This is the thread for talking about Square Enix's F2P Mobile game Final Fantasy Record Keeper (FFRK) for iOS and Android. Initially met with skepticism after some of SE's lackluster F2P entries in the past, it has grown in scope and popularity to the point where it gets as much discussion as any other mainline Final Fantasy game.
The game features a pretty basic Active Time Battle system. You can take up to 5 characters, made up of all your favorites from past games (and one original starter character) as you journey through the cliff notes version of all the Final Fantasy games. Each Final Fantasy game is a world, made up of "Records" with several stages. Each stage requires you to spend stamina to attempt them. Stamina recharges at a rate of 1 every 3 minutes. There are also limited time events that occur every week featuring additional stages, characters, and rewards.
There is a surprising depth of strategy to this game as each character can equip different combinations of equipment and abilities, allowing for many different approaches to tackling some of the (at times) quite intense challenges. Characters and equipment also get bonuses if you match them to the world you're in (for example, Cloud gets a bonus in FF7 stages, as does anyone equipping his Buster Sword). You can even earn Magicites to equip to your entire party that raise everyone's stats and offer unique activated abilities!
The F2P comes in the form of the in-game currency, Mythril, which allows you to pull powerful relics from reward banners. Mythril also allows you to recharge stamina, and to try again if you happen to be defeated in a stage. You can spend real money on Gems which have the same function as Mythril, though refreshingly for a F2P game it's possible to clear all content without spending a dime. This is thanks to several quality of life features implemented by DeNa, chief among them the Friend Summon system and Guaranteed 5*, which gives you at least one top-rarity item per 11-pull you do. Additionally, rather generous amounts of free Mythril are available between a combination of login bonuses, stage completions, event participation and quest completion.
1) Quests.
From the home screen, the Missions button in the upper-right features Wayfarer, Normal and Special missions. The Wayfarer missions are meant for new players and will guide you to some of the game's basic features, as well as giving you some nice ability and item rewards. Move on to the Normal missions from there. Special missions typically involve defeating some of the game's highest difficulty level fights with certain team limitations, which are usually "only use characters from this realm."
2) Stamina.
You can see the current / maximum Stamina numerically in the upper right corner of your Home screen. Below that is an orange bar that shows the same thing, but below that bar is a set of 5 hexagons representing your current Stamina Shards. When you get 5 Stamina Shards, you refill your stamina to full and your maximum goes up by 1. The filled in hexagons show you how many stamina shards you have towards the next stamina refill and maximum +1.
Stamina Shards can only be collected by running the Story Dungeons, available from the lower-left archway on the main menu. It is to your benefit to collect that fifth shard when you're running out or empty of Stamina. Efficiency is good! If you do a Stamina refill with Mythril/Gems, however, you'll get your maximum Stamina added on to your current, which means you'll have a surplus available. You won't start recharging Stamina again until your current drops back below your maximum.
3)Record Info.
When reading about the record in question, several tabs will be available with story, reward and boss info. Here you can read about the story background, rewards, and boss strategies as well as any medal requirements.
Upon completing any given stage in a record, your performance will be ranked. For any stage without a boss, you can earn up to 9 medals. You will lose medals if more than one party member dies, or if the party takes too much damage or uses too many actions to clear the stage. Earn enough medals and you will gain the Expert or Champion rating for the stage, which provides 150% and 200% experience, respectively.
Upon finishing the entire record, there are 3 reward levels; Completion, First Time Completion and Mastery. You can get the Completion bonus every time you complete that record. However, the other two can only be achieved once and typically include excellent rewards. To attain Mastery rewards, you must have earned 83.33% (5/6th) of all medals within the record. Remember those boss medal requirements? Each gives 3 medals if completed or 0 medals if not, so for records with few or only one stage, boss medal requirements can be crucial for obtaining Mastery rewards.
4) Newcomer Dungeons.
In the Events section are three Newcomer Dungeons, one each for FF7, FF10 and FF13. They feature 10 Records apiece that grant characters, Memory Crystals and Mythril, and have easier difficulties. They also feature a few difficulties of Experience Dungeons each. Taking characters from those realms into those dungeons will be a good source of EXP outside of certain Daily Dungeons.
