THE iDOLM@STER 2 Gameplay Thread

[Tatsumiya]

Interestingly, you're doing jobs that are pointless at that stage of the game; lives only give you keeps and it's unknown whether national auditions trigger revivals at all.
Your best bet at week 50 is by trying to get a break with your last song, assuming you haven't been switching your songs around all the time, and try for a break.
If you haven't been switching around all the time you should've accumulated a good amount of lucky stars already and your final chance to get a break would be in week 54.

An alternative would be to go with a revive, select your 4th or so song and keep doing regular region auditions. 4th because it'd be your 2nd highest sales and because you should be using this song 2nd most often.


For reference:
Do a Fes to get a Break, obtainable at earliest on 6th week of sales, or 10 weeks since selecting the song. Only works on latest song, this allows your latest song to sell for 4 weeks again.
Do a Live to get a Keep, works only on your latest song and only keeps your sales coefficient from dropping too much, useless after a few weeks.
Do an Audition to get a Revival, only possible if the song you're producing isn't your latest. Basically a break for anything other than your latest song.
Do S. Lives to get a Super Break: Only obtainable by doing special lives and before the sales actually starts; the 4 weeks gap between selecting and selling. Greatly increases sales coefficient for the initial 4 weeks.

It should be noted that special lives aren't the same as regular ones and won't trigger keeps.
It's unknown whether national auditions trigger revives.

Ok I'll try to do a break, and no I havent switching my songs for the moment. Luckily I keep my backup savedata from week 42, at worst I just reload that again.

[kasmichan]

Im on week 50 and this is my first play of IM@S2 , I got 2 appeals and ranked 2 in cd sales , i just need around 3000 more to be no.1 but my cd sales come to a halt.

I already tried to do a live and national audition but there's no effect. Should I do a fes, but the rivals are all top stars who have lots of appeals.

What should I do to increase my sales?

you don't really need to focus getting rank 1 since it won't unlock anything in-game and your on your first playthrough..just focus on beating jupiter on your first run then worry the rest on your 2nd playthrough and so on since it'll be easy afterwards specially if you manage to unlocked the RK outfit..just take it easy..

[Tatsumiya]

you don't really need to focus getting rank 1 since it won't unlock anything in-game and your on your first playthrough..just focus on beating jupiter on your first run then worry the rest on your 2nd playthrough and so on since it'll be easy afterwards specially if you manage to unlocked the RK outfit..just take it easy..

Is that so? Wow I thought I have to gain rank 1 to get some award or other bonus?
And how to unlock RK outfit? I already get ritsuko in S4U but I dont see their outfit.

[TweenDoriru]

Is that so? Wow I thought I have to gain rank 1 to get some award or other bonus?
And how to unlock RK outfit? I already get ritsuko in S4U but I dont see their outfit.

You have to invite Ritsuko to a Quintet Live before you get the outfit XD

[Magenta Galaxy]

You get the outfit upon completing the game after having Ritsuko successfully perform at a Quintet Live. Make sure you invite someone else alongside her who's likely to turn up. XD

Honestly the best thing to do is use your first play to farm a ton of money, get Beyond the Stars and Palace of Dragon, and then buy a ton of good accessories from the shops. Chances are you're not getting a best ending on that playthrough anwyay D:

[TweenDoriru]

Oh, but don't you have to complete the game with a Project Fairy member before you get Beyond the Stars? I know I didn't get Palace of Dragon or Beyond the Stars (didn't invite Ricchan to a quintet live during my first playthrough, and Haruka was leader), but I got both my second playthrough (after inviting Ricchan and having Miki as leader).

Just want to make -sure- XD

[Magenta Galaxy]

Yup, that's true. But that's the thing - your first playthrough is essentially automatically bunk, so you might as well get as much 'worth' out of it as possible. XD

I picked Hibiki first time through unaware of the stat curve and was very annoyed the game was essentially forcing me to play through as her again to actually see her best ending. It worked out though cause I got Beyond the Stars so not really complaining. XD

[TweenDoriru]

Yeah, I think iM@S2 is kinda rough in that aspect...I mean, the first time I played iM@S1 and SP I did fine, and yet iM@S2 turns out to make the first playthrough...well, the way it is XD

Then again, SP and iM@S1 were a lot...easier XD I know when I played both of those I wouldn't load up my idols with accessories unless I needed to and would always hit A or S rank...and now in iM@S2 I tend to use them all the time, from the get-go XD

Thanks for confirming that info, btw :3 added it to the top post~

[kasmichan]

the first playthrough is basically for learning the game for first time players while it probably means gaining money for those who already played the first games..all I did there was earn as much money as I could and some outfit and accessories for my second playthrough since I didn't know about amulets back then until I found this forum..it's also a good start to get items/amulets you'll probably need to get your hell out of lvl 9 festivals and lvl 8 national audition on your next game..I can't even win a lvl 7 fes even if my stat is already lvl 16 back then..XD

well a preparatory start in short..and I just fought RK in a lvl 9 festival..it's a very hard battle unlike when I fought them in a lvl 6 fes..

