FINAL FANTASY: RECORD KEEPER

They really need to fix the optimize function for equipment upgrading. There have been too many times where the optimizer comes up with a combination of materials that leads to 838 exp. being lost, when I can easily decrease it to 238 or even 38 exp. lost while still only using Scarletite/Adamantite. It doesn't matter that much, but it's annoying to know the optimizer doesn't actually optimize. I have a feeling it just repeatedly adds the highest tier material that doesn't overflow the exp. until it's reached the lowest tier in your inventory.

Case in point: When upgrading a 3* item from lv. 1 to lv. 10, the optimizer will suggest a giant, normal and tiny material, leading to 238 exp. wasted, while a giant and four tiny materials would lead to only 38 exp. wasted.

I realize actual optimization would take longer, but since the higher tier materials give full multiples of the lower tier ones, I think it's really only the small and tiny materials that need to be checked for further optimization.

Yeah, that is pretty pointless indeed. Even disregarding the fact that gold is not an issue anymore after a while, you're going to use those materials anyway, so if you're going to spend less gold on this one particular piece of equipment, you'll spend more on the next.

I guess I know who my primary White Mage is going to be for the foreseeable future!



It was a toss up between Mog and Lenna, but I already like his survivability (which is apparently a big theme for me, between him and my reliance on Golbez and PCecil), and now this.

Still a fairly crummy draw, but I got something I was quite eager for, so I shouldn't complain.

I want Maduin's Horn, but even though I'm halfway (?) through the classic dungeons and still able to bring in Mythril fairly easily I don't know if I can justify a third FFVI pull with FFV just around the corner...

Speaking of dungeons, I feel I was led astray by the first few elites, which gave some decent unique SB equipment for the White Mage and Black Mage core classes. The equipment rewards have all but dried up, and I'm still hurting for certain weapon and armour types.

I'm also not getting stamina shards as often anymore, which makes tackling dungeons in quick succession a lot harder as I can't get frequent full refills. I'm well aware that the flow of Mythril will be drying up considerably as well.

Is this the plan? Present a sustainable and rewarding experience for long enough to get players invested and then gradually make it harder and harder to progress without paying? That's a much longer and more patient con than I'm used to with "freemium" models, but it's insidious enough that it's almost got me tempted to drop money. Almost.

Then again, they're fairly generous with their freebies - we all just got a nice accessory (which also completed my accessory quest) - so I guess I shouldn't be too cynical.

author=Jeroen_Sol
It's really not necessary to spend money on the game. At the very least not yet. At your point in the game, there's definitely a wall. The normal dungeons start to feel like they quickly become very hard, but many of the elite dungeons feel hard too. Just keep at it. There's a lot more mythril and stamina to be had.
...
Using money is not worth it anyway. With the ridiculous price of gems it almost feels as if they don't want people to spend money on the game.

I suppose I'm thinking less about necessity and more how painful it will be to watch banners go by without being able to pull on all of them, especially when priority moves from practical necessity to completionism as the game wears on and one wants specific items that are, by the nature of the gamble, going to be harder and harder to get.

To be fair, I'm not against spending money on the game in principle. It's fairly generous as far as freemium models go, and it's providing me with a lot of entertainment for free. Stamina/Mythril shortages aside, I wouldn't have minded paying for it outright. But microtransactions make me uncomfortable because A) they're a slippery slope, B) paying for things I can technically grind for feels wasteful and a little cheaty, and C) the systems that encourage them (gambling, playtime limitation) feel manipulative.

But then, I don't mind dropping a few dollars on real-life slot machines on infrequent occasions, so maybe I'm weird and contradictory.

author=Jeroen_Sol
If you haven't already, fully upgrade your 5 and 4 star equipment, and start getting in the habit of doing proper battle preparation for each battle. 4 star weapons are very good if you have synergy. Eventually you'll get to the point where you'll breeze through all the elites up to difficulty 60.

I'm not quite feeling the pinch yet, but I'm anticipating it. Vargas and some other annoyances aside, I'm usually able to do pretty well up to difficulties of 75 or so. I got lucky with some earlier pulls (Several 5* swords including Save the Queen; Golbez' armour; a couple of great rods) and I'm doing pretty well with abilities (I recently made Protectga and Shellga) so I'm in a decent position for now. I am however feeling the sting of loss harder than I used to, with growing stamina costs and fewer refills. It gets very tempting to drop a Mythril once in a while, but I've avoided it so far. Anything that isn't going on pulls is going to ability/inventory space (which is annoying, but whatever).

author=Craze
Yeah, pretty much. Good roll on that spear, though!

I recommend saving up your mythril for supposed lucky banners (1/2 off) coming soon. Anniversary and super super soul breakfast are coming up!

Trying to work out if "soul breakfast" is deliberate or an autocorrect thing. Then trying to work out if it's a "really good food" sort of breakfast or a "Shang Tsung" sort of breakfast.

author=Craze
I'd much rather have it on my tablet

Maybe I should dig out my tablet... I can grudgingly deal with the laggy inputs that pop up from time to time "Oh, you tapped Cecil for a microsecond? Clearly you intended to press down on him with intent and examine his stats, not transfer him to your party!" but what really gets me is when I'm trying to scroll through lists of things and it keeps going "Oh, you want to look at Thundara? Oh, you want to look at Blind? Oh, you want to look at Comet?" So annoying.

Yeah, I had a pull like that in Kefka's event. Except I had 3 4-stars, which I guess is slightly better than 2.

Once per banner, you can pay just 100 gems for an item draw. If you're gonna spend money, that's what you should spend it on, not an 11-pull. It's one fifth the price of spending cash on anything else. It also helps put a hard limiter on how much you can spend, so you don't fall into a trap of wasting hundreds of dollars on the game.

I've probably spent about twenty dollars that way over the course of the nine months that I've been playing. Only about half the banners interest me at all, and of the ones that interest me, about half the time I have enough self-control to not spend a dollar.

My white mage options are excellent right now, because I have uniques for Yuna, Rosa, and Y'shtola. Because of her limited equipment, Y'shtola tends to always be primary white mage, but I'm able to bring Yuna as summoner or Rosa as support (her attack power is actually pretty similar to the other ranged supports) as backup, either just for a Shellga slot or for a clutch group heal. I was very interested in getting Lenna's Hastega/Boostga staff this event, but oh well.

I haven't put any thought into my Necrophobe party yet. It'll probably just be a very standard, dictated by my weapons/armor. He seems like a buff and smash type of boss, that just gets a little hectic early on. He's vulnerable to elements so I'll basically just grab spellblades that can equip spears, daggers, axes, and bows... which is a bunch of them.

Current quest system disappears in a few hours. Am I the only one here with 100% completion?

I completed every main quest except for crafting Mug Time. Which is a pretty useless skill, so I guess that's fine. None of the 5-star skills that had quests were really worth crafting though, especially since the quest rewards for them were so bad.

I also completed exactly zero bonus quests.