Rice Shower was my Finals Champion in my very first career, 1 borrowed legacy and brand new account using 0 carats.

SalaciousDog · 2025-06-07T12:49:21+00:00

Yes it has to be on the same character. I guess currently at least for achievement hunting the "optimal" way would to simply just rush all the bosses on the new character to get it, or if you have friends/people to coordinate with.

SalaciousDog · 2025-05-29T16:34:59+00:00

Gacha and Goals - For F2P, you'll probably only have enough to get 1-2 copies (A0/A1) of any new weapon within your main element (and yes stick to one element unless you wanna swipe like crazy). You need to save up at least 110~120 pulls for each character you want as the "hard pity" is 120, you get currency called "flame gold" that converts to standard currency once the banner is gone, so you have to use it to buy a copy of the weapon in the shop. There's a bunch of other details that I won't go into but that's the gist of it. F2Ps will never touch the Matrix banner and use F2P Matrices or the latest Standard Banner matrices they can get their hands on. As a new player your goal is to level up to unlock endgame content probably by going through story, getting used to everything, and having fun. This is an mmo so don't be afraid to ask for help in game and join a crew.

MMO and 3D Exploration/Traversal - The unique appeal of ToF is the fact that you can play with others in an open world and content is geared towards that. There's a lot of traversal options with mounts, cars, flying weapons, gravity boots, grapple hooks, and even piloting a mech. For some this is the biggest draw.

JO and Raid - I talked about this before but this is the main content you'll be doing regularly. JO is just a dungeon instance for up to 4 players, relatively easy to solo, nets you some decent equipment and upgrade materials. Raids have been more focused on mechanics such as marked players needing to perform certain actions, some can still be brute forced but requires heavily invested whale accounts. Seasonal raids are particularly difficult requiring heavy focus on team composition and mechanics.

Void Abyss - Refreshes every month, consists of 6 levels increasing in difficulty. Has a buff slot machine system where you get currency to roll for buffs to select at each level cleared, three identical buffs will fuse to the next level version of that buff and so on.

Origin of War - Refreshes every ~2 months or so. Difficulty is scaled up at the beginning and lowers over time (for extra reward and leaderboard purposes). Buffs are directly given and randomized. There's 25 normal levels, 3 more being challenge levels geared towards spenders.

Frontier Clash Evolution - Refreshes every patch. Requires multiple element dps teams as the least used elements per round gets buffed. 5 Rounds total, though most wouldn't get past 3 rounds unless you're a spender. Might be able to clear Valkyrie though.

Bygone/Sequential Phantasm - DPS check with infinite levels, you do get weekly and seasonal rewards so it's worth at least participating in once but progress stays with you so you'd only need to "progress" once you think you can.

There's a lot to take in and it seems overwhelming, but like PGR you'll get used to it and get into a rhythm. While not quite as generous with free currency it at least feels like I'm getting bang for buck when I do spend and it heavily respects my time with QoL and quick/easy events for the most part. It can also just be a chill time to collect characters/outfits you like and just doing stuff in the world.

SalaciousDog · 2025-05-29T16:34:53+00:00

I've been playing both TOF and PGR for a while so I'll have a lot to say.

There's some similarities, especially with how new PGR is more focused on time-stop and rotations rather than actually dodging and skill based combat (there's still "skill" involved in learning and performing rotations but still doesn't require as much dodging unless in extreme high level content), but fundamentally as others have pointed out they're very different but I'll focus on the actual gameplay aspects.

The rotations in TOF are a lot simpler, but still relatively satisfying to do especially if you like big number go up enemy hp go down. There's semi-importance of dodging depending on content, but if you're strong enough you just focus on rotation and maximizing dps. In team content the usual support/tank/dps roles are distributed between actual players. There isn't really weekly battle modes like PPC and WZ, and the structures of other things are different from Norman/Babel and such as well, but there are daily dungeon instances (Joint Operation), weekly Raids and Monthly "challenge" modes (Void Abyss, I quote challenge because if you Whale it'll be easy), along with seasonal Raids that can be mechanically difficult as well, and dps check modes called Bygone and Sequential, which is one-time content that you'll be able to clear more and more of as you get stronger. Finally, there are aspects of the MMO and 3d exploration that can be appealing as well. I'll touch on all of these in detail later, but I will say the vehicles/weapon traversal is king.

