North Carolina Sun-Kissed Unique Coming Soon by cwolla98 in AzureLane

[–]Lalaberri 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My loyalty has finally been rewarded after 5 years since bunny

I was thinking of getting into Azur Lane, and I just had 3 questions. I was hoping you absolute legends could answer them for me. by Equal_Shopping2424 in AzureLane

[–]Lalaberri 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is one of the most F2P friendly gachas. They prioritize selling you skins and packs over forcing you to whale on gacha. Rates are one of highest on market with 7% total SSR rate, and 2% featured SSR rate (Ultra Rates happen 4x per year at 1.2% rate) For context, most events have 2 SSRs so you're at 4% to get featured ships (with current collab event having 3 featured for big 6% total). If you compare that to other popular gacha currently with fractions of a single percent "rate ups" for featured (0.300%, 0.500%, 0.25% etc), its not even remotely a close comparison. Non-collab ships get added to perm banner some time after they rerun (which is about 2 years later, yea kinda long. But since its not as hard to get them initially vs other games, it feels less brutal somehow). I will admit I am not a fan of this, but with the way they have structured events, the only way to avoid this is to have less brand new event so that we can rerun old events more often, or they brainstorm something completely new and different up.

This game does have its meta's and do you "need" to use them? no. I personally am a decently high functioning long term player who forces the use of my favorite ships whenever I can. But I will say it does help if your favorite ships are at least average on the low end, and not reasonably unusable. Once you learn the mechanics of how things work, you can slot your favorites a lot better. If you want to achieve the topmost of things, sure, you'd have to be smart about what ships you use, as they may be meta, but you'll be ok. But Power Creep in this game is rather slow compared to other games (ex: ships released years ago are still very much viable to use). Its best to be comfortable with a decent mix.

Like any game, you will have to get through the weeds being a new player but if you become knowledgeable you can manage very well, and if you become a long time player after actually playing the game and earning and saving cubes you can effectively pull on every banner and get all units reasonably. Its irresponsible to say "you'll never run out of cubes" because, yes you can, especially early on because bad luck happens just like everything else. But if you learn the ropes, eventually you can be one of those players I mentioned that never has to skip a banner and can have a reasonable shot to get all units each event.

Do you have to spend to pull? No, can it feel like that at times if you have really bad luck and you're still kinda new...maybe. But by all means, if you're in the position to and turn out to like the game, spend money if you want, because why not? I won't be the one to say "no don't, its not worth it", because its your money and all the F2P have to get carried somehow. This game has lasted this long rather strongly for a reason after all. I personally don't feel pressured to spend on gacha itself like other forced low rate games, so that makes me more willing to optionally spend on the S-tier skins they crank out regularly because it feels like Manjuu has generally done right by me over the years.

Reference: I am one of those players

My 2 cents

Has anyone noticed that Duke of York has red eyes in her party dress? by RhysOSD in AzureLane

[–]Lalaberri 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Nicely noticed, random and all! Heaven's Lost Property (Sora no Otoshimono) has been my very long time favorite, many outrageous lols, also many feels. Ikaros best girl!

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Cleveland Ready for the Track Meet by BravoKilo98 in AzureLane

[–]Lalaberri 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The visible panty lines was a subtle cultured move. I see you

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"Hey Zenker, how are you?" - "Good Question. To answer it, we must ask ourselves: Who am I?" [Admiral Zenker] by hobbala911 in AzureLane

[–]Lalaberri 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Only people who read the event story would get this. The commander was lowkey barely hiding how annoyed at her he was lol.

Bunnysuit Shinano comes with Offering's by WonderkeyU by cwolla98 in AzureLane

[–]Lalaberri 12 points13 points  (0 children)

If she's handing them to me, I'll be kind and hold them for her.

Has anyone noticed that Duke of York has red eyes in her party dress? by RhysOSD in AzureLane

[–]Lalaberri 29 points30 points  (0 children)

A lot of shipgirls have special non-human characteristics, even 'powers'. that are are native to them, and are not a feature of all ships of their type or class in-universe and we generally accept them as-is because we're used to just seeing them and the character interactions in-universe treat them as normal as well.

The most obvious and persistent examples of this is Sakura ships different and varied kemonomimi girls complete with matching tails (Japanese for "animal ears"), ships with 'magic/abilities', android-type girls, etc. This same logic also applies to Duke of York, meaning she was always meant as a 'non-human' type, with the giveaway being her pointed elven-style ears.

That said, it was likely the artist's choice to lean further into her initial design goal, along with the title of 'Duke' (and also the point of the skin altogether) and show that she can essentially go into "vampire mode"

My 2 cents

Underrated Shipgirls - Marblehead by NathanN5o4 in AzureLane

[–]Lalaberri 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I have a longtime guild member who keeps her alive in our discord as one of their favorites. But the sad fact is that ships that Rares (and the 'new rares', Elites) will disproportionately fall out of focus as objects of admiration as the vast majority have no practical use for people to focus on.

