State of the Game - August 2014

It's been roughly 5 months since the dawn of LINE Rangers and the game has changed drastically since its infancy days. I wanted to take some time to just step back and look at our journey. At its core, LINE Rangers is a straightforward game with a simple goal: destroy the enemy tower and advance to the next stage in our quest to rescue Sally. It has a truly addictive nature about it and has captured the hearts as well as the wallets of many people. For players who have joined at various points in time, here's what the game looked like back then.

We've come a long way to save Sally

The game initially released on February 27, 2014 with 60 stages and 75 rangers:

• 11 5-star rangers + Honey (100 friend invitation gift)
• 12 4-star rangers + Frog Brown (50 friend invitation gift) 
• 18 3-star rangers + Elf Cony (30 friend invitation gift) 
• 15 2-star rangers
• 16 1-star rangers

5 cycles of new rangers were released on a monthly basis:

• March 2014 + 4 rangers: Sorcerer Cony, Opera James, General Brown, Macho Moon
• April 2014 + 6 rangers: KSM, Dancer King Boss, Bernard, Hip Hop Brown, Songster Cony, Red Brown
• May 2014 + 6 rangers:  Ola Brown, Lightning Jessica, Dwight, Dumpy, Abdula
• June 2014 + 7 rangers: Susu, Luis, Prince James, Best Couple Brown and Cony, Hitman, Cherina and Shu 
• July 2014 + 6 rangers: Rider Edward, Mully, Chichi, Summer Brown and Cony, Elle

The game today has 132 stages and 104 rangers. That's a 120% expansion of single player game content and almost 40% more playable rangers than the original game.

Let's let that sink in for a moment: The game has more than doubled in available content. For any game at all, if a game maker is doubling its content in less than half a year, it means the game is hugely successful and the pressure to keep the content fresh is very high. When content is in high demand for a mobile game with such a simple concept, the landscape of the game has to change in order to keep its customers coming back. 

Stages to Plow Through

Today when a new player joins the rescue effort to save Sally, they are given 30 rubies just for starting. There are plenty of players who just started the game and rolled Ola Brown, Cherina, Dumpy or some other similarly powerful 5-star ranger with their first 20 ruby Gacha. And for those players, stages 1-108 are pretty much a breeze, limited only by the number of feathers they can get their hands on. For players who didn't happen to win some super overpowered rangers, their experience is... well, not very different up until around stage 84. I know this because I've personally replayed the game 3 times over. It's all still basically enjoyable but you really don't hit a wall until you reach Temple of Ice or Altar of Flame if you are schlepping through with free rangers.

The most prohibitive factor is actually your player level and the amount of coins you have available to make your upgrades. Especially when playing with the experience boost item, your player level will mostly likely be higher than the level your pocket can support in upgrades. In any case, with some fairly diligent playing, one could realistically arrive at the front gate of Maze of Illusion within 2-3 days with the aid of a powerful premium ranger, or about a week or two with free rangers. If brand new players can blow through 90% of your content in a matter of days, you've got a real problem. 

New Battle Modes and Why We Needed Them

June 19: Enter Team Battle Mode, Friend Battle Mode and Endless Mode. Endless Mode is a really nice addition to the game because it will continually offer players more to do as more areas are released in the future. The challenge continues to mount over time. I wish that they were a bit more clever with EM's stage environment, but nevertheless, it gives people something to wrestle with when they are done with the end-stage of a new area. Friend Battle Mode is a neat little way to duke it out with your friends and earn as many Friendship Points as you like in a day, limited only by the length of your friend list. They were both welcome additions to the game. 

Team Battle Mode became the problem and the solution to the content problems between releases. The player versus player aspect of the game has shaped a competitive edge to the players of the game that didn't exist before. It solved the issue of people going days and even weeks with "nothing to do" because in Team Battle Mode (PvP), there's always someone different to face off against. Day or night, there was another team to fight, another point to gain on the ladder. 

The funny thing about this ladder mode is the fact that players can purchase more feathers to continue to battle, and the rapid rate of climbing up in score is a complaint that a lot of people have with PvP. Half  hour into the weekly ladder contest, there are plenty of people who have already burned dozens of rubies for more chances to battle and gain points. That's likely a bigger investment into PvP than many players are willing to put in. But consider the flip side. If players were not allowed to buy special feathers and everyone could only play Team Battle Mode once every 30 minutes, then we'd run into the problem of the top ranked players being zombies as they would not sleep more than 149 minutes at a time for 7 days straight. Everyone else could only hope to play as many feathers as they can in their waking hours. Furthermore, players are at the mercy of the random matchmaker because the points you gain/lose factor in the ranking of your opponent. Suppose the top 2 players in the ladder both play all 336 feathers for the week, but one of the players got unlucky and got matched against an opponent who was ranked much lower. The loss of even 1 point could mean defeat for the entire week. Where is the fairness in that? 

So instead, the system we have is one where players who wish to participate in the top tiers of competition can buy as many feathers as they wish. Each week since the release of PvP mode, the score of rank #1 has increased. Yes, indeed LINE continues to make a killing as players grow more and more cutthroat. It's a contest of who can play the most number of winning matches in the span of 168 hours. PvP was never intended for be a level playing field for all.

Thank you, nongmetoo

This picture by nongmetoo is a very nice summary of what happened last week (PvP which ended August 4 06:00 JST), and a pretty good setup for the coming week. She did a picture like this a week or two ago, unfortunately I lost it. The trend that I got from the two was that the player behavior at the top 20000 ranks has changed dramatically, and likely will continue to shift for a while. People have been increasingly buying additional feathers to push up in ranks. Six weeks ago, rank 301-1000 could be achieved at approximately 2500 points. Today? You need over 6000 points to secure the 150 rubies. A month ago, to win 100 rubies you could skate by and land in the 2001-5000 rank without buying any additional feathers and profit the whole 100 rubies. Today you simply cannot do it. You will land in the 5001-10000 rank by not buying feathers and playing very solid matches throughout your waking hours. 

It's not at all rosy up in the top tiers. If you want to get up in the 2001-5000, you need to spend some rubies, but the reward gain is only 20 more rubies than the next tier down. So can you jump from 5001-10000 rank to 2001-5000 buying just 20 feathers? It's very unlikely, unless you time your wins very carefully. In the top 101-300 rank, players are rewarded 300 rubies, but they spent over 100 to get there, netting under 200 rubies. In the top 3 ranks it is even worse, players spend well over 1300 rubies for the week to get to 15000 points. They only win 1000 rubies from the competition, so they are in fact netting -300 rubies just to walk away with the glory of being ranked 1, 2 and 3 in the world for the week. 

