Tower of Fantasy guide: Getting started on the planet of Aida
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Tower of Fantasy is an open-world MMO gacha game that aesthetically resembles Genshin Impact, considered one ofAndroid’s best gamesto date. But after taking a closer look, the ToF is fundamentally different. The game highlights an ever-evolving combat system while drawing players into its science fiction fantasy world, where you’ll meet a unique cast of characters within an emotionally turbulent storyline. Tower of Fantasy hits a bit of everything. More importantly, the game’s multiplayer focus allows you to play with your friends without requiring ahigh-end Android phone. But still, it’s easy to get lost on where to start with the limited in-game resources, so we’ve created a detailed beginner’s guide to help you manage resources optimally while still breaking down the basic gameplay in Tower of Fantasy.
Getting started with Tower of Fantasy
You’ll create an account tied to your email, but you can also choose to log in via a third party (Twitter, Facebook, Google, Line, and as a guest). TapRegister Nowand enter your email address and password. You’ll have to verify your information by inputting a verification code.
Character creation
The character you create will be your in-game avatar in Tower of Fantasy. You’ll have options to customize your character the way you want: hairstyles, eyes, body structure, and extra facial features/clothing.
If character customization is too overwhelming, you can select a preset from the default/popular list or tap onLobbyto view other users' creations.Note: Selecting another user’s uploaded creation will import the data directly.
Once you’re done with character customization, tapCompleteand selectOkto save and use this look.
Server selection
Servers are separated by region, and once you’ve selected a server, you won’t be able to play with friends from other servers; there’s no cross-play between servers. We recommend planning and coordinating your primary server before playing.
it’s possible to select your sound settings, camera preferences/camera sensitivity, display options, resolution, FPS, view controller mapping (re-mapping isn’t available yet), and language settings. We recommend reviewing the controller mapping if you’re using a controller and setting your FPS to the highest your device can perform consistently.
You’ll always be able to change your settings later while in the main menu, so don’t worry about finding the perfect settings immediately.
Story and exploration, how to get started in Aida
You’ll undergo a brief tutorial and then wake up to select your character/username. Once you’ve chosen your character/username, you’re set to explore Aida.
The story is continued by completing quests; you’ll automatically navigate to the next quest marker once you’ve selected your preferred navigation/exploration option during the tutorial.
You’re free to explore around the map, where you’ll use a Jetpack to traverse from low to high ground (be aware that it goes on a long cool down after using), pick up items, cook, and find chests on top of buildings and around monster camps (note that some chests are shared among players, but these chests will respawn).
Tower of Fantasy encourages exploration; opening up your map lists your exploration progress at the bottom-right. Tapping on a region pulls up your explore progress, where it’s possible to claim rewards after reaching a milestone. Rewards can range from Dark Crystals, Gold Nuclei, and upgrade materials.
Traversing the map can be done using the quick travel system (such as Spacerift locations), sprinting (which doesn’t consume endurance during sprinting), and riding mounts. You’ll depend on your jetpack for vertical movement to land on platforms, reach floating objects, and fly to high ground.
Gameplay basics to hit the ground running
Targets are auto-locked while in combat; you can dodge, normal attack (tap), charge attack (hold), aim down sights on some weapons, and activate a weapon skill. You can seamlessly change between weapons, and if you perform a perfect dodge, time freezes, and swapping weapons unleashes powerful skills.
You’ll combo your different weapon attacks and skills to take down enemies. Tower of Fantasy also depends on aerial movement and unleashing weapon attacks while in the air. The combat will feel “floaty” compared to other ARPGs, but performing techs in the air can save your endurance/the need to dodge while chaining together your weapon combos.
As expected from standard MMO practices, you’ll acquaint yourself with a role while playing on a team. Your weapon combinations will determine your role. If you pair up two support weapons, you’ll gain benediction resonance; if you pair two DPS weapons, you’ll get attack resonance, and pairing two defense weapons gains you fortitude resonance.
Conforming to a single role is much easier than choosing the balance option for team play events. The bonuses make it easier to zone into a dependable role; it’s a good idea to have at least one dedicated healer and a tank, so you’ll look into equipping the benediction resonance and fortitude resonance, respectively.
Elements play a crucial role while you’re exploring and engaging in combat. Obstructions on the map are only broken with the correct element, or you may find elemental bombs to aid you if you’re missing that element. Only four elements are present in the global version: fire, ice, physical, and volt. Your weapons are tied to an element, and it is always wise to have one of each type upgraded and available for swapping. When you’re unsure which element to bring into combat, we recommend bringing physical (not technically an element) for the versatility of short cooldowns and decent DPS scaling.
