Fate/Grand Order

[Firebolt]

I swear I thought there was already a thread for this game, but I couldn't find it. So here we are with the new one!

7 million Download campaign for FGO (NA) is well on the way, and today, the SR ticket was made available to redeem for any non Limited SR unit!

Who did you guys pick, and are you looking forward to the sweet, sweet tickets tomorrow? Did you manage to roll Merlin???

I picked the one and only Suzuka Gozen myself; I didn't really need any of the SRs and she was my favourite option out of all the SRs who I could pick without having to worry about being set behind in mats for other Servants. Though I literally have exactly 0 Bones to spare now, so that's fun... I already have NP2 Merlin myself, so the tickets are going to be saved for best girl Sakura Parvati <3

 

[Sheep]

I played briefly and then stopped, but if there are generous giveaway campaigns going on I may redownload! Just worried about farming for events and the like, no autobattle means redoing the same map over and over is going to become really mindless if you have to pay attention to it... =s

 

[thedestinedblade]

Was contemplating between Gawain, CasGil, or Penth, but I went with Penth because she's cute, and I needed another Berseker aside from Cu Alter and Bunyan.

No rolling for Merlin from me. I'm mostly a F2P unless a guaranteed banner comes along so I've been saving for when Salem comes along at the end of year.

 

[Firebolt]

Was contemplating between Gawain, CasGil, or Penth, but I went with Penth because she's cute, and I needed another Berseker aside from Cu Alter and Bunyan.

My buddy's got an invested Penth I use on JP, she's truly nuts (no pun intended).

Edit: Turns out all text inside the text box is deleted if I choose to quote a post halfway through.

I had written before that lack of auto-battle doesn't feel as bad in FGO as it does other gachas. While the grind is still pretty bad, there's a decent amount of 'reward' for each run you do and therefore still feel some satisfaction per run rather than just trying to smash a whole event at once to only reap the rewards at the end. Most nodes also cost 40 Action Points, and considering the soft-cap is about 140 AP (which you reach after a considerable play-time), that means that you're only really doing three runs or so every few hours past the initial low AP stages to get the event Craft Essences that boost your drops/damage for the event.

Mind you, this is specifically for events. Story nodes require far less AP initially, and that can definitely feel like a slog at times (especially through the earlier chapters like Septem); the story and gameplay don't really pick-up until Camelot, which also has the misfortune of being the sharpest spike of difficulty in the game. Then it kinda lulls again during the interlude chapters between Part 1 and Part 2. Especially Agartha. We don't even talk about it and how it nearly single-handedly butchered one of my all-time favourite fairy tale characters (on top of the...interesting reversal of gender roles).

If that didn't deter anyone, I'm still happy to carry you through Orleans with my double Assassin friend support list! XD

 

[Crackin355]

I chose Medea Lily because I'll never get her otherwise. I grinded 302 boxes for Nero Fest. I've finally hit the point where I have a shortage of lores. I had a QP shortage but I mean; Nero Fest. At least I'll never have to worry about skill gems again.

 

[thedestinedblade]

I've been really lazy with the game as of late. I probably finished about 3 or 4 boxes for Nero fest...lol. I know I'll probably end up regretting later though.

Haven't finished Agartha either. I know it has reputation for being awful, but from the little I played it didn't seem too bad.

 

[Firebolt]

Oh my dear Lord, 302 boxes?! I was caught up in uni work and wasn't able to get more than 25, but damn that's some mad dedication.

 

[LucarioBread]

I went with Emiya for my 4-star because my only 2 other raised archers are Robin and Euryale. Nero fest really helped: Emiya was level 80 with level 6 skills some 10 minutes after I got him.
10 Summoning tickets on Merlin banner went as well as I expected: bunch of 3-star CEs and Fat Roma.
I was hoping we'd get the KyoMaf2017 Okita and Hijikata banner since there was a convention last weekend, but it seems unlikely we'll ever get that.

Using Clairvoyance EX, what servants are you guys looking forward to on NA?

 

[Sheep]

Thanks for the info Bolt, I may pick it back up again and see how things go!

Would you guys say the game is pay-to-win, or can free players climb decently up the ladder?

 

[LucarioBread]

Well, there is no ladder to climb in the first place, it's a single player game that you, let's face it, play for the servants. It can be completed just fine without spending a single bit money.

 

[Crackin355]

I had good farming teams for each round (Nitocris+Raikou+Waver/Drake+Support Waver) plus the servants that were required for the guaranteed 3 turn setup (Mo Rider+Support Waver+Tamamo+Helena) for the last round and I got very early CE drops so I felt like I had to take as much advantage of it as I could and burnt every apple I had saved up. That being said I basically just left my phone to the side and pressed the skills while I did other things, the last round was especially good for that. I did luck my way into Merlin while also getting the SR servants and spook Karna on the way.

