User blog:Fairingrey/Thoughts 8-29-14: Opinions on gameplay. Also updates on my end.

''Come… I will give you a night-long talk. ― Nyx''

Opening
As usual, check out my other blog posts if you are new to my writing.

Hey guys, never thought I'd write another one of these blogs so soon, but here we are. Tonight, this post is going to cover some things that I wish I could say more concisely, but when I do it usually ends in a little drama because I'm too serious or some shit like that.

So today, we're going to finally shelve it in the history of my little blog that I keep updating and building on top of with the help of some friends here and there to assist. Right now, I will advise you that before you think any different of me (since people usually do), these are my thoughts and opinions. They certainly don't reflect anything objective on my end, that's for sure. I'm a very opinionated person.

This isn't a guide, by the way. If you were looking for guides, defer to my other posts instead. This is more in the way of actual thoughts.

Opinions On Gameplay
I've written in previous blogposts and sorts that there are certain things to be wary about while playing, and I will admit that most of my blogs are aimed towards and concerned with players that want to get good at this game. They certainly aren't aimed towards casual players or players that just seek to get the event cards and whatever good SR drops for them while they throw every one of their free jewels at getting R cards out of Premium Summon.

Whatever the case, that's a definitely true point. Why are my posts aimed towards rankers? Why do I seem so obsessed with it? I'm going to elaborate on what keeps me playing this game, and how other people might see things. And probably most of all, I'll try to write a post that's aimed towards all players.

A Certain Method to Madness
So let's talk about the alliance for a bit.

As most people in the game can probably guess and/or know, Athena's Fury is a very active alliance usually chock full of active rankers playing almost every event, among which the arguably most famous members are me, Bobkyou, and Kelerik. Now there are a ton of reasons why AF is how it is, but most of it could probably be attributed to how much we uphold our requirements to every member in our alliance, with some leeway granted to members who are busy with other things here and there.

But see, sometimes the opinion that "having less strict requirements will allow more promising people to join" can also be true at times. Sure. Sometimes, because of how strict we are, we turn away some people that could've been very promising members yet haven't reflected that yet.

Yet on the opposite side of the coin the opinion that "having more strict requirements will attract more promising people to join" can also hold true other times, maybe more often than not. And this is mostly how it's worked for the past events or so since we've enacted a new policy for the alliance.

Are we strict? Yeah. Do we have a good reason to be? Probably. But its only because that people hold themselves up to this requirement that everyone has a jolly good time having FAWs thrown back and forth in the alliance and are able to rank considering the matter of time. There's more concerning why a FAW sharing alliance might be something you want to consider in a previous blog post of mine here.

Whatever the case, there are definitely different ways of seeing things. Most alliances have their own agenda and their own way of running things, but its a matter of preference, really, of what an alliance leader and his/her/its own members wants to make a focus on. AD is certainly a large focus for some alliances, and FAW sharing is another large focus among alliances like ourselves.

This way of thinking isn't just reserved for alliances, however, but just as a general metric for any sort of player. Most of us all, to some degree, think more highly of those who spend their jewels carefully and enjoy the game for what it is by playing it actively enough to have a high all time rank. It might come off as pretentious to say that we judge this way, but its hard to escape from the fact that we do indeed prefer people like those. Those who do often send more and are also more likely to stick around the game for quite some time instead of quitting the game or going on long periods of inactivity without warning.

The "Fun" Factor
People play for a lot of different reasons. Some play to get top tier cards (such as URs, whether from ranking or lucky summons) while others play just for the sake of enjoying the game for what it is. And most if not all of us, hopefully, like cute girls. Those of us in Athena's Fury are all about cute girls. We even play other games with cute girls in them in addition to this one.

But really, there are a lot of different reasons to play this game. There are also a number of different ways to enjoy the game. There are those who play the game just trying to get lucky with UR pulls from summoning with their free jewels, and there are others of us that play the game just for what it is.

However, I like to believe this game is more than just "throw your money at premium summons and get cute girls".


 * There are reasons URs exist, for example, however luxurious one may find them outside of their art. URs are useful because they have a rather high stat cap and their skills oftentimes are the best that this game can offer. They're meant to be used in very strong teams.


 * There are reasons people rank, however God-awful and annoying one might say ranking is because of the lack of sends or a pretty lazy alliance.

Let me iterate, Nubee probably didn't have the rest of Valkyrie Crusade's gameplay past Premium Summon just for the sake of having it be 'there'. I don't hold a particular grudge against people who play this game trying to make cute kingdoms and aim towards a more casual-social experience with their alliance and comrades, but it takes away from the experience, however boring or shitty it might be. I recently had a conversation about this in one of the chatrooms I was invited to by a friend of mine, and apparently someone got pretty salty over this shit.
 * There are even reasons why some people appreciate the 'build your own kingdom' mechanic in this game so things aren't just limited to "Oh my vitality points recharged, guess I'm going on another battle".

Well, whatever.

"Gambling" for cute girl summons with your free jewels isn't "playing", let's get that out of the way first. If you want cute girl art, go on pixiv or something, save your money, save your time, save your patience and frustration, and save your breath. As I've mentioned before, there's more to this game than "gambling" on cute girls since there's a LOT more cute girl art on pixiv or any other imageboard you happen upon and there are a lot better games than this one if we're not talking cute girls on a mobage.