Shatter and charge
Once you’ve determined the resonance you want to aim for, you’ll look into elements and weapon specialties. Every weapon has an element, and some may bring elemental resonance for additional bonus effects. When acquiring a new weapon, you’ll need to determine whether it is shatter or charge-based. Any value over 10 means your weapon specializes in that sub-role. Shatter-based weapons enable shield break; you’ll break the enemy shield faster if you use a shatter-focused weapon. Attacking with charged-based weapons increases the energy gauge for your other weapons, used to unleash your skills.
Tip: One exception is Lin (Shadoweave), a limited SSR with 11.5 on shatter and charge; despite the high number for shatter, she isn’t optimal for your shatter uptime. Essentially the way her epiphyllums work, it doesn’t damage the shield directly.
Shatter versus charge compositions
You’ll aim to string together shatter and charge weapons since breaking the enemy shields can save everyone from a devastating blow and render the boss defenseless. On the other hand, other weapons require unleashing skills to perform essential duties such as buffs/heals, so you’ll want a high up-time on those energy gauges. Having shatter and charge weapons at your disposal will bring you a long way into an intense boss fight.
Simulacrums and weapons, exploring Tower of Fantasy’s gacha mechanics
To collect characters, “Simulacra,” you’ll acquire their weapons. Simulacra are just character skins for the weapons you’ll obtain. The main focus in Tower of Fantasy is your weapons and how you customize your loadout. Weapons have effects, and pairing synergistic weapons together unlocks resonance (bonuses for elements and skills). For the most part, you’ll link SR and SSR weapons together; only three rarities exist, rare (R), secret rarity (SR), and super secret rarity (SSR). The higher the rarity, the more challenging the weapon is to obtain. Wearing a powered-up Simulacrum also unlocks traits, which are passives that boost your weapons to enable a play style within the team (e.g., tank, support, shield break, and dealing damage).
How the gacha system works
You’ll be able to pull on gacha banners (caches) once you’ve completed the Ecological Station story quest, which will jump you straight into ordering a weapon tutorial where you’ll receive the SR Thunderous Halberd.
To access the banners open your menu, then tapSpecial Orders.
Banners are categorized as weapons or matrices. The weapon banners are likely what you’ll summon for most of the game; matrices requires special vouchers and proof of purchase items for summoning, which are available from shops, events, and exploration milestones.
Three types of currency are used to summon on the weapon banner: Black Nucleus, Gold Nucleus, Red Nucleus, and Proof of Purchase. You can also convert your Dark Crystals into Gold Nuclei and Red Nuclei (150 Dark Crystals for 1 Gold Nucleus/Red Nucleus). We strongly recommend only converting your Dark Crystals into Red Nuclei since Red Nuclei are only used on limited-time weapon banners and are much more scarce of a resource to obtain.
You are guaranteed an SSR at 80 pulls; however, summoning with Black Nucleus will not count towards your pity. If you reach an SSR before your 80th pull, the pity counter does not reset, so that means you are still guaranteed to get another SSR at pull 80. SRs are at least guaranteed every 10 pulls (not counting Black Nucleus), so practice saving up for 10 pulls every session if you can.
SSR weapon box
If you’re playing during launch, global receives a gift pack “SSR weapon box” (700 points milestone reward) during an event where you’ll select a starter SSR for free from a list:
You’ll eventually acquire more SSRs as you summon on the rate-up banners, so your starting SSR can be whatever you prefer to try out when you have a planned synergy for your team. One popular duo choice initially is Nemesis and Samir (Dual EM Stars) as a support/DPS combo for volt teams. Otherwise, the choice is yours on whether you’re aiming to become a support, tank, or DPS main.
SSR weapon box reruns
If you missed out on an SSR box in a previous update, Tower of Fantasy might re-run SSR box events for new players during a major update.Note: Players who have obtained the SSR box cannot receive a second one.
How to plan around your team-building and limited SSRs
Experienced players will know banner drops come faster than ever to catch Global up to the current version (that China is on). So it means you’ll need to plan out your resources carefully; the banner drops come in waves sorted by element. If you want to build around a Frost team, you’ll focus on acquiring Frost weapons when the Frost banner waves come back around.
The biggest bang for your buck is creating teams around a mono element so Frost teams will want three Frost weapons (ideally one with elemental resonance) or two with Lin in the flex spot. The same can be applied to Volt, Flame, and Physical.
Tip: Avoid spending on the limited Matrices banner until you’re a seasoned player; there are easier-to-obtain Matrices that can boost your weapons.
