FF:BE - Need One More Thread for STMR

[dasva]

People kind of glossed over this post, they've been banned from other countries?

Last I heard Belgium has actually declared loot boxes gambling because duh they are and as such goes against most countries laws about gambling and minors. Rather than change the game to remove the gatcha or the pay portion for just Belgium they've pulled out because frankly it's not really worth it to them. However several European countries have their own legislation in the works so ultimately probably shortsighted... though that said for them I don't think even the entire EU represents that much of the share of their profits so a lot of people over there have a legit concern about spending money more so then before.

Meanwhile EA just says fuck you and keeps operating because they make most their money over there.

[Patriarch]

Did 3 steps of the cheap step up, and about 30 misc tickets on new banner

Walked away with 2 deuce and 10ish Cater. Well played rng

[Alkar]

Yeah, they have not been banned at all but they had to conform to the new law. Gumi/SE decided to just remove the game from the store instead (I add SE because they're also pulling Mobius, no news regarding FFRK or Dissidia just yet).

[dasva]

Funny thing about the step up... on the one I did the full thing those Kurasame's were the only on banner things I got lol

[Teryu]

Oh yeah I did the Kurasame step up and got 2 of him at the final pull so yay for that. I have no idea how to gear him and I'm not sure if it was a good idea to drop a moogle on his TMR.

[dasva]

Not really sure myself. Like right now I think a TDH build might be best for me... partly because I have it and partly because I don't have a lot of the good hybrid pieces. No Fryevia's (though once I'm done farming event I guess I'll have STMR though part of me wants to keep 2 because I have a feeling not a lot of people are pulling for me to chain with), no Rotl, only 1 Kunshira but not tmr'd yet. Though also might depend on if they've continued with the mag DH bug

[DFJS]

Oh damn 10 5* select summon tickets as a final reward for attending fan festa. Some good shit for attending.

[Prothescar]

Kurasame is a physical hybrid which is strange compared to most other hybrids where you aim for MAG


btw was just announced that not opnly do fanfest attendees get a free 7* Aurora Fry, they also get a full 10/10 UoC ticket. fucking seriously lol

[Karbuncle]

Man they really wanna sell those tickets, and I mean both the Fan Fest ones and the UoC ones.

[Azat]

Give this community a UoC and like giving them a forget-me-now.

[DFJS]

Put a gimpy kurasame up as friend unit for farming purposes. Knew people wernt gonna be happy about that UoC thing.

[Prothescar]

That's the thing, the community isn't getting anything, FanFest attendees are. Imo the 7* unit was more than enough, giving them an entire UoC on top of it is a slap in the face to the rest of us.

[dasva]

Man they really wanna sell those tickets, and I mean both the Fan Fest ones and the UoC ones.

I doubt it's actually helping to sell tickets though. Just buying the ticket wont get you the attendance stuff and I doubt this announcement would be enough to get someone to change travel plans to go this late in things. Like if they hadn't made it so you have to physically attend with matching player ID yeah they'd sell 10x more tickets than people could even actually attend but as is... I mean some people are scrounging to find local friends who are into the game enough to go but not enough that they'd give up the attendance stuff

[Jiyo]

Really wish they just would have done a virtual ticket lol

[Malithar]

I saw CS's post in general looking for a Long Beach resident to go to the Fan Festa for him, got me to look into it myself. I had never really considered it, though things have lined up in such a way that I could. With all the complaining about the event, someone's comment about there only being 1000 tickets and being sold out stuck in my mind, but they appear to still be for sale. Makes me wonder if they added the additional benefits to try and sell out the event since they didn't go very quickly.

I have vacation available from work and they only require a one month notice (so I've got 4 days to decide). Looking into things, I was able to find a flight and Air BnB that'd work well.

Round trip flight: $314
Air BnB for two nights: $226 if I want to walk 5 minutes or $136 if I want to walk 20 minutes
Uber: 35~ minute trip from the airport to the BnB - Can't find CA rates, prolly $45~ each way?
FFBE Ticket: $40

All things considered, I'd likely be out $750~$800 depending on how much I wanted to splurge on food and merch. I've never done anything like this though, still not even sure if I'd want to go. Breaking down those costs into previous FFBE purchases, I could compare it to 2x $500 Amazon Coin bundles ($375 each), which would be equivalent to 180,000 Lapis.

