TE as in-game currency...

I'm glad someone restarted this thread. I was out for a day, came back, and found the topic locked, and I didn't want to risk restarting it.

I am still really thinking TEs are an awful currency seeing as how hardly anyone sells them except for the possibility of:

1) Beginners who recently finished the tutorial (I did not even notice this existed, I only found out from reading the recently closed thread) and are wanting to get 4*'s quickly.

OR

2) Those who basically just create alt accounts to farm them somehow. I would guess there's a way somehow to play the game on multiple simulated devices. I would guess, through a combination of virtual machines and Android emulators, one could bypass the whole "one device per account" restriction. For me, I was out about a week on the last event because my phone's digitizer was broken, until I bought a new one. I still managed to slip into the top 5000. Either Fantasica does not have that large of a playerbase (so, how the heck are they generating much revenue to keep churning out content then?) OR there are a ton of unused accounts along with those that are used as alts to generate this TE currency. Where else does this TE currency generate from?

I'm really not liking the current system, and although I did pay $60+ already a few weeks ago (this was before the device restriction patch and the elixir/potion restriction patch). If I'd known they were going to make the game become what it is now, I'd be a lot less reluctant to drop and leave. (Well, I do have Pokemon White 2 to play now anyway.) I did not get much out of two boxes, and I am certainly not going to dump anymore money into the game in its current state. (Well, at least if I've quit before Oyuki has been released; Shrine Maidens <3)

And as to the cap argument at 10mil, this is a silly restriction. A normal 32-bit integer can hold ~2.1bil... so I don't see why they're forcing this silly 10mil cap onto players. Even if the cap is at 10mil and players reach that cap - how the heck does anyone buy any if everyone else is buying and hardly anyone is selling? Who's selling? Let me know, because I need to buy about 3mil worth of TEs.

zTrace wrote:

brokenchicken wrote:

Circling back to the original topic...

If you have Luna, and nothing but Luna... what do you do with it if no one will take it for 5*+?

Options include:

* TEs (if you can find anyone who'll sell, and prices are doing nothing but going up even after the event)
* maxed 4*s (whose perceived value can vary widely)
* unmaxed 4*s and below (which have very little value)
* potions (which no one cares about much)
* ...?

Completely agree, we are relying on TE's cuz its the only thing that people consider useful.

This is the issue - nobody's selling, everyone's buying. Players who don't already have tons are going to get shafted, players can't get higher cards without TEs, it takes a relatively long while to get a maxed 4 even if you're grinding the game all day, and there's no other currency that's being accepted. The economy is going stagnant.

Fantasica is a japanese game so they have a playerbase there. That's also where our content comes from -- we have a few months to go to catch up.

And yes, there are ways to bot/farm TEs, I think, which I think is more of a potential problem than the economy working on its own legitimately.

I understand that's where it comes from. I've played Mobage's idolm@ster game already for about a year before stopping. But my point isn't the "content", it's of how they can afford to spend resources translating/developing for the international/North American market IF my assumption holds true that there are barely a couple of thousand players playing. I can't imagine even half of the internationl/NA market dumping tons on boxes, with the system like this - otherwise we'd probably see a lot more 5*'s and 6*'s than there are currently.

Ultimately, I do hope SV keeps the game going in this direction so I'll have less motivation to continue playing. I understand there is a business model and revenue needs to be made, but I don't think it should come at a cost of fun to the players (I've had to dump 10 or so people in the last week from my allies list due to inactivity - what else could inactivity be from? Lack of interest, because there's no motivation to keep playing). I really wanted to enjoy the game, but it's hard to with things like this.

Well, RoB-type games seem to make a decent amount of money (RoB itself is top grossing), so maybe they are just waiting for a playerbase etc to build and the minimal support they do is worth it. I do agree that only about 5k active players seems like very little though.

Hopefully their changes work out for the best, though.

I think they're happy with 5k active players if a bunch of those 5k are dropping cash in three and four figures.

And that's the impetus, isn't it? They don't have a lot of pressure to make the game more accessible to free players as long as the big dogs are still anteing up.

ugh i hate the new device registrations... also i thought it was impossible to bot now with the device registrations... or they made it very difficult to do

Technically with androids and such, you can just create extra virtual devices. I think. Not sure how it works, since I have an iPhone.

