Counter Side - The Beginnner's guide

 

Updated: 1/6/2021

I've been playing counter side for more than a week now and made some terrible mistakes. I do spend a little money on the game, it's one of the ways I show my support for good games like these and I love f2p friendly games and I hope game companies would continue to produce such games in future. I created this guide to help players just starting out and I hope beginners like me would not do the same shit I did... 

I'm going to skip all the basics (how to play the game, navigation etc.) and jump into the important stuff. 

What to do in the beginning:

The first objective in the game is the clear as much content as you can as it will unlock stages which you can farm. Being able to farm higher levels means better rewards and faster progression. 

Which SSRs to get?

At the start you get a free 30 summon which includes an SSR, 3x SRs and Rs and Ns. 

I read most guides and they all said to go for Kyle or Lin or Esterosa, BUT you can get these units from the free SSR ticket selection ticket. You can also randomly get these units from the SSR ticket by completing the 7days missions quest or the mentee quests. 

So if you're a going for Chifuyu or Chinatsu do REROLL until you get either of them as they are only available from the starting banner summon and NOT from any of the SSR tickets (can get from paid selection ticket).   

DO NOT immediately invest in all your SSRs as they require a lot of resources to limit break and you'll not be able to progress far. 

Which SRs to get?

Tank

Ryan Ferrier (Best tank)

Benedict Constantine (PvP)

Striker

Lin Xien

Ranger

Kim Sobin

Sniper

Sylvia Lena Cooper

Support

Evelyn Keller

Get Ryan Ferrier period. The other 2 SRs if you're lucky can be Evelyn and one other in the list. 

What units to build: 

To be able to clear all content you need a minimum of 3 teams with at least 4 strong characters in each team (lv80) and to be able to achieve this you need to build low cost R units then your SRs and SSRs. 

Units to build that will get you through most of the game's content as you'll have multiple copies of them and you can limit break them to lv100!!!: 

1. Irie Alford - R

2. Cindy Looper - R

3. Claudia Nelson - R

4. Cathy Wade - N

They are mostly ground units so do supplement with units that can attack Air/ALL

You have another 4 slots so take any combination you like of SSRs and SRs which you want to build. 

Do daily summons only and save your in-game currency and summoning tickets

With all the free summons and SSR tickets you should be able to get your favorite SSRs and then some. If you are still able to, get Yang Harim after that save your summoning tickets etc.

Save your in-game currency and tickets for later SSR characters or characters you like. 

*by the way, I call BS on the 3.5% rates.  I did get 2 SSRs on a single summon but I also went to pity (150 summons without an SSR) for another... 

Ships

As you progress through the game you'll get a few ships, can't remember which but you'll want to have: 

You don't have to max them out, just get them to 3 or 4 starts is fine:

Normandy - Must have at early stages to full clear some levels

Jeep

Coffin

You'll get a selection ticket for an SR ship, I chose Glepnir. 

You'll need Normandy, the Jeep and 2 Assault ships to clear later Episodes. 

You can build Stellar too but I don't use it too often. 

Unlocking Squad slots:

I have a total of 6 squads unlocked, 3 for clearing stages and 3 for sending out on missions. 

Branch Offices: 

I don't have much advice for this but do build the free buildings as you level up. 

I built the Radar structure and the buildings that would increase RAID chance etc.  

Daily Grind:

Get your characters as high lv as you can by limit breaking. Only use copies to limit break for N and R units. You can use SR copies to limit break if you have a ton of them and are planning to summon frequently (but not very advisable to do so). This is so that you can clear higher level stages for your daily Simulations. Here is where you get items required to skill up and limit break. This is your absolute priority! Build your team to clear up to the lv90 stages ASAP! Clear the main stages as high as you can as you can farm more gold at higher stages. Gold is a real problem in the beginning... 

Join a Guild:

Joining a guild gets you currency which you can exchange for items. You get this currency by Checking-in and Donating. 

Be a mentee: 

Get a mentor and clear the mentee quests for a free SSR ticket!! Do this before you reach account level 25 or lose your chance for rewards forever.... like me. T_T

Equipment:

Don't worry so much about equipment now, just equip the best you have. Once you can clear the higher stages you can farm for T5 equipment molds and start crafting gear. You can aim for the T6 gear using PVP currency in the exchange shop.