So what am I saying? Line created a competition that profits off of people who want to reap the greatest rewards? Well... yeah, they did, but you could say that exact statement about tons of other games. If you want a chance to win, you have to put down some cash. Does it create a situation where small cash players get pushed out of the competition? Indeed it does. It's almost like a game of poker. If you want a shot at the pot, you have to buy in. The more fierce the game gets, the more money is involved. At a certain point people will duck out of the race because it's just too rich. But at least in the Rangers weekly ladder, everyone walks away with a minimum 20 rubies back in their pockets. Armed with this information, you can judge for yourself whether you want to step into the fire. These days, I find it easiest to target a tier I want to sit comfortably in, and just do enough to stay there. Trying to climb past rank 5000 requires quite a lot of effort that even I am not prepared to put in, but there are many others who enjoy it very much.

Gross Revenue

Please bear with me a little because these are all relative comparisons and with limitations based upon the data available. According to the website AppAnnie, which indexes app information and sales, LINE Corp has been 4th or 5th place in worldwide revenue for games in both the iOS and Android (Google Play) market from April through June. This includes all of the game titles in the LINE library. So yes, they make a ton of money. 

Now I'm going to use an example and take the Indonesia market because Indonesians are consistently the heaviest traffic viewers on this blog. Based on the information on AppAnnie, LINE Rangers started to surge up in sales almost immediately after release. It steadily climbed up in the ranks of the top grossing app charts in both iOS and Google Play markets in March and April and has been hanging steadily in the top 100 ever since. The in-app sales trend goes as you would expect: Line Rangers dips a bit in sales when there is no event and nothing special going on, then rushes up whenever a big event like new stages and new rangers are released (not coincidentally with double 5-star chance events happening simultaneously). This sales rate for the game is mirrored in similar markets like Thailand and Taiwan. 

So clearly, the gripes we as a playing community have with certain aspects of the game are overshadowed by the huge popularity of the game in the last half year. Yes, the odds of the Gacha are becoming increasingly unfavorable. Yes, the new rangers are increasingly mind-boggling in strength. Yes, the new area is much more challenging than all the previous ones. But despite all that (which are debatable whether they are good/bad) the game continues to be a success. The feedback that LINE gets from each new release of content and rangers is that people get excited. They love it and they are willing to part with their money for the latest stuff. For better or for worse, this is what the revenue stream reflects. 

Versus Other LINE Games

Other competitive game titles for LINE include Pokopang, Cookie Run, Let's Get Rich and Tsum Tsum. I don't play Pokopang and Cookie Run at all but the revenue that those two games draw in are astonishingly steady. Especially Cookie Run, which is almost always found in the top 20 grossing games in the relevant markets. I wish I could tell you why that is, but since I am not an avid player, I don't really know what impacts their sales or whether players would find it compelling to make in-game purchases very often or at a specific time/event. I will say this, because I played it a couple of times and looked up some details: Cookie Run is not an in-house developed game from LINE. The maker is Devsisters, a Korean company. Cookie Run was hugely popular in South Korea for years before it made its debut as part of the LINE family to the rest of the world. So maybe this developer company has created something inherently unique from the rest of the LINE games that affects its sales pattern. Maybe it has just existed long enough that the game is coasting on a winning formula. But in any case, LINE Rangers as a homegrown game has earned a place in LINE's eyes as one of its most popular and surely one of its most profitable. [Also for those of you not aware, LINE Rangers' concept is not original. It's pretty much a copy of the game Battle Cats with prettier graphics and more lovable troops. LINE definitely did a good job making a simple game more appealing.]

One more sort of interesting thing I've noticed is, typically if sales suddenly rockets for one game or the other (like the launch of Disney Tsum Tsum is a very good example), the grossing sales of other LINE games like Pokopang and Cookie Run tend to fall a bit. This indicates to me that there's a really good chance the players of LINE games are roughly the same pool of people and that they probably play multiple LINE games. The time that they can spend on any given game is finite, and so if their interests turn to one game or another, the rest of them may not get much attention. So perhaps they have some kind of event cycle such that the games each get some promotional events which do not overlap. That way, the games don't cannibalize each other. Or if they don't coordinate this way already, they probably should think about it to maximize sales.

Concluding Remarks

I bet a lot of the info here is not news to many readers. Why am I writing all this? This post is meant to be a stake in the ground, just marking where we stand right now. Perhaps the game will take a left turn somewhere in the future and we'll look back on this current state of the game as the "good old days," who knows? 

Events are fun and exciting. And we get stuff which makes us happy

For me, it very much feels like the game is blossoming and we may be at the beginning of a stabilizing time. The last 5 months have given the developers a good idea of what works:

• Challenging content can be cleared with a reasonable amount of effort 
• We really like events. Giving us rewards sprinkled in the day-to-day like the boss stage events or ranger bonus events enable us to achieve what we want to achieve a bit easier. Some events gave us some rubies or chance at something powerful and useful to fuel our desire to keep playing (like the Clara event and Stage 100 SoCo event) 
• Tweaks to free rangers to make them competitive for current areas, as well as the addition of the 80% stat bonus for combining rangers 
• Dangling "limited edition" rangers in front of players to create the "need" to Gacha and promote trendy excitement

And it has given them a good idea of what doesn't work:

• Stage rewards which are not conducive to the current challenge. This triggered the shuffling of all the obtainable 4 and 5 star rangers in the early and mid-level stages a couple months ago. I have a strong feeling that LINE learned from their previous slip up and as a result, there was a good amount of thought put into the decision to include Alice, Opera James and Sorcerer Cony in the recent stages. 
• Giving select regions significant amounts of bonuses while other regional players do not get to participate. This is the age of social media. Everybody finds out about everything, and players feel bitter when they're excluded from promotional events when they are all playing the same game.
• Doing things "behind the scenes" and not giving us any notice of it happening. It really makes players crazy.

I know many people will have differing opinions about the current state of the game and what its biggest issues and successes are. And that's ok. Not everyone plays with the same goals and mindset. But it's nice to have this game that we all feel pretty good about so that there is this feeling of community. Line Rangers & Friends has been on the internet for just over 4 months and I have accumulated over 500,000 hits in a pretty short amount of time. The blog has evolved as well over the course of these few months. I feel good about that. Thanks for playing and reading and contributing to the game, everyone. One of these days, we'll save Sally! 

