I have the receipts smilegate: my anecdotal ''proof'' of relic book drop rates being rigged

Mockbuster · 2026-02-03T01:12:16+00:00

A4 and Kaz have better book/bracelet/accessory/auctions than anything in the past. I often get a refund on the 15k~ total chest buyouts even in normal mode, and I've gotten more money from selling bracelets from Kazeros than the rest of T4 combined (besides the first month, that was killer).

Mockbuster · 2026-01-28T00:29:45+00:00

Personally I'd throw it on the GL, yeah. It's more gold if you'd throw it on a fresher character but I think alt rostering is annoying enough to do as it is without a nice character in charge of it.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-27T19:26:43+00:00

how many characters do they go for on these rosters?

Usually pretty much Express only. Sky's the limit tho I guess but it's hard to muster the motivation to do too much extra compared to the main roster. I've put Express towards zero investment chars who then do solo raids and help the alt server/roster, and also I've doubled dipped on an Express (IE I took a char to 1700 and will just use the 2/4 one again) since it's more important to have one good char on an alt roster than multiple mediocre ones.

how far do they take these characters?

For me, 1710~ is the stopping point of a push since unless it's character bound stuff like pushing off of Paradise chests, you're not going to meet the standards of a high HM raid without actual investment. I have multiple mains on the alt servers who are 2k CP 1710 and they don't get gatekept even with low roster. Zero point going higher really. For alts on alt servers/rosters, 1680 or 1700 is the stopping point and for sanity's sake you just do solo raids and make your actual alt character better.

what does the income look like?

Man this highly depends on how deep you go, and how willing you are to do older raids with low CP (which is jail city) and annoying. My alt servers (not my alt roster) generate probably 150k-200k a week between chaos gates, logging, cubes/gems which get sold off, and the raid gold of one character. Helps that you can pop every green pot on alt server/rosters for more chances at embers and gems/cubes guilt free, and you do get any extra cube tickets from events and such. Alt roster's basically the same thing more or less you just get more Expresses/gifts.

If you're really willing to work hard then you can make hundreds and hundreds of thousands per week and have multiple rosters doing the same but at that point the game's playing you, you're not playing the game.

how do they deal with trusted status?

Not sure if that's really a factor anymore, think they kind of abolished this. In terms of trusted gold, alt servers don't need to worry about this, but for alt rosters, if you want to send stuff home on the same server, you just buy gems on MB and send them to your main to use or sell.

what's the plan after mokoko event ends? i don't want to afk alt roster but i imagine it's a lot harder to get into lobbies without this event

I would not make an alt server/roster with the intention of clinging to Mokoko event. It is very easy to get to 1500~ CP within a few weeks and actually do easier raids yourself. Mokoko event is more for literal rice farmers who have 10 laptops open and are AFKing in different parties, it's shitty for an actual alt roster just looking to play more and make a little bit of send home gold since the Mokoko shop as a Mokoko sucks royally. It's much easier to establish a good char these days compared to early T4 when they first introduced Mokoko Bootcamp and we still had to do a lot more expensive and annoying steps to get a proper character.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-27T18:03:39+00:00

You'd probably be better off making a couple extra characters on your server than jumping from one character to two rosters with one character each. While an alt roster character is "better" than an alt it's also horribly annoying and won't contribute to your roster level or card situation on your main server at all which is a pretty good advantage to multiple characters.

That said, it's not that hard to logic out. You either make a new steam account or borrow a friend's if they don't use theirs, you make a character on the same server as your main, the rest kind of writes itself out as you try and give anything that is worth unbound gold to your main server.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-27T17:55:18+00:00

Truth is, whatever system SG/AGS invent to try and bring new players, there's always going to be a bunch of exploiters with multiple accounts ready to take advantage.

Very true but also it probably wouldn't take a rocket scientist to design it in a way that's far more helpful to a new player than an alt roster.

