Scoring mechanics and strategies

[Naryoril]

I have completely overhauled the text from this post, added new information and sections and posted it as FAQ on GameFAQs.
http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps4/730583-the-idolmster-platinum-stars/faqs/74300
I'll try to keep the GameFAQs version up to date when things change (such as new skills becoming available or old skills on new slots).

But for consistencies sake, i'll keep the old text here:

I want to write down all the stuff i have found so far about scoring. I have written it down for myself so far, but posting it here will allow more people to benefit from it, and others can help me fill out the gaps i still have. So if you have anything to add, please do so.
This should also give us a base for discussions.

Normal Appeals
The score of normal appeals is more or less constant for all songs, there are some differences though. This means: the more notes a song has, the lower the score per appeal. I do not know if this factors in the double score from double notes (where you have to press 2 buttons) and the double score from the burst. It also means that the song or difficulty doesn't matter (much) for this part of the score.

The number of points you get for a normal appeal is linear to your unit's appeal. So if you increase your unit's appeal by 50%, the points you get from normal appeals also increases by 50%

If the event has a special type (idol, shiny star, kirakira girl, heartful lady and genki musume), wearing a costume with that type doubles the points gained from normal appeals.

The special types on some of the DL live costumes also count as the corresponding "normal" type. For example charming lady also counts as heartful lady, but not the other way around, or trickster counts as shiny star.

There is also a factor for the score depending on your timing:
Bad: 0 (you don't get any points for a bad)
Normal: 0.5
Good: 0.75
Perfect: 1

Burst Appeals/Extreme Burst
Once per song there is an opportunity for an extreme burst. The score for the burst itself works off the unit's burst score. While the burst animation is running, all appeals give double score. After the animation has ended, this bonus stays intact, as long as you get perfects or goods.

The score of the burst appeal is multiplied depending on the type of burst you perform (and then rounded down). There might also be more burst types (such as solo 1, trio 4 or quintet 2), but i don't have them on my costumes:
No burst skill: 2
Solo Burst 2: 6
Solo Burst 3: 8
Duo Burst 1: 4
Duo Burst 2: 4.5
Duo Burst 3: 5
Duo Burst 4: 5.5
Duo Burst 5: 6
Trio Burst 1: 6
Trio Burst 2: 6.5
Trio Burst 3: 7
Quintet Burst 1: 10

To perform a certain type of burst you need a costume with the corresponding skill.
For duo bursts you also need an accessory (typically head) with the skill charge lvl 1
For trio bursts you need charge lvl 1 AND charge lvl 2 (typically hands)
For quintet bursts and solo burst you need charge lvl 1 AND charge lvl 2 AND charge lvl 3 (typically legs). At the beginning of the game you get a head piece which has all 3 charge levels in one item.

Omoide Appeals
The base score for these is exactly the your unit's omoide score. It is then multiplied by a factor depending on the type of appeal:
Solo: 1
Duo: 1.5
Trio: 2
Quintet: 3

To perform duo omoide appeals you need an accessory with the drive duo skill (usually body)
To perform trio omoide appeals you need an accessory with the drive duo AND another one with the drive trio skill (usually legs).
For omoide quintet appeals you also need the drive quintet skill on top of it, it's quite rare and on costumes.

The first omoide appeal is always a solo, the next is a duo if you have the corresponding skill and the next is a trio if you have the skill. If you don't have the corresponding skill it starts over (so it's solo, duo, solo, duo, solo...) or (solo, duo, trio, solo, duo...)

For events which also require the correct costume image (cute, cool, clever and cosmic), having the correct costume image multiplies the omoide score by 3. These events appear at A rank.

If you have 5, 6 or 7 omoide appeals, including costume bonus, the last omoide appeal will be in the burst bonus section, if you didn't screw up your burst by getting a normal before it. If you have 8 omoide appeals, the last 2 omoide appeals will be in the burst bonus section. The score of these appeals is doubled as for any other appeal.

