Pirate Festival Overview + Ranking Strategy (Part 1/4)

[u/FateOfMuffins]

What is the “Pirate Festival” game mode?

Pirate Festival, or PF for short, is OPTC’s version of PVP. It is a completely separate game mode from the main game, with brand new mechanics and team building. Most units in the game will have unique PF specials and abilities that do not affect the main game whatsoever. However, it is not “live” PVP and is instead much more similar to “blitz” or “TM“ rankings. You gem for stamina, you fight a match, you gain points, you rank against other players. No new concepts (yet).

To put it simply,

• Pirate Festival is a PVP-style game mode, where the battle is an automatic fight of 8 v 8
• You can fight against others 3 times a day, which resets at 4am JST. Otherwise, you can spend a gem to add more Festival 'Stamina"
• For each Festival 'stamina' you get a choice of 3 teams. You can reset these with the button at the top-right when selecting your opponent.
  
• Rival matches are divided into period sessions: rank high in the preliminaries to take part in the finals
• Each phase will have special rules and boosted characters
• Units you already have will get unique Festival stats, specials, and abilities. There are also power-up items (flags) specifically for this mode, to improve their PF specials and abilities. Entirely new stats include Defense and Speed. Units will also get new roles, these are "attacker", "defender", "healer", "supporter", and "disrupter"
• Teams in this mode are limited by Formation Cost. During each Season (month), Trusty characters will have their Formation Cost Reduced. Raid Kaido is one such unit.

All battling is completely automated, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t depth! This game mode can easily become more complex than the main game at the highest level of play, but I guess you wouldn’t be here if you were at that level huh. See Teambuilding 901 for an example of how complex this can get.

What rewards can you get out of this game mode? Well, mostly flags, which are the source of PF EXP that makes your units stronger in PF. But like TM and Blitz battles, you can obtain gems, USBs, and ticket pulls (including Red tickets). However, in comparison to TMs and Blitz battles, these rewards are few and will not make a major impact on your regular gameplay, so don’t be worried if you think that PVP is too confusing or too “P2W”! You are not missing out on all that much.

You can also unlock Resource Facilities, which automatically generates resources for you to use. This includes Beli, RP, LB mats, Evolution mats, flags, support medals, gems, stamina, as well as increasing the CC cap on your units. Winning in the PF also grants you PF tickets, which can be used to buy some of the rewards previously mentioned, but is mostly used for upgrading these resource facilities. You will need a LOT of tickets to max the facilities (amounts that whales would take years to earn), but can otherwise level them up to a reasonably high level without too much trouble. See Resource Facilities for more information.

 

User Interface & General Info

PF Main Screen

Current Phase

• Displays in which phase we are in now and how many days are left. After Prelim A, B, C are over it will go into Finals/Exhibition Phase.
  

PF Shop

• Use PF Tickets to buy items / characters.
  

PF Points

• The current amount of PF points you have accumulated.
  

Rules

• Displays the rules that apply to this season.
  

Grade

• You obtain these “Grades” for achieving certain ranks during the finals of each season

• The important one is your “Highest Historical Grade”. This determines what level resource facilities you can unlock. Your resource facilities will be unlocked thereafter; you only need to reach this grade once, you do not need to maintain it. Currently you need to have achieved Top 1000 in Finals to be able to upgrade a Facility to Level 35 (max). See Resource Facilities for more information.

Rank

• Current rank.

• Ranking Placement is based on your ranking points, which you get from winning matches. You can earn more by having a winning streak, which will appear alongside your current point tally. See Attacking for more information.

Ranking

• Similar to TMs, you can also check the current top 100 rankings as well as players who are around your own rank

• This page also shows you the current defense teams that each player is using

• However keep in mind that this is their defense team, not their offense team. What is meta defensively isn’t necessarily meta offensively.

• Also keep in mind that mindlessly copying top 100 defense teams is not necessarily good. People at lower ranks will not attack extremely powerful defensive teams when they can reset for a much easier opponent. See Teambuilding 101 and Ranking Strategy for more information

Rewards

• There are 2 types of rewards: Challenge and Ranking Rewards
  • Challenge Rewards are based on your Participation Matches and Wins alone
  • Ranking Rewards vary based on the current phase, and will be given out the day after each phase as 12:00 JST
  • Leftmost: Challenge rewards. You will find Festival Ace and his LB mats here.You need 100 matches and 50 wins over the course of 1 season (1 month of 3 preliminaries + finals) to clear out all seasonal rewards, which includes the PF unit and LB mats (only 20 wins needed), as well as flags. Mostly flags.
  • Second: Ranking Rewards for Preliminaries A-C. You can get the Flag materials and Tickets. Ranking rewards for preliminary rounds are not very good, so there’s little reason to rank very high in prelims.
  • Third: Exhibition Ranking Rewards: Ticket and Material Pools expanded, and gems+Legend Pulls are added.
  • Last: Finals Ranking Rewards: top 21,000 with the top 2,000 getting a Legend Pull.

Single Match

• Play against pre-defined CPU teams to unlock facilities. This does not use up any stamina.
  

Rivals Match

• Play against teams of other players. Your team can be chosen from the "Attack Teams", your opponent team will be chosen from their "Defense Teams".
  

Attack Teams

• These are the teams that you can choose to challenge an opponent in Single Match and Rivals Match.
  

Defense Teams

• These are the teams that will be shown to the opponent that will challenge you (it will be one of the 3 options they can choose from). The main team that you have selected here will be the one that the opponent sees.
  You will get PF Tickets/Points if you manage to successfully defend against your challenger. Therefore it is important to choose your teams wisely in this section.

• Making a too easy team here means that you will give away an easy win to the opponent and you will not get any extra PF Tickets/Points from your Defense Teams. Making a defense team too hard means that no one will challenge you, as players can endlessly refresh the list of their opponents. See Teambuilding 101 and Defending for more information.

 

Teambuilding (TO BE ADDED)

Creating Teams

• You can store up to 8 defensive and 8 offensive teams, just like in the main game. Some options are also the same as the main game, such as “reselecting all units” and “changing the position” of units.

• You can have up to 5 active units and 3 backup units in a team, for a maximum of 8 different units. Active units are the ones that are on the battlefield. Backup units are not on the battlefield at the start. They will replace any active units that lose during battle.

• Teams can have up to a maximum of 300 cost, which unlike the main game, is fixed and does not go up by level.

  • Legends cost 55
  • PF RRs cost 20
  • Other useful F2P and RR units generally cost between 30-50
  • Some “boosted” units have their cost cut in half (for example, currently raid Kaido and Kizuna Carrot are 20 and 25 cost respectively)
  • FN units cost 20
  • You can find some other FN units with 1 cost

• When you first open the Pirate Festival, all of your teams would have been automatically generated by the CPU, presumably to maximize the “PF Power Level”. This metric is relatively worthless and does NOT indicate how strong your team will be in practice. Team composition and investment into their PF specials and abilities are far more important. See Teambuilding 101 for more information

When you are making your team, in your box there are 2 additional filters

• In the second filter, you can also see the icons representing each unit’s PF roles. These icons are also present on top of the unit icons (for the units that have PF roles). See Teambuilding 101 for more information.