Gacha Probabilities - June 30 - July 3

The results are in from the June 30 - July 3 Double 5-star Chance Gacha Event! If you participated, thank you for contributing to the survey (created by 小為) to provide the Line Rangers player community with helpful information.

The Results

Our friends at LINE Rangers 台灣社團 have concluded their survey once the event finished and they were able to collect 329 sets of data from participants, a total of 3449 results (raw data is here) from Gacha. Results were:

• 3★%: 1008 (29.23%)
• 4★%: 1001 (29.02%)
• 5★%: 1440 (41.75%)

This 5 star result is very similar to what the previous results were from their mid-June study which were:

• 3★%: 30.56%
• 4★%: 21.55%
• 5★%: 47.89%

The Analysis

Authors 小為 and 楊濟安 of LINE Rangers 台灣社團 posted this new article about their findings with some more information and analysis on the numbers. Contained within this box is their article interpreted in English. 

The results being 3★ 29%, 4★ 29% and 5★ 42%, by lumping the 3★ and 4★ odds together (an average together of 58% of the samples), we can say that the Gacha is only slightly biased towards 3 and 4★.

Now let's move on to some more in-depth useful information. 

1. How many times do you need to play to receive one super ranger? 

  - The authors defined super ranger as one of the ten 5★ rangers that everyone typically wants to get: KSM, Susu, Cherina, Luis, Hitman, Prince James, Dwight, Dumpy, Dancer King Boss (DKB), Hip Hop Brown. There are a total of 24 5★ rangers on the roster now (Ola is no longer obtainable). Let us assume that the odds of each ranger are the same within their star grade. The chance of you receiving one of these shiny 10 rangers is 10/24 * 41.75% = 17.40% during the event. You'll need 100/17.40=5.75 spins of the Gacha on average before you can expect to receive one of the 10 super desirable rangers. 

2. How much do I need to spend on average to get a level 80 Susu?

  - For this question, we're going to have to assume again that the chances to receive each of the 5-star rangers are equal.

   Susu is 1 out of 24 of the available 5★ rangers. Multiply 1/24 by our 41.75% to obtain 5★ and you'll get a 1.74% to receive Susu, which will take approximately 57.5 Gacha spins for 1 Susu. You need 5 Susus to max out so that means you actually need about 287.5 spins.

    Well, 287.5 spins means you have to play the 5+1 48 times (4800 rubies). I don't know how much they charge all the other regions in the world but in US Dollars on the Android Google Play market during the Ruby Event we can get 494 rubies for roughly $49. In order to get 4800 rubies, we'd have to buy almost 10 packs, which costs $491 USD! It's possible that you get unlucky and have to spend more, but there are those who scored Susu on their first few spins. The average is simply for illustrative purposes.

    That said, I sincerely hope that if you were aiming to get Susu, that you did all your Gachas during this past event because if you don't do it during the double chance event, chances are you'll end up spending a great deal more money. But then again, these are averages based on some reality, some assumption, so take it all with a grain of salt.

3. Should I spin with 20 rubies or 100 rubies? 

   - This is a popular question and to answer it, we won't talk about the part that luck plays, we will only discuss probabilities. 
    This question involves the concept of independent events. If we assume that the 6 results from playing 100 rubies are each independent events, this means that one spin of the Gacha has no bearing on the result of the next spin of the Gacha. The authors believe that the 6 results from 100 rubies Gacha are independent events because a lot of people reported getting four 4-stars and one 5-star, or three 5-stars and three 4-stars. This kind of result would not be possible if the game developer had set the 100 rubies Gacha to be dependent events. For instance, if we believe the Gacha is set up to predetermined dependent results, then we should often get results of three 3-stars, two 4-stars and one 5-star, with some variability but not to the extreme of some people getting four or five 4-star rangers in one shot of 100 rubies. So if we assume that both the 100 rubies and the 20 rubies Gacha are independent events then we can use the July results of 41.75% to do some calculations.

For this example, we'll just assume that the chance of you receiving the ranger you want is 1 out of 100 for sake of illustration. 

    - If you used 20 rubies x5, the chance of you getting the ranger is 5%. 

    - If you used 100 rubies, the chance of  you getting the ranger is 6%. 

Based on 41.75% chance to get a 5-star ranger, we have a 17.54% of getting one of the desirable super rangers. 

    - If you use 20 rubies five times to spin 5 times you will average only 0.877 desirable rangers (which is to say playing 5 times can possibly yield you zero desirable rangers). 

    - If you use 100 rubies once to spin 6 times, you will average 1.05 desirable rangers (which is to say you'll get at least 1 desirable ranger on average in the bundle of 6).

    The difference is slight, but it lies in the fact that 100 rubies gives you that one extra spin. Remember the answer we got to question 1 above: you need to spin 5.75 times on average before you can expect to get a desirable ranger. Playing 100 rubies puts you inside the chance to get one since you are spinning 6 times. In this light, playing the 100 rubies game is relatively better. This was deduced based on the information that was collected from the data set. Of course, your personal experience may deviate from this because this is the "average."

4. Should I spin while there is no double chance event?

The short answer is no, of course not. Here's why:

   - Since we have a 41.75% to get a 5★ ranger during the double chance event, then it goes to reason that without the event, our chances are roughly 20.88%. 

Our chances to get a desirable super ranger: 

   - With double chance event is 17.4%, averaging 5.75 spins to get 1 ranger

   - Without double chance event is 8.7%, averaging 11.5 spins to get 1 ranger

This makes it pretty obvious that during the double chance event your odds of getting something good are much higher. The authors recommend, as I also do, please resist the urge to scratch the itch while there is no double chance event going on! For if you do, you're very likely going to spend some time with this guy.

Go away, Pew. We still do not love you.

Concluding Thoughts

I've stated this before and I think it is important to repeat this: The 41.75% number was an average from a vast pool of results. It is possible that you played and rolled on some very different results than the average. And surely you have seen on the internet instances where people have rolled insanely good results. But this is why this is the average. 

The other consideration that often makes players sad after playing Gacha is the fact that your personal set of "desirable" rangers may be a lot smaller than than 17.4%. Maybe all you want are Susu, Hitman and Cherina. In that case, you're rolling on much smaller chance and the chances of you getting something you don't want are much, much higher. 

