Date: 01/04/2020
It’s a story i never wanted to tell people, or i didn’t have guts to tell after all. Please have courage if wished to continue reading.
I was originally both GL and JP players for MobiusFF, a regular human being who used to care about communities but been entwined with stupid political-related hardships which i didn’t even wanted to be into. Everything in MFF, was a pleasant journey until I have fallen into trap of those who seeks benefits instead of returning profits back to developer company itself.
Was checking Square Enix recent release in global release. Saw the trailer, it looked great. I gave a try, it was unusual experience after massive data downloaded with little expectations. But it turn out amazing. The English vocal is pretty..well not my kind of favourite. Wol is too calm and emotionless in his English Voice. Sarah is little bit too high pitched as well. So i found the Japanese dub option. However i found Japan version is 1 year ahead released. The differences as below:
| Differences | GL | JP |
|---|---|---|
| Years of Gap | 3rd August 2016 | 4th June 2015 (1 year gap) |
| Summoning System | 6 cards (unpulled job card is only guaranteed at 8th pull) | 5 cards + 1 job card (can be duplicate) |
| Job Level Limit Break/ Overboost | Manual (exchange Celestriads/Three Stars to get 1 Job-Overboost to limit break | Auto (automatically limit break+4 if pulled duplicate jobs, get 1 extra celestriad on top of 2 so total 3) |
| Ability Shop | Early Access (once new card batch arrives, the older cards can be bought without summoning) | Only can be repurchase after summoned targeted cards. |
| Legend Job Summoning | Permanent, but treated as different pool to summon compared to regular pool. Iirc 8% summoning rate. No Pity Counter /Limit Break unless specialised Legend Banner or collaboration events | Limited. It can be up to one year to be able for resummon older legend jobs. |
| Mobius Day | 8th / 18th / 28th of every month | usually 3-days streak |
| Exclusive Collaborations | N/A | Hoshi no Dora (Dragon Quest), Puzzle-And-Dragon |
| Missing Supreme / Ultimate Card | Only 1 Damage Limit Break II card Vox available | Golbez, Goddess FFVI, Fiend FFVI, Aeronite FFXIII-2, Vegnagun FFX-2 |
So, is gloomy right? I never expected to see such inequality in operation system whether in local or oversea versions. Until i understand the localization history in SQEX ( i have history link here ), it’s 90%…sorry, 100% better for playing original language version.
I decided to play JP version, even i was pretty illiterate in Japanese because of 3 version of writing (hiragana, katakana and kanji). I learnt hiragana during my university year, but i wasn’t confident enough. I relied on Google Translate a lot those days (bless and rip OCR technology). 4 years from that, i’m fluent enough to survive in my Japan trips’ communications. I really thankful to Mobius for teaching me so much. I never expect to be able pour so much effort to learn Japanese-based game.
Everything supposed to be working well for me, until …
It was during Error Code 12 Era, the time when hackers and illegal players mostly purchase dirty magicites as “Discount for resellers” which is in fact not under SQEX official promotion, and that falls under violation terms. The players received banwave which can be also known as Judgement Day, (affected both GL and JP versions). I was one of them who were baited.
I was eagered to compete with many top rankers (AvestaF1 was my utopia) within short time with quick cash. Yet I faced the consequences. Every cards i cherished, such as Mirai / Lights of Future (LOF) / Lights of Hope (LOH) and Minwu, i got them in wrong method, and they’ve left me.
My tears were shed with anger and regret. Kept asking myself “How could i fall into this scheme?”, but with no answer. I was depressed and clueless of what to do without being a Blank for months. The friends (Syndrom_FF, T_u) i have accidentally involved along, gone as well. I’m truly sorry for what i did, even i wasn’t the culprit nor middleman, i still felt guilt. That time my previous Youtube channel was deleted along that incident.
I have decided, i will be back to MFF, with legitimate way to get myself back. For the meantime, i trained myself at GL Rankings (since i didn’t able to participate JP towers during the hiatus). Until the anniversary welcome period (JP), i did resetmara / rerolling marathons to get back things i have lost.
