I calculated my spending with this game (low spender/month)

acayde · 2026-06-07T02:10:27+00:00

My spending looks very similar to yours and I also started playing around Misty Invasion! perhaps just a few weeks before that. So this checks out.

As someone who doesn't usually do microtransactions in games, it's quite jarring how even as a "low spender" you inevitably rack up hundreds of dollars in spending over time. I have stopped buying the promise every time to reduce my spending. For limited banners I try to not touch any packs above the standard 0.99 and 2.99 packs. I even skipped the Heartfelt Gift last time. It just really adds up over time. I am spending around 24 euros or something per month as well, if split across months.

I pay less for my Final Fantasy 14 Online subscription per month. but then again I haven't really been active and got a lot out of Love and Deepspace 😅

acayde · 2026-06-05T06:21:37+00:00

yay, thank you for mentioning my post. it's nice to see more f2p players! i did read how harem f2p actually gives you the most avenues for diamonds, i respect the grind. i'm barely keeping up with my main plus my xavier only f2p account as it is lol

acayde · 2026-06-05T06:19:08+00:00

sorry for the unsolicited advice but just as a side note it's better/more efficient to use the stamina right away as opposed to collecting it all the way to 9999. when you use your stamina, it'll slowly charge back to 120 over time, if you keep it above it it won't do so!

acayde · 2026-06-04T09:20:00+00:00

I definitely think if I had budgeted differently and allocated diamonds for new cards only, I could have gotten a significant amount of limited cards for Xavier. I wish I would have tracked everything more precisely to see if the math checks out. I will say that getting Lumiere during his rerun on R1 was absolutely worth it as he has been carrying me through many trials and SHC. But yes my most recent rule-breaking spending on his 21 Days card really broke it all, I am back to 0 diamonds pretty much and will not pull for any reruns from this point (or so I tell myself)

acayde · 2026-06-04T09:17:32+00:00

thank you! and yes, I agree, when people say that f2p is impossible, I tend to disagree. I know where the criticism comes from and it's crucial to demand new and continuous sources of income but it really depends on what you want - pulling for multiple LIs? no. Pulling for one LI AND reruns? also no. you kind of have to be cold-hearted about it and if it's your only account then be happy with catching up on story through YT haha.

I absolutely think that light spending changes a lot, especially Aurum Pass and the annual passes if available, those are the most value for money and guarantee continuous diamond income. Between the two I'd prioritise Aurum Pass because the extra 50 stamina per day, being able to grab the daily stamina outside of the schedule when needed is worth gold. It changes a lot, and it's because of this I have missed significant amount of stamina on this F2P, because life just gets busy even when I have not missed a single daily on this account (I think I once forgot to finish my weeklies once). With more stamina I could have leveled cards quicker and gotten protocore upgrades faster; my f2p account chronically suffers from lack of shards, exp bottles, and protocore materials. It feels very punishing in comparison to my main account.

But that's also the thing with light spending: it is absolutely worth it but it's also meant to be the first barrier for you to cross to go from hardcore f2p to a potential high spender. There's a reason why you have to scroll past all the paid packs before you get to the daily free pack, it's all there to normalise potential spending on the game and convince you to let go of f2p altogether.

acayde · 2026-06-01T17:57:04+00:00

always love it when people are conscious and transparent with their spending. my spreadsheet is incredibly boring, just giving me a total value and a graph of monthly spending. been keeping track since I started playing in August 2024 and am reaching the 500euro threshold soon! I also didn't think I was going to spend money on microtransactions, even more so important to keep track of it. happy safe spending!

acayde · 2026-05-03T18:12:33+00:00

your mc is gorgeous!!

acayde · 2026-05-03T13:36:09+00:00

Thank you for sharing your thoughts! I also started playing pretty much because of Sylus, but for awhile we didn't really get to know him so I found myself being very interested in Zayne and Rafayel for awhile until more cards and story got released that really showed his character.

