User blog:Fairingrey/February 21, 2015 Status Quo: On Future Content & More

Two weeks of waifu appreciation, and then...

Opening
I think people read these things. I'm going to go with the belief that I'm actually spending my time doing something useful here.

Anyways, hi reader. It's been a while since I've actually written anything. I've been kind of busy as of late, since college has started up for me again, and I'm taking some pretty... pretty difficult courses. Least I think. Onwards!

Today's blogpost is going to cover a bunch of things... that you may, or may not know. It's a little bit of a mix of future content and discussion, since February 26 seems to be a pretty big prediction to many people considering what's happened in JP Ishtaria. To those that aren't up to speed with everything or don't have access to JP Ishtaria or know anyone or anything that does... this blog may serve useful to you. Awesomesauce.

And at the very least if it's not so useful to you, I'm at least organizing it somewhere.

Before I start talking about that though...

Wiki Stuff
Bleeeh, I know I'm starting off with perhaps the most boring topic but if you're a new or a casual wiki user on this wiki that may not know much other than "ayy search bar gotta find the qt units", I wrote this section especially for you.

We... need... help on the wiki? Well, I say that and there's not actually too much work to be done. But the reason we're lacking in information is because we can't get that stuff so easily - Silicon Studio has a nice penchant in protecting their sensitive data and information on the apps they develop. Some time ago, they decided to further encrypt their unit art. Sheesh, like it wasn't a hassle enough to look through all those file buckets.

But I have been putting an effort into trying to make the wiki a bit more approachable to edit. If you're a new contributor, go ahead and take a look at Age of Ishtaria Wiki:Manual of Style. I wrote the majority of it, and hopefully it's laid out well enough for even the most casual of editors to understand.

Though, I don't know. It's up to people's best efforts to advise me on anything that may be more helpful for them. But there's only so much I can dooooo.

One thing I'll say about the wiki, too, is that we actually do have a Category:Housekeeping page now, and it's mostly there just to note what needs to be worked on - any missing information and things like that will probably be there. The reason the Union page is there is because we actually need people to fill out the Title Availability section. My Union's rank 19 and I didn't record the previous 18 save for the last one, but if you know it, help fill it out please. That would be donuts.

Also, please be wary that JP images should be removed once the unit is actually released. I actually have to do extra work for that. It's kind of meddlesome, since if a certain contributor forgets, I have to go ahead and tag or remove the categorization myself. That, if people are okay with seeing the JP art on the EN Ishtaria wiki, such that they won't contribute their own unit art, then it makes my job all that much tougher. Why?

Because this isn't the JP wiki. If there was one, then I'd be calling it the Saga of Ishtaria wiki instead of the Age of Ishtaria wiki. We'd instead cover events running in JP Ishtaria instead of our own. We'd have Japanese translations and our own version of skill names and stuff like that. Kinda like the Kancolle wiki, which is a particularly good example.

Contributors upload the art, but if the JP art is supposed to suffice, I'm not okay with it. Neither would User:Coax75ohm be. It's only there as a placeholder. Mark it for deletion if it's not supposed to be there.

Last thing about this I guess I can say is that I'm still busy with college and want to finish up a Getting Started page... soon? But it'll be covered in due time, I guess. If people have recommendations for that, please create a suggestions thread in the Forum and I will definitely look at the ideas some people come up with.

Without further ado, let's cover some junk. What follows here will be... =Future Content (2/26)=

Yeah, I know it's huge. inb4 some dirty joke

Quite a bunch of things may be scheduled to happen on 2/26. It's a mix of new units, features, market tweaking, and a bit of discussion on my end. Maybe it's enough to bring some players back and for others, might be enough to quit. This section is somewhat long, so beware.

Be aware, though, this content is for the most part, speculative. Details might change in their localization to EN Ishtaria.

Medal Shop
I kinda guessed people know about this, but it's going through another revision. If you couldn't tell:
 * Exchanging medals for pot no longer has a daily limit, yay.
 * Pots now cost 2 medals each.
 * There's an option to buy batches of 10 pot for 20 medals. Same price but it saves you a few seconds, I guess.

