Friday, October 31, 2014

Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween!

It's end of October/Beginning of November so of course we can't be without more new rangers. 


They have continued the Halloween Gacha theme, but it's slightly changed. Instead of a hefty 200 rubies, you spend 150 and get a guaranteed chance to obtain either a 4-star or a 5-star ranger, effectively weeding out all 3-star rubbish ranger results. The yield is now "8+2" for a total of 10 rather than "10+3" for a total of 13. The price per spin is technically better this time (by a fraction, at 15 rubies per spin), but with the number of rangers consistently rising, the odds of you getting the couple of rangers you really need continue to diminish with time.

This month, the limited ranger is "Red" who is apparently an "Angry Bird." Honest to goodness, I don't know what Angry Birds is about because I've never downloaded the game, but I've briefly seen other people play it. It's a totally different genre from Line Rangers, so this is a strange collaborative event between the two games. And being a Limited Ranger, Red is pretty powerful. He has a *TON* of HP but he's going to need it because he's ultra-close range to the enemy. He's on a very long cooldown as well. Check him out:



That's pretty powerful! Here's what I think is the thing: Brown, Cony, Moon, Jessica and James have all been going at this for months. The Angry Birds heard that some guy was messing around with their fellow bird and decided it's time to bring it. Come on, Line Town Friends. It's time to put your game face on. Don't let this crossover bird steal all the credit. [Update: Just read the game notice... This story is exactly why Angry Birds are involved in the Sally rescue!] 

By the way, if you read the notice carefully, for the rest of November, there will be other Angry Birds events which will grant more of their characters to Line Rangers players. Pretty cute! 


Kung Fu Brown is an agile close-range splash unit. His animation is really funny. It looks like he wants to shove his nunchuku up the enemies' face. BTW I'm not a kung fu expert or anything, but I'm pretty sure nunchaku are not... part of Chinese kung fu? At least not traditionally? I guess it's just a Bruce Lee theme. But back to business: 183k splash, very fast move speed... for 330 minerals. Wow, just wow. KFBrown is going to tear melee enemies a new one. 



I was initially excited to see the splash screen include a new Jessica, but when I saw what she was I'm completely underwhelmed. I wanted her to be 5-star and very powerful. I think, as many of the readers have expressed, a powerful Jessica ranger is very much overdue. We've pretty much never had a super desirable Jessica. I know, back in the generation 1 days of LR, Charismatic Jessica was a dangerous kitty, and when Warrior Jessica was placed into the map as a free obtainable ranger, it was indeed a big deal and a huge help to the free ranger players. But it's been months since she was relevant in the least. Come on, we want OP Jessica! A 4-star premium health ranger with only 2.2M health with pretty much negligible attack in today's standards... is pretty useless. Driver Brown was free and he sports 2.4M health and costs less. I really don't see the point. Sorry, Jessica :( LINE made you just as a punching bag for Kung Fu Brown (see her description).

Thunder Brown's girlfriend Thunder Cony has finally decided to join the fight. I'm not sure if I like her yet. On the one hand, she's super fast and super cheap for fairly decent attack. If she's spammable, she could be pretty deadly in PVP. And the description... well, I hope they fix it. Cony's not going to be happy about being male.

Happy spinning, friends. I haven't got any rubies to spare this time around, but if you guys are getting the new rangers, share your opinions below! Let us know how they play into the Wasteland stages, etc.

If you're not getting the results you want, here are some hilarious pictures of people, presumably in Halloween costumes, to cheer you up. I don't know where these pics were originally from or who these people are, but they are so awesome. LOLOL



Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Happy Pre-Halloween


First of all, yes, Waste Land is open now! The new treasure increases EXP received.
Hrmmmmmm... preparing for expansion of max player level?
Whoo! Free random rangers
I was all tickled when I got my Mach Brown and Mach Moon today in the mailbox but then when I opened the game this evening, I saw:

  • Halloween Cony!!!!!!!!
  • Gacha Event updated (limited time) - More on this in a minute

Halloween Cony is so cute. I love her little wizard hat. She reminds me of my first Cony, Magician Cony. When I first started playing the game, I got Magician Cony and I could not be happier. Halloween Cony brought me back to that nostalgic feeling a bit. It's funny to even use the word "nostalgic" for a game that is less than a year old, but it's been a long journey. 

Halloween Cony IS pretty OP. I like her a lot. I don't have her mastered, but even so, she's crazy powerful. Her cooldown is, as expected, a bit long, but it's not as long as some other "OP" splash rangers out there -- and this is based on no numbers whatsoever, by the way. It's based on me playing 2 of the new stages with her on my team and just kinda marveling at her. Her speed across the board is just fantastic. And the stats? Brace yourself.
488k splash damage! 3.53M HP?! :O!
Mine isn't mastered, but she's still pretty freakin' mighty
Back to the gacha event that is going on right now until the end of Halloween -- when I first read the splash screen for the first event, I was all super confused. What on earth does this even mean? Well, this is how it breaks down:
  • It's a whole other gacha panel that costs 200 rubies to play once. 
  • The possible contents of your gacha result are 4 or 5 stars only, meaning there are NO 3 star rangers in the Halloween Gacha
  • Instead of 2 bonus free spins by paying 200 rubies, you get 3 bonus free spins (because if you do the math, 100 rubies buys you 5+1 = 6 spins, 200 rubies would normally buy you 12 spins. The Halloween Gacha buys you 13 spins instead). 
I haven't spent any serious money on the game in a few months and I've passed over a few limited rangers as a result. But this Halloween Gacha event is very compelling. It's attractive because you're guaranteed to not get any rubbish 3 star crap that frankly, I don't even use for combining anymore (I just sell for coin). It's more worth it than any Premium gachas were previously because of the 3 spin bonus. Now, unfortunately, you are NOT exempt from receiving farmable free rangers nor the lesser exciting 4 and 5 star rangers from the earlier generations, but it's still mounds better than receiving Hero Jessica for the 500th time. 

