So far, I’m still good with playing both Honkai Star Rail and Fate Grand Order. No problems juggling them both daily.
But I have some thoughts on FGO.
As of this writing, I’m still on their new event, “Arctic Summer World”, after the story had the Nordic Lostbelt Queen Skadi decided to have a summer wonderland on a piece of icy barren wasteland, and voila swimsuit Servant for a limited time.
I managed to get Saber Gareth, Ruler Skadi and Lady Avalon on some of the big rolls I got from the event banner. At that time of rolling, I had hundreds of SQs to spare, gifted by the game for some reason during the big banners some weeks back that offered big chances to get 5-stars on specific-condition rolls. With those I got Oberon, 5 copies of Xu Fu, and Charlemagne with the rolls a while ago. Thankfully, I hoarded a lot of 5-star EXP and 4-star Fou cards, so no problem with maxing them three without grailing them yet.
So now, I did want to try my luck with Berserker Ibuki and the un-loli-fied Wu Zetian, but 2 big rolls yielded me only event cards and one more card to Lvl 5 for Zhang Jue. Tough luck, but hey, win some lose some in gacha. Got big useful Skadi but I can’t get the two I really wanted.
I’m playing through the event by piecemeal in the morning on the way to work. Collect the daily items, finish a place, max it to at least Level 3, do the basic free stuff, leave it. I still use apples to collect enough required currencies for the next day’s run. Then that’s that for the day while I switch to Honkai. I do check back later at the ride back home, run a few more to get currencies, then done. That’s the day so far for FGO.
And now I want to talk about FGO’s state.
I get it, there’s a goldmine of appeal here that you will never find in any Western game. Where else can you get away with making very attractive versions of known historical figures? This game right here, folks, straight outta Japan, free and frolicking. Fanservice was a must. Not only that, they made one for every possible “appeal” they could garner. Put aside the old regulars like Saber. Big-boob mommy? Check. Shy librarian onee-san? Check. Space gods? Check. Hot Indian legendary hero as a young adult? Check. Sexy recluse that speaks like a tryhard otaku? Check. Tsundere loli oni? Check. Not to mention, most of the Servants are compatible as cosplay material.
TYPE-MOON’s setup and base story for FGO lent it plausibility and a cover. Not to mention, it’s casual friendly. No overly complicated stuff to learn, no super-aggressive in-your-face monetization (that’s IMO), simple controls, and easy to pick up and put down fast. Do stuff, finish stuff. You still have a day ahead.
I mean, for me, I play FGO daily, but it doesn’t take up much of my daily time. The only big times I play are when events happen.
And even at those 43 minutes, they’re not continuous – I play morning, a few spots in the day, and evening. A few runs at a time. It’s no big deal as well since I largely do runs during work commute. As well as when sometimes I go to the loo, I spend my time doing battles while sitting at the throne if I had my phone with me. And yeah, I wash my hands and my phone with spray. And those 43 minutes are jacked up by the event – the average I do on non-special weeks are much lower. And sometimes, I only do the dailies and leave the game alone.
Their game story writing is no slouch either. I sometimes (time-permitting) read the character lines, and it ranges from “eh good enough” to “wow you’re good”. To their credit, TYPE-MOON not only has Kinoko Nasu, they have a veritable list of very good story writers to hire and write for their “embiggened visual novel that somehow became a mobile gacha” game. Sometimes I find myself amazed at some of the story beats I come across, and I’m like, this could be a book or something. A full mini-series, even. And this is in a gacha game? Cool. And then I’m reminded, oho, this game is an IP goldmine for TYPE-MOON. They can keep this mobile game going, and then cherry-pick their characters and plots that they can reuse for other media. Books, video games, anime series, drama CDs… a lot. The mobile game’s IP can feed into all their other endeavours. They have no shortage of story and character creative input. That deserves massive respect.
This game is also very much tailor-made for that I-don’t-have-more-time-for-timesinks lifestyle. Very much made for a Japanese salaryman’s lifestyle too. Lasengle and TYPE-MOON has crafted a very good game that’s hyper-designed for dipping in and out without taking up too much of the player’s daily time.
And that makes up a bulk of my concern for its future. Just a worry that’s not going away.
I’ve read that FGO is facing immense competition from other mobile games that are either direct competition in Japan or any of the Mihoyo spawns from China. That definitely eats away at some of their profitability as a gacha game – definitely not all, they still rake in good money. They’re still very up in Japan and other small Western markets, but their prospects are not that bright considering the other gachas are active at getting more public exposure in the West – I mean, Honkai Star Rail sponsored the NBC Olympics coverage. No choice, there’s a lot more sharks in the water (wait till Hololive decides to make one too), and time’s not on their side.
