How grindy is this game?

[Kyubox]

It looks almost exactly like Battle Cats, which I played for a bit. it was fun at first but it eventually became a real slog. Progress slowed dramatically and you had to grind to upgrade all of your units and stuff, which meant replaying the same stages over and over. Stages feel like they take a long time to finish too, so it really kinda becomes draining and tedious very quickly.

That being said, Battle Cats was a mobage so having a ton of grind in it is kind of expected. There's a flash game back in the day called Age of War, which some of you might be familiar with. Its very similar. As a flash game, its designed to be finished fairly quickly and its more fun to play because of it.

Where does HoloParade sit on the spectrum? Is it slow and grindy or is it quick and fun?

Also I can't help but notice there seems to be a non-significant amount of people struggling and not having fun with the game. What's up with that, is the game really hard or something?

[tn 2]

Hard to say to be honest, I feel like I was getting enough coins during just casually going through the story. I did hit a couple of roadblocks where I thought grinding would be the answer, but it ended up being a minor team composition difference.

In short: I have no idea, I've played like 8 hours of the game and I'm on the final(?) level that I have no idea how strong I have to be to beat

[fiendishdevil]

Well I played 93 minutes so far. It's grindy. There's no way to say it's not. Trophies in levels are random RNG drops = inherently grindy.

You have to grind for gold to level up your characters. You have to grind for a chance at ticket drops for gacha. There's RNG in the skills your creatures achieve at the level break points 10, 20, 30.

TBH. This feels like a mobile game, except there's no mobile game quality of life features. No autoskip, etc.

It's a time waster game that's pretty shallow...also you rarely have an opportunity to actually summon the Holo Live idols...since they cost too much...

[Meow Clawmore]

Originally posted by tn 2:

Hard to say to be honest, I feel like I was getting enough coins during just casually going through the story. I did hit a couple of roadblocks where I thought grinding would be the answer, but it ended up being a minor team composition difference.

In short: I have no idea, I've played like 8 hours of the game and I'm on the final(?) level that I have no idea how strong I have to be to beat

You're already on final level? The game is pretty short...

[tn 2]

Ehhh, $5 is reasonable for that amount of content imo. Plus, it will only grow over time. I didn't grind much really except for one level I got stuck, and it was usually just me doing a couple of extra tour levels.

My build so far before 4-20.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3102567305

[Kyubox]

I like how the first reply is "I didn't grind at all" and the second is "you need to grind so much". Seriously what's up with this game? Like, how much you need to grind should be somewhat objective right? I don't get why there's such a big disconnect in everyone's experiences, looking at the reviews and other threads on the forum.

I see something about "tickets for gacha". I guess its like Holocure where you unlock characters via gacha? But instead of regular coins you constantly guess, its a rare drop? I can see how that would dramatically change one's experience. If you just so happen to get the top tier characters you can probably crush the game a lot easier than someone stuck with the bottom tier loser squad. Is that what the problem is?

[tn 2]

Originally posted by Kyubox:

I like how the first reply is "I didn't grind at all" and the second is "you need to grind so much". Seriously what's up with this game? Like, how much you need to grind should be somewhat objective right? I don't get why there's such a big disconnect in everyone's experiences, looking at the reviews and other threads on the forum.

I see something about "tickets for gacha". I guess its like Holocure where you unlock characters via gacha? But instead of regular coins you constantly guess, its a rare drop? I can see how that would dramatically change one's experience. If you just so happen to get the top tier characters you can probably crush the game a lot easier than someone stuck with the bottom tier loser squad. Is that what the problem is?

Oh yeah, you do get random tickets sometimes for completing a level. Never really tried grinding those out, but I think it's doable. And yeah, some content feels nigh impossible to brute force, sometimes you just need to get a good unit

[The_Shoe_Salesman]

Originally posted by Kyubox:

I like how the first reply is "I didn't grind at all" and the second is "you need to grind so much". Seriously what's up with this game? Like, how much you need to grind should be somewhat objective right? I don't get why there's such a big disconnect in everyone's experiences, looking at the reviews and other threads on the forum.

I see something about "tickets for gacha". I guess its like Holocure where you unlock characters via gacha? But instead of regular coins you constantly guess, its a rare drop? I can see how that would dramatically change one's experience. If you just so happen to get the top tier characters you can probably crush the game a lot easier than someone stuck with the bottom tier loser squad. Is that what the problem is?

The general problem lies within the gacha system the game utilizes for the player to get new characters/mascots in combination with the actual game mechanics during a battle. For the gacha itself you need tickets which are a random stage drop while coins to upgrade your owned characters are only used to upgrade their level. In theory it is okay but the difficulty of the game is heavily influenced by the motivation costs of the mascots you get from the gacha and here lies the huge problem the game has when you combine that with the way voltage works. Voltage determines the speed you get motivation points to summon additional mascots in battle and you increase its level by summoning a mascot from each different symphony group and keeping them on the field. This heavily favours low cost mascots to get your battle economy going and becomes a problem if you first gacha rolls only feature high cost mascots because it makes the game a lot harder since you are much slower. And with each passed minute during a fight the opponent becomes stronger which can snowball pretty fast. And right now there are only two ways to overcome this barrier: Restart your save hoping for better gacha RNG at the start or grind out coins to level up your mascots to brute force your way through the stages (or eventually getting a ticket drop which gives you something actual useful in return).

I fell into this hole because out of my first five gacha pulls the lowest cost mascot I got was a 4. Anything else was a 6 or higher. This made the game extremely unfun because grinding in the game also means doing everything at low speed manually since there is no sweep or auto-mode/repeat.