My yield from 600 rubies
Halloween Cony x2
Luke x3
Hip Hop Brown X2
Maestro Boss x2
Cherina
Muay Thai Brown
Junior Cony x2
Legend Boss
Luis
Somchai
Honey
Bernard
Sorcerer Cony
Gentleman James
Summer Brown x3
Biker James x3
Frog Brown x3 (first time I've gotten him in Gacha, but he was reportedly in the mix intermittently)
Sindy x2
Fighter Moon
Songster Cony
Macho Moon
Rapper Boss
Lightning Jessica
Abdula
Clara
General Brown

This Halloween Gacha event is going on for 2 weeks so if you wanna throw down some money, now's the time. It's what we've been clamoring about for months and this is LINE's response to our feedback. All in all, I'm pleased with this. This is the most satisfied I've felt with the Gacha in a very, very long time. Perhaps in all of my time playing this game. BTW, we are supposedly getting increased chances (whatever that means) to receive all October new rangers during the current Double Chance/Ruby Bonus period as well (until October 18). 

So with all that excitement, I'm heading into Waste Land! The zone looks pretty hard and I'm kind of confused, because I think I saw the birds from Maze of Illusion in the first couple stages... running out of ideas for enemy design, maybe? Oh and... guess who? THUNDER BROWN is the new farmable 5 star ranger. I would be pretty pleased with this selection, but I admit that Thunder Brown's arrival is dampened a lot by the availability of Driver Brown. Still, for players who didn't have the feathers, time or opportunity to grind stages to get the limited edition Driver Brown, Thunder Brown will make a great addition to the tanking team.

Oh and Alex is the new 4-star. Meh. :P

I hope you all have fun!

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Entering Wasteland


Yes, yes, yes a new area is finally upon us. It's been almost 2 months since Ravine of Death's release on August 19th. This area is way long overdue. We were all getting so restless. The game's lost a lot of veteran and original players, but it has also gained a lot of new players so by any measure the game is still hot. Die-hard fans are still competing in Team Battle. But let's get down to business -- the rescue business, of course.

The journey we have taken so far has been descending into darker and darker realms. We started in the cutesy and shiny Valley of Wind. We went through some carnival-like play land, museums, frozen temples, fiery pits, up to perilous high... but it seems like lately we're going down deeper and deeper depths. Ravines and wastelands... dirty and dingy places with rotting fruits. Wasteland is so nasty that Mephisto wouldn't even hang out there -- he's only left a hologram of his big derriere shaped head to taunt us. Surely Sally is not here, but it is good to see that we're still getting a bit closer and close enough to at least see his sinister face.

It won't be long now. We'll dawn on Wasteland soon. In the meantime, make sure you're grabbing your Railroad Browns and Noruruns. Event ends in a week. Driver Brown is no longer available!

Monday, October 6, 2014

The Train is Coming...


Update: Newcomer Brown is a railroad theme ranger. He's only 3 star and he's a giveaway for all players who have reached player level 7. He's also available for bonus roll after specified boss stage clears. Norurun, a 4-star speed ranger, is available for bonus roll after specified boss stage clears, also for a limited time. I guess Norurun is not a water tank. He's supposed to be... a train car/carriage or a propane gas tank...or something...



I am very happy that Railroad Brown is available for everyone to get! He's a pretty decent Balance ranger for 3-stars, and excellent for new players just starting out in the very early stages, certainly. Both Railroad Brown and Norurun are available after clearing the end-stage boss stage of each area -- But only specific lower stages have the new Brown, so check the notice carefully to see which you need to grind.


Read carefully to see which stages contain which rangers for limited event
Also very cool of them to bring back: Driver Brown! He's absolutely an unmissable health ranger to have at the current stages of the game. He's very useful as a free event ranger. If you didn't get a chance to grab 5 of Driver Brown before, you definitely need to get this done now. 
________________________________________________________________________

Original Post: Could it be another new Brown is coming? This one looks like some kind of an officer who rides a whistle. He's really cute! Brown has the best outfits. He's probably being released together with the little guy below who looks like some kind of a water tank. The water tank's name is Norurun. There are only 2 in this set of new characters, so maybe it is some kind of promotional event. Or worse, maybe just some limited regional event :(


I hope it is a "free" event ranger giveaway. This Brown is pretty adorable. Based on looks alone, I kind of want to have him. Today, we also got some new stage production files so maybe new single player stages are coming as well. Time will tell.

P.S. Reader Dali is right from his previous comment. Stage 144 was significantly nerfed down today. Enemy attack damage and health points have been reduced. 144 is much easier to deal with, especially with event rangers Driver Brown and Songster Cony/Shu. Very, very doable now. If you've been stuck here, try it again today. You'll make it through just in time for the new area.