In the unit screens, there is now another button that takes you to their PF status screens

• This screen shows you all of their PF stats, specials and abilities. Levels, special levels, CC, LB, sockets as well as their PF special and abilities all increase their PF stats and “Power” level.

• HP, ATK, RCV can be increased from the main game just like you’d expect. DEF and SPD are fixed for each character and can not be changed

• CT is essentially the cooldown (charge time?) of the special. This value is fixed for each character and does not change when you level up the skill. This will be important in Teambuilding 901.

• PF specials are a unit’s special attack that they can launch when the CT bar is full and it is their turn to attack. Just like the main game, these have a variety of different effects and can be incredibly powerful. Unlike the main game, nuke specials actually make up a significant amount of the damage dealt. PF specials can be increased to a maximum of level 10.

• PF abilities are essentially what is the main game’s captain ability, except these are active as long as the unit is in combat. So at any given time, up to 5 units’ PF abilities are active. PF abilities can be increased to a maximum of level 5.

• Similar to specials and CA’s in the main game, PF specials and abilities make/break the team comp. They usually work off of types/classes, just like you’re used to. And more often than not, boost the same types/classes that they do normally. As an extremely brief tip on teambuilding, just make sure the units’ PF specials and abilities synergize. For example, Bullet boosts the ATK of STR, QCK and INT units. So use those units. The tough part of teambuilding in Pirate Festival is that unlike the main game where you only need to worry about 2 captain abilities (and 6 specials), you have to worry about essentially 5 captain abilities (PF abilities) and 5 specials. Which can make teambuilding increasingly complex. See Teambuilding 101 and 901 for more information.

• For Legends, it will cost 67k PF EXP to max the ability and 227.3k PF EXP to max the special, for a combined total of 294.3k PF EXP. Keep in mind that some units’ specials are much more important than their abilities and vice versa. Also keep in mind that the costs increase exponentially. Getting 1 unit’s special from level 9 to 10 will cost more than completely maxing out a different unit’s PF ability. Gold, silver and bronze flags give 6000, 1000 and 300 PF EXP respectively (with 1.5x bonus for feeding to the same type, same as the main game). See Teambuilding 901 for more information.

• The PF status screen also tells you about their attack pattern, who they target as well as any resistances they may have. If you’re reading this guide, chances are this will not apply to you. Don’t worry about it. Come back once you’re ready for Teambuilding 901.

Until we get an English translated database of all the PF abilities, use Google Translate on Gamewith's page for most of the Legends

 

Teambuilding 101 - TO BE ADDED

Teambuilding 901 - TO BE ADDED

 

Unfortunately, teambuilding can get EXTREMELY complicated real quick (if that 901 didn’t give you enough hints), so that will be a completely separate guide altogether. On the other hand, I will feel bad for not giving you guys any tips for teambuilding (which is probably what most of you guys are here for), so here’s a little bit.

In case you didn’t read what I wrote above

Similar to specials and CA’s in the main game, PF specials and abilities make/break the team comp. They usually work off of types/classes, just like you’re used to. And more often than not, boost the same types/classes that they do normally. As an extremely brief tip on teambuilding, just make sure the units’ PF specials and abilities synergize. For example, Bullet boosts the ATK of STR, QCK and INT units. So use those units. The tough part of teambuilding in Pirate Festival is that unlike the main game where you only need to worry about 2 captain abilities (and 6 specials), you have to worry about essentially 5 captain abilities (PF abilities) and 5 specials. Which can make teambuilding increasingly complex.

Remember how in the main game you make FS teams or Cerebral teams or Powerhouse teams or STR/DEX/QCK teams etc? Essentially teambuilding in PF is the same idea. Just that you might need some more mix and matching and the fact that not all units will be boosted. One tip - make sure your damage dealers are buffed as much as they can. Your tanks? Your healers? They don’t necessarily need the billion attack buffs because they’re not doing the damage.

About Dual Units - for some reason, dual units do not receive any bonuses to their typings. For example Vivi/Rebecca do not count as a DEX nor STR unit (you can still feed DEX and STR flags for 50% exp bonus). They also only count as the classes of their dual form - so in this case, Striker/Cerebral, and not considered Free Spirit.

One last thing, positioning is important. Here is the layout of how a PF battle starts. Red is the attacking team, Blue is the defending team. The order that you make your team from left to right determines their positioning from 1-5.

As you can see, for an offense team, units 2 & 3 are at the front. Since “most” units prioritize attacking the nearest enemy, positions 2 & 3 are the most exposed and positions 4 and 5 are the most safe. At least, for the start of the battle. But that can mean a significant amount of damage. Therefore, if you’re running tanks in your offense teams, keep them in positions 2 & 3. Put the units you want to keep safe in positions 4 & 5. For a defense team, units 1 & 2 are at the front. Position 1 is especially exposed, so keep your main tank in position 1 and any units you want to keep safe in positions 4 & 5.

 

Attacking

You are given 3 natural stamina every day to attack an opponent’s defending team. This resets at 04:00 JST (the “new day” time).

This is the screen you see to select opponents

• You can choose between 3 opponents. The lowest ranked opponent, about 250-500 ranks below your current rank, the middle rank opponent, about 200 above and below your current rank, and the highest rank opponent about 250-500 ranks above your own rank.

• If you don’t like the opponents you see, you can refresh the list in the top right corner. There is no refresh limit, but there is a finite number of opponents and they will start repeating.

• Naturally, higher ranked opponents give more points, so try to refresh and find a higher ranked opponent that you can beat.

• As stated before, battles progress automatically. This includes all specials, even though they look like a pressy-type button. These specials have a set cooldown time, and will activate upon the unit's next attack.

• You win a match if you defeat all of the opponent teams' units in the allotted time (100 seconds). If you fail to defeat all of them in this time, you will lose, even if you outnumber them in the end.

• On the win (or lose) screen, you can see your points being broken up into the “base points”, which is determined by your and your opponent’s rank, as well as a “win streak bonus” of up to 5 additional points and tickets. At lower ranks, it appears at win streak caps at +4.

• Around the top 3k-10k ranks, the highest ranked opponents give approximately 7 to 8 points/tickets + 5 win streak = 12 to 13 points per win. Around rank 2k, the highest ranked opponents give approximately 10 points/tickets + 5 win streak = 15 points per win. From rank ??? (at least below rank 300 or so) to rank 1000 (approximately), the highest ranked opponents give 15 points/tickets + 5 win streak = 20 points per win. In the top 100, opponents give 16-19 base points/tickets + 5 win streak = 21-24 points per win. It appears top 10 gives the highest base points at 19 per win.

• Win streak is extremely important and makes up for a huge amount of your points. Mathematically, if you do not have > 90% win rate vs a specific team, you will earn more points in the long run by taking up to a 5 pt hit and choosing an easier team. Of course with how many times you can refresh opponents, that shouldn’t be necessary. You should take a 1-2 pt hit instead to maintain your win rate. Each time you break your win streak, you lose 19 points from the win streak.