Astute players will notice that supposing 5 star chance remains the same in the future, as long as LINE continues to release more new rangers, the chances of us getting each ranger will be lessened each time. This is made especially clear when you compare the difference in the odds of Susu (1.74%) and last month's Ola Brown (2.39%) which translated to an average difference of $148. This really does put players who have been playing for a long time in a worsening situation. For instance, myself, I have almost all of the rangers on the roster (not all are masters) and the ones I still need are just a tiny percentage. The chances of me getting what I want keeps diminishing. It's a tough situation, but I can understand that as a game maker, they need to keep pushing out newer, better, shinier products for people to want to buy. For me, the breaking point is near, but for many others, there's still plenty of incentive to buy in. 

Last but not least, a special thanks to 小為 for pooling all this information for us to share.

Gacha Probabilities - June 2014

The results are in from the June 19 - June 21 Double 5-star Chance Gacha Event! If you participated, thank you for contributing to the survey (created by 小為) to provide the Line Rangers player community with helpful information.

The Results

Our friends at LINE Rangers 台灣社團 have concluded their survey once the event finished and they were able to collect 349 sets of data from participants, a total of 5782 results (raw data is here) from Gacha. Results were:

• 3★%: 30.56%
• 4★%: 21.55%
• 5★%: 47.89%

This 5 star result is over twice what the previous results were from their May study which were:

• 3★%: 49.22%
• 4★%: 30.17%
• 5★%: 20.60%

The Analysis

Authors 小為 and 楊濟安 of LINE Rangers 台灣社團 posted this new article about their findings with some more information and analysis on the numbers. Contained within this box is their article interpreted in English. Note: The numbers on the article were as of late hours of June 19 when the data up to that point was reflecting an average of 43.85%.

If you played the 5+1 Gacha with 47.89% odds of receiving a 5-star ranger, this translated to about 2.88 5★ rangers out of 6 balls for every 100 rubies played. They went on to answer some really good questions based on the 43.85% result that they got at the time of the writing of their post. Wherever possible I'll use their math and adapt it with the end-result number of 47.89%.

1. How many times do you need to play to receive one super ranger? 

  - They defined super ranger as one of the eight 5-star rangers that everyone typically wants to get: KSM, Dancer King Boss (DKB), Sorcerer Cony (SoCo), Bernard, Hip Hop Brown, Dumpy, Dwight, Ola Brown. There are a total of 20 5-star rangers on the roster so the chances of you receiving one of these shiny 8 rangers is actually 19.16% during the event. 100/19.16=5.22 spins of the Gacha on average before you can expect to receive one of the 8 super desirable rangers. 

2. How much do I need to spend on average to get a level 80 Ola Brown?

  - For this question, we're going to have to assume that the chances to receive each of the 5-star rangers are equal (side note from Panic: we know this to be untrue because Line Game Support has directly told me that the odds for each of the rangers is preset, and they have said that "rarer" rangers have a lesser chance. I understood this means in reality some rangers are really preset to be less likely to pop out). 

   So, anyway, Ola Brown is 1 out of 20 of the available 5★ rangers. Multiply this by our 47.89% and you'll get a 2.39% to receive Ola Brown, which will take approximately 42 Gacha spins for 1 Ola Brown. You need 5 Ola Browns to max out so that means you actually need about 210 spins.

    Well, 210 spins means you have to play the 5+1 35 times (3500 rubies). I don't know how much they charge all the other regions in the world but in US Dollars on the Android Google Play market during the Ruby Event we can get 494 rubies for roughly $49. In order to get 3500 rubies, we'd have to buy just over 7 packs, which costs $343 USD! Unfortunately, it sounds about right... And if you happen to be unlucky, you'll spend more. 

    That said, I sincerely hope that if you were aiming to get Ola Brown that you did all your Gachas during this past event because if you don't do it during the double chance event, chances are you'll end up spending a great deal more money. But then again, these are averages based on some reality, some assumption, so take it all with a grain of salt.

3. Should I spin with 20 rubies or 100 rubies? 

   - This question involves a concept that we've touched on before when I shared the May event's results on this blog, which is whether or not the 6 results you get from spending 100 rubies are independent events. This means that one spin of the Gacha has no bearing on the result of the next spin of the Gacha. The authors believe that the 6 results from 100 rubies Gacha are independent events because a lot of people reported getting four 4-stars and one 5-star, or three 5-stars and three 4-stars. This kind of result would not be possible if the game developer had set the 100 rubies Gacha to be dependent events. For instance, if we believe the Gacha is set up to predetermined dependent results, then we should often get results of three 3-stars, two 4-stars and one 5-star, with some variability but not to the extreme of some people getting four or five 4-star rangers in one shot of 100 rubies. So we assume they are independent events and we can use the June results of 47.89% to do some calculations.

For this example we'll just assume that the chance of you receiving the ranger you want is 1 out of 100 for sake of illustration. 

    - If you used 20 rubies x5, the chance of you getting the ranger is 5%. 

    - If you used 100 rubies, the chance of  you getting the ranger is 6%. 

Based on 47.89% chance to get a 5-star ranger, we have a 19.16% of getting one of the desirable super rangers. 

    - If you use 20 rubies five times to spin 5 times you will average only 0.958 desirable rangers (which is to say playing 5 times can possibly yield you zero desirable rangers). 

    - If you use 100 rubies once to spin 6 times, you will average 1.14 desirable rangers (which is to say you'll get at least 1 desirable ranger on average in the bundle of 6).

    The difference is slight, but it lies in the fact that 100 rubies gives you that one extra spin. Remember the answer we got to question 1 above: you need to spin 5.22 times on average before you can expect to get a desirable super ranger. Playing 100 rubies puts you inside the chance to get one since you are spinning 6 times. In this light, playing the 100 rubies game is relatively better. This was deduced based on the information that was collected from the data set.Of course, your personal experience may deviate from this because this is the "average."

4. Should I spin while there is no double chance event?

The short answer is no, of course not. Here's why:

   - Since we have a 47.89% to get a 5★ ranger during the double chance event, then it goes to reason that without the event, our chances are roughly 23.95%. 

Our chances to get a desirable super ranger: 

   - With double chance event is 19.16%, averaging 5.22 spins to get 1 ranger

   - Without double chance event is 9.58%, averaging 10.44 spins to get 1 ranger

This makes it pretty obvious that during the double chance event your odds of getting something good are much higher. The authors recommend, as I also do, please resist the urge to scratch the itch while there is no double chance event going on! For if you do, you're very likely going to spend some time with this guy.