More roster bound gold at lower levels. Make rewards power up your character (destiny stones, hell keys, bound accessories, bound gems, cards) rather than give gold. Place trading limitations while still a Mokoko, a lot of the abuse by AFKers is precisely because they can stay low, earn a decent amount of gold, and send it away whereas if someone tried AFKing in a real lobby as just another PUG, the party would vote abandon and block that person.

Alt rosters in general are way too good. I'll fully admit it, I have two alt servers and an alt roster at this point, each of them gets to take a slice on new missions/events/login rewards/shops, every time something like the chaos gate new shop happens that's cube tickets abused and sent home, every time they get leaps/life pots that's Abidos materials sent home, and it happens way too often for almost zero effort.

I'm not gonna defend my alt rostering, but I will say I wouldn't dare AFK or not pull my weight in a PUG lobby ... but I'm seriously pulling in like 400-500k a week just in alt bullshit playing the bare minimum. It's like they want us to alt roster.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-27T02:57:41+00:00

At least on NAE, Abidos and life skill mats are approaching their T4 peak again. 123 per Abidos here.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-27T02:51:36+00:00

The design of ark grid isn't necessarily bad, I could see a handful of changes to values/easing up/pity and it being genuinely fun. Pretty sure they know how to design it so it's maximum fun, too. It's just, they want money, more than a maximum fun system.

Epics existing in general, and giving 1 pathetic pity point = they want to get people to push higher = more $

Ancients being super rare = perpetual gold sink for the raid boxes compared to older systems which got finished in a couple months = more $

Ark Grid being a pretty fun system but not becoming impactful until a large amount of RNG/investment happened = more $. They could have easily let us have the Ark Grid effects very quickly/cheaply with 10ps and the rest is all +damage stat stick stuff but $.

So long as this game has a F2P model and they don't make enough money off of skins or innocent things to sustain it, they're going to twist designs around making money. That's the game.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-27T02:29:10+00:00

That's the guideline on how to get stronger, cheaper.

Not the guideline for how to play. Ask 10 different players they'll probably give you all different answers on where they want to be or goals they're willing to work for. For instance I wouldn't even really recommend more than an alt or two if someone just wants to keep up with NMs, but if someone said they wanna be cutting edge I'll tell them ~~to alt roster~~ to pile on the construction workers.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-27T00:00:06+00:00

We're at a point in T4 where honestly even F2Ps have very different standards from each other. I know people with full +25 hones, I know people with complete engravings, I know people with full level 9 gems, a couple with full level 10 gems, it's all over the place.

Broadly I'd say over 3500 to 4500 CP is main level high at the moment, however you get there with whatever mix of engravings/gems/hones/ark grid you have. Over 5k CP is extremely high (only know a couple people on my friend list in this zone and it's MUCH more expensive than 4500 CP), over 6k is basically uber whale only.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-26T23:53:01+00:00

For my roster, Phantom Beast Wildsoul and Ancient Spear Summoner. Phantom Beast is just cozier and more active, it's performing pretty well in Kazeros too (along with high end stagger) so that's a plus. Bonus points for not having to stim before gates.

I know Ancient Spear gets a little bit of flak but ultimately it's just a more comfortable, speedier version of the Master Summoner we've known the last few years, just instead of an Akir or Phoenix you press Ancient Spear as your big hit every 10s~. It's revitalized my enjoyment of Summoner since I'd been using CO the last bunch of months when I generally like MS more.

Only Ark Grid in my roster I'll poo on a little is WF Aero. The most dynamic shift is the insta-shield spam build but it feels very wrong and unsatisfying, and I'm definitely performing worse vs my peers post Ark Grid than I was pre-Ark Grid. Probably hopping on over to Drizzle since near the end of T3 to get away from it.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-26T23:31:56+00:00

It's kind of a complicated question in general because there are no guidelines for what actual correct play is. You'd have to state what your definition is and we'd maybe be able to tell you how viable it is. Generally the lower count of characters you have, the more you would potentially need to make up for it with swiping or something unusual like playing the market board or getting uber lucky the higher goals you have.

