Everyone Hates the Democrats By Dustin Guastella
Progressives and moderates accuse each other of being unable to appeal to working-class voters — and maybe they’re both right.
The Democratic Party may have recaptured the White House, but its crisis remains as deep as ever. Though Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by 7 million popular votes, his Electoral College victory came down to 42,000 ballots in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin. Democrats barely won the Senate, lost seats in the House, and were stonewalled at the state level — of the twelve legislative chambers Democrats had targeted there, they won zero.
Far from celebrating a landslide victory, with hopes of a national realignment on the way, Democrats found themselves once more engaged in a tense debate about the future of a party that seems incapable of decisively winning control of all branches of government.
On this question, the progressive and centrist wings of the party are more divided than ever. Conservative Blue Dog Democrats like Abigail Spanberger blame radical rhetoric for the party’s poor results in Congress: “we need to not ever use the words ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again. Because while people think it doesn’t matter, it does matter. And we lost good members because of it.” In response, our left-wing leaders like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez contend that the Democrats will fail to mobilize their most enthusiastic voters if big-ticket progressive ideas get dropped from the agenda. They argue that the party’s biggest liability was its unimaginative, uninspiring, and thoroughly orthodox economic conservatism. Joe Biden’s promise that “nothing will fundamentally change” might have won over some moderates disgusted with Trump, but it failed to inspire voters to elect a Democratic majority.
Meanwhile, despite losing a presidential reelection bid, many Republican leaders seem unconcerned with the results. After all, Trump managed to improve on his 2016 performance in nearly every demographic group, save college-educated voters and white men. Biden, however, failed to reverse the Democrats’ slow bleeding of working-class voters of all races, so much so that Republican senator Marco Rubio boasts that the GOP is now the party of the “multiracial working class.”
Democrats know they are in trouble, and most of them recognize the problem: their base is too narrow. It is too geographically metropolitan, too educated, and, increasingly, too wealthy. What Democrats most need, then, is a way to build a larger working-class coalition. And this, too, is the crux of the debate between progressive insurgents and establishment politicians: each wing of the party accuses the other of being unable to win working-class voters.
Maybe they’re both right.
The Progressive Archipelago
“Left but not woke” was how commentator David Frum once described Bernie Sanders. In his 2016 bid for the Democratic nomination, Sanders’s economic platform was decidedly ambitious and his rhetoric indisputably populist. In an era of small-government austerity and technocratic solutionism, Bernie often sounded like a New Deal dinosaur, blissfully unaware that history had ended in the 1990s, or that Democrats had become a party of right-thinking college graduates rather than blue-collar workers. He offered a worker-centered economic agenda, without the alienating cultural aesthetic that dominates liberal media and the universities.
No one can deny Sanders’s influence on the future of the US left. His platform has upended the policy consensus on Capitol Hill, and his talking points are now regularly imitated by down-ballot candidates across the country.
Yet many of his most outspoken disciples fail to embody his unique appeal. Instead of the single-minded focus on working-class issues, they often embrace the liberal culture war while peppering in some of Bernie’s popular programs. So, if Bernie is the progressive exception, then what is the rule?
Consider Elizabeth Warren’s campaign, which even the ultraliberal magazine the Atlantic chided for its “Excessive Wokeness.” Warren combined a popular economic agenda with an often awkward attempt at courting Teen Vogue–reading radicals. This approach was admired among activists, media commentators, and some professional-class voters, but almost no one else — especially not the oppressed groups she aimed to attract. Warren came in fourth among black voters in her home state.
Warren is far from unique, though, and the brand of politics she championed is certainly not dead — in deep blue districts, it might even be the norm. The members of the Squad — long thought to be the successors to the Sanders mantle — have welded Bernie’s economic agenda to activist demands like “defund the police” and political appeals that, whatever their merits, seem best at attracting the hyperliberal and highly literate.
Progressives and socialists are now pairing ambitious and urgently necessary proposals like Medicare for All with wildly unpopular and sometimes counterproductive policy positions. Further, progressives have embraced a racialized worldview that reduces whole populations to their skin color. “Woke” ideology has prevented many on the Left from grasping the possibility that a Mexican American may care more about health care than immigration, that a woman might be more motivated by economic promises than electing a first female president, or that Trump might be able to improve his vote share among working-class black voters.
Even the political style of the Left seems designed to turn away potential new recruits. Far from signaling a commitment to vital social causes, being “woke” has become synonymous with an embrace of niche cultural attitudes found only in highly educated urban districts and among Twitter users — 80 percent of whom are affluent millennials. The Sanders campaign attempted a break with the new online consensus when it rejected the fringe term “Latinx” in its historically successful efforts to court Latino voters. And while Sanders failed to win over infrequent, rural, and small-town voters, he recognized how important it was to craft a majoritarian message that could appeal to them.
It’s unlikely that younger progressive leaders will do the same. Standout representatives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib sit in districts teeming with young, liberal voters (each seat boasts a Democratic advantage of at least 29 percentage points). For urban progressive insurgents — who are cash poor and enthusiasm rich — the incentives are clear: “woke” messaging helps mobilize an activist volunteer base that allows these candidates to overcome their financial weaknesses vis-à-vis established incumbents, and since these districts are so uniformly Democratic, they need not worry about appealing to a broader group in a general election. But even as these progressives have marooned themselves on isolated blue urban islands, they insist more than ever on defining the terms of national debate. And thanks to their unusually strong access to media, they’ve been quite successful at this.
The political problem here is not the moral motivation behind the “Great Awokening” — there is no doubt that progressive Democrats have the best of intentions. The problem is the way in which that moral conviction is expressed, and by whom. Party insurgents today reflect the sensibilities and interests of a constituency that looks and sounds nothing like the kinds of voters the Left desperately needs to win.
After all, professional-class progressives only make up about 13 percent of the electorate, and they almost never vote for anyone other than Democrats. Alternatively, as Peter Hall and Georgina Evans show, about 22 percent of voters dislike cosmopolitan and increasingly out-of-touch liberal cultural appeals but believe in a progressive economic agenda — and these voters are largely working class. Winning the loyalty of the majority of working people in this country will require breaking out of the existing liberal fortresses and appealing to workers across our massive continental democracy. But pairing a popular economic program with alienating rhetoric, chic activist demands, and identity-based group appeals only weakens the possibility of doing so.
Blue Dog Blues
If progressives are trapped by an unpopular political style, many Democratic leaders have carefully distanced themselves from it. You didn’t catch Amy Klobuchar gushing about new activist campaigns. And Biden didn’t bother to even flirt with woke posturing and academic invocations of “intersectionality” the way that Hillary Clinton did in 2016.
Biden presented himself as a reliable and likable moderate — someone to steady the ship after Trump’s rocky tenure and the insurgent challenge of the Sanders campaign. And, since the election, establishment figures have seized on every opportunity to tie Bernie’s popular economic agenda to the more controversial ideas championed by some of his supporters. Spanberger chided the Left to “never say defund the police again,” but the congresswoman was careful to tie the slogan to “socialism” and other more popular economic policies. (Bernie himself never embraced “defunding the police,” and instead argued consistently for better training and more accountability.) Similarly, Representative James Clyburn insisted that the “defund” slogan was as much a liability for Democrats as Medicare for All. Progressives, therefore, have made it easy for moderates to attack an appealing left-wing economic program by simply associating it with the most unpopular pillars of the progressive agenda. In contrast, centrist Democrats and conservative “Blue Dogs” have combined moderate rhetoric with a mostly orthodox economic program. Their charge to the Left is to “grow up.” To win seats, they argue, drop the socialism. But while Spanberger squeaked out a victory in Virginia’s rural heartland, dropping socialism — or even attacking it at every turn — hasn’t prevented her fellow Blue Dogs from becoming a nearly extinct political breed. The conservative Democratic caucus has only twenty-six members in the House, down from fifty-six under Barack Obama. As alienating as woke rhetoric is, a politics that does nothing to address wage stagnation and general economic and social decline isn’t winning many over either.
It’s undeniable that Democrats in rural areas face steeper challenges than their urban and suburban counterparts, but curiously, two outstanding victories for swing-district small-town Democrats were Matt Cartwright in perennially purple Pennsylvania and Peter DeFazio in Oregon. Both are Medicare for All cosponsors; both held on to their seats even as at least seven more Blue Dogs went down to defeat. It should be plain that Spanberger’s rage at progressives is at least as much an expression of frustration that the Blue Dog formula also seems to be failing.
The establishment may credibly argue that hyperliberalism is an electoral liability for the whole Democratic brand, undermining House members who have never claimed any activist bona fides. But what do these Democrats make of the equally credible argument that policies like government health insurance and a $15 minimum wage are widely supported even in districts that make Spanberger’s look liberal?
Mainstream Democrats are fundamentally unwilling to renew their commitment to the New Deal ethos of social programs and union rights. Consequently, they are unwilling to rebuild the kind of electoral coalition that brought them a half-century of political supremacy.
Worse, the Clintonite commitment to economic “modernization” has led the party to a political disaster. The promise was that manufacturing job losses would be offset by widespread economic prosperity, built on Silicon Valley magic and the financial sector’s charge-card plastic. The reality was that the elite economic consensus — tax cuts and balanced budgets — resulted in unparalleled economic decline in midwestern “blue wall” states. Disastrous trade agreements only helped accelerate the depression of wages and the inflation of despair in hollowed-out old factory towns and cities. History will judge the Democrats’ passage of NAFTA as nothing less than the first signature on their own death certificate.
For the Democrats to win back their New Deal (or even Obama-era) constituency, they need to credibly appeal to the economic interests of working people. Unfortunately, moderates in the party are unwilling to offer workers much more than a wry smile and a charming affect. Progressives, meanwhile, do promise real solutions — but only after they drench those appeals in a cultural style born in universities that most people will never attend. The effect in both cases is the same: Workers stay home. And the Democrats lose more and more of the country.
Listen to Workers
One way of looking at the past twelve years of American politics is to say that, in both 2008 and 2016, workers voted for the “change” candidate. They voted for perceived outsiders, and they voted against Washington. Both Barack Obama and Donald Trump argued that, through their personal charisma and skill, they could save workers. In both campaigns, workers voted for a candidate who promised to take on elites, renegotiate NAFTA, rebuild our education system, and stem the poverty, disease, and violence that plague so many American neighborhoods.
For over a decade now, the electorate has been screaming at the political class that something must be done and that the government must change course. But the government, under both Obama and Trump, largely ignored them. Nothing significant has changed in these last twelve years. Congress remains in a permanent state of dysfunction.
Meanwhile, the issues workers most prioritize are an afterthought in the media and among the political class. The domination of American politics by the affluent and the educated has led to a dramatic rift in the public sphere and a deep cleavage between rural and urban workers and those with and without a college degree. Within the Democratic coalition, in particular, the gap between workers and professionals has grown wide. In fact, the difference in priorities seems at least as significant as the self-identified ideological divide between the establishment and progressives.
According to a report from the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group, Democratic-leaning working-class voters ranked their top five issues as follows: health care, social security, Medicare, the economy, and jobs. But liberal professionals listed theirs as: environment, climate change, health care, education, and racial equality. By comparing rankings, we can see great chasms between groups: While crime was listed sixth for workers, professionals’ concerns about crime placed way down in position seventeen. And while workers listed the economy as their number-four concern, professionals saw it as twelfth in line. For professionals, climate change was a top issue in this election — for workers, it didn’t even break the top ten.
Across the board, professionals insist on issues far from the kitchen table, while workers vote almost entirely on direct economic concerns. The Democratic strategy of consolidating their urban and suburban electorate has only resulted in a deepening embrace of issues that narrowly reflect the interests of that constituency. After all, if your party is courting wealthy, mostly white, professional-class voters, you will pitch campaigns designed to attract those voters.
What’s more striking is that — though progressives insist on going much further than centrists on any given policy — the white-collar priorities of both wings of the party were represented in Biden’s campaign. In his victory speech, Biden reiterated his ultimate intentions:

To marshal the forces of science and the forces of hope in the great battles of our time. The battle to control the virus. The battle to build prosperity. The battle to secure your family’s health care. The battle to achieve racial justice and root out systemic racism in this country. The battle to save the climate. The battle to restore decency, defend democracy, and give everybody in this country a fair shot.