Unfortunately, i was not pardoned. Mirai and Minwu didn’t come to me, i was literally rejected that i no longer have the rights to own them. Until one day, one of my friends (Kla_d) who understood my desire to be back into game, so he granted me one of his exisiting accounts that he no longer wanted. It was given with Sephiroth Skin, Noctis Bond, Aerith, Ragnarok, and Mythic Knights trio (with Echo Mythic Costume). Even there’s no Mirai nor the player level was below my previous one, that was really okay yet good enough for me sinner !
So i continue to improve myself and try my best to bring back things back to community. I had expectations from Huuch_ senpai to be one of the top 500 rankers, i was moved and that was my aim.
Got my first own Rainbow. It was Duncan FFVI. Old man and other cards took good care of me, tried my best to climb towers by towers, but i wasn’t good enough, always stays in top 1000 - 2000 range for 3months. The debut of SeaFloat / R&R made me much harder to climb without that card. I gave myself a break, slowly analyse the gimmicks of the monsters, while slowly maxing my weapon boosting every day.
JP Mobius Day is bit unique as mentioned earlier, i could only boost in those weekends to facilitate my modding. Ikkitousen / One Against Many was my first 5-starred weapon, then Trigger Happy from Sarah Rikku and rest of first EX1 weapon batch.
The Supreme / Ultimate Card (UC) Ticket Guaranteed Banner, was my first time to spend in JP (and each costs alot to my currency which is about 1/4 of my monthly paycheck salary). I wished for Mirai, but i didn’t manage to get as expected. Then New Year free UC Ticket, i didn’t get the ones i have lost. Not single of them yet. I was calm this time, told myself “maybe next time”.
Then free UC ticket during SQEX Japan Livestream for Mobius, i got Rinoa, while paid for Neo Exdeath. I wasn’t sad neither. I keep each of them under well care. Never lock them as favourites, but each of them are dearest to me.
Until Gothic Reinhert Frau Sarah Banner, my salvation has come. The Rainbow that came, was Mirai. And Reinhert Frau in my parody Yugioh video. It was my true story. That 10 seconds of pause, i couldn’t speak. I was cried with tears of joy, and said “Welcome Home, thank you for coming”. Next is during Turks Banner, early explosion after my Zack, that 0.8% became Minwu’s return. I couldn’t be more happier than that.
From those moments, i became more ready than ever. Continuosly 4-Month Top500 streak, never thought i able to reach that far. I not just made my promise to Huuch_ ‘s previous expectation, my vision was fulfilled.
I managed to befriend many good friends who managed to be on top of the Tower food chain. FF12NLbr was one of them, and i’m proud of his achievements, so as Whit_z. They both are the ones i really trusted.
However, many bad things can come along the way. Community Bias & toxicity within community server, my quarrels with family, struggle with my real life commitments in work/studies, and even my own health. I can’t keep doing those hobbies anymore, but i wanted to reach more people to be connected via the game, and isolate myself from bad community people. To Twitter, i went to find mobiusFF JP players to see how things going there.
The situation there i imagined wasn’t as bad as i expected. In fact, everyone was warmly welcomed even through text replies. I understood the pains of Japanese culture especially Language communication barrier. I wanted to close that gap, along the way i managed to converse properly, at least with minor grammatical errors because my 5-years habit of talking informally just like as in anime. Some didn’t mind to help teach me, i am really thankful. And it’s time for me to bring something legitly back to communities i loved.
That time, the Dimensional Valley / The Rift was introduced in JP. We had to manually count our resources (mystic tablets, Gilgamesh pass) to get Supreme/Rainbow version of the card. My first favourite was Ifrit (Duncan Ver.), partly because it represents FFX (my first PS2 game), but also it’s personal liking despite ability it could extend. Everyday i have to open Google Sheet, find my spreadsheet to start calculating day by day. That’s hectic and shouldn’t be happening to every player to enjoy.
