003 ★ let's start some fictional idol wars ( forward dated to 3/15 )

[promisedyou]

So, I've been playing this really cute rhythm game lately called Doki Beat: School Idol Festival, and I was wondering if any of you guys were playing it, too.

The two idol units in the game, Mousai and Luneours have really good songs and I'd really like to actually add people to the game, but I have the most important question for everyone here at Retrospec who happens to play it: who do you consider as your ~*Best Girl*~ and why? Feel free to talk about your worst girl, too. Oh, and feel free to discuss your thoughts with everyone who replies!

I'll even start.

From Mousai, my favorite is Kira-chan. She's so small and cute and adorable. She even has the cutest catch phrase: "Kirakira kirariiiin☆" I don't get why so many people hate her! It's so disheartening!! ( ≧Д≦)

And from Luneours, I like Pearl a lot. Sapphire's a really close second, though. Pearl's a really good older sister, and even though she can be rough around the edges sometimes, she's really devoted and can end up as cute, I think.

I don't have a worst girl, though, since I love them all! Now, it's your turn. Also, if you want to add me in the game, feel free to message me your ID, I don't bite.

( OOC: Open threadjacking mingle to talk about the Love Live! Recolle ripoff -- reference for names is here which I took too much time and effort to come up with. )

Comments

[cardcaptured]

The real question here is how you have time for these kinds of games when we have a month's worth of homework to catch up on.

[Because he can't be the only one suffering through schoolwork hell thanks to their impromptu trip to Actual Hell]

[promisedyou]

I catch up pretty quickly since I always do assigned questions and reading ahead of time.

[cardcaptured]

[... okay, he has to admit to himself that's a smart way to go about things, though he's not about to tell her as much.]

... fine. But don't get too crazy with it. Those things can eat up time and money like no one's business.

[CASE IN POINT: LEON also holy embarrassment in that thread above them, Batman, YEESH]

[promisedyou]

Don't worry, I'm a F2P casual player. I would never spend money on a gacha game trap.

[cardcaptured]

... a what now?

[Look. Just because he lives with Leon doesn't mean he's picked up on any of this lingo???]

[promisedyou]

This. Google is your friend.

[ Yeah, she literally decided to link him a Wiki page. ]

[cardcaptured]

I know how to use Google, Mio!

[JEEZ!??? although now he's also... googling f2p because he doesn't want to embarrass himself again, CRIES]

I don't understand why they'd make you pay more money when you already bought the game, though. Especially when a lot of it is up to chance.

[guess who's NEVER LIKED BLIND BOXES, EITHER....]

[promisedyou]

Well, the truth is you don't pay for the game?

I mean, the mobile gacha games tend to be free for download and the rest of it is gambling and totally dependent on luck. The companies need to make the money back on what the spent developing the game, so -- let's use this game as an example.

The companies that produce Doki Beat: Bushilane and CLab need to make money somehow. For a lot of regular video games, you would pay for the game itself, but for mobile games yo don't pay for them. So they put in packages for heart stones - the in game currency that is used to get new characters - to make it seem appealing to players.

Like they'd put them in packages of five, ten, fifteen and so on... and they make the prices seem pretty cheap and they'd go "oh, if you buy a certain package you essentially get X love stones for free"! They also have special deals like cheap monthly packs that you can buy only at the beginning of the month for a limited time only. And Doki Beat in particular has special tickets you can buy to guarantee yourself a high rarity character like a SR (super rare) or a SSR (super super rare).

But even then, it's still a gamble because those tickets don't guarantee you'll get a card that you want (since duplicates exist!) or the card might not even be that good in terms of gameplay. Most people like getting URs (ultra rares) of their favorite characters the most as they're the highest rarity, but again. It's a gamble, and the rates in the game tend to be a trap.

Although the SR+ tickets are better since you won't get a common or rare - the lowest rarity cards, but like I said.

That's the long and short of it. Does that make sense??

[cardcaptured]

[Holy wall of text, Batman, that is way much more about gacha games than he wanted to know.]

Sort of. I can see how they'd want to make back the revenue by adding in the extra charges, but... do people really spend that much money just to play as characters they like? That seems like a pointless waste.

[And also he is going to get on Leon's case SUPER HARD about that later, because HOW DARE HE SPENT THEIR HOUSEHOLD MONEY GAMBLING ON ANIME GIRLS]

They should just let people work up towards them instead, in special events. If they need to have people spend money, they can spend it on extra chances or power-ups instead.

[Like Mariner Moon Dots. Which totally isn't Sailor Moon Drops and that he also totally hasn't played. NOPE!!!]

[promisedyou]

People do. You can actually get the in game currency for free as well -- at least, for the heart stones -- by clearing songs on harder difficulties (expert, master), full comboing them (basically hitting all the notes in a song), playing songs a certain amount of times and even clearing certain parts of the story.

There are events that give love stones, too. And you can get characters in those events as well. Doki Beat has a bunch of variety in event types where you usually would have to work hard to get either one card of a girl or two different girls by racking up points. For events with two girls, there's usually a girl you can get solely with event points and then there's a girl that you have to get by "tiering". In order to tier, it's basically... comparing your score against other players and trying to get into a certain rank. Most players want to get to tier three if they want at least one copy of the girl, but many people like to get two copies so they can idolize the card and get the alternate art they get through that idolization, so they'd go for tier two or even tier one.

Also, I say that heart stones are currency that you can use to get more girls and that's the primary usage, but they can also be used to restore your stamina, as well as expand the amount of girls your inventory can hold. You can even use your love stones to continue a song from where you last left off if you got a game over in the middle of a song.

[cardcaptured]

'Idolize'...?

This sounds really involved for just a rhythm game. And there's a storyline to all of this too?

[SORRY MIO, HE'S READ THE WHOLE TEXT WALL, HONEST, but there are just some things about this that he cannot wrap his head around. AT LEAST HE KNOWS WHAT LEON'S BEEN BLOWING THEIR MONEY ON NOW, ANYWAY...]

[promisedyou]

[ Did you want to hear more about this dumb idol mobile game? No? Well, too bad, because there's going to be more... info dumps... ]

Yeah.

It's when you turn one card art to another by utilizing two copies of the card. Like for example, maybe you would get this from a normal roll using friend points (where you can't get SR+ cards) and you want to idolize it. You would get two copies of that card, go into the 'special practice' menu and it'll turn into this. It allows a player to unlock that idol's "bond story", which you get through collecting a certain amount of bond points by playing songs with that character onto their party, and not to mention idolizing members increases their level cap, depending on the card rarity. And having stronger leveled cards means that you get more points when playing songs.

And yeah, there's a story to it. A lot of it is very heavy slice of life adventures, but sometimes it would cover them preparing for concerts and other things. There's also some events that have their own side stories, too.

[cardcaptured]

[ALL THIS EFFORT... FOR PICTURES OF ANIME GIRLS.

WHY.

But at least he's getting some idea what this is about now! Not that he'd ever play it in a million years, but it's good to understand the mechanics and motivations behind it. However, there is a question remaining to be asked...]

So when you talk about 'best girl' and 'worst girl', you mean characters that work well for you in the game, right?

[.............Xiaolang NO]