Notice that, of the top-priority issues for Democratic working-class voters, only health care was explicitly referred to — coincidentally, it is also a top issue for professionals. If you understand nothing else about American politics, understanding that professional-class issues dominate Democratic appeals will help you make a great deal more sense of the world than incessantly scratching your head during every election cycle about just why it is that workers keep “voting against their interests.”
The fact is, neither workers nor their interests are even on the menu.
A Progressive or Blue-Collar Congress?
The consequences of neglecting workers’ interests are clear: Washington will remain dysfunctional. On the one hand, in order to reverse the bleeding of working class voters — especially in rural areas and small-towns — the federal government must act decisively to reverse the economic decline wrought by decades of reckless shortsighted policy making. On the other hand, until and unless progressive forces figure out how to win outside of large urban areas, the Left will remain legislatively impotent. Centrism is a dead end that promises nothing but razor-thin victories, divided government, and an ever-shrinking share of working-class votes. But getting “woke” also means alienating most voters — of all colors — and handing the Republicans easy layup victories at the polls. Still, it will probably take more than a rhetorical adjustment to regain the confidence of working people. Struggling Americans want jobs, health care, decent schools, safe neighborhoods, and somebody — anybody — in Washington to listen. But why would they listen? Democrats today represent the richest House districts in the country, and Republicans consistently send the wealthiest individuals to Washington. The median income in Congress is 500 percent greater than that of the nation at large — half of our federal legislators are millionaires.
Congress is richer than ever, yet both parties have gloated about their success in “diversifying” the chambers: today, 24 percent of lawmakers are women, 22 percent are racial or ethnic minorities, and more than 5 percent are of foreign birth.
Only 2 percent come from a working-class background.
The case for increasing the representation of minorities and women in Congress has rightly been accepted as both morally correct and politically effective. Yet, in recent memory, there has never been a forceful case for improving the representation of workers. But this is exactly what must happen if we are to avoid the two dead ends of centrism and hyper-liberalism examined above.
Depending on your definition, “the working class” makes up between 55 and 70 percent of the country. The vast majority of this group shares a great deal in common politically, but in our broader political culture, working people are more often expected to sort themselves into groups euphemistically called “communities” than they are encouraged to think of themselves as part of a class. What’s more, workers almost never get to vote for other workers on the basis of their shared experiences, aspirations, and interests as workers.
On almost all major economic questions, lawmakers from blue-collar backgrounds are reliably more progressive than their white-collar counterparts. Working-class legislators are also more likely to come from the districts they are seeking to represent, more likely to come from oppressed groups, and more likely to sound like and speak to the discrete interests of their potential voters. In other words, there is no good reason not to run working people for Congress. There is only one very bad reason, and that is the fact that many progressives, moderates, and conservatives alike plainly think working people are stupid and culturally backward. As a result, no one asks them, or creates the material conditions that allows them, to run.
Political scientist and author of The Cash Ceiling Nicholas Carnes credits this fact as one major reason working people do not run for office. Democratic socialists have a special responsibility to change this — what does workers’ government mean if not workers in government? Doing so would also help us avoid many of the problems outlined here and potentially allow progressives to break out of their blue bubbles.
The good news is that representatives Mark Pocan, a longtime member of the painters’ union, and Donald Norcross, the House’s only electrician, have recently announced a new labor caucus in Congress that could provide a means for doing just that. The caucus seeks to advance the interests of organized and unorganized workers alike. Presumably, it will also endeavor to increase the representation of workers in Congress. If these labor legislators can develop a serious program for the recruitment of workers to run for office, financed by local union PAC contributions and buttressed by big volunteer get-out-the-vote campaigns — especially in the small-town and rural districts where liberals struggle — they could provide a path out of the morass. In Norcross’s home state, the New Jersey AFL-CIO’s Labor Candidates Program has to date secured more than a thousand election victories for unionists and could serve as a model for candidate training and campaign development. In close connection with the congressional Labor Caucus, such local efforts could help develop the political arm of the labor movement while also exciting rank-and-file members who are more likely to mobilize and support their union sisters and brothers than they are any Johnny-come-lately Democrat who only shows up at election time.
For the Left, pivoting toward recruiting worker candidates and retooling a campaign message to speak primarily to the economic interests of wage workers — in rural and urban districts alike — is a function of will. Progressive leaders in Congress are not tied down by corporate donations or deals with party elites that would prevent such a change in direction. And left-leaning Democratic and independent voters are overwhelmingly in favor of the kinds of pro-worker legislation that trade-union candidates might put forward.
Of course, there is no guarantee that working-class candidates armed with a bold economic agenda will break the powerful geographic bias against the Left. At best, the strategy offers only a slow and uneven advance. But it is also true that we have no chance to deliver the reforms we hope to see with a constituency made up of high-earning and highly educated liberals.
Until then, the Democrats will remain the party everyone loves to hate.

Log Horizon season 3 is about to start, and if you're like me you do not at all remember everything that happened in seasons 1 and 2. Well, I didn't want to risk getting spoiled from reading wikis, so I binge-rewatched the first two seasons this past weekend and took a ton of notes so I can share with anyone else needing a reminder or ten.
 
This is certified 100% anime-only content meant specifically for anime viewers. I haven't even glanced at the light novels or wiki. Fans who have read the novels, this is NOT the place for you to chime in with "clarifications" and "by the ways". This place is for anime-only viewers, most of whom do not want to know the slightest bit of what happens next so we can experience it ourselves. I and the people in this thread do not give a rat-man's ass about some novel exposition from volume 2 that the anime skipped over in season 1 - go make your own thread if you are compelled to share that information.
 
This post is almost certainly going to hit the character limit, so I'm not going to summarize every major character or every plotline from the first two seasons. I could never hope to outline every major character's arc and development over 50 episodes in that few characters. Instead, I am only going to focus on the rules of the world and the plotlines that were still ongoing/unresolved at the end of season 2 - in other words, what I think you may need to know heading into season 3. Even if you don't remember them well, I'm sure you'll pick up the interdynamics of all these goofballs well enough just from seeing them in action again.

Poster Characters

Basics

• Elder Tale was a MMORPG that a bunch of people played. One day, everyone who was logged on got transported into a world that resembles the game. This event is now known as The Apocalypse.
• Elder Tale's setting was called Theldesia. Geographically, it is the same land/ocean layout as the real Earth, but half as large.
• When it was just a MMORPG, the game had 13 different servers, separated by region. If your character was in Theldesia's equivalent of Japan, you'd be playing on the Japanese server, and in order to travel to Theldesia's equivalent of Australia you'd have to switch to the Australian server. Most players played on the server corresponding to their region.
• A 14th server, called Mare Tranquillitatis, also existed - it was a beta-testing server used for experimentation and testing features before they rolled out. Some players had access to it. Its geographical region is... the Moon.
• The series has so far taken place entirely in the Theldesia equivalent of Japan, which is called Yamato or The Yamato Islands, and particularly in the city of Akiba (aka Akihabira) which is located approximately where Tokyo would be.
• The Elder Tale MMORPG ran for 20 years in real-life before The Apocalypse happened.
• Post-Apocalypse, the history of Theldesia has a ratio of 12:1 for events that happened in Theldesia vs in the real world. An event that happened in the 10th (real-life) year of Elder Tale's run happened 120 years ago in Theldesia history. This means that some Adventurers who had created their accounts and done notable things in earlier years of the Elder Tale game are now characters that are known to be over a 100 years old within the history of Theldesia.
• When people and monsters in Theldisia die, their corpses turn into bubbles/particles after a short time.
• The Apocalypse happened on the same day that the 12th expansion for Elder Tale was launching. This new expansion - called The Novasphere Pioneers - increased the level cap for players from 90 to 100, and was to include many new raid bosses and other content. Because of timezones, only the Japanese server had the expansion applied at the time The Apocalypse occured.
• As of the end of season 2, it has been about 1 year in Theldesia since The Apocalypse.

Populations of Theldesia

Adventurers

• Adventurers is the collective name of player characters in Elder Tale, turned special folks trapped in Theldesia after The Apocalypse.
• Adventurers can be any of a bunch of different races - humans, dwarves, cat-people, fox-people, wolf-people, and more. They have classes, special skills, and all sorts of MMORPG staples, and typically can improve all these things beyond any other population in Theldesia.
• Adventurers have a "friends list" which they can add each other to. They can make long-distance voice calls to anyone on their friends list - they refer to this as Telepathy.
• Adventurers can also talk psychically to other adventurers they have formed a party or a raid team with. Note that this is a separate ability than Telepathy, so effects that block Telepathy from working won't necessarily also prevent party/raid chat.
• When an Adventurer dies, they reappear at a Cathedral or another respawn point nearby (e.g. if in a raid zone they respawn at its entrance) after some time (anywhere from minutes to half a day).
• In-between dying and reappearing, they have surreal experiences based on moments from their life before The Apocalypse, during which they must mentally confront the failures that lead to them dying. Once they've finished that, they appear on a beach on the moon (Mare Tranquillitatis) with the world (presumably Theldesia, though it could be the actual Earth I suppose) hovering overhead. There, the Adventurer must sacrifice a piece of themself (eventually confirmed to be a memory from their life before The Apocalypse) to return. When they wake up, they retain only the vaguest memory of this ritual or none at all. (See S2E6 for an example.)
  
• Adventurers mostly live in Adventurer Cities - cities that have special buildings like guild halls, banks, and Cathedrals, and which are populated mostly by Adventurers but with many supporting People of the Land living there, too. Most or all of the Adventurer Cities in Yamato and many of their surroundings have a post-apocalyptic aesthetic, full of overgrown abandoned modern structures like highways, parking garages, and broken-down cars. There are 5 Adventurer Cities in Yamato:
  
• Akiba (aka Akihabara) - Situated where Tokyo would be in real life. This is the primary setting of the series. Governed relatively liberally by the Round Table, a group of the most influential guilds.
  
• Shibuya - An incomplete Adventurer city with no guild hall very near to Akiba. All the adventurers who were there have gone to Akiba so it is empty.
  
• Susukino - Northern city in the real-life equivalent of Hokkaido. It started out as a violent city run by oppressive guilds. Akiba sent forces up there several times to let anyone who wants to leave it and come to Akiba, so only a couple hundred Adventurers remain there. The Akiba guild Silver Sword ended up moving there and taking it over, which made it less violent and lawless than before.
  
• Minami - Situated to the west, vaguely where real-life Osaka would be. Governed autocratically by the guild Plant Hwyaden.
  
• Nakasu - Even farther to the west. Very little is known about it.
  

