Calculator Tricks

Math Tricks: Mental Math v3.25 b325 [... faster, train your brain Math Tricks is a mental math app... math tricks and mental math techniques to solve problems faster without a calculator...

... and a finite bag of tricks." Sakumo's tone was level, measured... seen in the debrief, the calculator who overrode his own calculations, ...

... up a production planner or calculator that blocks activity and view... can use the planner or calculator of your choice on a... it. Maybe there are some tricks, but they aren't obvious. Shift-clicking... resort to Notepad and the calculator. It resulted in many miscalculations ...

... purpose like a poker odds calculator. They are trying to piggyback... have to wonder what other tricks they are pulling in the...

Math Tricks: Mental Math v3.19 b319 [... faster, train your brain Math Tricks is a mental math app... math tricks and mental math techniques to solve problems faster without a calculator...

Math Tricks: Mental Math v3.17 b317 [... faster, train your brain Math Tricks is a mental math app... math tricks and mental math techniques to solve problems faster without a calculator...

It can come in a variety of forms. Maybe they assume humanity will act selfishly, and factor that into their plan. Or perhaps they take for granted a level of rationality that humans often act without. 1). The Good Place: Michael is a demon running a fake "Good Place" neighborhood in what is essentially hell. He tricks four dead humans into thinking they've made it to "The Good Place," and then manipulates them into emotionally torturing each other. But despite hundreds of attempts, the humans always start helping each other and figure out the truth. At first, Michael assumes there's a flaw in his plan. But he eventually discovers that humans (even "bad" ones) are much "better" people than he assumed. And, without having to worry about survival, will usually "default" to kindness. 2). Superman: Lex Luthor assumes his plan will work because the other meta-humans don't get anything out of helping Superman. But, despite a myriad of legal obstacles involved, the "Justice Gang" intervenes to save innocent civilians from a "legal" war. 3). The Boys: "Sage" has superhuman intelligence which she uses to manipulate the world. For the most part, things go as she predicts. Which she condescendingly attributes to people being "predictable." But this plan backfires when Soldier Boy helps Homelander, instead of fighting to the death. A lot of fans dislike this twist. I get it, hyping someone as "unstoppably smart" and then having them make a colossally stupid decision is disappointing, narratively. But I think it works. The whole point of The Boys is that "supes" like Homelander think they're inherently superior to the rest of humanity. So, it's thematically consistent to have the "smartest supe" make a mistake solely because she overestimated her own superiority. Sage can calculate odds and manipulate numbers as much as she wants, but she never should have hinged her entire plan on the whims of a single person. She's hyperintelligent. Not clairvoyant. And like every other supe in The Boys, she got high on her own supply. submitted by /u/theMCATreturns to r/TopCharacterTropes [link] [comments]

TLDR: Despite Cygames giving away lots of pulls, they're just barely enough for survival thanks to Umamusume's highly predatory game design that drains dedicated players' time and wallets through a hyper-competitive, PvP-focused endgame. For a game where the appeal comes from the characters, you have to pull them in order to experience their stories. However, in order to have a smooth career experience, or have a chance in PvP, the game requires multiple MLB support cards acquired through archaic JP gacha system with severe lack of universal Support card LB resource, and accelerating powercreep that will eventually make old units obsolete in PvP. Then, Torena-san must spend lots of hours going through a brutal, RNG-heavy grind just to get "1 bottle of Uma glue" every 30 minutes. Rather than improving the RNG for free, Cygames monetizes player frustration by selling QoL subscriptions which, combined, cost much more than an MMO subscription, while offering less content than an average MMO. While casual fans can enjoy the game partially as a free, high-quality visual novel, the deep parasocial relationship fostered by cute horse girls & excellent storywriting, combined with Cygames' freebies, further reinforces tribalism, with many players using "fun" as an argument to silence criticisms from dedicated players who got burned out by a time-consuming, expensive, and highly P2W endgame loop. (Disclaimer: English isn't my first language, and my knowledge of the JP servers comes from internet search rather than firsthand experience.) (EDIT: Here are the reactions from r/UmaMusume ) 450+ hours spent making Uma Glue. Perhaps I'm addicted to horse girls. Quick Introduction Umamusume: Pretty Derby is a gacha game where real-life elite Japanese thoroughbreds are anthropomorphized into funny horse girls. The game is renowned for its excellent character design, storywriting & filled with attention to details. The franchise also has top-tier anime, manga, and music production, rivaling Japanese giants like Idolm@ster & Love Live; while breathing new life into horse racing. On top of that, Cygames reinvests back into horse racing through sponsorships & donations. The game won the "Best Mobile Game" award at The Game Awards 2025. The gameplay loop involves training a character in Career mode while reading the stories of that character, from slice of life to all sorts of drama & rivalries inspired by their real-life counterparts' legacy, resembling a Tamagotchi-style raising sim. After that, you use the result of a career run (Veteran Umamusume) to do other content. (Career mode tutorial) We all know that Cygames has the reputation of giving away lots of freebies & randomly throwing pulls out of nowhere (Glory to Cygames!!!). However, game development is a business, and oftentimes such generosity is merely an illusion. If the developers shower you with pulls, there's a high chance they're gonna design the game in a way to drain your savings. Umamusume is no exception. Despite Cygames being "generous" with pulls, the game is still considered unforgiving by many Torena-san. This is the result of multiple intertwined design choices: A highly competitive, PvP-focused endgame Dupe-reliant support cards with a severe lack of universal limit-break currency A bloated gacha pool and typical powercreep A tedious, RNG-heavy gameplay loop "alleviated" by expensive microtransactions and QoL subscriptions (in JP). 