Sunday, September 30, 2012

How to Gain HP/CW

With the advent of the bazaar old methods of selling feeder service and buying in bulk and selling individually are pretty much gone. A lot of people are wondering how do I get HP in Rage of Bahamut.

For new and veteran players it can be very confusing and difficult to gain HP/CW in the current environment. I have found two fairly decent ways to gain HP in the current market. Of course players can still sell feeders on their friends list or to order members as long as there is still high demand for these cards and is probably the bet method for newer players with very little HP.

The two ways I found that seem to be fairly effective are as follows.

Enhancing: This method is to look for popular cards such as nightmare or claymore maid and check the pricing. Normally you will find a lot of them are either not enhanced or only partially enhanced. With the difficulty of buying feeders a lot of people are less likely to buy unenhanced versions of cards. Because of this if you buy a popular card on the bazaar for a couple under the average price because it's unenhanced you can normally enhance it yourself and sell it for a 5-10HP in profit depending on the price you got and the demand.

Enhanced Enhancing: This is still part of the first way but a more enhanced version. This involved buying four of a popular card for cheap and creating a 4max version of the card. You can normally sell this card for 30-50HP profit if you check for good prices. This method requires you to put a few days effort into it but the payoff is normally worth it.

Trading Up: This method is time consuming but results in big payouts if done properly. The key with this method is to list cards primarily for trades instead of HP until you move up enough to make a large profit. Lets say you have Elaine who has a rough value of 15HP. If you set up Elaine for an Inugami there is a fair chance a god realm player with an Inugami would see that as a fair trade. Of course Inugami has a resale value of about 30HP. You get the Inugami and list it for a Nightmare, there is a fair chance a player would make that swap. That's another 20HP gain. Finally you list Nightmare for Claymore which appears like a legitimate trade because they are each the best lead cards for their realms. This results in another 10HP profit. The final thing to do is to either sell the Claymore (or Apsara, or Nightmare, whatever you're comfortable with) for HP, or you can try your luck putting up a Claymore for a Gilgamesh (I know somebody who did this and got it). Trading up transaction the cost was about 6-8 Tickets and 2-3 days for about 50+HP in profit.

Trading Down: This is another fun method and is wonderful if you have less valuable SR/SSR. This method includes getting something like a Temptress Vampire. She has an approximate worth of about 60HP. Put her up for a price of Two Claymore Maids resulting in a gain of 60HP if you get an interested buyer. This way requires more tickets normally because you'll be listing SR/SSR cards using five tickets to sell and then more tickets to sell or trade what you get.

Hopefully for those not already using these methods this will help you gain HP and make the most out of what I still consider a god awful system.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Puppet Master Update

I remember when I was playing during Roar of the Dragons a while back and thought it was really great that as a new player I was accumulating so many cards so quickly. Back then I was getting tons of golden dragons and gathering high normals to sell for HP. I thought it was the coolest event the way dragons would come down and you'd be constantly fighting them for a reward.

Now that I'm a more tenured player, I realize I HATE this event. It requires huge amounts of attention and feels more like a grind to me than any other event. The beauty of the Tears of the Moon event, I can just play for an hour and burn through CW if I want to do well. During Holy War I can burn through tons of HP during one Holy War to boost my Orders rank and then take the day off.

The Puppet Master just feels more like a grind than any other event to me.

Anybody else feeling this way?

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Legend of the Cryptids Review

Legend of the Cryptids is officially released for android 4.0 so I recently downloaded and started playing. I'm very pleased with many aspects of the game where some aspects leave me wanting a little more. This review will cover what I like and dislike about the game as well as how I would rate it head to head with Rage of Bahamut at the moment.

Graphics: I consider this the most important part of any trading card game (TCG). The opening page and menu setup is vibrant colors over a black background. It is very similar to Rage of Bahamut in layout while the colors are much bolder and more engaging. As for the card art, it is focused on three different realms; water, forest, and fire. Creatures from each realm look very close to their respective element.

The artwork on the cards is much more serious than the artwork in Rage of Bahamut. Where Rage is more of an anime style Legend of the Cryptids offers a more realistic look to most of their cards. I couldn't imagine a card like Claymore Maid being in Legend of the Cryptids but Bloody Mistress would be a welcome art style.