Background Info
Since Sali's Eggcelent Adventure, or Shana's event, it's been kind of notable how effective the market became inflated. Pots became abundant in supply without the demand to fit the surplus. As such, the prices of units in AP/BP skyrocketed. Simple enough.

It's questionable why SS would do this, but my guess is that by lowering the value of pot, they've otherwise increased the inherent value of summons. Back then, it was safe to assume that by holding onto BP pot you could reliably purchase whatever you wanted that was on the market for a set price instead of gambling your crowns or real money away in Gacha or Summons. So by normal means, people would hold back.

SS may have made less money, because players found a way to circumvent and exploit the bazaar system to suit their own needs. For example, rolling new accounts and leveling them up to 20 during a bingo event such as Vinea's was very lucrative as the first bingo card was very easy to clear and yielded a good sum of crowns. With the crowns, people could try rolling for new units or just buy pots to funnel to their main account.

That particular example probably was the biggest exploit I can think of.

The Matter of Pay to Win
Pot prices fluctuate due to demand, and probably the biggest demand is due to ranking. Because of the update that allowed actual pots to be purchased for medals, some players gained this false perception that the game would be less Pay to Win with this new update, as pot was now easier to farm and attain.

On that matter... no. At least, not necessarily. To assert that ranking gets easier just because pot is now more readily available is a bit fallacious - ranking players will just spend more. It's usually always the case in a competitive event - that people will spend as much as they can or need to to make the cut in a ranking bracket.

To me, at least, it only means that the status quo now favors players that have more time - and the better units to suffice, too.
 * The less time you spend in ranking because of your units, the more time you have to do other things. You can catch up more quickly if things get sketchy.
 * You have to spend more time burning more pot that you would have otherwise saved up because pot is now more abundant and easily accessible.
 * Ranking already takes up a lot of time. If you can't farm points quickly enough compared to the guy next to you, you're going to have a tougher time during the rush.

But see, that only applies to competitive ranking events such as the Eggcelent Adventure and the Shot through the Heart events. Instead, on non-competitive milestone based events where rewards are given at certain point intervals, doing well in an event is actually easier when pot is more available, so there's that at least.

But the market definitely does change to fit players' demands. If you were thinking that because pot was easier to get that units would be easier to purchase, well... it already should have been obvious. Players that held onto their pot (like me, screenshot below), lost value in their impromptu currency, whereas others who spent it previously now have units they could sell back for a nice dime or hold onto for bartering - they banked on it.

How will this change the current market?
When this update comes, perhaps on 2/26, it will probably drive up the value of pots again. Players who know this tidbit of information are probably already stockpiling as much pot as they can as usual in case it hits, and technically it would be in my best interests, at least for them, to not let other people know.

I don't think it's something to hide though. Knowledge is not something I think should be hidden, since it may just help bridge the gap between those in the know with others that want to yet don't have a resource to rely on.

Not figuring out that intricacy though. I definitely do play JP games on my phone, such as Million Chain, and I'm capable of installing JP Ishtaria on my device but I just rely on my gnomes for that. Yay.

Oh yeah, and Sraosha
She may also be made available in the same update. For those who don't know, she's some chick that wears a cap on her head and likes being super justice woman. You can check her out at Sraosha, she costs 200 medals a unit.

Hypnos
Hypnos can be seen here.

She's special. At least, well, a first of her kind in regards to her obtain method. She'll be made available after the 2/26 maintenance.

If you're familiar with the way Box Summons work in Valkyrie Crusade or whatever they call it in Fantasica, then this Box summon works very similarly. Thanks to my friend A-zu-ra (he knows Japanese and helps maintain the Tokyo 7th sisters wiki at sisters.kouhi.me) and some other peeps, here's some info.

Box summon in Ishtaria work like this.
 * You have a set of 50 units in which one of them is Hypnos.
 * Every pull costs a Hypnos' Stash Ticket or 200 crowns.
 * Your chances of pulling Hypnos increase the more you pull until you actually pull her. After that, your chances go to 0 and you can reset your box for another set of 50 units to randomly pull out of.

Just at face value though, she's kind of affordable, isn't she? If you have 5000 crowns you're pretty much guaranteed at least one copy of her, and you might have more during the event or if you save up a good amount during the current one running right now by sending plenty of gifts. Her stats are definitely very, very nice too.