Go away, Pew. We do not love you.

Concluding Thoughts

I've stated this before and I think it is important to repeat this: The 47.89% number was an average from a vast pool of results. It is possible that you played and rolled on some very different results than the average. And surely you have seen on the internet instances where people have rolled insanely good results. But this is why this is the average. 

The other consideration that often makes players sad after playing Gacha is the fact that your personal set of "desirable" rangers may be a lot smaller than than 19.16%. Maybe all you want are Ola Brown, KSM and Dwight. In that case, you're rolling on much smaller chance and the chances of you getting something you don't want are much, much higher. 

Now, the last thing that is bothering me is the fact that this event's results differed greatly from last month's. June's double chance event was seriously more than twice more lucrative (and from my personal experience, I tend to agree with the results). Such a large difference cannot be a mistake on the survey because they had over 5700 samples. May's results were done with over 2000 samples, which should still be quite accurate. So I don't think the numbers are wrong. I think this was a deliberate change in the presets by the game developers. With the release of Team Battle Mode and Endless Mode, I believe they really want people to participate and they want people to feel competitive. Nobody likes losing over and over and that can make a PvP battle fizzle out very quickly. I'm guessing that's why they've more than doubled the odds to get 5 star rangers, so people will be more likely to jump into the new modes.

So in the end, I do apologize that I did not get this post out sooner because perhaps it would have swayed some players to take more advantage of the event while it was still possible to get the best odds at Ola Brown. However, now that the "new" non-event probability for 5-star rangers is roughly 23.95%, I wonder if it will stay that way until some other significant event happens (like new area release or new ranger release). Did they increase the non-event chance from 10% to 23.95% when the "major update" came out on June 19? Nobody knows for sure when the change in the odds was made. LINE has no obligation to tell us. We can only try to figure it out with our collective effort. Hopefully this provided some deeper understanding of the gamble that is Gacha. Special thanks to 小為 for pooling all this information for us to share.

New Battle Modes Available

After an extra hour of extended maintenance to prepare for the new battle modes, we are finally able to play the game. Unfortunately, the Versus Battle mode is currently plagued by network and ranking server connection errors. Practically every time you try to get to a new screen, or if you finish a game and try to get back to the battle screen with ranking info, the unable to connect error rears its ugly head at us.

Nevertheless, I persisted along with many, many other players to try to get a head start on the global ranking. Many of my questions were answered!

The Versus Modes

Ranking:

Everybody wins

• All players who participate in the ranked Team Battle mode will receive a ranking. Your points/score determines your global ranking. [Note: battling your friends will not help you in the global ladder.]
• Players begin at a score of 1000.
• If you win the battle, you will gain points and your rank will rise.
• If you lose the battle, you will lose points and your rank will fall. 
• The amount you gain/lose depends on the ranking of the opponent you battle (pretty sure), and in small part your winning streak.
• The global ranks are reset on a weekly basis (on Monday 6am JST) 
• The rewards are really worth it to play this battle mode. Top ranked first place, second place and third place receive a whopping 1000 rubies as a prize. Lower rankings aren't bad either. 
• You will also gain experience (for your rangers, not for the player) and coins when you win battles. 
• Note that battles against friends on your friend list will not affect your score and therefore has no impact on your global ranking.
• The bottom of the Team Battle screen will tell you how long until the global ranking will be reset and winners will be determined. 

Team Battle Mode 

• Your "real player" opponent's rangers appear to be AI (artificial intelligence) controlled. There is NOT an actual person playing and controlling the opponent deployments in real time at all. (Boo...)
• Team Battle requires "Special Feathers" which are the rainbow colored feathers. You regenerate 1 special feather every 30 minutes. You can purchase additional feathers with rubies. As with the regular feathers, you also get a new set of 5 each time you gain a player level.
• Somewhat fortunately or unfortunately depending on which point of view you take, you are free to take whichever rangers you please into combat. I'm pretty sure that your opponent's team is based on who that player has chosen in their team at that moment in time, too. 
• The length of the battle path is determined at random.
• Pretty sure that whatever treasure your opponent possesses will be applied to their rangers in battle.
• Whatever upgrades (mineral, max limit, tower health and missile strength) you have will apply in battle mode. 
• You may use items and friends/sidekicks in battle mode. 
• It is possible to hit Hurry Up mode which will just cause the lightning bolts to happen. I believe it also causes all units to become half health to speed up the fight. I don't think it makes the opponent deploy like crazy the way single player mode does, though. 
• So far, I don't believe you can trigger Thomas in this mode. I also don't think you can trigger Gold Brown.
• There is no clear bonus roll when you win a team battle. 
• When you win more than once in a row, the game will tell you what your winning streak is. A low streak gives you no bonus points, a high streak (10 or more) gives you a 2 point bonus. But most of the points depend on whether you were matched against a player who was close to your rank.
• You may only battle each Friend once per day. But you can farm up as many Friendship Points as you have Friends. 

Battle with Friends Mode

• You can access Battle with Friends mode by clicking on Friends in the main screen, then click on the Friend's picture, then click on the Battle with Friend button. 
• Your Friend also appears to be controlled by AI, so it's not your friend actually playing on the other end (Boo.)
• The length of the battle path is determined at random.
• Whatever upgrades (mineral, max limit, tower health and missile strength) you have will apply in battle mode. 
• You may use items and friends/sidekicks in battle mode. 
• You win 50 Friendship Points and personal bragging rights when you defeat a Friend in this battle mode. 
• There is no clear bonus roll when you win a team battle. Battle with Friends is considered a practice for Team Battle. 
• You don't need any feathers to battle your friends.
• If your friends choose to battle you and fail to be victorious, congratulations! You will receive 50 friendship points in the mail for doing nothing other than being absolutely boss mode. Too bad it doesn't tell you in the mail whose pride you hurt today :) 

My Current Impressions

First of all, from the ranking rewards, it would appear that everyone will get 20 rubies for the weekly global ranking system so it would be worth it to buy some rubies because you'll get 20 at the end of the week anyway. It doesn't hurt to participate! You mostly battle people close to your rank score, so you won't immediately be pitted against people who have insanely good rangers; but that said, ranking is no indication of how good that person is because "they" are not playing live on the other end, it's still AI. 