That’s the financial future that’s worrying me, because at the end of the day, Aniplex is a business and not some nonprofit. Any business would be wise to discontinue or revamp sagging ventures. And if FGO continues with Lasengle and Aniplex content to coast off TYPE-MOON’s creative output without adding innovation to let it have life every 3 years or so and attract new blood… well, shit. They’ll just go “welp bye”, is it? Not tasty at all.
And there’s the unresolved power creep.
I started many years ago, and as I barely spent any money on paid currencies, I ended up relying on pure luck, and maxing out the good Servants I get regardless of their known viability compared to other Servants (aka, “generally-accepted tier position”) due to necessity. Any Berserker AoE I got was a godsend for grinds. By the end of the second year of playing (and after a few pay raises and subsequent buying of paid SQ packages), I did get good enough Servants to play in for the daily grinds. But my old playstyle stuck with me – to this day, I still do squeeze events for every item I could get. No event was too “skippable” for me to grind.
By the end of the third year, I was more into getting the Servants I like instead of the Servants I might use more. I have a whole buffet of 4-stars, maxed 80, with my 85s here and there, and the only two 4-star 90s I have are Nitocris and Heracles. Two old faithful 4-stars that got me out of lots of mobs. I also had a whole bunch of 3-stars I maxed out as well (served me good in Grail Fronts), and only a handful got any spare Grails. I still have two of my original wave clearers of assorted classes, Bunyan (now bunny-fied) and Spartacus, and yes I spent Grails to get them to the golden Level 80. There’s still a LOT of Servants I want to someday get, namely (in order of desire):
- Morgan
- Arcueid
- Berserker Musashi
- Original Skadi
- Nobbu (any class)
- Raikou
- Melusine
- Avenger Kama
- Original Da Vinci
- Ereshkigal
- Alter Ego Okita
- Original Shuten
- Yang Guifei
- Cleopatra
- Original Abby
- Ishtar
But for now when playing the Daily Quests, I field an 85 Ibaraki with Kaleidoscope, a 94 Alt Arjuna with Vessel of Desire, and I just choose any friend support that has a souped-up Berserker Morgan with a 50% NP Gauge card. The rest of the cards are two slots filled by new cards I want to get to Bond Level 5 and has Bond cards equipped, and the last one’s either Mash or any one-star that I haven’t maxed the bond yet. Easy red 3-wave clear. Also I have more than enough QP and mats to cover my ass for skill upgrades.
And now, I’m full of Servants. I have Servants for a lot of occasions, so to add some self-imposed complexity I tend to rotate them in my storage, so for example, a few weeks back while doing more of the Traum lostbelt, I had a three-Lancer enemy wave coming, so as amusement, I held back on using any of my stronger Sabers, and I fielded Femboy Saber (it’s 5-star Astolfo) with Saber Diarmuid and Chevalier D’Eon on the starting 3 and backed it with Gozen, Rama and… Chacha (nuclear option Berserker AoE with Kaleidoscope).
And that’s a problem – I had to handicap myself just to inject more complexity to the game. I have a LOT of 5-star Servants for each class, so much that arguably my weakest class is the Foreigner class, because the only 5-star I have for it is Clytie Van Gogh, my sole AoE for it is a welfare (Alter X) and my sole ST for it is MHXX. The other classes, I amassed multiple 5-stars and reliable 4-stars already. I have a wealth of materials after events so much that I had more than enough to use to upgrade most of the lower-star Servants I have. I recently took in some Servants that could absorb the super-cheap level mats I get from the daily free roll, and I take my sweet time upgrading them to Lvl 4, and can take months. Currently as of this writing, it’s both Zhang Jue and Shakespeare.
It also extends to the Craft Essence items. I have multiple Lvl 70 cards, one I maxed to 80 and many more I’m upping to at least Lvl 60. I prioritized the ones that are versatile, big NP Gauge fillers, or has bypass buffs like Sure Hit or Ignore Invincible. Some were more esoteric, like NP Strength or Crit. I have many a 5-star, assorted 4-stars, and lots of maxed 3-stars. I also have made 5 of maxed “Combat” 1-star CEs, for those tricky Grail Fronts and limited-point runs. Just saying, the limited-time and seasonal events almost always yields either useful 5/4-star CEs or useful CE upgrade materials. And since 2019 I’ve kept all the CEs I get on events and either keep them in rotation due to sheer long-term usefulness or stash them in the Second Archive for reuse whenever the same event gets re-done later (which they do). I’m sure I already got half of most of the known filter values for buffs and enemy nerfs. So when a particularly difficult mob is coming with nasty effects like Evade, I just load up three starters with Ignore and Sure Hit, and wail away.
