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Captain Baal
Oct 23, 2010

I Failed At Anime 2022


Fate/Grand Order is a mobile game for IOS and Android devices released in Japan in 2015. It follows the story of the Chaldea Organization, a laboratory that recruits magicians and scientists for the purpose of preserving the "common sense of humanity" aka stopping weird magical nonsense from screwing with the human race. They essentially existed as a military organization meant to make sure the timeline isn't messed with and in 2015 found a disturbance in a timeline known as "Singularity F" which is centered in the Japanese city of Fuyuki in 2004. Chaldea recruited masters to investigate the singularity and correct the singularity. FGO is a phone game that has gained massive popularity in Japan and even gained a significant player base over the last two years in several parts of the world that have followed the Fate franchise. It branched out to china as of Fall 2016 and is finally seeing its way to North American shores as of June 25th, 2017. So since that is happening it only feels appropriate to make a thread for this weird, stupid, but fun and cool mobile game.



The Fate Franchise

The Fate franchise originates in 2004 when Fate/Stay Night was first released on PCs in Japan by Type-Moon. It tells the story of Shiro Emiya, a magus pulled into the fifth Holy Grail War centered in his hometown of Fuyuki. In this war, 7 different magi known as Masters each contract a heroic to fight for them. Should this master and servant stand above the rest as the victors then they will be granted a wish by the Holy Grail. Shiro is pulled into the war against his will and contracts the servant known as Saber to fight with him. The story of Fate/Stay Night tells three different stories that play out depending on Shiro's choices and the choices those around him make. Fate/Stay Night would become a massive success and attain a huge following over the next 11 years with a multitude of other stories, ports, anime, video games, and even some movies that expanded the story and setting of the Holy Grail War further. A lot of these are represented in Fate/Grand Order, even stuff that isn't directly related to Grand Order like another Type-Moon property known as Kara No Kyokai has representation in this game. If you are not familiar with the series, but are interested in FGO there are a decent number of resources out there to familiarize yourself with everything or you can just experience the game on its own. You don't really need to know everything about Fate to enjoy FGO, but that being said something must be said about this sort of thing...

FGO and spoilers

Fate/Grand Order has been out in Japan for two years now with a decent chunk of americans who were initially interested in the game playing it through that. Due to this a good chunk of the game's story stuff is already out there. If you wish to not spoil yourself on the game's story and events you should probably be cautious of what you look for and what websites you use. FGO's storytelling is generally considered to be pretty great for what is a phone game. The character interactions, silly rear end events, and how certain singularities can play out are generally anticipated by fans of the game since so much craziness can happen and it's always fun to experience. Not every part of the game is solidly written of course, but the game makes an effort to make you care about its characters and do a lot with what they've got to work with. So any of the gamers experienced with FGO already, I would request you chill out on posting wanton spoilers for certain storylines until they drop or mark them at least. That being said, servant identities are fair game because it's not like servants aren't immediately dropped with their full names revealed with a few exceptions far down the road. It should go without saying that anything from the series over the past 13 years is in this game and they don't care about you not experiencing it already, they will spoil it. If you care about this then you might not want to read this thread as I'm saying anything from over the past decade plus of content is fair game to discuss. This includes servant identities, plot details, whatever.

Gameplay


FGO is a turn-based jrpg. You get servants from the gacha, you use them to build a team of 5+1 Support servant from a friends list, and then you run through missions with enemies in them until you kill the enemies there. Your team is on the right side of the screen, while the enemy team is on the left. You have a frontline of 3 servants and should any of them die, your backline will fill in. When all 6 of your servants die, it's game over. Every servant has three skills, a health bar, an NP bar, and 5 command cards that are varied between three different categories: Quick, Arts, and Buster. You choose three of the five cards in your hand to decide your attacks for that turn. Quick earns you critical stars which can be gathered for the next turn to have a chance of dealing critical damage, Arts are for building the NP gauge more, and Buster is the meant to be your most damaging attack. The cards you get are 5 cards randomized from the 15 cards between your three servants on the field. As shown above, Alexander has two quick cards, two arts cards, and one buster card. So when his five cards are pooled with the other 10 cards from the other two servants that means Alexander has a 2/15 chance of seeing either quick card, 2/15 of seeing either arts, and 1/15 of seeing the buster card on the hand. A big part of the game is team building as well since specific servants synergize well with others. For instance if you wanted to see more quick cards to earn as many crit stars as possible, then you would build a quick based teams as that not only enhances your probability of seeing quick cards but it effectively makes it so every turn you're gonna be doing critical damage if you build right.

The game does reward synergy as well. If you chain together three cards of the same type, then you will receive bonuses. The bonuses for each type are different: chaining Quick together earns you 10 crit stars for free, chaining Arts together earns 20% NP gauge increase for all servants involved, and chaining Buster together increases the damage done. Also there is a first card bonus in a chain where depending on what card you pick first, the other cards will be influenced by that card. So if your first card is Quick the other cards will generate more stars than usual, Arts is more np gauge, etc. If the same servant chains together three cards of the same type it becomes a Brave Chain and they get an additional attack card. Critical Stars are dropped whenever an enemy is attack, certain servants can generate more stars than others and have skills that can influence this as well. Every star is divided randomly among the five cards in your hand and each star adds a 10% chance to your command card doing critical damage. You would need about 50 stars to guarantee all of the cards received a 100% chance at critical damage. NP is short for Noble Phantasm, a servants super attack essentially that is normally an attack of some sort that is influenced by a significant part of their story or life. The NP gauge needs to be filled to 100% to use a servant's NP and whenever you enter the attack screen their NP will be a card above the other five cards with one of the three command card types and can be synergized with the hand for chains, but it can't be influenced by first card power up, so it's usually better to place it as the first. There is also a special mechanic known as overkill where if an enemy keeps being attacked after its HP has been reduced to 0 the attacking servant will receive more NP and generate more crit stars. Also fun fact, once you click the attack button to prepare your attack, you cannot go back to the battle prep screen so if you need to do something either wait until your next turn or close the game and reconnect to the fight when you start the app back up.

Stages are usually structured in waves of three enemies, usually with two normal battles and a boss battle with an enemy servant known as a Fatal Battle. These are not hard rules, but is generally the most consistent type of mission. There is a third type known as Grand Battles though which contain story/event unique bosses that are not necessarily servants and usually signal the end of that specific storyline.

Classes

Pictured above is the class system as of March 2018 in Japan. I will be leaving this here since not only is it gonna be necessary for JP players, but US players should also probably be aware of certain classes that will get dropped later.

The classes in FGO are based on the classes from various Fate series. The most classes that were seen in the original holy grail war are the Three Knight Classes of Saber, Archer, and Lancer and the Four Horsemen Classes of Rider, Caster, Assassin, and Berserker. Shielder is a class that originates in FGO, everything else comes from supplementary material of some sort. The class descriptions are all pretty self explanatory, it is worth noting that the series does play fast and loose with the servant classes sometimes and you get some weird technicalities like Florence Nightingale as a Berserker, Queen Medb as Rider, and Kojiro Sasaki as an Assassin.