5) Realm Synergy.
Every character and every item comes from a specific realm. When you go into a record for a realm, characters from that realm are treated as if they are 10 levels higher. Items from that realm are significantly boosted in stats, provided the item itself is leveled up. If you're going into an FFVII record, it's a good idea to bring Cloud. It's a great idea to bring someone carrying the Buster Sword. It's a fantastic idea to bring Cloud carrying his own Buster Sword!
The boost from synergized items is stronger than the boost from synergized characters, so it's good to collect and maintain a spread of items from all realms. You will accumulate this over time, so don't worry too much.
6) Events.
Typically, there's 1 or 2 events running at any given time. These events start at a very low difficulty that even first day players can participate in, and end at very high difficulties that even longtime veterans can have trouble with. Rewards for completing event stages can include new or returning characters and their Memory Crystals (used to break level caps), weapons, armor or accessories from the event's realm, orbs, upgrade materials and of course Mythril. Events typically run for about two weeks and overlap, and you should definitely try to complete as much of each event as possible.
7) Unlocking Characters (and breaking their level caps.)
Each weekly event features a specific realm. Completing the first half of these events will get you several characters from that realm, as well as a Hero Soul (more on this below.) Completing the second half of these events will get you Memory Crystals for those characters, as well as a Memory Crystal Lode (again, more below.) Completing the bonus battles for these events will get you Memory Crystal IIs for those characters, as well as a Memory Crystal II Lode (ditto.) Completing the Ultimate battle will get you a Memory Crystal III Lode.
To unlock characters who aren't currently featured in events, you'll visit the Hall of Rites. Hero Souls can be turned in for any character, and MC Lodes can be turned in for their various MCs. MC1s are used to break past level 50 and enable the Record Materia slot. MC2s are used to break past level 65, and MC3s are used to break past level 80.
8) Record Dive.
The Record Dive system allows you to power up characters who have reached level 65, adding small amounts of stat points, percentage boosts to certain types of abilities, adding or increasing ability ranks, adding additional equipment options, or even unlocking exclusive character-specific Legend Materia. The available powerups are different for each eligible character. You unlock these power ups by expending Spirit/Wisdom/Bravery/Dexterity/Vitality Motes, which are a special type of currency obtained from a variety of sources including Event rewards. 4* motes are attainable by completing the harder difficulties of weekly multiplayer content. 5* motes are attainable by completing harder difficulties of weekly single player content. Some exceptions may apply.
Record Dive is also where one can spend 5* Job Motes (like Thief, Spellblade, Ninja, etc), which enable the use and provide copies of certain 6* abilities. Sources of these motes are few and far between.
This is a complicated system with a lot of moving parts and limited resources and there are not nearly enough motes to unlock every character's everything. Feel free to ask questions in the thread!
9) Daily Dungeons.
Each day has a specific set of 2 dungeons. You can only get the First Time Completion and Mastery rewards once, same as the records, and those rewards don't refresh from week to week. So if you complete a stage of the Sunday dungeon, next Sunday it will still show them as all completed (though you could still farm the dungeon for normal drops or experience.)
Most daily dungeons offer a pairing of orbs, like Summon and Non-Elemental, or Fire and Ice. They're a good place to farm orbs for newer and older players alike, especially if you need both kinds. There are also Experience dungeons which offer tremendous amounts of EXP for clearing them, as well as Egg drops you can use for more EXP.
The daily dungeons now reward Gysahl Greens upon completion, and enemies have a small chance to drop additional Greens. These Greens can be exchanged for orbs, eggs, gil or upgrade materials at any time, and once per week the Special Shop will restock a variety of Major Orbs (at half price, relative to buying 10x Greaters), MC lodes and Mythril. Additional purchases may become available from time to time (accessories, items, etc.)