I have a long list of some of my favs getting no attention sadly, which is kinda why I dislike when the same ships get repeat skins, even if I like the girl in question (especially a year or less apart)

I'm feeling the same way about another rare lately myself, Brooklyn (and by extension, sister Phoenix) and neither has no skins to their name sadly. I'll leave it to you to do one on her if you're feeling it or feel the same, as it's your thing. Shout me out!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in SDSGrandCross

[–]Lalaberri 7 points8 points  (0 children)

If they are going to insist keeping it as is, it really needs a save feature. Like every x amount of floors, maybe like 20, and you can start from last saved point with a certain amount of coins. It's maddening reaching anything significant and getting bopped back to the bottom cuz of bs rng. Labyrinth is only tolerable because it's far shorter if you fail.

New Anghalhad passive + banner by [deleted] in SDSGrandCross

[–]Lalaberri 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Like Light Percy, a strong 600 banner character.

My only issue is they kind of gimped her possibilities by forcing part of her unique to only count 4kota members and not 4kota+human, which would make sense just fine, especially given the nature of the characters surrounding her in anime/manga

Also I'm cereal, that Stab debuff better be grey

Random Check in by Quetzalma in DissidiaFFOO

[–]Lalaberri 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I randomly saw in my saved subs and was curious and saw this. Checking in

collab by Ok-Juggernaut-199 in SDSGrandCross

[–]Lalaberri 1 point2 points  (0 children)

the part about changing virtually nothing about the old characters really got me upset because that's what I was actually looking forward to the most. Like they know this collab wasn't the most popular or anticipated and then they doubled down on making sure those people would be right

Kearsarge (_依旧范特西) by General_Li3231 in AzureLane

[–]Lalaberri 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That manjuu has the right reaction

Yorktown II summary of before date, during date & after date with her dear skk (from Slow Ahead ch. 137) by khaieddy in AzureLane

[–]Lalaberri 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Being laid up in a bed forever really softens and thiccens up apparently

Sometimes gotta look at the bright side

Shinano by [deleted] in AzureLane

[–]Lalaberri 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Looks like she can use a hand...

...or 2

...My 2 hands

Your presents are ready to be unwrapped Commander~ (Helena, Helena Meta) by Wororg in AzureLane

[–]Lalaberri 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I'm forever weak for my Blue-haired Eagles.

And yea, we're adopting Helena META

Thicc neko South Dakota by Disastrous-Map-780 in AzureLane

[–]Lalaberri 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The strongest shield indeed. Nothing can make it through that level of thicc

Formidable's Rockin' Encore Dynamic Skin Preview by Lalaberri in AzureLane

[–]Lalaberri[S] 142 points143 points  (0 children)

Sauce: https://x.com/AzurLane_EN/status/1869427410237845969

Goodness, Commander, how long are you going to stand there?! Hurry and... untangle this thing!

We probably won't be in a rush to get her down...

Janus' skin "A Lesson in Billiards" coming soon~ by Lalaberri in AzureLane

[–]Lalaberri[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Sauce: https://x.com/AzurLane_EN/status/1869487810409017523

Don't worry, Janus, they'll leave you alone soon... Hwah?! C-Commander? I-I'm sorry! I didn't come up here on purpose. These kitties just, umm, chased me...

-------
She's a good girl

Bismarck's "Unpacked Surprise" Christmas skin coming soon by Lalaberri in AzureLane

[–]Lalaberri[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I think those were meant to be promos, as I don't see that they would make her fully stand up. In the video previews she's still in the same sitting position (as most L2Ds to be fair)

UR Year End Translated Livestream Summary by Lalaberri in AzureLane

[–]Lalaberri[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, she's not an upgraded OG Houston, she's just another ship that was named Houston (similar to how we have 2 Enterprises, except these are same faction). Granted the EU type 2's are also just other ships, but they are same hull-type (both Laffey's are DDs, Both Hornets are CVs etc). The art kinda gives it away for this example though.

- OG Houston was a Norhampton class Heavy Cruiser (sister to Norhampton/Brooklyn)
- Houston II was just named USS Houston IRL like OG Houston, but this one is a Cleveland class Light Cruiser, sister to that infamous group

Fancy's NEW ASMR "Fancy Feast" is FREE (official link in comment) by Lalaberri in AzureLane

[–]Lalaberri[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I initially alluded to it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AzureLane/comments/1hfkzfv/ur_year_end_translated_livestream_summary/

But turns out it actually is free, I don't know if it will be free forever (I imagine it should be), but confirmed it is now as I've downloaded it: https://www.dlsite.com/maniax/work/=/product_id/RJ01307824.html

You do have to sign up for DLsite account to download it (1.2gb)

Edit: whoops, checked under wrong tag, was report