In FGO the classes matter as they are the foundation by which servant weaknesses and strengths are decided by. Generally servants weak to specific classes take double damage from those classes and servants strong against certain classes take half damage from those. There are three class triangles with outside classes influencing these triangles. The first Triangle is the Knight classes: Saber, Archer, and Lancer. The Saber Class is strong against Lancers which are strong against Archers and it's brought full circle with Archers being strong against Sabers. Then there is the second triangle, the Horsemen. Riders are strong against Casters who are strong against Assassins who bring it around by being strong against Riders. Berserkers sit outside of the general class system by everything being weak to them taking 50% more damage from Berserkers, but they are also weak to everything taking double damage from every class except Shielder and other Berserkers.

Outside of the traditional seven classes, sit the Extra-type classes. These classes have servants in them that do not fit the basic mold and qualify as weirdos who found their way into being servants through bizarre circumstances and being significant enough people to warrant it. First is Shielder class, the only class to debut in FGO and houses only servant. It is a class that is weak to nothing and strong against nothing, it has defensive based skills and that is its only defining feature. Next is the Extra Classes Triangle: Ruler, Avenger, and Moon Cancer. Rulers are a class defined by being mediators in the Holy Grail War. They are servants deemed worthy to be summoned directly by the Grail itself and typically tend to have been saints of a sort in their life. They are weak against Avengers and strong against Moon Cancer and have an inherent resistance to the normal six classes (Saber, Archer, Lancer, Rider, Caster, and Assassin) reducing their damage by half. The Avenger class is a class populated by people defined by hatred For one reason or another these people were chosen to bear the sins of humanity and as payment for their suffering they have been granted great power, but also a thirst for revenge against those who've wronged them. The Avenger class is strong against Rulers, but weak to Moon Cancer, and specific story enemies are also weak to them. Finally, the Moon Cancer class. This class is populated by one servant right now and it is personified as an erratic program that existed in the core of the Moon Cell, a super computer housing a holy grail war in its own system. It is an error that infests the Moon Cell hoping to use it for its own entertainment. Moon Cancer is strong against Avengers, but weak to Rulers. The last Extra servant are Alter Egos, alternate personalities and traits split from their original identity. They do not exist as proper heroic spirits, but instead as personifications of emotions and wishes of others. The Alter-Ego classes is strong against the entirety of the Horsemen classes, but do half damage to the Knights classes, they receive normal damage from both with the exception of Berserker.

Foreigners are a newer addition to the class lineup. They are those who have gained power from a realm beyond human understanding and crossed over into another dimension entirely. The class has two servants right now and they are both weird and don't follow any real gimmick other than being tentacle people. The Foreigner class has the most specific set of match ups to this day and it follows: Foreigners are strong against berserkers, weak against alter egos, and strong against themselves.

Servants and Development


Servants are Heroic Spirits. People who existed at one point in time brought forth from the Throne of Heroes to fight for magi. They don't exclusively need to be historical figures, they can be literary, urban legends, mythological, or even heroes of the future. These are your playable characters in Fate/Grand Order, you will use them to build your team and fight off enemies to protect the timeline. Servants are obtained through the gacha with the exception of Shielder who is your only servant that is given to you for free at the start of the game. Servants level up through being fed EXP cards that are obtained in a number of ways: Doing missions, trading in event drops, friendship gacha, and more. You can also boost max stats using Fou cards and NP level by levelling that up with a copy of the same servant. It increases the potency of the NP and also gives it overcharge, which increases the maximum amount of NP gauge from 100 to 200 to 300 at NP level 5 which is the max level for NP. Overcharge adds special effects and attributes to the Noble Phantasm than if it were at 100%. Beneath every servant's experience bar there are 4 four stars that denote the the amount of times a servant is able to break their level cap AKA Ascension. A servant's initial cap can have 10 more levels added onto it four times before it fully caps out and this varies by servant rarity. There are 6 different levels of servants that all have varying level caps and stats.

1-Star Servants - Bronze Servants, they cap at levels 20, 30, 40, 50, and max cap at 60. These servants are the weakest in the game, but are mostly used because some of them have skills and NPs that make them worthwhile in certain teams. Can only be obtained from the friendship gacha, only 6 exist in the game and none are going to be added beyond those 6. Can only be burned for QP. Tend to not be resource intensive for ascension and skill levelling making them easier to level
2-Star Servants - Also Bronze, they cap at levels 25, 35, 45, 55, and max cap at 65. These are above 1* in stats and levels, but are more or less the same even in utility. Can only be obtained from the friendship gacha, only 11 exist in the game and none are going to be added beyond those 11. Can only be burned for QP. Require a few more resources than 1* to fully level, but are still easy.
3-Star Servants - Silver, they cap at levels 30, 40, 50, 60, and max cap at 70. These are the middle of the road servants, or they seem that way. Some of the best servants in the game exist in this rarity and can even outclass higher rarity servants even if their stats aren't as good. Can be obtained from both the friendship and quartz gacha and sometimes freebies for story clearing. Is updated alongside story updates and occasionally events. Can be burned for both QP and Mana Prisms. Require a decent chunk of materials to level fully, be careful about who you invest your stuff into.
4-Star Servants - Gold, they cap at levels 40, 50, 60, 70, and max cap at 80. Gold servants are what you'll most likely be dropping quartz for and you will definitely be getting more 4*. 4* servants are more often than not strong servants that are going to make up the bulk of your team since they not only get good max stats, but really great skills that are meant to be the start of a team's foundation and these servants also tend to be the more popular ones. Can only be obtained from the quartz gacha and certain ones can be free rewards for events. Can be burned for QP, Mana Prisms, and a Rare Prism. Requires a lot of of materials to level fully, be very mindful of your investment.
5-Star Servants - Also Gold, they cap at levels 50, 60, 70, 80, and max cap 90. A lot of what I said about 4* apply to these too, but these are the big boys with a much smaller drop rate and have some of the most busted servants in the game. You will be aiming for these the most and probably be yelling a lot of swears when you don't get them. Can only be obtained from quartz gacha or trading in 10 saint graphs (This is not easy). Can be burned for QP, Mana Prisms, and Rare Prisms. Require an insane investment in to fully stack on all fronts. You are gonna need a lot of QP, Ascension Materials, Skill Materials, and time to bring them to their full potential.
0-Star Servant - Black, caps at levels 25, 35, 45, 55, and max cap at 65. The servant that exists in this rarity is a double-edged sword with abilities meant to be both harmful to him and his opponents. He is an incredibly rare drop in the friendship gacha, but is ultimately just a fancy 2*. Everything about them applies to him too. There is only 1 servant in this rarity, it is unknown if they intend to add more.

Every servant also has a new change to their sprite or card art with the exception of the second ascension. Limited 4* servants also don't change their sprite at all but they do get the card art change at level 4 ascension.