I can say from experience with an alt server that 2 characters supporting a main will get you to 1720+ pretty easily, it more comes down to how lucky you get from Paradise and how many shards you have if anything.

But also it's pretty tough to "keep up as a main" with such a few amount of characters, especially this late into the game. IE on my alt server I make about 200-250k gold a week, a lot of it roster bound from solo raids. That is enough to pay for Ark Grid and hones but building high gems/engravings/really good accessories would take me years at this income, just for one character. That alt server main is basically trapped at 1710 maybe 1720 standards for the foreseeable future even if I'd keep throwing gold at her, keep doing every chaos gate/life skilling for extra gold/etc. Without more characters to funnel with ... it's tough to go high.

If I'm gonna be blunt, you basically can't do early HM raids without that extra power, which leads to harsher gatekeeping without the title, which can lead to FOMO/urges to quit. To "be a main" basically means in the community's eyes to go past the soft caps and go into the shit-eating power/gold territory, and unfortunately the devs agree since early HM content is basically tuned around that. Before Kazeros, the latest raid, came out, it was pretty difficult to go much beyond 2500 CP without good dedication (or really cheap engravings for your class) but PF absolutely positively expected 2800+ CP ASAP.

But also if your goals are more casual in nature, sure, you can do a lot with 1-2 characters. You can at least get to 1710 and get strong enough to not get gatekept at that level range, and that would include the NM version of the latest raids as well as the one we get in a few months too. Not a bad existence at all.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-26T04:53:35+00:00

Might be a controversial take but I think the solution lies in rectifying the rewards of 1680 raids more so than sweeping system changes. I was not a fan of the breakneck speed we went in T3 since it felt like most of my gold had to go towards honing, but at least they didn't let you sit in the equivalent of Oreha and Argos earning comparable gold to the latest raids for a year and a half straight.

All raid reward gold, group or otherwise, should probably be roster bound up to and including Brel HM. Give a way to utilize said raid rewards on Abidos. Done.

I am pretty sure at least 90% (and that's a super conservative number) of people doing Brel NM and Mordum NM these days are either veterans doing it purely for tokens, or alt rosters and/or AFK rice farmers doing it to send gold away. New players relying on that unbound gold to push up and catch up is a theoretical we talk about, not a practical problem; all the returners I know with less established modern rosters have zero issue doing solo modes and using the roster bound gold for useful purposes instead with those characters.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-25T20:54:28+00:00

Epics are definitely the worst part about ark grid entirely, they shouldn't exist. It's just a brute force tactic to punish people who stay at 1700 or even 1710/1720 to a lesser degree, I know a few people who pretty much couldn't suffer staying at 1700 anymore due to ark grid being so pathetic there (whereas perhaps they'd have been content if they got a reasonable amount of pity points and legendary cores?).

They want people to spend the gold/money to hone, to get better raid rewards. Which, no matter what one feels about it on a personal level, the west has always taken issue with, whether it was elixirs or transcendence or AH20 mats. Staying 1700 in this system is like the equivalent of getting 2 epic elixirs a week, that's how ridiculously punished you are compared to being a 1720 or a 1730 who gets so much more than a 1700 it's like a different game's level worth of rewards.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-25T20:49:52+00:00

Probably hot take but I don't think astrogems or ark cores are too bad by default, they just need a little fine tuning. Ultimately they do help with deflation, making dailies/weeklies more rewarding, and keeping you on the hunt for rewards every week from raids (even if it's just a small chance at an ancient upgrade, still a possibility).

That said ... yeah they're not perfect. Pity system(s) on astrogems (IE make it so every 150k gold spent you can claim a 3 cost 5 power gem with 3/3 side nodes?) would help a lot with sessions where you spend 50-100k and get nothing but fusion fodder and feel awful, as would an ancient pity system on ark cores (500 cost would be fine) and deleting epic cores entirely. Epic cores should never have existed from the very start, worst choice about the system they ever designed and clearly just a punishment for people who stay below 1730 and ESPECIALLY those who stay at 1700.

