I'd love this to be a post about how I got another S-Class Banner Character on my first try and for almost no effort but sadly my luck didn't run to a third straight win. I thought briefly that it had because on my fifth roll this morning, a big S popped and up came the image above.
Yes, it's Iroi and yes, for a second there, I thought I'd won her, but I realized almost immediately something else must have happened. When you win any character of whatever class you get a bespoke mini-movie, complete with posing and dialog. This was just a couple of static images.
I was confused enough to stop and fiddle around in the settings and options to see if I could work out what I'd won. It might surprise - or more likely shock - some players, to find out just how little I know about this game, even though I've been playing almost every day for weeks now.
This is the way it generally goes: I start a new game, run through the opening tutorial then, if I like it, I carry on playing without thinking too much more about it.
Usually what comes next is a hyper-extended quasi-tutorial that feels like the game's started but which is actually still supposed to be teaching you how to play. The problem with this approach, which I always used to recommend as probably the best way to introduce the various complexities of any game, is that I let it all wash over me and very little sticks.
I'm sure, at some point, some tool tip or voice-over must have explained what the various buttons do on pretty much every screen but all I've done is click through them as fast as possible because I was already paying and I wanted to get on with the good bits.
It's not until I run into some problem that I stop and try to figure out for myself what all the buttons do or how the systems work. And to be fair to myself, it's not like I needed to know before, is it? Games are very easy and straightforward at the level I'm operating. It makes sense to leave it until I have a reason before digging into the details.
Absent a tutorial or a toll-tip, trial and error usually works. I tried all the buttons and one of them turned out to be a tally of every dice roll I'd made since the game began. It actually keeps the records for a rolling six months but until we get there it's everything. Looking at that, I could see I'd won an outfit.
My first! I was excited.
I needn't have been. Yes, I'd won an outfit. It was a low chance and once again I'd been very lucky to get it. Unfortunately it's an outfit for the character I was trying to win and I didn't win her. So now I have an outfit no-one can wear.
I did check. I wondered if maybe it would work for the whole team but no such luck. It's Iroi or nothing.
I carried on for a while, hoping I'd get lucky twice. I'd pre-set the number of rolls I was willing to use and I had about twenty rolls left before I hit my limit. No dice, so to speak, so I stopped. I'll almost certainly have another go before the Banner changes but for now I was done.
I was still in the mood for some gambling, though, so I thought I'd see what was on the other board, the one that uses the cheap, blue dice. I had loads of those. Last time I looked it was all characters I already had, although you always need multiples to Ascend. This time there seemed to be a couple I didn't remember getting so I thought I'd try a few rolls.
In the end I think I rolled about 25 times. There was the usual sale on where you get eight rolls for the price of ten so I did that a couple of times and then banged out a few singles on top. And I did pretty well. I got the usual couple of dupes but I also got an S-Class I didn't already have - Fadia.
I don't particularly want Fadia. If I'm honest I'm not entirely sure I can remember who she is but every character you acquire opens up some related content like Bonds and background stories so it's always good to get anyone new.
And maybe I'll need her. After I finished rolling dice I blew a million Fons on scratch cards (I said I was in a gambling mood...) and that made me wonder where I was with my Tycoon levels. Not very far was the answer. I was on Level 19 but all the conditions had been met so I just had to press the button.
For Level 20, though, I was stuck on Exploration again. I had most of the boxes ticked but I still needed five Rabbit Holes (I'd only done one.), three characters at Level 40 (Again I only had one.) and an Anomaly Commission (I was at 8/9 there). Rabbit Holes were easy. Or they were once I noticed you could adjust the difficulty level. Things didn't go so well before that.
Getting the character levels just meant spending some resources and I had plenty. I can't remember exactly what happened with the Anomaly Commission. I know picked a bad one. I had a look at the options available and I thought I'd try the boxing gloves. I remembered that being easy first time around.
Yes. Well. Maybe it was. The upgraded version, however, is a DPS test and I could not pass it. The gloves take a defensive stance and you have to defeat them in sixty seconds. I couldn't get them under 80%.
At some point I fought the dog again and got the Arc but how that fits into the picture I can't quite figure out now. Maybe I needed two after all?
I also did Dragon Gate Substitute, for which, confusingly, you fight some fish, not a dragon at all. They were easy enough, although I made it harder by falling off the roof of the building and having to start over.
The final box I needed to tick after all that was something called Headless Rider, which is gated by an Anomaly Commission by the name of Ride Assault. I had no clue how or where to find it and it wasn't on the map so I looked it up.
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Ride Assault has a complicated trigger sequence, where you have to be driving a car (A bike won't do.) down Foxwindow Avenue sometime between eight in the evening and dawn just to get it to pop. In the highly unlikely event you just happen to meet the conditions, a headless biker appears and if you chase him, he leads you into a tunnel, whereupon he summons a portal to take you to his Anomaly Realm. Then he tries to kill you.
That's not the fight you need for the Tycoon level. It's the fight you need to get that fight. But you have to start somewhere. Having read a couple of guides and fiddled with the clock to get the time of day right, I crashed about on Foxwindow until the biker appeared. I chased him, entered his realm, jumped out of my car to fight him and got slaughtered. It wasn't even remotely close.
I am now going to have to go away, read up on the strats, apply some upgrades and pick a team that has the right elemental qualities to exploit his weaknesses before I take another run at him. This means more research and finding out something about how a few systems work because I barely have a clue on most of them.
Of course, if I had any gaming skills I could probably just brute force it but I don't so it'll require some cheesing finesse. As it stand, not only can I not even begin to read any of the tells that let you know when you need to Counter or Parry. I wouldn't even know what to press if I did. I have never knowingly Countered or Parried anything since I started - nor ever felt like I needed to, either.
And it may be that I still don't. It might be that once I pick the right team and upgrade everyone, button-mashing will be good enough again. I hope so, anyway. I'm certainly not playing this game to git gud, or even for the fights, for that matter. But sometimes you have to make at least a token effort. Either that or give up, an option I always find rather attractive.
Yhat's where I am with Neverness To Everness right now. Slowly learning how the game works so I can avoid playing as much of it as possible.
Don't anyone try to tell me how to have fun!
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