PVP:

Do clear your daily PVP and get the PVP currency as you can exchange really important items with these. (T6 gear, Awakened character tickets) To unlock the higher tier shop you'll need to buyout every item in the low tier. 

Shop:

Shop list > Exchange Center > Convenience goods

Do get 1 simulation ticket a day for 30 quartz. DO NOT buy more (unless u whale) as the cost increases for each other ticket you buy. I use simulation tickets to farm the red skill tickets to max level my characters' skills. Not advisable to use to farm APT cores using simulation tickets as what you get is random. Better to farm APT cores in Supply Operation 02 - 1-3 and get S-APT cores from PVP shop (5) and Consortium (3). 

Once you reach higher episodes and gold stops being a problem you can buyout the  "Today's deals" with gold. 

Unlock higher tier PVP shops by buying out all the items in the tier. Unlock the highest tier to get the special summoning tickets to summon for awakened characters.

What to spend your admin coins on:

Get the 30 day admin coin Supply contract for the best value. 3200 admin coins in 30days. 

Imaginary Core Boost package - Not only do you get and equivalent amount of quartz in return for the admin coins you spend, you get 5000 dive currency and gold! You'll need dive currency to get special ship schematics to build an SSR ship and purchase other rare materials. You can't really farm dive currency from exploration and once you clear Dive depth 7 you'll have to wait for the reset. If you're really in need of Dive currency, this is your best option.  

Info Boost Package - If you've not been farming Info via exploration and have exhausted it by skilling up, this is one of the ways to boost your Info. You get half of what you spend back in quartz and 5k Info! 

Notable Characters you can build in the beginning: 

Most would suggest saving dupe SRs for later limit breaking past lv100 but I reckon I would get more copies to limit break as I summon. Saving valuable resources to limit break my SSRs is my priority.  

R

Cindy Looper

Claudia Nelson

Fione Lowell

Ingrid Johanna

Irie Alford

SR

Hilde

Joo Shiyoon

Yoo Mina

Kim Sobin

Lin Xien

Sylvia Cooper

Evelyn Keller

Ryan Ferrier

Benedict Constantine 

*Do google the tier lists out there if you want to know which are the best units to build. 

Re:Connected 夢境連結! Re:Connected guide for beginners

I started playing this game not long after its launch and after hitting a snag, I stopped playing for a bit. I remember I had to login for 8 consecutive days to get a free character skin but somehow I missed a day! Gawdammit!!! And it so happened I hit a wall and my interest kinda just died along with my free skin. Few months later, I got back to playing the game and this time I did some research and it was a revelation! Chinese is not my first language, I can read the easy words and guess a couple but for the most part I struggle to make sense of the in-game text.
Not knowing what your character can do or how it synergizes with other characters is a real problem when trying to clear the later stages.
The lack of English guides for this game is also a problem for many people who want to play the game effectively. This game really isn't a grab-all-SSRs-and-I-win-you-all kind... Each character's skill, requirements, energy and type all come into play when forming an effective team.
I hope this guide would point you in the right direction and make you enjoy the game even further!

Characters List with Ratings:

SSR

安娜 Anna - 9 Best/Rarest healer in-game

鳳凰月華 Phoenix - 9 Invincibility to 3 allies for 2 turns. Revives once per battle. 

瑟琳娜 Selena - 9 Best tank in game, heals leader

美雪 Miyuki- 9 AOE dmg with rage reduction. Slows rate in which characters unleash their limit breaks

上泉螢 Uezumi Aya - 8 Chance of multi attacks/High chance of stun/Dmg vertical column

東文真希 Maki Tobun - 8.5 Chance of multi attacks/High single dmg

黛安娜 Diana (reminds me of Diene from Epic7) - 8 Needs to be 6 Stars to be called 2nd best healer in game. Really decent at 4-5 Stars nonetheless. 