Every servant is different and rarity in this game is not the determining factor if said servant is good or not. Some servants work well in certain teams together, while some just don't function well at all. Even in Gold rarities there are bad servants that most people would never use over some bronze or silver servants, because said servant's utility might be so niche to the point of being unusable in most situations. Every servant has a various set of things to help them and the team with a fight and all of these things require resource management to bring the full strength out of. We've already talked about EXP, but there are other things to level up. First is skills, every servant has three skills, and these skills are all levelled up with the use of materials gained through random drops from missions, trading in event drops for specific ones, or even as rewards for some missions. The amount of bear asses you will need are gonna vary too depending on the servant's rarity. While a 1* Servant could need 3 bear asses, the 5* servant probably needs 20. It is worth levelling up skills as not only does it increase the potency of the skill, but it also reduces its cooldown until it can be used again. On top of that, is QP. QP is the in game currency gained by doing any missions and used for pretty much anything that actually modifies your servant whether it be levelling up, skill levelling, ascension, etc. If it makes your servant stronger it will require QP. Finally, the last levelling mechanic is Palingenesis or more commonly known as, Grail Ascension. This requires 1 holy grail and a hell of a lot of QP and allows you to break the max level cap of a fully ascended certain that is levelled to the cap. It will require a various amount of grails to ascend to 100 depending on the servants rarity. Grails will break the level cap, by 5 levels until the servant reaches 90 then it will break it by 2. This means you could be looking from needing 5 grails to 11 depending. You can earn grails through finishing Story Singularities and some events give them as rewards for finishing their stories as well. It is a good way to bring some lower rarity servants up to a level you might want them at and try to match their stats to a naturally gold servant.

There is one more servant development mechanic and it is Bond. Bond is levelled through gaining BP after missions. The first five bond levels reward you with more info on your servant, more voice lines, and even unlock interlude missions that can further power up your servant (You absolutely want to do these). Bond is required not only to further get to know your servant better, but also to make them even stronger. After level 5, Levels 6-9 grant you with Quartz and Golden apples and Level 10 is the max level and rewards you with a bond CE, getting through 6-10 requires an absurd amount of BP though. Speaking of CEs, those are more well known as Craft Essences. Craft Essences are essentially equipment used to power up your servant more. A servant can only have one equipped at a time and they have varying effects that range from worthless to godlike. CEs from 1-3* are all obtainable through the friendship gacha and 3-5* are obtainable in the quartz gacha and events. CEs also have ascension that is done by levelling up the CE with the same CE and can reach the cap of 100. When fully ascended, a CE's effect will be boosted in some way and be even stronger. It is a general rule though that anything that isn't 5* is not worth keeping and should be used to level up your CEs or burned for QP and Mana Prisms. Certain 4* might be worth keeping though, depending on if they're directly replaced by a 5* CE of some sort or not.

Master and Development


These are the player characters. When you do the story, you will pick from either a boy or a girl. This master character is the one summoning all of the playable servants and is the one all of the story centers around. That being said, you do not take an active role in combat. The Player Master's role is to put the party together and support them with skills and command seals. However, the Master has their own development, but it is much more simple than the servants. Missions cost stamina, in order to get more stamina the Player Master levels up by doing missions and gaining exp for level ups which increases the stamina bar by 1 every level. Right now the Master Cap is Level 140 making the current cap 148 AP, the highest amount missions can cost is 40 AP. AP is not the only thing that increase upon Master Levelling. You also increase the party cost by 1 every time as well. A big part of early game is gonna be understanding which servant and ce rarities cost what and how you can build your team around that. Current cap sits at 112 since cost starts to scale hard after Master Level 100. You can also increase your friend list by 1 every level allowing you to have a larger pool of support servants to borrow. Finally, there are Mystic Codes. Mystic Codes are different outfits the Master can wear. These not only have the effect of changing your Master's character sprite, but they also give them different skills that they can use to support their servants in battle. Each Mystic Code caps at level 10 and levelling them increases skill potency and reduces cooldown just like servant skills, you level them the same way you do the Master, by just getting exp from doing missions. Speaking of skills, your master also has three command seals that can be used to do a number of things. 1 can be used for full HP restoration, 1 for filling the NP meter by a 100%, or if you have all 3 those can be used to revive your team should all six of them fall in battle with both full hp and 100% NP gauge.

The Gacha, Drop Rates, and the Unlimited Salt Works


Alright, so let's talk about the elephant in the room, The Gacha. FGO's gacha is a special kind of gacha in that it hates you and wants you to fail. There are two separate gachas normally, story and friendship. The Story Gacha is a gacha that can always be rolled with Quartz and Gold Tickets for servants and CEs of 3-5* rarity. In order to roll on the story gacha you need 3 Quartz for a single roll and 30 for a 10 Roll. A single roll guarantees you a 3* at lowest, while a 10 roll guarantees you at least 1 4* CE or Servant. Quartz are the paid currency of the game that you can spend money on or you can obtain quartz for free through doing missions, master missions, daily logins, event rewards, maintenance apology gems, etc. Another way to do rolls on the quartz gachas is golden tickets, which can be obtained in many of the same ways as quartz can, but also can be bought in the mana prism shop, but you can only do single rolls with golden tickets. The Friendship Gacha is a gacha that can always be rolled, but you need friendship points. These are gained by using support servants from random people also playing the game which you have to do, so these are mandatory gains. In this gacha you can get 1-3* servants, CEs, exp cards, Fou cards, and the incredibly rare 0* Servant. You need 200 to roll 1 and 2000 to roll 10, 10 guarantees you nothing special in the FP gacha. The FP gacha will mostly be used by you at first while you're figuring the game out, but after you get every servant from it 200 times over you will slowly stop using and only ever roll the quartz gacha most likely. The Story gacha is not the only quartz one though, there are event/limited gachas that allow you to roll for servants on a rate up. Rate up is weird in this game because the way drop rates work, you have a very low chance of getting the rarity you want to get.

3* Servants and CEs both drop at a 40% rate individually, 4* Servants drop at 3%, CEs at 12%, 5* servants at 1%, and CEs at 4%. So what this means is you will rarely if ever see a 4* servant let alone a 5*, but the gacha on a 10 roll at least guarantees a 4* CE or Servant, so you aren't as completely screwed on the 4* as you are on the 5* So as I was saying, your chances of getting a 5* servant are always 1%, that's it. What the rateup effects is the servant you get if you do hit the 1%. If the marquee servant is Gilgamesh and you hit the 5* then you have an incredibly high probability of getting him. Again, it's not guaranteed you can still roll some other 5*, but that possibility seems to be incredibly low. All of this applies to a 4* servant as well. A good thing to note is that when the gacha animates to show what you received, it gives you tells as to what you get before you get it. If one ring appears on the summoning it's a CE, if it's three then it's a servant. If Gold or Rainbows orbs show up that means you're getting a gold servant. If a silver card you get starts crackling with lightning that means it's going to transform into a gold servant of that type. You can also still pull gold servants with no tell, but it seems they went out of their way to make the moment you obtain a gold servant more exciting. Gold CEs don't have anything like this, but that's probably for the best.

You are guaranteed 1 of 10 4* star servants from your first roll in the prologue though.

We don't know anything yet about how Aniplex is gonna price quartzes in the US, so that'll be tba for now.