Monsters

• Monsters are hostile wild animals - things like angry giant plants, wild felines that attack in forests, etc. They are aggressive, have stats and levels and special skills, but are of similar intelligence to animals. They haunt certain areas, and when they die eventually replacements respawn there.
• After they are killed and their bodies dissipate they "drop" ingredient/crafting items and gold coins.
• Most Adventurer Cities, People of the Land cities, and some People of the Land villages have a "no monster" effect/barrier that prevents monsters from entering into them. Large-scale events like the goblin nation invading Eastal are probably not prevented by this.

Demi-Humans

• Demi-Humans are a special type of monsters that includes species like goblins, giants, fishmen, and other usually-humanoid hostile creatures. Unlike other monsters, they have actual social structures, use weaponary, and seem to be at least semi-sentient.
• Miscellaneous demi-humans can be found in the wild like monsters, but larger populations of them also occupy significant portions of territory - e.g. there is an area of Yamato full of goblin tribes that live in their own society and where People of the Land are not present. These areas can have complex social structures.
• Similar to monsters, demi-humans magically spawn/respawn in their lands. Since they have some intelligence but are difficult to research, it's unclear whether this is new individuals spawning or whether they are actually respawning with intact personalities in a similar manner to Adventurers.

People of the Land

• People of the Land are what were NPCs back when it was a MMORPG. In the game they just had simple NPC patterns, always saying the same things and doing the same basic tasks, but since The Apocalypse they are now fully sentient humanoids with their own lives, backstories, generations, politics, culture, etc. The People of the Land greatly outnumber the Adventurers - for every Adventurer City there are another dozen or more "regular" cities full of People of the Land and a bajillion towns and farms spread across the countryside.
• People die when they are killed.
• Revival spells on a recently-dead Person of the Land slows down how fast their body disperses but doesn't prevent it.
• The People of the Land in eastern Yamato (the area around Akiba) are socially structured as European-style feudal nobility, with each city and its surroundings ruled by a Baron and a patrilineal Duke as overall ruler of the area, or something like that. They have their own knights, armies, academia, etc.
• Named NPCs would have lasted in the game for the whole 20 years that it ran before The Apocalypse, and with the timeline acceleration mentioned earlier that would make some of them a hundred years old or more, but it seems The Apocalypse retconned this and where necessary the names of characters the required continuation became titles passed from teacher to student, and so on. The People of the Land don't seem aware of any incongruities there.
• People of the Land can learn skills, have classes, and other things that Adventurers can do, but they learn them much more slowly and generally have a lower "cap" on their level or abilities than Adventurers.
• While People of the Land are less powerful than Adventurers, in some special cases they can have access to equipment that puts them on par or beyond the abilities of Adventurers. Of particular note, the Royal Guard (aka Defenders) are People of the Land who keep the peace in the no-combat-zones of Adventurer Cities - they have special armour that massively buffs their physical abilities and makes them able to teleport around the city.

Ancients:

• Ancients (aka Progenitors) are a special class of People of the Land that are much more powerful than usual - even more powerful than maxed out Adventurers. In the MMORPG, these were mainly for two roles - legendary NPC characters tied to a particular quest, and the 13 Knight Orders. Only one Knight Order has been named in the anime - the Knights of Izumo that defended Yamato (since there are 13 regional servers, presumably there is one Knight Order per server). The Knights of Izumo suddenly disappeared around the time of The Apocalypse.

The Kunie Clan:

• The Kunie Clan are a special group of People of the Land that manage all the banking and financial systems of Theldesia. They are of some mysterious other humanoid race that look similar but not quite the same as humans or elves, and they seem to all be almost identical (plus many or all of them seem to go by the same name, Kinjō, making them even harder to tell apart).
• They can be found at the guild halls or banks of Adventurer Cities and similar places, but they also have secretive villages where they originate from that Adventurers and most People of the Land do not know about.
• The Kunie Clan are not necessarily the actual cause, but are at least somehow involved with the world's supply of gold and how it gets distributed to monsters/demi-humans when they spawn. This includes access to the giant lake of gold coins that reside deep below the Depths of Palm and which serves as the world's main vault to store coins before they teleport to monsters and demi-humans.
• They are also involved with many other "fundamental" aspects of the world, especially operating and managing ancient magical technology. For example, they can deactivate and reactivate the magic circles beneath Adventurer Cities which power the anti-monster barriers and Guard armour within the cities.

Instincts, Progress, & Innovation

When Elder Tale was a game, players were limited in what they could achieve by the limitations of built-in character animations, feats needing to have been pre-programmed as skills, and the game interface itself. Following The Apocalypse, the Adventurers in Theldesia still have access to the game interface and can still do everything the old way... but they don't have to. A magical leaping sword strike formerly activated by pushing a button can now also be activated by doing the same motions and thinking about using that skill. In fact, the latter option is better - the Adventurer can control and manipulate the skill with greater control and precision than the rote motions that result from doing it through the menu.
Just as this applies to combat skills, so it goes for the rest of the world:

Food and Crafting

Combining ingredient items through the in-game interface according to a pre-programmed recipe makes food that looks correct and does nourish the body, but has no distinct taste or smell. But, if a player with the chef sub-class actually combines and prepares the ingredients by hand, it makes real food. More complex and difficult recipes require finer ingredients and a higher level in the cooking skill or they still end up turning to mush.
Similarly, Adventurers with crafting sub-classes and skills can make superior, more refined, and more varied designs if they go through the process by-hand rather than using the crafting menu.

Innovation

Adventurers with the skill and ingenuity to create and craft things by-hand rather than using the menus are also not bound by the finite list of recipes and inventions that were programmed into Elder Tale. They can combine basics in all sorts of new ways not seen before. Soon after The Apocalypse, clever Adventurers developed basic steam engines and the rate of invention has been rapid ever since - less than a year later, someone has mixed magic and technology together to create a magitech hover train.
These changes have had a far-reaching effect on the societies and economies of Theldesia. Facets of Adventurer culture such as their food and clothing have been swiftly embraced by the People of the Land and Adventurer economies have largely shifted away from quest-like tasks such as raids or guarding a People of the Land caravan to their own Adventurer industries, which has fractured the traditional Adventurer-People of the Land relationship and lead to many unforeseen consequences, such as an attempted goblin invasion.

Teachings

Teachings (aka Overskills) are supposed new skills achieved by some Adventurers that were not possible back when it was a game. They are commonly perceived as being a higher-tier version of commonly known skills or powerful new abilities.
In actuality, Teachings are just (a) unorthodox applications of existing skills, or (b) instincts gained from becoming more in-touch with the world and losing the mentality of it being a game. E.g. Nazuna figured out that she can use the protective barriers she normally cast on other people as airborne platforms she can climb/jump on instead. Adventurers tend to
 

"The Apocalypse is not over yet"

As Shiroe comments, the natural laws of the world post-Apocalypse are altogether a confused mish-mash of Elder Tale game mechanics with real-world logic. Gradually, however, these two separate systems are starting to merge. Some known examples are:

• Initially, an Adventurer needed to have the chef sub-class in order to be able to make any real food - even if a non-chef Adventurer prepared the ingredients perfectly, it would still turn to mush. After some time, though, anyone can now make basic recipes and the chef sub-class (plus leveled up cooking skill) is only needed for intermediate and harder recipes. Likewise for any other sort of crafting.
• Adventurers whose Elder Tale avatar had a different body than their real body got stuck in their avatar's body, but retained their original voice. Over time, their voices are becoming more like what their body's physical vocal cords would naturally sound like.
• The size of the world is slowly increasing, presumably until it becomes the same scale as the real Earth.
• Objects had all sorts of associated flavour text in Elder Tale. They still have this flavour text in Theledisia after The Apocalypse, but it is just that - two objects with the same stats but different flavour text behave identically. After many months, though, the flavour text of some objects started coming true.

 

The Debauchery Tea Party

• The Tea Party was a group of 15~30 Adventurers on the Japan server that frequently partied together in Elder Tale, many years before The Apocalypse. They were known for pulling off a number of incredible feats in the game, and generally had a more loose and fun tone than other groups since they weren't a structured Guild.
• The Tea Party disbanded several years before The Apocalypse and many of its members moved on to other things. Some members joined or started guilds, while conversely many others had not logged in for years by the time of The Apocalypse.
• Almost immediately after The Apocalypse, Shiroe checked his friends list to see who else that he knew was online/trapped in Theledesia, so he should have a pretty good idea of which members are/aren't in the world, but we the audience didn't get an exact list. Currently we know of 9 former Tea Partiers who are in Theledisia...

In Akiba:

• Shiroe, Naotsugu, and Nyanta partied together in Theldesia and eventually formed Log Horizon.
• Back when the Tea Party disbanded, Sōjiro, Kazuna, and Saki created a guild called the West Wind Brigade, with Sōjiro as guild-master. Saki wasn't logged in at the time of The Apocalypse.

In Minami:

• Intix is the #2 seat on the Council of Ten of Plant Hwyaden and therefore 2nd in command of Plant Hwyaden behind only Nureha. She seems like a real big jerk and is part of the faction there that wants war and total dictatorial control of Yamato. Up until the end of season 2, it seems she was emotionally abusing Nureha to get her way within Plant Hwyaden. (I don't think they ever actually specifically said Intix was in the Tea Party, but from the way she's shown with them in the OP and how Kazuhiko/KR talk about her it's 99% certain.)
• Kazuhiko is also on the Council of Ten of Plant Hwyaden. He seems to be fairly disgruntled with the way things have been going over at Plant Hwyaden, but is hoping to change it from within. He's kind of a jerk about it, though. He and Shiroe have been occasionally in contact with each other and have been sharing some info.
• KR is on the Council of Ten of Plant Hwyaden. He's very carefree, but seems like a good guy overall - like Kazuhiko he doesn't necessarily approve of the way Plant Hwyaden is running things or their desire to go to war with Eastal and Akiba. KR is a summoner with a skill to possess creatures over vast distances - at some point he possessed a horse in the China serveregion to scout out what things were like over there and while traveling around in China he encountered Kanami's party. And he can summon a giant fucking dragon that solos raid bosses. He only told Kazuhiko about his journeys in China, not Intix or the rest of the Council.

Elsewhere:

• Kanami was the leader of the Tea Party for most of its run, but she moved to Rome a few years before The Apocalypse and stopped playing the game at that time. During that time she had a daughter. Eventually, she got back into Elder Tale, creating a new account on one of the European servers, and she got trapped by The Apocalypse, too. Since the Novasphere Pioneers expansion pack content had only been loaded on the Japan server and figuring it was related to The Apocalypse, Kanami started journeying from Theldesia's Europe counterpart all the way to Yamato. Also in her party are a teenage mutant ninja frog, a farming bot that may have gained sentience, and an Ancient.

Unresolved Plots & Mysteries

Regan, New Magic and the World Fractions:

• Regan (aka Li Gan) is a mysterious guy who has shown up a few times and gradually become an ally of Shiroe. He was first encountered when Shiroe et al went to a conference with the People of the Land nobles. He seems to be a Person of the Land, but I don't think that was ever actually confirmed. If he is, he's an extraordinarily knowledgeable one, possibly on par with the Kunie Clan. He's a shady guy who may have a hidden agenda.
• He has the title Sage of Miral Lake, a name that was associated with a lot of lore in the game before The Apocalypse but (as far as we/Shiroe know) not a character anyone ever encountered. He says it is a title passed down to him from his teacher, the previous Sage of Miral Lake.
• Regan's main interest of research is magic that is on the scale of altering the entire world, something that he says has only happened 3 times so far in events he calls the World Fractions - the creation of monsters/demi-humans, the arrival of the first Adventurers (240 years ago), and The Apocalypse.
• Since each World Fraction was an unprecedented form of magic, he is intensely interested in the creation of new forms of magic that did not exist prior. Shiroe's Contract Magic which turned Rudy into an Adventurer was one such new magic, and one that Regan thinks could some day be world-altering. Around the same time, Regan says he felt another brand new form of magic with similar potential happin in the west.