艾絲維亞 Esvia - 5 (Rating would be higher when facing mage heavy teams)

巴萊納斯 Ballenas - 7 (Mostly used with Astaroth to activate her ability)

葉菲 Ye Fei - 7 (I really like her, but I can't seem to draw her to star up)

黑木雅樂 Kuroki Masahiro - 7 (One of the better summoners but as a summoner I find them hard to use)

琪拉雅 Taira - 7 (Really decent tank, shields the characters behind)

卡米爾 Camille - 6 (High cost and reflect dmg doesn't do much right now)

妮可拉 Nicola - 5 (Good at lower levels but at high levels, dmg just doesn't cut it. Only hits 2 random enemies)

惠惠 Hui Hui - 6 (Single dmg and can act as a semi-tank, but high cost)

芙倫蒂法 Frontifa - 7 (Good dmg and can spawn 3 clones on death, but these clones tend to choke up the board)

菲妮貝絲 Phinebes - 7 (Good for pvp, anti heals unit, needs a bit of work to deal decent damage)

石虎 Stone Tiger - 5 (I prefer the SR Chiyo)

赫茜 Akane - 7 (8-9 if facing mages)

羅塔妮安 Rotanian - 6 (AOE, High cost)

Angela - 7 (Situational, provokes the entire board to focus attacks on her. Can prove pivotal if timing is right)

Astaroth - 

SR

安 Anne - 9 Good dmg and pseudo tanker (spawns 2 puppets)

麗姬雅 Reggie? - 8.5 (aoe dmg and debuff)

潘 Pan - 9 One Shot killer (Great for opening attack in PVP)

茉莉 (Molly but her name means Jasmine) - 8 Healer with good synergy with beginner team

碧翠絲 Beatrix - 9 AOE dmg/stun, dmg+hp boost based on enemy type and numbers, cross attack. 

米倉千代 Yonekura Chiyo - 8 Good dmg to enemies in a horizontal line

琪琪 KiKi - 8 if you don't have Maki, you'll need her to activate one of your second leader class skill. 

R

小夜 Murasaki Saya - 9 Best free character who can promote to SSR and carry you quite a bit, can bypass invincible characters and dmg them. OP. 

柏蕾 Kashiwa Tsubomi- 8 Easy to get/use/levelup healer

愛麗絲 Alice - 8 Good dmg and boost to specific group of characters on death

夏目里繪 Natsume Rin- 8.5 Dmg+Stun to 3 random enemies. Berserk mode, when you see a red sword instead of blue, she does more dmg but hp is reduced to 1. Able to survive one deathblow each battle. 

香緹 Shanti -  8 Invincible tank (for 10 secs), dmg is pretty decent too

How to unlock Protagonist passive skills

Do remember to level your protagonist and as you clear stages you can get shards to unlock the different class types. You start with the Swordsman, Demon Hunter then Paladin, Necromancer and lastly Healer.

If you noticed, there are 6 skills that you can activate. And you do so by fulfilling certain requirements like: No more than 2 allies with the same the energy cost 

I shall list the skills and activation requirements for Swordsman, and you can figure the rest out.

Swordsman Passives
1. When an ally enters the battlefield +15% to attack for 2 turns
Requirements: No more than 2 allies with the same the energy cost

2. When an ally is attacked, 50% chance to increase damage reduction by 30%
Requirements:

Have 小夜, 妮娜, 維多利亞, 安, 茉莉 at least 2 of them in your party.

3. +6%Attack, +6%Health to all allies
Requirements: Have 1 of each class in your squad (Attacker (red), Defender (orange), Mage (blue),  Healer (green) , Angel (white), Witch (purple), Summoner (yellow))

4. +6%Attack, +6%Critical chance to all allies
Requirements: Have at least a total of 7: Defenders, Attackers and Mages

5. +12%Attack to all allies
Requirements: Have 鳳凰月華 (Does not have to be in party, WTF?!)

6. +12%Health to all allies
Requirements: Have at least 5 SSRs in the squad

Team Setup

Looking at the requirements, it should be starting to creep into your mind the complexities of the game. Everyone and everything seems to be connected to one another and getting them all to fit seems like a giant jigsaw puzzle, and this is where the fun lies!

I'll get you started with: What's a good team to start out with, followed by the team I'm using now to clear stages and PVP.

Starting team:
I can't remember how many characters you can start out with but here's what I recommend

小夜, 夏目里繪, 柏蕾, 愛麗絲, 香緹, 石虎 (free SSR?)

Other 3 characters I recommend would be:

Any SR in my list above or any SSR(if not in my list above, no need to put too much resources in developing them)

Starting SSR character to re-roll for:

美雪,東文真希,芙倫蒂法

After clearing stages, leveling, doing daily quests etc. you should have amassed enough crystals to summon a few. Don't waste crystals on weapons unless you a whale. You can farm them through the Trial stages. After summoning a few times, you might be able to get some SRs to 5Stars. Hopefully these are the ones mentioned in my list.