It would appear that in these new battle modes, long range units are incredibly powerful (Ola Brown, Dancer King Boss in particular). Once you get some meaty rangers to tank your front line, you need some nice long range units to stand at a distance and bomb away at the enemy. The opponent AI may decide to use items on you, so you should be prepared to respond. The one that is particularly dangerous in my opinion is enemy Ice Shot. Pretty much if they use Ice Shot, I respond with Invincibility almost immediately so that it negates whatever damage they will try to do while my units are doing nothing. You can deploy while frozen but your units will just sit at the foot of your tower until the Ice Shot wears out. 

Additionally, I would strongly suggest you go ahead and start upgrading your tower health if you have previously been neglecting this upgrade category. Since they took away Tower Repair, your tower is as healthy as it will ever be and there are no take-backs once you enter combat. 

While it's kind of disappointing that it's all AI controlled opponents, it's still kind of addictive because of what's at stake (glory, ranking & rubies). Mostly the fun of these battle modes is in checking out what you can do to respond to various team compositions and enemy formations. I haven't gotten bored with it yet. Try it out! It's pretty fun (when the server behaves). 

Endless Mode

• To get to Endless Mode, you hit the Start button the way you usually do on the main screen. Then instead of selecting a stage, click on the swirly portal on the map where it says "COMING SOON". 
• To play an Endless Mode stage, you must spend a "Special Feather" which is the new rainbow colored feather. It regenerates once every 30 minutes. You can also buy feathers with rubies. As with the regular feathers, you also get a new set of 5 each time you gain a player level.
• In Endless Mode only, it appears that non-speed type rangers incur a 50% longer cooldown "tax". Dancer King Boss who is normally (unmastered) on a 7-second cooldown is now just over 10 seconds in Endless. Ola Brown who is normally (unmastered) on a 8-second cooldown is on a 12 second cooldown in Endless. My Lia is mastered, and her mastered cooldown is 2 seconds, but in Endless Mode her cooldown is 3 seconds. My mastered Xan's cooldown is 4 seconds but in Endless Mode his cooldown is 6 seconds. I believe that the cooldown of speed rangers remains untaxed, but it's pretty hard to tell since the CD is so low for speed rangers anyway. It's noticeably longer for the others. In my recordings, my mastered Hip-Hop Brown is roughly on a 1-2 second cooldown which seems normal for master level. This is a very important consideration for Endless Mode team selection. 
• Unfortunately, I haven't played much yet. It has a similar ranking system, though not a global ladder, with rewards like experience and coins, based on how long you last in battle. It's not a bad way to level your rangers if you have no interest in using special feathers for Team Battle.

New Stuff

The update gave us a lot of nice enhancements that we've been asking for as well as other shiny new things. They've greatly improved on some "quality of life" type of features. 

• When you log in every day consecutively, you will stack up and gain rewards for your good attendance. This is a weekly event and replaces our old "daily login bonus." You will be rewarded once you get your "clear" stamp for that day.
• Experience Booster item will grant you 50% more experience for some time duration (3 hours or all day, d pending on which you buy.) I expect most people will be using 500 Friendship Points to buy the 3 hour one. I don't know yet whether it stacks with Double Experience Day, but I would expect so. Once you buy it, you'll see the timer ticking away in the main screen.
• Player max level has increased to 99 from 80.
• Little banners now tell you when something "new" has been added to your game or if there's an event happening to make sure you don't miss anything.
• The Friend home screen is accessed by hitting the Friends button on the main screen, then clicking on your Friend's picture. It'll show you what rangers they have and what level they are as well as their Collection progress and Treasure progress. 

• If you click on your Friend's portrait in the stage selection map, you can access a list of your friends currently stuck on that stage, send them help and click to go to their friend home page.
• They finally fixed the display of tower health to be the actual tower health rather than maximum of 999999. Unfortunately, they have also taken away the indication of exact health on the enemy tower (likely because we were exploiting it to find out info they didn't want us to know... lol. Boo). 
• When your ranger has reached its absolute max level, it'll say that the ranger is "Master". It's not just a vanity title: Master rangers' cooldown is half of an unmastered ranger. This is a newly added bonus of reaching max level, and naturally more incentive for players to want to play more Gacha. 
• Friendship Point capacity has been raised from 990 max to 2000 max. 

• Ranger storage capacity has been increased from 100 rangers to 150 rangers. 
• The new "Invincibility Item" gives your tower and all of your rangers temporary invincibility (approximately 8 seconds by my count). 
• Auto Mode should make your life a lot easier grinding levels. Once you enter battle in a stage, you can hit the Auto button (located under the Pause button) and the AI will take over your deployment. You can still take over if you wish, or turn off Auto if you want to play yourself again. You must switch Auto mode on for every stage you enter, though. I'm not sure what the AI does to determine which ranger to deploy, but I guess it'll take some time to try and figure that part out.
• Under Settings, there's a new "Coupon" button but not sure what it is for yet. Maybe some localized promotional things will be placed here in the future.
• When you click on a team member on the main screen you'll be presented with its profile and the option to go to the level up screen. 
• There's a Skip button on the Gacha now. Yes, my prayers have been answered! Now we don't have to waste so much time spinning that dumb ball!
• We no longer get 10 friendship points if someone selects you as a friend so people with symbols prefixing their names can more or less drop that style. The mailbox now allows you to kindly reciprocate sending "help" troops to up to 50 people. 

Anyway that's it for now, I'm going back to furiously try to climb the global ladder. Competition is fierce so far. Leave some comments if you have something cool/neat/interesting to add. I'm going to say this right now because I know some of you out there are burning up about it: If you are commenting only to complain about how unfair the Team Battle mode is without any sort of constructive criticism, I will delete it. 

That said, I do hope that the new updates to the game has offered everyone something to do while we wait for more new areas. 

May 22 Changes - Laughing All The Way To The Bank

AMG! NO!

Late last night (for me anyway), Line issued some ominous new game notices and minutes later retracted them. Today just after Japan's 01:00 AM we are seeing the lives changes in place. The funniest part for me is that for hours before they finished maintenance, I read that players had all kinds of issues as they were attempting to put out these changes, clearly having technical difficulties. In my mind I imagined that Line Rangers is in fact the brain child of one poor lad sitting in a room in Tokyo, clicking away on his laptop keyboard and then spilling his coffee and messing everything up on the eve of his proposed changes. And then frantically trying to fix it afterward...

