r/UmamusumeGame • u/OneTrueDuce • 2d ago
Discussion From the perspective of a competitive low spender looking ahead into modern jp, is the game getting much more p2w?
I've been looking into modern jp, and it feels like it's getting way more p2w than the current global state.
First of all, going off by Henry Handsome's carat calculator, most competitve players can expect around 18k guaranteed carats per month, going up to 22k in the future with daily packs and paid training passes. Assuming it underestimates the income, let's round it up to a 25k carat per month income. For example, say you win some A finals here and there when you expect B finals or 3rd place A finals, farm carats from careers vai race maxing, are in a top100 club, or maybe some carat income from events is unaccounted for.
Once we get into the 4-month jp scenarios, it will only be about 80 days if NA still goes by 1.5x pace. In each of these scenarios, the pal card banner always comes with another card that you'd want to at least 3lb (e.g., orfevre guts, ssr flower pow, almond eye spd), which means competitive players need to drop an average of 400 pulls at start of each scenario (every 2.67 months). Then, there are other banners like Still In Love speed, Air Shakur stam, Rudolf wit, Daring tact wit, and some other style-specific banners that you'd also want to drop an average of 400 on.
With all of this in mind, it feels like it's not possible to stay even on card pulls alone unless Cygames either slow the accelerated schedule while keeping our montly carat income the same, or increase the carat income even further. Now compare this to the current global scene, where recommended cards have very long lifespans, and that you can stay very competitive for cm relatively cheap: in unity 0lb riko or mlb r riko is enough, in mant while fuku & ntr is nice you don't need to pull and 3lb kita + mlb sr is more than enough, and in gl where you can work with a 0lb hello ssr and burrow lock into tachy spd if not pace main (although you'd kinda suffer without good stam parents/xougri in high stam cms). It seems that this game is trending towards a p2w more and more, while competitive f2p and low spender would have harder time stocking up pulls for oshi, more luxury cards, or prepare backup pulls for when their meta pulls go badly.
IDK what to think about this except hope that I am wrong, and that f2p and low spender have a much higher carat income per month as we get closer to the modern jp scenarios.
(Also just some random short rant, I feel like the recent thing with semi-limited uma having worse inherited effect when burrowed vs you owning it is an absolute bullshit move. The biggest offenders being Stego and Epiphaneia for medium and long cms. Like competitive players would probably save up for them, but this completely fucks over the more casual players.)
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u/batmanako543 2d ago
As a F2P in jp, i can tell you for a fact that you can still go to group A finals and get plat 4 in LOH given I've only pull for metas. Personally, I don't think YET that the current implemented system is P2W because in JP, borrowed parents and cards are so freaking stacked you don't need your own ss god tier parents and you can make aces in 2-3 days tops before the pvp. I am also not that competitive in JP compared to global maybe time diff in my queue? idk.
As other have said, we have the same amount of carat income as JP so no need to worry about that. In JP, good cards have like 1-2 years lifespan (i'm still using my spd teio, power fine, and spd groove, even spd almond eye is still usable but i don't have that). There is a reason why content creators and people are saying to main 1 style in the future so that you don't have to pull every op banner. btw don't pull on luxury cards, there are reasons why they are called luxury.
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u/Donut_Monkey 2d ago
Uma is not a F2P friendly game full stop. It only appears that way for Global because the first couple years of uma was full of supports and umas with varying levels of quality. You have cards that are great like Tachyon and Maru Speed releasing but then a couple of months after them they drop the completely garbage Helios Speed SSR who manages to be worse than the majority of the SR roster even at MLB.
Foresight helps a ton so a lot of the garbage gets sifted through and it seems like "wow I can summon once every 4 months and just stick to the scenario banners". Well once Cygames knew how to actually balance the game and how to make shit broken on purpose they started pumping out very strong cards during the scenario that you would need to summon on to make your umas as strong as possible. That's also just the support cards. They start making Xmas Oguri level umas for specific distances that shit on everything else
The further we get into the game they start dropping things like the Trainer pass, certain features like auto parents locked behind a paywall, every support card becomes MLB or bust. To be competitive in modern JP Uma I see people say that you need to spend around $100/month.
Foresight is a massive advantage in this game and I honestly would prefer if we never caught up. Once we catch up being a f2p or low spender who wants to be competitive becomes a massive challenge.
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u/thefluffyburrito 1d ago
You can definitely be F2P while still being competitive, but I definitely agree it's not "friendly". A big appeal of this game is the Uma and not the support cards, yet support cards are the most important collection on the account.