Death and Resurrection

• Regan and his predecessors were researching a so-called Spirit Theory about how death and resurrections work. His theory posits that people (Adventurers, People of the Land, and Demi-Humans) are divided into anima (physical attributes, correlated with HP) and psyche (mental attributes, correlated with MP). The psyche and the anima are each required for a person to persist - when people take too great of an injury their anima is too damaged to persist to it dissipates; the healthy psyche stuck inside the body dies when there's no anima to support it.
• Since when people die in Theldesia their bodies turn into bubbles/particles, that is their anima dissipating. If the psyche is intact, revival spells can pull those dissipated bits of anima back to the rest of the body and put them back into place (up until the point where the body has completely dissipated). But if the psyche is also destroyed, there is no mind to reassemble the anima as it once was.
• For Adventurers (and possibly demi-humans), their dissipated anima particles all travel to their respawn point, so their psyche can still reassemble them there. For People of the Land, the dissipated anima just scatters in all directions, so even a healthy psyche can't do reassemble them and dies.
• However, the reassembly can't be perfect... some energy must be expended for the process. And since the anima seems to be reasembled perfectly, Regan and Shiroe theorized that some psyche must be lost - in other words, the person loses some of their memories. (See S1:E14 for the full spiel)
• When Shiroe shared this with the Council, Krusty was able to confirm that this is indeed the case, and further suggested that it seemed like memories of their lives from before The Apocalypse might specifically be targeted. (After a particular death, Krusty could no longer remember the name or appearance of a cat he owned.)
• Regan implied the Ancients had different spirits than ordinary People of the Earth and that this could be significant.
• Shiroe and Akatsuki eventually remembered the experience of being on the moon between death and revival. We don't have a lot of comparison points as no one talks about it much, but it sure seemed like Adventurers always forget that in-between experience once they woke up (Akatsuki herself when she revives seems to remember it for a moment and then quite specifically forget it).
• (Continued in the Navigators section)

Enemies in the West

• To the west of Akiba and Eastal are three People of the Land nations - the Westelande Empire, the Ninetail Dominions, and the Fourland Dukedom - and within those are two Adventurer Cities - Minami and Nakasu.
• Following The Apocalypse, a guild called Plant Hwyaden lead by Nureha took over Minami by conning money out of the People of the Land nobility and buying the Cathedral, then forcing all Adventurers to join Plant Hwyaden through the threat of controlling the respawn building. Plant Hwyaden now rules Minami and its environs autocratically, and is much more integrated with the People of the Land nation, the Westelandian Empire, than Akiba is with Eastal. Their combined government is run by an organization called the Council of Ten Seats - Nureha and her nine advisors/ministers, which includes some people of the land.
• Nureha herself is a somewhat emotionally unstable person and she occasionally runs off on her own private journeys, so the much of the actual policy-making has been driven by Intix and Mizufa, the bloodthirsty Westelandian army general.
• Ever since establishing control, Plant Hwyaden have made efforts to suppress information about the west making it to the east. This isn't outright possible, as plenty of Adventurers in Akiba have friends in Minami, but it has overall made it more difficult for Shiroe and the Round Table to gather detailed information about Plant Hwyaden's capabilities and motives.
• Likewise, the presence of spies from Minami in Akiba has lead to the Round Table waging their own information warfare, trying to keep their own secrets and knowledge of their operations out of the hands of Plant Hwyaden.
• Nureha herself came to Eastal, disguising herself as a People of the Land chronicler named Dariella. She was seen suspiciously visiting various various places in the east, and then eventually met up with Shiroe, who saw through the disguise. Revealing herself as Nureha, she encouraged Shiroe to join Plant Hwyaden so they wouldn't have to be enemies, but Shiroe declined. Apparently she knew Shiroe in the game before The Apocalypse and is somewhat obsessed with him now, but Shiroe doesn't remember her at all, and furthermore it's clear that Nureha lies a lot so who knows how much of this is true.
• Recently, factions within Plant Hwyaden - especially Intix and Mizufa - want to go to war against Eastal and Akiba. They have been power-leveling their People of the Land soldiers (using a disturbing magitech system wherein People of the Land control spirit monsters), built a giant hover train base, and have been making other preparations.
• They sent a small expeditionary force to the border of Eastal which caused a bit of havoc in some towns, but Kazuhiko and Nureha made them withdraw.
• The threat of all-out war or a smaller, more focused attack by a faction within Plant Hwyaden still looms large. Nureha seems to be taking a more active role in government and standing up to Intix now, but that doesn't mean she has full control or even that she wouldn't order an attack herself.

The Disappearance of Krusty Suzumiya

• Krusty is the guild leader of D.D.D., one of the most important guilds in Akiba.
• When flavour texts started becoming real, the scythe (which admittedly had some pretty evil flavour text) of Krusty's lieutent, Takayama Misa, one night suddenly flew up into the sky and show a giant red beam of pain around her. Krusty pushed her out of it and got caught in it himself. Then the beam disappeared, Krusty and Misa's arm vanishing with it.
• For the longest time no one knew what had happened to Krusty. He did not respawn, could not be reached by Telepathy, and Misa's arm couldn't be healed or revived either.
• At the very end of season 2, they discovered that Krusty is in China with Kanami.
• He still has Misa's arm with him. And it is twitching (ew).

Ennui & Social Safety Nets

• Living as an Adventurer is easy. Slaying a couple low-level monsters every few days gives more than enough gold coins to buy food and a bed. Throughout their time since The Apocalypse, the leaders of Akiba have struggled to keep its culture and economy engaging so that its people will have motivation and drive.
• However, the mostly-capitalist system of economy and governance they've established, especially with its focus on guilds within the government structure and trade in its economy, has furthermore left a growing population of Adventurers who do not have social standing, influence, or prized trade skills and who do not wish to leave the safety of the city disenfranchised and despondent.
• The Round Table is aware of the issue but hasn't figured out what to do about it.
• Most recently, Eins and his enormous guild Honesty have been the leading voice for this issue. He's even suggested some extreme socialist/communist economic reform measures, but no one else thought that was a good idea.

Navigators

• During a westward quest, the junior members of Log Horizon encounter Roe2, Shiroe's second account, acting independently from him. She says a bunch of cryptic stuff and also sends a letter to Shiroe via the juniors. Putting it all together (but she could be lying about some or all of this):
• Navigators are artificial lifeforms that come from a society that ran out of empathion and now search different universes for more in order to survive.
• What, exactly, empathion is is not entirely clear. It seems to be a resource necessary for life and which is evidently tied to the psyche.
• The Navigators were brought into this world by a process they call "the Match", something they don't fully understand and which they did not cause. Probably the same thing as The Apocalypse.
• Navigators are divided into two types: Observers, whose role and motives is not yet fully clear; and Harvesters, who are less intelligent than Observers or Adventurers/Humans and who prioritize collecting empathion above all else.
• Adventurers dying is one way that empathion is collected. Given the name and the correlation with the psyche, it's 99.9% certain that this is the same thing as when Adventurers give up a bit of their memories on the moon before they revive.
• Navigators don't have their own bodies in Theldesia - instead, they have taken over the bodies of unused character accounts and monsters. In particular, Roe2 took over Shiroe's alt account on the Mare Tranquillitatis server (and other Observers have likely taken over other accounts there) while Harvesters have taken over Geniuses (see below).
• Roe2 was able to get to Yamato by swapping positions with a summoned creature, but most Observers are still on the moon. She told Shiroe that if he contacted them, they could help him find a way home.

Genius

• Geniuses seem to be a new type of quest/raid boss that were introduced in the Novasphere Pioneers expansion pack. They have a common theme of being disguised as People of the Land (including all the appropriate menu pop-ups), and are only revealed as monsters after certain triggers or once confronted.
• Most, but not all, of them become powerful raid bosses once revealed.
• Easily identified (once unmasked) by them all having a "Genius of " title.
• They have all been taken over by Harvesters, used in Harvester plots to thwart Adventurers and increase the rate of Adventurer death so that more empathions are collected. And this means they can show up anytime as new adversaries rather than only as part of quests or events.
• Their abilities and tactics vary wildly. Some are simple combat adversaries, another was stealthily kidnapping Adventurers through hypnosis.
• One Genius/Harvester referred to Elias, an Ancient, as "a survivor" suggesting that they are related to the disappearance of the Ancients.
• While they aren't as intelligent as Adventurers/Observers, don't think of them as mindless foes. As soon as Akiba started planning to use the Shibuya antenna station, the Geniuses setup an Eternal Moth hive around it blocking the Adventurers' attempts to use it and potentially forcing them to destroy the antenna along with the hive.

The Third/Fourth Party

• Since The Apocalypse, Shiroe was searching for evidence of "the third party" - that is, people or things other than Adventurers and People of the Land, and who presumably caused The Apocalypse. He believes that The Apocalypse must have been caused with some motive, and therefore whoever is responsible should be out there somewhere. However, all his various investigations could not find any evidence that a third party exists until Roe2's letter.
• However, Roe2 says that the Navigators did not cause The Apocalypse, leaving this still an open-ended question.
• Since the Navigators are "artificial" lifeforms, it hasn't been ruled out yet that whoever created the Navigators is also the ones that caused The Apocalypse.

A Way Home

• Of course, the big question always looming over the Adventurers has always been "can we go home?" As they learn more about the world and create even more advanced new magics and technologies, they may find such a way.
• At the end of season 1, Nureha suggests that Shiroe is on the verge of finding a way home. Shiroe says he doesn't know if whatever technique he's cooked up yet really does send someone home, yet, all he knows is that it makes them disappear.
• Following the letter from Roe2, Akiba is now trying to contact the moon where they may be able to learn more about how to get home from the Observers.
• Some Adventurers are truly desperate to return to their old life and feel that Theldesia is their prison, especially those who feel disenfranchised by the current socioeconomic structure of Akiba. At its most extreme are the Odyssey Knights, who intentionally get themselves killed in order to glimpse the old world in the mid-revival dreams.
• On the other hand, many Adventurers have adapted to life in Theldesia. Many enjoy their life here better than their old life and have no wish to return.
• Shiroe was torn on this issue, seeing no good option. Either undo The Apocalypse, separating thousands of happy Adventurers from their friends, their new lives, sending many back to misery... or don't, forcing the other miserable thousands to remain imprisoned in Theldesia. But a well-timed inspiring conversation with Kanami reminded Shiroe of what Log Horizon is all about - achieving the impossible third option. Hence, Shiroe and Log Horizon aren't trying to undo The Apocalypse anymore, they want to find a way to merge the two worlds so people can travel freely between them.

Other Mysteries

• The fast-travel gates between Adventurer Cities have been offline since The Apocalypse. Regan says it has something to do with the moon phases.
• Does old Shiro really drink that much juice in one night, or are those bottles for pissing mid-raid?
• Will Akatsuki ever sit on a chair normally? Does she always sit seiza because of ninja roleplay, or because it makes her taller?
• Goat slimes?

