tower taking a long time to rank up?

[Julid]

my mutatsu is on rank 4, and for the last rank, and next rank, it's taking 2 days to rank him up. looking around, people are saying you don't need the persona to rank him up with only 1 day each rank until 9->10, which will need one spend-time day. my charm is 5. does anyone have any insight into why?

[Necrofitz]

I find that links regularly have affection checks during conversation. I'm guessing an applicable persona boosts how fast your bond grows, meaning usually if you hit the optimal dialogue choice, you probably have a fast pass to the next stage.

I do think some bonds may also have some time gating though. I have a bond here or there that I won't improve in anyway for a week or two, and suddenly we're ready to improve our bond.

Mutatsu is a weird one though. Very focused on him. Little to no affection checks. Not much in the way of time gating. Just one you generally have to put more effort into improving. Kind of like improving things with Maya is best done by using fortune pulling to speed it up.

[Julid]

i'm more wondering why mine is taking so long, when others' links are taking only one day per level, and mine are taking two days per level

[Tracido]

Originally posted by Julid:

i'm more wondering why mine is taking so long, when others' links are taking only one day per level, and mine are taking two days per level

Some of them are tied to story points that you have to cross first. It was frustrating at first, but there's reasons, and you will have enough time in most cases to catch up unless you really screw up the dialog in the social link.

[Ichinose Kyo]

I have no problem ranking mutatsu up and didn't even spend any day without rank ups. What I did was just to bring a matching persona to ensure that I can still rank him up. Not bringing a matching persona only works below rank 4. Beyond that, you need a matching persona, the earliest tower persona I got was eligor and he is around level 34 I think before you can fuse him. Also, make sure to choose the right response since he still have some correct dialogues that gives more points.

[Necrofitz]

I don't think you actually need a matching persona. I dumpstered my on hand Justice persona one night after a Tartarus run because it was functionally useless, and the next after school, that same link was eligible to rank up. I don't know if I've ever had a Hermit persona on hand for Maya, and I have her at eight stars. I remain fairly certain an eligible persona just speeds up link growth rather than being required for it.

[Carah]

Originally posted by Necrofitz:

I remain fairly certain an eligible persona just speeds up link growth rather than being required for it.

You've never needed a Persona for social links to level. The thing is that it gives you a multiplier to the points you get from interacting with them (hangout and dialogue choices). So while you CAN level them without a matching persona, it's significantly faster to have one on hand to avoid having to spend an extra slot of time for nothing.

[Douota]

Originally posted by Necrofitz:

I don't think you actually need a matching persona. I dumpstered my on hand Justice persona one night after a Tartarus run because it was functionally useless, and the next after school, that same link was eligible to rank up. I don't know if I've ever had a Hermit persona on hand for Maya, and I have her at eight stars. I remain fairly certain an eligible persona just speeds up link growth rather than being required for it.

The way Social Links work is you get a scene with a character where they give you opportunities to respond. Responses will give you 1, 2, or 3 affection points (the actual point values are slightly different, but they'll display 1~3 music notes if you make the right choice)

If your affection points meet a certain threshold (usually 3 or 4), you'll see the "rank up" message when you view the city details on the map, and the next scene will be a unique scene where the Social Link ranks up at the end. No matter what, if you're getting a unique scene, your Social Link IS ranking up at the end of it.

If you don't have enough points to meet the threshold, you'll get a generic "I hung out with so-and-so for a while" scene, where no choices are presented the next time you hang out with them.

You can increase your affection points with Social Link characters by drawing fortunes at the shrine or, in the winter semester, using the Dating Site notes you can buy from the informant in Club Escapade at the shared computer. Both give you 2 points, which is usually enough to bump you up to the next SL rank.

Where matching personas comes into it is, if you bring a persona of the same arcana as the Social Link you're meeting, all affection points (from the 1 point you get for accepting the hangout to all of the answers you give) will give you a higher point value, meaning if you answer everything correctly, you should reach the threshold just from responding to the scene (with a few exceptions being the higher ranks of about half the SLs where some of them need one extra day here or there), and you'll see a Rank Up event the next time you hang out with them.

Hope this clarified the system a bit.