1: The PvP Endgame The excitement of winning your first career races will eventually fade away, and once you've read all available stories, the Endgame is there to provide long-term engagement. Besides typical story events there are some gameplay events, but they don't add much in terms of gameplay: Golshi Week, 37.6 pulls login rewards & a more difficult Career mode with 1.2M gold rewards Fuji Kiseki's Show Time, more difficult career mode with random rewards Trainer Aptitude Test, career mode with side objectives Racing Carnival, harder Legend Races & a bunch of repetitive menu clicks Naturally, like many sports games, PvP is the main repeatable content. Watching hyper-optimized umas battle for position, meet skill conditions, and backliners executing late-race overtakes (ft. The Unsinkable Gold Ship) can be an adrenaline-pumping experience. Competition is one hell of a drug. However, as we all know, Gacha + PvP has always been a disastrous combo, especially when premium currency is on the line. Wisdom shared by The Mun Many modern KR/CN gacha games either front-load their rewards on lower ranks & have high-rank rewards mostly just flexing rights (title, small premium currency bonus) so that casuals don't feel bad when losing, or no PvP at all. Here are some examples: Blue Archive director Kim Yong Ha shared at a conference that the importance of PVP elements in BA has been intentionally set low to avoid ruining the players' love for the characters. His development philosophies are also reflected in how premium currency (Pyroxene) rewards are distributed: Pyroxenes in Total Assault (Leaderboard Raid) are frontloaded, with Gold -> Platinum rank netting you only 200 pyroxene (1.67 pulls). Grand Assault gives you a 10-pull ticket regardless of ranks. Unless you're in a club with rank requirements, reaching Platinum is mostly for sense of pride & accomplishment. Joint Firing Drill (Roster check) & Final Restriction Release (Tower Raid) has no pyroxene rewards. Tactical Challenge (PvP) splits the playerbase into brackets. You can reach Top 500 (takes 10 battles every 6 months) & never touch it again, treating it as daily free 20 pyroxenes (0.16 pulls). Many clubs don't have Tactical Challenge rank requirements. PvP is arse anyways. During story events, all 12 event stages can be 3★'d using 3★ students, while difficult challenge stages give only 2 pulls total. He also stated that this is not limited to Blue Archive, other games are also moving in the direction of reducing PVP and even reducing the importance of cooperative play. Genshin Impact is another pioneer example with how the game being intentionally designed towards casual players: There's no combat PvP Domain Co-op is mostly just for fun or to help new players. Most events are very casual-friendly, with all primogems rewards being front-loaded into the easiest objectives. You can 9★ Spiral Abyss floor 12 if you follow the guides on KeqingMains & have good artifacts. Imaginarium Theatre is a roster check that allows you to borrow trial characters & characters from your friends. Stygian Onslaught has rewards front-loaded into the lower difficulties. Umamusume, on the other hand, incentivizes tryharding and spending by giving more premium currency toward high ranks. Below are the PvP modes & their rewards. To summarize: an average player can get about 30 pulls every month from PvP & Clubs, assuming you have good game knowledge & put effort grinding, which is a considerable amount for F2Ps & low spenders. Cygames really wants you to grind PvP. 1.1: Team Trials Game8 Tutorial You form 5 teams of 3 veteran umamusume to run against other players. Your umas accumulate scores by activating skills, placing higher & winning multiple races in a row. Your high score of the week decides whether you get promoted, keep your rank, or demoted at weekly reset. AFAIK the strategy is to activate as many skills as possible. Carats are awarded weekly depending on your Team Trials Class. There's a daily challenge that requires you to play 1 game of Team Trials, and is a pre-requisite for full daily completion rewards. Story events require you to play 40 times. Steam Achievement requires 500. Rewards (x1.5 for Global's accelerated schedule) Class Carats 1 0 2 25 3 50 4 75 5 150 6 250 1.2: Champions' Meeting GameTora Tutorial Monthly competitive 3v3v3 PvP with limited entries per day. Whoever finishes 1st wins. Track layout & conditions are announced weeks prior, so that torena-san can research & prepare specialized umamusume for the event. This is where Umamusume's gameplay truly shines, which involves studying a specific track's layout, understanding how skills interact with the track & with each other, choosing the right Support Cards for the right skills, grinding parent umas that pass down the correct traits,... You can spend hours researching & building your own playstyle. There are 2 brackets: Open League: will be A+ max in Global. There are min-maxxers who use calculators & race simulators to engineer their uma while remaining under the rating cap. (example run by LinhSaky) Graded League: no restrictions, filled with high-rollers & meta slaves Qualifiers (You earn rewards based on the amount of wins in an entry & qualify to group A by winning 3/5 races in a single entry.) Round 0 Wins 1 Win 2 Wins 3 Wins 4 Wins 5 Wins Open Round 1 5 10 15 20 25 30 Open Round 2 Group B 10 15 20 30 40 50 Open Round 2 Group A 15 20 30 40 50 100 Graded Round 1 10 15 20 30 40 50 Graded Round 2 Group B 15 20 30 40 50 100 Graded Round 2 Group A 20 30 40 50 75 150 As you can see, 5/5 wins gives you more carats. The Finals (1 race, may the RNG god bless you) Finals 3rd Place 2nd Place 1st Place Open Group B 500 600 700 Open Group A 700 850 1000 Graded Group B 700 900 1200 Graded Group A 1200 1800 2500 1.3: League Of Heroes (JP) GameWith JP Tutorial Welcome to Torena-san's Rift. What a name