My Swordsman team:
I built my team around 鳳凰月華 (Phoenix Yuehua). 
The requirements to activate her battle skill (noted by a brown(active) or grey(inactive) circular sword icon above the class icon) is to have at least 5 Angel or Healer types in your party.
When Phoenix enters the battlefield, 3 Random allies gain invincibility for 2 turns! 
It doesn't seem very fantastic until you see it in action. I also managed to activate 5 out of 6 passive skills for Swordsman. (Did not activate the 4. passive, see abv) 

The 10 characters in my squad are:

愛麗絲(Angel)Cost 10

小夜(Attacker)Cost 10

茉莉(Healer)Cost 11,battle skill activated:After taking action, Heals ally with lowest health by 20% of Max HP

麗姬雅(Witch)Cost 12

夏目里繪(Mage)Cost 13

安(Summoner)Cost 14,battle skill activated:Increase puppets HP by 60%!!!

黛安娜(Healer)Cost 14

鳳凰月華(Angel)Cost 15,battle skill activated:Invincibility to 3 random allies for 2 turns.

瑟琳娜(Defender)Cost 15,battle skill not activated

惠惠(Angel)Cost 17

Summary:
I have 5 swordsman passives activated, 3 character's battle skills activated, average cost of team: 13.1

My Demon Hunter team:
Saya, Aya, KiKi, Beatrix, Rin, Anne, Pan, Diana, Selena, 葉菲 or other SSR mage. 
Unlocks 5 out of 6 skills. Avg cost of team: 12.7

My Paladin Team:

My Necromancer Team:

Saya, Anna, YeFei, Phinebes, Phoenix, Mary, Nina, Reggie, Rin, Miyuki

Unlocks 5 out of 6 skills. Avg cost of team: 13.3

More tips:
So to build a good team, synergy is very important. Do not neglect the buffs you can get from your Leader passives and character skills. Do increase your characters' affection as that also increases their stats making them stronger. I've managed to clear up to hard mode stage 10 using this team and I'm starting to level my characters from 60 to 80. The resource requirements in terms of exp bottles, gold, crystals(not the paid ones) starts to get fairly steep from here on, so it's best to be prudent.

Don't go wild and load your squad with base SSRs, they will get steam-rolled by max starred SRs.
Do level your equipment and limit break them as often as you can as it makes a huge difference.

For PVP you just need a 5Star SR 潘 and she will almost one shot your opponent's Leader (until lv60ish). Follow up with whatever to clean up. Good till the 90K power range and it becomes less effective. I'll post more when I cross that hurdle.

Equipment advice
Prioritise quality over quantity. What this means is, you should always try to limit break your equipment. Having one limit broken lvl30SSR is better than 2 lv20 SSR. You never know when you'll get the same copy of equipment so when i get two i'd limit break it.
It's a lot easier to limit break SR equips and a lv30 SR still beats a lv20 SSR. So remember to limit break equips to get stronger.

Level your Leader
Many people forget about this but it is really important. This game is about killing the King (respective leaders) to win, if your King is weaker chances are you'd lose.

Level a wide assortment of characters if you can
This game feels more fun when you have more characters to work with. It's really fun to mix and match and build the perfect team for each scenario. But.. it takes a lot of resources and time to be able to do so. So what i suggest would be to focus on a core team and when you have spare resources, level the next character that would synergize with your core team. This really becomes a struggle when your characters hit lv120 and your leader

Building:
Do not neglect to upgrade your building! It's generating your resources and it also unlocks extra character slots to use in battle!

Check regularly for free affection points when you stroke their hair or give gifts.

Don't forget to assign characters to each room. 維納斯陷阱 (Venus Trap) characters gain extra affection points when assigned. 

Resources
You need lots of resources, period. The one thing I regretted was not spending my stamina on farming resources. I cleared the 2 daily for extra rewards and left the other 8 alone. At that point my consumption was less than my production. All this changes once your characters hit lv80+. The resouces required starts to spike and you'll find your consumption far outstrips your production. For p2w players or players looking to quickly power up, do not neglect your resources. Farm them or spend diamonds to get them daily. Or wait while your buildings produce them. It will start to become a bottleneck at lv100.

