The 4* focus thing should be a mainstay feature, especially when introducing new units

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, Crux404 said:

Never stopped to think that people would care for non-focus 5 star. I guess that random +ATK/-DEF Rein CAN be really nice.

Having the a chance at getting a Hector, Amelia, or Ike from a green pity breaker (even if it's only a 1 in 6 chance of getting one of them) (and Barst from the 3-to-4-star pool) makes me happy every time I see a banner with a focus green.

 

46 minutes ago, GinRei said:

Alternatively, it helps keep you from being spooked too often, and when you ARE spooked it's at least a contained pool so you have a decent chance of getting a dupe and increasing its power.  And the story-locked units are basically limited (only pull from their rate-ups) with the option to test your luck/whale at any given time for a miniscule chance at obtaining them outside of rate-up.  Honestly not really any different from trying to get any other non-focus unit, other than that they cannot spook you.

Then again, this might be bias due to Dokkan Battle where the 5-star pool (as of the time I quit) was over 150 units.

From my experience (no hard numbers, experience mostly comes from the single-class rate-ups last year where Servant summons were almost exclusively of that class), it appears that rate-ups in F/GO are just a large multiplier to the pull rate (probably around 10), meaning the spook rate actually wouldn't be that different if most of the limited characters (the ones that aren't obvious event characters like the swimsuit variants, collab characters, and such) were made permanent. There simply aren't enough characters to dilute the pool enough, and even if there were, they could simply increase the rate-up multiplier to compensate since they don't publish the actual value.

[Othin]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

November is the only month so far that has not had a new character banner where one of the characters dropped to 4-star rarity, so that statement's really only accurate for the past 2 months, which is somewhat misleading.

As it stands, we're probably not getting one in January either since every character in World of Dawn has a personal weapon, but that has yet to be seen.

Fair enough. I suppose it's more accurate to say that we're currently getting at most one addition to the 4* pool per month now, and sometimes not even that, with the exact frequency being unclear.

[Reiska]

Thinking on this more, I'm coming around to the idea that they're testing the waters on no longer dropping any units to 4-5* at all, but instead having all focuses be available at 4* AND 5* while they're a focus.  Which would be interesting, if so.

[Othin]

14 minutes ago, Reiska said:

Thinking on this more, I'm coming around to the idea that they're testing the waters on no longer dropping any units to 4-5* at all, but instead having all focuses be available at 4* AND 5* while they're a focus.  Which would be interesting, if so.

No, that'd destroy their revenue. Even on a 12-character banner, that'd make it way too easy to get the focus unit you want.

[Refa]

The first part of that sentence is definitely true, though.  One new 4* a month if we're lucky, what a joke.  Thank god for GHB's and Tempest units.

[Reiska]

8 minutes ago, Othin said:

No, that'd destroy their revenue. Even on a 12-character banner, that'd make it way too easy to get the focus unit you want.

I get the feeling that they're walking a fine line on this one.  Many of the friends I have playing this game are on the verge of quitting because they can't get the focus units they want.  I've considered it myself, because I typically only get a single actual new character added to my barracks from the gacha about every month, and the game is getting really, really stale as a result.  For all practical intents and purposes, my primary team for most content has not seen a change in either its unit composition or its builds (outside of the addition of weapon refinery bonuses) for six months, because in all that time I have pulled nothing that could improve it despite sinking every orb we've gotten into banners.

You're obviously not wrong that it'd have an effect on revenues, but it's also true that bleeding too many players destroys revenue too.  So in that respect, it's all a delicate balancing act.

I also have one friend who is F2P and only pulls on banners anymore for 3* and 4* units, because she's convinced herself running highly merged characters is the only way she can keep up with the game's progression (she's trying to manage tier 20 arena as an F2P) - 5* focus characters are of essentially no use to her because she can't pull them in quantity enough to merge them ever.

Edited January 18, 2018 by Reiska

[Othin]

13 minutes ago, Refa said:

The first part of that sentence is definitely true, though.  One new 4* a month if we're lucky, what a joke.  Thank god for GHB's and Tempest units.

GHB and TT units also seem to be on thin ice. We just went two months without a GHB, and while we're in the middle of the first mini TT with a new unit, it follows the first full TT without a new unit. I think we can expect TT units to go the way of GHB units in having new units show up less and less and get replaced with a bunch of reruns, so they can keep cutting back on bothering to make extra new units that don't help sell orbs.

14 minutes ago, Reiska said:

I get the feeling that they're walking a fine line on this one.  Many of the friends I have playing this game are on the verge of quitting because they can't get the focus units they want.  I've considered it myself, because I typically only get a single actual new character added to my barracks from the gacha about every month, and the game is getting really, really stale as a result.  For all practical intents and purposes, my primary team for most content has not seen a change in either its unit composition or its builds (outside of the addition of weapon refinery bonuses) for six months, because in all that time I have pulled nothing that could improve it despite sinking every orb we've gotten into banners.

You're obviously not wrong that it'd have an effect on revenues, but it's also true that bleeding too many players destroys revenue too.  So in that respect, it's all a delicate balancing act.