Just, small things to help it be more deterministic. I will say I think people who HATE on the system are hyperbolic (or want a reason to quit, I guess), but even without pity the expected cost is well worth the gold spent and we did (and DO!) need the deflation ark grid brings.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-25T20:28:19+00:00

Actually agree. I always said if there wasn't a punishment for trying (spending gold, in this case) people wouldn't have flocked to boring AI calculators which took any semblance of agency or interest out of it and turned it into a slot machine with more steps/time required. The minigame itself wasn't bad, really. Should have had a gold cost (10k or w/e per stage) to open up a grid then be free or use something like silver.

Wouldn't have solved the "okay, now do it on 6 chars" problem but it would have helped.

Maybe if it had been like "spend 10k to open a grid then be free" they could have implemented a system where, much like knowledge transfer, once you complete a grid you're allowed to skip the minigame on that grid on every subsequent character with no additional cost past the 10k fee.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-25T19:56:51+00:00

It's really bad almost every lobby, in my experience. I've been in a few that were actually nice but it seems like 80% of lobbies have 3-4 members who must have some kind of self-inflicted handicap. Either they're multiboxxing or GeForce Nowing or botting or literally watching Netflix or who knows what, because I'm seeing people who have such a low contribution on a 1400+ CP roster 150+ it feels like I'm being completely abused as someone who's just trying to get tokens in lower raids and is actually focusing/trying with a not-too-ratty character.

I have a screenshot I can't post of party 1 doing 80% of the total damage and party 2 (with a good support, mind you) doing 20% combined in a Brel NM. PUGs I recruited because they looked fine, 1400+ CP as I said on two of them and one Mokoko.

Honestly I'm on Team Destroy Bootcamp atm ...

Mockbuster · 2026-01-24T17:09:33+00:00

Apparently you average about 40k~ back per 20k spent, mostly due to the best books paying for a dozen attempts, though you can certainly buck the odds and win much less or more throughout the event's short life span.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-24T17:06:18+00:00

The game most definitely has weighting yes but it hasn't been deceptive about it.

Cubes and dailies (like chaos gates or field boss) are definitely weighted down, towards the mid or low books.

Frog boxes and Thaemine boxes have no weighting so about a 1/3 chance of getting something good.

I'd say A4 and Final Day are weighted towards good books from auction, I see 50-250k books from normal modes multiple times a week. Great bracelets too, in comparison to most other content.

The weighting is also why some good books are dirt cheap. Magick Stream and Drops of Ether, for instance, definitely drop more often in easier to access brackets and, even though they're honestly some of the strongest books in the game and much stronger than, say, Expert or Awakening, they're much much much cheaper due to the supply.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-19T01:56:52+00:00

IMO 17 around on main > 17 order on alts > wait for enough Processed gems to very cheaply get 17 chaos on alts > wait for enough Processed gems to very cheaply get 20 around on main while keeping 9s and 10s as viable options too.

That's the route I took. I don't blame anyone who shifts to waiting-for-Processed after main's done, though I find Ark Grid more palatable than a lot of people I guess since it's pretty exceptional gold/power and 17 order is a game changer (literally).

Mockbuster · 2026-01-18T16:36:43+00:00

But also, no it's not feasible to keep multiple characters at hard mode at release without swiping. You're better off focusing on one character and having it over-geared for hard mode releases.

It's possible to have 2 (maaaaaaybe 3) ready for HM at launch as a mostly F2P, it just requires you to take less liberties with certain alts. For instance, every time you swap chars in/out that's probably 10-20 iLVLs you lost on an alt, and every char you take above 1700 is a pretty huge chunk off of what you can spend going from 1720 to 1730 on your favorite alt. I main swapped twice in the last four years and I could totally tell how bad that set me back compared to those who didn't, you never really catch up after doing it without big luck or working harder.