I unfortunately do find this to be a bit of a downfall on the art portion of the game. The monsters blow anything Rage has out of the water, but the TnA in Rage is far more playful. Because of this I do give a bit more of the edge to Rage because I prefer the anime style TnA.

Gameplay: The gameplay is very fluid unlike other TCG. There is virtually no lag and I haven't crashed once yet. Just like in rage the gameplay consists of questing to gain points to place in your energy, attack, or defense. The stats pretty much seem to be dead ringers to Rages.

During quests a number of monsters pop up and you need to tap to kill them then proceed until you eventually get to a boss level. The boss levels work identically in Legend of the Cryptids as they do in Rage of Bahamut.

The events are also pretty much identical in both games as well.

Because of the virtually identical nature of gameplay I will say the games are equal in regard to this.

Enhancement/Evolution: This is the first of major differences I saw in the games. Reaching a cards final form in LoC is done by combining just two of the same cards. The cards will retain 5% of their stats but at final level will retain 10% of their stats. The cards also get an EX modifier at the end rather than an evolution to the next rank.

This makes it really easy to tell the difference between a card being used to scam you or not. Enhancement is done the same way in both games.

For this I'm giving the edge to Cryptids. The multiple card enhancement/evolution system in Rage is pretty much unnecessary and only appears there in my book to force people into needing higher numbers of HR/SR/SSR cards thus resulting in more sales. But I could see where many players really enjoy the grind of enhancing and the difficulty of knowing how to enhance and evolve.

Trading: Cryptids wins. Hand down. No limitations to speak of, a true TCG. Where Rage of Bahamut decided they wanted a controlled Bazaar, Legend of the Cryptids put a built in message board where people can scan or post for trades.

Overall Impression:
                                          Rage                      Cryptids

Graphics:                               9                              8

Gameplay:                             7                              7        

Enhancement/Evo:                7                              9

Trading:                                 5                              9

Total:                                     28                            33

So, as you can see Cryptids is the clear winner. That is until you count the 6 point bonus for winning the best tits (3 for each tit) category and an additional 3 points for best asses category. The nine point bump puts it in first atm until Cryptids can start producing some great TnA cards.

For the time being I'm going to be playing them both. If you're going to try Cryptids feel free to use my Referral Code: lucarda

Click Here to see my Legend of the Cryptids Blog its still in progress :P

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Market Fluctuations

So with the entry of the Bazaar you can expect quite a few market fluctuations based on supply and demand.

A lot of cards are dropping in price, first very rapidly, then a little more slowly until they level out. An example of this was Dark Dragoon. Dark Dragoon initially released with a price of roughly 900HP on the market because it is an SSR Demon realm that proves a Massive buff to Demon Att/Def. I don't yet know the final stat of the card but I anticipate somewhere around 21k/20k.

This makes it the most effective SSR Demon realm card for dual purpose. The cards current selling value? 390-400HP pretty steady.

So, these prices are exiting right? Well don't get too exited yet. You should always remember that a huge number of players were never able to trade away their rewards from two straight Holy Wars and now are only able to liquidate a couple cards a day. This means that the market is pretty glutted with cards and none of those players were able to make a lot of HP over the last few weeks.

My point of this post is to remind you that:

1) As the price of cards drops the price of HP increases by correlation and the Bazaar took away many players ability to generate HP.

2) The next event requires HP in pretty decent quantities.

3) If it's hard for a lot of these players to liquidate their HR cards, it's also going to be harder for you to generate HP from your cards. 

So watch your HP spending, buy what you need and make sure you have a decent HP stock if you want to do well during the next HW. Sell what you have and don't need before you go all buy happy.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Have Some Spare Free Time?

So, I made a rare purchase the other day, I bought an ebook. Let me tell you what spurned this.

I was out with a friend for dinner and we got to talking about Rage of Bahamut which then ended up shifting over to talk about my blog. My blog gets about 4000+ visitors a day on average. If I post something people are really interested in it creeps up above that. To this my buddy asked me how much I make running my blog. Want to take a guess? Virtually nothing. And I don't really mind.