And just to put into perspective, the normal pull rates for units are as follows:
 * 0.5% for 6★
 * 3% for 5★
 * 20% for 4★
 * 76% for 3★
 * Note: You can check by visiting this page or if you already have JP Ishtaria installed, then it's just on the normal rule page. I have no idea why they hide it on EN Ishtaria, but perhaps it's to protect themselves from supposed rate complainers or something?

Whatever the case, it's 5k crowns for a single copy of her in her WORST case. And she has some really, really nice stats to boot. The stats up there currently are accurate to my knowledge. Image on the right. You can compare her stats with others by visiting the Unit List page once it updates for her.

I definitely want her. She's really dreamy. I've been craving some KeG for a while... especially with Ywain 6★, too, as you can also get her really easily. That makes a great segue...

King of the Ring (Ywain's back!)
A year goes by fast in Ishtaria time. Regardless, it's good to see her back since she's looking as fabulous and sexy as ever. She'll also be available come the 2/26 maintenance.

Her stats are actually pretty kickass for a unit that's milestone based and not competitive. As I said with Hypnos, you can compare her stats with others on the Unit List once it updates for her also.

So here's how her event works, and I'm actually a bit confused to call it a new feature or a new event because it is kind of cool. What Arena is, is basically a new take on PvP compared to the usual raid team fight in Battle. Some things to note, and Coax has elaborated a little but I can cover a bit more. It's kind of similar to the Overseer quests in Nightmare Rift.

How it works is like this:
 * You duel people's raid boss teams with your quest teams.
 * Winning against more difficult teams will get you more points.
 * At particular point intervals, you will get rewards, like Ywain!
 * Items are not allowed.
 * Assists are still available through the menu, along with their passives and all that.
 * A duel will cost at least 30 AP, and you can spend additional BP if you desire. For every extra BP you spend up to 5 at max, you get 20% more ATK and HP for your team.

Kind of nifty, and I'd love to see it in play since it looks like it actually requires some thought due to the different team compositions that might come up in your duels. Unit skills work as they do in Quests and not Battle, so you must take note that these guys can wreck you if you're not careful.

You're welcome to correct me on any points if I'm wrong, by the way. Again, this is all speculative stuff.

Units that will be rewarded during King of the Ring can be seen at Category:King of the Ring. Go check it out if you have time.

Some Advice
Because you can't use items, it's recommended to take Ishtar (Valentine's) if you have her because she can heal your team. Great for dire situations where pure brute force can't save you. Same with Salix (Valentine's), but she's suuuuper expensive.

New 6★ Gold Summon Units
And here we come to perhaps the least eventful future content. Nothing major here except some new 6★'s thrown into the mix with Step Up Summon and Gold Summon Packs, but I guess I can talk a little bit about them. Some of these units are also in that potpourri image I linked up there with all the thumbnails.

Here's the list:
 * Khepri
 * Lachesis (already released, we got her early)
 * Baalberith
 * Angra Mainyu
 * Jaldabaoth though who cares about this guy

They're all decent units, but let's see... All of these units are double active skills - meaning that as usual, they have the typical Rush and Multi attack. This should be correct.
 * Khepri has pretty nice stats for a Gold Summon unit, and she's always available. She has good stats for a 6★ and looks fairly decent, though you'll want her in +2 so you can see her pretty face.
 * Baalberith, on release, will have the highest ATK for a unit available in Gold Summon. She's also really cute, even more so if you dig the aggressive looking red haired chicks with tsurime eyes that do the whole fire thing. just like a certain Shakugan no Shana
 * Angra Mainyu. Also decent stats. She's drawn by Yumenosiki and is sometimes colloquially referred to as Lilith's sister. They definitely look very similar, that's for sure. She has boobs though.
 * Jaldabaoth. Meh.

Mammon Becoming Tradeable
Oh, God, here we go again, blablabla. But hey, it's actually good news. Mammon is actually tradeable now in JP. I don't know if it's due to my suggestion? Probably not, I'm thinking, but I can always dream, I guess.