So i proposed to build DVCALC (later known as Rift Calc in my portal). I was doing all those alone, without support/suggestions to build the app. Spent weeks to regain my previous coding knowledge, and until the day when it’s ready. I was afraid, i made my first tweet in Japanese. I was anxious, will anyone able to find my post or tried to use the app (my usual dilemma as app developer). Some likes and retweets, that sounded good start. Then i keep promoting of how the app works by demonstrate my use case, till people found it, replied with positive feedbacks and gratitudes. Those texts may look normal to you, but to me, those words are invaluable. I wanted to know more, as a true player and a friend. After some time i decided to published the existence of that app in Reddit MFF community.
Because i had bad history in that Discor_ community server due to hardships i didn’t able to explain, i was under heavy surveillance of my every activity in server channel, until i have to be tagged as “Japan”. It seems normal for isolating players for preventing confusions. Here’s how it generally works:
GL : Only can see/chat in GL channels JP: Only can see/chat in JP Channels Untagged: You can see/chat in both channels
But mine was different case, i was branded unwillingly, like a Warden branded the prisoners, it’s an eternal scar. Even my senior Huuch_ / K_ couldn’t help me anymore to defend my regular actions (which i not even trying to do something malicious). Nor my old once-friends-before Shir_ even say anything good about me neither. I’m always that well-known-demon-king WFang that brought calamity into the world of their Palamecia. Digital abuse(cyber bullying with moderator authority), identity protection (i no longer be another person other than WFang), digital app property protection (i lost my recognition as founder of the app, credits given to another person). Therefore, that is generally Moderator Toxicity in that server. The only way i have, is to leave that hell. I brought few friends along, at least i didn’t feel lonely abit.
Some of top players even left that place as well because they’re also treated the similar way. The SQE_ (GL) also couldn’t do anything for keeping players with good reason/s. I feel bad for them. Other than that, i will have to focus and balance myself between works and game. I back to casual tower ranking, enjoying event collaborations including reprints, according my own pace.
Twitter friends were kind to me as they completely aware i am foreigner, yet they treated me like one of them. I felt home. Everyday i see familiar person in timeline, i jumped in and replied them with suitable GIF according their chats. Seniors there weren’t feel almighty at all, they help each other to improve themselves for coming battles in towers, end-contents.
Doing usual gacha pulls, waiting for new stories in Act 2 Warrior of Despair (GL) / Destruction (JP)
Until..
It’s not my first encounter of such thing as programmer/developer. Unusable codes eventually will reach their end such as AngularJS or JQuery. But i never personally encounter game’s EOS myself.
16th January 2020, i was about to celebrate my holidays with family in Hong Kong peacefully (like finally we able to reconcile!), the announcement was delivered by Square Enix (JP). Many players were surprised, not to me and some old players like K_ , we have been analysing and observing the sales/revenue earned by SQEX in Japanese MobiusFF. The end sales result of Dec 2019 was >50% of Dec 2018.
Judging the years of operation including planning and preparation stages, the game has reached 5th year from where everything it begun before official release.
The voice actors in JP like Nobunaga(WoL) , M.A.O (Meia), Tange (Echo) are pretty well known seiyuu/voice actors in anime/game series. For GL, Steven Burton (Cloud) and George Newbern (Sephiroth) are also in part of MobiusFF (GL) collaborations. Surely many things could happen such as schedule arrangement, contract issues (definitely not coming cheap) and etc. I’ll leave other possibilities here, i can’t say things for sure to be possible causes that led to such decision.
The artworks of every card are outstanding. Not just from Itahana’s artworks from SQEX, but also well-known talented illustrators (Rakuen, suranaki, Jeremy Chong, Yu Cheng Hong, Lasahido and many more). Not to talk about the commissions, but let’s look back how many cards (ability and supreme) artworks have been produced, can you guess? 1878, Cards only. Aren’t that enough already?