Effectively using your Gold Nuclei
The standard weapon banner, “Choice Weapons,” is where you summon with Gold Nuclei. You acquire Gold Nuclei through the Clotho Supply Pod, Claire Dream sequences, exploration rewards, and by doing daily bounties. Spending your Gold Nuclei guarantees a Simulacrum (their weapon). You can use these Simulacra to build your team, Tsubasa for Frost, Samir for Volt, Cocoritter for healer builds, and Huma for tanks.
Tip: It may be tempting to spend your Black Gold (points) for advancements on these Simulacra, but more will eventually be added to the standard weapon banner. It may take a lot of patience (and months of waiting), but it is an effective way to fully advance one of the early limited Simulacra to six stars once they’ve been added to the standard banner. The possible exception to this is Lin, who was labeled as limited only during her first banner run.
Relics and their uses in Tower of Fantasy
Relics are often overlooked and take time to upgrade fully. But owning relics assists with exploration and combat. Relics are broken down into SR and SSRs; the higher the rarity, the harder it is to acquire shards for upgrades.
How to acquire relics
A full relic copy is obtained through story, ruins, exploration progress rewards, and by doing events. But you’ll come across shards through gachapons, event shops, Claire Dream sequences, and via exploration. Of course, you can always combine the same shard types to obtain a full relic copy. We encourage keeping an eye on your shards, so eventually, you can gain advancement levels to power up these relics.
Relic usages in exploration and combat
You need relics to help traverse through Aesperia and Vera, most notably the Jetpack and Cybernetic Arm; Aesperia will use the Strange Cube and Omnium Handcannon for puzzles. Some SSR relics enable an edge in PvP (The Apex League) for combat, but others provide beneficial combat effects in general content. For example, if you use the Spacetime Rift (SSR), you can add damage and suction. Or simply equipping a 4-star Cybernetic Arm in PvE content will increase Frost damage for your Frost weapons. Passively having the right relics equipped with your weapons adds a slight boost to your damage output, even if you only use it sometimes!
Be sure to equip your relics and change between the slots when the situation demands it. For example, while one relic is on cooldown, you can swap to another to keep bringing in extra buffs and damage while facing bosses. The only exception is between combat; you become locked onto the current relic set while exploring.
How to become stronger in Tower of Fantasy’s world
You’ll notice that completing story missions, doing your daily bounties, and spending vitality will net you many experience points. Eventually, you’ll gain levels faster than anything else. Sadly, level spiking is a detrimental feature for overall account progress, making you quickly become underpowered if you could’t keep up with upgrades and collect synergistic SSRs. Enemies and bosses scale with your level, so you’re put in a position where you must outpace the recommended average Combat Score.
What is Combat Score and how to increase it
Combat Score is a designated number based on weapon loadout and gear. To increase your Combat Score, you are required to upgrade your equipment. Each weapon displays an individual Combat Score, determining which weapons need more attention and priority when farming weapon mats. The next is checking your matrices; every weapon has four slots to equip matrices. Working on equipping and enhancing SR and SSR matrices is vital if you want your weapons to improve vastly. Improving your weapons is the key to raising your Combat Score!
Upgrading your suppressor also increases Combat Score, but you must reach a Combat Score threshold before upgrading. So this should be the second priority after working on your weapons. You can also equip and level up armor to increase your Combat Score; you’ll farm more armor as you complete challenges, don’t overly invest in low-rarity armor (aim for purples to start with)!
Tip: While enhancing your armor pieces, the level carries over to the new upgrade after you confirm the transfer. We recommend leveling up every piece simultaneously; you’re granted a bonus boost if all your equipped slots are at the same level.
Equipping and unlocking traits in Tower of Fantasy
Socializing and sending gifts to your owned Simulacra awards affinity points (or awakening points). Affinity points will then unlock a player icon and trait. Awakening a trait means you can equip a trait (without changing your appearance). Traits provide bonuses or buffs to your team composition; for example, Cocoritter’s trait at 4000 affinity points nets you a buff for healing and healing received by 20% and 15% attack for discharge skill/weapon skill while using supportive weapons. Adding traits might be the boost you need, along with relics, to add that extra damage.
Tip: Always send Vera gifts to Vera characters and Aesperia gifts to Aesperia characters. The affinity points earned by sending the wrong gifts will be much worse, and it isn’t worth the payoff; you can always buy extra gifts using purple points inside the Commissary. These gifts replenish weekly; otherwise, NPC-ran shops, event shops, and gachapons will have them.
How to get to your Artificial island
The Artificial island was released in version 1.5and is your new best friend for helping F2P and low spenders gain additional resources on their accounts. Essentially you’re upgrading a base home to include facilities that produce materials for upgrades. You also have a chance to obtain SSR matrix chips, arguably the most significant value gained.
