GL vs JP, QoL, Gameplay, and Powercreep changes to be looking forward to in GL

So I have seen many speculation about what’s coming up for GL based on what is current in JP. I often wondered the same thing, which prompted me to start an account in JP and see what it’s really like. I’ve been playing JP only about two months now, but I feel like a thorough treatment of the differences between GL and JP is worth addressing.

However since this question keeps coming up (and for good reason), I wanted to try to make an updated list of current changes between GL and JP. I will try to include ETAs where possible, but some I just don’t know so any input from more veteran JP players is welcome and I’ll edit this post with any added info. Also keep in mind that ETA is an estimate only and subject to significant change because GL WILL follow a different schedule than JP.

So here we go!

15 cp with new character launch

Okay, so technically this is already in GL, but I mention it because it has implications for future changes. You can obtain the 15 cp weapon for a character whose event is running by completing the 50 difficulty stage of the event. You can still get 2 copies of their unique armor as well.

ETA: NOW

15 cp with LC release

In the future it is also possible to obtain a character’s 15 cp by completing their lost chapter normal mode. This is also retroactive for all those of us who have already completed the earlier LCs.

ETA: unknown

15 cp with new chapter release

This I know less about, but with the new release of story arcs the 15 cp weapon of the newly introduced character is also available free as a mission reward.

ETA: At release of Interlude with Cait Sith

Awakenings

So this is huge, and shortly upon us, but this has been covered in multiple places extensively, so here are some links.

Awakening in Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia

A Primer to Awakenings: Introduction

In short, awakenings will be released for approximately 12 characters a month, unlocking lvl 60 and Lvl 60 and giving (sometimes massive) boosts to their abilities when maxed. This is a great way for them to make forgotten characters relevant and fun again, if only briefly (for some of them).

ETA: 1 month

Awakenings 2.0

So this is a term I am using for the new character awakening buffs coming to JP more recently. Similar to the occasional character buffs/reworks they have released already in GL, they are modifying some of the old character’s awakening bonuses to make them more relevant in the current JP meta. Most notably this happened for Cloud and Firion at the time of the summer event and more recently Vivi, Zidane, and Serah. Sometimes the buffs we get for characters in GL are insignificant or marginal at best, but these buffs are SIGNIFICANT, and seem designed to noticeably take characters off the bench. The best thing about these buffs is that they come completely free to those who have awakened those characters, and if you haven’t already awakened those characters you need only awaken them to benefit from these buffs. Also a great way for them to recirculate some of the characters that have fallen out of favor. This is still new, so uncertain if this will continue with other characters, but I feel like it is a nice touch.

ETA: Progressively, probably starting between June-August of 2019

Other character buffs

Yes, we’re still waiting for the INITIAL Cloud buff and the Terra buffs. Basically this makes Terra’s chants instant and gives Cloud +1 use for Finishing Touch.

ETA: Probably with awakenings, but this is hard to guess as many people thought they would be here by now.

EX weapons

This is the next stage in gacha power creep. EX weapons are 70 CP weapons which give a character a unique new ability which charges up gradually similar to the way summons charge at the start of the battle. Their effects vary with characters, some are massive cures/BRV batteries, some give great buffs/party buffs, some inflict debuffs, and some are just straight up raw damage. In fact, they are almost all a combination of the above and by and large are pretty cool. They also obviously bring some longevity to characters by giving them more useful ability uses in long fights, and even if you run out of other skills it keeps charging. Different EX abilities have different charge rates similar to different summons, so they become available with different frequencies. EX weapons initially appeared on banners as the only weapon for that character as well as 15/35 cp weapons for three other characters, but most banners with EX weapons since they came out have included that character’s 15 and 35 cp weapons as well, meaning you could max a character on one banner while pulling for their EX. If you pull a 5 star weapon on a banner with EX weapons there is a 5% chance it will be a specific EX weapon, which means multiple EX weapons on a banner result in a higher chance of EX overall, though this only recently started happening on JP with the summer banners (3x EX) and the most recent story banner (2x EX). They have a max CP of 80. EX abilities also get boosted based on the number of LB you have on the weapon, and of course MLBing it makes the ability equip able for CP. Also a fun fact about EX abilities is that if you have a guest unit with an EX weapon equipped then when you swap them into battle their EX is already charged and ready to use.