Looking over their schedule, I'm not really sold on it being worth it. As much as I enjoy FFBE, I think I'd be up for it if I knew for sure there would be more to do that is fun. They mention live music performances, but that's about it. Last year's Fan Festa had some...awkward activities. They seemed more akin to something you'd do with a few friends and too much alcohol rather than something you'd go to a large group gathering to do. Some of them were ok, but two in particular were just weird, specifically the pantyhose elephant ball game, and the tissue box race. Maybe since those Festas were free, those activities were used more as a comedic segway into more serious content, such as Q&As and such. I dunno, if the schedule had more promising activities, maybe I'd seriously consider it. I'm just not sold on them having 20 hours worth of content.

Edit: While scrounging their site for details, I couldn't help but notice their key chains are even a gacha.

Spoiler: show

[dasva]

Breaking down those costs into previous FFBE purchases, I could compare it to 2x $500 Amazon Coin bundles ($375 each), which would be equivalent to 180,000 Lapis.

I thought it was only 20% not 25% off? Also how does that work exactly never done that and well recently they've really made wanting to spend more but if they change lol...

As far as the event have you considered only checking in first day and well doing other stuff? It's LA area plenty of fun stuff to do. Disney is pretty amazing during the holidays though not sure exactly when the Christmas stuff starts coming out. I'm actually vaguely considering it since been almost a year since last time and definitely been meaning to come back and do more. Also uber gunna vary a bit especially in busy big city areas... so can get icky with prices and availability ranging quiet widely if you coming into LAX... haven't ubered from Long Beach but it is a smaller airport in a much less traffic area so should be better and well closer to the event.

In game news holy crap Machina just wrecks arena... and by that I mean his animation literally crashes you over and over and over

[Nitsuki]

I heard elytra mention you need a valid photo ID that matches your name. Lol

[DFJS]

Long beach airport is nice and small but it is more expensive than flying into LAX. The higher prices in long beach might offset the long wait and terrible traffic you have to deal with from LAX. A few new hotels just opened up near LB airport so if you can't find something near downtown which is where the convention center is you could stay there. It's not too long of a drive from there. And if you wanted to that first day I could meet you guys and drive down there to save on at least 1 drive.

[Malithar]

I thought it was only 20% not 25% off? Also how does that work exactly never done that and well recently they've really made wanting to spend more but if they change lol...

Shows how long it's been since I bought lol. It used to almost always be 25% off. It works pretty much as you'd expect. Pay the listed price, say $400 at 20% off, get 50,000 coins in your coin wallet. Coins are worth $0.01 each. You can be extra frugal and pay with an Amazon gift card that you reloaded with a CC# tied to a bank account for a 2% bonus. It's also worth mentioning that stocking up on coins to spend when there is a rebate or other such bonus whether ingame or on Amazon itself is possible and can lead to over a 60% increase in value per dollar spent, IE pay $368 (2% GC bonus) for the $375 for $500 bundle, save it for a 20% rebate event, buy 5 $100 packs, get a 6th thanks to 20% back - end up with $600 worth of Lapis for $368.

The only other thing to keep in mind is if you live somewhere that has online sales tax, you'll end up paying your state's tax on each ingame purchase. If your billing address just so happened to be in one of the states without the tax, then you avoid that. Amazon also doesn't verify the billing address so...

Long beach airport is nice and small but it is more expensive than flying into LAX. The higher prices in long beach might offset the long wait and terrible traffic you have to deal with from LAX. A few new hotels just opened up near LB airport so if you can't find something near downtown which is where the convention center is you could stay there. It's not too long of a drive from there. And if you wanted to that first day I could meet you guys and drive down there to save on at least 1 drive.

Yeah, I noticed a good 20-30% increase if I wanted to fly into Long Beach. Also departure times weren't working out for leaving after the event wrapped up on Sunday. I appreciate the offer for the drive. Since posting, I've thought more about it and I think I've kinda psyched myself out. The lack of event details makes me think I may regret the choice to go. I'd be golden if I went and it was 10 hours a day of FFBE or FF content, ranging from music, to cosplay, interviews, new details about the game, in-person events like raids and such, maybe sneak peaks of other FF games, etc. But we're a month out and they have no details about any of it on the site. I'm hesitant to believe they'd fill that time with meaningful content, and find myself thinking back to the gag games they played last year. I think I'd enjoy going regardless, but for that cost, I'd rather save that sort of trip for maybe E3 or Comicon or something. Maybe they'll have a New York one next year, could drive the 6~ hours for that and greatly reduce the cost.

[dasva]

Hmmm that's quite a bit of savings. These rebate events is that just amazon giving you some back for what you spend? And this ig bonus is that the game giving you a bonus for using coins vs cash?