Now Is The Best Time To Start Playing Gundam Battle: Gunpla Warfare

Welcome back, Pilots!  I was going to initially write a normal event roundup, considering all the stuff that Bandai dropped on us following maintenance (and all that didn't drop), but I think this week is better approached differently.  Right now, I think this may be the best time to start playing Gundam Battle: Gunpla Warfare.  Just hear me out for a bit.

Right now, we have started a second week of free 10x multi Part draws, and this is absolutely fantastic, but the fact of free Parts isn't quite the point...  Being the second event that Bandai has launched like this, it really makes one believe they're not shy about limited-time 10x draws as a gift.  The first was promoting the new anime Gundam Build Divers Re:Rise on Youtube, and that's just clever marketing.  This one is promoting 2.5 million global downloads.  We already had a 2 million global downloads handout.  If Bandai is not shy about giving these events a good deal of face-time now, only in the third month of the game's lifespan, then we are extremely likely to see even more events of similar structure.  On top of that, we’ve got the "choose your own 4* campaign" underway, which is just another way for Bandai to promote continuous play, and that is neither wrong nor bad.

Furthermore, when the game launched, it actually did so a whole month early, and because of that the Part selection felt extremely scant.  There were some good Parts, but everything really revolved around the limited Nu Gundam [Ver Ka], which is still one of the most powerful selections of Parts whatsoever.  That's not the point; the point is that these free 10x draws are digging into an extremely deep Part pool with a healthy variance of top tier Parts, good parts, average, and filler (not all limited to 4* rarity... looking at you, Kampfer).  Free draws from a pool deep like this is infinitely better than receiving whole cart loads of things like Aegis.

While everyone has been intensely requesting a guaranteed 4* in your Part draws, I am not sure that this is the route we're going to take soon here, and instead are being presented with a good deal of free draws and alternatives. While you aren't guaranteed that 4* in these, it's not that much of a bad thing.  The difference in player inventories and selection is ultimately determined by the fateful "RNG", and everyone is subject to it.  So the differences aren't as distinct, and it doesn't cause free players to feel like they're openly at any disadvantage.

There is literally no true pay-to-win element currently available in this game, because the Arena leaderboards don't even provide enough of a boost in Haro gains to ruthlessly separate any whales from the free players. Everything outside of Arena is all vs AI focused instead of vs player, so really "whaling" in this game is about collecting parts, getting what you want, and having a wider variance in parts.  Any free player can achieve the last part by a few lucky rolls.  And as a new or veteran player, you can land those lucky rolls right now on the 2.5m download campaign banner while saving all of those sweet sweet Haro Chips for something you really want.

Maybe what you want right now is Tallgeese, and that's an easy bet because so many people love it.  It's the nostalgia for this universe that draws all of us to this game, and there has been an unending supply of fan service.  Tallgeese from Endless Waltz is happening right now, and we're going to be talking about some of the part quality for this particular suit in a later article, but know that it is very surprising it the spread of stats available to it, and the Event multiplier it gives is extremely beneficial right now, because....

For the first time, you can purchase a 5* suit with the Event coins that you earn as a result of this multiplier.  While the Event parts are all usually lower statted because of their naturally lower rarity, the takeaway here is that you're paying 550 Event coins for these items.  The 3* equivalent is 10 coins.  One purple Awakening Circuit is 700 Event coins and each 5* upgrade requires 3 of these Circuits.  That's easy math, right? For 550 coins you get a net profit, theoretically, of 1560 coins.  No, you can't buy more than one purple Awakening Circuit for parts in these stores, so it also gives you a return of time that you would have invested working up any of these pieces. 

A lot of people send Event Parts to 5* because they like the EX skill, the Traits, the Part itself, or something else about it.  This, again, should be measured by intent.  There is no loss here if you don't want the 5* Part, or the Event Parts, or anything.  You can ignore this feature, ignore the Parts, and just farm the coins out for what you want from the store.  It's that easy, and it should only be measured by how you value your time in game and what you want.

Lastly, because I think we're going a little long with this, and we should resume later this week... Each Standard banner has been given their own free draws to be more realistically in line with each other.  They all reset at 1pm PDT daily, and the fact that you can now draw a free Pilot a day is huge.  People don't often talk enough about the value of Pilots, and this news is overshadowed by the idea that now you only get one free Standard Part Capsule draw a day now. Pilots are swapped far less than any other part in your inventory. Once you get a great pilot, you rarely ever take it out, and instead build around the Pilot. Pilot stats and License end up determining the whole direction of your builds, and even set the basis for, or finish off Word Tags that you've been trying to fit in for more stats.

I hope you've enjoyed the read up to this point, and while I rambled for a huge wall of text, I hope it helped either make your decision to get more interested, or helped current players look at it from a different perspective.  I've got plenty more to say, so we'll check back in a few days, but remember, the week of free 10x multi draws end on October 22nd, so get them while you can.

(You can download the game on Android via the Google Play Store, and IOS via the Apple App Store, and you can find the community at the r/gundambattle subreddit, and yes we have a discord!)