Introduction by Lyrian
Welcome to the thread!
Brave Exvius is a new Final Fantasy game, in the style of the SNES titles (IV, V, VI). That said, the game plays considerably different from the SNES titles, outside of combat. Combat in FFBE is equivalent to the Wait Mode ATB in these games (everyone acts individually in their team's turn before the opposing team gets their turn). In story and event modes, the player's team always goes first. In arena mode, the team that goes first is randomly chosen at the beginning of each new turn.
There is an original story with original characters. As the game is meant to last for several years, the story is considerably drawn out and may appear to be very slow moving (it at all) at first. As one progresses farther in Story Mode, the story becomes considerably more interesting. Please keep in mind that the story really doesn't begin to really get rolling until four or five islands into the game (Dirnado Isle or Olderion Isle), which can be a considerably long time for a new player. Please bear with the story until then.
The game belongs to a genre known as gacha, or lottery-style game. In this game, not only are there original characters, but the player also has the be ability to pull characters from other Final Fantasies (both heroes and villains) to join them on their team. This is a major draw of the game. On the flip side, as a lottery-style game, the more desirable or popular characters are often quite hard to obtain, and attempts at pulling for them cost a premium currency (lapis) in the game. A fair amount of lapis given to players over time for various events in the game (Brave Exvius is unusually generous in this regard compared to other games in this genre). Addiitional lapis can be purchased for real-world currency to fund additional activities in the game (refilling energy) or for more attempts at pulling rare units from the slot machine.
Various activities are also inserted into the game from time to time, that offer unique equipments, materia, spells, and so on that are not found in the story mode of the game. These can take the form of a dungeon from another Final Fantasy, an exploration of some kind, or a trial against a powerful boss (which is what everyone in the thread is passionate about at the moment as that is this week's challenge).
In this regard, you could think of this as a single-player MMO, as new content is constantly added to the game weekly and new chapters are being added to the story monthly.
Brave Exvius Basics
Units
There are 4 types of ways to acquire units. The first are the story units. These are
forced upon you, I mean
The second is the standard summon. The combat of the game has you using five units + a unit from someone else's game. When you use this unit you gain 10 friend points if that person is on your friends list, and 5 points if they're not. Furthermore, every day you can receive 10 friend points from the people on your friends list through daily gifting. Once you have 200 friend points you can spend these to acquire a 1-3 star friend point unit. These units are not that powerful long term, but some of them come with some great Trust Masteries.
The third method is the rare summons. This is the true gacha pool, and allows you to summon units from 3-5 stars. The greater the rarity the lower the odds are of summoning a unit of that rarity, but these units are usually more powerful on a fundamental level.
- Blue Crystal = 3* base = 80% chance to occur
- Yellow Crystal = 4* base = 19%
- Rainbow Crystal = 5* base = 1%
Summons cost 500 lapis or 1 rare summon ticket. Each day you can make 1 summon for 250 lapis. You can also make an 11 unit summon for 5000 lapis, which guarantees the first crystal to be at least yellow, and increases your chances of a rainbow crystal to 5%.
How it feels sometimes
The forth and final way to acquire units (at this time) is through events. The conditions for obtaining the unit will vary with each event.
It's also important to mention that units can be upgraded, and are not stuck at their base level. Currently the highest a unit can go is 6*. If you wish to know the maximum rarity of a unit use the Exvius wiki (linked below).
Lapis
Lapis is the in game currency. You can acquire this via:
- Daily Quests. Everyday there is a list of quests that you can complete for certain rewards. If you complete 5 of the 6 challenges you will be given 50 lapis.
- Missions. These are challenges that come with every quest.
- Trophies. These are challenges that you will complete by doing generic tasks throughout the game. These are usually long terms challenges, but the reward for completing each one is 500 lapis.
- Real World Currency. The reality is that this is a gacha game, and in order to obtain a substantial amount of lapis in a short period of time you will need to spend money. It is very possible to be F2P and be able to complete all the content, but remember that it's important to spend your lapis wisely.
Every Friday a new event is added to the game. These usually follow the theme of the new banner and also last 2 weeks.
Mog King Events are a grind type event. You take on a boss and every time you defeat it you gain a special event currency. This currency can be traded into the mog king for prizes. Materials, tickets, exclusive gear, the list goes on. Having the corresponding banner units in your party will give you a bonus amount of event currency upon completion.
Exploration Events are a one time clear event in which you must traverse through the map and defeat the boss at the end. These will usually give a single prize at the end, though there are smaller prizes throughout the map.
Raids. Currently we have only had one of these. They are not your typical MMO style raid, and are closer to the Mog King events. You simply have to defeat the boss, but rather than obtaining currency you gain points. Prizes are given at set total point thresholds, and there are two prize ladders. One for your individual point total, and one for the point total of everyone currently playing.
Because of the weekly events and banner changes there is usually maintenance every Thursday.
How it feels when maintenance is done and a new event begins
At some point you will experience this
Trust Masteries
You'll notice that each of your units have a percentage that occasionally goes up after a battle. This is their Trust Mastery. These are can be powerful items, spells, or abilities, and as such some units are sought after purely for their trust mastery. Units have a 10% chance to gain a 0.1% increase every battle. This is not something you need to worry about too much early game, but when you are ready there is a more detailed guide linked below.
Ability Awakening
As the game progresses older and less powerful units become outclassed by the newer and stronger units. However Ability Awakenings allow older units to increase the power of some of their abilities. In order to do this you need Ability Awakening Crystals and Gil. The crystals range from 5 levels and come in various colors (see below). The level 1-4 crystals can be farmed from the Chamber of Gems in the Vortex of Desires, and the level 5 crystals can be obtained through various events. Each unit and move will require different gems to awaken them. If you wish to see what Ability Awakenings your units will obtain in the future and what materials you will need then please follow across' guide below. Note that the data is based on the JP version of the game so Ability Awakenings may vary in the GL version.
Useful Links
PantherLotus and Valentus (with a small contribution from Alkez) have put together an all purpose guide in order to help new and old players with any questions that they/we may have. Below is the link to that guide, as well as other useful resources.
We're a friendly community here, so any information that you cannot find simply ask and someone will provide you with the information you require.
Exvius Wiki
FFBE Reddit
Unit Calculator
Valentus' YouTube Channel
TM Farming Guide/ NOX Macros
FRep Guide (Macros on an Android Device)
Attack Frame Data
GL and JP Weapons and Armour List
Disclaimer and ExviusEra Motto
It's important to remember that at the end of the day this is a gacha game. The summons you make are purely RNG. No unit is guaranteed and no one is owed anything in the eyes of the game. The game has no honor system so your odds of getting a better unit do not increase over time. You simply have to roll with the punches and work on making the units you have strong. For these reasons we believe in the following motto here on ExviusEra :
Pull for banners, not for units.
(OT copied from the previous Era one with minor modifications, credit where it's due)
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