I made a post last year about Azur Lane, a new mobile game. As it's coming up to the first EN anniversary, I thought I'd make a thread, see if anyone else is interested/playing ahead of any potential gifts.

Official Anniversary Announcement HERE

Azur Lane is a side-scrolling bullet-hell game, where you pilot (should it be admiral?) your fleet of up to six chibi shipgirls from left to right, and destroy everything in your path. There is a story, and there is background lore, but the basics are "World War 2, but the big ships are all people, too". Ironblood (KMS) and Sakura Empire (IJN) form the Crimzon Axis; opposed by the Eagle Union (USN) and Royal Navy (HMS). Also present are Iris Libre, Vichya Dominion, and Dragon Empry. There's something fucky going on with betentacled-shipgirls, called 'Sirens', but your best bet for piecing together the story is reddit.

There's three basic currencies - Oil, Gold, and Cubes - with one premium, GEMS. Oil is used to send ships out on missions, gold to buy things and make ships, and cubes to make ships. Gems are used for costumes, and QoL improvements, such as passive EXP gain. Oil and Gold have a hard cap on the regeneration supply, and a soft cap in your usable supply, whilst there's no cap on cubes or gems.

Gameplay is pretty simple: each 'world' (12 so far on EN, I think) has four stages. Each stage is a square grid, with enemy fleets spawning in semi-random locations, which you move to, to clear. Once you clear enough mob fleets, the boss fleet appears for that stage. Within the 'mission' you can move around on your half of the screen, and launch torpedos, airstrikes, and artillery barrages as your gauges fill up. GAMEPLAY VID HERE.

Once you clear the early game, there's autoplay, which is a lifesaver - you generally need to clear fiveish mobs each sortie, and each one takes a minute or two to get through if you're overlevelled. Autoplay requires manually moving around in the sortie, but you can just start the mob and let it run.

Daily and weekly missions mean that logging in each day is worthwhile, although there's no major issue if you don't, apart from failing to complete that month's log-in bonus sheet. You'll get a ship at about 23 days, but you'll just pick back up where you left off if you skip one.

The gacha system is very generous, and has a mercy system. Three standard banners (light ships, heavy ships, special ships), and normally a bonus one during events means you have some selection. You can gain a total of 42 cubes a week if you do all the missions (although that costs 10), which is 21 pulls on non-light banners, or 42 on the light if you don't hoard for events (hint: hoard for events). Retiring a ship will give you 'Medals of Honour', which can be burned for prizes, including SSR ships.

Ships level through combat, or passive EXP in the dorm. They each also have skills, which level up in school; equipment, which is unlocked through blueprint drops/boxes, and which level up with money and blueprints; and stats, which are levelled through feeding them other ships. The current level cap is 120, with limit breaking required to level past 70, 80, 90; and expensive (from in game currency) items required to level past 100, 105, 110, etc. Limit breaking either requires a copy of the ship, or a 'Bulin'/'Purin', depending on ship rarity. Both Bulin and Purin are pretty easy to get, so you never need to worry about your ships being trash levelled due to bad luck on the gacha.


Ships come as the standard N, R, SR, and SSR. Higher rarities generally have higher stats, but multiple low rarity ships are incredibly good in relatively wide niches; and are cheaper to run. Limit Breaking a ship makes them cost more oil, too, so a frequent player will generally only LB ships when necessary. They're split into Main Fleet (Carriers and Battleships) and Vanguard (Cruisers and Destroyers), with equipment limitations based on each ship's slots. I won't head into major detail here, because there's loads of info out there, but I can expand if anyone wants.


A few negatives:
- the loading screens can be not safe for public, and the majority are not safe for grandmother. There's no option to limit these, either, unlike DanMemo.
- this eats your battery. Given the time it takes to complete missions and sorties, this is expected, but not something you can play all day
- Whilst a heavily voice game, none of it's voiced in English. Also, the English game is just a reskin, so if your phone lags on mission exit, you'll see all the words in kanji instead.
- frequent updates. A big one normally once a fortnight, and then a smaller patch or two for a day or so afterwards.