choice. Competitive 3v3 (+6 AI) Ranked PvP with limited entries per day similar to Champions' Meeting. Fixed track layout, but weather & track conditions rotate every 5 races. You gain score & rank up depending on placements of your 3 uma. Top 96 players are qualified for an "extra stage". Placement Score 1st 100 pt 2nd 60 pt 3rd 40 pt 4th 30 pt 5th 20 pt 6th - 12th 10 pt Rank up Rewards Rank Total Score Carats Bronze 2 1,000 30 Bronze 3 2,000 30 Bronze 4 3,000 30 Silver 1 4,000 50 Silver 2 5,500 50 Silver 3 7,000 100 Silver 4 8,500 100 Gold 1 10,000 150 Gold 2 12,500 150 Gold 3 15,000 300 Gold 4 17,500 300 Platinum 1 20,000 500 Platinum 2 23,000 500 Platinum 3 26,000 500 Platinum 4 30,000 500 Platinum 4+ Every 2000 points 100 Score Leaderboard Rewards Top Carats 1 5000 2 4000 3 3000 96 1500 300 1200 1000 900 10000 750 30000 500 1.4: Club Leaderboards Game8 Tutorial If you're a dedicated player you may as well join a club, trade dirt shoes & earn some rewards. Every month clubs gets awarded depending on the total amount of "fans" all 30 members earned during that month. Many clubs have specific daily/weekly fan quota required in order to stay in the club, for top clubs it can be 5-7 runs per day. You gain Fans by racing in Career or playing Team Trials. You can just prepare PvP umamusume & earn fans naturally, or do specialized runs aimed to maximize fans earned. Rewards (x1.5 for Global's accelerated schedule) Top Carats & Club Points 10 3000 30 2400 100 2100 500 1800 1000 1500 3000 1200 5000 900 7000 600 10000 300 10001+ 150 2: The Gacha Some basic information about the gacha: 3% for 3-stars/SSRs, with 0.5-0.75% for featured units All units remain in gacha pools 1 pull = 150 carats. There are daily discounted pulls which costs 50 paid carats. No pity. Spark at 200 pulls with no carryover. You can reach spark without getting a single copy of featured unit. Example tweet of Torena-san reaching spark 2 times without having pulled a single featured unit A full spark (200 pulls) in this game costs ~$420 without any purchase bonuses. New banners drop every 2 weeks. Most units only get one rerun; some never get reran at all. 2.1: Umamusume (Pretty Derby) Gacha Once pulled, all characters are immediately playable in Career without needing to upgrade, allowing you to instantly have fun & umapyoi the girls. Most of their power comes from support cards. However, as good as their storywriting is, you cannot experience their career stories without pulling them first. LARPing is a common lifestyle. The banners are also filled with alternate costumes. In JP, more than 50% of the 3★ units are just alts. Each alt only has a new unique skill, a new potential skill set, and 3 new story events related to the costume. Same career & stories as original versions. Pulling an alt costume has minimal value unless you haven't pulled any version of that character, you really like the costume/character, or the alt is strong in PvP. (data from GameTora, change server to Japan) Duplicates grant Star Pieces for the pulled Uma, and Goddess Statues for universal star piece exchange. However, almost all Umamusume are perfectly viable at 3★. Additionally, if you're an Open League min-maxxer, NEVER star up your umamusume beyond 3★. Starring up adds +1 unique skill level (+170 rating), almost equal to a green skill (+174) for negligible bonuses, which cannot be undone. Many min-maxxers avoid upgrading unique skills by avoiding starring up & intentionally failing scenario requirements to ensure their uma remains under the Open League rating cap. At some point after the 3rd anniversary, there will be semi-limited umamusume during anni/half-anni. They can't be acquired from selectors, or selectable in step-up gacha, and have reduced rate of being spooked. Here are all semi-limited umas currently in JP: Jungle Pocket Gentildonna Orfevre Still in Love Cinderella Gray Oguri Cap (Alt) Stay Gold Almond Eye All umamusume are limited by their aptitudes, potential/evolution skill sets, and unique skill conditions. Some will excel on specific tracks while being weak/okay in others. Some are meta for a long time. What about powercreep? While any Uma can theoretically win PvP with a decent support deck & good parents (Example tweet), new Uma/alts in JP are built to be stronger & sometimes even more specialized towards specific tracks/playstyles with better potential skill sets, very specific skill conditions & better activation consistency, especially the semi-limited ones. Here's an example of difference between year 1 & latest JP uma: Christmas Oguri Cap (Year 1 & Year 2 medium/long meta) Unique skill: +Max Speed, Acceleration & HP in 2nd half of the raceafter activating 3 recovery skills, requiring proper skill activation timing. Her potential skill set includes Triple 7s (+HP at 777m left), which can be used to time her unique. "First-hand Christmas Miracle" evolution skill (Long): +Max Speed & HP at final corner while being near the inner fence. Cinderella Gray Oguri Cap (4.5 anniversary, strong in Mile + Arima Kinen) Unique skill: +Max Speed while in between top 20% & 70%, stronger in in Mile races and on the Arima Kinen course with at least 146738 fans (reference to 1990 Arima Kinen) "Undying Flame" evolution skill (Mile, Long): +Max Speed at a random point in Mid-race while being in top 50%. Then, +Max Speed at 200m remaining if you've done at least 1 dueling at final straight. "Let Your Name Shake Heaven and Earth" evolution skill (Pace Chaser・Long・2500 m・Nakayama Racecourse, a.k.a Arima Kinen): +Acceleration at Late race, stronger if she were within 10 lengths from the lead around the end of the Mid race. Basically historic horse racing moments being weaponized to make money. Almond Eye (5th Anniversary, absolute menace in Medium tracks) Unique skill: +Current Speed when in top 50%, stronger in Medium race, instant speed boost without needing to accelerate. Then, +Acceleration in Zenkai Spurt (late-rate acceleration if speed stat is at least 2000) "The Next Phase" evolution skill (Pace Chaser): +Max Speed If you're in top 50% at a random point during the second half of mid-race, stronger if your Speed stat is at least 1200. "Assured Victory" Evolution skill (Pace Chaser): +Max Speed at a random point during the second half of mid-race, then +Acceleration at last spurt Ironically, while the cute horse girls are the franchise's main selling point, in order to have a smooth career experience, complete difficult event challenges, or be competitive in PvP, you need good support cards. 