Resources
Fate/GO Cirnopedia: An up to date wiki with a lot of detail and links to some other resources you might find worthwhile
Fate/GO Wiki: Not as detailed as the Cirnopedia link, but it has some translated servant lines and neat stuff in it.
Aniplex USA Youtube Channel with trailers of FGO on it and Aniplex's anime
Official JP FGO Website
Official US FGO Website: Beware of weird rear end sentences in this one
ADTRW Type-Moon Thread: Where we've been discussing FGO the past two years and occasionally whatever other stuff Type-Moon has been doing

FGO is always updating and changing

This game has been out for two years at this point. It started out ROUGH. The game moved at the pace of a snail in molasses, it barely ever had worthwhile new content, the gouging of players for money to try and get servants they liked was insane, the game looked like rear end with a bunch of reused animations, bad looking sprites, and it just wasn't a very fun game to do anything in. It was one of the worst kind of low effort cash grab gacha games and was poorly rated to the point where it averaged 1 star on the Japanese Apple App Store. Two years later the game's one of the most beloved mobage on the market after going through a ton of QoL changes, a better understanding of what the fans want, new daily missions that actually give us poo poo we need to improve servants, story content that's meaningful and feels like it has work put in, and cool new servants to get excited for. They're even updating old servants to have better looking animations and sprites and to have stronger skills so servants that were bad don't remain bad forever. The game still has some annoying poo poo like the incredibly low drop rate for gold servants, how hard it can be to get quartz, and there's been a lull in new content on occasion in 2017 as of late, but it's not the worst thing at this point. The game requirement an investment, it is a loving ongoing game after all, but it's worth it if you get yourself into it.

With US release, I'm hoping a lot of people who were waiting to play it do enjoy it as much as I and a lot of others have. It seems like the US version is gonna get a lot of the QoL stuff that the JP version has by now including the daily missions, strengthening quests, and servant sprite updates. So it won't look like a cheap piece of poo poo on release and look like a game that had actual love and care put into it. I hope the US release is able to update with content pretty consistently, but not much is really known about the localization team Aniplex has on the game. So anything could really happen, especially with the holiday based gachas they seemed to talk about like the 4th of July where there would be specific gachas for the US version, that the JP one didn't have, but it wouldn't be so drastic as new servants.

Kinoko Nasu, one of the founders of Type-Moon and the creator of the series, described FGO at one point as "An abandoned race track that we built from the ground up. Warts and all, we've come a long way since then and turned into something special." and it's a pretty drat apt comparison. The developers at Delight Works have put a lot of work into the game and it's cool to see the game has come this far.

Anyways the game comes out in 11 days, hope everyone has fun with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMx3LY-ZMXs

Captain Baal fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Mar 20, 2018

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Captain Baal
Oct 23, 2010

I Failed At Anime 2022
Servant Ratings and poo poo
10 tutorial 4* Servants (Endorph).
Base Game Servants (Part 1): Shielder and 1* Servants (All of these are Baal)
Base Game Servants (Part 2): 2* Servants - Lancer, Rider, and Caster
Base Game Servants (Part 3): 2* Servants - Assassin and Berserker
Base Game Servants (Part 4): 3* Servants - Saber, Archer, and Lancer
Base Game Servants (Part 5): 3* Servants - Rider and Caster
Base Game Servants (Part 6): 3* Servants - Assassin and Berserker
Base Game Servants (Part 7): 4* Servants - The Leftovers
Base Game Servants (Part 8): 5* Servants
Okeanos Servants (Endorph)
Halloween, GudaGuda, and Scathach servants (Endorph)
Welfare Servants: Santa Alter and 2016/2018 Part 1 (Baal)
Welfare Servants: 2016/2018 Part 2 (Baal)
London Servants (Endorph)
:siren:ORION (Baal):siren:
Mahabros, MHX, Fionn, Beowulf, and Brynhildr (Baal)
Void Shiki, Chaldea Boys 2016, and the Count of Monte Cristo (Baal)
America Servants (Baal)
Bride Nero, Jeanne Alter, and Fate/Zero (Baal)
Shuten-Douji, Sanzou, and Onigashima (Endorph)
Camelot Servants (Endorph)
Summer 2016/18 Servants (Baal)
Prisma Illya and Halloween 2016/2018 (Endorph)
Babylon Servants (Baal)
Shinjuku Servants (Baal)
CCC Servants (Baal)
Agartha Servants (Endorph)
Summer 2017/2019 Servants (Baal)
Shimosa Servants (Baal)
Salem Servants (Endorph)

Goon Community Stuff
Friend list
Goon discord

Servant Schedule Stuff
JP Servant Rate-Up Schedule

:siren:FAQ:siren:

STARTING FGO

How should I start the game?

You get a tutorial roll after the second story quest in Fuyuki that lets you get a guaranteed 4*, if you are lucky you can get another one from this roll too. Generally, the money servants right now are Emiya or Heracles. After you get past another mission or two, you have complete control of what you can do from then on.

What should I reroll for?

Emiya and Heracles are the big hits, but Carmilla is also pretty good in her own right. Really, you're only going to want to reroll if you get Siegfried or Marie. They're both probably the worst of the 4* you could get. You also should have a good number of quartz to do your own actual roll thanks to release window rewards. If you want to roll at this point you can potentially get one of 5 different 5* servants. If you don't get what you want reroll. If you can wait until you finish Fuyuki you can roll again and try there or reroll after you fail there.

Which 5* is good?

Waver, Vlad, and Jeanne are good, Altera and Artoria (Altria) suck.

Waver and Jeanne don't do any damage, why are they considered good?

Due to how new NA FGO is right now, you are not gonna see these servants at their full potential right now. So a lot of servants like Waver, Jeanne, Carmilla, etc. Aren't going to be as instantly gratifying as say, Heracles and Vlad who run the gently caress over everything. However for the long term servants like Waver can hard carry teams with his supporting abilities, Jeanne has amazing sustain on arts teams with her NP once the stun is removed, and Vlad is actually going to only get worse as the game develops and then get better once his skill buffs settle in too. Artoria and Altera never really get better, but if you need Saber NP nukes for EXP clearing, they're not bad for that.

EXP Clearing? What's that?

In the daily quests, you have "Ember Gathering." These are quests meant for the sake of gaining EXP cards to feed your servants to strengthen them. The daily quests consists of a servant of the Three Knights, a servant of the Four Horsemen, and Berserkers. You will only be able to get EXP cards from the enemy class types that are in the quests for that day and then they'll reset after a day to a different two servant classes and Berserker. There is one day of the week where EXP cards from all classes can be obtained in one run, but that is generally not one to go for when you get further down the road due to class exp bonus.

Class EXP Bonus?

Whenever you feed a servant EXP cards, if you feed them a card of their class-type they will gain more EXP than if fed one of another type. This also exists in the All-Type EXP cards where you feed these cards to literally any class and they will get the EXP boosts, even Extra-Class servants who don't have their own EXP cards yet. Generally, the 30AP is the safest option that will allow a support servant only to carry you through the drat thing. 40AP is gonna be a little bit trickier, but if you play hard to the triangle advantages with well levelled servants (Read: Multiple Level 30-40 Servants), you can pretty feasibly do it.

So do I generally want to hoard these for the appropriate servant types?

Early game? No. Servants level up incredibly quickly when given anything at early stages of the game, it is best to just level up your servants as high as they can be ASAP since they'll cap early as the game isn't gonna have most of its ascension materials for them to fully cap for a while. Late game, you're going to want to probably spend only their class type in 4* exp cards, since the EXP required to level up gets high enough to the point where anything below 4* barely makes a dent in it. Not that the divide is so big you still can't use other class type EXP cards to help. Extra classes are just going to need to given any EXP cards, All-Type 4* exp cards aren't super common outside of events and monthly mana prism shop rewards.

What are mana prisms?

Mana Prisms are an extra currency in the game that are obtained through burning cards (Second shop option) of 3* or higher rarity, rewards for daily quests, or eventually event shop items you can get through trading event drops for. You can spend them in the mana prism shop for Golden Tickets, 4* All-type EXP cards, 3* Fou cards (Stat-Boosters for HP and ATK), and anything else that might be in there due to events happening.