Win streak	Bonus Points	Bonus Points if you kept your win streak capped	Loss from breaking a win streak
0 -> 1	+0	+5	5
1 -> 2	+1	+5	4
2 -> 3	+1	+5	4
3 -> 4	+2	+5	3
4 -> 5	+3	+5	2
5 -> 6	+4	+5	1
6 -> 7	+5	+5	0
		Total	19

• As an example, I earned roughly 249 pts from 21 attacks in Prelim B. I lost twice, each resetting my win streak. If I didn't lose, I would have approximately 74 more points from the pt loss (15 from the points I did not win, 3 from the loss itself) and win streak loss (19). Because of the win streak, you see how a single win might be worth approximately 15 points? A single loss means losing more than twice that amount.

 

Defending

You can make and store up to 8 defensive teams, however only 1 will be active at any given moment. This is the last team you selected before exiting the editing crew page. This is also the defense team that other players see, whether it’s when they attack you, or if it’s when they see you on the rankings.

You win a match if you defeat all of the opponent teams' units in the allotted time (100 seconds). If you fail to defeat all of them in this time, you will lose, even if you outnumber them in the end.

Therefore one strategy for defensive teams is to simply “time out” - you don’t need to defeat the enemy team if they can’t defeat you.

On a successful defense, a screen will pop up the next time you open up the Pirate Festival, just like when a friend helps you out in Kizuna

• In the image above, I had 16 successful defenses giving me 80 extra points and tickets, or 5 per win. This was done at around rank 500-600 or so, where I would get 20 per win when attacking the highest ranked opponent with maximum win streak. Every day, when attacking, I would only get +60 points at most, yet this single overnight string of defenses gave me more points than that.

• From approximately rank 1000-10000, you will obtain about 4 pts/tickets per defense win. From approximately rank 1000 onwards, you will obtain 5 pts/tickets per defense win.

• Aside from team composition, the number of successful defenses is also correlated with your rank. First of all, natural stamina only gives 3 attacks per day. Which means if your rank is around where players only use natural stamina, aside from team composition, a player is attacked approximately 3 times per day. Naturally, most players will have fairly high win rates when attacking, so at lower ranks, you might even average less than 1 successful defense a day! On the other hand, at high ranks, people gem for stamina refills more often, meaning players attack more on average. Therefore, players are attacked more on average and thus have access to more wins from defenses.

 

Ranking Strategy

First of all, you only need to rank in the top 7k in one of the three preliminary rounds. If you’ve hit top 7k in prelim B? Great! You don’t need to worry about prelim C, aside from whatever tickets you earn with natural stamina.

• One important thing to note if you're using natural stamina only - win all 3 matches on day 1. If you have to lose a single match, make sure you do not lose match #2. This is because of how the points you earn per attack is based on your rank, how winning builds up a win streak and how losing reduces your points. If you are at 0 points, you will only earn 1-2 points with your next attack.

  • LWW would get you +12 points
  • WLW would get you +1 points - If you get this, you are majorly screwed. There is close to 0 difference between you and someone who is unranked. That is to say, you will not be getting many defenses whatsoever.
  • WWL would get you +9 points
  • WWW would get you approximately +25 points

• The difference in ranking between 25 points and 1 point is EXTREMELY big. You can be top 3-4k or end off at rank 12k on day 1. Why is this important? See the explanation for the strategies below.

• Here is an example. This is my rank for Prelim B. In comparison, this is /u/Gear56's rank for Prelim B. We had a similar number of wins, a similar number of losses and a similar number of defenses for most of the round, no gems spent. With 1 exception - I avoided the WLW pattern on day 1 and /u/Gear56 did not. As a result I ended day 1 in around rank 3k or so while he ended at > rank 10k. I kept track of the number of defenses I obtained, and half of it came from days 1 & 2! That is to say, I had 65 defenses in the first 2 days while /u/Gear56 had single digit defenses. A 50 defense difference in days 1&2 results in a 50x4 = 200 gap, which almost entirely explains the pt difference between our two ranks. What happened? A 4k rank difference was the result of a WLW. Make sure to win the 2nd match of day 1 no matter what.

From the above 2 sections, I think you know where I’m going with this. You earn more points at higher ranks, from both attacking and defending, therefore you want to achieve a high rank ASAP. So here I will introduce to you 2 basic strategies for obtaining as many points with as low of a cost as possible

First strategy

• Gem 0-1 times on early day 1. Use an OK defensive team. Not too strong as to scare people off (aka NOT the most “meta” top 100 teams you see), and not too weak so that you’re an easy win (see Teambuilding 101 for more information). At this point, you are among the most common opponent for most other people when they begin the Pirate Festival. As in, there will be a very high volume of attacking traffic coming your way. Since your team doesn’t look extremely difficult, many players who are unfamiliar with the PF will attack you, causing a large number of surprise defense wins on the first day.

Second strategy

• Gem ASAP on day 1. Before other players begin playing, there are not many players in the rankings. Since there is no competition, it is EXTREMELY easy to get to somewhere in the top 1k with very few gems spent. This has a snowball effect - other top players will recognize this fact as well and gem very early. This results in a HUGE amount of players gemming for stamina on day 1, resulting in a HUGE amount of potential defenses.

  • Why is this important? First of all, including the win streak, you get +20 per attacking win. You get +5 per defending win. You get more defenses because people are gemming at this rank. For example, just considering natural stamina, if the PF lasts for 1 week, that’s 21 attacks. In the top 1k, you will earn 420 points if you win all 21 attacks. At a lower rank (3k-10k), you will earn about 13 pts per win instead, getting you about 273 points. Without considering the extra stamina from gemming, the higher rank player already increased the gap by almost 150 points. For the lower ranked player to catch up, they will need to spend an extra 3 gems. This doesn’t even include the fact that each gem the higher ranked player spends nets them 60 points vs the lower ranked player’s 39 points. Nor the higher points per defense, nor the increased rate of defenses
  • Don’t forget that this is a ranking event. What happens on the last day of TM and Blitz events? People go crazy. They spend gems like crazy. Many people in prelim A spent 20+ gems just to stay in the top 7k. 20 gems at lower ranks? That’s approximately 780 points/tickets. 20 gems at top 1k? That’s approximately 1200 points/tickets. If your goal is to just stay in the top 7k, you will need to spend far fewer gems if you got to a higher rank earlier.

• Don’t forget about your defenses. At 5 pts/tickets per win, they can add up quickly. Thanks to me abusing the fact that players had no idea what they were doing early on in prelim A, I was able to rack up a large amount of points from defenses. While other players may have spent 20+ gems just to stay in top 7k, thanks to my defenses, I only spent 7 gems to stay around top 1k.

  • Another example is /u/RoseMySweet, who spent quite a few stamina refreshes early on in prelim A. He got to around top 200, then slacked off, including his defense teams. At the same time, I spent about 5 gems to hit top 500. Over the next several days, I slowly went down in rank to around rank 700-800. At the same time, /u/RoseMySweet declined down to rank 4k+. This difference was created solely on a good defense.

Hint

• Whatever strategy you choose to do, make sure to play within the first 5 minutes of the Pirate Festival Round starting. The point gain difference is insane.

• I started my matches around 12:10 JST. My first match gave 1 pt. Second match gave 9+1 points. Third match gave 9+1 points. By the time I was entering match 2 & 3, I was around rank 2-3k.