The reason I started this blog is actually because I got my account previously suspended from GameFaqs after a series of incidents ending in me saying some pretty foul things to the admins. Long story short, I had a guide that was #1 Google result for Rage of Bahamut searches and my referral code was in it, they didn't like that so they removed my code but kept my guide. I made them remove it and a series of exchanges occurred (I'm still pretty annoyed about it).

When I started getting a thousand visitors a day I decided to let Google put up some adsense ads. I make a couple bucks each month on people clicking those. I assume on accident because they virtually never have anything to do with what I write about which I find frustrating.

Well anyway, about what I bought. The title...is really bad. Don't make fun of me too badly for it either, it's The Work from No Home ebook. First things first, the reason for the title is because the guy who wrote it is a known internet marketer who was going on vacation in the US. Before his trip he decided to do an experiment using one website and clickbank. He wanted to see how much money he could make over his thirty day trip. He made 12k. Hence he was not working from home, but working from no home.

I want you to know I do NOT expect to make 12k. In fact this is the first educational ebook or internet good I have EVER purchased (not counting videogame goods as internet goods...the number of skins on League of Legends...). So, don't make fun of me about it but I figured I really enjoy writing, blogging, and helping people out so why the hell not?

I think it's going to take me about 7-10 hours to finish the book my first run through but I'm going forward with it full force. Why this ebook? The guy was an addicted World of Warcraft gamer, the book was inexpensive, and I can't argue with money back guarantees. So far I find it really interesting and am learning a lot.

The reason I'm adding it to a post on my blog despite it being a game blog? I think a lot of the people who read my blog are avid gamers with a little extra free time and this could be a fun way for them to learn and apply themselves. Even if I fail completely at it I'm only out $37 but will pretty much get a full college marketing course worth of experience. The second reason is if more people are doing this with me and I'm not doing well but they are they can share some of what they're doing and I can share some of what I'm doing. Increases my shot of doing well.

I like the fact people find my blog helpful and read it and in the future will probably start a lot of other blogs and I hope people will enjoy reading them as well.

If you want to give it a shot please use The Work from No Home link I provide. If it interests you think of it like using my referral code. If you're not interested don't worry, I'll be back to writing my normal Rage of Bahamut posts soon.


Click Here to See the Video

How to Claim Quiz Game Prizes

Since I now have spots cleared out on my alt account I will be able to deliver prizes two weeks after I add you to my alt accounts fellow list.

If you won a prize, please post your in game name below this post. I will then write down your IGN and delete it from my forum in case you don't want it out there.

Afterward I will add you as a fellow from my alt account -Belmont-

Please accept the fellow request and once the two weeks are up I will send you the prize you earned.

Thanks again for your participation.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Bazaar Released

Wow, this thing actually managed to be worse than I thought it could be. I posted my 4-6 Ares up, which cost all my Bazaar tickets of course. Then I start searching to see if there's something I want to buy.

You could imagine my shock when I found out I can't purchase anything because you need the tickets to buy and sell.

On top of this it doesn't say the evolve of any card so a player is stuck looking it up each time to verify which evolution it is.

To add insult to injury I'm removing my friends from my alt account, which is going slowly because they aren't removing me like I'm asking them to, just so I can add people who won a contest I hosted to trade since I won't be able to use the auction house to give them their prizes.

So, long story short. I'll be swapping over to Cryptids once it's released for Razr Maxx. Chances are once it's released all my cards and HP will be exchangeable for the card/HP equivalent in that game.

I highly recommend all players leave Rage of Bahamut, I just posted three auctions and outside burning my stamina I have nothing to do in this game. It's literally just as boring as it was when trades were down.

I don't know how anybody could even remotely entertain themselves in this.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Hate the Bazaar?

If you hate the Bazaar please do what I did and post on:

http://feedback.mobage.com/forums/172709-rage-of-bahamut/suggestions/3149666-feedback-on-the-new-trading-system

Also I will note that several players have posted complaints to the Google App store and have received refunds of the money they spent on the game.

https://support.google.com/googleplay/bin/request.py?contact_type=apps_refund_nodevcontact.

Just say they ripped you off by falsely representing their game. Have your order numbers from each order you made and submit.