The game was taken offline for emergency maintenance while the developer(s) properly implemented the new changes once and for all. For interrupting the tail hours of my favorite Ranger Day, Double Coin Day, we all got 40 rubies and 10,000 gold coins in addition to the 10 rubies they promised us daily for the month of May. Hey, I think it's a fair exchange for this rather hilarious blunder. Call me cruel, but watching them trip all over themselves during a patch cycle is pretty chuckle-worthy in my book.

The Changes

As for the changes, they are exactly as outlined in the notices from last night. Here they are for your perusal.

The change to the max level of all rangers does not require you to obtain 2 more of the same type of ranger, so we can all breathe a sigh of relief. However, be aware that the increase does not appear to stack the way the other ones did after combining to raise the max; there is no additional 20% stat increase like we did for combining rangers. The 10 additional levels is a linear stat increase. So 5-star rangers' default max is now 60, 4-star rangers' default max is now 50, and so on. If you only have 1 of a ranger and it is at its default max level, you still need a second one in order to gain a 20% stat increase. Side note: Even as a linear upgrade, the extra 10 levels takes Dancer King Boss to 121k attack and KSM to 129k attack at level 80. Godly!

Speed rangers have gotten a big high-five and now they're actually very worth considering for your team composition. Most speed rangers' mineral cost are now reverted to their level 1 base cost, with the exception of Hip-Hop Brown who remains at 210. Honey's mineral cost has been bumped down twice now, and she's so worth using now at a mere 160 mineral cost. All speed class Cony rangers are amazing as well, particularly Lucifer Cony, who packs a mighty punch for the measly cost. All of our speed class lowbies are going to reach level 20 now, but as long as their mineral cost remains the same as their level 1 to 10 cost, I see no downside to this.

Balance and speed rangers have gotten a fist-bump from the developers, too. Certain rangers have had their stats increased. I believe Masked Moon's HP and attack have both been increased, making him actually pretty decent as a pseudo-health ranger (level 80: 51.5k attack/531k HP). I don't have a hard comparison, but I do believe that Gentleman James got an increase, too. I mean, as far as undesirable 5-star rangers go, Gentleman James was unfortunately very close to the top of that list previously. 

"Some" miscellaneous rangers got buffed, like Sol. I admit I didn't always like him. I used to call him Greenie McDroopy (Fatty McDroopy's cousin. Who's his cousin? Dickey, of course.) At level 70 he was pretty decent but post-change, he's become really competitive. Sol has gone from ~13k attack at level 70 to ~30k attack. If you've been snacking on Sol instead of keeping him, you might be kicking yourself now! He has 567k health at level 80 and deals a 36k DPS to boot. Not bad at all. I'm sorry I ever doubted you, Mr. McDroopy.

Gold Brown is a cool new addition to the game. He will randomly appear in stages and he is basically a health ranger. He's a huge gold statue and twirls his way to the front line, then helps tank while jump-kicking baddies in the face. I have never had Gold Brown appear while I was farming easy stages so maybe it isn't completely random. Perhaps the game has some way of gauging if the player is having difficulty before giving you a chance to get Gold Brown.

Skyscraper Treasure Changed

The Skyscraper Treasure is finally what I wanted! Far-Reaching Insight now increases range instead of speed. This treasure won't increase your direct damage or anything, but it may indirectly save your rangers from death.

As shown in the picture here, you can see what 100% benefit of the new version of the Skyscraper treasure does. The increase isn't huge when you look at it alone, but the important thing is when you compare the maximum range of our rangers today versus the maximum range of our enemies, you will find that the extra distance may put our rangers safely out of the attack radius of certain attacks. So there you have it! Measurable treasure benefits!

Free Sorcerer Cony and Rubies! Players Everywhere Rejoice!

Very BIG event indeed! Well... I don't know how to really feel about this given that I've personally thrown away tons of money trying to get Sorcerer Cony and finally got it with freely-gotten rubies the other day. Now this.

I guess it's a good thing overall since it levels the playing field a bit for most players. If you slugged all the way to Stage 100 without super crazy awesome rangers like I did, congratulations, Sorcerer Cony for your troubles! She'll make your life a lot easier going forward. But be warned: Sorcerer Cony is not going to give you an automatic win. You will still have to do the rest of the stages in Castle in the Sky with some diligence.

Also, if I'm understanding the Notice details correctly, I think the actual giveaway will be taking place later, after the event is over. So you have until May 30 to clear Stage 100, then on June 5 you will receive the Cony in your mailbox. So it actually won't help you at all today. Sorry. lol

And from what I am seeing on the internet, it appears all regions have gotten the 14 day log-in bonus of 10 rubies per day. Nice and all, but I still want my 300 ruby event that HK/Macau/Taiwan/Thailand got. Keep hoping... 

On the "new Notice board" it also ominously talks about a "skyscraper" that the evil alien boss has built will be revealed... What skyscraper? What is it talking about? 10 areas?! Are they changing the old areas? Is the next area releasing soon? (We're at area 9 if you're counting). Are we going to rescue Sally?! It's all happening May 17. I can't wait! 

New Rangers Released + Castle in the Sky Thoughts

I woke up yesterday morning and it was all mayhem because all the obtainable rangers in boss stages were different. I woke up this morning and apparently the entire player community has gone amok because new and even more outrageously overpowered rangers have been released! And it's Bonus Ruby time and double chances on Premium Gacha time, and to top it all off it's Double Coin day. It's been a very unproductive day for me. Been playing Rangers all day.

My discussion of Castle in the Sky part one was very long in the making, but with the advent of the new rangers, the last half of the zone got obliterated in about an hour. I don't want to write up part 2 just yet, because writing how I beat it with the new rangers seems like a waste. This post will be just about the set of new rangers as well as some thoughts about how they are a good fit for tackling Castle in the Sky.

KSM is picked on by his wife, but he only takes his anger out on Alien Army members

First things first, Sorcerer Cony has been overthrown by this fine gentleman as the most overpowered ranger in the game to date. Mr. KSM, you are a very mysterious fellow. Why is his name KSM? What does it mean and what does it stand for? My theory is KSM are his initials. I wish we could see the breast pockets of his robe because I bet KSM is embroidered there. Why does KSM have so much rage? What does his wife do to him? We'll never know...