Positives:
- nearly every unit is usable in some way, even if it's just in memefleets
- very much a f2p game. Premium currency is not massively important (spoiler below), but is rarely given away either.
- generous gacha rates, starting sprint, and loads to do in game.
- frequent events, and with Ch, Kr, and Jn ahead of the En server, there's decent guides out there for speedrunners/minmaxers.

Spoiler: Premium Currency

There is a special Premium Currency store, but about the only thing you'd ever really buy is either more dock space, more item space, or a wedding ring.

In game, you can use these to buy extra training space in the passive EXP area, gain extra storage space, or skins. EXP gain and storage space are the generally agreed on best places to spend your gems, but you can max out EXP gain with all the gems you get for free, so there's no rush to buy more.

 

I've been playing this for quite a while actually. Personally enjoying it more than F/GO. Very casual friendly.

 

Yeah, I saw a few videos before it came out for EU, and ended up downloading on launch day. I got about three months in, and ended up stopping because I didn't have the time to do AL, Danmemo and FGO; but I picked this back up when they announce Bismarck.

She's now L109 and murders everything in my quest to get Roon... for which I'm at about 37% of the 2mil.

Anyone else farming for PR, or just pushing through to max out equipment? I'm still mining for foxes, but also slowing making my way upwards too.

 

I still don't understand what the the kancolle/azurlane shipgirls actually are. Are they like... transformers?

 

For KanColle, I think, more like the spirits of the ship, I think based on Tsukumogami. If a ship lasts long enough, and enters the human unconscious, it gains a soul and can be summoned as a pretty woman.

This also explains some of the research ships, which never actually were finished or launched - they still became well known enough that they entered the throne of heroes Secret Sea, or whatever ship heaven is called.

However, things might be different in Azur Lane. Pretty sure it's Siren Shenanigans, God, and sparkly shipgirl magic bullshit.

 

It's heavily based on concepts native to Japan, and Shintoism specifically. The short version is that shipgirls are the "kami" of WWII naval ships. There's some kind of magic that allows them to incarnate into a physical form which is a girl, but also simultaneously a warship.

 

That's the appropriate response, yes. The way to think of it is that they're girls with big appetites who use magic to conjure a backpack that has functional 18mm cannons attached to it.

 

The game has about 12 and a half hours before going down for 'Episode 0' of the anniversary event.

Anyone interested in trying this out should try to get an account setup before then, as you'll get the downtime gifts on top of the anniversary items, which may well be time-locked.

Sandy Retrofit not announced yet, but looks to be the case for Episode 4 (no date yet). This could be the start of a week of massive file updates, but who knows.



Still no centaur, although I could have MLB another Takao. And at 78% for Roon.

 

Had an account once with quite a few ships as i played it for a month or so before I stopped. Don't think i can get it back though.

 

Just started playing this. Is pretty fun for the most part. However, while playing, saw a certain loading screen and did a double take.



I'm not ... entirely sure, but I don't think that joystick is ... regulation?

If anyone else plays and wants to toss a friend or whatever, my info: Sarkhan Revane, UID: 270770105

 

I love events. Great way to grind out PR experience.

Spoiler

 

I love this game! Been playing since the start (just after the beta).

I got my first PR ship last week, Roon. Even if I kind of consider myself a dedicated player ( I missed only one day during the year), those PR ships take forever to grind.

I'm just sad the PvP isnt better. I always liked Pvp, but the reward are not amazing...

I'm on Lexington btw. You?

 

Washington, myself. Just started working on my first PR. Holy shit that is a lot of work. Kind of wish the first 1M exp counted towards the 2M Exp portion as well, but whatever.