How Bazaar how Bazaar

Greetings,
We will be releasing a new Trade System soon, with new features!
Below is an explanation of the changes in Trades and Gifting, with a new Bazaar feature.
Trades, Gifting
  • You can only Trade or Gift to Fellows that you have added or Order members that joined your Order at least 2 weeks previously.
  • Accounts that have not completed Terminal Registration will not be able to Trade or Gift, and will not be able to receive Trades or Gifts.
  • The maximum number of Rupies that can be gifted at any one time has been changed to 10,000 Rupies.
  • Only Normal to Rare Cards can be gifted. (There are no restrictions to the rarity of cards for Trades.)
Bazaar (New Feature)
  • You can exchange your desired cards or items in the Bazaar.
  • You will need a Bazaar Ticket to use the Bazaar Feature. (When you send out the card/ item or when you receive them, the Bazaar Ticket will be used up.)
  • The maximum number of Bazaar Tickets you can hold at any one time is 5 tickets.
  • Up to 5 Bazaar Tickets will be given each day together with the Login Bonus. (If you hold less than 5 tickets at that time)
  • You can use Bazaar Tickets every day to display your cards or items ‘for sale.’
  • * Unregistered devices will not be given Bazaar Tickets during the Login Bonus.
  • * The number of Bazaar Tickets required for cards depends on the rarity of the cards. Even if a transaction is cancelled, the ticket(s) will be considered used. 
Below shows the number of Bazaar Tickets required for the different rarity of cards.
  • Normal Card - 1 Ticket
  • High Normal Card - 1 Ticket
  • Rare Card - 1 Ticket
  • High Rare Card -2 Tickets
  • S Rare Card -5 Tickets
  • SS Rare Card - 5 Tickets
  • Legend Card - 5 Tickets
  • Cards, Items and Rupies can be listed in the Bazaar.
  • Cards listed in the Bazaar cannot be listed as your Leader Card, Safeguarded, sold for Rupies by tapping ‘Sell,’ Traded nor Gifted.
  • When a transaction is completed, the card will be transferred.
  • User IDs will not be displayed for deals in the Bazaar Search area.
  • * However, once a transaction is completed, it is possible to view the ID of the seller.
  • All successful card transactions will be displayed in the Bazaar History.
  • * The completion date and contents of the transaction will be displayed.
  • When requesting items, the number of items that can be requested will depend on the rarity of the cards.
More information will be available in the Guidance under [About Bazaar] after the Bazaar Feature is released.
  • Bazaar Features might be modified, changed or stopped without prior notice.
  • We seek your understanding and support regarding this.
* Trades, Gifts, Selling cards (by tapping ‘Sell’ on a card’s information screen) and finally, the new Bazaar, are 4 separate features in the game.
Thank you for playing Rage of Bahamut!
Rage of Bahamut Management Office

Alright, so I have a number of issues with this new system. First one is that they are managing to kill their own game. I am not against the appearance of an auction system that works side by side with a trading system but this system essentially eliminates trading for players. This whole thing is so foul I struggle where to begin but here it goes.

I'll begin with points I'm fine with and understand.
1) Accounts that have not completed terminal registration cannot trade or gift.
2) Maximum number of rupies that can be gifted is 10k. (I don't even know where this one came from by the way. People hide rupies through trading, not gifting)
3) The existence of a Bazaar/Auction house.
4)  Bazaar Tickets: I get it. They don't want people just listing 100s of normals bogging down the system.

Now for the what the hell were they thinking list. I'll try to do this in the order they are listed in the update.

1) Only able to trade with order members or friends. Whatever, this would be fine if it weren't for the next portion. Two week minimum on your friends list or as a member of your order. This means that if I find somebody on the forums who wants to purchase my Elaine at 15HP, either that player has to wait two weeks, or he just can't purchase from me. NO PLAYER WILL WAIT TWO WEEKS FOR A CARD.

2) Only Rare or lower cards can be gifted. I don't get it. I can work around and just do a one rupie trade to give somebody a High Rare. I just don't understand why I should have to.

3) Bazaar Tickets. That's right, this little fella makes it onto both lists. Five? What the hell damn guy!? Not only five, but it costs different amounts of tickets based on the rarity of the card? Why? Why not just give a giant middle finger to high level players. The least you could have done is buy us some dinner before you fucked us. Each player ten tickets a day, ten listings a day. There should be no limit on the number of SR/SSR/Legend allowed to be listed. But really, I wonder how long before they start charging for Bazaar tickets, I think everybody sees that as the long term goal of the game.