• Meanwhile, others like /u/Gear56, /u/RoseMySweet, /u/Padabe, started their matches almost immediately. At around 12:05 JST, they were reporting +15 points, +17 points, +20 points for their 2nd and 3rd matches. Why? Because so early on, there are very few competitors, resulting in an extremely high rank early on. The points you earn directly correlates with your rank. They were able to break into the top 100 (briefly) just from their first 3 matches being played within the first 5-10 minutes.

• /u/RoseMySweet got +1+20+20 resulting in 41 points using 3 natural stamina (facing ranks 9 and 3 in his 2nd and 3rd matches). Me play 10 min later? +1+10+10 resulting in 21 points using 3 natural stamina.

 

Resource Facilities (TO BE ADDED)

There is a new section for resource islands. Here's what you can get from them:

• Time-Based Rewards

  • Gems
  • Beli
  • Training/exp points
  • Stamina

• Once-Per-Day Rewards

  • Evolution Items
  • Limit Break Mats

• Continuous Effect

  • Max Stamina Boost
  • Plus Value Boost (for Cotton Candy)

• You can use your Pirate Festival Tickets to upgrade these locations, yielding quicker gems, for instance. Higher levels for the locations require that you have achieved a certain ranking at some point playing the FEST mode.

Resource Facilities ticket costs and upgrade requirements

A separate detailed guide will be made later on the resource facilities after the finals when players can actually upgrade them.

 

Cheatsheet

Until we get an English translated database of all the PF abilities, use Google Translate on Gamewith's page for most of the Legends

Find below a couple useful Japanese characters to get an idea about what you’re looking at.

攻撃: ATK

体力: HP

回復: RCV

防御: DEF

速度: SPEED

ダウン: down (lowers)

アップ: up (raises/boosts)

 

範囲: range - can be 少 short, 中 mid, 大 long

横: side

前方: front

Attack patterns: 通常 normal, 強 strong, 全力 full power

 

回復: heal

自分: self

ダメージ: (deal) damage

痺: Paralysis

封: Bind

必殺封: Special Silence

挑発: Taunt

吹き飛ばし: Blow away

クリティカル: CRIT

確率: probability/chance/rate

 

タイプ: class (always comes after the class name, when two or more classes are mentioned they’re separated with a dot)

斬撃: Slasher

打撃: Striker

格闘: Fighter

射撃: Shooter

自由: Free Spirit

野心: Driven

博識: Cerebral

強靭: Powerhouse

[u/FateOfMuffins]

This will be part 1 in a 4 part series.

1. PF Overview + Ranking Strategy

2. PF Teambuilding 101 (To be released sometime in the next week before finals)

3. PF Facilities (To be released during/after finals)

4. PF Teambuilding 901 (extremely complicated, to be released in a month, or two, or who knows when)

Provided you already know a bit about the PF, the only sections you need to read above is

Teambuilding

Attacking

Defending

Ranking Strategy

Thanks to everyone in Ohana who made this possible! We spent so much time playing around and testing Pirate Festival mechanics and interactions, with a lot more yet to come. This is just a partial compilation of all the work everyone has put in.

Edit: One thing I added in that I want to highlight about WLW on day 1

• Here is an example. This is my rank for Prelim B. In comparison, this is /u/Gear56's rank for Prelim B. We had a similar number of wins, a similar number of losses and a similar number of defenses for most of the round, no gems spent. With 1 exception - I avoided the WLW pattern on day 1 and /u/Gear56 did not. As a result I ended day 1 in around rank 3k or so while he ended at > rank 10k. I kept track of the number of defenses I obtained, and half of it came from days 1 & 2! That is to say, I had 65 defenses in the first 2 days while /u/Gear56 had single digit defenses. A 50 defense difference in days 1&2 results in a 50x4 = 200 gap, which almost entirely explains the pt difference between our two ranks. What happened? A 4k rank difference was the result of a WLW. Make sure to win the 2nd match of day 1 no matter what.

Edit2: From the first 10 minutes of Prelim C:

Hint

• Whatever strategy you choose to do, make sure to play within the first 5 minutes of the Pirate Festival Round starting. The point gain difference is insane.

• I started my matches around 12:10 JST. My first match gave 1 pt. Second match gave 9+1 points. Third match gave 9+1 points. By the time I was entering match 2 & 3, I was around rank 2-3k.

• Meanwhile, others like /u/Gear56, /u/RoseMySweet, /u/Padabe, started their matches almost immediately. At around 12:05 JST, they were reporting +15 points, +17 points, +20 points for their 2nd and 3rd matches. Why? Because so early on, there are very few competitors, resulting in an extremely high rank early on. The points you earn directly correlates with your rank. They were able to break into the top 100 (briefly) just from their first 3 matches being played within the first 5-10 minutes.

• /u/RoseMySweet got +1+20+20 resulting in 41 points using 3 natural stamina (facing ranks 9 and 3 in his 2nd and 3rd matches). Me play 10 min later? +1+10+10 resulting in 21 points using 3 natural stamina.

[u/Fideliast → u/FateOfMuffins]

Seeing this all slowly come together over time has been a real treat!

[u/Gear56 → u/FateOfMuffins]

Stop airing my dirty laundry dude. Lol. /jk

As always awesome effort by you!!!

[u/Norbertealc → u/FateOfMuffins]

Great job from all of you guys.

This mode is interesting while the rewards aren't. Id you compare it with tm, for about 5-10 gems spent in each mode, the tm rewards are far more interesting. Plus what's the benefit in upgrading the PF abilities while you mostly need to spend gems and getting more tries.

That's the part i don't get. Is there a huge difference in dmg / special cd between à Snakeman v1 at lvl 1 and the same at lvl 5 or 10 ? I mean, if you deal 5k or 6k dmg in the end it doesn't change much the outcome in the battle.

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/Norbertealc]

Some units scale way harder with levels, it depends.

But from what I've seen, 1/10 and 1/5 vs say 5/10 and 4/5 is a MASSIVE difference from the eye test.

Specific details to be explored in Teambuilding 101 or 901

[u/KIopsiak → u/Norbertealc]

I think on the surface level TM rewards might seem better,at the start that is.You can get really nice rewards from those PF facilities,even level 1 gives me LB materials and other stuff,daily. It's a long term investment,sure but i think eventually you might get rewards as good as TM or even better. Mr. Muffin will go in depth on facilities in Part 3 of this guide.

[u/Fuetlinger → u/FateOfMuffins]

So you are basically saying to wake up early for the Final Rounds and start immediately?

Depending on the time zone your in of course

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/Fuetlinger]

Yes, fighting in the first 5 min is probably worth more than a gem of refills fighting an hour later. Much less half a day later... You see Klop and everyone else I mentioned in the top 1k, 2k or so having spent 0-1 gem. Here I am, playing 5-10 min later than them and 11h later I'm rank 15k

Ofc sleep is probably worth more than that to many people

[u/KIopsiak → u/Fuetlinger]

Yea,the difference is huge!

This time i set up an alarm for 5 AM(the moment this round started for me) and had some really easy fights for 15-20 points and ranked pretty high just from using an extra gem (TOP 1k). Compared to the last round when i began around 12 hours after the start,where after using all the stamina and a gem barely got me to top 20k.

