[TIPS] Taichi Panda: How do I spend my market crystals wisely?

Market crystal is one of the most important currencies in Taichi Panda and since it's a resource that's not so easy to acquire, I thought of sharing some few tips on how to spend it wisely. But first things first, what in-game stores use market crystals and how do you even earn them? 

Well, at the time that I was writing this pretentious piece of how-to-tip, there are only two stores that accept market crystals as payment, the Guild Bazaar and the Black Market. As to the ways of earning them, I can only think of three and they're through:

a. Event rewards- One good example is the Online event which grants the achiever 400 market crystals.

b. Diamond Store- I really don't recommend this but Snail would be very happy if you part with your precious diamonds.

c. Smelting purple and orange equipment/Selling purple and orange equipment shards- Now, this is the best method to acquire market crystals because it's free.  You can get purple and orange equipment through rewards from events, instances, login bonuses, and of course, your normal dungeons. 

Now that you know how to earn market crystals,  it's essential that you also know how to spend them wisely because you might wake up broke one day. First rule of the thumb when you're about to spend your market crystals is to plan and prioritize as to the item/s that you want to buy. Basically, the Guild Bazaar and the Black Market offer almost anything that your character might need (gear, pet gear, talisman and rune shards; pet soulstones, refinement stones, ascension stones, surge pills...you get the idea).

Second, take note of the item prices from each of the two stores since their prices differ.  Here's an idea, I only buy Quality 26 gear shards from the bazaar and not from the market and at the same time, I only buy surge pills from the bazaar and not the market. Why? Others may not have noticed it but the stores do offer different prices. For example, Quality 26 gear shards cost 75 crystals/shard in the black market while they cost 100 crystals/shard in the bazaar.

Third, I only use market crystals to buy stuff that is really necessary for my character's and pet's well-being (e.g. gear shards, purple and gold surge pills, ascension stones, refinement stones). Note that I only buy the stuff inside the parenthesis in their smallest denominations because as the denomination increases, the prices of items also increase. Do the math.  I refrain from buying pet soulstones (which I can actually farm on a daily basis), and rune shards (honestly, it's more efficient to just save up pvp points and warrior certificates to be exchanged later for rune/ rune shards).

So that's all, folks.  Will update this post once I discovered a new way to spend market crystals wisely.

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September Wrap-Up

What's going on, guys? So again, this wrap-up post is late. Sigh. But at least, it's only eight days late which is, I guess, a huge improvement from my August wrap-up post. But anyway, my lateness aside, a lot of things transpired in both my gaming and real life during the month of September. 

For one, I have decided to take a hiatus from Arcane Legends. Whether it's going to be short or long, I'm still uncertain yet. Though my decision saddens me, I have to stick by it since even logging into the game felt like a chore and that defeats the main purpose of gaming; to have fun.  And besides, I have a new job, guys.  And it's an office job so I don't own my time anymore. So I don't know about you but it's really hard to juggle between a 48-hour/week work and three games without sacrificing my health. At the end of the day, I had to choose and the game that I'm enjoying the least has to go for now. Sadly, that's Arcane Legends. Don't worry, I'll be back once I have time. XD

Re; Taichi Panda, well, the game has been hard at work in infuriating me. I mean, it's still an enjoyable game but the developers are really fucking up with the updates that they've been releasing. Just recently, they've released the Edge of Survival update, which doesn't really help in improving the gaming experience of the majority.  By majority, I mean the F2P and the low VIP players. Well, Snail returned the roulette, which is awesome and not awesome at the same time.  Awesome because I FINALLY WON THE COVETED QUALITY 30 WINGS.  Lookie......

That's an additional 10K might right there plus I'm finally done with being stressed over that empty slot in my character's gear profile.  On the other hand, the come back of the roulette means that the developers are really finding ways to tempt players in spending their diamonds particularly that there's a new reward in the roulette, a quality 34 Core Rune called Seasons Mark. Look, why can't we just stop at level 32 runes? The roulette and the inclusion of some awesome rewards in it seem like a diversionary tactic of the developers to give the players some false belief that Snail is being generous but actually it's not. It's actually milking us for more moolahs. 