How to get started with your Artificial island
Unfortunately, you could’t access the Artificial island until you’ve met the requirements. You need to be at least level 50 and accept the quest from Kalador (which you’ll see listed in your Special Operations tab > Artificial Island). You’ll enter the Artificial island by hopping on the jet at Banges' dock.
You cannot build until you’ve reached level 60 or have 50% of the inner map explored. It may seem like a tall order to be level 50 to get the quest and 60 to unlock build mode, but the global version often has 500% EXP server boosts; it will only take a few days to reach those levels if server boosts are turned on in your channel.
Building your facilities
Getting your facilities up and running and then upgrading them to the max level is why you care about the Artificial island in the first place. Construction takes real-time; it may take a few months to get everything maxed out.
To start building, navigate to the main menu and tapBuild>Go>Ok.
You cannot manually set down your buildings; everything is pre-set to a location. You’ll interact with each building individually and have to feed it material to begin construction.
Your priority is to upgrade the Development Center level; that way, you’re able to increase the level cap of Workstations. Your Workstations increase the number of workers (there are types), improving efficiency for collecting resources. You’ll slay monsters around the camp to obtain the suitable materials for levels/upgrades (remember, common enemies respawn every three days, and bosses are every seven).
Tip: Workstations only store resources for up to 24 hours (has a limit); you must collect your resources manually.
The best daily routine in Tower of Fantasy
Sometimes you can’t spend hours playing in a single session, so you must use your time wisely to avoid falling behind. We’ve summarized the daily routine that every player should consider before logging out:
It’s easy to fall behind, especially in an MMO that depends on raising Combat Score to keep up with the content. Farming materials and Nuclei consistently will help raise your Combat Score by upgrading and obtaining new SSRs/materials through gacha. You will still need to put in the work for your Artificial island, battle pass levels, and clear monsters/bosses/explore to truly keep up. Some days, we may only have 30 minutes to devote to playing, which is why we created a priority list.
Limited-time events for replenishing your resources
Every update adds in limited-time events that give out currency to buy out Red Nuclei, resources, and cosmetics. We always recommend playing through the minigames these events offer, especially since Red Nuclei is such a scarce resource, to begin with, anyway. You may not have time every day to participate in the events, but be sure to check it out before the event leaves.
How to travel to Vera
As of Tower of Fantasy 2.0, we now have access to a new planet, Vera. New players can travel to Vera without completing the storyline in the first version, but you risk losing the story immersion if you head there straight away.
There are two routes to reach Vera
The first is completing all six chapters of the Asperia storyline and the epilogue mission. The second is a shortcut by skipping the story and starting theConnect to Vera sectormission. Once you’ve followed the dialogue and action sequences, you can access the central city Mirroria and the outside desert area.
Vera coins and gachapons
The cyberpunk-like hub Mirroria opens up fun daily minigames, and gachapon machines. Exploring Vera will net you two types of gacha coins: Mira and Old Vera coins. You’ll find gachapon machines holding goodies like Dark Crystals and SSR matrices. We strongly recommend focusing on one gachapon machine at a time to clear the reward pool; Samir Matrices have the best value for DPS (especially Volt teams) and hold the highest value if you don’t have any already. Your next priority should always be clearing out the gachapons that hold the matrices; the next one should be Huma’s matrix chips, helpful on Frigg and Huma.
How to get more Mira and Old Vera coins
Completing your bounties earns you Old Vera coins, and you’ll find Mira lying around in the desert area (in Vera); you have to gather the coins as you would in a Mario game. The currency is also found by using your keys while opening up password chests.
Note: Supply pods in Vera won’t give you Dark Crystals, so it’s expected to use the coins to earn Dark Crystals from the gachapons instead.
Training Center
You can now access the Training Center from the main menu. This lets you navigate to exploration training, but the best feature is the Weapon Trial training. You have the option to try out the weapon that’s on the current rate-up banner. We recommend checking out the featured weapon to get a feel for the playstyle before spending your Red Nuclei.
Explorations tips for Vera
Tower of Fantasy is a jack-of-all-trade MMO/gacha game
The ability to explore an enthralling world with your friends makes Tower of Fantasy an attractive game. The upgrade systems and SSR collection game is influenced heavily by thegacha elements, but it gives players an incentive on top of their social MMO experience. Thankfully the crossover between MMO and gacha isn’t a total disaster, as Tower of Fantasy aims to balance around having built-up resources gained over time without the content heavily punishing the players until the end game. Since Tower of Fantasy version 2.0 has launched, the newest planet keeps expanding while bringing in a new intriguing character cast; but don’t let the lightning pace updates stop you from diving into Tower of Fantasy, thankfully Hotta Studio doesn’t restrict new players from trying out the latest content, which is precisely why we included the Tower of Fantasy app below.
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An advanced, compact, purpose-built device
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