[u/YodaCM]

Impressive and highly appreciated!

[u/ConnerTodd]

Cam we pin these or something

Yesterday I just looked up abt the pirate festival and all I found was the pirate dress up fortnight from a year or 2 ago

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/ConnerTodd]

This will be added to the wiki (in fact it is essentially an update to the wiki page we already had)

Subreddit wiki, where lots of guides and resources can be found

[u/trey_10k]

I want the jp version of the game so badly

[u/guardian22222]

wow your are insane.. thanks a lot

may this sugo pay off your hard work and let you pull the legends you want the most

[u/Mr_MattZz]

Than you very much, it will be a fun read when this will come to global!

[u/hubnervic]

What ranking you need to be to participate on the finals ?

Asking cause on this part B of the PvP battles i can no longer see my ranking , so that means i'm already classified to the finals ?

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/hubnervic]

7k in any one of the 3 prelims A, B or C

[u/KaktuzKid → u/FateOfMuffins]

by 7k you mean ranking above 7k or just above 8k?

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/KaktuzKid]

1-7000

[u/KillJoy-Player]

So I was wrong on two things I have said, though at least the positioning was nearly right. And at last, the list for flag points per Level! Really thanks to that, but I really hope they soon update that so we can know how many are there already in our units.

Also that good defense, I still don't know what is a good defense, or maybe just in my rank, while on higher ones, they will just throw tough defense since their rank is on the line (I mean they will always put 3 tough legends then wish that players see that as somehow possible to beat). I see 2 legends + mix of Kizuna|TM|RR|raids are somehow looks like an average team, but I can beat it easily so I don't want to make that.

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/KillJoy-Player]

Yes, an appropriate level defense is hard to manage perfectly. In fact, even if you found the perfect defense to use, you may still need an alternative. If you hover around the same rank for the entire week, well, chances are most other people who can fight you already have. So at this point, either they figured your team out, or learned to avoid you. Somewhere in the middle of the event, it's better to change up your team just to surprise people.

At this point, just based on your own experiences, you already know which teams to avoid and which teams are easy. What defense do you want to set? Neither one of these. If your defense looks like a team you wouldn't want to fight, well chances are others think the same way. Ofc this differs by rank - if you're fighting tooth and nail in the top 100, of course use an extremely strong defense team, since everyone does so, but also make it unique. Make it stand out, try to lower their guards. Setting the exact same Snakeman, Bullet, BM team as the other 100 in the top 100? Well why should people pick you and not someone else? At that point it's random chance. But if your team looks unique...

One more thing - suppose you've learned out to bust down full defense teams. Cool, but don't get it to your head. Cause chances are those full defense teams are 1/10 and 1/5. You will have a bad experience if you waltz into a 4/5 defense team that suddenly has +10 HP and +10 DEF.

Check the level of investment the defense team has. Just because it's the same comp doesn't mean anything if one person maxed the units out and the other left them at 1/5

[u/Raitei-7]

Thank you very much!

Can't wait for the remaining parts of this series.

(♡‿♡)

[u/Gundamwilliam]

Thank you so much! Is there a way to see if I made top 7k the last ones I don’t remember

[u/Doffy-Mingo]

Great Job as always. It’s at the point where I knew this post was from you just from reading the title. Everything you produce is useful.

[u/aiaimanel]

OK, I think this is going to be a dumb question but I genuinely got lost. I just went from 5k rating to 7091. Is it over for me? I will no be able to go to B preliminarily?

[u/ExShanoa → u/aiaimanel]

Theres still round C. But yeah u failed to get "promoted" to the finals

[u/aiaimanel → u/ExShanoa]

Damn, I got distracted and lost the place :/ That's revolting.. Thank you!

[u/aiaimanel → u/ExShanoa]

I was re-reading the post and on the A preliminarily I was rank 2k something. So am I in the finals??

[u/ExShanoa → u/aiaimanel]

Yep! you only need to do it once on each preli round.

I actually did the same myself, got 3k on round A and just tested teams at round B and gout around 8k, we both will meet at finals!

Only thing we dont know is how the cutoff work for finals: like if i stay at top 7k at round A and again, top 7k at round B, will another go inside or only those inside top 7k go to finals? Cause if its the latter, it might not have too many people

[u/aiaimanel → u/ExShanoa]

There's a lot of information yet to discover, but thank you for the answer, I'm not worried anymore!

[u/KSmoria]

The stamina facility gives you PF stamina?

[u/ExShanoa → u/KSmoria]

No it's natural stamina.

[u/WootieOPTC → u/KSmoria]

it gives 2 separate things (there are 2 facilities) :

• permanent increase of your total (normal) stamina bar

• meats that generate over time (so, free refills for farming normal stuff :D)

[u/Faratus → u/WootieOPTC]

How are these meats stored though? Are they "capped" in a sense, where you would still feel the need to redeem them whenever they are ready? Or can they be stacked and stored in large amounts for future use like other gacha games have already implemented long ago?

[u/WootieOPTC → u/Faratus]

Yes, unfortunately, they're capped to 2 meats (at least, on level 1 - haven't checked if the upgrades just reduce the generation time or if at some point, it increases the "storage limit").

Meaning, it will generate up to 2 meats. You can pick one when ready (or both when both are ready - I'll see soon if picking when 2/2, offers the choice to pick one of them, or if it automatically picks both). If you don't pick them while being 2/2, they simply don't generate anymore. So yes, you do "have to" use them (ideally) if you capped, although, if you don't have any use for them currently, I think it's better to just leave them there and use them when you need (and the timer will restart then). Better have 2 meats ready and waiting for the occasion, than using them "to avoid capping" but then, having to wait quite some time to get a new one. (though, it would have been great of course if they could just "stack" over time, like in some other games cough Dokkan by Bandai cough).

But don't worry, the delay (=generation time) is rather long, so after the first meat is generated, you'll have like 2-3 days (iirc) until the second meat is generated.

Everything that is "continuously generated" (those "time based rewards") has a certain cap, but it's much more than 1 day (for ex. iirc, you generate approx. 4 Ray points/day at lvl 1, and it caps at like 200 iirc xD). Gems and meats are capped at 2 (but it takes a few days just to generate one, so it's chill), while Beli and Ray points are capped at quite an amount...

Anyway, you can just do 1 daily hop by those facilities, to get whatever is ready; and for meats, just keep in mind when you see one that's ready to use, that you could eventually use it somewhere in the next days.

[u/Faratus → u/WootieOPTC]

Thanks for the detailed write-up. Such a shame that we can't store them beyond the limit, but at least it's kinda a step in the right direction. They're probably concerned about Blitz Battles and other similar modes, which is why they're hesitating so implement proper stamina refill items.

[u/WootieOPTC → u/Faratus]

Perhaps, yes. After all, the goal of blitzes is to make people gem (a lot) for stamina, so giving storable meats for free for weeks/months between each blitz, wouldn't be exactly profitable xD

[u/GP-Sproud]

Could you shed some light on the stats? In particular, the attack Stat. I find myself doing the same amount of damage with basic attacks regardless of whether I'm at atk +12 or +2. Do you know what exactly that Stat does?

