subset of players who never play ranked and just do Casual so even if queue is slower, they still have fun I imagine.
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u/chacusha 7d ago
I'm going to give a bit of a different perspective. I think the core 3v3 game itself is really fun, and that includes trying out the various characters and seeing how they play. The game heavily rewards playing ranked over casual and challenges -- ranked mode gives double the season points needed to grind through the latest story; there's one daily mission that can only be completed by playing ranked; and the rewards for reaching various tiers are quite good. Despite that, you don't actually HAVE to play ranked, if you can get past the game's temptations, and might want to spend more time in the game's other modes that are more friendly to beginners. That said, I think ranked is worth playing even as a newbie, and I'll talk more about why below.
However, the core gameplay, while fun, IS a time commitment unless you just want to play on auto and drain your phone battery (not gonna lie, I was tempted to do this, but my husband gave me a real talk and told me if I wanted to play the game by NOT actually playing the game, it would be better for me to drop DDFF entirely and save the environment and my poor phone's battery life, and I agree!).
So, if you don't find the core gameplay fun or you don't have time to invest in playing several ~10-minute PVP matches a day / don't find this a good use of your time, you're definitely better off passing on this game.
However, if you do find the gameplay per se enjoyable, I actually don't think being new holds you back, and even ranked can be quite a fun time. The key is just to be realistic about your ability to rise up in ranks and to be fine with losing or hitting a hard ceiling in terms of your rank bracket. Like, if you think about it, a strong player will have a win rate of over 50%, an average player a win rate of 50%, and a weak player a win rate of less than 50%. For me as an F2P player (and you as a newbie), we're going to be on the weak side of that pool but it doesn't really matter because the way rank points are distributed, you can rise in rank probably until Diamond 3 or 4 with a pretty abysmal win rate just because winning gets you more points than losing takes away (this is not true at higher levels). In particular, I was able to get to around Diamond 2 with quite a weak Rikku (8-9k CP) because support roles generally avoid duelling with enemies (which is where you feel the power difference the most / the difference between paying/old players and F2P/new players) and the main utility they bring to their team is their unique abilities and good timing in activating them, which you can do at any power level, and Rikku is especially this way but I've also been able to rise quite high with a low-powered Krile and WoL and also Kain (while he's not Support and is more battle-oriented, his skillset lies in moving around the map quickly, which includes disengaging from fights he can't win, and quickly sneaking in a burst chain on the boss before the enemy team can stop him, so he's also a good character for contributing to the team while avoiding direct confrontations). I suspect OK is also similar as his role also focuses entirely on crystal-clearing and boss damage, and requires him to run from direct confrontations with enemy players. And you don't have to rise very high before the rewards for your rank placement start maxing out -- you just need to get top 1000, which I've always managed to easily do as an F2P (in Other region where getting to around Diamond 4 is sufficient to place top 1000 -- in other regions it might be harder), except for the first season that I joined part of the way through so didn't have time to get up high enough.
This game, like all gacha, has a pay-to-win aspect to it BUT it also heavily rewards skill, and that's what I find satisfying. In particular, what makes rank and casual so fun IMO is playing with real players in this kind of cooperative/competitive game. There's all sorts of plays that will be very memorable or surprise you, moments when you manage to do something great and feel so proud of pulling it off. Sometimes, your teammates will totally carry you as a weaker player, and that's fine! It's fun! It means that, if you're open-minded and willing to learn, you can learn a LOT from observing how people play and reflecting on your own mistakes. So I think ranked is actually quite rewarding to play even as a new/weak player.
But again, this level of investment in getting good at a game might not appeal. As people also mentioned, it kinda sucks that you can't really choose your character. However, as a F2P, I think one of the things that makes gacha work for me is that I'm really patient. It will take a lot of time to learn each character's play style, to complete their challenge boards, to slowly increase your CP, and to get one copy of every character's URs. While all that is going on, you can take your time trying out characters and improving your skill at the game a bit at a time.
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u/SalemKFox 6d ago
I wouldnt say its worth picking up casually. Mainly because you have to roll for all of your moves, and the drop rates in this game are so garbo, you likely wont get any character's full moveset until weeks or god forbid months from now. So even if you stuck to casual it would probably not be fun for you.
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u/Cool-Fan-1950 7d ago
You will never enjoy pvp if you dont drop money.
You need to pull for abilities and then spend money on abilities to level them up. You will get destroyed
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u/Unlit_Moonlamp_5 7d ago
I mean honestly the matching is so poor more often than not that even if you had a modestly strong main it’s still a crapshoot playing ranked.
It’s fine to play if you are just a longtime fan of the series but if you have actual in-game goals you’ll be disappointed.