I also have one friend who is F2P and only pulls on banners anymore for 3* and 4* units, because she's convinced herself running highly merged characters is the only way she can keep up with the game's progression (she's trying to manage tier 20 arena as an F2P) - 5* focus characters are of essentially no use to her because she can't pull them in quantity enough to merge them ever.

If people unsatisfied with the game quit, they miss out on whatever money those people might have been willing to spend in the future. Also, whatever decrease in their playerbase that causes might make it a bit less appealing to other players and hurt their revenue that way.

If they make it easy to get all the units without spending anything, they lose all their money, and Heroes dies almost immediately because they stop being able to afford making new content or even keeping the servers up.

There's certainly a balance they need to walk, but some moves they could make are absolutely the wrong ones.

[EricaofRenais]

I think they do need to add units to the 4* and 3* pools just so that summoning is not so boring, as to how they should go about it I don't know.  My main problem with summoning is that it is very hard to get new units for me, since the pools are so bloated it is very hard to get a focus unit the last two banners I stopped pull because I kept getting off focus 5*s.  They need to keep adding new units to keep people playing, if they keep dropping the rate new units are added then their money will dry up.  They need to find a balance with adding units, if they have to keep the same pools and just keep putting 5*s in the pool then I think they need to raise the focus unit pull rate to a higher percent then the regular 5^s.

[Othin]

3 minutes ago, EricaofRenais said:

I think they do need to add units to the 4* and 3* pools just so that summoning is not so boring, as to how they should go about it I don't know.  My main problem with summoning is that it is very hard to get new units for me, since the pools are so bloated it is very hard to get a focus unit the last two banners I stopped pull because I kept getting off focus 5*s.  They need to keep adding new units to keep people playing, if they keep dropping the rate new units are added then their money will dry up.  They need to find a balance with adding units, if they have to keep the same pools and just keep putting 5*s in the pool then I think they need to raise the focus unit pull rate to a higher percent then the regular 5^s.

The off-focus 5* rate doesn't change at all based on the number of 5* units on the pool. It's always 3% unless the banner or pity rate specifies otherwise. I think you've just been getting unlucky.

[EricaofRenais]

30 minutes ago, Othin said:

The off-focus 5* rate doesn't change at all based on the number of 5* units on the pool. It's always 3% unless the banner or pity rate specifies otherwise. I think you've just been getting unlucky.

Maybe, it just seems like the 5* pool is so big now that it is easier to get an off focus unit then a focus one.  I will admit that my luck is probably not the best though.

[GinRei]

1 hour ago, Ice Dragon said:

From my experience (no hard numbers, experience mostly comes from the single-class rate-ups last year where Servant summons were almost exclusively of that class), it appears that rate-ups in F/GO are just a large multiplier to the pull rate (probably around 10), meaning the spook rate actually wouldn't be that different if most of the limited characters (the ones that aren't obvious event characters like the swimsuit variants, collab characters, and such) were made permanent. There simply aren't enough characters to dilute the pool enough, and even if there were, they could simply increase the rate-up multiplier to compensate since they don't publish the actual value.

The spook rate would probably be the same, yes.  Reroll bots have tested it and the rate-up rate is generally around 70% for 5-star Servants (though the Desire Sensor decides to strike hard when you want it to the least... freaking 6 spooks while rolling Ereshkigal before accepting NP2 was as far as I'd get this time).  But anecdotally I feel like the larger the pool gets, the more I've gotten spooked.  Or maybe it's just the "high profile" units that have lower rates, as those are the ones that I got spooked on (Holmes, Ereshkigal, Jeanne Alter).

[Hilda]

4 hours ago, Refa said:

The first part of that sentence is definitely true, though.  One new 4* a month if we're lucky, what a joke.  Thank god for GHB's and Tempest units.

Oliver isnt so great for a GHB unit. His skills are meh to inherit and his weapon is utter garbage besides if you want some shiny animation going on. I am really surprised why his weapon has nothing going. Would have been nice to have some kind reversed Berkuts Lance Tome but instead of RES with DEF for mages or so

[Othin]

29 minutes ago, Hilda said:

Oliver isnt so great for a GHB unit. His skills are meh to inherit and his weapon is utter garbage besides if you want some shiny animation going on. I am really surprised why his weapon has nothing going. Would have been nice to have some kind reversed Berkuts Lance Tome but instead of RES with DEF for mages or so

It's unexciting, but it's the first 5* "silver" blue tome: the only weapon that's been missing its fully upgraded silver weapon since Soren added Rexcalibur+. We still don't have anyone with Thoron+ because Thoron has only shown up as the predecessor to a 5* legendary tome, so with Micaiah introducing Shine in the same role, it makes sense to cover that gap with a new character rather than having Shine+ join Thoron+ in being missing.

[Refa]

1 hour ago, Hilda said:

Oliver isnt so great for a GHB unit. His skills are meh to inherit and his weapon is utter garbage besides if you want some shiny animation going on. I am really surprised why his weapon has nothing going. Would have been nice to have some kind reversed Berkuts Lance Tome but instead of RES with DEF for mages or so

He's not great, but I appreciate having new units that I can actually use at all.  Making him Micaiah but worse is a bit of a faux pas, though...