4) User IDs will not be displayed for deals in the bazaar search area. Oh, screw you guys. So if I actually find a buyer on the forums for my cards I can't list them at auction and have him send me the deal because he can't search for me?

5) The number of items requested will depend on the rarity? So now you're going to regulate what I can sell my cards for as well? Yeah, fuck you guys.

I don't expect all players to agree with me on this, but in my mind they effectively ruin their game if they go through with this. Posting and searching postings for trades was one of my favorite things to do, and effectively how I got the cards I have.




Monday, September 10, 2012

Puppet Master Guide

After reading a lot of various questions on other forums about the Puppet Master event I decided I would write a simple how to do well guide.

Step One: Have a full list of active fellows and order mates and don't have them overlap. Fellows should be from outside your order. This way when you find a boss the pool of people to aid you will be higher as well as the pool of people you can aid.

Step Two: Have the ability to attack multiple times with high power. Since your rank will be based on the amount of damage you inflict (not the amount of kills you get) it's important to be able to attack multiples per HP.

Step Three: Only quest when a Golem isn't up or when you're Stamina capped. This will allow you to conserve clear waters. As you get further through the quests the more stamina they cost.

What to gather before hand? Holy Powder is far more valuable than Clear Water during this event. Clear water does have a value but it's much lower because anybody in your order or on your fellows list can summon a Golem. Your personal and order ranking is determined by accumulated damage done. More Holy Powder, more damage.

How to profit from this event? If it's like Roar there will be a huge amount of skilled feeders attained through questing. You can either purchase 4-6 evo'd cards before the event and skill them to 10 to sell at a profit afterward, or you can simply sell the feeders. With the trading ban lasting so long there will be a HUGE market for feeders.

Friday, September 7, 2012

Quiz Game Winners!

Thanks to everybody who participated in the Quiz Game. Unfortunately I don't have the time to keep it going for a full week or more until trade is back up.

1st Place: 48pts Duncan (Ifrit)
2nd Place: 37pts Josh (Master Samurai)
3rd Place: 25pts Benn (Elaine)

Mdoyle: 23pts (Succubus)
Fbaum: 16pts (Gold Fox)
Tim: 9pts (Elder Dragon)
Dresden: 6pts (Garmr)
Sheena: 4pts (Gladiator)
Carmen: 2pts (Elder Vampire)
Josiah: 2pts (Rhea)
Patrick: 1pts (Buccaneer)

Thanks for participating everybody. Once trade comes back I'll just ask you guys to post your IGNs for me. Once I write them down and the prize you won I'll erase them from my site so you don't have it hanging out there.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Quiz Game!

Alright guys and girls. Since trades are still down I feel that I'm going to play a bit of a quiz game with my loyal readers until the trade ban ends!*note if trade ban ends really soon I may continue the game a little longer to give several people a chance*

The purpose of the game will be for you to learn a little bit more about me in a way that's hopefully fun and rewarding. The way the game will work is at random times I will be posting a description of a character. The character will be from a movie, tv show, video game, or book. They will be characters I like or love. Listing the actor won't count, I want the character!

I will list the question in comments, you MUST HIT REPLY TO THE QUESTION and type your answer. If your answers are outside the reply section it will be deleted. This way it's easy to track my questions and your answers in order.

The first person to answer correctly will gain 3pts, the second person will gain 2pts, the third person will gain 1pt. After three people have gotten it correct no more points will be given for that question. Once the trade ban ends I'll list and distribute rewards to the players with the most points.

Some notes: I'll list questions when I list them. There is not going to be an every hour time frame because that takes a lot of work. If I see a comment deleted by the user under one of the questions then a new comment made by the same user I'll assume you changed your answer and you won't get points for that question. Finally, if all of a sudden the trade ban ends in 10 minutes the game will still continue for at least a day. If a question goes long enough with wrong answers or no answers I will give an additional hint.

Good luck and have fun guys, I appreciate your readership. That's why there is no buy in for this just have fun! Hopefully it's not too easy.