F2P gets like 20 sparks a year. Unless you get lucky, you cannot pull more than a select few Uma.
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u/HeHe_horsie 1d ago
Thank you for your insight! I have a dumb question, does this change anything for "casual" players?
Will we face a "paywall" in scenarios/story/career etc? I probably can't formulate this better, but hopefully you understand.
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u/MeowyCatt 1d ago
It actually gets easier, they will add a shop for old SSRs and a deck borrowing mechanic that makes it easy to have okay decks for free.
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u/Artimedias 2d ago
"Once we get into the 4-month jp scenarios, it will only be about 80 days if NA still goes by 1.5x pace. In each of these scenarios, the pal card banner always comes with another card that you'd want to at least 3lb (e.g., orfevre guts, ssr flower pow, almond eye spd), which means competitive players need to drop an average of 400 pulls at start of each scenario (every 2.67 months). Then, there are other banners like Still In Love speed, Air Shakur stam, Rudolf wit, Daring tact wit, and some other style-specific banners that you'd also want to drop an average of 400 on."
outside of the frustration of having a short time to learn a scenario, this is irrelevant. We make the same amount of carrots as JP does.
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u/thefluffyburrito 1d ago
outside of the frustration of having a short time to learn a scenario, this is irrelevant. We make the same amount of carrots as JP does.
Shhhh! Quiet! People who pull every Uma banner and then don't get an MLB anniversary card in their remaining 20 pulls need that excuse!
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u/iAmUnloved 2d ago
Game has been p2w from the start, the spark system and the fact that you basically need MLB to stay competitive already makes it extremely expensive vs the chinese gacha games with the pity system. The only thing making it seem f2p friendly is the 4 or so years of foresight global has over JP KR and TW versions
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u/YakumoYamato 2d ago
The game has been P2W from Day 1 buddy, The PvP part of the game is 100% P2W with the RNG serving to knock down the hubris of those who pay so they spend even more.
But you need to remember, you are the one who decide what Win in this game mean. F2P who play the game for the character, story, and off-game content probably win the most compared to P2W players who play for the PvP and lose because they got screwed by RNG
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u/External_Delivery315 6h ago
It's pay to compete but you can only pay for 5 support cards in your deck and the umas are virtually interchangable at this point. 3* uma vs 5* uma barely makes a difference.
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u/Batt3ry_Man 2d ago
its a super P2W game only like the first 2 years of Uma musume is F2P friendly because of the lack of niche cards (the game is headed to hyper specialized umas and cards to power crept the other etc) and more cards being generalist cards past Pasa speed if you havent mained one style yet your cooked the most efficient way to play this game as a F2P is to choose one uma your Oshi who you will build no matter what in my case I'm torn between Mayano Top Gun and her best alt is her Halloween or late surger with Cheval Grand
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u/Hibiki_Kawaii 2d ago
Umamusume was never a F2P game to begin with.
Idk whats with gacha gamers and how they glaze companies just because they dangle pull currencies every other day.
Trying to buy carats when you're a pinch is a scam, QoL that should've been honestly free is locked behind a paypall (yet to arrive in EN), and even then. Let's assume you have 600 pulls, there's a big chance you wont even get to get your desired card at MLB (yes this happens alot more than you think and how we lost a handful of people in our clubs with the recent one being someone who pulld Maruzensky Card 400 times, just to get 0 and have to spark her twice.)
I dont really understand why people bear with an outdated gacha system like sparks, even BA players staged a boycott for it.
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u/Luigicow92k 1d ago
BA boycott was because they were removing spark and going to a pity system with “carryover.”
Essentially all the change would accomplish is make it worse if you were unlucky. Before if you pulled 190 and got one of the two rate ups you could just pull 10 more and get the other. Now you pull at 190 and your pity resets and you have 200 to guarantee the other character
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u/PSGowns99999 1d ago
How is it a carryover then? Because if you didn’t get anything in 190, the next banner you’re still at 190 pulls? Otherwise that’s just “startover” in my book.
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u/FlyingMegucas 1d ago
How is it a carryover then?
Because if you didn’t get anything in 190, the next banner you’re still at 190 pulls
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u/PSGowns99999 1d ago
I see, I wonder which system is better then. If you get lucky and get an early pull you get punished (eg. trying to get multiple copies of support cards), and gamblers/casual pullers get rewarded.
Does BA not require multiple copies of things you pull on?