Gacha-wise: Mebius has recently updated its Summoning System. 1.0% rate for ability section Ultimate Card appearance chance, 0.8% by default for 7th card. On top of that, Ultimate Card Limit counter that adds 0.8% (regular) - 3~5% (event) as plus factor to get higher chance of Ultimate Card once beyond 80/180 Limit. That QoL did massive improvements to players including me, from 4 UCs into 34 Ultimate Cards, within a year. Isn’t that great? Looking at the bad side, it creates more hunger for powercreep / power competitions among players. More cashflow, more pulls, and easier benchmark to get guaranteed rainbow. It will eventually exhaust players with certain timing of gacha activities narrowed to either one of those periods: Boosted Rainbow % Rate Up, or Limited EX Job Banners.
So on top of those, what happened to me? I have fully accepted every decision made by Mebius operation team. Took me 3 days of thinking while spending long-waited happy moments with my family. Of course, i asked myself, will i finish till the End of the service 31/3? Yes. Not because i stubborn, but is a way to respond to the requests asked by the team: If possible, please enjoy the game till the very end. That was delivered most by the SQEX(JP) team themselves. Every staffs, project leaders, virtually standing infront of me (Wol) with their dialogues. After that, i decided. I will played till its very end, as a final sendoff.
Thank you 7R Eclipse Contact and Fatal Calling. While the preparation of real FF7R making, that collaboration really immersive for many of us who played FF7R, and seen the possibilities of Unity app and SQEX were able to achieve. After Hamaguchi Naoki left as project lead in 7R, i strongly believe he will carry our Mebius will to finish the project he wanted to remake. Materia System, the Blue-White User Interface really brought back the nostalgic childhoods. And Sephiroth, he was my ultimate reunion goal to fight against.
Thank you XII Zodiac Age Collaboration, i was able to enjoy the happy moments with Mandragoras (they are truly the protagonists for the entire FF12 sorry haha). That’s where i fell, and there’s where i stood back up.
Thank you XIII Lightning Arc, i was able to fight along with Lightning big sister / nee-chan and understood her dillemma after XIII. The Optima / Paradigm Shift system were as great as it implemented. Although i wished Serah could come to Palemecia as well someday, but sadly not. (tears)
Thank you XIV Collaboration, fighting Zenos brought back many of us to fight together in multiplayer. It could have better story development if they have enough time and budget, i guess.
Thank you X Collaboration. “The Dream Without You” of Yuna, and “Eternal Dream” of Tidus, both arcs were really meaningful and touching. Not just it connects the dots between X epilogue and X-2 development, it filled up the hole of curiosity we had for years.
Thank you VIII Collaboration. Squall’s introvert characteristic really reminds us of nostalgic days playing it in PS1/PSX. Ultimecia’s twisting plot and her collaboration in Multiplayer, couldn’t be better than i ever asked for. I really wished she could be one of the Ultimate Hero skins, eventhough i got the legend job UltiMeia / Witch of Demise, but i am greedy husband fufu.
Thank you Hoshi no Dora quest. Journey with Mogamaru and related NPCs in the story were really enjoyable when you understand the culture of Dragon Quest (which sadly not available for GL likely because copyright issues). But hey, at least let us enjoy some things exclusively, okay?
And lastly, thank you Warrior of Despair story arc. This ending was the best way to end the story and the eternal loop around players who lived in Palamecia. Story of Vox, was twisting and touching moments to many, it conveys the meaning of “Light of Hope” and “Despair” which we all always have in us. And i personally believe:
Mebius isn’t regular RPG nor Gacha game, it was a process of convey the meanings of hopes and despair, and the “seed” to move on & survive to fight challenges in our real life and future. It took me and Mother some time to understand mutually: A new beginning will not come without ending.
And so, it is time for us to move on, there’ll be many things / challenges awaiting for us to face, and fight as Warrior of Light. That is also my Prophecy from now on.
Light, be with us. 光よ、我ら共にあれ
MEBIUS LOVE
WFang