I'm looking forward to Altera Santa and Summer Melt. I'm expecting that missing Okita rate-up to appear during a random dead week or be merged into a possible thanksgiving rate-up later down the line.

 

[Firebolt]

Just want to point out that I definitely don't recommend doing a Bolt™ and spending money on the game, except for the GSSR event that happens every six months or so (FGO anniversary half-way through the year, and New Year's). While this does cost $30 to roll on, it guarantees you an SSR from a pool of heroes and usually contains event-limited Servants as well. If the money won't break your bank, it's a good investment in my opinion and is only made better when the cost to summon on GSSR is halved starting from next anniversary.

That farming line-up is also pretty sick. I didn't have anything that could reliably get me to 3-turn without dropping my petals per run to like +2; I settled for 5-turn at +4 petals, but yeah uni was piling on me hard and I didn't get to take advantage of it. I'm also mad looking forward to Santa Altera, and if it wasn't for summer Jeanne next year, she would've been my Grailed Archer 100%.

 

[LucarioBread]

...I don't think it's hard to figure out I like Okita a lot.
That being said, I'm saving my SQ for the Okita banner next year and then Okita Alter banner a month or so later. Probably won't get both though. The summer version should be easier to pull when it comes the year after, unless I get the same scenario where I tried to roll for Surfdred, but ended up with TamaLancer and b l o o d y R a m a (the wrong Sawashiro Miyuki servant Dx).

 

[Firebolt]

They finally fixed the bug on NA preventing people from progressing in the event, and in compensation, they gave us...two Apples. Nice...

Jokes aside, I'm absolutely not bothered as I've barely started the event. I already completed it last year and I have no interest in the shop this time around. I'm grinding the Gil Fest lotto on JP and I find that it's a much better use of my time.

 

[Sheep]

No clue how good she is, but just pulled her. Guess I'll try to work on improving her!

edit: o she's not even 5 star so I suppose she'll be pretty expendable later on when/if I pull 5 stars, but oh well, still!

 

[Firebolt]

No clue how good she is, but just pulled her. Guess I'll try to work on improving her!

edit: o she's not even 5 star so I suppose she'll be pretty expendable later on when/if I pull 5 stars, but oh well, still!

AAAAAAAH PARVATI!

Fan-gushing aside, she's an amazing unit, one of the best at her roles. She has awesome skills and a very solid modifier on her Noble Phantasm, and she's cited as one of the best Quick Servants to take advantage of Skadi once she releases on NA. If you decide to roll for your own Skadi and find a friend with her as well, you can pair them together with Parvati and pull of some sick NP looping not too different to this guy (don't mind his Summer BB; she's used to 'lock' the command cards so Parvati can do NP-Quick-Quick chains for three turns, but it's definitely a luxury thing to pull it off to this degree).

Parvati is amazing without Skadi as well, so much so that I've been saving materials for her so that I could max her out right after I got her it's not my Sakura-bias that's talking I swear. Don't dwell too much on the rarity thing; a huge portion of the SR pool is just as good or greater than the SSR pool, and the party cost limit means that you need to use lower rarity Servants anyway, even at max level. FGO is more about loving your waifu/husbando than rolling for top-tier units.

 

[Crackin355]

I'm waiting for the new chapter to drop. I cleared out my Interludes and Rank-up Quests that had built up as a result of the Nero Fest aftermath. I won't be trying for Parvati because the future Ooku rate-up will be a better chance to do so; my sakura chances will be 1% stronger on that day. I got Nitocris to bond 10 recently, she is retired for now.

 

[Sheep]

geez Bolt you make me want to play lol. I read this subreddit post earlier and wasn't sure what to make of Parvati. Not sure if this was discussing an old design/another card or something, but it gave me the impression that she wasn't very well-liked??

 

[Crackin355]

She has the same artist as Boudica and the result was that they ended up with a very similar appearance, so there was a loud portion of assholes that targetted the artist and bullied them for the design and art not being good enough for a Sakura face. They were super brutal and even attacked the artist with remarks about their personal life such as one of their parents passing recently. In general, it was a shitshow and the artist basically disappeared from social media and presumably drawing for FGO for a year or so despite being someone thats been part of Type-Moon since Fate/stay night. I don't think they've returned to social media at least, but they have started drawing again.

I won't say I particularly like Takao's art but the reaction was unwarranted. Also Nezha is good.

 

[Noblejanobii]

I need to pick this back up but school hasn't allowed me to make much progress on Babylon.

Still kinda bummed I couldn't get Summer Mary Reed & Anne Bonny.