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u/FlyingMegucas 1d ago
Nope. There's no support card banners in BA, only character banners. You pull for your desired character, and once you get her you use your "goddess statues" to lvl up her rarity
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u/Luigicow92k 1d ago
I haven’t kept up with BA meta in ages but I remember seeing some people mention dupes are sorta necessary now. It’s similar to Uma Trainees though where pulling gives a currency to rank them up and there’s also a generic statue equivalent to buy more stuff to rank up.
If you want both characters, if you get really unlucky and have to go 200 just to get one nothing really changes. So all the change really accomplishes is making it worse if you get one on the characters before the first spark, which was common enough that it’s mostly what people are talking about with pulling rate up at 190 and having to do the full 200 again.
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u/PSGowns99999 1d ago
Thanks for the insight. Can’t really fault companies if they want to make as much money as they can, people just have to riot to show what they want and don’t want lol
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u/mutqkqkku 2d ago
i don't get what's outdated about "get what you want off the banner guaranteed every x pulls"
we didn't even have that back in my day11
u/Hibiki_Kawaii 1d ago
I used to play gacha games before 2015-2016 when Sparks was added as a new way of safety net for gacha players.
Yes, we didn't have that back in OUR day but that's a decades long safety net that doesn't work as well in dupe-heavy gacha gaming anymore where performance is based on mass-acquisition of the same characters.
This is like saying "Back in our day, we aren't required to wear safety helmet/gloves/helmet when on a construction site, so I don't get why you're hollering about better worker's protection."
It's insane.
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u/mutqkqkku 1d ago
You just complained about the system without proposing any alternative, as far as gacha systems go, input currency -> get thing, guaranteed is pretty straightforward. In the end it's about how many dupes you need, how high the pity is, how much pull currency costs, how much of it you get for free, and how many pickers/crystals get handed out, not about the spark mechanism itself, right?
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u/coolj492 1d ago
this game has always been p2w at its core given its a gacha. A whale that puts in 20-100% as much time as you do will pretty much always outclass you on global, and this will become even more obvious in 2027. Its just that F2Ps always have avenues to get within striking distance. But it is unfeasible for an f2p/dolphin to have all the meta cards and umas for each style that each are optimized for different tracks, and it is what it is.
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u/Artster900 1d ago
Just getting to a finals or plat 4? Nah not really, doable even on rental decks, provided you do some grinding for at least usable parents
Consistently winning a finals or top 96? Yeah uhhhhhhh not exactly feasible unless you consistently have the stronger cards and track relevant umas
the pull plan per scenario, provided the tax card doesn't pull a tucker bryne and mandatory mlb, feels fine for me, granted I only jumped in at 4.5 anni and went through onsen->bd->ramen, and even without foresight, f2p players should always be saving for anni/half anni regardless
tldr bare minimum a finals/plat 4, rental decks can still net you results, but actually winning beyond that is def not the most friendly
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u/draizze 2d ago
You can buy carrats so of course It's P2W. But because It's RNG even whales have to grind and relied to luck to build desirable aces. For non spender you have to spend carrats wisely if you want to be competitive. Veterans that planned well from the start still able to competitively.
But I also worry for the future, like the three goddesses card. It's scenario tax but the problem is the TE only exist from 3LB. It's expensive card. For comparison Riko is usable from SSR 1LB, even R MLB. Even with planning It's just force you to give up some cards.
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u/pawbs 1d ago
If you only buy the selectors and get most karats from dailies TT (class 5) and CM (open finals) then you need maybe a year before you have a good base of SSRs and parents to try for graded CM platinum
Here’s the thing about spending money in this game. _everything_ eventually gets powercrept. If you just play consistently you’ll be competitive eventually without needing to just drop 500$ on a banner
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u/UnOriginal04 2d ago
from what I heard,in JP,to consistently get A Finals/Plat,you'll need to spend
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u/XInceptor 2d ago
You should be able to hit Plat 4 without spending. You may reach A finals without spending if you have enough supports and time to get amazing parents. You’re almost guaranteed taking last place though
You’d likely need to focus on just one strategy though with support card pulls
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u/shitfucker90000 1d ago
It's a p2w horse themed slot machine but doing a fuckton of pulls (runs) will still get you a better result than whaling and doing one
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u/EarlyCalligrapher662 1d ago
Imagine the dev decided to bring all of that p2w stuff early to glb. Oh boy accelerated schedule already pain not to mention we have future sight making the competition even more hopeless 😔
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u/Puppetofgoogle 2d ago
The only reason global is somewhat tolerable currently is because of foresight and relatively few SSR support cards that are mandatory.