ETA: Likely November to December. Came around the time of anniversary for JP, but we are getting pretty close to Noctis release and he was released with his EX on his banner…

5-stars Gacha rate increase

In JP when you pull with a ticket or a non-guaranteed 5 star on the 11 pull you have a 10% chance to get a 5 star as opposed to 5% in GL. A nice buff which is more noticeable in mass ticket pulling, but helps significantly increase 5 star pull rates whether pulling with tickets or gems. This was most likely implemented in JP to help compensate for the low overall rate of EX weapons and to off-set the fact that you really need a good amount of 5 stars to keep up with power creep

ETA: Likely around the time of EX release or shortly thereafter (ie anniversary)

Experience Feathers

A nice concept similar to other mobile titles like growth eggs in FFRK or cactuars in FFBE. These items can be used on characters to instantly grant them EXP. There are three “sizes” of chocobo feathers which give incrementally more xp when used. The smallest takes a character from 1-12 instantly, which I believe is about 500 xp. The medium size gives 5x as much xp and the large size gives 5x more than the medium size. The small size drops occasionally from any of the crystal quests and can be farmed indefinitely (because the quests are unlimited). The medium size seem to be obtained only from daily quests. The large ones have been granted as special rewards and have been added to the token exchange shop. Level ups granted by feathers work just like level ups after battle and can trigger a rank up with all the associated rewards. These make it a lot easier to plan out your rank ups and avoid wasting bonus SP. They will also make it much easier to instantly max a new character.

ETA: JP got it this summer, so I’m guessing May-June 2019 for GL.

Summon Boards and Summon level 30

This is a more recent change to JP. A new World of Illusions dungeon was released as a kind of “Ifrit 2.0” which has a handful of new quests providing the materials necessary to upgrade Ifrit to lvl 30. With this also came the “Summon Board System”. This works similar to crystal levels with “Summon EXP” being rewarded to characters at a specific rate when those characters complete quests in the new dungeons with harder dungeons yielding more Summon EXP. This EXP can then be redeemed on the summon’s Summon Board, which is unique to each character (ie there are 90+ summon boards, one for each character PER SUMMON) There are 56 tiles on the board that are unlocked with summon points and grant (mostly) stat boosts to that character. There are also three tiles on the board which grant tangible rewards (gems, tickets, armor tokens) and can be redeemed once PER CHARACTER when they unlock enough of the board. There are also several passive abilities unique to the summon which can be unlocked and used by that character by equipping with CP. Shiva just came out with the new update, but given the Bluestacks issue right now I haven’t been able to try it out. It seems intended that each summon will have their own summon board, but I don’t know if we can say for sure how much they will vary between summons

ETA: Likely March-June 2019

Coop token shop rewards and token drops

First, Token drops from coop quests are more generous in JP. Gold tokens drop almost twice as many. There are also more things to be had from the token shop which is likely why the drops are higher. Each event includes T4 crystals of the colors of the synergy characters (all colors for the new story chapter coop token shop), power stones and sometimes weapon tokens are also available. There are twice as many armor tokens available, and most recently they added the large EXP feathers to the shop as well. Oh, and JP has the QoL bonus in the token shop of being able to select how many of any item you want instead of having to buy one at a time over and over. That needs to come to GL soon.

ETA: Gradual, but T4 will probably come with the first new characters released with their awakening

EX and COSMOS difficulties

JP still has the EX difficulty with each event, though theirs is difficulty 100 at this point. With the most recent event there is also an additional difficulty, “COSMOS” difficulty, which is listed as difficulty 150 and is intended as the ultimate challenge for the best equipped and highest of whales. I have not yet even attempted this difficulty, but from what I hear it is quite difficult and requires at least a few top tier MLB characters up to par with current JP meta. This is designed to help keep whales from getting bored, so IMO F2P players should not expect to be clearing these any time soon. The rewards are similar to the EX, so while some gems and a couple extra tickets are nice, they aren’t going to make all the difference in your bank.