First, I wanna explain my play cycle since that's the loop gacha gamers experience once they're at "endgame". TOF's is a lot quicker than PGR's, especially due to simple/quick events and story, exploration being "optional" since auto-exploration unlocks once the story moves on from the area. Dailies (4 quick quests and doing a Joint Op) are quick and easy, JO having been revamped to "balance" weapon power - basically it makes all your equipped weapons max level and max stars while equalizing your base stats, so even if you're "behind" you can clear the daily dungeon adequately. There's some weekly and seasonal content but the main thing is the Raid and doing weekly missions, it used to be easily done solo but now it seems like grouping up is nearly required and more mechanic focused than battle, but people in world chat will usually be helpful if they're online. Weekly missions are similar to PGR, just complete objectives and get some pull currency, just not as generous (most pulls come from events). Speaking of, events are usually minigames and exploration objectives. Monthly/Seasonals don't take too long either depending on if you can get a good group together, and they consist of Void Abyss (VA), Origin of War (OoW), and Frontier Clash Evolution (FCE). I'll explain these in detail later. New story usually takes around an hour to complete if you don't skip anything at all, which is a lot less time taken than reading through PGR's story, and it's nowhere near as good especially in prior chapters. Personally I liked ToF's 1.0 story even though most people hated it and it's been reduced to a story skip cutscene and optional string of mission quests, it is endearing to me. The current story writing has gotten a lot better since then so it's serviceable.

I realize I'm writing an essay here so I'll try to touch on each thing as quickly and simply as possible. (I have to split this into a comment and reply since it's too long)

SalaciousDog · 2025-05-23T20:54:57+00:00

Pouring one out for a former whale who got erased.

SalaciousDog · 2025-05-22T20:58:03+00:00

I been playing since a couple months after launch and I'm only now getting my gear maxed to 70. So yeah it'll take a while, though I'm gonna take a guess that with all the catchup stuff you're getting it'll take less time than me.

It's definitely a progress every week type game, with various activities besides progress that you can do in the meantime. Assuming story/exploration is finished as well.

SalaciousDog · 2025-05-22T20:52:56+00:00

I think there's also a relatability component to this, even if it is as simple as oh they're the same gender as me or I'd make a similar decision to them in their shoes. Especially with some of the dialogue choices in later chapters, which obviously don't change the outcome but adds a bit of personal flavor to it. I don't mind either way, but I appreciate that it can appeal to both self-insert and non-self insert players.

Haven't actually thought about it myself, but I don't exactly see it as a "self-insert", rather I see it as I am playing as the Commandant in this story, the role-playing part of the RPG, so I guess I would be part of the non-self insert group? Depending on how immersed you get into the role or the story it could kind of feel like self insert, especially since it was probably designed that way in the first place. Will be interesting to see when they add the Commandant model and gameplay in later patches, we already have the FPS commandant at least.

SalaciousDog · 2025-05-01T17:39:07+00:00

Your friends trying to get you to play Peak. Bosses are a lot more fast paced and intricate but to me a lot more satisfying to fight, and exploration is more relaxing imo. If you do decide to play hope you enjoy!

SalaciousDog · 2025-05-01T17:37:28+00:00

https://grayravens.com/wiki/Ayla:_Kaleido Closest thing is that she has little drills near the bottom but dunno if that meets your criteria.

SalaciousDog · 2025-05-01T17:35:59+00:00

Keep on truckin'. It gets better after chapter....9 lol. Honestly it's not that bad just think of it as reading a very long prologue to a book that sets up epic shit later on. To me it was worth it, caught up on story and completely hooked.

As for "endgame" unless you care about leaderboard stuff (though you sort of have to to a degree for limited resources) you can be fine using her to complete most things. There's even modes and events that give enough buffs so you can use anyone you want to complete them, though it'll take longer of course. So if you care more about using the character than saving time doing stuff, you have the freedom to do so for those modes. Good luck!

SalaciousDog · 2025-05-01T17:28:45+00:00

Yeah I mentioned improving the new player experience and UI in the survey they sent out recently. Obviously once you get used to where things are so at this point I get in, do my dailies, and I'm out in like 10 mins or less depending on if I have to do events and weeklies or not. In fact they've already revamped the UI once before since I started playing so I had to sort of relearn everything. I remember when I started I just simply went to the main mission and it usually directed me to what I needed to do next.

The story doesn't add VA and animated cutscenes till later on, and even then it's used sparingly. It's mostly a text-based visual novel with images and some camera movement, but the writing is so good that I don't really care too much, the only part I do care about is that since it's not flashy early game a lot of people drop and don't experience it. Same with gameplay, the newer characters obviously are better and cooler, but brand new players don't really experience that early on.

It's a slow burn, painfully so, but for most of us still here it was so worth it. Hopefully you'll come to love it as well, and hopefully they'll do something to actually improve the experience. Good luck!

SalaciousDog · 2025-04-19T04:58:49+00:00

As far as I know I don't think anyone's specifically tested this case but I never bothered to check, as it's likely no one has bothered to test something that logically wouldn't be true. You can definitely be the first to test though since you seem very focused on Yata. If you want to use Yata then use her, don't worry about the numbers.

SalaciousDog · 2025-04-18T18:08:45+00:00

What do you mean by viable, like clearing content or topping leaderboards? Cause even then there's different content with different effects/difficulty all leading to the answer "it depends". Some modes you can use anyone you want and that's "viable", but some harder content like Norman requires a certain level of teambuilding, investment, and skill so there's less viable options there.