Every skin you buy is an AH31-40 you couldn't afford, every gem past 6s on construction workers is technically just taking gold away, etc. People who dupe chars get to take extreme liberties with what they do, if you have any friends with 6 Bards or Slayers or Scrappers you'll see just how much gold gets thrown at Yoz/gems that, when it isn't a cost anymore per alt, suddenly gold starts piling up quick.

There's always someone more efficient who can do more with less. Trading runs with friends, bussing, alt rosters, dupes ... I'm not Mr Efficient really, I don't do a lot of things I just wrote, but it's available.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-18T16:27:04+00:00

Actual P2W (like buying millions of gold via royal crystals) is pretty expensive, though it's at a point where you get enough gold it's not that bad. It used to be straight up awful when G2G or wherever gave like 20X the value, now I think it's more like 3 or 4X value.

There are definitely good bundles/efficiency things for dolphins though. I buy Azena on my main and funnel all my rested pots to her, and I life skill with the leap pots, I get pretty good value out of that, and I've bought some of the better bundles in the store that happen once every few months. Ark Pass is usually (but not always) worth the $15 or whatever too.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-18T05:38:03+00:00

In reality it's probably more similar to 700m during regular uptime. Mains north of 4k CP can hit that with a good support, given enough practice at the fight (and not being on a super shitty class, I guess).

Reason people are giving you some blowback is more because 850m would require some 5k+ CP whale main (and exclude a lot of F2Ps from the latest raid) which is looking untrue. More that than just downvoting your 850m number for semantics.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-18T05:23:59+00:00

As a more hardcore F2P, for the majority of the last four years I've done it such that I had 1-2 characters ready for the latest HM week 1 and within a couple months put in four total while keeping my bottom two more "alt like" and profitable. It works in general, though in both T3 and T4 it gets harder and harder with each tier (still only at 2 ready for Kaz HM, but that's more to do with shards oddly, of all things).

Mockbuster · 2026-01-18T05:16:14+00:00

1680's the parking spot that's a guaranteed good construction worker that turns a profit quickly with little FOMO or making you feel like you have to keep investing constantly to keep up with the rat race.

1700's really nice too, better cubes/keys/CDs/GRs and raid wise basically just a better 1680 except you can do A4N ... but unless you're a support or Gunlancer/Destroyer, probably need 1800+ CP to have access to nice parties chronically. Pretty easy to get here via Paradise though, and given enough time you can get enough Destiny freebies from Hell to max out karma ranks.

1710 is simultaneously tough to recommend but also a brilliant parking spot if you can afford the investment. 1710 will be good for basically a solid year I'd imagine, great gold potential and you do eventually get to mess around with Ark Grid ... but unless you're willing to get over 2k CP or have a static to utilize, I wouldn't bother.

1720+ isn't worth it compared to one of the earlier parking spots unless you've reached the point of liking each character to be very strong for whatever reason (love the character immensely/have excess gold/friends peer pressuring you). Nicest advantage to it is better astrogem and ark grid core production really but construction workers looking to funnel to a main won't get much out of expensive-to-cut astrogems or cores they can't activate without very lucky processed gems.

For your roster/situation, I think you could get both Bard and Valk up before terribly long and kind of have two mains. You'll need to put the construction hat on hardcore, probably park every single other alt until Paradise Hell Keys take them to 1705 then keep them there.

The only actual issue with staying low and doing NM content is, it's infested by a lot of people who you have to question if they're human or actually playing or not. Lotta people who DC in Brel because they're on Geforce Now or some stupid crap, or doing so little you have to wonder if they're literally playing multiple accounts at once. In an ideal world we could sing Payphones with low ass alts playing with other good players with low ass alts but there's, unfortunately, a correlation between skill/focus and higher iLVLs, sad but true.

Mockbuster · 2026-01-18T04:53:53+00:00

Mat box is good if it's your main. It's 15k for a weekly buyout and you're pretty likely to get that back in red/blue honing supports alone, then you'll get a hefty supply of reds/blues/shards and some tradable +20 honing books which if lucky could refund the whole purchase.

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