That's awesome though, for the people that saved up their extra copies of Mammon in case something like this would happen. What a relief, I can finally end this heartache of not being able to have a Mammon+2 like I wanted. Here I was thinking I'd have 2 Mammon+2 given how hard I worked, but my dreams have to start small first.

Overall Reflection

 * Skip if you like.

If it's any change that's to be noted, however, is that there are now more 6's that are easily available in addition to one now becoming available (Mammon). Hypnos and Ywain are much easier to get than other 6★'s, and with Ishtar (Valentine's) already being the first easy 6★ to get, we might see a change in Ishtaria's creative direction.

I will admit, I did receive a fair amount of flak for my complaint last post but I also felt happy that some people agreed with me. To address some of those complaints - The last post was not a criticism of my own situation but rather the event as a whole. I'm going to elaborate.

Just because the game doesn't owe you anything (and I felt like I already addressed this before saying "I won't question the tendencies of RNG") doesn't inherently mean that the studio designed an event that was acceptable. It was bad, period. I guess they've atoned by making her tradeable but had they not done that, I'd still be upset with the game.

There is a problem, and ignoring it doesn't do anything. It doesn't tell the company how you as a player care about their product and the service they're allowing you to use. If anything, of course we get the short end of the stick as EN players, but it doesn't mean we have nothing.

Some disagreeing players cited power creep and the market as reasons to keep her rare. Problem is, Mammon isn't that rare. She's abundant, especially for those who were excessively to get more than just a few copies of her in all their vouchers.

I'm against the belief that RNG is brutally fair. That's not a fair concept to me. Randomness doesn't guarantee fairness. If it were so, then why would people even try to put in an effort.

Of course, power creep is a problem. It's been heavily evident in the last two events, where spamming the best bonus quest with AP pots was your best chance of ranking, but some players just aren't lucky enough to clear it fast, or reliably. Power creep is a situation that results from the divide between new and weak players versus the strong and old. The strong players can rank with ease and continue to get stronger, whereas the new players are stuck weak.

But seeing where these events are going, it looks like there's actually an equilibrium point between effort and strength what with all the non-competitive events coming out. The current event, Love is in the Air, and King of the Ring are great examples of that.

One thing I'll mention also to something that I saw somewhere is that Devil's Advocate isn't just trying to stand up for the other team, but to offer a different perspective and to look at the benefits of a certain non-preferable situation. I felt like I covered enough bases with that, citing that there were certain draws to Mammon's event in that it could potentially help newer players. But that's a side effect of RNG, not effort. Gift events and non-competitive raid boss seasons are good examples of those events that reward constant effort even if the player doesn't have a great team.

My Biggest Draw was Mikael
Just as an example case, I'll tell this story.

I knew there were a lot of complaints with Mikael, what with all the refreshing, but I loved Crimcoli (Crimson Coliseum). Every part of it. If it isn't obvious enough, I already love her a TON.

If anyone's ever seen my profile, I started on November 2nd, a few days before Crimcoli, and I was still a very new player to the game. I didn't know much other than the fact that many players from the game I used to play, Valkyrie Crusade. Her event was the first I felt like I really had a chance at ranking, and I put in all the time and effort that I could in addition to my studies just refreshing and finding decent strength players to defeat when I was competing with the big dogs. I might have spent double the time I needed compared to someone that could defeat the strongest players (if they were to be found) but I still enjoyed it because I was going to get a cute girl that I would feel invested in.

And invested I was. At first, I thought she'd just be a unit I really liked but in the end she captured my heart, became my absolute favorite, and I went as far as getting... actually, I guess people know the story.

But even though her event had complaints because of the whole refreshing thing, I loved it. I think I wouldn't have been here if it weren't for her. If you have anyone to thank for me being here as your lazy community wikia admin, blame Mikael. She's mai waifu. Love.

Closing
Wah, that was a lot of content, but thanks for reading! I hope it was interesting to you and helped give some insight into what future things are happening with Ishtaria. I'm kind of excited, which is why I decided to go out of my way to write all this stuff.

Anyways, thanks again! This is your admin Fairingrey checking out. As usual, you can contact me on my message wall if you have any questions regarding myself or the wiki if it doesn't quite fit on the forums.

As always, best of wishes to you guys in getting all the cute grills. Seeya all soon!