Level 1 KSM, Level 1 Dancer King Boss destroying the Fart King

Mr. KSM is a splash ranger and he will be undoubtedly the most sought after ranger by everyone. At level 1 he costs 540 mineral to deploy which may seem like an astronomical amount of resources for one unit, but at level 1, his attack DPS is already 10500. Honestly, if you get him from GACHA, go ahead and use him right away, even if you don't have anyone to synthesize him with to level up. At level 1, he's already as good as Opera James at level 40. At level 41 to 50, KSM costs 740 to deploy, which may seem like a lot, but as you head into Castle in the Sky, all the stages lend themselves to splash damage a lot. At Stage 104 and beyond, the pathways are very short so KSM's Very Slow speed is not much of a problem, while his damage will knock everything out in a few hits. I was skeptical, but he is well worth the money. In addition, his max range is the same as Opera James, so he can safely dole out the pain from behind the fray. He can't avoid the unicycle or the ice cream enemies' splash damage, but (1) KSM has a lot of health and (2) if you deploy in the right order, you'll have enough KSMs out to obliterate them in no time at all. His cooldown (time before you can deploy him again) is very long, even longer than other splash rangers by a little bit, but I've been finding it ok because it takes a while to even regenerate that kind of cash.

Dancer King Boss has the master moves and a keen sense of style

Dancer King Boss is really awesome and not just because he hurls disco balls across the room. Dancer King overthrows Sindy as the ranger with the longest range and outperforms Lia, Alice, Sindy and Legend Boss as the highest single target DPS. Look closely at the picture below for the left-most Dancer King Boss and the left-most Sindy. That's how much further back Dancer King Boss can stand. In stage 104, Dancer King pops and remains at the foot of the home tower while damaging enemies standing at the foot of the enemy tower. Talk about far! Needless to say, he also out-ranges the ice cream splash damage, which will make him ideal for most stages in Castle in the Sky. To give you an idea of  how powerful he is, maxed out at level 70, Dancer Boss King deals over 100,000 DPS. He is very bit as OP as I make him seem, trust me.

Honey roasted peanut Bernard is kind of a beach bum. But who surfs with socks on? That's just weird.

Bernard is like the new Thunder Brown. Really, really slow, doesn't do a lot of damage, but his potbelly gives him about one million HP when he's at level 50. One. Million. He costs 820 mineral to deploy, but that's not my only problem with him. Bernard does not really allow himself to be the only tank in your team because his cooldown (time before you can deploy him again) is *insanely long* for a health unit. His cooldown is the same as KSM's, something like 12 seconds. 12 seconds for a splash ranger is acceptable because you will most likely be sending out other rangers in between, but for a health ranger to have such a long cooldown and at such cost is almost detrimental. One million HP is actually nothing when you're up against 10 Tylers (paper airplane enemy). He's also Slow move speed.

I don't think I will be using him much, just like I didn't end up using Thunder Brown much. They have a ton of health but because of their cost and speed, I just don't believe they're very functional for holding the front line. Maybe for Stage 97 and 98, but beyond that, I think I'll just use this guy...

Brown gets cooler every time we see him. Lightning kicks and tattooed fist. Eat your heart out.

Hip Hop Brown is amazing. Unique to Brown as a speed ranger, he gains a lot of HP as you level him and he has a 3 second cooldown just like Honey. He walks really fast and the best part is he only costs 210 mineral which means you can spam him like crazy and he's just as good at holding the front line as any tank. He walks faster than Honey, which is pretty fast for a big meaty ranger.

On a related note, if you logged in recently, you would have gotten a bonus 3 star ranger, Red Brown. He's like Hip Hop Brown's little brother. 3 star, so less meaty, but still very good and very cheap to deploy. Great for lower stages and only 120 minerals to deploy. 

Poor Songster Cony. She's a hipster and she has a bit of potential, but lacks talent indeed.

Songster Cony is kind of like Sorcerer Cony's baby sister. She joins the ranks with other 4-star ranged splash units, and she performs about as well. Where Opera James and Clara fall short in both move and attack speed, she excels. Her attack power at level 40 isn't terrible, but it's not great, either. Especially with level 60 Clara being so available to the public these days, Songster Cony seems to fall short for me in desirability. If Clara is your only other ranged splash unit, though, Songster Cony will do nicely to join your team. She has quite long range as well, just short of Sindy's. 

Seems to me like KSM, Dancer King Boss are at the top of the wish list with Hip Hop Brown not far behind. The new rangers will surely make Castle in the Sky much easier for people. I'm still not sure why KSM wants to save Sally but we're lucky to have him on our side. If you have the cash to spare, now's the time to play the GACHA machine with double chances and bonus rubies. Good luck, everyone!

Release Day! New Areas + Events + New Anguish

Today is day one of the new areas "Altar of Flame" and "Castle in the Sky" being live and available in-game. Those of you who are still working on stage 1-84, do not feel left out. The new stages are very difficult so don't feel as if 84 is a major bummer because if you can't conquer Temple of Ice, then Altar of Flame will not be much better! Take your time, train your rangers, grind some levels and gold. It's still Double Gold day!

Along with the newly released areas, Line has given us little under 2 days of another Gacha event and Ruby event. If you've been itching to play the GACHA machine for premium rangers, today's the day to get the most bang for the buck and possibly best chances at 5-star rangers. I tried my hand at it and it was an utter disappointment personally, but some other people got great results from their GACHA. Try your luck!

The user level cap has been increased to 80. I was hoping that the new levels would increase Tower HP but it so far hasn't. I'm still capped at 999999 for my tower. It doesn't seem to make sense or be at all worth anything to put more gold coins into Tower HP upgrades for the time being. Not sure if that is an accident, either.

Interesting thing that isn't working in players' favor is that enemy tower HP has increased tremendously. I didn't check lower stages but every stage from 80 up has had enemy tower increased from ~600k to 999k. 84's tower used to be 680k. It is also now 999k. This will make the splash hax strategy of killing it that much more difficult. I don't know if it was intentional or accidental. It seems quite unfair to go back to old stages and increase the difficulty in such a strange, sweeping manner.
[Edit]: I went back as far as stage 64 spot checking. Looks like the 999999 enemy tower goes back pretty far. Stage 48 is at 440k, which also seems insanely high for it. Maybe it's just broken and they'll fix it?

Stage 84's enemy tower used to have 680000 HP. Now it has 999999 HP. What's up with that...

Anyway, I'm being pwned by 86 at the moment. I'm still trying to approach it with different methods and rangers to see what works better. Frankly, I'm getting the feeling this is going to be a grinding uphill battle. Prepare thyself...