What is the most consistent way to gain Mana Prisms?

Right now, it's mostly burning 3* Exp cards because they're really easy to get. You can get them from 30AP dailies easily and the FP Gacha. Burning 3* CEs is also not a bad idea, but you might want those more for levelling CEs than anything else.

So how do I want to spend mana prisms?

Always get tickets first. Fou cards and EXP cards are obtainable through other means (FP Gacha and Dailies respectively, with both having event shop presence as well), but tickets are always highly limited and are actual rolls on the main gacha. They're only single rolls and can't be used for 10 rolls, but they are still rolls on the gacha and no matter how hosed the RNG is, it's still better to first dump tickets in the slim hope of possibly getting a servant or CE you want than dumping all of your quartz immediately. The shop resets every month and it only costs 100 MP for all 5 tickets, which is a decent amount at first, but as the game goes on that will be a drop in the bucket.

Should I just spend tickets if I feel like it?

I'd recommend saving tickets like you save quartz. Hoard them until a servant you want has a rateup on the main gacha, then go ham until you get that servant or run out and cry yourself to sleep. What I tend to do is save quartz and spend tickets on things that catch my interest a little if I feel like pressing my luck with single rolls. I have obtained 2 5* and some 4* through this method and I'm sure others can vouch for tickets getting them quite a few gold servants as well.

Should I just spend my quartz doing single rolls too then?

I mean the rateup on servant rarity doesn't change depending on whether you do single rolls or not so you could do that, but hoarding quartz until you have enough for a 10 roll at least gives you a safety net of getting a 4* CE or Servant at minimum. Unlike single rolling where you could single roll like 8 times in a row and get the same loving 3* CE for the fourteenth time.

What is the FP Gacha?

The FP is the Friend Point Gacha, which a gacha solely spent around using friend points. You obtain friend points whenever you do a quest and pick a servant from the list. You get 25 FP from when you use a friend's servant and 10 if you use a servant from someone who isn't a friend. During the story quests they will sometimes give you a story support to use and these give 200 FP and are generally a good way to rack up some quick FP, but you also are left to the mercy of your team since these servants tend to not be amazing. There's a CE that adds 75+ FP to any time to do a quest so that might be worth having on someone for a little bit. Another easy way to gain FP is to have a servant people really want to use in your support list.

What is the Support List?

Go to party menu, click on the second option that says "Support" and you'll see 8 open slots (9 if you're on JP). Here you will put a servant you have of each type for other people to use and get you some nice FP off of. Do everyone a favor though, TAKE YOUR loving MASH OUT OF THE MAIN SLOT. Idgaf if she's your waifu, no one's gonna use your drat support or even probably look at your support list because they think you're newbie player who still hasn't figured out how supports work in this game. Your main slot is the first one everyone's gonna see, make it like a job interview and leave a good first impression with a servant you'd think people would want to use there, then fill the rest of the slots appropriately. Btw, once you get to late game and your Mash is level 80 and full stats you can put her in the main slot if you want and people will prob look at you at that point because you made the effort to go all the way and not have the starter servant barely touched and just left in there.

Here's a tip if you want a lot of FP Quick: Herc, Emiya, and any 5* are that are gonna net you a lot of friends and FP at this early stage in the game, give them decent CEs too, people are looking for you to carry them more often than not at this early of a stage.

How relevant is the FP Gacha?

At first, very. It's the only way to get Bronze servants who are gonna help fill out your party at first (And some of those servants in their own right are very good) and it's a way to get silver servants that isn't spending quartz or tickets. As time goes on though, you WILL fill out NPs to max, you WILL obtain all of the Bronze servants, and you WILL get sick of managing your vaults of lovely bronze exp and fous and ces for the millionth time and just begin to ignore it. Only when the 0* Servant and event CEs happen more does the FP Gacha become relevant again and that's still not really worth the hassle sometimes.

What do I do with multiple copies of a servant?

Feed them to the same servant for NP levels, once you max their NP levels to 5 then just start burning them for QP and MP depending on the rarity. This is all you can really do with multiple copies of a servant unless you are spending so much cash you actually get saint graphs from 5* servants, in which case enjoy your selectable 5* servant.

What are blank saint graphs?

Blank Saint Graphs are a thing that only apply to whales or massively lucky people. What happens is if you manage to get a 5* to NP5, any further copies of that servant will become one BSG. JUST ONE. If you keep getting the same 5* enough to get 10 BSGs, you can trade these in for a 5* of your choice relative to what is in the gacha at the time including limited servants.

What is a CE?

Craft Essences are equipment for you servant. They have a cost of their own and come with a variety of effects that I am not going to list out one by one. Here's a tip though, anything that isn't a Gold CE, burn it or feed to your gold ces. 4* and 5* CEs are the only ones that matter and later 4* will become irrelevant as you get higher cost and accumulate a shitton of free 5* event CEs.

Are there any CEs in particular I should look out for?

Kaleidoscope, Piece of 2030, and Volumen Hydrargyrum are the big three as far as insanely useful ones go with effects that aren't as easily replicated by other CEs. The latter two don't come until later though. General rule for Gold CEs is if it buffs card types, crit stars/damage, NP gain/starting NP gauge, or any combination of those it's really good and worth using. poo poo like debuff resistance and crap is bad and the only characters debuff immunity are good for are servants who have crippling demerits like Jeanne's Self Stun from her NP that isn't going to be fixed until they put in her NP interlude from recent JP updates.

How does team building work?

It depends on what you want to do. Team synergy is a thing that is based on a multitude of factors like skills and card types and how well those synergize with each other. For instance, Hans and Waver work very well together. Both have arts cards up the rear end, both have very good skills that support a team, and both have good arts based NPs that respectively buff the team and debuff the enemy. Put a DPS with these two and watch the damage stack up. If you want an easy team comp though, then just go ham with card synergy. Quick Teams get a lot of stars easily and more often than not have skills to enhance crit damage so everything dies and rebuffs crit stars, Arts get NP very easily so NP spam is a thing, and Busters are pure damage and tear through everything with little effort.

Do I need to wait on AP to refill or are there other ways to refill it?

AP is refilled at 1 point per 5 minutes. You will not be worrying about this later, but early game it's not incredibly obvious what you can do to keep going. So basically, the way to keep up on AP in JP right now is through Apples. Later on, you're gonna get apples which refill your stamina bar depending on the kind, but most of what you'll get are gold apples which refill it by the maxmimum amount of AP you can have. OVerflow on stamina is a thing in this game which means if you max ap is like 50 and you only have 10ap and then you use a gold apple, you have 60 AP you can use right now. Another to way to get AP is by levelling up your master or by spending quartz which does the same thing golden apples do.

What is a good way to master level?

Early game is very easy to master level. Legit all you do is do the 30AP or 40AP dailies and you will keep getting enough AP to consistently level up and fill your mouth to the brim with ap constantly while max raising your AP at the same time. This also raises the max number of friends you can have on a friends list and if you're doing the EXP quests, it's getting you easy exp to level your servants. You can keep doing this for a while and once you're able to do the 40AP consistently then you can just get like 15k master exp every single time which is a significant amount for early game. It will drop off after a while at which point I recommend you do story quests, but it's up to you from there.