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/GP-Sproud]

We are still in the process of testing all the buffs and presumably will be including that with Teambuilding 901

Kind of why that one will be taking a really long time

It gets exceedingly complicated when you have to consider the attack patterns of units as well

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/[deleted]]

Take a look at how much the facilities cost (link is in the Resource Facilities section). It's a LONG term project that scales up exponentially. You'll be stuck at around level 28 for a very long time. Don't worry about if you spent your tickets incorrectly - what you have right now is an incredibly small amount of tickets. Most of your tickets will be obtained in exhibition/finals anyways.

IMO I'd say to pick up the tickets, flags and maybe gems from the shop.

[u/KillJoy-Player → u/FateOfMuffins]

If it's just average ranking I'm looking for, isn't the flags on Rayshop (cause I don't have any stack of RPs) and PF Shop kinda expensive for now?

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/KillJoy-Player]

Perhaps? Not that there's all that much to buy with RP unless they make the 1 year red monthly from here on out

PF Shop not so much - you'll be spending tens of thousands on the facilites. Everything in the shop is cheap. It just doesn't seem so because you're on a preliminary round income and we haven't gotten our large pay out yet.

Think of the PF shop like this. The facilities are your house, car, etc that you have a mortgage on. The PF shop are your groceries.

[u/KillJoy-Player → u/FateOfMuffins]

Ooooh, that picture really helped me understand it. And now I at last learned why you said that maxing the facility will take us a lot of months too. Thanks!

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/KillJoy-Player]

lol "maxing" them will take years. If they don't increase the ticket income, in all honesty if you leased a new car right now, you'd probably be done paying that off before maxing the facilities.

Getting them to a useful level? Yeah a few months should be good.

[u/SmugTox]

im new at pvp, I recently beat arlong pirate so it supossed I can play pvp now but the buttom says a message, you know what I need to do?

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/SmugTox]

Screenshot?

Anyways, currently PVP is down. Preliminary C will begin in about 5h.

I recommend you finishing all the CPU stages, which unlock your resource facilities

[u/mip07]

So when you get top 7k do you have to stay in it for the facilities to get upgraded or once you hit it, your facilities can go higher than lvl 5? Sorry if this sounds confusing

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/mip07]

Check the spreadsheet linked under Resource Facilities.

Top 7k in prelims = making finals

You only need to reach the required rank once. Of course this is the rank that you end on for the round.

[u/KaktuzKid]

At what time does block c reset? I'll gem to reach the semifinals.

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/KaktuzKid]

There is no "semi"finals, just finals. Resets at News O'clock. For best results, gem within the first hour

Preliminary B was very chill, I managed rank 1750 with 1 gem spent (that I didn't need to spend, it was to fix a WLW mistake on day 1 - do NOT lose your 2nd match). Others in my discord reached around 6-8k with 0 gems spent.

As long as you are in the top 1k within the first day or two, you most likely will not need to gem any further to stay within top 7k. I was top 3k on day 1 and slowly moved up to 1750 without spending additional gems.

Although from the people I know, I have an abnormally large number of defenses (especially in days 1 & 2)

[u/KaktuzKid → u/FateOfMuffins]

I didn't get a single defense.

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/KaktuzKid]

Defenses are so incredibly important, more so than attacking actually. I got about 500 points in prelim B from defending and about 250 points from attacking.

Change up your defense teams. What opponents do you absolutely hate facing and will try to avoid no matter what? Don't use those teams. What opponents do you absolutely love facing because they're so incredibly easy? Don't use those teams.

[u/KaktuzKid → u/FateOfMuffins]

What would you say is more important to lv up first? Skills or Abilities?

​

also, is it a good idea to test teams against the highest difficulty AI (WB pirates)?

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/KaktuzKid]

Depends on the unit. Some units scale hard, other units are useful without investment.

How important is their special? How important is their ability? Do they just go from 10% HP cut to 14% from levels 1-5? Is that good enough? What it their ability increases ATK from 2-5 by leveling to 4/5?

But remember that costs increase exponentially. So you can always afford the first couple of levels of both special and ability because they're extremely cheap in comparison to maxing them out.

[u/Moncefkassa → u/FateOfMuffins]

what is your defense team ?

[u/KaktuzKid]

People really understimate Capone and Franky.

​

also I love how Cracker jumps around during the battle.

[u/KaktuzKid]

Is there a reason we get more Aces than the ones we need to limit break him?

[u/KillJoy-Player → u/KaktuzKid]

nothing, just the same with how we can get more TM units and kizuna units. Either you use them for sockets if you're lacking on it or just trade them for ray points.

[u/Fuetlinger]

The reset and start time for preliminary round C is the same as new Sugofests start right? 12 Japan time? Thats 4 in the morning for me :/

Great guide, great strategy, great everything Thanks so much for this we ALL needed this in a way.

[u/KaktuzKid]

You were right about starting early. I was at rank 200-300 yesterday and now in a solid 2k position.

How much does CC affect stats like HP and Attack? I failed to notice the difference when I feed my Capone HP CC. He was previously just RCV/Attack.

Does RCV changes anything for units that have an "eating meat" animation?

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/KaktuzKid]

Here is a link to the math behind the PF stats if you want

I figured that these formulae wouldn't be necessary for most players, just the fact that you want your units to be max sockets, LB, CC, etc is enough

[u/Devilshootex]

I have a quick question. I heard you can go to 300 cc now. Is it worth to give like a Snakeman rcv? And i heard the CC does affect the stats in pvp. What about the rcv candy? Are they usefull now? Didnt played for a little bit of time haha

[u/KillJoy-Player → u/Devilshootex]

Is it worth to give like a Snakeman rcv?

Not even counting pvp, Snakeman can benefit on it from rcv orbs but mostly, pinch healing.

What about the rcv candy?

Before pvp, all units can benefit on it on rcv orbs while some, more by pinch heal. But with pvp now, some units can benefit from it when they have a heal on their attack pattern, it's not big, but might as well use it instead of just selling it.

[u/WootieOPTC]

In the unit screens, there is now another button that takes you to their PF status screens

wrong link :D (sends to the discord channel instead of an img)

This is the screen you see to select opponents

Might want to also add the second screen, which shows the tickets gained if you win/lose + ranking of those other persons :-)

There is no refresh limit, but there is a finite number of opponents and they will start repeating.

Might add that it's similar to the guest captain refreshes in the normal game ^^ And also add that if you lose, the 3 displayed opponents don't change (from what I noticed) while if you win, they do change.

You win a match if you defeat all of the opponent teams' units in the allotted time (100 seconds). If you fail to defeat all of them in this time, you will lose, even if you outnumber them in the end.

Wasn't this rule for this first season, though? :o As in, it might not be the case for the second season (so it's more like a "temporary rule" than a "fixed rule"). At least, I remember from the early topics someone (perhaps koalasan) translating it like that.

On the win (or lose) screen, you can see your points being broken up into the “base points”, which is determined by your and your opponent’s rank, as well as a “win streak bonus” of up to 5 additional points and flags.

Might also add that you see the ranking change of both you and the one you fought (as he can gain points if you lose for example, and thus, go up xD).