Prizes are as follows:

1st: Ifrit
2nd: Master Samurai
3rd: Elaine

I'll also give out participation rewards as I see fit: Garmr, Gold Fox, Buccaneer, Gladiator, Elder Vampire, Rhea, Succubus. 

Monday, September 3, 2012

The 4-6 vs 4-7 Debate

I probably would never have decided to make a post discussing this if it weren't for the excessive trading downtime giving rise to the discussion on outside forums.

So, why is it called a 4-6 if there are 7 enhancements by the time it's done? The reason isn't because the final form, the reason is because the lower forms.

In the beginning, there was a question:

HOW WAS THIS CARD EVOLVED?

And a player answered:

4max. 

And it was good. Then the question was repeated:

HOW WAS THIS CARD EVOLVED?

And a player answered:

Using 6 cards I enhanced the last two forms before combining.

And it was too long. Then the question was repeated:

HOW WAS THIS CARD EVOLVED?

And a player answered:

6-2

And there was silence. This simple abbreviation, answering the age old question, how was this card evolved....made everything easier. The world continued to turn and player trading and clarity began to flourish. Players were happy and able to trade with the simple translation of the question, how was this card evolved. But everything changed when noobs attacked. Armed with wikipedia spewing forth their ignorance into the world of trading destroying what the community had built and bathing in the chaos that ensued.

So the question was asked again:

HOW WAS THIS CARD EVOLVED?

And a player answered:

4-7.

And it was vile, for this was not how the card was evolved, the card was evolved using a 4-6. The noobs didn't realize that calling a card a 4-7 merely answers a question that nobody asked, did you enhance the final form. The card was an fully enhanced 4-6.

But the noobs didn't realize the error of their ways, they fought on claiming they should get credit for that last enhancement. They didn't know that by constantly using 4-7 and 6-11 as examples they were killing the 4-2, the 4-4, the 6-2, the 6-4. And soon, the gentle 4-0 who never hurt anybody would be called to the stand.

And the question was asked:

HOW WAS THIS CARD EVOLVED?

And the player answered:

4-0 Because calling it anything but 4-0 would be wrong. For it is the worst of evolutions and deserves no number, for no number of enhancements were used in its evolution. 

And the question was asked:

HOW COULD A 4-0 AND A 4-7 EXIST?

And the player answered:

They cannot.

And the question was asked again:

HOW WAS THIS CARD EVOLVED?

And the player answered:

IT IS A 4-6 BECAUSE WE MUST COUNT FROM ZERO TO SIX, NOT FROM SEVEN TO ONE!

And the noobs wretched and at the brightness of the words and returned to darkness hoping for the day they could come forth again spreading misinformation that they gathered attempting to destroy a community.

THE END

PSY Doing the “Horse Riding Dance” in “Gangnam Style” M/V








Trades Still Down


The face says it all.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

Three Million Users!!!


Rage of Bahamut has decided to gift its users during the three million users campaign. This will last from 9/1-9/15. During this time an award is given for each time a player logs in.

Day 1: 10k Rupies
Day 2: One Personal Cure Water
Day 3: One Personal HP
Day 4: One Angel Queen
Day 5: One Legend Card Pack
Day 6: 5k Friendship Points
Day 7: Two Personal Cure Water
Day 8: Two Personal Holy Powder
Day 9: One Archangel Queen
Day 10: One Dark Angel Olivia SR
Day 11+: 1 Angel Queen + 1000 Friendship Points

Dark Angel Olivia:
This card cannot be traded nor gifted. Currently you can't evolve it, but you'll be able to evolve it at a later date. This card will also be given out as a reward in future events, so keep an eye out for it!

This is unfortunate as a free item. It's an SR Demon card that offers a Big Boost to ATK/DEF (all). At the SSR form it gets its skill bumped up to Great Boost but it falls short because of the weakness of the ATK/DEF (all). Unfortunately we won't see any final forms for some time since it will be out in future events, probably for top rankings.

Although many people will say it's a free card, the downside is it won't be useful in most decks, but it isn't justifiable to sell it since it's an SR. Pretty much it's a card that's going to permanently waste space. I would have preferred 10-20 Personal HP.