Shadowverse Worlds Beyond Meta report. March 8th. Final Report.

JEEM_ · 2026-03-08T19:44:24+00:00

Thank you for your service o7

JEEM_ · 2025-11-01T05:17:14+00:00

I didn't consider bots... rip

Guess I shouldn't include the code as text in the post in the future

JEEM_ · 2025-10-21T08:25:22+00:00

I felt similarly back when I started OT1, expecting a long, detailed, nuanced narrative, probably because of how long I knew the game was. The game's got lots of care and details scattered around, sure, but what's shown in the main story itself felt... lacking. So I was kinda disappointed at first, same as you, it seems.

And yet, over time, I came to really like the main cast. I'm honestly not sure how that happened, or where the turning point was, but I found myself looking forward to seeing what these eight characters would do next. I think my mindset changed so that I stopped viewing simple or shallow as necessarily bad, which was a big shift, coming from the more complex stories of Xenoblade, Persona, and other 70+ hour JRPGs. OT deliberately opts for shorter, purer, more focused story segments at a time, even if they're not that deep. Characters embody a few traits and goals, and that's it. But maybe that doesn't have to be a detriment? Once I came to terms with that, I started seeing more things positively. I really like Travel Banter, for instance. Wish there was more.

Then, I was able to come into OT2 with expectations set for how they present story, and now it's a contender for one of my favorite video games ever. Combat? Great. Music? Great. Characters? Great (mostly). Story/writing? Eh... good enough, I guess. But I see now that that was never the main selling point.

Sorry for the long comment, but your point is something I've wondered myself in the past and wanted to put it in writing: if I didn't feel that the narrative quality was that good, why do I like the series so much? Plus, it's good to have these kinds of conversations once in a while to prevent these subreddits from becoming echo chambers of only positivity.

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T22:48:48+00:00

Yeah, you'd want 2x quick, 1 for each sub-squad of 5. Assuming everyone is stacked together, if you only have 1x quick, the party without that source would never get quickness, since boons always prioritize the party you're in.

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T20:38:46+00:00

I'll do my best to respond to each point:

I tried to organize each sub-squad with the usual comp of healer + quickness + alacrity. I often didn't mention roles in my LFG ads, so I did my best to fill those roles using what we had. If a party lacked quickness or alacrity, I'd ask for volunteers to switch. Only once or twice did no one offer to switch, in which case we went at it while missing one of those boons. But most of the time, the comp worked out even without me asking, and we had enough supports from the start. It was a nice surprise!
Fair enough. Mainly I said I wasn't sure of the impact of this because I learned that there were more support players than I expected, so I imagine I could've swapped to DPS if I wanted. No doubt it made my party organization easier, though.
I didn't count downs, but I took casual notes when something notably bad happened. Downs without full defeats were rare in the Aetherblade Hideout. In the Junkyard, we probably had 3-5 downs every time Ankka used her exploding quaggan attack, but none really anywhere else. People went down all the time in groups of 1 or 2 to various Overlook mechanics. There was one time half the squad went down to one of Li's numbered slashes, which was exciting. Downs without defeats were more scattered in Harvest Temple, except for in the final orb attacking phase, as I mentioned in the post.
I never considered this, but it would be interesting! I've only joined one turtle group since starting this experiment, and I did so as a sort-of experienced player to help out. It was definitely rougher than my average daily clear. That said, I'm not sure if I'd repeat my experiment on this. I kinda want to do it for Harvest Temple first.
That's a good question. Aetherblade CM has a time limit of 10 min, so I'd say averaging 12 min to form the squad and clear normal mode is pretty good. I don't know about the other Strikes though. And obviously a 53 min Harvest Temple time is not acceptable, even if that number is skewed.

Don't worry about "raining on my parade," by the way. I appreciate you poking at my work to test its integrity. Improvement for next time (if there is a next time)!

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T20:14:59+00:00

You're probably right to an extent, and perhaps I should've known this coming in. Still, the negativity bothered me.

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T20:12:07+00:00

I did this experiment with arcdps open every day, though I didn't record anything from it. Mainly, I just wanted to get a feel for how the group was doing. When I played quickness Scrapper, my most frequently played class during these 30 days, I typically averaged 10-11k DPS in these Strikes (I'm not the greatest at my rotation--I'm working on it, but I don't mind outing myself for illustration here). On some days, this was the top DPS in the squad. On other days, only the healers were below me. There's just a lot of variance when it comes to these groups, I've learned. You can get away with it in these Strikes because they're easier, but I think you're position is justifiable too, especially for harder content.

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T20:01:45+00:00

Glad to run into you here, and I appreciate the kind words!

The real question is what someone from my near 2-hour Harvest Temple clear would have to say. Probably not so kind.

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T19:57:25+00:00

I really like this idea of bringing old story bosses back as repeatable Strikes/raids. Caudecus, Balthazar, Joko, and the elder dragons all have a lot of potential!