It would be much better if the game would give you a full roster of low cost mascots from the start as a fallback so no one could fall into this trap.

[Kyubox]

Originally posted by The_Shoe_Salesman:

Originally posted by Kyubox:

I like how the first reply is "I didn't grind at all" and the second is "you need to grind so much". Seriously what's up with this game? Like, how much you need to grind should be somewhat objective right? I don't get why there's such a big disconnect in everyone's experiences, looking at the reviews and other threads on the forum.

I see something about "tickets for gacha". I guess its like Holocure where you unlock characters via gacha? But instead of regular coins you constantly guess, its a rare drop? I can see how that would dramatically change one's experience. If you just so happen to get the top tier characters you can probably crush the game a lot easier than someone stuck with the bottom tier loser squad. Is that what the problem is?

The general problem lies within the gacha system the game utilizes for the player to get new characters/mascots in combination with the actual game mechanics during a battle. For the gacha itself you need tickets which are a random stage drop while coins to upgrade your owned characters are only used to upgrade their level. In theory it is okay but the difficulty of the game is heavily influenced by the motivation costs of the mascots you get from the gacha and here lies the huge problem the game has when you combine that with the way voltage works. Voltage determines the speed you get motivation points to summon additional mascots in battle and you increase its level by summoning a mascot from each different symphony group and keeping them on the field. This heavily favours low cost mascots to get your battle economy going and becomes a problem if you first gacha rolls only feature high cost mascots because it makes the game a lot harder since you are much slower. And with each passed minute during a fight the opponent becomes stronger which can snowball pretty fast. And right now there are only two ways to overcome this barrier: Restart your save hoping for better gacha RNG at the start or grind out coins to level up your mascots to brute force your way through the stages (or eventually getting a ticket drop which gives you something actual useful in return).

I fell into this hole because out of my first five gacha pulls the lowest cost mascot I got was a 4. Anything else was a 6 or higher. This made the game extremely unfun because grinding in the game also means doing everything at low speed manually since there is no sweep or auto-mode/repeat.

It would be much better if the game would give you a full roster of low cost mascots from the start as a fallback so no one could fall into this trap.

I see, so its heavily dependent on what characters you get huh? No wonder people have such mixed views on how easy/hard or how grindy the game is! Hm, in that case I might pass for now and see if this gets addressed down the line. Cheers for the answers.

[AETOPIA]

I use braindead strats, it's quite high success rate so it's not hurt much for me.
1. Use first 4 lowest cost units to raise motivation lv. to 4
2. Wait for a while(yes, wait) until you got enough cost for your best dmg unit (The high cost unit) (AOE recommend)
3. Summon that unit, after that summon everything you have to raise motivation to max.
4. Everything goes BOOM

If you got UR early, you will get quite easy sweep.
At least this game have ceiling so it's not that far until you get your first UR
If you feel something lacking, you can raise every unit to +10 first bcuz it's quite cheap

[Magic Toast]

Part of me feels like the gacha is holding the game back. Holocure has this problem too if you wanted an idol that wasn’t in the starting group. I get why these games use gacha and all, but even if there’s no micro transactions relying on luck to get a unit you want or need feels like a detriment if you’re stuck using units you hate or offer no synergy until you get lucky or fall back on the pity system

[FallenAmberCloud]

you can grind for tickets in the tour.
I got 2 tickets in kanto tour in 1 run, other than that it's rng when doing tour.

[Kyubox]

Originally posted by Magic Toast:

Part of me feels like the gacha is holding the game back. Holocure has this problem too if you wanted an idol that wasn’t in the starting group. I get why these games use gacha and all, but even if there’s no micro transactions relying on luck to get a unit you want or need feels like a detriment if you’re stuck using units you hate or offer no synergy until you get lucky or fall back on the pity system

At least Holocure only uses the same currency for everything and you really end up with a ton of coins each run once you get into the groove. 1000 coins per pull ends up being nothing quite quickly, especially once you add in passive coin gain from your garden in Holohome. I'm getting like 20,000 extra coins per run from that, so even if I'm trying a new character and mess up it doesn't really matter.

[Silvver]

Originally posted by Magic Toast:

feels like the gacha is holding the game back. Holocure has this problem too if you wanted an idol that wasn’t in the starting group.

You are wrong about Holocure - looks like you are playing it wrong. With new update starting a a new game (from zero) is way easier since you can make quite a lot with just fishing minigame. And for more money just use Irys with main weapon only and greed stamp - you will get thousands. There are even more gold farming strategies right now (some patch ago only Irys was able to do that)

[Joeynator3000]

....Ugh, based on what I'm hearing this is even more grindy than Battle Cats. Figures...

[RNX]

It take time to find true potential of one unit at lv 30. Then you need like 8+ units to figure your play style and who work best for that stage. Gonna be spamming Tour for gacha ticket so you need to be Kaela fan. More you unlock the more buff you get.

Then reroll skill to make your unit specialize on role they suppose to have which cost infinite gold. It's "infinite" cause for some reason I spend over 500k reroll skill for 1 unit and keep getting wrong skill wrong purple/yellow skill than the one that fit their role.
e.g. Lu-Knight (Best tank imo) 30% block rate and 50% black def but skill reroll doesn't want to give black def or block rate that higher than "white skill quality"
Don't expect to use noel milk anymore after all that investment.

Trophy:
Player level 60 +35% HP/ATK I'm still 47
Cleared Stage 74 stages current version. +27% blue/red +11% black/gold
Collection 63 current version at 60 you get +26% motivation up rate, +6 initial motivation