ETA: Likely with the release of story arc 2-3, though we may have overshot powercreep by then, so could be sooner on GL

Coop release with new story event

As mentioned above there is now a set of coop/EX battles released with the new story chapters which uses the banner characters as synergy characters and has its own token shop. Kind of similar to the way we had Heretic quests with new story chapters before, but with coop and Token shop options.

ETA: Really not sure when this initially happened in JP

LC limited time rewards

Currently on GL if you complete a new LC batch on hard mode you get time limited armor tokens. On JP those tokens are still given in regular mission rewards, but the time limited rewards are instead more T4 crystals.

ETA: Likely when the LC characters start coming with their awakenings, ie Krile, Thancred, Snow

Weapon Token Shop

Similar to the armor token shop, weapon tokens can be obtained from very limited resources (token shops, daily login bonus, special community events). These tokens can then be exchanged for 15 cp or 35 cp weapons for the character of your choice. A great way to get that one weapon you just couldn’t seem to get on that one banner (looking at you Quistis 35 cp), but weapon tokens are rare enough that it doesn’t break the game and by no means does it eliminate the need for lots of pulls.

ETA: At least by the time Cait Sith comes out (just guessing since the Interlude has 15 tokens as a reward)

Unlimited Daily Quests

That’s right, your daily crystal quests can be repeated unlimited numbers of times. They still run on the same days (Gold cactuars on Sunday etc.), but on that day you can run that dungeon any number of times. Great for xp, crystals, gold. You can finangle a way to run them automatically and basically come back to a full set of that color crystals plus plenty of levels. They also now drop EXP feathers as mentioned above, which can be very handy as well. Oh, and Kactuars will appear every now and then too, dropping 50 of each T1-3 crystals (100 if double rewards are up) and a ton of gold and XP. There are no harder difficulties and aside from the Kactuars being a little tougher the difficulty is still the same as it is now.

ETA: Unknown

Four synergy characters per event

Instead of three. The fourth is the concurrent LC character who is also boosted.

ETA: Started with Rosa Event

Eidoja

Eidoja are 5 star base artifacts. Initially they were released providing new and very powerful passives(+ skill uses, drastic improvements to skills) to a select few characters, but the response from the community was very negative. While those few characters still can get those passives via Eidoja, for other characters Eidoja are essentially just like Eidoga but with MUCH better chances at rolling the best passives. Eidoja drop 1-2 per event character every time you use a link bell in coop. They can also be obtained in the WoI artifact dungeons from the 60 sp dungeon.

ETA: Unknown, but I’m guessing a few months after anniversary

Limited time artifact dungeons

This is not as exciting. Currently we’ve gotten 2-3 groups with artifacts when a time limited WoI artifact dungeon comes out. More recently in JP this has been limited to a single group (ie the synergy characters) whenever a new character or LC comes out. So there’s a 10 SP, 20 SP, and 60 SP. And two chests. So it gets the job done, but not quite as many free gems XD

ETA: As the events start to space out… which may actually be farther away for global as we catch up

Max 6 buff/debuff per character

Like it says. Enemies and allies can have up to 6 buff/debuffs before they start getting pushed off.

ETA: Unknown

Different AI programming for auto-battle

This I thought was interesting, and never have I seen mentioned anywhere. If you auto battle on GL your characters will BRV attack until >80-90% MBRV, then they HP attack unless they already have enough BRV to KO the enemy then they will HP attack sooner. However, in JP it is a bit smarter. If all the characters with a turn before the enemies’ turn have enough COMBINED BRV to KO an enemy then they will HP attack and eliminate an enemy first before falling into the above algorithm. Subtle difference but still…

ETA: Maybe never? Not sure if they thought the GL AI was better, but I prefer the JP AI.