Instead of addressing more pressing and long overdue concerns like the fucking pvp matching system, instance time scheds, prices of items in the diamond store, etc., Snail spent its time developing a new pet (Seriously? We already have so many pets!), a new ugly mount that allows a second rider, and new higher quality (34 and 36) runes.  Snail, at least, has the decency to add new instances in the squad instance portion and improved the drop table and rate in those instances. But still, it's not a solution to bridge that gaping gap between  F2P/low VIP  and average-high VIP players. At any rate, it's just helping the strong get stronger and the weak to become weaker. 

And as if to further mock the players, Snail also took the time in fixing what's not broken. I'm talking about the Neptune ring and necklace which were previously sold in Fortitude>Warrior store. After the update, both accessories have been transferred to the Valor store. WTF, Snail! One of the reasons why I went Neptune was that it was easy to collect accessory shards compared to Champion or Hades. And now, you did this? And when someone pointed this whole issue to you, you have the audacity to tell the player that those Neptune accessory shards have always been sold in the valor store. 

Oh, Snail, it's either you didn't train your support staff well or you actually don't know your own game. WTF! But whatever, Snail, you continue going down this road and I wouldn't be surprised if two years from now, Taichi Panda is already history.  

Right, that's enough about Taichi Panda because it's already giving me a headache. Let's move on to Clash of Clans. Well, I'm still stuck at TH 7 but maybe not for long.  I only have a few bombs and one troop to upgrade and then, voila, TH 8 here I come.  I'm not really excited in getting to the next TH level but I really want to try my hands on the Go-Va-Ho attack. Hahaha. Oh well, I'll get there...I'll get there.

So that's all for the month of September, guys. I will try to post more interesting stuff in the blog for the coming days...but I'm not promising anything. Hahaha.

Have fun and game hard!

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August Wrap-Up

Howdy, guys? Gaming life has been pretty much hectic these days so this really came VEEEERRRRY LATE and that, I wasn't able to post as much as I would like to. There were just so many in-game events that transpired in the games that I'm playing that it was hard for me to take a break and write up a post. I even forgot to have-a-life for a week because Arcane Legends has rolled out one of the best events ever and I just couldn't stop playing. Anyway, here are the highlights of my gaming life for the month of August:

Arcane Legends

As I've said earlier, Spacetime Studios--the developer of Arcane Legends-- launched this event called Eggstravaganza. Basically, every mob death will have a chance to spawn Mythic and Arcane vendors and most importantly, a zombie mob named Eggzavier. And Eggzavier's loot table includes all the eggs of the existing pets in-game. For every pet collector, it's a dream come true.  And the most exciting part is that you will only be given 30 seconds to kill Eggzavier, otherwise, he will eggscape! It was such a fun event (Arcane Legends version of Pokemon Go?!) despite my frustrations. I DIDN'T GET A SINGLE ARCANE EGG! But all in all, the event was a blast and I'm really grateful to STS for rolling it out. From 9 (or 15?) eggs, I now have 73 eggs and look, even managed to get 5 or 6 mythic eggs. :D 

Aside from the eggs, my noobish rogue finally reached level 54 all because of the Egg-Zavier hunt. Here she is with her new mythic pet, Abaddon.

Taichi Panda

Two words: LIFE CONSUMING. I swear that this game's a huge cash cow but it's so addicting that I can't just stop myself from playing it. I'm, however, thankful that I haven't caved in yet in terms of topping up. The way I see things in this game, everything's achievable without shelling out $$$ as long as you are EXTREMELY PATIENT like willing-to-wait-for-a-hundred-years-patient.  So far, my Fox Mage is already level 61 with 290k+ might. And my runes are at least pretty decent, no more greens and blues. And BTW,  I couldn't believe that I'd be saying this but I already have the pieces to make a Quality 32 Core Rune but it would still take me around 15 days to make it since the Synthesis rune shard is such a pain to collect. 

Another stuff worth mentioning is that I created a Treasure Hunter named Heartrender and she's currently level 43. Was actually thinking of making a priest but I don't think I'm ready to shoulder the burden of you know, keeping everyone alive while doing team instances. Bwahahaha.  Here's my noobish treasue hunter BTW. 