2.2: Support card gacha Unlike character banners where pulling the first copy of an uma is worthy for celebration, for support cards, it is just the beginning. Most support cards require 3LB or MLB to be viable, as crucial stats like Training Effectiveness and Specialty Priority are locked behind dupes. A support deck has 6 cards. You must borrow 1 from other players. There are currently 200+ SSRs in JP, many of which are fillers & niches. Getting "spooked" by an off-banner SSR grants zero benefits unless it miraculously happens to be a card you want. This is why "SSR Guaranteed" tickets and banners are often considered scams by players. (data from GameTora, change server to Japan) You can use Uncap Crystals to limit break any card, requiring 20 Shards to exchange 1 Crystal. However, you still need to pull for duplicates because: You cannot exchange Cleats, the currency acquired from destroying unused duplicates, for shards. Events and battle passes only hand out enough Shards for roughly 4 crystals per year (JP), making those crystals extremely rare & valuable Additionally, there are scenario support cards, designed to be very strong in a specific scenario only. With Cygames releasing new scenarios every 4 months instead of 6, F2Ps/Low Spenders are expected to borrow them instead of pulling. There are free support cards, and here are how to acquire & limit break them: Main story support cards: First copy granted by finishing a story chapter Join a club, trade dirt shoes to get club points, then grind fans to get your club into higher ranks to get more club points, which can be used to exchange for support card duplicates. You get more fans for winning career races -> pull & upgrade support cards for better chance winning Event support cards: Play career mode, level up the event "battle pass" & roll the Prize Derby roulette. Progress depend on your career results + event bonuses from unlocked umamusume & support cards -> pull & upgrade support cards for faster event progression. Your support card collection gains a buff to your Team Trials score, depending on their levels (up to 50%): Card Level Bonus (Per Card) 20 +0.01% 25-35 +0.02% 40 +0.03% 50 +0.05% (Note: In JP, this system was updated to be based purely on the rarity of MLB cards: R cards give +0.03%, while MLB SR and SSR cards give +0.05%.) SR cards are viable for endgame & PvP at the moment in Global, but in the future full MLB SSR decks will become the norm when veterans manage to build a decent support collection. Eventually Support cards will get powercrept with new ones having better stats, skill point bonuses, granting 2 gold skills instead of 1, with many skills having better activation conditions. Even the old "Human Rights" ones like SSR Speed Kitasan Black will eventually fall out of the PvP meta. In the future, cards released during anni/half-anni are usually "Human Rights" tier, pressuring competitive players to pull & MLB them. Your SRs & free welfare SSRs will eventually be obsolete for PvP. You cannot escape the support gacha. 2.3: Free pull events There are daily free pull events during special events like Anniversary, about 100-120 pulls per event. However: Unused free pulls are lost at daily reset. Some events have a system that stores unused free pulls, but only if you didn't login from before the start of the event, essentially functioning as a returning player mechanic. Some events only give 1 pull per day instead of 10 pulls. At that point, why not just give players 150 Carats so they can actually save them? Some events split the free pulls between between 2 different banners with different spark progression. You can't select which banner to use those pulls, which means guaranteeing wasted pulls unless you get incredibly lucky or continue pulling until spark/MLB. 3: The RNG Horse racing is chaotic & unpredictable. A superstar horse with multiple victories may randomly lose for whatever reasons at any time (ft. Gold Ship's 12 billion yen incident & Mejiro McQueen topping with 14 billion yen). Cygames tries to recreate this chaos by making the RNG in this game incredibly punishing: Random mood downs & negative conditions. Some uma have negative conditions baked into their career [e.g. Super Creek's "Under the Weather" (+5% failure chance), Meisho Doto's "Not Ready" (random -5 energy after racing)] Resting may grant less energy, with a Night Owl condition (random energy loss) Your training stat gain is influenced by whether Support cards appear in a training category or not. Sometimes they may not appear in crucial turns like Summer training, then appear when your Uma's energy is low, forcing you to gamble. Failing 1 or 2 important turns can brick your PvP training run. Infirmary does not guarantee removing negative conditions. Support card events' appearance is not guaranteed. Some events require you to gamble for desired skills. Some characters like Gold Ship may randomly restrict your training options. Praying for "Fast Learner" buff (-10% skill points cost) in JP, where average uma has roughly 20-30 skills thanks to scenario stat inflation. Inheriting sparks from parent uma is RNG. Start reaction time is RNG. Skill activation chance is determined by your Uma's Wit stat "If you're blocked, you're blocked." Not placing 1st in a career race costs more energy + grant less skill points, and placing 6th or below in may inflict a purple self-debuff skill. While this unpredictability helps with immersion in casual story runs, it can destroy your PvP Ace training. Imagine 30 minutes wasted because of missing important skills, failed important training turns, or not reaching stat thresholds. Example of support cards appearing when The Mun's energy is low. Luckily this is a casual story run & not PvP Ace training. And there's the infamous Trackblazer/MANT scenario. An average run takes 1 hour, where you're expected to win more than 30 races to collect epithet bonuses, watch a bunch of loading screens & UI animations, while praying for the item shop to drop something good. Deck building is restrictive, requiring