@tweendoriru
you can get PR outfit on yor first playthrough..I got mine on my first using miki as leader..I guess that's the trick getting the PR..I guess that you can get both PR and RK outfits on your first run..

[Tatsumiya]

You get the outfit upon completing the game after having Ritsuko successfully perform at a Quintet Live. Make sure you invite someone else alongside her who's likely to turn up. XD

Honestly the best thing to do is use your first play to farm a ton of money, get Beyond the Stars and Palace of Dragon, and then buy a ton of good accessories from the shops. Chances are you're not getting a best ending on that playthrough anwyay D:

I dont include Ritsuko on my first play so i just get  Beyond the stars outfit (cause i used Miki). Actually after I beat Jupiter, my sales climb to no.1 .So in the end i  got a good ending 

Now this is my second play, I wonder what is the factor that will make appeal multiplier points to decay more slowly? Is it the outfit/Acc/Amulet?

[BT2]

Nikuwan, Rinkamo or Awanko charm and random stage multiplier modifiers, that's it.

[kasmichan]

I dont include Ritsuko on my first play so i just get  Beyond the stars outfit (cause i used Miki). Actually after I beat Jupiter, my sales climb to no.1 .So in the end i  got a good ending 

Now this is my second play, I wonder what is the factor that will make appeal multiplier points to decay more slowly? Is it the outfit/Acc/Amulet?

it depends on what strategy you're planning to use..there are different sets for different strategies so I would advice you to explore the items yourself so that you can build your own set..if you need amulets but don't know where to get them, look at the first page, there's a list there I think on where and what amulet you can get on each prefecture.

[BT2]

make appeal multiplier points to decay more slowly

it depends on what strategy you're planning to use..there are different sets for different strategies so I would advice you to explore the items yourself so that you can build your own set..

Not true, only the 4 things mentioned earlier influences multiplier decay and assuming one uses one of the 3 charms, there's only 1 viable strategy to use with it and it'll be the same for all 3 dual appeal routes.

[Cael K.]

Just a thought that occurred to me...

Using Naranappe the 10th, with Reporter boost. Lv. 5 Memory Appeal. With Naranappe, a Single -> Duo Appeal will fill the meter. Subsequent Trio Appeals will also fill the meter by themselves. Furthermore, you can fit a burst inside Memory Appeal chains without breaking them. So...

Single Appeal -> Duo Appeal -> Burst -> Trio Appeal -> Burst -> Trio Appeal -> Burst -> Trio Appeal -> Burst, regular appeals to the end, burst if you can.

For an upbeat song like Do-Dai, I think you'll hit five easily. For my song, well... that fourth burst is all you get I think. i will have just enough beats to pull this off... maybe. Wondering how this'll affect scoring, as opposed to dual-routing for two or three bursts. Haven't tried it out, since I've never gotten Lv. 5 Memory Appeals.

Also, for special fests - Ran into one that maxed out at four Memory Appeals. So...
Regular Appeals until I know I'll fill I'll fill the bar with a Memory Appeal, then fire it off and Burst.
Regular Appeals until they start spamming, then go one-for-one. They'll use three, I'll use two, they Burst, and top it off with their last Memory Appeal. I'll still get to my next burst faster than they'll get to theirs.
Regular Appeals until I get a full bar. Hold the Burst until they get close to a full bar, then Burst.

I don't know why holding the burst stopped their next burst (as opposed to firing it immediately, where they could get in a final burst and win), since by the end of my burst the song was still going, but that did it for me. (Once.) For completeness, this was the Lv. 8 Fest in the west (in Chuugoku/Shigoku). Just shy of Lv. 16 I think, Lv. 3 Memory Appeal, Reporter boost, Mail boost (not sure if that matters). Naranappe the 10th, less than optimal equipment (as in, no top-tier equips since I don't have them yet).

Didn't see anyone saying how they won a special fest without letting the idols rock house by themselves, so I thought I'd toss it out.

[BT2]

Cause the AI tends to not burst near the end of a song most of the time, just to give the player a chance.

I thought up a strategy on paper that should be able to beat some of the Vesperia fes's normally, but I haven't found any motivation to test it cause there's no real reason left for me to play the game anymore :|
On paper it should be able to net one a 85-100k score, depending on the bpm, on a regular, non fes, stage.