On the note of PvP, I kinda prefer this style, but at the same time, my main gripe with PvP is a gripe I have with the entire game, where gameplay is concerned: Holy fucking shit, the AI is retardedly stupid. How the fuck does anyone use auto-combat and not snap their phone/tablet? Stop shooting the thing on the other side of the screen and start shooting the thing that is literally right next to you. You know. The one that is shooting your ass in the face with only 5% of its health left.

That said, being able to manually control Pvp might improve it a bit, I think, but I'd rather that it continue to be against an AI controlled enemy. Live PvP would mean introducing net code into the game, and that is always a bit hard to get right. A boost to merit rewards wouldn't go amiss.

My Ship collection. Not bad for having just started on around the 20th of last month, I think.

 

I'm on Sandy, and a Day 1 player, although I ducked out November/December time last year (I think in the Crimson Echoes Event) due to lack of time to reliably play, and because I disliked the event design - rush through the stages ASAP on the first day they unlock, then clear everything again every day just didn't grab me. It still doesn't, but I'm in a better place at work, and nobody minds if I dick about on my phone when I'm not busy.

The PR grind is amazingly slow. Generally, you want to be aiming to do a 1:1 fleet for clearing (due to oil effeciancy), but this is incredibly ineffeciant when it comes to gaining PR experience, where you generally want either a 3:1 or a 1:3 set up instead. For Roon, I got pretty lucky in that my first pull on the Bismarck banner gave me Bismarck... So I ran a fleet 1 Bis/Liepzig,Konigs,Karls and Fleet 2 ???/Prinz,Koln, and just used this for everything - daily challenges, daily hard clears, daily fox-mine... It took about 2.5 months to fully grind Roon, but I know most of my Ironblood cruisers were mid-50s before I started, so wouldn't have actually been usable straight away, as opposed to before this event where I'm using them to clear world 10. I could have definitely gone quicker, if I sortied more, but I generally couldn't be bothered to do more than the minimum on a weekday.

PvP I'm actually generally happy with, apart from the speed at which you hit a wall. I know I'm not going to break into the top 1000 anymore (I did it the first month for a few hours, because I was obsessed with the game), so generally just use it as a place for free Purins now and then. Being able to get a better win rate might be nice, but I do very nearly all of my playing on auto, with overlevelled fleets and equipment, so I've already got a Glowworm ready to smash.

 

Haha yes the IA is sometime retarded, but since I don't look at the screen half the time i'm doing it, i usually forget how dumb they can be.

I don't mind it being offline PvP, as Antivash said, a net code would bring other problems. I just wish the rewards were a bit better and the ranking a bit least changing. Even when I reach a high rank, there is no real reason to try to keep it up. And it doesn't means I face any good fleet during the process, i Might just get lucky.

Simething like a evo ranking. I click the button match, I face someone, I win I go up, I loose I go down. In the end I got a reward with the rank I achieve.

Beside that I love the game. I can't wait for Italy/ Serdinia Kingdom to arrive.

 

As expected, it's been confirmed that the double gem purchase is going to be reset after the anniversary. If you've already bought a pack and were thinking of buying again, might be worth holding out for a week or two first.

 

Look like I will spend more$$$.

I hope I will be able to get Essex and Taihou, don't really care about Albacore and the French ship.

Do you know if the frame reward for limit breaking all ships finish the 14 or we got more time to complete it?

 

The one for getting all of the event ships to MLB? Banner in-game says Exchange closes on 8/28, so you have about two weeks after the 14th to grab it, I believe.

Had to read that twice. First time I thought "Wait, wut? But don't I already have Essex? Its from the standard heavy gacha, right?" Fucking confused Essex and Sussex with one another.

Also: Fucking hell the Fox Mines... Taken my Shouhou from level 1 to 24 and still no Akagi or Kaga. :<

 

Fuck yeah. Taihou obtained and in only 7 cubes. This is what human sacrifices to RNGesus gets you.

Need to farm more coins, however, before I can pull for the others, however. :<