Clash of Clans

I can't believe I'd say this but I finally reached Town Hall 7. Wooot~ It feels like it was just yesterday that I was building my first ever Army Camp but look how it is now.  And of course, I finally unlocked dragons which I've been looking forward since I started playing the game. I am also ecstatic to announce that finally, I am getting some luck in clan wars since I'm mostly paired with TH 7s or below  but maybe it's just because most players now are in the TH 7 bracket and up. Anyway, I'm just really happy that I'm finally able to get stars and loots in clan wars now. And it's also fun learning the different strategies in attacking bases and I'm really inclined to specialize (if that's even applicable to gaming!) in air attacks. ATM, I am getting good in drag-loon attacks but would like to try different mixtures of air troops from time to time. My ground attacks really suck though, there are just so many variables to think about that I' not really sure if I'm going to be sitting one day poring over notes and game blogs trying to learn the intricacies of ground attack strategies. But whatever, I'm going to stick with what I'm comfortable with at the moment. 

Here's a bird's eye view of my TH 7 base:

Others

As I've said in my last recap, I will try to post as much as I can but obviously, that didn't happen and I doubt that it'd be happening any time soon. The fact is, I really want to focus on Taichi Panda and it's a very time consuming game that I'm seriously considering whether to ditch my alt (Heartrender) or not. Add the fact that I maybe doing something new IRL which will take most of my time but I'm not going to divulge that until my September Wrap-up post. Hahaha. I am really sorry for being so late in publishing this one but it's better to be late than never, right?

Anyway, have a good gaming month ahead. PLAY HARD! 

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Arcane Legends Vs. Taichi Panda: A Comparative Analysis

Still considered as a newbie, I think that it's too early for me to make a comparative analysis between Arcane Legends and Taichi Panda but my siblings were relentless in their efforts to make me quit Taichi Panda. XD When I said 'no' for, probably, the millionth time, they'd follow up with questions like, "Can you enumerate the reasons why you're enjoying Taichi Panda more than Arcane Legends? Surely, it's not all about the Panda," or "Ok, we will also play TP but first, can you prove to us that it's worth it?"  As I've told you in my last post, Taichi Panda has become my main course of the day so it's no wonder that I've been subtly nagging my siblings to try it out but considering that they've got more sense of loyalty than me, they were rather vocal in voicing out that I'm such a traitor to Arcane Legends especially that I was the one who introduced the game to them.   And every time we have the said discussion, I'd always end up answering them with "Look, its an amazing game... it's you know... you just don't understand." Que the boos and the mocking laughter. >.<

It's not that I'm starting to get bored with Arcane Legends but Taichi Panda's features feel so novel to me that it's hard not to keep playing.  Meanwhile, Arcane Legends is akin to a familiar toy that it's okay not to play with it all the time. But hey, this post is not about promoting Taichi Panda and slamming down Arcane Legends but more of an objective comparative analysis between the two games. Siblings,  you better read this! And of course, to those who are planning to play either Taichi Panda and Arcane Legends but torn as to which game to choose, then, this could probably help you.

Do note that while I try to be as insightful with my analysis, I'm relatively a newbie player in both Taichi Panda and Arcane Legends having played them for only a few months (AL: ~2 months and TP: ~1.5 months).  And since I can't promise to be unbiased with this analysis, I will include a rating for personal enjoyment.