[Armagon]

10 hours ago, Reiska said:

Say, for example, a new Sacred Stones banner that has, like... Marisa, Gerik, and Tethys as 5* focus units, and then also has Eirika/Ephraim/Amelia/Innes/Seth/Lute as 4* focus units, or something like that.

That would just make it easier for you to be spooked by 4-Stars though.

 

I like the idea but it'd probably be best for it to be used on non-new banners. Like the occasional "Heroes with X skill" banner.

[Humanoid]

Was so disappointed when I saw Oliver wasn't an armour mage.

[Callisto]

I like the general idea of this banner, and it provides great odds for the 4* focus units. 11.84% for Klein is quite amazing considering how much good fodder he has. Hinata also has quite a good rate of 12.87%. 

I hope they do more banners like this, and hopefully they'll include a good mix of units.

[Crux404]

3 hours ago, Hilda said:

Oliver isnt so great for a GHB unit. His skills are meh to inherit and his weapon is utter garbage besides if you want some shiny animation going on. I am really surprised why his weapon has nothing going. Would have been nice to have some kind reversed Berkuts Lance Tome but instead of RES with DEF for mages or so

 

1 hour ago, Refa said:

He's not great, but I appreciate having new units that I can actually use at all.  Making him Micaiah but worse is a bit of a faux pas, though...

Why people are bashing on the MOST BEAUTIFUL ANGEL on the planet?  CAN YOU NOT SEE TRUE BEUATY OR ARE YOU ALL JUST JEALOUS?

Oliver and Michaiah have the same BST (151), with him giving up on 8 SPD,  3 ATK and 1 RES for 7 HP and 5 DEF. Granted, effective Damage is  very meta; but the refined Shine+ can give as much Res and 2+ HP. Oliver thus can run Raven/TA/Bowbraker(or Swordbreaker)/Ploy set effectvily. He has a lot of problems, like the lack of Boon/Bane (he would like a SPD- one), an A skill not supporting his role (Mirror strike for an EP hero why?), not having merges and not being armored (it would give acess to some B skills and more bulk); but he is kinda optimized for his role (Robin does not have much RES and Lute/Linde/Michaia have low HP)

[Troykv]

24 minutes ago, Crux404 said:

 

Why people are bashing on the MOST BEAUTIFUL ANGEL on the planet?  CAN YOU NOT SEE TRUE BEUATY OR ARE YOU ALL JUST JEALOUS?

Oliver and Michaiah have the same BST (151), with him giving up on 8 SPD,  3 ATK and 1 RES for 7 HP and 5 DEF. Granted, effective Damage is  very meta; but the refined Shine+ can give as much Res and 2+ HP. Oliver thus can run Raven/TA/Bowbraker(or Swordbreaker)/Ploy set effectvily. He has a lot of problems, like the lack of Boon/Bane (he would like a SPD- one), an A skill not supporting his role (Mirror strike for an EP hero why?), not having merges and not being armored (it would give acess to some B skills and more bulk); but he is kinda optimized for his role (Robin does not have much RES and Lute/Linde/Michaia have low HP)

Which abilities would you give him anyway? I mean, he isn't bad... but is really weird... reminds me to a Wrys with an actual Attack Stat xD

Edited January 19, 2018 by Troykv

[Reiska]

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

That would just make it easier for you to be spooked by 4-Stars though.

 

I like the idea but it'd probably be best for it to be used on non-new banners. Like the occasional "Heroes with X skill" banner.

I already get constantly spooked by 4* units, at least this way I'd be able to merge some of them effectively.

Statistically speaking, on the current Micaiah banner, I have a 93.41% chance of pulling a dupe with every new pull anyway.  I wouldn't terribly object to making specific 4*s much easier to pull from time to time, since specific 4* units are the least likely things to be pulled in the pool that actually have a realistic chance of showing up at all.

[Crux404]

@Troykv He is weird indeed (but we love him anyway). The closest units in the game is Robin (M)-, which has more SPD and def but less ATK and RES- and Winter Tharja- which he is basically a discount infantry version of (having a few stat bumps and no defense).

If I were to use him in the arena today (and had infinite orbs) I would choose the following set:

Blarraven+/Shine+

Drawback

Iceberg

Fury/Triangle adept/Atk/Res bond/ Mirror Strike/ Deathblow

Desperation

Atk ploy (or any other)/Optional

Brash Assault 3

The idea of this set is essentially to bait an Archer or a red unit to get him low enough and proceed to murder everything. Technically any other mage can run this set (and others have high attack), but it fells safe to not die trying to get in the Brash range. Triangle Adept is to kill any Colorless (without Cancel affinity) or red unit without (much) support. Fury, Atk/Res bond and deathblow are options if you have other units that can buff his attack against blue units. He tends to trigger ploy skills with his high res and ATK ploy fits his "I want to reach desperation range" . But he would be MUCH better as an armor, because the extra defensive stats would make easier for him to survive (and ditch Blarraven against archers) and would grant access to the _____ fighter skills, which would synergize with his low SPD.