10) Nightmare, Mote, Torment and Magicite Dungeons
The
Nightmare area is now permanently open, and features a set of 12 dungeons with 5 challenging boss fights apiece. Each dungeon culminates in a special fight where all characters with 5* rank in a specified ability will get full synergy for themselves and all equipped items, regardless of what realm they or their equipped gear are from! These final fights are like puzzles that must be solved and typically require planning and tactics instead of super powerful gear.
Completing the final boss of a
Nightmare dungeon gives you a Record for a powerful 6* ability, which require 6* crystals to make. These crystals are somewhat slow to acquire, so spend them carefully.
There are five
Mote dungeons which are all accessible for a few weeks at a time. Each features a single boss fight, and completing these fights reward you with large amounts of 4* motes for record diving. The first, vs Ifrit, is very overtuned; the rest are more reasonable to complete.
There are several
Torment dungeons, with more on the way. Each features a single boss fight in three difficulties, and when they debuted they replaced the Mote dungeons as the game's hardest content. The first two difficulties are precluded by 4 or 6 (based on difficulty) waves of high-HP trash which themselves require significant effort to clear, and there is no stage break between the trash and the boss. The bosses have elemental weaknesses, but at reduced potency. Rewards include 5* Orbs, 6* Crystals and 5* Job Motes for specific ability schools. The third, highest, difficulty has no trash waves and uses the Jump Start rules, where each character starts with 3 SB bars and cannot gain any more.
New to the game as of this thread are the
Magicite dungeons, which take the throne as the game's hardest content (and can't even be accessed until you clear all the Nightmare dungeons!) Each features a single dungeon with a single stage, and you are challenged by an incredibly powerful Esper. If you can defeat them, you can gain a copy of them and other Espers as Magicites, which can be equipped on the Party screen and benefit the entire party. You can even call on your Main Esper to fight alongside you with a variety of positive effects. These battles feature
ZERO Synergy bonuses, you can't bring any of your Roaming Warrior friends, and the Espers have an 80% resistance to Break effects, so they're quite a challenge! Fortunately there's a mysterious ally who can help you out...
Magicites are leveled up and have their level caps broken just like characters do, and you can only finish one Esper fight per day. This is a very deep system which we're just beginning to scratch the surface of.
Here's a post written by silence1186 which has some great info on which Magicites are good for what.
11) Relics.
The Relics page, accessible via shortcut on the bottom right of most screens, is where one can "pull" from a variety of "banners" for items. Banner pulls are always at least 3* rarity, with a lesser chance at 4* rarity and a ~13% chance at 5* rarity. Doing so costs Mythril (in game currency) or Gems (purchased with real $$$).
All banners from this point forward will have "Guaranteed 5*", which means every 11-pull comes with at least one 5* item. The likeliest result is two 5* items per 11 pull.
Banners are typically linked to current Events, and every banner has featured 5* relics. When you pull a 5* item,
most of the time it will be one of the featured relics, but there's still a very small chance (0.1%) it won't be.
One can do a single pull for 5 Mythril, a triple pull for 15 Mythril or an 11 pull for 50 Mythril. In this modern era of Guaranteed 5*, it is most efficient to do 11 pulls and only 11 pulls. Aside from that, on a per-draw basis your odds of drawing a 5* item are the same no matter how many items you pull at once and no matter which currency you use to pay for them.
12) Stacking Debuffs.
A relatively common feature of relics these days are an SB that includes stat debuffs to the enemy targets. A good party setup might include one or more of these SBs, and a key piece of information is that they stack
if the affected debuff/debuffs are different combinations. One ATK/MAG debuff won't stack with another, but an ATK/MAG debuff will stack with an ATK/DEF debuff and an ATK/RES debuff. This rule of thumb goes for Support abilities as well; see the second post for more information.
We have a Discord channel set up to coordinate PA runs of Multiplayer bosses. You can join it with this link;
is a compilation of super useful information about FFRK. Ability damage multipliers, character skillsets, soul break details, information on stacking buffs, mechanics calculations, etc.
includes information about damn near everything. What various soul breaks do, what Burst mode commands do for which characters, who gets what Record and Legend Materia, etc. And it's current through JP content, so you can use it to look ahead and see what your favorite characters are destined to receive.
is specifically great for looking at the contents of upcoming Relic banners. You can see the order in which these banners appeared in JP, as well as the contents of them. IF we get an Event (and we skip most of JP's collabs with non-FF content, sadly), we typically get the exact same banners. Our Festivals have different contents, however.