stacking Race Bonus to more then 50%, making inheriting skills from parent uma important. Cygames made no adjustments to Trackblazer's global release, so Global players have to suffer through it for 4 months. (Game8 Tutorial) Example of a Trackblazer/MANT run's Race Agenda To make matters worse, just 1 month before Trackblazer was sunset by Grand Live, Cygames dropped The Throne's Assemblage Group card, a very good scenario card for Trackblazer, in hope of draining players' Carat savings before the next scenario. Reddit post for reference What about parent/legacy farming? Think a good parent umamusume as god roll artifacts in Genshin. A Kitasan Black level stud in real-life is rare (she got dried just like BA's Sensei), so Cygames also tries to mimic this with multiple layers of RNG: Blue spark: 20% chance for 1 of the 5 stats, then 5% to get 3★ at 600 stats or 10% at 1200. They direcly give you stats at the start of career & during inspiration events. Having 8★ or 9★ stamina sparks can save you a stamina card slot, and in some Medium distance races can substitute a recovery skill. Red spark: Randomly chosen between your character’s A-rank aptitudes. Track aptitudes affect Acceleration, Distance affects Speed, Strategy affects Wit stat These Can be used to increase an Uma's aptitude, especially ones with B or below, up to A at career start, up to S during inspiration events (and the main way to make Haru Urara win Arima Kinen) White spark: 20% for white skills learned, 25% for ◎ white, 40% for gold, increases by 2.5% (white) to 5% (gold) when grandparents have it. Those sparks grant skill hints and are used for inheriting important skills like Groundwork, strategy/distance corners, Nimble Navigator,... Not to mention that you may have to redo the same thing for different uma, or when a new scenario drops with higher stat limit, forcing everyone to move on to the next scenario while soft-sunsetting your existing trained roster. The result is an MMO-level grind where even with the best support deck, majority of your time will be spent making "Uma glue" while praying your next run will be something decent, but instead of being showered with glue, the game proudly awards you "1 bottle of Uma glue" every 30-minute run, and your veteran umamusume gets soft-sunset every scenario release. (Note: The "Uma glue" joke is a dark community reference to the historical fate of unsuccessful or injured racehorses, as raising them is incredibly expensive and only a fraction ever win a debut race. Here's a Reddit post about why retirement farms need fundraising.) You can borrow parent umamusume by following other Torena-san, but strong parents are highly sought after that they can reach followers cap very quickly. 4: The paid packs Game development is a business, and developers need food on their table. With how competitive PvP is, it can be tempting to swipe your credit card. 4.1 Currency subscriptions Standard light spender goodies in gacha Daily carats pack (980 yen, $6,99) Good old monthly pack. Instant 500 "Paid" carats + 1500 carats drip-fed over 30 days. Unclaimed carats are sent to mail box when expired (JP) X2 career rewards (excluding fans & bonds) (JP) +3 Daily race tickets Cygames doesn't adjust the pack to accommodate global schedule acceleration Premium monthly battle pass (JP) (800 yen, ~$5) Instant 300 "Paid" carats, unlocks premium track of the battle pass. You can get legacy support card tickets, which can be used to exchange featured Year 1 & 2 SSR support cards that have been powercrept (including SSR Speed Kitasan Black) Notable rewards: 1300 free carats 25 legacy support tickets (10 to exchange 1 copy) 4 Uma pull tickets 4 Support pull tickets 1 Crystal shard (20 to exchange 1 Uncap Crystal) 4.2 QoL subscriptions Instead of fixing the stupid RNG I mentioned in section 3 for every torena-san, Cygames decided to monetize QoL features. Having all three of these subscriptions saves you hundreds of hours of parent farming. These are features that would be free baseline QoL updates in almost any other modern video game. Spark reroll subscription (JP) (500 yen, ~$3) Lets you reroll the sparks 3 times for "free" instead of spending 30 Energy -> 30 carats -> 30 carats, basically 4 parent runs in 1. You can select your preferred results. Blue/Pink spark selector subscription (JP) (980 yen, ~$7) Selects which blue/pink spark type you want to get for your Umamusume at the end of their career run for "free" instead of 100 carats. No more praying for RNG to drop your preferred spark category. The stars of those sparks are still RNG Uma Plan (JP) (1980 yen, ~$12) "Sweep" the career mode & instantly get 5 parent-only umamusume daily, 10 with the spark reroll pass. Yes, they're monetizing a basic feature of a gacha game. During Inspiration/Inheritance (Classic/Senior Early April turns) events you can choose 1 of 2 spark rolls, alleviating inspiration RNG. +5 Parent borrows per day Permanent +100 follow slots (probably to lure players into subscribing) There were mixed reactions regarding the Uma Plan subscription. Torena-san defending the new Uma Plan, arguing that paying for QoL advantages is normal Torena-san explaining why Uma Plan is worth it, that paying for time-saving QoLs allows them to play other games Torena-san being against it, arguing that QoL subscriptions shorten the game's life span Torena-san bragging about spending $110 for annual Uma Plan Reddit's reactions 4.3: Selectors/Guaranteed Banners Selector tickets (Uma/SSR) Can be exchanged for 1 copy of an 3★/SSR unit. Because of the bloated banners, these have very high value. The first ones cost $21, standard selector prices. Includes 1500 paid carats. The second ones cost $70, equal to a modern AAA game. Includes 5000 paid carats. The fact that Global players actively map out months of pull plans around these tickets proves how demanding PvP is. Guaranteed 3-star/SSR banners Costs 1,500 Paid Carats ($20). Because there is no duplicate protection against a bloated pool, this is widely considered a scam. Step-up gacha (JP) Available during anni/half-anni Costs 5000 paid carats total. You can buy a $70 selector ticket & dump the bonus carats on this. Select 10 units for rate-up, then do 5 steps of 10-pulls: 1 (500 paid carats): Guaranteed 2★/SR 