The Crushes

• Shiroe and Kanami almost certainly had a mutual crush back in the Tea Party days. Shiroe wasn't over it for most of the series but he is now.
• Akatsuki has a crush on Shiroe but is shy about admitting it/pushing it and Shiroe is pretty oblivious to it.
• Minori also crushes on Shiroe. She's more upfront about it, but he's even more oblivious to this one, though pretty much everyone else has noticed it. (Shiroe and Akatsuki are both college-aged while Minori is like 14 or something so this isn't much of a love triangle per se, more of a character development for Minori plus a way to pressure Akatsuki into taking more initiative.)
• Nureha is unhealthily obsessesing over Shiroe from afar.
• Serera has a little-girls-first-admiration sort of crush for Nyanta, and absolutely everyone knows it. Nyanta is a perfect gentleman.
• Marielle and Naotsugu started out as just platonic friends that get along well, but this has gradually evolved into something vaguely resembling the start of a relationship. They were even long-distance-calling each other every night to share their day with each other for a bit.
• Shōryū has a crush on Marielle, which Marielle is oblvious about. Shōryū gets jealous when Marielle pays attention to other boys (particularly Naotsugu), which Hien loves to tease him about.
• Henrietta likes dressing up cute girls in cosplay as a hobby/obsession. She has a squad of subjects for her obsession in her guild, but she is especially fond of doing so to Akatsuki.
• Henrietta has had a couple moments of thought about crushing on Shiroe, but has no intention to pursue the idea further.
• Sōjiro is a harem protagonist.
• Nazuna is Sōjiro's one true love, or else the childhood bestfriend character that hangs out in the harem but ultimately only loves him platonically.
• Naotsugu must decide who he loves more, Marielle or panties.
• Krusty and Princess Lenessia have a pretty good thing going. I dunno what it is, but it's good and it was going, until he disappeared.
• Rudy is an eager puppy and Isuzu is his proud owner.

Best

• Best boy: Nyanta
• Best girl: Kurinon
• Best speech: Shiroe (sorry William, yours was good, too)
• Best faces: Akatsuki
• Best smile: Nazuna
• Best hat: The other giraffe girl
• Best pants: Kushiyatama

Afterword

I'm really glad I rewatched all of Log Horizon. In my opinion, it is a series that has gotten even better with age. If you are debating about delaying season 3 to rewatch the first two seasons or not, I say do it.
There was no shortage of isekai series when Log Horizon first aired, and that number has only increased since. But how many isekai series actually want to seriously engage with their premise? Having the protagonist recognize that they've been transported into a video game world only to immediately shrug off all possible ramifications of this is funny, sure, but it's also definitely taking the easy way out. Nowadays, many series don't even bother with the 5-minute isekai-and-forget-it routine and just opt to pitch it as a fantasy tale in a nonsensically video game-themed setting, but even then the characters rarely engage with the consequences of the setting being game-ified.
Not so Log Horizon.
Log Horizon never forgets that its characters are real people and real gamers, worried far more about the existential unknown than yet another goblin king. It's not just that the story dabbles into politics, economics, and social reform, though that's great, too. It's the constant fear of the unknown, the optimism to rally against it, and the heart to learn lessons from it.

Destruction AllStars has been out for a day now and there's certainly some elements that are still rough around the edges, as well as other features that are still awaited.
Here's everything so far:
- A leaderboard showing overall rank or a ranked mode.
- Make it clearer where your damage came from.
- Custom/private lobbies - have custom multiplayer games with friends you invite and be able to play any of the modes together privately.
- Music is an issue mainly players are bringing up, during matches, music distinguishes the arenas a bit more, lively, and overall, really improves the stadium atmosphere of the game. For this, you could maybe employ third-party Electronic artists to create songs for the soundtrack, maybe the rock genre or a variety of genres would work best. It'll really liven up the atmosphere for sure, because at the moment matches feel a bit empty without it, even with using Spotify. Maybe give the game more of a Destruction soundtrack and make it feel like destruction?
- More modes overtime when the game blows up.
- Reduce the maximum amount of AllStars allowed in Mayhem from 4 to 2, not every AllStars has a defence in mind.
- Gamemodes are sometimes completely and horribly unbalanced, like 4v8. Being a lobby with 4 Bluefangs, for example, tips the scale entirely. There must be a way to prevent this, surely.
- 1v1 mode
- Competitiveness is an issue when it comes to multiplayer depending on character abilities, some are just too overpowered, (like Lupita), and some are just too underpowered, (like Twinkleriot). So, overall, there are a lot of balance issues when it comes to characters.
- Paywall for mainly every "character story," will definitely turn people away from the game, instead maybe let players pay for the challenges with Destruction XP that they earn from playing matches, or remove the paywall entirely. You can make people pay for customisation, but probably not the challenges. (This is a frequent thing a lot of players are commenting on).
- A way to earn Destruction Points in-game alongside Destruction XP instead, if you do not like the above idea, as then we can buy the challenge series without having to pay. Most players don't want to pay for the single player content, that should really be free.
- Skins for both cars and characters would be better if they looked rather different than just colour swap.
- More gamemodes, etc. for when the game gets a higher demand. (Devs are most likely already working on this.)
- Make stockpile like call of duty domination. For every amount of time (5 sec whatever) you hold a bank, your team gains points added to a total. This decides who wins instead of banks when time runs out.
- Gridfall has a fog of war slightly lowering the amount of space you have to run around as players are eliminated.
- Fuegos burn effect says it's supposed to act on a ram but seems to not work properly. Very inconsistently gives ignite effect.
- You need to be able to accrue points (or gears) in Stockpile for every X number of seconds controlling an objective. As it stands right now, 95% of what you do in the match doesn't matter, because all it comes down to is who has the majority of objectives as time expires.
- Enable parties to play solo modes together against bots?
- Party members highlighted in green to make it clearer where your party members actually are.
- Raise the limit of 8v8 in a party, to something like 16v16 for bigger friend groups/Esports competitions.
- You currently can't really play with friends accurately, and there are only 2 modes for parties, (Stockpile, all one-team, and Tornado modes), and not being able to play with small friend groups is a disappointment. Parties should be able to play every gamemode, multiplayer and solo. Consider adding 2v2 and 4v4 teams, it wouldn't affect gameplay at all for smaller parties. So maybe some sort of Duos, Squads, etc.? Having to play with friends on modes like Tornado, you're separated, and that's no fun.
- Having teams in Gridfall, a player suggested that dead teammates could control the arena destruction.
- AIs could fill gaps with modes playable in private games if not enough players/players want to practice in teams against AI.
- Ability to mute players easier. (PS button, you'll see a voice chat card; simply hover over the voice chat card, press Square, and now everyone is muted.)
- Considering a battle pass sort of thing with new items like Fortnite, Fall Guys, etc. to give players something to work up to/make them actually want to come back to the game.
- Character details should be added to the” Customise” or some other section. There needs to be a way to see the arena before choosing a character. As of now, you only find out once you've entered the Arena. Similarly, it would be nice to scroll through Hero descriptions instead of having to exit out, select a new hero, and open their description. There's simply not enough time in the pre-game lobby to be jumping in and out of menus like that.
- Change the control layout. It's hard to play when you can't use the camera stick when driving.
- Duos and Squads Mayhem, (or Gridfall), game mode, where the score is accumulated between your teammates.
- Make it more clear for beginners that you’re always blue, as it can be quite confusing especially in the 8v8 modes.
- Change the control layout. It's hard to play when you can't use the camera stick when driving.
- Add guns or more combat to play on foot. So far, players find being on foot to be near useless.
- More consistency with the takeovers and wrecks when you mount a car, players find the dodging to be a hit and miss.
- Make the text bigger.
- Top 8 or even top 4 in solo modes should get some sort of victory screen, not just the person in the first place. Of course, still have differences in XP gains. 1/16 people feeling like they won isn’t good for the game.
- In Carnado there should be 4 ramps leading up to the tornado instead of just placed in the middle. This will add some strategy to team play as there are designated chokes cars to have to get through in order to score. Adds more defensive tactics.
- Better UI for the minimap that provides more in-depth information. Currently coordinating in an 8v8 doesn't seem viable even with a party chat. All of my teammates look like blue arrows so when one of them asks for help I can't figure out where they are without driving in circles hoping I run into them. Would be nice if the minimap UI included some kind of symbol or tiny face icon on each player's arrow to help you figure out who is who.
- More diverse modes would be nice too. For example, a speedrunning mode for on foot only, where players need to wall run, dodge, and jump to get the fastest time. Or Gridfall on foot only might be fun too. Then for cars, they could add track time trials too.
- For the multiplayer modes, having 3 different types of cars should have weapons to add more variety to the gameplay. Right now, everyone is driving mindlessly around. Make the tiny car have working cosmetics, for example, a machine gun, that does very little damage while the bigger truck one can have like missiles on cooldown or something.
- Make menu size bigger with accessibility options in the menu to increase text size, etc. specifically, for the menu, though. Players have a hard time reading the titles/costs of cosmetics in the customize section.
​
Suggest more on the #quality-of-life channel in the Discord server: discord.gg/6sFwfxnmsg

Contents:

• Roadmap
• Recommended Key Spending
• List of Bonus Bosses
• Links to Summon Recommendation Guides
• Miscellaneous Notes

Greetings from the Church of Isuka! It's feels like forever since I've put one of these out. Unfortunately I had to remove the TL;DR chart due to hitting the 40k character limit so I replaced it with a summary for recommended Green/Red key spending instead. Compared to the last version, I've also added in Lost Tome, Sword and Wings, Jade's 5 star quest, P5R2, "Tales of," and GoT Part 3. There's been a lot added and it's definitely possible I may have overlooked something so let me know if you notice anything incorrect/missing or if you feel some things should be moved around.
The ^Hopefully Most Efficient Method for "Finishing" the Game:
※ Important Note: Aside from the Two Knights and Azure Rebel side episodes, everything else that is not part of the Main Story is optional. This means that if you do not want to fish, mine, or do Otherlands, etc., you are free to ignore those parts of this roadmap.

1. Start the game
   
   1. As soon as you have control, open up the Menu, go to Other, and Activate ID Transfer. Screenshot your Transfer ID and password and then e-mail the image to yourself. This way you can recover your account in case of catastrophic failure. The Transfer ID is permanent and reusable.
   2. For the tutorial summon, I recommended choosing Bivette as your character. Other popular options include Miyu and Ciel. All three have 5 star potential and can unlock bonus content specific to them, but Bivette has the most use in combat.
2. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 2
   
   1. If you haven't created a Transfer ID yet, go do it NOW. Linking to Facebook doesn't count. Linking to Google Play doesn't count. You are still at risk of losing your account if you need to reinstall.
   2. Get your daily Chronos Stones. Remember to do these every day for a minimum of 50 extra Chronos Stones.
      1. Open up the Menu, go to Inbox, and grab your 20 Chronos Stones.
      2. Open up the Menu, click the '+' at the top of the screen next to your Chronos Stones and watch an advertisement for 10 Chronos Stones from the shop.
      3. The first time you log into the game after 1500 UTC, you will have the opportunity to watch a single ad for 20 Chronos Stones.
      4. Open up the Menu and click the icon at the top left for the opportunity to watch 5 more advertisements for additional rewards.
   3. Open up the Menu, go to Records, go to Symphony, and begin the prologue for the Persona 5 Royal (P5R) Collab: Bound Wills and the Hollow Puppeteer.
   4. Open up the Menu, go to Records, go to Symphony, and begin the prologue for the "Tales of" Series Collab, Tails of Time and the Brave Four: Tales of Chronographia (Cress Series).
3. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 3. Go to Symphony from the menu to begin the prologue for Tales of Chronographia (Velvet Series).
   
4. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 4 which should unlock the orange icon side quests. I recommend doing all the side quests in an area for the Chronos Stones before continuing on. In addition, finish any blue icon character quests available to get Chronos Stones (and later unlock more powerful abilities on the Skill Board).
   
5. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 8. At this point you should have enough Chronos Stones for your first 10-pull. Pull on whichever banner you want. Your main goal is simply to get enough useful characters to form a 6-man team.
   
6. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 9. Go to Symphony from the menu to begin the prologue for Tales of Chronographia (Milla Series).
   
7. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 11 (characters should be around level 20)
   
   1. Upon finishing Chapter 10, you should have gotten a Holy Prayer Spirit. To spend it, go to Menu, go to Dreams, and go to the Regular tab. You will have a choice of four 4 star healers. I would rank them as Erina > Krervo = Prai > Pom. If you already have a 5 star healer, then this choice isn't a big deal.
   2. Go to Acteul near the Man-Eating Marsh. Begin the 1000 Year Ark to unlock fishing and begin to slowly fish pools at your level (If you're trying to fight a turtle, you've gone too far). Ponds refresh every half hour.
   3. Begin spending your Green Keys on Hard Another Dungeons in the Blue Door (H-AD).
      1. Doing main story dungeons (such as H-Moonlight Forest, H-Industrial Ruins, H-Nadara Volacano, etc.) will get you EXP, materials for equipment, tomes and scripts for upgrading certain characters from 3 stars to 4 stars, and a 10% chance at light/shadow in specific dungeons for specific story characters.
      2. Doing the H-Sealed Realm: Transitory Time Space (commonly called the EXP dungeon, found by tapping the purple icon to the top right) gives you about 1 million EXP, EXP badges, and EXP scrolls. However, you will not get any materials, tomes, scripts, or light/shadow.
   4. If you get a White Key at the end of a dungeon, it unlocks the White Gate (Phantom Crystal Dimension). Go run it immediately because you can only have one White Key at a time. It will give you git and character upgrade materials as well as unlock the Paw Stamp Album. Once you have the Paw Stamp Album, make sure to talk to any cat you come across inside the PCD.
   5. Begin fighting Uquaji (found at the far left door next to the fishing spot in the Spacetime Rift). He comes back every 24 hours with a few more levels.
   6. Begin filling out your Cat Catalog (obtained after returning to the Moonlight Forest).
   7. Return to the Mayor's House in Baruoki to do his tutorial missions. Completing the tutorials will reward you with +EXP badges up to +30%.
8. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 13 (characters should be around level 32)
   
   1. If you've completed the P5R prologue from Step 2, go to the Baruoki Tavern to start the P5R Collab event. Complete the entire Collab to get 5 star Joker and 5 star Morgana. Make sure to get all the badges from the dungeon (including a +20% EXP badge!) as well as their level 60 personal weapons.
   2. Go to Unigan near the gate to the Karek Swampland. Complete the Two Knights side episode until VH-Miglance Labyrinth (Unigan) is unlocked. Begin spending your Red Keys here to start getting the rewards. Completing this side episode is required to continue the main story past Chapter 26.
   3. Go to Symphony from the menu to begin the prologue for Tales of Chronographia (Yuri Series).
   4. If you've completed all the "Tales of" prologues, go to the front of the Unigan Tavern to start the "Tales of" Collab event. Complete the entire Collab to get 4 Cress, Velvet, Milla, and Yuri. You can get their personal weapons and 5 star tome by going to the Citadel of Time Ruins and selecting the respective trial (see here).
   5. If you have Miyu, begin Other Story: Little Princess' Little Big Adventure in Miglance Palace. Just go as far as you can and if you find yourself underleveled, put it on hold and come back later.
   6. Keep fishing.
   7. Ignore the Lost Tome side episode for now.
9. Continue the Main Story
   
   1. Once you hit level 40, go to Elzion Theta District. Complete IDA Part 1 until VH-Saki's Dream World is unlocked. Stop spending your Red Keys on Two Knights and begin spending your Red Keys here instead to start getting the rewards. Make sure to also do all the bonus activities related to IDA Part 1 (see here).
   2. Farm the two overworld Horrors in Miglance Labyrinth every 6 hours to finish off Two Knights and get all the rewards. They are located down the well next to the Unigan Tavern on floors 2 and 5.
   3. After completing IDA Part 1, complete the 1000 Year Ark until VH-Dragon Palace is unlocked. Begin spending your Red Keys here to start getting the rewards. Don't forget to check the sparkles hidden throughout the VH dungeon for black pearls. The number of stacked turtles at the start of the dungeon will let you know how many there are. Make sure to also do all the bonus activities related to the 1000 Year Ark (see here).
   4. Begin challenging Azami and Cerrine. They start at level 40 and respawn with 10 additional levels up to a maximum level of 80. Azami can be found in the Serena Coast. Cerrine can initally be found on the 2nd Floor of IDA School H Block after you complete IDA Part 1, but will move to the 3rd Floor Classroom for the 2nd-4th fights and the Sky Terrace for the 5th fight. Defeating them will recruit them to your roster.
   5. Did you remember to keep fishing?
10. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 16. Begin challenging the Flame Eater (Gariyu). It starts at level 40 and respawns with 10 additional levels. It can initially be found in the Zol Planes but will move to a different location every time it respawns. You can find the locations here. Defeating it will allow you to fight Gariyu to recruit him to your roster.
    
11. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 18. If you have Ciel, begin Other Story: Foreign Skies and the Ship to Freedom in Elzion Gamma District. Just go as far as you can and if you find yourself underleveled, put it on hold and come back later.
    
12. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 21 (characters should be around level 45)
    
    1. Visit the various locations offered on the Riftbreaker's main deck to unlock access to Nilva and Rucyana Sands (which leads to Zarbo). In Zarbo, go into the rightmost house on the center lane and tap the straw dummy (it does not have an exclamation mark) to gain access to Sarupa and Charol Plains.
    2. Go inside the Mayor's House in Baruoki. Begin the P5R Part 2 Collab: Bound Wills and the Hollow Puppeteer: Promises, Vows, and Rings. Complete the entire Collab to get 5 star Violet.
    3. Begin the Time Mine side episode. You'll want to stop by here every half hour or so when the sparkles respawn.
    4. Go to Elzion Gamma District. Begin the Lost Tome side episode to unlock the Treasure Quests. Continue to work through this episode as your level allows.
    5. Go do the hidden quest chain for the Adamantine Weapon. You can get only get two weapons, one now and one later, and your decision is permanent so choose carefully. Commonly recommended options are Sword, Katana, and Lance.
    6. You may consider using your Green Keys in H-Tower of Stars to farm materials needed for level 52 and 60 equipment to complete your collection catalogue. Otherwise, use them to farm points for side episodes (other than the 1000 Year Ark) or to farm EXP in the Transitory Time Space.
    7. Are you still fishing?
13. Complete the Main Story up to Chapter 22
    
    1. Go to the Unigan inn. Begin the First Knight and the Holy Sword side episode (requires completion of Two Knights). Completing this side episode gets you a free 5 star character, Deirdre. Make sure to also do all the bonus activities related to the First Knight (see here) which can reward you with things like VC grasta, armor, and a second Adamantine Weapon.
14. Finish the Main Story (characters should be around level 55)
    
    1. Go to Unigan near the gate to the Serena Coast and unlock the Royal Theater. You can cast your characters in different roles of a play and you are awarded chronos stones the first time you get a Disappointing, Excellent, or MAX review for each play.
    2. Go to Baruoki in the Mayor's House and do the two part quest chain beginning with To You of Days Long Past to get the ULTIMANIA Hammer. It can be upgraded through fighting specific enemies so keep an eye out for them as you continue to play.
    3. Go to Derismo Highroad just outside Palsifal Palace. Begin the Sword and Wing Mythos. Complete Chapter 2 to get 4 star Clarte. Complete Chapter 3 to craft Anti-lightning Armor which give +10 SPD.
    4. Go to Baruoki in the Mayor's House and do the quest for The Cat's Tale Beyond It's Territory. This will let you explore new locations as Varuo. You can get grasta and cat equipment this way.
    5. After doing Step 3 above, go start the Cat Battles. Your goal is to finish the quest "Dance the Paw-Rondo!" located in a hidden extended area east of Last Island. If you have Bivette, come back after finishing the quest to unlock a second quest and additional Cat Battles. Finishing the second quest will unlock Bivette's 5 star potential and leveling cat!Bivette to level 40 will give you enough Flame Witch Psalms to upgrade Bivette to 5 stars.
    6. If you have not gotten all the rewards from the Two Knights, IDA Part 1, P5R Part 2, or "Tales of" side episodes/collabs, use your Green Keys to finish collecting points.
    7. If you do not have any points to farm, use your Green Keys to farm H-Ruins of Rucyana for levels, EXP scrolls, git, and scripts.
    8. Begin spending your Red Keys to farm VH-Moonlight Forest, Industrial Ruins, and Nadara Volcano for levels, materials, tomes, scripts, and (if you're doing VH-Industrial Ruins) light for Amy. You also want to try and get the Sun Tome, Empress Tome, and Flame Lord Tome from these VH dungeons respectively.
    9. You will also unlock the VH-Sealed Realm: Transitory Time Space and Ephemeral Time Space. Doing VH-Transitory Time Space gives you about 1.7 million EXP, EXP badges, EXP scrolls, and a chance at treatises. Doing VH-Ephemeral Time Space gives you about 800k git, Git Badges, Gold Lumps, and a chance at treatises (it is recommended to wait until after Chapter 51 when you gain access to Gold Weapons). However, neither of these dungeons will give you any materials, tomes, scripts, or light/shadow.
    10. You will begin earning Tsubura's Gems for completing VH dungeons. You might want to consider saving 400 of these in case you need to buy treatises for an Another Style sidegrade. Any extras are best used to buy Red Keys to run additional VH dungeons. On average, this is superior to buying Chant Scripts with them. It is NOT recommended to use these for buying psalms to upgrade your story characters. You can earn up to 120 Tsubura's Gems a week.
    11. Finish challenging Azami and upgrade her to 5 stars.
    12. Finish challenging Cerrine and upgrade her to 5 stars.
    13. Finish challenging Flame EateGariyu and then upgrade him to 5 stars.
    14. Begin to fight the original bonus bosses for the achievements/Chronos Stones (Goblin King, Red Dawn, True Chronos Menas, Imbrium Basin, Level 90 Flame Eater). Note that Red Dawn and Imbrium Basin are part of the ULTIMANIA Hammer upgrade quest so you might want to hold off on killing them until you reach that point.
    15. Once you reach around level 60, if you have any characters that are capable of getting a Manifestation Weapon, go do the initial battle in the Spacetime Rift located in the room furthest in the back. Once you get the weapon, keep it equipped on anyone in your currently active party so it gains EXP up to level 10. The fastest way to level them is through the Sealed Realm: Transitory Time Space AD. The current list of characters able to get a Manifestation Weapon are: Anabel, Azami, Bertrand, Cerrine, Cetie, Claude, Deirdre, Dewey, Elga, Ewan, Felmina, Gariyu, Isuka, Laclair, Lokido, Mariel, Melina, Mighty, Mighty AS, Myrus, Nagi, Renri, Shanie, Shion, Shion AS, Suzette, Suzette AS, Toova, Tsukiha, and Yuna.
    16. The fish ponds miss you. T_T
15. Begin Ogre Wars, Part 1 (requires completion of Two Knights) (characters should be level 60+)
    