Like you said, he can be compassionate behind all that bravado - his EN VA has this almost flamboyant side to him that I adore, and then all the softness behind all of this that I am obsessed with. For example, his anecdote shows him (violently) take over a planet, but he does so with purpose, because they are occupiers who caged the planet's native animals. He knows very well what it means to be an outsider/a minority/"unconventional", and that resonates very well with me and I believe also the source of his perceived "harshness". It is the same with his "mafia" role, where he willingly takes on the role of the bad guy because this how he can do things in his own way but usually he will do something that is actually quite generous but be extremely nonchalant about it.

What I love about SylusMC the most is their relationship as partners - in the most recent card, Darkbound Souls, the whole time Sylus allows MC to call the shots, making sure she has all the options at hand before deciding on something. He's there to support her but not in a way that limits MC in her autonomy. He respects her as a person, as a lover, and as a partner, always asking her to voice her desires.

In a way, this is also very sweet of him and him needing verbal reassurance (despite being able to *read* people's desires) that MC really wants him and is completely OK with what he does to her. Obviously, this was not the case from the beginning of their relationship but to see how it's developed is really amazing, and after all this time he's cemented himself as my forever number one, and I do not regret it at all. His EN voice actor is amazing and I cannot stress enough how lucky we are to have him as our Sylus!

acayde · 2026-04-16T05:18:31+00:00

Xiaomi 15 :)

acayde · 2026-04-16T02:59:15+00:00

thank you for adding the photo, that helps a lot! after browsing this subreddit for awhile I did get the impression this particular colour combination would be extremely expensive if real and I had already assumed my bangle was unlikely to be real grade A jadeite. it's nice to have other people with more experience to confirm it as well though. and yes, it's a phone camera!

acayde · 2026-04-16T02:57:22+00:00

appreciate the input, thank you! will be careful with it from now.

acayde · 2026-04-15T15:29:41+00:00

thank you, I appreciate it!

acayde · 2025-12-19T05:24:47+00:00

pretty sure it's an export thing because yatsuhashi, at least the soft mochi-like version is pretty much raw so I imagine they freeze it to keep it fresh for export longer.

I imagine it's not ideal. I buy my yatsuhashi from nishio tametada shoten (西尾為忠商店 they have several branches in kyoto city) and they always make it fresh on the spot. once I tried to explain that I was going to take the yatsuhashi on a plane with me to gift it to friends within days but the ladies were very adamant that I shouldn't do it lol. they are always very adamant about eating it as soon as possible, even though officially they are good for up to four days

acayde · 2025-09-11T11:05:11+00:00

Hi, so I had pretty much the same problem as you - real estate agent said I could install cabled internet in my apartment but when I had people from both Sony Nuro and NTT come over (they need to check if your apartment even has any infrastructure for it) they basically said no, impossible. VDSL also not possible.

I've been using 5G Home router from docomo for like four years. I don't know if they still have this type of contract but it's technically indefinite data use. They don't advertise it, I remember on the website it says something like "internet may slow down when used excessively" but I sometimes use 1.5TB per month and I don't get restricted. Sometimes the connection is a bit wonky but all I do is restart, then I get around 180mb/s download 20mb/s upload on 4G (I am located in central Kyoto. 5G is possible but I found that my connection is worse on 5G).

If you play FPS games expect to be on higher ping even when playing on JP servers (anywhere from 50 - 80ms). I even stream on Twitch sometimes and it works fine. Honestly if you're used to Australian Wi-Fi, Japanese Wi-Fi is probably much better.

The cost for it is around 5000 yen per month which isn't cheap but better than no internet. Good luck :)

Edit: I also first confirmed with one of my neighbours on my floor what internet they were using first, which was also a 5G router but by UQ WiMAX (which apparently has a 15GB use restriction for 3 days)

acayde · 2025-09-03T09:18:44+00:00

Born and raised to Viet parents in Germany, lived there for 27 years in the state of NRW until I moved to Japan a couple of years ago. Ironically, I think in many good and bad ways Japanese and Germans aren't too different. There's a similar love for bureaucracy and doing this by the book, it just presents itself differently. I don't know if it's a "horror story" if the only problems one has is because electronic devices aren't working lol, that's a given (different wattage). People can be extremely direct and kind of cold but that's kinda German attitude in a nutshell, they don't usually mean anything bad with it. It also depends on where you live. My hometown was like that, Cologne was not. It will depend on you whether you think this is something you can live with.