Be patient if you are a f2p player, spend wisely if you really like the game or go nuts if you're a whale but just enjoy the game!

My Top 5 MG Gunpla

1. Tallgeese

The MG Tallgeese is an extremely solid build. Doesn't feel like a plastic model kit at all. No fragile and breakable parts. No loose fittings or joints. Really solid kit and recommended for anyone just getting into gunpla building.

2. Astray Frames

The articulation is amazing, and who doesn't like samurai robots or robots with a big fudging sword? A real solid build as well. 

3. GM Sniper II

I love the GM type look and this has to be the best of the bunch. A solid build and ability to create sniper poses. The only weak part is the antenna which broke when I accidentally dropped it on the floor from a height of 2m... :(

4. Star Build Strike Gundam with Universe Booster

The Strike Gundam itself is a really good kit, now combine it with wings and effect parts and it just looks awesome. The colours really make it standout. Good to display it as a centrepiece. 

5. 00 Raiser XN 

<Coming soon>

Langrisser 6-6 elite - How to clear Time Rift 6-6 ELITE

Team setup:
Ledin (Phalanx) (DG,SS,Con) and Leon (Bats) (Chiv,Lei,As) on the left.
Cherie (Angels) (Lig,LS,Re) and Elwin (Heavy Inf) (Det,EL,SS) on the right.

Use Elwin to faction buff and Cherie to take out the Knight and injure the soldier.

Ledin damage/kill the Knight and Leon kill Knight/Soldier and wait.

At this point position Cherie and Elwin, Ledin and Leon to strike at the mage and Lancer at the bottom.

If Leon is at full health, with Chivalry and assault he can one shot the pesky mage. If not, she should at least lose all her soldiers and take some damage. Move in to kill the lancer who probably activated his Defend (use Elwin).

Once the two are dead, only the Lancer boss is left and Elwin should easily finish him off in a round or two.

Ledin's consecration helps to top up everyone's health, Cherie can self heal using Reinforcement and Elwin and Ledin can use Sun Slash to heal. The tricky one is Leon who uses Bats and Chivalry mostly to keep his health up. My team's equipment isn't really high and my average att is between 500-600+.

Crosscut - TF Generations

This is from the same mould as Skids. I like the new head sculpt and colour scheme, grey plastic with metallic red. I'm quite fond of the design, I just wished he had better shoulders. Not much movement and it makes his upper body look 'squished'. 

Iced lemon tea, the new energon.

Check out the firepower! 

Menasor - Fansproject

This has got to be one of the most complicated transformer I have to date. The difficulty level for Diesel aka Motormaster on a scale of 1 to 10 is about 100... This is in part due to the poorly drawn (or lack of) instructions and the multitude of connectors which are suppose to snap in place but won't or have difficulty coming off due to its well thought but poorly executed design. A fine example are the shoulder connectors  in Combine mode where they used a keyhole type connector. Once connected I had difficulty removing the joint, its like trying to open a full drawer where a book is wrongly angled and jamming the drawer. 

On the plus side, the individual figures really stand out, especially in robot mode.  Each are highly articulate and can support a multitude of poses. Diesel is a really fun figure to play with. You can have him in his basic robot form or power  up mode to bring the rain and pain on the Autobots.

On a whole, a lot of thought was put into the design of the joints and connectors. Each joint is tight and sturdy, able to support the weight of each connected part. The feet has got rubber strips for more grip when posing it on slippery surfaces like glass. I guarantee it would not do a leg split like an Olympic gymnast unlike a certain Aerialbot combiner.. Uranos.. Cough cough.. 

I feel it's about the right size and price. Frankly I'd highly recommend getting anything from Fansproject for their quality (it's still in one piece despite all my violent tugging and pulling) and design. 

VF-25S Armored Messiah Ozma Custom Macross Frontier - Bandai DX Chogokin

Time it takes to put on the pretty parts...

2hrs. 

Not the best design (the armored parts don't seem to fit all that tightly, the shoulders are weird and the head needs an extension) but best value for money. For me anyways. This is the best buy for the year and the year has just begun! Easily worth $350 and up but I got it for a fraction of it. 

I'll put up pics for the robot mode when I have another 2hrs to spare...