Informational diagrams (from current JP content) regarding 5* Legend Dives. This section courtesy of Jragghen who is less lazy than I am;
A while ago, FFRK added a friend summon system. We have
you can plug your friend code into, and find the friend code of other PAers.
If you're looking to fill out your Friends list now that RW lists can be refreshed during selection, I recommend
, which features a searchable list of Friend Codes that constantly updates and can be sorted by realm stats.
Posts
Newcomer's Banners - These banners feature Unique, Super, and Burst Soul Breaks for FF7, FF10 and FF13 characters, respectively. The first 11 pull on each is half-price. All of the Unique and portions of the Super Soul Breaks have fallen behind the power curve, so they're somewhat of a trap pull, even at half-price. The best use scenario for these banners would be new players looking for any relics to help fill out their inventory, and these are of course popular realms. I would recommend pulling only once on these, and only if you're very new (and there's nothing extraordinarily better going on) or if you absolutely know what you're doing.
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New Player Ability Hone Recommendations:
Mitigation is king in the game and never stops being useful, so Shellga, Protectga, Power Breakdown, and Magic Breakdown should be at the top of the priority list. The regular breaks are useful too, just because a different set of characters can use them. AoE Mitigation (without damage) is offered by the Dancer line; 3* dances match up with 3* breaks, 4* with 4* breakdowns, etc. Good Dancers include Faris, Lenna, Penelo, Cait Sith, Mog, Rikku and Yuffie. Bards have their own 4* abilities which are identical to Protectga and Shellga.
Abusing Retaliate's mechanics can cheese you through a LOT of content and it's a 2* ability, so is incredibly cheap to hone up. You can pair it with Draw Fire (also cheap) for extra cheese with cheese on top. Give the rest of your team copies of Double Cut or Tempo Flurry and use them against your Retaliator.
Self Boosts are useful to increase a character's damage before you pull relics with Party Boosts. Many jobs have access to them; Monks have Punishing Palm which deals damage and increases ATK, Samurai have Mirror of Equity which does the same. Thieves have Steal Power which doesn't do damage but does debuff the target's ATK at the same strength as Power Breakdown. 4* Darkness users have several options depending on which stat they'd like to boost; Casters can use Memento Mori which increases MAG but also Dooms the caster. Physical characters can use Death Throes which increases ATK but also Dooms the caster. And Physical users can opt for Dark Bargain which raises ATK but lowers DEF.
If you want to get into Black Magic, start with the Water line in each tier as opposed to fire/lightning/ice; Water is infrequently resisted and easier to hone than the primary elements are. Plus it casts faster, so it does more damage over time not counting resistance/weakness.
If you want to get into Summoning, note that Summons are difficult to hone for the time being, and you only get one use per hone. Having said that, the 3* primary element ones are an ok place to start for lesser difficulty fights. As for 4*, Carbuncle is occasionally useful at R1 but the others take a lot of resources to hone. Once you have a large pile of 4* Summon orbs, Maduin is always useful where AoE is needed. With regard to elemental 4* summons, the good ones are Alexander, Leviathan and Fat Chocobo. Syldra is an upgrade from Ramuh, and if we ever get Noel then that's an upgrade from Shiva. The only 4* fire summon is Phoenix and it does not hit twice, so it is not recommended.
With regard to White Magic, Curaga will suffice until it doesn't (party level ~55-60+). Renewing Cure is an alternative that heals for less than Curaga but applies Low Regen. Memento of Prayer applies Low Regen to the entire party. The Dia line is really only viable if the target is weak to Holy or if you pick up some MND gear/RMs and +Holy% gear.
With regard to Status Effects, the Machinist line is a series of 4* abilities that have a high chance to apply a status effect, and deal additional damage if the target already has that effect. White Magic has access to high proc chance Slow and Silence, while Black Magic has access to high proc chance Blind.