So on an event with an image type doing a duo omoide appeal on the 5th appeal will give you: omoide score * 1.5 (duo) * 2 (burst bonus) * 3 (image type) = omoide score * 9

So here is a table of the total factor you get over the course of a song. If there are more than 5 omoide appeals, the last is counted double, with 8 appeals the last 2 are counted double. The costume image bonus is not factored in (which means these factors must be multiplied by 3 if it is an event with a costume image):

#Omoide Appeals	Without skill	With duo drive	With trio drive	With quintet drive
1	1	1	1	1
2	2	2.5	2.5	2.5
3	3	3.5	4.5	4.5
4	4	5	5.5	7.5
5	6	7	8.5	9.5
6	7	9	11	11.5
7	8	9.5	11	14
8	10	12.5	14	20

Chain Bonus
Every 10 notes you chain (normal, good or perfect) you get an extra bonus for your score. The base bonus is 50, and for every rank your song gains it increases by 25, up to a maximum of 275. For the more mathematically inclined the chain bonus is 25 * (1 + song rank)
The main difference in scoring potential between songs and difficulties comes from the chain bonus, the more notes a song has, the more chain bonus points you can get.
There are accessories which increase the chain bonus. Not counting DL live rewards there are 50 and 100 point variants, and they are all on the leg slot on which they compete with drive trio (trio omoide appeals) which is also only available on the leg slot, so you can't have both at once.
The DL lives changed this though. The 4th event of the ちょっぴり大人な気分 DL live rewards you with a leg slot accessory with chain bonus 150, and the first (or maybe the second) event of the いつまでもｋのままで DL live gves you an accessory with 100 chain bonus on the arm slot, and thus freeing up the leg slot for drive trio. In combination with the F rank tiara on the head slot you can still keep the charge level 2 which is usually on the arm slot to enable trio (and even quintet) bursts.


Song note numbers
Because of the chain bonus, the number of notes in a song is important.

Song	Debut	Regular	Pro	Master
Happy!	113	149	221	260
The live kakumei de show!	129	168	249	300
The Idolm@ster	130	157	253	317
my song	81	113	159	270
Watashi wa Idol	114	155	249	264
Go my way!	94	135	217	277
Honey heartbeat	99	130	157	259
Kimi channel	92	124	217	251
Ready!!	82	139	207	297
Change!!!!	121	145	211	266
Jibun Rest@rt	121	157	246	301
99 nights	82	125	209	267
Visionary	125	165	254	308
edeN	116	148	202	226
Vault that Borderline!	99	144	200	249
Nanioro Button	90	111	150	211
Kiramekirari	109	162	218	358
Ippai ippai	105	140	205	256
Kirakira ippai way medley	138	182	256	372
The Happy Live medley	159	207	285	358

Original post:
I think a topic where we discuss what to do to get a high score won't hurt. I'm not at a point yet where i can really contribute, but what are your findings?

What are good skills or skill combinations for scoring? What should you focus on in lessons to boost your scores? Questions such as that.

The only thing i can say is that the difference whether you use the correct costume type or not is huge. I tested it with the preorder (or maybe it was because of the limited edition) costume, which is C rank and much better than the other costumes i have. The preorder costume has much better stats and skills, but i scored way lower than when using the correct type of costume, in fact i even failed that live with the preorder costume.

[Rin]

Well, for starters, as I said in the gameplay topic you'll find it's sometimes worth it to use outfits that have a higher rank than the ones your idols don't currently suffer a penalty from using, as long as the over-ranked one shares the type as the outfit that you would use for a specific live. The higher appeal you get can still outweigh that of the lower-ranked outfit even after the appeal drop, which is calculated in the difference between outfits when you compare, so there's no guessing.

As for abilities, when running Master difficulty, I really enjoy Chain Combo. Every ten successive notes, you get extra points which is really useful on the fast-paced button mashing you have to do, once you get the hang of it. Kiramekirari has one of the highest, if not the highest, note numbers of all the songs, so you can see how it'd be worth having. If you're just running Pro then you may consider going all in with a Chain Combo accessory and using the outfit Wrapping My Heart(or Miracle Dancehall, if you've bought it), since it has the Chain Complete ability which nets an additional 2k points at the end of a song, provided you don't miss a single note. Lastly, if you're going for Duo, Trio, or Quintet Bursts, then I'd suggest the F rank tiara that gives all three Charge levels, even if its appeal is probably lower than what you'd like to see past a certain point.

[Naryoril]

what does the charge level mean anyway? i noticed the tiara has this skill, but i have no idea what it means

as for song choice: i just looked through the leaderboard, and the song with the highest score is jibun restart, followed by live kakumei de show and ready

[Rin]

So there's a sort of 'system' for Charge levels. To benefit from say, rank 2, you need to have an accessory that has rank 1, in addition to one that has rank 2, and the same applies for rank 3. Those abilities are only on accessories. Once you have the possible Charge level you want, you'll then need to choose the outfit that has the type of Burst you want, as in duo or quintet. Charge levels are acquired during lives by performing memory appeals, and consumed when you use your Burst.