Oh, and "5 additional points and tickets (not "flags", typo :p).

As an example, I earned roughly 249 pts from 21 attacks in Prelim B. I lost twice, each resetting my win streak. If I didn't lose, I would have approximately 66 more points from the pt loss and win streak loss. Because of the win streak, you see how a single win might be worth approximately 15 points? A single loss means losing more than twice that amount.

Not sure to follow you on the numbers here; the win streak goes from +1 to +5 extra points, but at what interval does it increase, if you noticed? Since for example, if it increased by 1 after each win, then instead of having for example, once you've reached the +5 extra, 7 consecutive wins giving +5 each (+35 total extra), assuming one loss, you'd be back at +0 (loss), then +0 (first win),+1 (second win, streak start), +2, +3, +4, +5, at total +15 extra, missing out on 20 extra points due to that one loss; so losing twice (assuming at the top streak each time, otherwise, you lose out on less), you'd be missing out on 40 extra points (and not 66), that's why I'm curious about the win streak growth :p (unless it's planned for a future guide xD).

What happened? A 4k rank difference was the result of a WLW. Make sure to win the 2nd match of day 1 no matter what.

Although obvious, but you might want to add that you also need to win the 3rd match in that case - otherwise, if you LWL for example, you're still at +1 point, same as WLW... Though, I'm not 100% sure your/our numbers are "generic enough", since losing at low ranks still gives out points (and more than 1), so a WLW scenario would still give you more than ~1 point : the first win gives 1 and "inserts" you into ranking; the 2nd loss can give you some points (e.g. 3 pts; or put you back at 0 if you rank too high with your first win where losing makes you lose points, aka if you play in the first minutes after it starts like yesterday). So if the loss gives you some points, you'll already be at e.g. 4 pts after WL, and then maybe get a few more from the 3rd win, so maybe e.g. 11 pts after WLW on day 1.

(also, I'm having a massive déjà-vu on this topic of WLW, WWL, etc xD)

Time-Based Rewards :
Gems
Beli
Training/exp points
Stamina

You should change "stamina" to "meat" :p (otherwise, too confusing). And also, didn't you forget one for the "once-a-day" section? Iirc, there are 3 daily facilities, not 2.

---

Otherwise, great guide (part 1) <3

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/WootieOPTC]

Man if you check the discord and edited this for me, I would've credited you for part of the guide too ;)

"temporary rule"

Might be, if it is I'll update the guide

Not sure to follow you on the numbers here; the win streak goes from +1 to +5 extra points, but at what interval does it increase, if you noticed? Since for example, if it increased by 1 after each win, then instead of having for example, once you've reached the +5 extra, 7 consecutive wins giving +5 each (+35 total extra), assuming one loss, you'd be back at +0 (loss), then +0 (first win),+1 (second win, streak start), +2, +3, +4, +5, at total +15 extra, missing out on 20 extra points due to that one loss; so losing twice (assuming at the top streak each time, otherwise, you lose out on less), you'd be missing out on 40 extra points (and not 66), that's why I'm curious about the win streak growth :p (unless it's planned for a future guide xD).

Win streak is actually +0, +1, +1, +2, +3, +4, +5. Capping out on your 7th win.

Win streak broken	Pts	Win streak capped	Difference
0->1	+0	5	5
1->2	+1	5	4
2->3	+1	5	4
3->4	+2	5	3
4->5	+3	5	2
5->6	+4	5	1
6->7	+5	5	0
		Total	19

So each loss that breaks your win streak costs you 19 points. But the loss itself is 10+5=15 or so points (in the middle ranks) that you don't earn. Plus -3 pts lost from the loss itself. So in reality, yes, my math was a little off (missed a 4), each loss costs you 37 points.

So my two losses cost me 74 points actually.

Although obvious, but you might want to add that you also need to win the 3rd match in that case - otherwise, if you LWL for example, you're still at +1 point, same as WLW... Though, I'm not 100% sure your/our numbers are "generic enough", since losing at low ranks still gives out points (and more than 1), so a WLW scenario would still give you more than ~1 point : the first win gives 1 and "inserts" you into ranking; the 2nd loss can give you some points (e.g. 3 pts; or put you back at 0 if you rank too high with your first win where losing makes you lose points, aka if you play in the first minutes after it starts like yesterday). So if the loss gives you some points, you'll already be at e.g. 4 pts after WL, and then maybe get a few more from the 3rd win, so maybe e.g. 11 pts after WLW on day 1.

Eh, if you've lost twice on the first day, I don't think it needs to be said that you're completely and utterly screwed (unless you gem).

It's the fact that if you were to lose exactly once, lose the first match. Or lose the 3rd match. But. Absolutely. Do NOT. Lose the 2nd match.

You don't gain points from losses. I'm not quite sure at what point you don't lose points from losses (probably > rank 10k or so), but if you do the event early (which you should, in the first 5 min in fact), you're guaranteed to be losing the entirety of your 1 pt with your loss on match 2.

What does that mean? You only gain 1 pt on match 3. And if you're using natural stamina, you're fucked.

Anyways, thanks! I'll fix the rest up

[u/WootieOPTC → u/FateOfMuffins]

Man if you check the discord and edited this for me, I would've credited you for part of the guide too ;)

well, like I said, I don't always check the discord xD (plus, usually when I get in, I can easily spend a few hours talking... xD). but I did see that guide there and your request to read/feedback, and I did write that down in my list of things to do, but these past days have been pretty busy, and by the time I was able to check it, you already posted this thread xD

Win streak is actually +0, +1, +1, +2, +3, +4, +5. Capping out on your 7th win.

Hmm, sounds strange because today I was on my 10th win and only +4 extra... in fact, it grew way too slow for me (like staying the same bonus for 2-3 wins in a row). I wonder if it could be related to the current ranking o.O' Or maybe to the opponents picked ? (although I did mostly pick the bottom ones, aka higher points/rank than me). Anyway, something's fishy about this streak thing... Especially here, if you look at day 1 : 5 win streak, +2 points only

You don't gain points from losses.

Yes, you do ! Told you that on day 1 of PF :D The "curve" for losing is something like :

• a few points that you gain at low rank

• as you get higher, you get less points until the "break-even" (0 pts for losing)

• and once you're higher than that, you start losing points (-1, then -2 when higher, -3...etc). Not sure if capped at -3, would be good to hear from someone at the top (like top 10 or so) if they also lose 3, or more.

I could of course do intermediate screens, but basically, when I was going higher in the ranks, it was like "Lose2pts" -> "Lose1pt"->"Lose0pt"->"Lose-1pt"->"Lose-2pts"->"Lose-3pts". Aka, if you don't see the "minus", you should be gaining points (otherwise that "mirror" effect doesn't make sense, especially why some points would be "normal" while others would be "minus"). Unfortunately can't back it up with an actual proof (as I didn't lose those early-rank matches xD) but based on the observation and the "+" and "-", if it doesn't work like that, then Bandai has some error in their code xD (but if you think about it, it does make sense : there's litterally no point in punishing any low-rank player by deducing their points or giving them 0 for losing while they already have not many points -> better give them less points for losing but still give some, until a certain rank).