Extra Daily DP

Not sure about this as I never really got it to work. There is a button next to the DP shop that allows you to get extra DP maybe daily? Involves linking your account to something, I just never bothered. Not a life changer.

ETA: maybe never?

Different Daily Missions

The daily missions in JP include EXP feathers now as noted above.

ETA: probably with the release of EXP feathers.

Daily Login Bonuses

As alluded to above there are different daily login bonuses in JP. The main notable difference is that you get 3 weapon tokens every 8 days. The other rewards seem to just be consolidated

ETA: Hopefully with the arrival of the weapon token shop.

3x rate books (and relic of all knowledge) and sales for books

Just like our double drop books there are now triple drop books. Not only that, but when there are special events the gem price of purchasing said books is reduced (usually if you buy a bunch of them). May be a good investment in the right situation. The 3x drop books are also sometimes rewarded for special events. And yes, there is a 3x Relic of All Knowledge. Triple xp, gold, and drops.

ETA: Unknown

90 cp armors

Just recently in JP a new tier of 5 star unique armors was released. 90 CP BASE armors which also provide another unique passive when equipped or mastered. 20 Armor tokens per copy (80 armor tokens to MLB) and you have to have the 35 CP armor MLB before you can get even one 90 CP armor for a given character. That’s a lot of CP, but with summon boards and awakenings the CP is going to get used up.

ETA: Likely Mar-Jun 2019

999 Max Followers

Instead of having 500 max followers in JP they have up to 999. Same number of friends, just lets more people follow you

ETA: Maybe never? Not sure if anyone is really passionate about this one.

Link Bell System rework

This summer (and with the rework of Eidoja) Link bells were tweaked. Instead of refreshing 5 bells daily the bells instead recover 1 bell every two hours. So you can get 12 bells a day without spending gems if you are constantly using them. You can also spend a bell by JOINING a game, not just hosting it. The host still spends a bell, but if you spend a bell as a guest then you get the Eidoja rewards as though you were hosting. Some nice flexibility…

ETA: I predict Mar-Jun 2019

Reduced DP cost for Cycle Keys

With the daily dungeons open unlimited the DP cost of keys is now only 50 DP. You won’t need to use them much, maybe just to get enough crystals to max a brand new character.

ETA: probably when cycle quests become unlimited

Main map reorganization

They just switch LC, WoI, and Event quests to little buttons instead of parts of the map. Not earth shattering.

ETA: Unsure, probably with the advent of story Arc 2.

Mog’s summary of current events

Also with the recent summer update, tapping mog on the home screen pulls up all the current events. Just saves time going through the map screen.

ETA: Came to JP this Summer, will likely come to GL much sooner since it’s a QoL change.

More Stickers

Hope, Sazh, Vivi to name a few. Also a set of NT themed stickers that, for some reason, only cost 10 DP each. Which is really annoying in my opinion because there are 12(?) of them and if you get them all you will have a random leftover amount of DP with nothing to spend it on to even it out.

ETA: Gradual over time

Things GL HAS but JP DOES NOT have (just for fun)

Auto-auto button – that little button that makes you start quests in auto battle mode. Sorry JP.

Favorite Friends – A nice QoL touch just for GL (so far)

Prerequisites removed from LC – Couldn’t tell if this is temporary, but I’m glad they got rid of it. I guess it was probably to keep characters from popping into cutscenes before they “existed” but I think it’s a losing battle to try to keep the storyline straight with all the LCs and the new story arcs anyway.

These are summaries of upcoming releases and changes expected in JP, and are a great way to keep up with what might be coming down the line for GL. Hopefully JP and GL will meet one day, though I know some people like the foresight. I will say from playing JP that it is fun to have that unknown, and to hear about a fun new character coming up (ie Fran coming this month).

Please feel free to comment and correct me! I will try to keep the post updated with corrections, but I work a lot, so please be patient. Thanks all!

Special credit: –Haste–

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