What is QP?

QP are points you use to strengthen servants whether it be through levelling them up, ascending them, levelling skills, stat boosting, or grailing. You get them automatically by doing missions, but you'll be getting the bulk of it through events and the dailies. The 40AP Treasure Vault Daily is pretty easy if you have riders to bum rush it with since the doors are always caster servants. It gets you 1mil QP per run, which is a lot for early game and should keep you set for a bit.

What is grailing?

Palingenesis as it's referred to in game, is the act of increasing a servant's level cap using a holy grail and a lot of QP. When a servant is fully ascended and levelled, you are allowed to grail them which raises their level cap by a set amount. It will always take five grails to raise the servants max level cap regardless of their rarity. Once this is done a servant's border can actually change to that of a higher rarity servant when they reach the minimum cap that is associated with that rarity (Bronze turn into Silver at max cap of 70, Silver becomes gold at 80). This also puts a grail by the servant's stars, but it doesn't actually change the stars themselves.

So can 1* become as strong as 5* through grailing?

No. A servant's worth is ultimately determined by how strong their skills, np, and stats are and how well that works in a team setting. No matter how much you grail him, Spartacus is never going to overtake Heracles as a powerhouse. His stats will increase, but since he starts with 1* stats, his stats at the end will still be mediocre (See: Spartacus' level 100 attack of 7883 and Heracles' level 100 attack of 12901). I know I used a 4* there as an example, but Herc is basically a 5*. At the same time, someone like Hans benefits from grailing, not because of his attack stats, but because he gets more health which makes him harder to kill so he can do more stuff. The rarity divide also becomes muddled the closer rarities get to one another. For instance, Artoria Alter and Artoria are respectively a 4* and 5* saber class servant. Alter's max level is 80 and her max attack at this point is 10248. Artoria's max level is 90 and her max attack 11221. That's an almost 1000 point difference with two levels separating them, Artoria becomes the obvious better damage here. However, let's look what happens when both gold servants are grailed to 100. Alter's attack becomes 12408, while Artoria's becomes 12283. Alter overtakes Artoria's attack despite being an entire rarity lower than her. The divide is not nearly as big so the room for the previous rarity to potentially be stronger is there, but it's not always the case. Stat growth is decided by specific paths and some servants can up making up for it in the end compared to others who have linear growth. There are two factors that go into a character getting grailed...

1. Does this servant benefit a lot from using a Holy Grail on them to increase their stats even by a minute amount sometimes?
2. Is this servant my husbando or waifu?

Ultimately, grailing is not a do or die mechanic. It is normally used as a way to bring more status to characters you like, but sometimes it does actually have a lot of benefits in gameplay.

Btw, Heracles is one of the most commonly grailed servants in the game.

How do I get Holy Grails?

Through completing singularities and events. The latter doesn't come for a while though and grails are pretty rare overall, so you gotta be mindful of how you use them.

Is there anything missing from the US version?

There are a few things. Daily ascension materials aren't here, instead they've been replaced with the old ascension material quests from 2015 which aren't worth doing outside of master missions for the two quartz you get from it. There are also multiple servant animation updates missing that JP has right now as well such as

Cursed-Arm Hassan - Fate/stay night Heaven's Feel Premiere Commemoration Campaign
Kojiro Sasaki - Shimosa Summoning Campaign 2
Carmilla - Halloween 2017/2019 Event
Tamamo-no-Mae - 2018 New Year Campaign
Sakata Kintoki - Setsubun 2018
Queen Medb - Valentine 2018
Shiki Ryogi (Saber) - Kara no Kyokai Collaboration Event Rerun
Shiki Ryogi (Assassin) - Kara no Kyokai Collaboration Event Rerun
Mysterious Heroine X - Saber Wars Event Rerun
Mash Kyrielight - Anastasia Chapter Release
Siegfried - Fate/Apocrypha × FGO Special Campaign
Atalanta - Fate/Apocrypha × FGO Special Campaign
Mordred - Fate/Apocrypha × FGO Special Campaign
Brynhildr - Götterdämmerung Chapter Release
Edmond Dantes - Servant Summer Festival! 2018
Iskandar - Fate/Accel Zero Order -LAP 2-
Lancelot (Berserker) - Fate/Accel Zero Order -LAP 2-
Spartacus - S I N Chapter Release
Jing Ke - S I N Chapter Release



These will probably be added in the future when the chinese version gets them since the US version is probably based on that APK since it has all of the updates up to Emiya and Altera, but none of the ones after it. The same goes for some of the strengthening quests and interludes which are missing too.

Is there a way to back out of card selection after you press attack?

THERE IS NOW A loving BACKOUT OF COMMAND CARDS OPTION AFTER ALMOST THREE YEARS OF THIS GAME BEING IN SERVICE, NA still doesn't have it though



MEANWHILE IN JP FGO...

Captain Baal fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Nov 27, 2019

Pureauthor
Jul 8, 2010

ASK ME ABOUT KISSING A GHOST
I am going to spend so much money on the english version of this lovely grindy cash grab.

Argona
Feb 16, 2009

I don't want to go on living the boring life of a celestial forever.

Will I be able to understand the story if I don't know anything about the whole Extra timeline?

Captain Baal
Oct 23, 2010

I Failed At Anime 2022

Argona posted:

Will I be able to understand the story if I don't know anything about the whole Extra timeline?

You should be fine. Only the extra characters personal stories will refer to those games and the Extra CCC event, but the latter is super far off.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
Thanks for the big write up, FGO is far more complex than I ever imagined which is probably the price I am paying for intentionally trying to ignore it in the T-M thread for years thinking it would never come out in English. I was thinking of questions to ask as I read but it reached a point where I felt like it'd just be easier to give it a try and see where I fall then and there. For now...

Long story short though, my main concern is how possible it will be to permanently gently caress yourself. Play it for months until you reach a mission that requires a far different loadout than you currently possess, but maybe the nature of the story is such that you can't grind/level up a new roster. Are there always going to be "free missions" that you can run through to bring new or existing Servants up to snuff? I am sure I will figure this out as a play, but as someone who has never bothered with f2p or gatcha I am absolutely banking on my inexperience putting me on some bad paths.

I completely understand how limited events will mean that hey, you better log in to do poo poo during them, but how do main story missions work if I say can't play for a little while? Can I still, kinda sorta, play at my own pace?

Apropos of nothing, I hope I get Medusa and Gilgamesh because they're my favorites from FSN. So I already have something to be disappointed about when I obviously never see either.

Erg
Oct 31, 2010

im ready

InfinityComplex
Feb 5, 2011

Nothing better than swinging around a little girl like a flail.
Hurk


also

Nice job.

Captain Baal
Oct 23, 2010

I Failed At Anime 2022

Nate RFB posted:

Thanks for the big write up, FGO is far more complex than I ever imagined which is probably the price I am paying for intentionally trying to ignore it in the T-M thread for years thinking it would never come out in English. I was thinking of questions to ask as I read but it reached a point where I felt like it'd just be easier to give it a try and see where I fall then and there. For now...

Long story short though, my main concern is how possible it will be to permanently gently caress yourself. Play it for months until you reach a mission that requires a far different loadout than you currently possess, but maybe the nature of the story is such that you can't grind/level up a new roster. Are there always going to be "free missions" that you can run through to bring new or existing Servants up to snuff? I am sure I will figure this out as a play, but as someone who has never bothered with f2p or gatcha I am absolutely banking on my inexperience putting me on some bad paths.