    1. Once you get to Konium, talk to the trader in the tavern. Collect all the Cruel Angel's gear and begin upgrading the Staff and Necklace. You can find a map for all of the special materials here.
    2. Go to the Elzion Cargo Station. Complete IDA Part 2 (requires completion of IDA Part 1) until H-Mayu's Dream World is unlocked. Begin spending your Green Keys here to get all the rewards. Make sure to do all the bonus activities related to IDA Part 2 (see here).
    3. Go to the Charol Plains towards the north end of the map. Complete the Celestial Tower until H-Dogma Tower is unlocked. Begin spending your Green Keys here to get all the rewards. This side episode has extremely high requirements for the final rewards so feel free to take your time once you've finished the side episode.
    4. Finish off Other Story: Little Princess' Little Big Adventure. You can run VH-Forest of Forgetfulness (Miglance Palace) to farm Princess Psalms to upgrade Miyu to 5 stars but it is NOT recommended since she is underwhelming as a character.
    5. Finish off Other Story: Foreign Skies and the Ship to Freedom. You can run VH-Hanging Garden (Garden Island) to farm Melodist Psalms to upgrade Ciel to 5 stars but it is NOT recommended since he is underwhelming as a character.
    6. Finish the Lost Tome side episode if you have not done so already to get Sophia to 5 stars.
    7. You have new fishing pools in the Ancient Battlefield and Snake Neck Igoma so take advantage of them.
16. Finish Ogre Wars, Part 1
    
    1. You may consider spending just enough Green and Red Keys to run H- and VH-Snake Liver Damaku in order to finish upgrading the Cruel Angel's Necklace to +10. Note that a fully upgraded necklace will grant +20 SPD while doing the Sword and Wing Mythos will allow you to craft a comparable +10 SPD necklace without needing to use Green and Red Keys.
    2. You should be able to start challenging the trials inside Mementos AD. Finish all 10 trials to get 5 star Skull. Finishing the trials will also give you Violet's and Skull's personal weapons and VC grasta.
    3. Work toward getting Aldo to 5 stars as you will be forced to use him in a later chapter.
    4. Just keep fishing.
17. Begin Ogre Wars, Part 2
    
    1. Once you get to the Haunted Cheateau and Toto Dreamland, collect all the Toto's gear and begin upgrading the Ring. If you use Renri, upgrade the Ax. If you use a bow-based support (e.g. Ciel), upgrade the Bow. If you use a hammer-based healer, upgrade the Hammer. If you use a spear-based tank, upgrade the Spear. You can find a map for the locations of the Toto marks to get the weapons here. You can find a map for the locations of the armor here.
    2. Work toward getting Amy to 5 stars as you will be forced to use her in a later chapter.
    3. Just keep fishing.
18. Finish Ogre Wars, Part 2
    
    1. Go to Ratle to unlock the jump rope minigame in Konium and Baruoki.
    2. Hopefully you've finished the Time Mine side episode and collected all the rewards. If not, keep working at it.
    3. Go to the Riftbreaker's main deck. Complete the Azure Rebel side episode until H-Former KMS HQ is unlocked. Begin spending your Green Keys here to get all the rewards. Completing this side episode is required to continue the main story past Chapter 44.
    4. Go to IDA School H Block outside the IDEA Operations Room. Complete IDA Part 3 (requires completion of IDA Part 2). No keys are required. Finishing this episode rewards you with a an extremely powerful yet free level 60 5 star character, Mana. After finishing this side episode, take your time grinding out the rest of your friendship points in Lord of Mana to collect all the rewards.
    5. Go to Rinde and begin Devilishness Revived (requires completion of Celestial Tower). This event consists of a series of battles that spawn in a different location each time. Do this 5 times to unlock Cyrus's 5 star potential. Feel free to move on and come back later if the fights are too difficult.
    6. Begin Rebirth of the Beast King. This event consists of a series of battles in different locations. The first 4 battles can be done in any order but they must all be cleared to gain access to the 5th battle. After the 5th battle, you unlock Guildna's 5 star potential. Feel free to move on and come back later if the fights are too difficult.
    7. Begin IDA Part 2: After Incidents in the Elzion Cargo Station (requires completion of IDA Part 2). This event consists of a series of battles that spawn in a different location each time. Do this 5 times to get AS Saki. Feel free to move on and come back later if the fights are too difficult.
    8. Begin One Other Ordeal in the Elzion Theta District (requires completion of the Azure Rebel). This event consists of a series of battles in different locations. The first 3 battles can be done in any order but they must all be cleared to gain access to the 4th battle. After the 5th battle, you unlock Riica's 5 star potential and personal weapon. Feel free to move on and come back later if the fights are too difficult.
    9. Begin Jewel in Shade by the front desk of IDA School H Block (requires completion of IDA 2 and the Lost Tome side episodes). This event consists of a series of battles in different locations. The first 3 battles can be done in any order but they must all be cleared to gain access to the 4th battle. After the 5th battle, you unlock Jade's 5 star potential. Feel free to move on and come back later if the fights are too difficult. After promoting him to 5 stars, make sure to go to the IDA School H Block - Sky Terrace to get his personal VC grasta as well.
    10. Go do the hidden quest chain to upgrade your Adamantine Weapon. You can only get one type of upgrade and your decision is permanent so choose carefully.
    11. Go to Unigan and begin the AS Gariyu questline (requires completion of all three of his character quests as well). This event consists of a series of battles. Do this 5 times to get AS Gariyu. Feel free to move on and come back later if the fights are too difficult.
    12. Just keep fishing, fishing, fishing...
19. Begin Tales from the East: Return of the Goddess of Time, Part 1
    
    1. Go to the Izana Tavern and start investigating the rumors. It takes the guy 30 minutes to finish investigating each rumor.
    2. You will be able to begin farming grasta. For more information, check out this post. (Guide courtesy of u/Typical-Cookie)
    3. Go to Nagsham and participate in the minigames to farm Silver and Gold tokens. Silver Tokens can be traded for souvenirs. Collecting all the souvenirs will only reward 5 Chronos Stones so it's not quite worth the time investment. Gold Tokens can be traded for Gold Weapons that boost the amount of gold earned in battle. It's best to equip these weapons before entering the Ruins of Rucyana or the Ephemeral Time Space.
    4. What do we do? We fish, fish, fish... (There aren't any new fishing locations so just keep fishing the old ones).
20. Finish Goddess of Time, Part 1
    
    1. Begin to equip your main units with Cherry Blossom weapons and Discipline/Tempered armor (crafted from materials that come from the new zones in Garulea) and then start upgrading them. For weapons, the Staff, Sword, Bow, Fists, and Hammer are all worth upgrading. The armors increase max HP/MP. Note that there is only one Master of the Attic (Horror), which means you can only get 1 Steel Mouse Skin every 6 hours.
    2. Use your Green Keys to farm Present Garulea Continent AD (PGAD) for high level grasta. Even if your light/shadow level is low, you can still collect Junk/Paint Materials/Cat Emas inside the dungeon to trade for rewards. Make sure to bring Azami so she can gain light. Your goal is to collect all the T3 grasta from trading Junk at Nagsham and Cat Emas at the start. In addition, buy any Power of Nothingness grasta that you find at Nagsham.
    3. With Present Garulea Continent AD unlocked, you should also start buying Green Keys with Tsubura's Gems from the Nopaew Emporium.
    4. Farm any remaining Psalms needed to upgrade your story characters. This should be done together with VC grasta farming for your other characters. Aldo and Amy should be your priorities to upgrade to 5 stars. Guildna is also a very good option. Riica, Cyrus, and Helena are low priority.
    5. Oh ho ho! How I love to fish! (I'll stop the Finding Nemo reference now...)
21. Begin Goddess of Time, Part 2
    
    1. Make sure to do all of the sidequests as you progress the story. One of them in Chapter 61 will give you a Jadeite of Attack plus a Power of Agony (Lance) grasta.
    2. After Chapter 55, you will gain the ability to create VC grasta from your unused 5 star upgrade tomes at the present time Cat Shrine.
    3. After Chapter 58, you will gain Strawboy. If you level him up to at least level 60, you can return to Zami to reincarnate him. Each reincarnation increases his starting level by 1 (up to a maximum of starting level of 60). Each reincarnation at level 80 will also increase his light value by 1.
    4. After Chapter 60, you will gain the ability to create True VC grasta at the future Cat Shrine. To unlock this ability, you will need to complete a short quest requiring the collection of 88 charms. A map of the charm locations can be found on the wiki here.
22. Finish Goddess of Time, Part 2
    
    1. Once you finish collecting all the limited grasta from Present Garulea Continent AD, switch over to farming Antiquity Garulea Continent AD (AGAD) instead. Make sure to bring Gariyu (NS or AS) so he can gain shadow. Your goal is to collect all the T3 grasta from trading Femurs at Zami and Dogus at the start. In addition, buy any Power of Poison or Power of Pain grasta that you find at Zami.
    2. Begin to craft Dragon Bone weapons and Active/Silence armor (crafted from materials that come from the new zones in Garulea) and then start upgrading them. For weapons, the Ax and Bow are worth upgrading. The armors increase HP/MP regen while in reserves and have the same stats as the Discipline/Tempered Armor.
23. Begin Goddess of Time, Part 3
    
    1. After Chapter 70, you will gain the ability to upgrade your grasta at Nekomasa's House in Itoise.
    2. Continue to upgrade the Icicle Bow using Auretium. Upgrading the bow will allow you to break through additional seals scattered around Kunlun Mountains and Demon Sea Caverns.
24. Finish Goddess of Time, Part 3
    
    1. Once you finish collecting all the limited grasta from Antiquity Garulea Continent AD, switch over to farming Future Garulea Continent AD (FGAD) instead. Make sure to bring Cerrine so she can gain light. Your goal is to collect all 3 unique armors from the vendor at Angal and all 4 unique (seafood) weapons from the vendor at Eeza. Then continue to farm for grasta upgrade materials.
    2. Finish collecting the other 4 seafood weapons scattered around the new areas.
    3. Begin to craft Crafted weapons and Might armor (crafted from materials that come from the new zones in Garulea) and then start upgrading them. For weapons, the Fist is worth upgrading. The Lance is good for Tiramisu and the Staff is good for anyone in the same party as AS Rosetta. The armors increase damage by +15% when at Max HP.
25. Endgame stuff (in no particular order)
    