Arcane Legends	Game Aspects	Taichi Panda
At only 70+ MB, even a low-end smartphone can handle it. 5/5	Accessibility (specs)	It's really heavy like 500-600 MB. And you have to make sure that you have around more than 3 GB of free storage space. 3/5
A straightfoward, old school RPG. You only need 30 minutes or so to figure out the general flow of the game. 4/5	Game Navigation	Though there's an in-game tutorial, the newbie player still needs to visit and scour the forums for remedial reading. The refinement system alone is a headache. 3/5
It's all about the goblins threatening the land of Arlor. Note: Wish it has a more Norsey feel since most of the features of the game are so reminiscent of Norse mythology. 2/5	Storyline	It's about a dark greedy prince bidding to destroy Avzar. Note: Would have been cooler if they based the storyline from any Chinese lore. 2/5
There are a lot of quests that you need to do to unlock maps or other important quests. Hack and slash is the way to go! 4/5	Gameplay	Like Arcane Legends, this is also quest based in order to progress in the game. But there's a twist to it and depending from your POV, it can either be bad or good. While you want to play continuously and unlock as many dungeons as possible, you'll find yourself stumped at some point since every time you enter a dungeon, you will be asked to pay 8 constitution. If constitution seems unfamiliar to you, think of it as an energy bar. Once you run out of it, you can't enter the dungeon. It's either you wait for it to regenerate (1 point per 8 mins) or buy constitution pills in exchange for diamonds. But there's so many interesting stuff to do to make up for the above. But still... 2/5
There are only three classes in the game (Warrior, Rogue, Sorcerer) which I think is limited and unimaginative.  2/5	Character Classes	There are six heroes to choose from and guess what, one of them is a werefox. I don't know about you but for me, that's already a winner. And if you're not satisfied with the class that you chose later in the game, you can always change it easily without starting from scratch.  5/5
Graphics' a hit or miss for me The earth colors gave the game a dark and gritty feel.  4/5	Graphics	Vibrant, cartoonish, and cute. 5/5
Passable. There's a good chance that you'd look different from the rest of your kin.  3/5	Character Customization	Non-existent so better say goodbye to individuality. >,> 0/5
Kind of easy with hard work and consistency. Although I am not at that point yet, I know that even f2p players can earn their millions in a reasonable amount of time and complete their end game gears without compromising their health and other IRL part of their lives. Ha! 5/5	Resource Accumulation	I am a free to play player and although I'm still new to the game, I've already deduced that it's going to be a very bumpy road ahead.  There's no trading system in the game which is a double edged sword. On one hand, it prevents hacking but on the other, you're stuck with items that you don't need and you can't even buy the items that you do need. Basically, the devs of the game doesn't have an idea about "merchanting." So,better steer clear, merchants! 2/5
Everything's good except for the absence of world chat. 4/5	Communications	Taichi Panda has the suckiest communications system in Gameville. Yes, there's a world chat, a private chat, and a guild chat but you have to open a window to do any of these and once that window is open, you can't do anything else besides chatting.  And worst, you can only do this when you're in the city. Meaning, if you're doing dungeon runs or co-op, there's absolutely no way to communicate with your partymates, friends or acquaintances.  And to think that there are so many team instances in the game that needs communication with the rest of your team for tactical planning and what-nots (I'm looking at you, Battle Royale, Events Instances, and Battlefield) 0/5
Pets are indispensable as they will aid your character every step of the way. They're invincible (they don't die wohoo but they do get hungry) and  also act as looters (as long as they're fed). And depending on your playstyle, you can also combine two pets for a more powerful companion.  3/5	Pet System	Taichi Panda's pets don't feel like pets at all. They're more like your sidekick buddies accompanying you on your journey. They need a lot of care attention (surging, evolutioning, awakening) so they'd be the perfect killing or support machines that they're supposed to be. Not to mention that you also have to equip them and upgrade said equipment. Caring for the pets is really a tedious task because at the early levels, you have to maintain four of them and upon reaching level 60s, then you need to maintain 6 of them.  Though there's a lot of hard and complicated work involved in raising pets, I can't deny that it provided a whole new feel to the game. Suffice to say that I really enjoy raising my pets in this game because it made me feel more connected to them although as I've said, it can be really frustrating.  (Snail, when are you going to stop milking so much money from players?) 4/5
I am not really a PVP person so what I can only tell you is that there's a duelling system,  a PVP map wherein you can participate in Capture-the-Flag or Deathmatch events, and a PVP arena (3 v 3).   The thing is, with CTF and DM and even PVP arena, you have to schedule it with your enemies first before going in. Otherwise, the map would be pretty much empty. What I mean is that, if you're going to these maps randomly, chances are, you'll find yourself alone.  3/5	PVP system	One word: AMAZING! As I've said, I'm not a PVP person but this game will make a PVP person out of you. There are so many PVP events that you can participate in that it never gets boring. Additionally, there are amazing rewards that await you whenever you complete each event, win or lose. And these rewards are essential to the development of your character.  But there are downsides:  the matching system needs an overhaul because there are times that it matches a level 25 player to a level 80. >,>  Battlefields should have 4 or 5 schedules a day, not the shitty twice a day schedule because what about those living in other time zones?) 4/5
You can party-up  everywhere and whenever.  5/5	Co-op	Co-op during normal dungeon runs is non-existent. You have to do it solo so if you have a hard time defeating a boss, then, good luck, you'd be stuck in there until such time your might is adequate enough.  On the brighter side, there are various co-op events/ team instances that you can do daily but some of them are only accessible at a scheduled time of the day which is pretty shitty by the way. 4/5
Very easy and if you are committed, you can actually reach level cap (level 56 atm) in less than 2 months or so.  5/5	Levelling	Here's one of the most important rules in Taichi Panda: Might > Level Levelling is actually easy in Taichi Panda because exp cards are always available in the Activity Store, Guild Bazaar, and Diamond Store but what good is level if your might is very low?  Personally, I'm not in a rush to level up since that would mean another 24/7 of farming for surge pills so that the level of my pets can keep up with mine.  4/5
The pay-to-win and free-to-play aspects of the game are almost balanced. I am an F2P player and after a month of playing, I have already managed to buy a lepre pendant and a mythic armor set. Had I been actively farming, I know that getting that coveted arcane daggers, ring, pendant, and Nekro wouldn't be far off.  4/5	How free is free?	Starting at level 1, you will immediately realize that you'll never be able to complete the set of your character without spending $$$.  Unlike in Arcane Legends wherein wings are only used as a vanity object, wings in Taichi Panda can affect your might as well as your health.  Without spending $$$, you'll always see that gaping square of blackness in your armor slot.  2/5
Well-organized and alive.  And there are so many people willing to discuss just about anything under the sun.   And the devs and the mods are pretty much approachable as you can always interact with them in the forums.  5/5	Forums	There's a semblance of organization but a newbie can get lost in there since the guides aren't stickied.  And of course, there are mods and other staff but the way they reply to your concerns, they're more like robots programmed to type up a pre-formatted answer whenever a thread is posted. It's no wonder that the forum feels dead. 2/5
Running for almost 4 years now, who would ever doubt Arcane Legends ability to withstand all tests?  5/5	Game Stability	This is still a new game having been just released in 2015 so it's still early to pass judgment. But if they continue ripping people off their money then there's a big chance that this game's going to go downhill in just a few years.