I completely understand how limited events will mean that hey, you better log in to do poo poo during them, but how do main story missions work if I say can't play for a little while? Can I still, kinda sorta, play at my own pace?

Apropos of nothing, I hope I get Medusa and Gilgamesh because they're my favorites from FSN. So I already have something to be disappointed about when I obviously never see either.

I never feel like you can permanently gently caress yourself. I feel like sometimes certain missions might seem insurmountable, but for the most part I think a lot of the content in the game doesn't brick wall you with wanting you to spend more money. Half the reason for the this is with command seal and quartz revives, you can keep slamming your head into the problem until you finish the thing you're having trouble beating. The only things this doesn't apply to is missions where they don't let you revive with quartz or command seals which is mostly challenge missions and raid events. That being said, at some point you might come to fight where you realize your capabilities are very limited and you might need to rely on a really strong support servant to pull you through it. It's really gonna come down to you and how you feel about what's happening at the moment.

As far as story content goes, it never goes away until you finish it so you can play at your own pace if you want yeah. The events are the only things that leave for a while and even then they will rerun them at some point. Also Medusa is a 3* rider class at first and gets two gold variations later on. Gilgamesh is one of the best Archers in the game and is gonna be one of the first limited servants they drop and he has a silver and another gold variation, the latter is also really good.

UchihaHirou
Mar 8, 2007

Active Skill:
Solves all problems.
The other elephant in the room. Who's the best waifu? *pst* It's Iskandar.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry

Captain Baal posted:

I never feel like you can permanently gently caress yourself. I feel like sometimes certain missions might seem insurmountable, but for the most part I think a lot of the content in the game doesn't brick wall you with wanting you to spend more money. Half the reason for the this is with command seal and quartz revives, you can keep slamming your head into the problem until you finish the thing you're having trouble beating. The only things this doesn't apply to is missions where they don't let you revive with quartz or command seals which is mostly challenge missions and raid events. That being said, at some point you might come to fight where you realize your capabilities are very limited and you might need to rely on a really strong support servant to pull you through it. It's really gonna come down to you and how you feel about what's happening at the moment.

As far as story content goes, it never goes away until you finish it so you can play at your own pace if you want yeah. The events are the only things that leave for a while and even then they will rerun them at some point. Also Medusa is a 3* rider class at first and gets two gold variations later on. Gilgamesh is one of the best Archers in the game and is gonna be one of the first limited servants they drop and he has a silver and another gold variation, the latter is also really good.
I mean if you can throw money at the game (which is obviously in their best interest) to force yourself past an obstacle, then that's "OK" as an alternative. I was thinking of a situation where, yeah I could eventually roll for some 4* or 5*, but they'd start at a low level and would really need some battles to get to where they need to be, but welp there are no means to buff/grind them up because you have to do the story right then and there.

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

"According to Wikipedia" there is a black hole that emits zionist hawking radiation where my brain should have been

I really should just shut the fuck up and stop posting forever
College Slice
Some events I can sometimes end up scrambling to get some Servants leveled either because they had a specific kit needed for challenges like Ibaraki; Onigaishima, or Nerofest. Or because they gave bonuses for an event but were too weak level wise to field.

Luckily for us, we know in advance what the likely events are in what order, so perhaps we can level Servants appropriately for it; like I went and got Kintoki Rider to 80 for this event.

Raenir Salazar
Nov 5, 2010

"According to Wikipedia" there is a black hole that emits zionist hawking radiation where my brain should have been

I really should just shut the fuck up and stop posting forever
College Slice

Nate RFB posted:

I mean if you can throw money at the game (which is obviously in their best interest) to force yourself past an obstacle, then that's "OK" as an alternative. I was thinking of a situation where, yeah I could eventually roll for some 4* or 5*, but they'd start at a low level and would really need some battles to get to where they need to be, but welp there are no means to buff/grind them up because you have to do the story right then and there.

Well the XP system for Servants is independent of battling. You can just try to store up enough 4* XP cards for when you need to quickly level something up in a jiffy.

You never have to do the story; some story content is locked behind other content, but they throw special events at you making them cost less AP and so on whenever they are about to toss a new event that story locks you.

Motto
Aug 3, 2013

Space Flower
Sep 10, 2014

by Games Forum
im going to my idol game and a full party of Liz, i hope

Nyaa
Jan 7, 2010
Like, Nyaa.

:colbert:
People has videos of using only lower stars free/easy to get servants to beat the hardest mission the game can throw at you. It does need a little luck and good planning to pull it off.

Basically, this game have no pay wall and the five stars only makes thing easier than necessary for anything.

You will have the chance later to power up your lower star servant into five stars with a lower stat.

Compendium
Jun 18, 2013

M-E-J-E-D
I'm interested in how the English version is going to look GUI wise and how they're gonna handle the voiced dialogue in game. It's pretty cool how big FGO has gotten, I actually was in the camp of thought, thinking that this would never be released state side. I really hope people enjoy the story, this is the only mobile game I'm invested in and I don't know any other games that integrate a ton of game play and lore, unless it's a straight up VN.

Nyaa
Jan 7, 2010
Like, Nyaa.

:colbert:

Compendium posted:

I'm interested in how the English version is going to look GUI wise and how they're gonna handle the voiced dialogue in game.
The np title area will be removed for sub.

Pierson
Oct 31, 2004



College Slice
Been looking forward to this for a while, big FATE fan. Two questions:

How generous are the devs when it comes to IAP currency? Is it similar to Puzzle and Dragon where there is a small-but-steady drip of currency that lets you roll a few times per event, or is it far more stingy?

How much of the story content can be cleared by a non-IAP player if the answer to the first question is 'stingy as gently caress'?

Pureauthor
Jul 8, 2010

ASK ME ABOUT KISSING A GHOST

Pierson posted:

How much of the story content can be cleared by a non-IAP player if the answer to the first question is 'stingy as gently caress'?

The entire game can be cleared with F2P stuff. In between welfare 4*s and the large variety of good-to-great 3*s you'll be able to build up a good powerhouse team without spending a cent.

Compendium
Jun 18, 2013

M-E-J-E-D

Nate RFB posted:

I mean if you can throw money at the game (which is obviously in their best interest) to force yourself past an obstacle, then that's "OK" as an alternative. I was thinking of a situation where, yeah I could eventually roll for some 4* or 5*, but they'd start at a low level and would really need some battles to get to where they need to be, but welp there are no means to buff/grind them up because you have to do the story right then and there.

Like everyone mentioned, you can do the story at your own pace for the most part and the EXP missions are a separate thing you can do multiple times. Every battle you do, story or not, will also add to your Master EXP which means your AP increases which is really important in the long run.

And in all honesty, it doesn't take super long to level up your Servants. I might just be speaking from a comfortable and experienced position here, but I also say this as someone who's played the game in its vanilla JP state, when getting gold EXP cards was like pulling teeth. You'll be able to get the EXP you need for your Servants quite easily.

Nyaa
Jan 7, 2010
Like, Nyaa.

:colbert:
They also give out a lot of those energy recharge apple during event. I have 500 enegy bar worth or apples sitting in storage Or about 70000 extra energy for my lv with 40 being the highest mission cost.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice
Is this game friendly to emulator rerolling or am I gonna have to do it the slow way on my phone?

