User blog:Linathan/Thoughts on Brave Frontier II

Hi everyone! My name is Linathan and I am the Brave Frontier Global Wiki Admin. I was going to release Zeruiah’s Unit Spotlight yesterday, but there is something that was announced that was bothering me significantly and it made me think about the future of what is to tell about Brave Frontier as a whole.

Two days ago, the Nico Livestream announced that there will be a sequel to Brave Frontier called Brave Frontier II, and I am here to share my opinion on the sequel. There are going to be some new things to come in the sequel, but there are some major downsides to this original game that we’ve been playing for the past three years. I am just going to start off by saying that this is a discussion-based blog post, so everyone can share their opinions on what they think about Brave Frontier II. No opinion is right or wrong here.

Brave Frontier II
Most of the information of what I’m discussing will be taken from Mich’s blog, which can be found here.

This is the sequel to Brave Frontier that is planned to release in Autumn 2017 and there are lots of changes to the core features that the original game offered. The first game offered cost limitations and type distinctions, which offered a balance to beginners starting out and a form of RNG mechanic in stat distributions. They also have gacha gates that summons a random unit from the immense pool of hundred of units. Unlike the original game, Brave Frontier II plans to remove these core elements entirely.

Now, without gacha gates, what will this mean? This could bring a possibility of buying units from some form of shop using in-game currency, which reduces the RNG significantly. However, what could these prices of these units be? Nothing is really set-in-stone on the method of obtaining units will be in Brave Frontier II.

Most of the core battle mechanics will remain, along with certain mechanics that are taken out to better balance the game. Alim admitted perhaps the biggest mistake to ever happen in Brave Frontier: the mitigation buff. This buff was first introduced when Ice Keep Copra and its 5* evolution Ice Tower Tesla were released in June 2014 for Global servers. Mitigation generally meant 50% damage reduction from everything. This was a heavily overpowered buff that made surviving ultimate attack thresholds from Grahdens in Trial 002 a joke. It was overpowered enough that it was practically a must to take Oulu, the 6* evolution, to Trial 003, making the trial an absolute nightmare when it was first released. Global was lucky enough to have even just two mitigators available during Trial 003’s release while Japan only got one mitigator being Oulu. This change is definitely what I like in Brave Frontier II, as relying on mitigation meant it was a must to carry a mitigator and having that unlucky start in the game took a huge toll on beginning players.

My Thoughts on Brave Frontier II
As most mobile games go, I knew Brave Frontier was not going to last much longer. We’ve seen this happen in other mobile games, such as Defender of Texel, Puzzle Trooper, and our beloved Chain Chronicle Global. It is because of the disappointing news that was brought by the newly announced Brave Frontier II that shattered the many hearts of the dedicated players such as myself.

While this is not 100% confirmed, Brave Frontier II will NOT feature a data transfer from Brave Frontier I to Brave Frontier II. I say "not 100% confirmed" as this is part of a very early development stage and things may change ever-so-slightly. Nonetheless, this is practically the biggest slap in the face on a lot of pingus (better term for whales) on the Japan server and potentially the other servers accompanying it. Alim claims that they want to bring an end to Brave Frontier I, like an ultimate ending to the game as you see on video games that you buy on the market. Long story short, they want to bring focus on Brave Frontier II.

Quite a drastic move coming from Alim themselves. Brave Frontier I is already doing so well and the lack of content that might come to the first game will definitely bring some outrage from dedicated players. Most of what Brave Frontier Global and Brave Frontier Europe carries are content that runs on Brave Frontier Japan. In fact, Brave Frontier Japan has full control on the content they release, which is why you don’t see 6* forms of the original units, such as Zebra, Mare, Gilnea, or even 7* or Omni Evolutions of units, such as Rigness, Priscilla, Felneus, Douglas, and much more in other servers. We also do not see changes made to content imported from Brave Frontier Japan to other versions because that is content from Japan’s side on their own. At most, the changes may just be bug fixes.

In terms of marketing, income will likely snowball because of how early and rather disappointing the announcement of Brave Frontier II was brought about. If you think economically, Alim will likely treat Brave Frontier II as a substitute. If the substitute does better in the market, there will probably be no reason to continue the original. Simply put, because of increasing demand for Brave Frontier II, there won’t be much coming out of Brave Frontier I, and it will eventually die. As announced in the livestream, Alim does not plan to continue with Brave Frontier I and will likely just be a game that you can play to clear content. That’s essentially saying all of the hard work you put into Brave Frontier I will not even matter in the sequel and there will probably be no reason to continue playing the first game anymore. Did you just spend over $10000 on your account just to get every single unit that is in the entire game? Chances are, all that work will probably not matter anymore. Brave Frontier II will likely continue being developed and it will likely be the game that practically forces players from Brave Frontier I to play instead.

Now you might be thinking, this is Brave Frontier Japan we are talking about. What does this have to do with other version of Brave Frontier, like Global, Europe, Chinese, and Korean? Personally, their respective companies will likely either have to push out a lot more content that is exclusive to their versions themselves or follow Japan’s footsteps and halt development entirely. As you know, Global and Europe has been pushing out their exclusive content, whether it would be Galardhon series, Zodiac batches, or whatever. I can’t say much about the Chinese and Korean servers since I simply never played them. In order to keep these versions running, more content will have to be pushed out to keep players playing, to give more reason to continue playing with the game. Guilds in Brave Frontier have brought huge improvements to the Global version of the game and I definitely hope it along with other content will help keep the first game stable. We haven’t heard anything from the other servers yet, and I definitely hope that they are aware of what the future of Brave Frontier might potentially hold.

If this was more of a coexistent type of game, Brave Frontier II probably would have received better feedback. Clash of Clans and Clash Royale have done it and they are both very popular mobile games in the market that are very successful. A data transfer will definitely quell the major concerns that the community might have, but I do not see that decision being changed any time soon or by any means possible.

Player Concerns
A lot of players are concerned about Brave Frontier II not having a data transfer feature. As I have stated numerous times in previous points, this will mean that there will not be a reason to pay for gems in the Japan version of the game because the first game will likely just stop entirely. This is huge, especially because the only source of income that this mobile game brings is gem purchases. How do you think Gumi and Alim keep their servers up for us to continue playing the game? Gem purchases! As much as we hate to experience stupidly low summon rates of newly released units, the ultimate reason why this game is still alive is because of the P2P players that buy gems to support the game. Brave Frontier II was announced way too early, which means that the income in 2017 will likely drop heavily.

Brave Frontier II will bring rewards to players who came from Brave Frontier I, which is nice and all, but these rewards might not hold as much value for players who have dedicated so much time and effort into the first game to make it seem worth playing the first game in the first place.

Conclusion
I tried my hardest not to turn this into a rant-type of blog post, but it is something that brings a huge concern for dedicated players in the Brave Frontier community. I want to continue playing this game because this game has so much to offer, be it the community, the amount of fun that is into this game, or even the drama that this game brought. I feel for the future of Brave Frontier and I definitely hope that other versions of the first game are aware of what’s to come. This is going to be a hard transition by the looks of the little bits of information we are given so far.

I encourage discussion about Brave Frontier II, but nothing to the extreme. I will delete comments and potentially block users if things go out of hand against the Wikia Rules. I ask for the discussion to be civil, where we can all freely express our opinions without feeling negative towards one another.

And I thank you if you’ve stuck long enough to read this entire blog post. I might have some points that you may disagree with, but like I said, everyone is subject to their own opinions.

Other Discussion-Related Posts

 * Nanachamp’s Brave Frontier II Discussion Post
 * Mich’s Recap on the BFJP December Livestream
 * Reddit Discussion Thread