I just started playing around two weeks ago, and I find it impossible to trade for ANYTHING unless I were to drop cash on this game. I've accepted the cold truth that TE ARE the in-game currency. However, having just started, I have no cards to trade, and no means to GET cards to trade for other cards/TE. I've tried trading luna for TE, I've offered 80k-130k each, and everything in between. I was met with a remarkable level of disinterest. Kind of a bummer. I'll probably keep playing for fun, but I don't see the chance anywhere in the near future to trade for anything, let alone actually compete in events.

I'm not sure if you CAN pull four-five stars through training or card packs, I have yet to pull a three star. Six stars, from what I've heard, are earned mostly through events. Or spending absurd amounts of money on the game. >_<

Just the perspective of someone who's brand new to the game.

ScoopsTheRobot wrote:

I just started playing around two weeks ago, and I find it impossible to trade for ANYTHING unless I were to drop cash on this game. I've accepted the cold truth that TE ARE the in-game currency. However, having just started, I have no cards to trade, and no means to GET cards to trade for other cards/TE. I've tried trading luna for TE, I've offered 80k-130k each, and everything in between. I was met with a remarkable level of disinterest. Kind of a bummer. I'll probably keep playing for fun, but I don't see the chance anywhere in the near future to trade for anything, let alone actually compete in events.

I'm not sure if you CAN pull four-five stars through training or card packs, I have yet to pull a three star. Six stars, from what I've heard, are earned mostly through events. Or spending absurd amounts of money on the game. >_<

Just the perspective of someone who's brand new to the game.

Yeah, unfortunately the game isn't VERY friendly to new players.

However it's still playable, there are ways to make TE. Train train train, max your lvl3 units, sell as feeders for TE. If you manage to get a 4* from premium tix - do the same, eventually youll amass TE for a middle tier 5*... However I dont think it's possible to obtain a 6* for a non-paying player...

It's really a shame when microtransaction games go with "$ = power" route... :/ But we have to accept that. And well... still enjoy the game

Or open our wallets if we think the game is good and support the creators!
Who btw, aren't MOBAGE. Mobage is just a gaming platform supplier. The creators are SILICON STUDIO.

Even last week, we were already in a dual-currency state. 5*s and 6*s were on their own tier, largely because you couldn't GET enough luna to buy one, but you could still pick up elixirs and leveled 4*s and such for luna to speed up the process. Now it's as if a letter arrived declaring luna to be Peasant Money and that 100,000,000 of it is now the going rate for three lima beans and a loaf of bread.

I managed to dump the majority of my luna at a loss, and am now sitting on several dozen TEs, but even then I know two things: I'm a few short of the magic 100 number that seems to be the minimum for anything interesting, and it's a one-shot deal. Short of painfully leveling random cards, there's no way I'm ever going to build this nest egg again unless another event hurls a cash cow at me.

100 Max 4* for 6*. Trade me now =) Yes, it's a fair deal.

I don't like TE as currency, there's no way to earn it through playing the game at a playable pace. You get it during events, but then you're only getting 1 TE for 50floors? 50Fl = 8.5 hours of cooldown. Not really an effective way to collect TE.

In any case, it's pretty fair, you pay real money, you get better cards.
You play for free, then you have to spend the time earning for it.

I bought my first 5* during the beginning of the BDC event, Meg for 43TE and 3million.
2 weeks later, I somehow ended up with 9 5* cards, including 1 Fiona, 2 Sonia monsters and 6 Heroes in Tier1&2 in Struesdells's Tier List. My TE count was never in the range to own 9 5*s, but that's what I have. When I max them and have more 5* as backup, I might start trading up for a 6*. How did I end up with 9 5* in just 2 weeks? I don't know. It apparently is doable.

For reference purposes, how many of those last six are Megs and Kikis? They still count, I'm just curious.

At some point we ought to hammer out a 'relative worth' tier list, as that's an entirely different list than the usefulness tiers. There are some really great cards that come cheap and some mediocre ones that go high.

brokenchicken wrote:

For reference purposes, how many of those last six are Megs and Kikis? They still count, I'm just curious.

I think I was pretty lucky how it all happened

2 Megs and 1 Kiki (I'm happy with Meg and Kiki, their stats are decent)
1 Erhard, 1 Stefan, 1 2 Sonia(u), 1 Fiona, 2 1 Sonia(m).

During the 1 week period, I traded Caecillia, Plautia, Marguerite, Laura(m).
I'm happy with my current 5*s, I have every skill possible (Posion, AA, Slow, KB) and their attacks are decent. I have Ground/AIR/Sea all covered, including Melee, Missle, and Mage units. I would like to get Laura back. I earned her by ranking so hate letting her go. I would like Sheryl too 'cus she's so pretty.