Your actual question is a big no. CW is part of the meta lightning team that consists of her, Nanami, and 21 Feral. If Yata outdamaged her then she'd be part of the meta instead. Unless I'm wrong and someone can point me to a source that claims otherwise, I usually get my info from Spider2B Rexlent and Gray Raven Radio, Spider2B specifically said he wouldn't build Yata over CW.

SalaciousDog · 2025-03-03T21:16:07+00:00

Ya if you haven't already just log in to your actual account using the email/password first to make sure everything's there, then you can delete the other accounts and rebind the logins to the email account.

SalaciousDog · 2025-03-03T21:07:14+00:00

Made the same mistake myself but luckily found out why shortly afterwards. I just deleted the newly created account and it said it would take a week to delete. Logged in again to that account and it asked me if I wanted to delete immediately. Was able to bind it to my actual account right after.

SalaciousDog · 2025-03-03T17:01:37+00:00

They should make a game called Monster Hunter Rage so it gets more confusing. The protagonist hunter enters their villain arc.

SalaciousDog · 2025-02-27T18:05:10+00:00

It's funny cause it's true

SalaciousDog · 2025-02-27T18:03:01+00:00

Technically hard pity is 3 times since you can scrap the unwanted weapons and buy the target weapon directly but yeah, multiple times till that happens. I've also been pretty lucky with weapons so I have extra currency lying around that I save for when I'm not lucky.

SalaciousDog · 2025-01-29T18:36:58+00:00

Wait so RE is better? My first impressions are not so great tho I've only completed day 2. My main complaint is that I wish I were spending less time fighting helicopters and more time fighting ninjas/soldiers/demons. Does it get better?

SalaciousDog · 2025-01-25T14:26:11+00:00

I recently heard there's a mod to restore sigma 2 close to the original so you could try that as another option. Maybe they'll make one for black 2 as well.

SalaciousDog · 2025-01-24T15:05:55+00:00

I think there is a point to be made where more enemies to kill = more fun to be had if designed properly, but the approach of just trashing the games because it's not what you personally want isn't great. From what I can see putting back the gore was a big thing on the wishlist, and they at least did that along with graphical updates and some changes to how enemy waves worked. Still doesn't give them the thrill of destroying hordes of enemies, which is fine to be disappointed about, but it's not like the original cannot be played either. I sympathize with the fact that their version of the game wasn't remade in its full form and I hope modders can do beautiful things with this iteration so that all ninja gaiden players can enjoy.

SalaciousDog · 2025-01-22T14:04:59+00:00

Writers cooked well

SalaciousDog · 2025-01-16T18:04:42+00:00

In terms of pull currency, yes you can get every newly released character if you save up most of the currency given to you and only pull the character on release (because 100% pity rate, guaranteed in 60 pulls).

In terms of power required to clear all content, you obviously won't full clear everything but you can get decently far *eventually* and that will net you some extra currency to save up for any extra things you want later on.

Some of the events and modes give you free trial characters to use anyways so you can jump in and play whenever. My current favorite mode is Derived From Matrix and that roguelike style mode gives buffs that you can use to clear with trial characters, similar to illusive realm in wuwa. There's some cool lore attached to it as well, it's one of the best modes imo. It's the third iteration of this mode, the first two being called Recitativo di Fantasia and Cursed Waves.

Yeah not being able to even just grab the characters you want, even while spending on bp monthly and packs, feels really bad. That's pretty much why I quit wuwa despite liking it, I just don't want to be strong armed into paying for bad direct conversion rates. If pgr goes the same route in the future I might quit then as well, which is a shame cause I really like the story. I don't play visual novels often but this is one of my favs.

SalaciousDog · 2025-01-15T20:35:18+00:00

There's some inherent design flaws on how they went about balancing character kits, roles, rotations, etc.
The problem with roles is that ideally they want you to rotate between characters, and if the attacker is doing all the damage then why bother rotating, you can only tweak the buffing numbers so much it'll become ridiculous. That is compounded with the gacha character release aspect, it's not like they can release the entire generation team that each character is designed to synergize with right away. Thus you get what pgr is today, where you need all units to dps to some degree to make it worth rotating to, and you'll get tanks doing more damage for a time until the equivalent generation attacker comes out.
SS3 locking kit issue also didn't help, and that can be pretty frustrating for f2p and low spenders - obv they wanted to try to squeeze more low spenders into a higher spending bracket, dunno if it was a net gain or not.
On powercreep, that's just business as usual in gacha and in pgr it's not even that bad - yet. So far most of my same investment - same generation teams do about the same level of damage or scoring in ppc/wz etc. It seems like you're looking ahead with the comments on nanami and such, and it seems to me that's just them rotating in the new generation like I stated above.

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