VERDICT: As you can see, Arcane Legends wins considering the set of criteria enumerated above.  If you are looking for something easy, simple, stable, and with a large community of players then, Arcane Legends is  perfect for you.  Don't mind me because I'm always the black sheep. I know that my addiction to Taichi Panda  is a kind of perverted fascination because it's not only time-consuming but resource gathering (for F2P players) is as slow as fuck and yet, I'm spending most of my leisure hours playing the game. Maybe I need a lobotomy. >,>

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July Wrap-Up

So what has been going on with you, guys? I know I've been pretty lousy in updating this blog but you know... play first, blog later.  July has been a month of ups and downs in terms of gaming. On one hand, it was exciting as I've discovered a new game (more on that later) and on the other, I've ditched some of my offline games reluctantly.  As much as I want to maintain 'em all, a gamer could only do so much. 

I got to say that you can all blame Taichi Panda regarding my decision. Honestly, guys, I can't say that it's the best game in the market but it's definitely engaging to the point that it became the main course of the day putting Clash of Clans as morning snack and Arcane Legends as a side dish. I'm not saying that COC and AL are boring or something like that but Taichi Panda offers a variety of things-to-do in game that it's hard to stop playing. Of course, you can take that with a grain of salt as I'm pretty new to the game and who knows, my opinion would change after a couple of months playing. But so far, in terms of first impression, Taichi Panda didn't disappoint-- vibrant graphics, diverse PVP system and elaborate pet system. As much as I would like to make a lengthy analysis of the game, I figured that it would be much better to write all about it in a separate post.  Just know that, my gaming life revolves around TP at the moment.  Here's my Fox Mage by the way. And yes, her name came from Jay Kristoff's The Lotus Wars series.