2 (700): Guaranteed 2★/SR 3 (1000): Guaranteed 3★/SSR 4 (1300): Guaranteed 3★/SSR 5 (1500): Guaranteed Selector 3★/SSR Overall, If you're a dedicated PvP player, you're expected to buy all 5 subscriptions (total $30+ monthly), plus selector tickets & step up gacha. EX: What if I'm F2P & ignore PvP? If you step away from PvP, you will save a massive amount of money and sanity. In fact, a considerable portion of the playerbase treats Umamusume purely as a casual game. Support card requirements are low for story enjoyers. Rental decks will come in 4th anniversary. URA Finale is the fastest scenario for story runs with no extra gimmicks (yet). You can ignore farming parent uma Until Autoplay comes to global, you can do a botched run to complete dailies: Pick any uma with a fan objective as second career objective Win debut race Spam recreation until the 2nd objective deadline and lose career Or slot 4 speed cards, turn your brain off & Bakushin Bakushin Bakushinshin. There are players who focus on self-made achievements like grind 1 billion fans for their oshi, collect epithets, or pulling off the legendary feat of making Haru Urara win the Arima Kinen career race. It's not everyone's cup of tea, though. [Note: Haru Urara is a Dirt umamusume specialized in Sprint & Mile distances. Her final career objective requires participation in the Arima Kinen, where her Turf & Long aptitude is G (-90% Speed & Acceleration), which is basically a guaranteed loss, and then you'll watch this cheerful girl break down & cry for the first time. Many Torena-san consider winning the Arima Kinen with Haru Urara a legendary feat, because it requires not just parents with at least a total of 7★ Turf & 7★ Long sparks, but also luck in inheritance (she has low affinity with every single character), and luck in the race itself (You can't retry the race)] In the long term, not caring about PvP means you won't have much motivation to deep dive into the game's mechanics. The game essentially transforms into a high-quality visual novel with raising-sim elements where you mostly log in just to do dailies, and maybe eventually become a Cygames seasonal player. However, keep in mind that you still need to pull the characters in order to experience their career stories, and PvP accounts for a considerable amount of repeatable carat income. 5. When "Fun" becomes an excuse to silence criticism If you combine all the information, it's obvious that the game's trying to suck players into the PvP grind, then milk dedicated players & whales as hard as possible. But wait. It gets worse. Umamusume, like many idol and gacha franchises, is fundamentally built on fostering relationships with their characters. You read their backstories, help them through personal struggles, watch them cry when they lose, all while doing your best being the guiding light towards their success. Eventually you've followed the franchise for so long that it becomes part of your life. You can't image a day without getting pampered by Super Creek, squishing The Mun, or hearing Mejiro Ardan's alluring ASMR voice. Then, the "Glory to Cygames" meme erupts when the devs continue to hand out free pulls, or do something good to IRL horse racing, further reinforcing Tribalism. When players express their frustrations about the game (e.g. This tweet), it creates cognitive dissonance for the fans who are still having fun, acting as if criticizing the bad parts of the game is the equivalent of attempting to take their beloved horse girls away. The result is that oftentimes there'll be responses like "Umamusume isn't just PvP", "Try playing more casually", "You're expecting too high", "Just quit if you're not having fun". Yes, you can have fun with Umamusume in various ways. It's still a great franchise, after all. However, "fun" should never be used as a shield to deflect valid criticism. Game companies are not your friend. Blindly defending the game means you're implicitly allowing them to exploit you even futher for their shareholders' demands. You can love Umamusume, but the game & the real-life horses will never love you back. The accelerating powercreep, the QoL subscriptions (especially Uma Plan), and the barebones $45 spinoff with just 4 minigames called Party Dash, should be the warning shots for everyone. If Cygames can accelerate milking the game without major backlash, they'll do it. I recently watched a video ranking predatory gacha game monetization tactics. The #1 worst tactic wasn't FOMO or the Gacha system itself. It was Tribalism: passively training the community to defend the multi-million dollar corporation on its behalf. This phenomenon isn't unique to gacha games. The Destiny 2 community suffered from a similar divide, where casual players routinely shrugged off the complaints of hardcore veterans because they were having fun in different ways (reddit complaint for example). What used to be the king of looter shooters has gone downhill since The Final Shape expansion, from 250K+ players peak during expansion releases & average 50K~80K players daily to less than 10K players daily (Steam charts), due to Bungle's greed & incompetence. Here's a Video made by Aztecross, a veteran Destiny content creator, roasting D2's microtransactions. Closing Words Gacha games are predatory by nature, but many players usually tolerate it to a certain extent when the game is good. It seems like Cygames is testing how far they can cross that line without making players too angry. There's no VIP system at the moment, but considering that Cygames isn't shy about being P2W & is ramping up the monetization, who knows? The franchise is still a faithful adaptation of Japanese horse racing with great characters, stories, attention to details, anime, manga & music. so as a F2P you can still get some enjoyment out of it. Let the tryhards, whales beat each other & fund the game. Go buy some merch instead. Your Super Creek shrine will still be there long after the game went EoS. On the opposite site, the game is constantly trying to lure you into grinding PvP with lucarative rewards back-loaded into high achievements. Falling into PvP rabbit hole means you will have to deal with a tedious & repetitive grind with multiple layers of RNG, where the winners are those who not just whale the hardest, grind the hardest for those god roll umas & parents, but also blessed by RNG. On top of that, Cygames will not stop milking you through powercreep, PvP meta shifting, expensive packs & multiple subscriptions in typical JP gacha fashion. Generosity is an illusion. The freebies are just enough for survival. Thank you for coming to my UMA Talk. submitted by /u/xXinsertCoDGMtagXx to r/gachagaming [link] [comments]