Velyoukai
Mar 4, 2011


I hate Suits. All of them.

cheetah7071 posted:

Is this game friendly to emulator rerolling or am I gonna have to do it the slow way on my phone?

Unless for some bizarre reason, the stateside release decides to be super easy-going, F/GO is pretty hardcore anti-emulation. Didn't used to be, but that's (as far as I know) the current situation on the moonrune side of things, which doesn't suggest much difference for stateside.

Space Flower
Sep 10, 2014

by Games Forum
[tweet]

Nyaa
Jan 7, 2010
Like, Nyaa.

:colbert:
F/go used to be very lax with the emulator, but after people cracked it for emulator, some people cheat by editing the script to make their servant do like 100x damage in mission. So we got to this hard to crack state now.

No one managed to crack the info so far, so we can't get the exact stats value of newer servants.

Velyoukai
Mar 4, 2011


I hate Suits. All of them.
With the 25th approaching and more veteran mobagers I know getting ready for reroll hell season, I figured I'd offer up a form for people to use during hell season instead of having to just roll endless madness all alone.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bVMl7cDqoJVoNpYv7bJtC_tWOX9EIztSENM0G7O8CWA/edit?usp=sharing

If anybody wants to use it, just post your name, a way to contact you, and what sort of Servants/CEs you're looking for. This way the SA community can just work together and nobody has to shell out $5-25 that could be better spent on terrible F/GO avatars on SA instead.

edit: hosed up permissions. should be good now.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
What's the benefit of setting it up? Can servants/cards be gifted to people? Do we have a list on what's available to roll, at any rate? I figured some of that was gated by story events.

Also pertinent, probably: how long is the prologue, exactly? For those that feel like going through it a couple of times to reroll.

Psiwri
Mar 8, 2012

"The Foecast today calls for dark clouds, booming thunder and F.O.E.s everywhere!"
The crux is that accounts can be traded around via bind codes, so if people are trying to go for something specific but get something else that's also nice but not what they want maybe they can coordinate with another.

Velyoukai
Mar 4, 2011


I hate Suits. All of them.

Nate RFB posted:

What's the benefit of setting it up? Can servants/cards be gifted to people? Do we have a list on what's available to roll, at any rate? I figured some of that was gated by story events.

Also pertinent, probably: how long is the prologue, exactly? For those that feel like going through it a couple of times to reroll.

The way GO works is each account exists on your device and is reloaded when you open/close as necessary. However, you can choose to bind your account, which is like creating a snapshot of it at the time and assigning that snapshot an ID so you could, hypothetically in case of phone exploding or just new phone, redownload GO and enter your bind code on the new device to get your old account back.

Seen here: http://grand-fate.tumblr.com/post/125427320164/binding-accounts-restoring-data

The Fuyuki prologue is maybe...20 battles, 8 nodes? Barring Alter being mean to you, probably little more than 20-30min w/ scene skipping. Probably faster once people get their Jeannes and Herks and Emiyas leveled a bit for Support Servants.

Nate RFB
Jan 17, 2005

Clapping Larry
So basically something of use for the initial prologue roll, but not much else (unless someone wants to trade/sell their account later on for whatever reason)? Presumably other things like MC gender would get carried over too, right?

Also what was the story with the "free?" Saber Lily people are apparently going to have access to? Would that come out of the prologue too?

Velyoukai
Mar 4, 2011


I hate Suits. All of them.

Nate RFB posted:

So basically something of use for the initial prologue roll, but not much else (unless someone wants to trade/sell their account later on for whatever reason)? Presumably other things like MC gender would get carried over too, right?

Also what was the story with the "free?" Saber Lily people are apparently going to have access to? Would that come out of the prologue too?

Barring weirdness, we're already slated to start with ~36 quartz for rolling right off the bat, due to events and promotions. Beating through Fuyuki -should- result in at least another 17 quartz, I think, with another 5 being fairly likely through another event / doing some of the next chapter. With the new QoL changes that we should start with, you can do a 10-roll (get 10 results) for 30 quartz (used to be 40). At the very least, that's each account right off the bat getting their prologue roll (for their 4*) along with one 10-roll and some singles. Dedicating more time or us being lucky with another event for more free quartz would mean 2 10-rolls, which is decent for a gacha game's odds.

In the Japanese case, Saber Lily was a card game event Servant or some such promo. Limited means of obtaining her. For stateside, it seems they're just gonna either give her away or give out her code (same way the free 4* Servant of choice event would work if we get that) for people to use early on.

Also, MC's gender is constantly fluid, as you can with no limit change your gender from rugged shonen Gudao to red-headed gacha-freak Gudako on whim in My Room. Though yeah, all your preset things like gender, name, etc would be carried over.

Velyoukai fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Jun 14, 2017

Nyaa
Jan 7, 2010
Like, Nyaa.

:colbert:

Nate RFB posted:

Presumably other things like MC gender would get carried over too, right?
You can change your gender anytime.

quote:

Also what was the story with the "free?" Saber Lily people are apparently going to have access to? Would that come out of the prologue too?
It will be given to all early player for maybe the first week or two. If we aren't getting it immediately, they will mail her into your in game mail later.

Schubalts
Nov 26, 2007

People say bigger is better.

But for the first time in my life, I think I've gone too far.
When you use a bind code at the start screen, you are moving that entire account over to your current device. Everything about that account carries over. Bind codes are one-time use, so after retrieving the account, you have to go create a new bind code. Bind codes also do not expire.

Velyoukai posted:

In the Japanese case, Saber Lily was a card game event Servant or some such promo. Limited means of obtaining her. For stateside, it seems they're just gonna either give her away or give out her code (same way the free 4* Servant of choice event would work if we get that) for people to use early on.

Saber Lily was a Japanese pre-reg bonus, but because it was only possible to get 1 copy of her, she became a reward for an in-game event later on.

Schubalts fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Jun 14, 2017

Stairmaster
Jun 8, 2012


You should all read f/sn its good imo

Velyoukai
Mar 4, 2011


I hate Suits. All of them.

Schubalts posted:

Saber Lily was a Japanese pre-reg bonus, but because it was only possible to get 1 copy of her, she became a reward for an in-game event later on.

Thanks.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice

Since shadowverse has used up all my gacha luck for the next lifetime, I assume I will roll at least 5 other people's desires before rolling my own, and will happily give them all away

UchihaHirou
Mar 8, 2007

Active Skill:
Solves all problems.
Is the reroll strategy then to play through the prologue and have basically 3 rolls?
- Guaranteed 4* roll
- Prereg bonus roll
- Prologue roll
When does the guaranteed 4* roll occur? Before or after the prologue? If before the prologue, should we be playing through the prologue regardless of the results from the guaranteed roll to get the extra roll?

Nyaa
Jan 7, 2010
Like, Nyaa.

:colbert:
The registration could also be signing up on a website like the Chinese version.

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Nyaa
Jan 7, 2010
Like, Nyaa.

:colbert:

UchihaHirou posted:

When does the guaranteed 4* roll occur? Before or after the prologue? If before the prologue, should we be playing through the prologue regardless of the results from the guaranteed roll to get the extra roll?
It is limited to 4* only roll. That should be before the prologue? It's been two years...

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