But what about Clash of Clans and Arcane Legends? You just started playing them... Well, as I've been telling my sister over and over again, Clash of Clans is a wonderful game but it bores me most of the time. There's a lot of waiting involved-- the builders, the cooking time of troops-- that I just can't enjoy the game fully. Rest assured though that I'm sticking around but my in game presence would be minimal unless I have vacant builders which'd require me to farm actively.  I'm almost done with my TH 6 upgrades so come next week, I'm going to put on my farmer's hat again. >.<

Arcane Legends would stay, too. Afterall, it's my first ARPG and it did provide me with a lot of entertainment. But I'm afraid that I will only go online just to do Klaas, Shazbot and the Wandering Minstrel. I really want to be active in the game especially that I still have a lot of things to do--like buying a Mythic or Arcane weapon, Planar Pendant, Arcane ring, and Nekro-- but as I've said, Taichi Panda consumes a lot of my time so this gamer needs to prioritize. But hey, at least, I'm staying. And hell yeah, I finally managed to get my Rogue to level 50. I know it's not much of an achievement considering the ease of levelling up in the game but I was seldom online and I still managed to reach the 50s bracket so... CONGRATS TO MYSELF!

So there you go... I've got three games to maintain which is already a handful if you think about it. So that brings me to the games that I've ditched in order to maintain a semblance of a life. As sad as I was, I have to let go of Cooking Fever, Sims Freeplay, City Island 4: Sim Tycoon, and Adventure Town.  I might go back to them someday but as of now, COC, AL, and TP are enough to give me my daily fix of gaming.

As for my other hobbies, I'm really behind with reading although I've already completed my Goodreads challenge. I know that my games are biting into my reading hours but I think that the lack of interesting books to read is the main reason why I'm lagging. I've recently bought Harry Potter and the Cursed Child because it's my number one anticipated book for this year but alas, I can't even get past the 65th page. It was clearly not a Rowling book but you know, I had high hopes for it since the Queen herself approved the script. Why she did that baffles the hell out of me because the plot of the Cursed Child is just so fucking ridiculous that I can't still even wrap my mind around it.  The book should have been titled as Harry Potter and the Cursed Book because it's awful and I want Rowling to write a new one to erase the memory of the accursed book.

Luckily, I have a good lineup of Korean dramas to keep my mind off from the horrible that is Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Although I'm also behind with my drama watching, I can still proudly say that I was able to finish Yong-Pal which isn't perfect but good enough to while away the time. ATM, I am following this currently airing drama entitled Doctors which was fun and heartbreaking at times. It has its horrible moments but I still liked it especially that I'm seeing a new facet of Park Shin Hye's acting.  Mind you, I am not a fan but I have watched most of her dramas post-2007 and I can definitely say that she's improving from the naive and dim Go Min Nam in You're Beautiful.  And also, did I mention that Kim Rae Won is awesome?

So that's my month of July in a nutshell.  This month of August should be exciting and challenging since I'm planning to publish more posts concerning Taichi Panda and Arcane Legends.

So how have you been gaming last July, guys? Share your stories below. 

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Well, hello there!

Finally! It's already finished, thank the heavens. The gaming gods know how behind I am when it comes to levelling my various characters just so I can launch Snarky Kitsune.  I know that it still needs a lot of tweaking since the footer is showing an ugly gap; I'm still undecided what widget to put in there. 

And of course, I still have to make tiny social media buttons so you'll have the option to follow me. But even that is proving to be a difficult task as I am not sure about the number of social buttons I should include.  

Ah, whatever, if I'm going to start listing all the things that I have to do for this blog, I'll be talking here all day. So what I want to say is that, I created this blog for the purpose of documenting my gaming journey.  I've been a gamer more than half my life and I thought that it was time to start writing about the life of being a gamer.

For those who have accidentally stumbled upon my blog, please don't expect that I'll be writing about guides and tips about the games that I'm playing because this isn't Gaming 101. I might write about it once in a while but only when I feel confident about the tips that I'll be giving.  Most of the time though, be prepared in reading a lot of random musings, nonsensical commentaries, and the usual rants and ravings. 

So, that's all for now... See ya in game!

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