If you want a solely social experience, fair enough. Just make a LINE or Skype conversation. But for whatever case, it's a little bit annoying to other people in your comrades and people around you if they're seeking active comrades for ranking or getting event cards and you pop them a request thinking they'll accept you on a whim and see you not playing at all.

But on that note, why do people like them add?
 * Because of friendship. Fair enough, but if your friend doesn't play very much if at all, what's the point?
 * Because of random visits. I never really understood this, but some players, oddly enough at the level 70+ mark with an abhorrent lack of Magic School and Yggdrasils, with a terrible peak rank to boot, will try to add.
 * Because 'potential'. Don't quite know how to feel about this, but some people just do, and there might be some kind of instrument for measuring this.

I'm comrades with a lot of people and some of them are certainly very fun to interact with, but I do hold certain somewhat high standards for them despite not as active of a player as I used to be. If I like someone I encourage them to be friends with me outside of the game, and if I happen to dislike someone or see that they've gone inactive, then I delete them. Easy as that.

In short…

Enjoy the game however you want, but understand other peoples' situations when they decline your request or application or delete you from their comrades for whatever possible reasons that may come about.

The Free v. Paid Debacle
Man, this stuff has been gone over tons of times, but I'm going out on a leg to provide my opinion because I think this should garner a bit more attention than what is out there right now.

Do you need Premium or Exclusive URs to rank? No. Will it help you get a better team faster? Yes, however, you can't build a team off of just Premium or Exclusive URs alone unless you are oddly wealthy with medals and other spare top tier SRs also.

What you really only need is a decent team that can do a good amount of damage to every FAW you encounter in addition to having some yggdrasils and a nicely leveled magic school. Even I began with a rather meh team, but then my team slowly became something awesome over the span of a long line of events and the luck of having three dark team buffers without using one of them as upgrade fodder. Ask this guy for more details.

Newbies especially seem to get that notion whenever they see that occasional top ranker with a Juliet or whatever UR that happens to be favorited. It's really not the case; a FAW team is a lot easier to make than it seems when it seems so daunting to make one. It just takes an incredible amount of patience, as this is a CCG where only time and luck will reward the most patient.

Paying definitely isn't a shortcut to ranking, however. Obviously you still need a great alliance and some great traders/senders to get anywhere near ranking caliber, along with a fair amount of time to put into the game.

On the other hand, having a lv 6+ Magic School and 3 trees to have a headstart with is awfully convenient. This is what I did early when I started: I invested $50 worth of jewels to get these things during the first sabbath event and I got a hard earned Orihime as a result, despite my team not being quite top tier.

Closing
Speaking of Orihime, though, I'm pretty hyped for the next event since we're making a return back to stars and galaxies… Awesome.

Corvus' art is super cute and amazing. There was a leak for the banner, apparently, that a friend of mine linked me to and Kelerik has no idea where it's from, and I have to say... I think she'll be my new absolute favorite for a very long time. SHE'S GOT AMAZING CLEAVAGE AND COOL CLOTHES TO BOOT, THAT'S FREAKING AWESOME. Inb4 ranking while in college, losing my mind again

BadBitch is also being a bully bumping my previous post down because he thinks he can appeal to a larger market. Fine, he can do whatever he wants since he's an alliance comrade of mine ;_;

Another note I'll make is that yes, college is in session at my university now, which makes me busy. Now it does suck, I know, but for all my loyal traders, senders, and comrades, thanks for bearing with me, even sending to me during a time where I can't really send much because of homework and studying. But I've decided to let you guys know that I do have a more lax time schedule than I did previously, without my classes being scattered all over the place. I'm usually busy on Mondays through Wednesdays, especially Wednesday being my most busy day, but other than that I'm available for sends. Just wanted to mention that.

Thanks to F✩Serinweis, especially, for being one of my newest traders yet still having the patience to trade stuff with me despite me not sending back as often. I'll send back more, I promise you! I also love your favorite. Don't tell this to anyone else but I wanted to be comrades with you for a long time, even back during Juno. Can I kidnap you?

I want to make a shoutout to Alaska, who's one of my favorite alliance members yet struggles with ranking sometimes. If any of my loyal senders are reading this, please add her! Alaska helps maintain the comrades spreadsheet like I do, on top of doing other work. She's pretty cool. Her ID is 2qxpm. Thanks as always, if you could.

Another shoutout to one of my bestest kouhais Rynsk for helping me write some of this. Rynsk also has school, but she's trying to manage. Her ID's 5ukor, and you can visit her profile through clicking on that link in her name. Ryn is also a very funny person in addition to her being helpful for me.

One more note, is that for all the new applicants to Athena's Fury, thank you guys so much for applying. We do have one slot open, actually. If anyone's interested, you can visit our recruitment post here. I'll shortly mention about how we actually have more than one slot, so if you think you have what it takes to join our ranks, please apply! And don't tell anyone you heard this from me.

Lastly, thanks to you, reader-lurker, for reading this. I do understand this is one of my less entertaining posts to read, but I felt like it just had to be something I needed to write about. As usual, I'm willing to take suggestions if anyone wants me to cover something particular that they have a question about. Otherwise, suggest that it belongs in the FAQ Kelerik and I are working on!

Thanks as always, and I hope you guys all get awesome drops and do well in the ranking if you guys are attempting to, for either this or the next event. I'll be ranking as usual, so I'll be taking it easy until that day comes.

Peace.

P.S. Random note, but something erupted and apparently friends want me to say stuff on LINE because I sound sexy or something. Please don't bully me guys ;_;