With regard to Spellblades, the 3* abilities are fine. It's not really necessary to push into the 4* ones.
After that, it all depends on your relic pulls. We're at a point in the game where pretty much every smaller population job is fleshed out with 3*, 4* and 5* abilities, so there's plenty to choose from.
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Party Building:
To be populated!
Inquisitor77: Rius, you are Sisyphus and melee Wizard is your boulder
Tube: This must be what it felt like to be an Iraqi when Saddam was killed
Bookish Stickers - Mrs. Rius' Etsy shop with bumper stickers and vinyl decals.
Sitting on 250+ Mythril still is weird...actually conveniently, I only have budget for spending 75ish in the Fest anyway to make my pulls by the time XIV and T roll around again, so bad banners are fine with me. I'll just hit a couple luckies.
I figure I'll be able to roll the bones twice between the Christmas fest and the Onion God banner, since gems won't happen. Probably it'll be a roll on Christmas banner 2, and one on Onion. As much as I'd love to roll on the double Fire chain banner, I have to admit that my Fire power is far above my Earth power right now.
So I'm assuming that this Christmas fest really is the long-awaited Superfest with the chains?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYNJcdJFEG8
Just battles/dungeons with completely set characters/equipment/abilities/SBs/encounters, but with having to click a bunch more times (and associated loading every time) for each one.
God, I could max out that whole budget and still have almost half of my current mythril left over by the end if it. Maybe I'll talk myself into more somewhere. Or maybe I'll just sit on it all for the third anniversary, which they would be hard-pressed to fuck up for me.
I'm a bit sad that the FFVI Ymir fight finds an excuse for nobody to be wearing Magitek Armor, though.
Also Dena continues to be jerks.
Yeah. I'm going with a Mog/Tyro Mage team, using Love Serenade and Fantasy Unbound for maximum MND buffage. Probably gonna round out the team with Terra and Krile. Hope you like Fire-element OSBs, asshole ice cube bird.
The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Steam: Korvalain
There's just a bit too much stuff I'd like a chance at, packed into a short time frame there.
Definitely time consuming, though, and there's a lot that can't be skipped.
The dream of 100 gem Tidus CSB endures
Between now and 4* Magicites (and the likely reduction in stamina cost to 20 stamina for Magicite dungeons) we'll receive 44 keystones. Assuming you do 6 Magicite clears a week, if you have seven Keystones today (after claiming today's) and have yet to do any Magicite dungeons this week, you'll claim your 15th keystone on January 31st, the day 4'* Magicite comes out and the stamina cost comes down.
Steam: TheArcadeBear
I'm still farming for drops...the drop imbalance is real.
And I immediately spent all of them on Shelke. Now I'm able to Legend Dive her whenever I need to.
Cid Raines is a helluva drug. That bugger pretty much did all the damage with BSB alone. I also brought Firion and Rosa along and they mblinked pretty much all of the aoe magic. OK brought VoF and small bits of damage (maybe I should use him to entrust next time instead?). Poor Agrias took the Black Fang for the team though.
I should be able to reproduce these results. Came out to about 50 seconds. I was down to 1 second of doom on Raines though, that was a bit close.
Fire seems like it'll probably be best for me, since my only big thing there is Refia's BSB (Seph's enSB/OSB too, along with Bartz's USB though, so not hurting either). I really don't like those earth relics of what we know. I need water stuff, but I'm so stacked on wind that it's a hard sell. I'd like an ice chain, but with Shan's CSB/BSB, that may offset banner 4 enough. It's a maybe though. Banner 5 will be an easy pass with my surplus of holy goods and having Garland's CSB.