And in fact, the first fight (at least on day 1 of phase A for me, didn't pay attention in B and C), non-ranked, would give 1 point whether you win or lose :p

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/WootieOPTC]

Ah yes, I don't have much experience with the lower ranks

I've noted down in the guide that win streak appears to cap at +4 for lower ranks.

You get -3 for most of the medium ranks (say 1.5k-9k ish?), while any higher jumps straight up to -7. If you play relatively early when the round resets (which you should - the difference is astounding. You essentially lose a gem if not more of pts by not playing in the first 5 min), the first win will automatically place you into losing -3 or more.

And in fact, the first fight (at least on day 1 of phase A for me, didn't pay attention in B and C), non-ranked, would give 1 point whether you win or lose :p

I have seen a +2, but otherwise yes, only 1 point for the first win. But not just for the first win. For any win when you're unranked (at 0 points). What this means is that if you win first match, lose second match (and the single point you have), your 3rd match only gives you 1 point as well. This is the entire thing I'm warning about for the WLW pattern.

[u/WootieOPTC → u/FateOfMuffins]

If you play relatively early when the round resets

oh yeah, will be fun each time...

when group C started at 5 AM here, for example... or when it will come to global and will, once again, favor the States by most likely resetting at 5 AM for EU plebs, too (=19:00 PST), knowing them ._.'

Anyway, even the streaks seem really weird. Yesterday, I jumped straight to +2 extra for the 2nd win in a row o.ô Seems like they're also rank-related (perhaps, a higher/faster streak growth for high ranks, while slower/lower for lower ranks). So the maths behind how many points we lose if we break the streak aren't totally accurate (or rather, are exact for a precise scenario for a given rank/specific opponents). It really baffles me how many things Bandai just LOVES to keep freaking secret... They introduce a new system, and it's up to the players to slowly analyze and draw the rules, instead of writing black on white the freaking RULES.... How the points work, etc, should be in the freaking tutorial/explanations of the mode... not for players to find out after days/months of "monitoring"

It was the case for TM (slowly modulating the stats growth/level through various TMs, or not pointing the ranks for going up/down a league), for Kizuna (for ex. the amount of tickets gained/level, or the HP growth for bosses, or the amount of coins that you can possibly generate, or the friend system and how many points you need per "level" of friendship), and now with PF, same story... Blurry lines, with "inconsistent" (variable) points for winning/losing/streak, and it's up to players to determine how many points you get depending on your rank/opponent rank/streak (and "which" streak too). Tch... Would it kill them to provide a freaking table of the points you gain/lose(or gain when losing), and the streaks, depending on players ranks?

(about the TM ranks to go up/down : this information is super hidden at one single specific spot, that you can't easily find, nor it is always available either...since it's hidden in the TM announcement).

[u/_JimmyDanger_]

Am I blind or is Rayleigh V3 not on the gamewith list?

[u/tacosconcarne → u/_JimmyDanger_]

I didn't see him either. Best I could get for the maxed levels referencing the cheat sheet:

Ability: Fighter/Cerebral attack lvl 5, defense lvl 1

Special: CT 26, 1000 fixed to all, defense down lvl 5 for 25s, highest attack unit attack lvl 7 for 25s

The defense down is the the only thing I'm not too sure on

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/[deleted]]

There are 3 prelims A, B, C

Points and rankings for each prelim are completely separate and are completely reset for every prelim. If you have already ranked in the top 7k for prelim A or B, then it doesn't matter what happens in prelim C.

[u/Superbz79]

What are the best defensive teams?

[u/tacosconcarne]

How important is the range of the special in general?

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/tacosconcarne]

What do you mean by "important"?

Obviously the larger the range the better, but some units with smaller range are also incredibly powerful. You can't just look at attack range, you need to look at the whole package.

I think we'll have rough diagrams of attack ranges in one of the team building guides

[u/tacosconcarne]

What constitutes a high attack ally for legend pudding? Like a specific stack count would be appreciated.

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/tacosconcarne]

Not 100% sure since there's so many individual characters to test in PF, but I believe she means the highest attack stat on your team. Not just attack stacks, but attack stat overall.

[u/tacosconcarne → u/FateOfMuffins]

So she only boosts one character then I assume then?

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/tacosconcarne]

I believe so

[u/KaktuzKid]

Do we get "ranking badges" for our ranking in preliminary blocks?

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/KaktuzKid]

No, only finals

[u/KaktuzKid → u/FateOfMuffins]

Thanks a lot, Muffins! I can take it easy now since my Sanji/Snakeman team gave me a 16 win streak with just a couple of free gems. I'm over 400 points now.

[u/tacosconcarne]

For the resource facilities, does it matter if you wait or click instantly on the manatees?

[u/runFORmeTHATimTIRED]

Excuse me guys but few hours ago they released the rewards. I was ~17.000 so looking at the ranking rewards I was supposed to receive 3.500 ticket but I only get 350 why?

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/runFORmeTHATimTIRED]

Each PF season is split into 3 preliminaries and 1 final/exhibition. Rank in the top 7k for any of the 3 preliminaries to qualify for finals, otherwise you qualify for exhibition. The ranking rewards for the preliminaries suck, but finals and exhibition are decent.

The first finals/exhibition just started. What you ranked in was preliminary C. Look at the ranking rewards UI. There are 4 tabs. The first one is personal rewards for playing X amount of times. The second one is ranking rewards for preliminaries. The third is ranking rewards for exhibition. The fourth is ranking rewards for finals.

[u/runFORmeTHATimTIRED → u/FateOfMuffins]

Uhm? Ok? But so there are two final parts?

I'm not totally sure that was you said it's 100% correct because i received the 5 gems rewards that can only be find near 3.000 tickets and not near the 300 tickets.

Help me to understand please ;)

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/runFORmeTHATimTIRED]

"Finals" aka the only ranking that actually matter, is split into "Exhibition" and "Finals"

Exhibition is for the people who didn't make top 7k in any preliminary. Finals is for people who qualified by ranking top 7k in any one of the 3 preliminaries

The 5 gems you got were not ranking rewards. They were a gift to commemorate the first PF finals, given to everyone

[u/runFORmeTHATimTIRED → u/FateOfMuffins]

Yeah. thank you so much. I've ranked under 7k in the first (A). Now the mistery of the 5 gems it's solved ;).

Excuse me for all these question but it's quite hard for me to well understand how this thing works.

So now it's exihibition and i have to rank in this too to enter in the finals right? Under which rank i can access the finals?

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/runFORmeTHATimTIRED]

No, either you make finals or you are in exhibition.

Think of it as finals for winners, exhibition for losers

If you've already ranked under 7k in prelims A, B or C, you are already in finals right now (meaning you've already unlocked level 30 facilities). Rank higher if you want to unlock more (or for better ranking rewards)

[u/Superbz79]

How did I get that Value Boost cotton? l have already upgraded cotton to Level 4 and I don't get anything.

[u/FujitoraIssho]

Does LB+ affect rumble stats? I was considering using it on 6+doffy to give him a bit more damage.

[u/FateOfMuffins → u/FujitoraIssho]

Yes it does. All stats do.

You can plug the total stats before and after into the calculator spreadsheet and see if you think it's worth it.