There's a bit of a crazy thing you can do in quintet lives. If you have the right outfit(a Cute B rank one) and use that tiara, it's possible to earn a TON of points just by using your Burst alone. Whatever your quintet's total Burst stat is, it gives you 10 times that number if you use that outfit and have Charge level 3 by the time you go to Burst. You can't use the quintet Burst without a level 3 Charge though.

I should mention, you don't necessarily need to use the F rank tiara, in my opinion it's just best to do so since it has all three Charge levels and it's only one accessory. You can use the accessories that each have one rank of Charge, but I don't think it's worth it since you could use those accessory slots for more Appeal, Burst, or Chain Bonuses.

[Nakiame]

as for song choice: i just looked through the leaderboard, and the song with the highest score is jibun restart, followed by live kakumei de show and ready

Jibun Restart, Kakumei de Show and Ready are all quintet 300-notes songs, so they are the best ones, yeah.
For trio or solo lives the best are:
1. Kiramekirari - 358 notes.
2. I want - 345 notes. (This one is a bit harder than any other song in game)
3. The Idolm@ster - 317 notes.
(numbers include hearts used, so the actual number is a couple notes less)

[Naryoril]

So there's a sort of 'system' for Charge levels. To benefit from say, rank 2, you need to have an accessory that has rank 1, in addition to one that has rank 2, and the same applies for rank 3. Those abilities are only on accessories. Once you have the possible Charge level you want, you'll then need to choose the outfit that has the type of Burst you want, as in duo or quintet. Charge levels are acquired during lives by performing memory appeals, and consumed when you use your Burst.

Let's see if i understood this correctly:
The Costume that came as preorder (or limited edtion) bonus has the skill Duo Burst 3. This skill only really works, when i have the charge level skills for level 1, 2 and 3 from accessories AND i must have used 3 memories in a live before the burst. Although it leads to a duo burst with just 2 memories.

[Nakiame]

Let's see if i understood this correctly:
The Costume that came as preorder (or limited edtion) bonus has the skill Duo Burst 3. This skill only really works, when i have the charge level skills for level 1, 2 and 3 from accessories AND i must have used 3 memories in a live before the burst. Although it leads to a duo burst with just 2 memories.

No, for duo burst you need only Charge level 1 skill and one memory used.

[Naryoril]

No, for duo burst you need only Charge level 1 skill and one memory used.

And the 3 (it's duo burst 3) just means the strenght of the duo burst then?

[Rin]

Let's see if i understood this correctly:
The Costume that came as preorder (or limited edtion) bonus has the skill Duo Burst 3. This skill only really works, when i have the charge level skills for level 1, 2 and 3 from accessories AND i must have used 3 memories in a live before the burst. Although it leads to a duo burst with just 2 memories.

Allow me to clarify. One memory appeal equals one Charge level. Charge level one is for Duo Bursts, Charge level two is for Trio Bursts, and Charge level 3 is for quintet Bursts. That is to say you won't be able to perform a multi-idol Burst without the corresponding Charge level and it'll be defaulted to a solo Burst, and you need won't Charge level 3 if you're using an outfit that only allows for Duo or Trio Bursts since having Charge level 3 available is redundant with an outfit that doesn't require all three. So I realize now that you should really only use the tiara when going for Quintet Bursts. Sorry for not covering that earlier.

[Byuusan]

Is there an accessory with just charge 1 and 2?

Atm i am using the tiara for the full 3 level but i don't have an outfit for a quinlet burst to start with?

[Nakiame]

So with DL live's 57k target score in mind you have to farm (in order from most to least important):
1. Kiramekirari up to lvl 10.
2. Burst/omoide for 3 idols to rank 15-20.
3. Your Leader to rank A if you have anything of rank A equipped.
4. 3 idols to lvl ~55-60. (you'll need like ~15 levels from now on to affect you score at all, so max out other things first and try)

If you are not the best rhythm-game player (as i am), buy "Target Support Z" item from ingame shop and use it to full combo Kiramekirari on Master.

[Byuusan]

I don't think it has to be Kiramekirari. It definately one of the go-to songs since forever, but i think other high-pace songs should suffice as well.

[Reikuo]

It can be done on pro with 3 idols at 55-60

[Nakiame]

It can be done on pro with 3 idols at 55-60

If you have 5 hearts, yeah. That's where you get your ~2k score you loose from dropping the difficulty.

[Naryoril]

I "updated" the first post to contain all the mechanics around scoring i have found out so far. There are a lot of gaps (mostly burst multipliers and song note numbers), so if you know any of them, please post it here and i'll edit them in.

It should also give us a better base to discuss scoring strategies