I see a lot of folks asking which VA benefits are actually worth the headache of applying for, so I put together a tier list of the ones that actually move the needle. TIER S — The absolute ba doinka doinks VA Disability Compensation This is the single highest-value benefit, period. A single vet at 100% (P&T) is getting almost $4,000 a month tax-free right now. That's the equivalent of making over $60k a year at a normal job, for life, and it adjusts for inflation. Even 30% gets you a couple hundred bucks forever. Pro tip: use a VSO or an accredited agent to help file. Or honestly, just use AI to help you. Don't pay those unaccredited private claim shark companies, the VA is actively cracking down on them. By LAW, anyone assisting you with claims must be accredited by the VA (most of the time they are not), and the service MUST be free for the initial claim. If you want to verify whether someone is actually accredited, use the VA's OGC accreditation search. VA Home Loan (Chapter 37) Mathematically, this is arguably the best mortgage product in the country. Zero down, no PMI, and competitive rates. If you buy a house in a high-cost area, avoiding PMI and a down payment saves you six figures over the life of the loan. The real trick here is that it's reusable. You can sell and buy again, or even have two VA loans at once if you have remaining entitlement. Plus, if you have even a 10% rating, the funding fee is completely waived. You can get started here: https://www.benefits.va.gov/homeloans/ VR&E (Chapter 31) A lot of people sleep on Veteran Readiness & Employment. If you have a service-connected rating, VR&E pays for your degree/training, gives you a monthly housing stipend, and pays for books and supplies. The best part? They can approve expensive equipment like high-end laptops or specialized software if you can justify why you need it for your career track. Use this before you touch your GI Bill. By having 100% VA disability, and let us say going to a school in SF, you can make making over 100k a year, tax free, which is absolutely insane. Post-9/11 GI Bill (Chapter 33) Full tuition at any public school, plus a housing allowance (E-5 with dependents rate) and book stipend. If you did your time and transferred this to your spouse or kids before getting out, you just handed them generational wealth. A transferred GI Bill can easily be worth $200k+ by the time a kid uses it. 100% rating + Post 9/11 GI Bill via calculator (veteranhq.app) The difference between VRE and Post-9/11 GI Bill: In my opinion, VRE is objectively better. It has an unlimited funding cap, meaning it can be used for private institutions, meanwhile Post 9/11 does not. However, VRE is meant to make you employable due to your disability. Meaning, if you are already making 600k a year as a software engineer, chances of you getting approved for VRE is very slim. However, with Post 9-11, that is not the case. You are entitled to that whenever you wish to do so. VRE also takes a very long time to apply for, while post 9/11 is near instant. TIER A — Massive value, but situational VA Healthcare If you're rated at 50% or higher, pretty much everything is free — no premiums, no copays. Even if you have good insurance through your civilian job, get enrolled in VA healthcare anyway. It's a great backup, and getting in the system preserves your eligibility. Combat vets get care for life Priority Groups (VA.gov) PACT Act / Toxic Exposure If you deployed post-9/11, you almost certainly qualify for something here. Burn pit exposure, contaminated water, all of it. File now even if you feel fine — getting the exposure documented on your record makes everything easier later if something does come up. The presumptive conditions list got way bigger and claims are getting fast-tracked. This has filing deadlines though, so don't sit on it. State Property Tax Exemptions This varies wildly by state, but places like California, Texas, and Florida have massive property tax breaks for 100% disabled vets. In TX, a 100% rating can mean a full property tax exemption on your primary residence. That easily saves you $8k-$10k+ a year forever. Look up your specific state's laws. Edit ** Thank you to Whatever92592 and Ok-Intention-4593 for the correction! Texas property exemption (tax-office.traviscountytx.gov) SMC (Special Monthly Compensation) This is the secret menu above 100%. If you're housebound, need aid and attendance, or have a specific combo of disabilities, SMC can add anywhere from $129.87 to over $3,000 a month on top of your 100% pay. A lot of guys at 100% actually qualify for SMC-S (housebound) because they have one 100% condition and a mix of others totaling 60%, but they never apply for it. SMC Rates (veteranhq.app) CRDP / CRSC Only applies if you actually retired from the military, but it stops the VA from offsetting your retirement pay. CRDP eliminates the penalty if you're at 50%+, and CRSC does it for combat-related injuries at any rating. THIS IS HUGE IF YOU ARE IN THE GUARD. A lot of Guard/Reserve retirees hit 20 years, get a VA rating, and have no idea they qualify for this. TIER B — Great, but niche or lower dollar amounts DEA (Chapter 35) If you are 100% P&T, your spouse and kids each get up to 36 months of their own education benefits. This is totally separate from the GI Bill. A kid can theoretically stack this (sequentially, not concurrently) with a transferred GI Bill for a massive amount of schooling. CHAMPVA Also for 100% P&T. Basically free health insurance for your spouse and dependents if they aren't on TRICARE. Even if your spouse works and has private insurance, CHAMPVA can act as a secondary payer and wipe out the rest of the bill. VALife Guaranteed acceptance life insurance up to $40k for vets with service-connected disabilities. It's not the cheapest policy out there, but if your health conditions make you completely