In short, I have almost no difficulty plowing through events that allow me to field my own Servants and CEs. Any matchup I can beat, unless it’s a superboss fight that borders on using kusoge tactics – spongy enemies that has stacks of incoming-damage buffs – or enemies with “unique conditions” – that almost always ended up with me using a spare SQ. That’s the big problem. When supposed “challenges” end up as no more than a cheap material quest, it sucks. All this huge-ass ammo and nowhere to fire it. Even the “high difficulty” shit gets tedious when you end up trying them out and they’re just high-HP mobs with buff stacks.
I wish the FGO devs start caring more about the game’s longevity than short-term monetization tactics and coasting off their writers’ creative wealth. There’s a lot they can do to extend the life of the game, because the untenable power creep has already sunk in for me and it definitely has me conflicted. But I also acknowledge that I am invested in the game a lot – largely on the fact that I love the Fate franchise for decades already (I played the original visual novel a long time ago with fan subs) and slightly because I did plunk in about SGD 420 (based on my bank statements) in the game for the past 5 years. Spending was largely on guaranteed 5-star pulls and limited-event servant banners. But still, the time investment is also there. I have spent a considerable time with this gacha game that I love, and the thought of it heading towards an unceremonious abrupt end due to bad profit margins is sad. I know someday this game’s ride will have an end, but I’d rather it be of a graceful send-off with a proper story wrap-up than end up like how Warner did for the DCEU.
So is there room for any improvements? Any suggestions lying around the mental clubhouse? Thankfully, yes, actually. More than you could shake your stick at. I do have some in mind:
1) “Lineup cost” has to be rethought, or at least be given a scale. The current basic point system is not that restrictive given ample thought on lineup optimization. I can field in a fully souped-up set of Servants with great CEs and polish off most mobs with ease. So what can I think of to change it? I admit, it’s hard to think of things that will satisfy veterans but won’t break game accessibility for newbies and casuals. But I do have some simple nifty suggestions that can amply toe the line between them:
- The Servant cost in the party score should increase based on how many Grails it has, NP level, and skill level. For example, a one-Grail upped Morgan should be 17 and not 16 anymore. If she maxes to 100, add 1 more. If her Skills are all Level 6 and beyond, add 1 more. If her NP is fully leveled, add 1 more. So a big souped-up 5-star should cost users a bit more to field. This adds difficulty for veterans without kneecapping newbies that do not have access to disposable Grails and a wealth of skill upgrade mats yet.
- The CE cost in the party score should take into account their levels and Limits, and increase their cost based on certain benchmarks. If a 5-star CE was fully upgraded to max Limit, it should cost 13 instead of 12, add 1 more as well if it reaches the max level. So a fully level and limit maxed 5-star CE should cost 14 instead of 12. I acknowledge this might spawn a “one less upgrade” meta, but that essentially also ensures users will be extremely judicious as to which CEs to deploy and upgrade instead.
- For event quests that are cheap filler (aka the “three-set rando-mob with average HP), they should also consider either scaling the cap to half or less, or limit the number of allowed Servant slots, but make it storyline-based too.
- As the cost increases as players’ Master Level increases, the cost cap of 115 is good but if they plan to go beyond Master Level 170, they should consider spacing out cost additions more.
- This one might be a hard suggestion to do, and how to justify it to the wider playerbase, long-shot, but I would like to suggest to have a lineup handicap for parties that feature at least three 5-star Servants. Basically if they field at least three 5-stars, their party cost limit should be decreased by 16.
All of these suggestions, I put forward based on one factor: the party cost limit dynamic was already broken by power creep, and increasing it alongside the Master Level doesn’t help. The increasing party cost limit was there as an incentive to keep leveling up but players have already figured out how to make the optimal Servant-CE lineups with maxed-out stats. Putting more cost or restrictions with using improved Servants and CEs might help in more players thinking of fielding more creative lineups if they still want to go full Thanos with their maxed Servants.
As a side note, I remember that I read somewhere of a “suggestion” on Reddit long ago that character use in FGO should have cool-downs. Like, use a character, get a 5-minute cooldown period before using them again. Nope, I don’t agree with that suggestion. That would kill newbies. My suggestion above is a lot more palatable because it amply protects newbies that has no access to a warchest of top-notch Servants yet. Allow them to play their way, and the new restrictions will only kick in once they cross a certain threshold.
2) Rethinking the event quests’ “difficulty” based on current skill should be a good start. In addition to the above “cost” restrictions, events/lostbelts should have more quests with storyline-related difficulty – either limited-cost handicaps or two-required story-tied starter supports instead of relying on using spongy mobs that rain debuffs – but only for the players that reach a very specific Master Level. Newbs and starter whales can still keep playing the normal way, and let the jacked-up Masters play a more challenging set. Think of it as “unlocking” a difficulty level.
