For those wondering what Girls Frontline 2 is like (and if you can get away with playing for free)

[jokool_aid]

This is from my experience playing over the past few months before the Steam launch, and I have not spent any money (though, that Sabrina bikini skin is tempting me... ):

No, the game is not pay to win if you're just looking for casual PvE gameplay and story content. If you want to do higher difficulty content (challenge modes and stuff like that), it might get tricky, but you should be fire if you're smart with who you build and pull for.

However, as you can guess, most cosmetic skins are cash/premium currency only, so you'll have to pay for that bikini skin since there's no way to earn premium currency except by paying cash for it.

Other than those skins being premium only, the game is very free to play friendly, and has been a lot of fun for me, so I highly recommend it if you enjoy turn based tactics/XCOM style games!

If you're still worried about missing out on good characters, don't worry, you get some decent characters for free that can handle the story content fairly well by themselves, plus there are others you can get as rewards for doing certain things.

There's also a lot of way to get pulls/pull currency by just playing casually, so you should be able to get more characters, including the limited ones if you save for the ones you like the most.

Banner rates/pity are pretty fair/standard compared to other gachas: 80 pulls is the max pity for guaranteed "SSR Dolls" (the top rarity characters), but you'll usually see one before that.

There's also the usual 50/50 chance (50% chance to get the on banner character on SSR pull, but if you lose the 50/50, it's a guaranteed on banner character on next SSR pull), so, again, if you save your reward currency/pulls, you should be able to get characters you want.

The game also has weapons for characters, and weapons have a banner to pull on as well like characters, but it's 70 pull pity for a guaranteed SSR rarity weapon instead of 80. Pulling for a character's signature weapon is not necessary to enjoy the game, but they do make them more powerful.

However, if you're wanting to do the ranked PvP, then it does become a bit unfortunate... Most of the top ranked players are whales that have multiple copies of limited characters and signature weapons.

But even so, PvP is still doable even for free to play players since there's the "gentleman's agreement" (at least in the unranked PvP) where people will sometimes have one low level character as their defense since there's no penalty for losing when defending. The combat is bot commanded for your opponent, so you're not actually fighting someone else, just the team they set up.

Unfortunately, I still can't recommend the ranked PvP content as it stands currently, except to get the participation awards (and you can do that by starting, then immediately quitting ranked matches), because the only other rewards are for actually trying to rank up, and it's not much: the top 80% get a badge and title to put on their profile, and the top 50% get the same, plus a icon border, and that's it. If you want those, it's not too hard if you get a decent team built to try and break the top 80% or 50%, but again, doesn't feel worth the effort.

Again, other than that lackluster ranked PvP content, I do highly recommend this game! I think that covers any questions new players should have. If you still have any, just let me know, and I'll do my best to answer them!

[Scipo0419]

Good write up.

I've just started in the past month and already have 4 or 5 SSR dolls without having spent a dime. And if you do want to spend "just a bit", the monthly card and Voyage pass (battle pass) are $5 and $10 respectively and are significantly better bang for your buck than buying premium currency directly for anything but skins.

[Flame-kun]

Ranked PvP as for now is just lol. It's better to get in -> retreat than to actually playing it.