uninsurable on the civilian market, this is a lifesaver. Adaptive Housing Grants & Clothing Allowance If you have specific severe disabilities, the VA will straight up give you grant money (not a loan) to modify your house for accessibility. On the smaller end, if you wear a knee brace that ruins your jeans, or use skin creams that stain your shirts, you can get a yearly clothing allowance of about a grand. It's literally free money for filling out a one-page form. TIER C — Quality of life stuff Space-A Travel :Free flights on military aircraft if you're a retiree or 100% P&T. Unpredictable, but you can get to Europe or Hawaii for free if you're flexible. If you are a Military Retiree: You are authorized to fly Space-A globally, meaning you can take flights to foreign countries in Europe, Asia, etc. If you are a 100% P&T Veteran (non-retired): You are not authorized to fly Space-A to foreign countries (like Europe or Japan). You are strictly limited to the Continental U.S. (CONUS), Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. territories (like Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands) Edit* Thanks to Lazy_Helicopter2965 for precision. Space A flights (only for AD or 100% PT) Free National Parks Lifetime Pass : If you have any VA rating, you get a free lifetime pass to all US National Parks. Normally costs $80 a year. State Benefits & Military Discounts : Free hunting/fishing licenses, state park passes, the 10% at Home Depot/Lowe's, discounted cell phone plans. None of it will make you rich, but it adds up over time. Useful links if you don't want to dig through VA.gov for three hours: VA.gov — your main portal for everything VA OGC Accreditation Search — verify if a claims agent is actually accredited before you pay anyone VA Benefits Explorer — the VA's own tool for finding benefits by category VeteranHQ — benefit discovery/claims tracking Cost Plus Drugs — Mark Cuban's pharmacy, generics at actual cost. Not VA-specific but saves a ton on meds GoodRx — sometimes beats VA pharmacy prices on certain meds, always worth checking r/VeteransBenefits — honestly one of the best resources for claims strategy, the community there is incredibly knowledgeable Veteransbenefitskb.com — In depth knowledge base for all things benefits related. www.calvet.ca.gov — CalVet College Fee Waiver program waives mandatory system-wide tuition and fees at any California Community College, California State University (CSU), or University of California (UC) campus for eligible dependents of service-connected disabled or deceased veterans ((Thanks to Sugar_pine_mama for pointing this out!) www.amc.af.mil — Posting for flights for Space A if you qualify Bottom line: The VA system isn't going to hold your hand. The guys who get the most out of their benefits treat the process like a part-time job. Do your research, file for what you earned, appeal your denials, and get a good VSO to look over your paperwork. If I missed any hidden gems, drop them in the comments. Also feel free to share this. The more people that have knowledge, the better. V/R — A kind veteran. submitted by /u/PlanWeak to r/VAClaims [link] [comments]

Approx..lena bhi mushkil h.....puri calculation karni hi padegi ya koi trick h? submitted by /u/Legitimate_Union5716 to r/JEEAdv26dailyupdates [link] [comments]

Last night, I finally beat Ascension 10. I had four Snakebites in my deck. Honestly, I'd have taken a fifth. I've been avoiding this card for the same reason that everyone else has: too high cost, there are better poison cards, and having Retain on a card that deals poison damage just seems counterintuitive. But my deck was already too heavy on defensive cards when I was offered Snakebite alongside two other defensive cards, so I took it. But as I progressed past Act 1, I started to realise... isn't it kind of weird that this is the only Silent card that naturally has Retain? The consensus is that Well Laid Plans, a card that *gives* cards Retain, is great, so what was Mega Crit's intention with Snakebite? Then, as I continued to build my deck in Act 2, I think I figured out the answer: you're not supposed to play Snakebite for 2. You're supposed to retain it to enable other cards. Take Calculated Gamble and Prepared (RIP) for example. Obviously good cards, with one very tiny downside: they make your hand smaller. Prepared upgraded is draw 2, discard 2, but because you also *play* Prepared, your hand size goes down to 4 in the process. Having more cards retained offsets that, which lets you play... more Prepareds. Hand Trick is another obvious synergy. It adds Sly to a card, so Snakebite, a card that costs 2, is a great discard target once you use it. Tools of the Trade is another great synergy, because by making your starting hand bigger with a retained Snakebite, you'd have more options to choose from when Tools of the Trade activates at the start of your turn. But the number one best synergy I found was Flechettes. With 9 skills in hand (4 Snakebites + 1 retained Well Laid Plans card), this card hit 9 times for 63 damage. On one turn, I popped a Flex potion and did 108 damage with one Flechette. Plus, Envenom was active, so I also proc'd 18 poison at the same time. You could achieve the same result with some Backflips and Acrobatics, yes, but those cards cost 1. Plus, knowing that I'd retain any drawn Snakebites after using Backflip/Acrobatics took the decision-making out of playing power cards/block cards, because I knew that I was setting up a great turn afterwards. Does having some overlooked synergy with specific cards suddenly make Snakebite good? No, but I don't think it's Silent's worst card by a long shot. submitted by /u/LPCantLose to r/slaythespire [link] [comments]

Hi guys ik prolly yall are using the casio cg50 for your ib maths, and ive also been doing since the last 1.5 years, but now as finals are just round the corner, i have realised that there are a lot of hacks that i dont really know, which could come in very handy in AA hL paper 2 and paper 3... could yall please share yall's best tips and tricks or some hacks or like suggest some good yt video or channel so the calculator could actually be fucking useful than merely helping me do 19+2... ty in advance submitted by /u/Accurate_Scarcity283 to r/IBO [link] [comments]