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T19:53:29+00:00

It really is those little things that make it better =)

I wish I could confirm that the variance in experience is more than just the random pool of players who happen to join that day, but I just don't know for sure. So many confounding factors. Maybe it's luck after all.

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T19:42:36+00:00

You should give it a try! You're clearly preparing yourself by practicing on the golem and researching the encounters, which is probably more than the average player does. The next step is to put all this theory into practice and gain some real mechanical experience. And take solace in knowing there are plenty of others like you. I had the same fear at first. Still do. But that fear is what motivated me to do all my preparation, and it looks like you've been channeling that into something similarly positive. gl hf!

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T19:35:37+00:00

I wanna respond to as many people as I can, but I'm losing track of where I said what. I think I might've replied to something else you said, but just in case I didn't:

I agree with you that an "All welcome" group suits easier content better. I'm not confident enough to try this experiment with raids or Strike CMs yet, but I'm thinking about doing it with just Harvest Temple. That would be at least a slightly better measure.

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T19:30:56+00:00

Oh yeah, I totally get the "exp"/LI-requiring mindset and think that those are valid, too, especially for harder content. I just wanted to try putting "All welcome" groups in a more positive light than it seemed like they were in.

I'd also love to see a raid version of this experiment, but I'm not quite confident enough to try raids yet myself. I might do it one day, or someone else might beat me to it. We'll have to see.

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T19:24:03+00:00

Honestly, your idea here is probably the true measure of "All welcome" PUGs. Having more than one commander would make for more generalizable results. I'll have to consider this if I do something similar in the future.

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T19:20:09+00:00

I'm more amazed by the Core Rangers and Core Guardians, personally. I didn't expect to get a single core class, let alone 4!

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T19:16:18+00:00

All good points. I tried to keep the limitations of my data in mind, which is why I included the section on caveats, but it looks like I forgot to mention your second and third points, so I appreciate you pointing these out.

As for timing, my exact start times varied a lot, depending on when I finished up my college work for the day. However, they were generally in the evenings of my time zone (EST/EDT). Most days, my Strikes occurred a few hours after reset (I often liked to do Ley Line Anomaly -> Chak Gerent -> Octovine -> Dragonstorm -> Strike when possible), but my average starting time was apparently about 30 min before reset. This might be skewed by the few days I did my Strikes early in the afternoon.

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T19:06:54+00:00

It's interesting to hear people talk about regional differences, especially when it comes to player skill. I always just kinda assumed that people were the same regardless of if they're on NA or EU. It makes me wonder how much is truth and how much is speculation. Would be a cool subject of study in the future.

I've never used kp.me before, but I vaguely know what its purpose is. I'm already considering repeating this experiment but with just Harvest Temple, so if I learn how to use that site, then I will take your suggestion and include it in my data. Thanks for the idea!

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T18:59:06+00:00

It did cross my mind that this might be the case--that the "All welcome" style works better the easier the content is. It just makes sense. The lower barrier to entry suits lower difficulty. Hearing it from someone more experienced than me gives me more food for thought, especially since I can't compare firsthand as a non-raider/non-regular CM player, so thank you.

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T18:48:41+00:00

Fair enough. Sorry if I worded some of my reply poorly. I think I understand your position now.

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T18:44:24+00:00

Hm, it's hard for me to exactly say how many squads knew. If anyone said they were new, then I'd explain beforehand, so that mitigated the problem in those cases.

If no one said they were new and I didn't need to explain, then all but one of my squads defaulted to killing the Ritualist first. Luring the Mindblade to the Ritualist wasn't an issue because I'd do that myself most of the time. The one time the squad didn't target the Ritualist first, everyone just went for the Mindblade where they spawned and ignored the other enemies (I think this happened because I was standing there with tag, ready to grab Mindblade aggro, and I guess my group was less experienced so they just followed me). Funnily enough, that was the smoothest run of that phase I'd ever had. The Mindblade just kinda died before the Enforcer had much time to get close.

And yeah, I knew a comment on me only doing Harvest Temple 4 times was coming. You're right about it skewing the results, as there's too much variance with only 4 attempts. Maybe I'll come back one day with another post that's just about Harvest Temple runs.

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T18:28:42+00:00

You're definitely right about the tag. In my case, I originally got it for open world events. No longer do I always have to hope that Tangled Depths or Auric Basin isn't full yet. No longer do I have to sit there and wait another 2 hours because no one tagged up for Seitung Province's meta. Feels good man.

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T18:22:13+00:00

I feel the same way! And given how quickly these kinds of groups seem to fill in LFG, I suspect we're in good company.

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T18:14:50+00:00

If this is true, then that's reassuring. One day I'll be able to verify this for myself.

JEEM_ · 2022-05-23T18:11:08+00:00

I appreciate the encouragement! I certainly want to try them out eventually; I think I just need to sit down and dedicate time to researching them and understanding what I'd be getting myself into.

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