I very much liked playing through the Grail Fronts because of the limited cost needed to field the Servants and CEs in slots. Finding a creative combination to field in that limited exercise does scratch thay difficulty itch for me. Extending them to quests in Events might help spice things up and make players think of lineup cost-benefit ratios way more than just plugging in old faithfuls and wailing away.
For example, if an event quest has three Lancer enemies each in the first two rounds and the third round has a storyline boss with two other random-class enemies, the game could saddle the player with two storyline supports at the starting lineup and let them decide the rest of the other 4 slots with a limited cost count, or let them field all six Servants but give them 75% of their normal party cost to fill instead of the full amount, then explain the handicap via storyline.
I get some of the other people’s views that these suggestions are essentially making things difficult for hardcores for difficulty’s sake, so that’s why I had to put the “storyline” caveat. I believe TYPE-MOON’s writers can come up with creative ways to make these difficulty parameters be part of a storyline/event. Because I agree, senseless difficulty padding can be tiresome and annoying if there’s nothing that justified it. Like bosses raining random Stuns. Fuck was that for?
3) Adding in character-specific “teammate buffs” and “enemy-given debuffs” might help more people rethink what can be their optimal lineup based on who they’re fielding and who’s the Servant on the other end. If they’re incentivized to seek lesser-powered characters to round out their starters just for the extra benefits, that adds to some thinking on the player part.
For example, as suggestions:
- Yu Mei-Ren (the Assassin) is a poor 4-star Servant with low ATK and buff-removing NP. But one could pair her with Xiang Yu on the starting lineup, and suddenly she could gain an extra 2,000 ATK, plus her NP is now modified with no more buff removal, as long as Xiang Yu is on the field.
- Fielding an all-oni starting lineup (e.g. any Shuten, any Ibaraki, any Ibuki) can give them all a small Buster Card damage increase on turn start.
- Fielding an all-Ishtar starting lineup (original, summer and Space, excluding Ereshkigal) can give them some small C-Stars each on every round start on top of whatever CE they have.
- Fielding an all-Nobbu-related starting lineup (e.g. any Nobbu, Chacha, Nobukatsu, Original Okita) on a GudaGuda event can give a small DEF down to non-Nobbu enemies.
- Fielding the entire Prisma Illya Servants as starters can give all three some extra NP Gain buffs.
4) This is the suggestion I’d add last as the first three are way more feasible than this one.
I get it, and I deeply appreciate that the FGO game honors its roots as a text-heavy and scenery-chewing visual novel. It allows for more text, more story and more freedom to explore the Servants’ backstories and personalities. However, things should adapt and evolve with the time they are in. I like to see the text medium be kept but be enhanced to attract more people in.
I’m talking about… 3D world navigation. Like how Honkai Star Rail does.
In my humble opinion, putting in the extra effort and budget to enable the Servants to run around in a 3D environment and do tasks and quests will be some hard work, but in the end, a new thing can revitalize this game and make players go in more.
Second, there is absolutely no shame to be had anymore in copying your competition and trying to one-up them. No pride at stake here. Mihoyo makes “similar” things in the guise of “inspiration” already. Can do the same thing, but make it better and in a different flavor. Just what gets the playtime stats to go up the chart in green.
The template’s already there. Design a 3D environment optimized for phone use. Let the player’s chosen characters run around, whack stuff, talk with NPCs, get loot lying around. Not simple. But the potential profits and increase in playerbase, that’s a good motivation.
I do hope it’s possible or under consideration. I’d still be happy for years with the visual novel format, but a new chunky feature ain’t all bad. Anything to get more people playing.
Even with these suggestions, I foresee that the dailies likely won’t change much – players will still field their good Servants, go for glass-cannon gauge-juiced lineups, and sweep the reds, greens and yellows. Understandable, have a nice day and all that. But for events, Lostbelts and running old free stuff, the game should really look into more intangible benefits to their players other than throwing out free stuff like candy. I’m overloaded with green and pures and gold prisms. I don’t need that much more. I do like a good challenge and some changes.
I do keep an ear out on any thing in the JP side that could make its way to the NA side someday. Any sign of gameplay changes will get me excited. But don’t get me wrong – I treat this wishing like an optional big bonus. Should it come, I’ll thank heavens it came, but should it never come, I won’t make it a big deal. Just keep trucking along and rolling for good Servants. I still love Fate Grand Order as it is, like a trusty old Toyota pick-up truck that still hums along.
But still. Nothing bad with hoping for things to pick up and improve.
Briathrail // Albert 2MNG 
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