Hnnnnngggg Bandai dropped megatons for JP 5th anni!!!! Granted, I thought it would be underwhelming but I'll happily eat crows! So much stuff happening there, barely had time to check Global the last few days.
Loads of stuff to discuss about JP, will be a bit messy :
- The New Kizuna Mode
Been testing it for 2 days now, I wasn't convinced at first but I think it's pretty cool now and with a few tweakings, it's going to be a very good addition. First, I'd like to preface that it's a completely different flow than TM. TM is pure hardcore grind over a very short period of time and if you want to maximise your rewards, you have to play regularly for a very long time. Kizuna Battle is the exact opposite of TM, it's very laid back in its structure, you have to log in once every 10 hours and you can spend your 5 stamina bars/runs automatically in a button press, takes like 10 seconds (you actually don't have to run the super easy stage more than once, you're not even allowed to). That will earn you boss tokens which allows you to challenge Zoro/Sanji properly to get the lottery tickets. These boss tokens stack, you can save a pile of them until you have time to farm your Zoro/Sanji runs, it's highly convenient, very very player friendly.
And the Zoro/Sanji battle itself is very short with alot of teambuilding options. It's a 3 stages dungeon but the first two stages barely count : first stage will always max your specials (which is amazing, you can use any unit you pull, no need for skill up nor sockets in this mode), second stage is some kind of super easy mini boss that allows you to get your V2 Doffy/V2 Kata damage up or hit your 3 perfects for Snakeman orb boost. Obviously the final stage is the proper fight. It's not too hard once you have your teams, you can easily farm the highest difficulty if you have a decent box.
And even if you struggle, you never really lose thanks to the amazing co-op help snail system. It's working really well, after you die, you automatically send a call for help to all your friendlist and anyone can beat the boss for you (and the boss will only have as much HP as they had when you died). The helper will get half the ticket they would normally get for completing it themselves (but they don't have to spend anything to play the fight so it's free tickets when you help really) and you get the FULL amount of tickets once someone beats the stage for you. Just uncertain about the 30 mins CD after helping someone before you can help again but they might tweak that.
With the lottery tickets you amass you can pull from different pools (from 1 to 8, you start at 1, its got the worst rewards but you make your way up once you've got what you want from a specific pool) and overall the rewards are pretty nice. Only 1 gem per pool but you get plenty of lobsters, socket tomes, LB potions and even tablets in the latter pools, on top of extra copies of Zoro/Sanji and Barto. I think the rewards feel right, even generous, for the required amount of playtime and effort.
It's definitely not a world class/TM kind of grind, it won't replace TM down time, it's more of a laid back grind over a long period of time that you can do whenever you want. It seems beginner friendly since there are 3 different difficulties you can farm and also with the help snail system, you'll get your runs done no matter what.
Now, one big downside : to fully limit break your Zoro/Sanji, we need 30 LB orbs and we can only get 5 this time (if you grab all the rainbow chests from the reward pools). So it's probably a very long term project, this event last 10-15 days and it will probably come back every month, with brand new reward pools. So to get Zoro/Sanji at their max potential, it might take 6 months, which is an awful lot of time for a game like OPTC where we've always got our F2P units fully maxed out within a few days. Zoro/Sanji are completely broken with their 2.75x atk boost but it makes more sense if they are meant to be relevant in the meta 6 months from now.
2. 5th anni Dual Unit Sugofest
It's not the Revolutionnary batch I wanted and there's no Sabo/Koala. But a FULL batch of dual units? Yes please, that's as good as it gets! I love the fact they are having iconic duos from multiple arcs. Yes Luffy/Law and Doffy/Trebol are from Dressrossa but Alabasta, Impel Down, Water 7, Marineford, Whole Cake Island are all represented. I'm super hyped for Ivankov/Mr 2! And V2 Big Mom with her homies???? Someone here called it a few weeks ago. These artworks look incredible. I think it's super smart to release this new sugo batch with F2P dual units aswell, TM, Colo, Raid (finally Garp/Goku on JP) and the new free login Carrot/Chobro is actually pretty good for a giveaway unit with their universal 1.75x atk boost. I can't wait to see the sugo units details. It seems like we won't get as many free gems as last year but I should hit 500 or so by the time anniversary hits. Hopefully there will be 30 gems multis since the bait sugo has those.
It's great that they are giving 4 free multipulls on this bait Strawhat sugo, just wished Carrot was boosted aswell. <.<
I wasn't really convinced by the pre anni events but having every single raid return at half stamina AND having triple exp anni ship is actually amazing. Been finally able to max out the tougher raids like Capone and been working on the older raids like Fujitora, V2 Blackbeard since my F2P units suck on JP.
Now this is an Anniversary. I was going to start a JP account but i wont have time for both. Just gonna stick to global and be jealous for a year until our 5th anni. Dual batch is hype as fuck though. Cant wait!
Just saying, it's the perfect time to start a JP account with free gems, 4 free multipulls on the current sugo, extra islands half stamina, 0 stamina story islands and triple exp ship. <.< >.>
<--- need more friends who request help for Kizuna Battle
JPN talk first:
So the mode is out in JPN. It's... interesting?
First you get the beginner stages which you can buggy easily. BUT you can only run it once, then you try to run it again and you just auto-win to get rewards. Weird but whatever. You get ONE stamina every TWO hours, max of 10. That part stinks.
You do the basic stages to get items to challange the boss stages. 3 difficulties, and the last one is tough (my casual account can't beat it, but can beat the 1 and 2). Every time you beat it, the boss changes types. I actually like that idea, means you need multiple teams.
Also, if you fail (or if one of your friends fail) you send a snail to them. You can help one friend every 30 min I believe. Not sure how points work for that.
Not sure I have you in my friendlist on JP but if you can't beat stage 3, I can try beat it for you possibly ^^
I didn't like the 10h cycle at first but then I realised you don't need to use up stamina to fight Zoro/Sanji, you just need the stamina to auto the boss token farming stage. It's definitely a slower and more casual farm though. Feels like we're supposed to complete this over a few months instead of a few days. I do think they'll tweak it though. I hope they change the stamina timer to ONE hour instead of two but allow us to have 10 stamina max (instead of 5). I know for a fact from other games that having a max of 5 stamina with a cooldown of 1h per stamina recharge is not good because it means you're forced to play every 5h to get "maximise" your stamina usage. A 10h cycle is great.
Did only one multi since my teams are okay, got 1 new RR - Vito. He's a 1.35x booster this TM so that's alright in my book. I did want to do more for some of those legends but.... I'm fine waiting. Snakeman is coming soon, plus the "mystery" event, whatever that'll be.
JPN wise, the free multi got my Capone! That's awesome, but would have rathered him on my global account!
Grats on Capone, incredible luck again lol! He's one of my most wanted legends on JP since I own Zephyr and all the shooter subs but it's really Capone who makes them great. I got a dupe legend Robin on my first free multi and a couple new RRs overall but so far nothing special.