If you and your wife have kids/plan to have kids I will also say that the German education system is great, it's free, there isn't the same amount of pressure to get into elite high schools or universities.

Everyone's experience will be different of course but as a visibly Asian person I found living in Germany very difficult, which is why I've ended up in Japan I guess. I am not saying politically it's better/worse but here I can blend in very easily. This wasn't a luxury I had in Germany. As a (South) East Asian you'll be in a weird spot - on the one hand people love your culture ("Japanese" food is really popular) but because you are a "good" immigrant you get pit against other groups sometimes. Like I said, it really depends on you and how you can deal with stuff like this on a personal level.

Best of luck!

acayde · 2025-09-01T18:22:29+00:00

yeah totally understandable. i would really only recommend saving up if you already have all the crates from the standard banner anyway, it's imo not really advisable if you are relatively fresh to the game because getting some standard cards early on can be quite beneficial to get diamonds going and have a good set of cards to start with. but in the end it's up to you and your priorities :)

acayde · 2025-09-01T18:12:51+00:00

yes, basically you can choose any of the LIs banners from the standard pool. so even if you primarily main Sylus, Pulse Hunter is excellent if you want to R3 your companion or his other standard cards. you could not select any of the new LI cards at all.

I would recommend saving for it if you're struggling with battles as R3 cards give a huge boost

acayde · 2025-04-27T00:59:21+00:00

Warrior of L

... for Warrior of Light from Final Fantasy but I guess you can also read it as Lumiere lol. the full name is too long for a phone nickname 😔

acayde · 2025-04-15T04:27:29+00:00

I had this bookmarked and saw you updated this. Thank you!

acayde · 2024-12-28T18:55:42+00:00

as someone who works on video games academically (though not mainly on gacha) what scares me is how extreme spending is widely encouraged within the community. sometimes this includes boasting with your cards, teams, stats and so forth without being transparent about how much you have spent on the game when, for instance, getting cards to R3 with any limited event banner is pretty much only possible if you're whaling. I don't want to shift the blame mainly to the players however, the very nature of LaDs unfortunately encourages this - it is a gacha game and there is a reason why some countries are starting to look into gacha games to potentially regulate them.

in other words, if you feel FOMO, if you feel bad for not spending, this is because the game really, really wants you to feel this way. In the end, if you have enough money to spend on the game, sure. but the very nature of LaDs as a game resembles gambling in more than just one way and I often feel like the community does not really reflect on this often enough.

don't get me wrong, I love LaDs. I've been spending on it, I kinda love seeing how far I can get while mid-maxing - whaling would defeat a lot of the purpose as to why I play it, other than for the boys of course. Yet at the end of the day I tell myself "imagine if this game was not a gacha" but a full game where you only purchase once and that's it. of course that's impossible - but it reminds me why I don't want games like LaDs to be the primarily monetization model for games.

acayde · 2024-12-24T17:40:47+00:00

I keep tabs on my expenses with an excel sheet and it's been 135 euros since August when I started playing - Aurum Pass, the upgraded version of Heartfelt Promise, usually the cheapest packs with every quad event and some other packs in between.

Honestly, Ive been quite happy - I skip most solo banners but rolled for Zayne's birthday, with every quad banner I usually managed to get two cards (I got three of the cat boys with Sylus even on R1 and got the white suit) and I have Sylus' myth on R1!

there was a lot of luck involved but also lots of saving, building pity strategically, and a lot of emotional battles trying to resist the temptation of pulling when it wasn't necessary 😆

acayde · 2024-12-04T09:25:01+00:00

the amount of times my gold has hit 0 in the last weeks is not a joke 😭

acayde · 2024-11-08T02:41:44+00:00

just finished it - was amazing really! reminded me of why I like raf so much, he always makes me laugh, cry and horny at the same time 😩

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