Locke's Armguard [LMR, +10 ATK] - En-Fire for 25 seconds at the start of battle
Krile's Dress [LMR, +10 MAG] - En-Fire for 25 seconds at start of battle
Tifa's Model [LMR, +10 ATK] - En-Earth for 25 seconds at start of battle
Zack's Shinra Beta+ [LMR, +10 ATK] - When using Celerity abilities, 50% chance to chase with a single-target Wind physical attack
Kimahri's Thanatos Lance [LMR, +10 ATK] - Damage +?% with Spear equipped
Shantotto Relic Legend Materia: 10% chance to Triplecast Witch abilities
Warrior of Light's Crystal Helm [LMR, +10 ATK] - ATK +3% for each hit received, up to 35%
Seymour's Mortirod [LMR, +10 MAG] - 25% chance to Dualcast Dark abilities
Still thinking Earth? I could use a proper Earth Monk, and anything on that list aside from Bartz USB would produce a proper Earth Monk for me. And when the booby prize is Bartz USB, that's a good sign.
But dat Cloud USB, Wind Chain, and Water Chain, though...
The Ice/Lightning banner might be more worth my mythril, though
EDIT: Oh wait, shit, Earth has Bartz USB. 100% pulling on that.
The Festival of Wonder Relic Draw will have bonus drop rates for equipment with Burst Soul Breaks and equipment with Legend Materia for a limited time. There are new pieces of equipment with elemental aspects of every type included in the lineup, and four or more new pieces of equipment will appear in the phases. You could also get new 6★ relics!
・Phase 1: 5:00 PM 12/25 PST to 4:59 PM 12/27 PST
Locke and Krile’s new Chain Soul Breaks will make their debut in this Relic Draw.
Locke’s Atomic Dive activates a fire chain to raise the fire damage of all allies a small amount, deals eleven physical fire attacks to one target, and temporarily lowers its Defense and Resistance a large amount.
Krile’s Unbroken Chain also activates a fire chain to raise the fire damage of all allies a small amount, deals eleven magic fire attacks to one target, and reduces delay of all allies' actions for two turns.
Either would likely be a welcome addition to any fire team.
・Phase 2: 5:00 PM 12/27 PST to 4:59 PM 12/29 PST
Galuf’s Ultra Soul Break and Tifa’s new Burst Soul Break will make their debut in this Relic Draw! Ingus’s Chain Soul Break and Bartz’s Ultra Soul Break will also appear, along with other powerful Soul Breaks.
・Phase 3: 5:00 PM 12/29 PST to 4:59 PM 12/31 PST
Tidus and Zack’s Chain Soul Breaks, and Cloud’s Ultra Soul Break will appear in this Relic Draw along with four new pieces of equipment (including Kimahri’s Ultra Soul Break).
・Phase 4: 5:00 PM 12/31 PST to 4:59 PM 1/2 PST
Kain and Snow’s new Chain Soul Breaks will make their debut in this Relic Draw.
Kain’s Impulse Drive activates a lightning chain, raising the lightning damage of all allies a small amount, and deals twenty-two jump lightning attacks to one target.
Snow’s Frost Geyser activates an ice chain, raises the ice damage of all allies a small amount, deals eleven physical ice attacks to one target, and automatically restores HP to allies when they take damage (up to 2000 HP total).
・Phase 5: 5:00 PM 1/2 PST to 4:59 PM 1/4 PST
Seymour’s Chain Soul Break and Garland’s Overstrike Soul Break will make their debut in this Relic Draw.
Seymour’s Oblivion activates a dark chain, raising the dark damage of all allies a small amount, dealing eleven magic dark attacks to one target, and reducing the delay of all allies' actions for two turns.
None of the LMRs and a few random other things aren't explicitly confirmed, but they were on Superfest banners, so who knows. Our last fest, we had nothing but BSB+s. Japan didn't reach that until 3rd Anniversary.
Still leaning Fire only, I guess.
Hmm.
Probably meant to be used with her USB as well. Guaranteed 12% chain boost, up to a potential 24%.
All done with farming for drops, now I can just pick whatever want I actually feel like doing (read: Sealion because RIP Ice Orbs)
- Ultra Onion
- FFVI Celes/Terra
- Type 0
- TGCid++
I will probably draw on the non-healer luckies. I really don't have much left for fest banners after that, although 1, 2 and 5 would all be helpful.
Healer Lucky draw list
20/59
Hard pass, I have basically all of the top tier items and I'm not missing enough for CM purposes that I care to draw.