    1. Use your Red Keys to finishing collecting all the rewards from the side episodes/collabs. Afterward, use your Red Keys to farm for story character light/shadow to reach the AD reward thresholds (Ruins of Rucyana: 96, VH-AD: 120, Otherlands: 180, Garulea AD: 240 and 360).
    2. While you can try to farm for VH-Otherlands weapons, farming the Garulea Continent ADs provide an easier and faster power boost for the same number of Green Keys. If you still want to farm VH-Otherlands, your choices are: Baruoki, Ratle, and Elzion. Which one you do depends on what weapons you want and what team composition you have. While difficulty is subjective, I'd rate them Baruoki > Elzion = Ratle (from hardest to easiest). Note that there are other weapons with similar (but slightly weaker) effects for far less grind.
    3. If you have finished leveling your Manifestation Weapons to level 10, go back and do the second fight to finish powering them up. This fight will be much more difficult!
    4. Go to Konium and talk to the elder to refight the armors from Rebirth of the Beast King to upgrade the Sword of Despair.
    5. Go to Purgatory and refight the Elementals 3 times each to upgrade the elemental weapons.
    6. Finish fishing by catching all the Lake Horrors and then go fight Leviathan.
    7. Finish 1000 Another Dungeons to fight the Nameless Girl.
    8. You didn't forget about Uquaji, did you?
    9. Fight the Present Garulea Eight Demons from the rumors to get their weapons. (Guide courtesy of u/Living_Green)
    10. Fight the Antiquity Garulea Eight Demons after solving their riddles to get their weapons. (Guide courtesy of u/EdenBoy03)
    11. Fight the Velvet Twins, Justine and Caroline, in Lucniva. For every 25% of their HP you take off for the first time, you will get rewards. For example, the first time you bring them down to 75% HP you will get Joker's and Morgana's personal VC grasta.
    12. Fight each of the True Spirits individually (Rogi, Fornjot, Aegir, and Kari). Each spirit you defeat will give you the personal VC grasta for the respective "Tales of" character (Cress, Velvet, Milla, and Yuri).
    13. Fight the remaining superbosses: Insula Ventorum, Mimi, Rotte Rivel, Zennon Shadow, Melvillithan, Regenwurm, Terra Nivium, Ice Jailer, Kudang, and the Baruoki Mayor. Note that Insula Ventorum is part of the ULTIMANIA Hammer upgrade quest so you might want to hold off on killing it until you reach that point. Farming Rotte Rivel and Regenwurm is the most efficient way to get everything from the Cat Road vendors in Moonlight Forest and Sarupa respectively.
    14. Finish all your collection achievements (including the armors from H-Otherlands).
    15. Finish leveling and upgrading all your characters.
    16. Find all 108 cats and level them all to level 50 through cat battles. Don't forget to go back to the Spurr-ace Colony to fight the Four Heavenly Kitties.
    17. Reincarnate your Strawboy all the way to 255 light.
    18. Buy out the entire Auction House including all 3 of Sophia's VC grasta.
    19. Go back and finish getting max friend points for every companion in Lord of Mana, even if you've already gotten the final chant script, for bragging rights.
    20. Fully upgrade your fishing gear and catch 150 of every single fish including the Lake Lords and Rinde Sunfish.
26. Mourn the loss of your social life as you wait for the next patch to drop.
    
27. Go get yourself a VTuber avatar and stream yourself replaying the game from the beginning with story characters only
    

※ Important Note: Aside from the Two Knights and Azure Rebel side episodes, everything else that is not part of the Main Story is optional. This means that if you do not want to fish, mine, or do Otherlands, etc., you are free to ignore those parts of this roadmap.
Recommended Key Spending

• Finish Chapter 11
  • Use green keys on storyline ADs or the EXP AD
  • No place to spend red keys
• Finish Chapter 13
  • Use green keys on storyline H-ADs, the EXP H-AD, or side episode/collab H-ADs (except for 1000 Year Ark and First Knight)
  • Use red keys on side episode VH-ADs (especially 1000 Year Ark and First Knight)
• Finish Chapter 25
  • Use green keys on side episode/collab H-ADs or Ruins of Rucyana
  • Use red keys on storyline VH-ADs
• Finish Chapter 55
  • Use green keys on PGAD
  • Use red keys on side episode/collab VH-ADs or storyline VH-ADs
• Finish Chapter 66
  • Use green keys on AGAD (if PGAD is fully cleared)
  • Use red keys on side episode/collab VH-ADs or storyline VH-ADs
• Finish Chapter 74
  • Use green keys on FGAD (if AGAD is fully cleared)
  • Use red keys on side episode/collab VH-ADs or storyline VH-ADs

List of Bonus Bosses:

• 1.0 Bosses
  
  • Goblin King (Moonlight Forest, deepest area, requires Goblin Loincloth)
  • Red Dawn (Zol Plains, northeast corner)
  • Imbrium Basin (Last Island, northwest corner)
  • True Chronos Menas (Records Room Chronos Umbra, Elzion Pathway boss room)
  • Flame Eater (Corinda Plains, up the southwest vine, requires recruitment of Gariyu)
  • Leviathan (Ocean Palace, requires completion of Ocean Palace and victory over all Lake Lords)
  • Nameless Girl (Spacetime Rift, requires completion of 1000 Another Dungeons)
  • Uquaji (Spacetime Rift, westernmost door)
• 1.5 Bosses
  
  • Insula Ventorum (Hidden passage behind Macminal Museum, requires key from final room in the museum)
  • Mimi (Toto Dreamland)
  • Zennon Shadow (Records Room Ogres Spike, boss room)
  • Melvillithan (Ogres Spike, east of Dominion Spire, requires Resonance Box)
  • The full power 4 Elementals in Purgatory without using the items (there are no actual rewards but they're still a fun challenge)
• 2.0 Bosses
  
  • Rotte Rivel (Moonlight Forest, extended area east of the healing point, requires travelling there first as Varuo)
  • Regenwurm (Cat Road, extended area in the northeast corner of Sarupa, requires travelling there first as Varuo)
  • 8 Demons (Present Garulea, all over the place, requires talking to rumor monger at Izana tavern first)
  • 8 Demons (Antiquity Garulea, all over the place, requires talking to man in Gadaro first)
  • Terra Nivium (Sky Fortress Eeza down the elevator, requires code from KMS)
  • Baruoki Mayor (Baruoki, complete all the tutorial missions given by the mayor and find the cane in Moonlight Forest)
  • Celestial Mushroom (Rippling Forest, hidden area immediately east of the exit of the northern most map)
  • Berserk Tempered Hound (Parallel Unigan Underground Path)
• 2.5 Bosses
  
  • Justine and Caroline (Lucniva, glowing flowers at the very top)
  • True Spirits (Citadel of Time Ruins, basement after finishing all 4 trials)
  • Ice Jailer (Kunlun Mountains, unlocked with a level 5 Icicle Bow)
  • Kudang (Land of Ro: Dungeon Ruins, in the back of Level 5)

F2P Summoning Guides:

• Guide by u/TheMike0088 up through 2.7.70

Miscellaneous Notes:

• Go set up your Transfer ID right now if you haven't already. You have been warned!
• Use your food! You can always get new food by resting at an inn.
• Only use your chronos stones on pulls! If you die in battle, you can force close the game and reload before the battle as long as you don't go past the defeat screen.
• Gear isn't an exceptionally big deal before endgame. Just wear what you can get. If you're running Another Dungeons, you should be getting a decent amount of materials. Also, look into getting the treasure chests hidden behind Horrors to lessen the amount of materials you need to grind. Once you get past Chapter 26, the Cruel Angel's and Toto's gear should last you until the Eastern continent.
• These are the best dungeons for battle EXP aside from the EXP dungeon:

Dungeon	Total EXP	EXP w/o Horrors
VH-Snake Liver Damaku	662094	558318
VH-Riftbreaker	641835	540567
VH-Toto Dreamland	634225.5	525421.5
VH-Beast King's Castle	611173.5	507397.5
VH-Miglance Castle	609550	513310

Additional useful links if you need more details on anything mentioned above:

• The Megathread of Megathreads
• The AE Wiki
• Altema (Use Google Translate JP>EN)
• Global Notice API
• Japanese Notice API

Changelog:

• Added Lost Tome side episode
• Added Sword and Wings Mythos
• Added Jewel in Shade
• Added Persona 5 Royal Part 2
• Added "Tales of" Collab
• Added Goddess of Time Part 3
• Rearranged some stuff
• Removed TL;DR chart due to character limit
• Changed History to Previous Version due to character limit

Previous Version:

• v.2.3.100

Edit: Added additional info as suggested by u/Typical-Cookie and u/Oldnoob36

Hello guys. I have seen that a lot of people want the next GTA to be in the 80s. I guess it is a very hot topic. I have seen that someone posted a very long post on this subreddit why he thinks it is a good idea that GTA VI should be in the 80s.
So I decided to do the exact opposite and explain why I think the next GTA should be in current times and why it won't be boring.
Excuse me if I make some mistakes. English is not my native language. I will do my best.
So why do people want that the next GTA title should be set in the 1980s?
I have looked up what arguments people have previously brought up for 80s GTA. I want to counter argue them. If I miss some points feel free to comment them.
​

• The great music of the 80s

Not everyone likes the typical 80s music. A lot of people like modern music. Music taste is highly subjective. The music in GTA is a very important aspect of the game. You spend a lot of your time in GTA driving in a car. A good set of songs is necessary to keep you entertained.
If GTA 6 would be in modern times they could add some 80s radio stations for the fans of this music, but they still could add some modern music so there would be something for everyone and a greater variety overall.
You also have to consider that we will probably have to stay in the 80s for a long time until GTA 7 comes out. I am already tired of the GTA 5 music because I have heard all of the tracks so many times. It would be even worse if all the music would be 30 years ago.
​

• The Miami drug war

Yes, this is a good premise for a game. But there a lot of other things GTA 6 could be about. For example, about the modern drug cartels who want to do business in Vice City and try to take over the city.
I think it would be also interesting to know what happened to the Cuban and the haitan from vice city. Do they still exist? What did change between GTA Vice City and GTA 6?
It is a fictional game overall it does not have to be linked to reality
​

• The current political situation that is hard to be satirized and quite depressing

Yeah, modern politics have basically become a GTA parody. However, I still think that this can be a huge opportunity, to parody how crazy our world has become. Also, do not forget in the GTA universe the coronavirus does not have to exist. They can do it like they did 9/11 and pretend it does not exist.
It also does not need to play a major role in the story like in GTA 5. They can just focus more on other things about the world like the individual relations between characters and the crimes.
​

• We already had two GTA Games in a row in modern times. It will feel like GTA 5 just in Vice City. LS and VC are very similar.

GTA 6 can be different from GTA 5 and 4 regardless of the time it is set in. Lets be honest the difference between 1986 and 1992 wasn't that huge either. Neither the culture nor the music or everything else changed drastically.
But would you say that GTA San Andreas and Vice City feel like the same game?
No, because it is not only the era that defines how unique the game is. There are a lot of other things that you can change to make GTA 6 a unique expierince.
​

• Just a general feeling of nostalgia towards this time period

I don't get why a lot of people are so fascinated by the 80s, but ok that's just my opinion. They can still add some 80s references, 80s cars, clothing...
But do you really want a game in 80s Miami again. Me and I am sure a lot of other people are getting tired of 80s Miami. Everything about Miami has to be in the 80s. What is so bad about modern Miami?
​

• The fear that the futuristic vehicles from GTA online will be returning

I am pretty sure they won't. Rockstar is known for removing features from previous GTA Games. (Jetpack). It definitely won't be in the story mode and at the start of online mode.
GTA 6 can be a fresh start for online. Maybe they will mess it up again, but we will at least have one year of a somewhat enjoyable online mode before they add the flying bikes.
And who knows, maybe they will go another path with GTA 6 online. I am sure it will be successful either way.
​

• People are just tired of GTA making fun of the modern society

I can understand this point a bit. GTA has been always about parodying things. They will probably make fun of hipsters and influencers and stuff everybody is just tired of.
But trust me making fun about the 80s will maybe be refreshing at first but will quickly become annoying too.
They will make fun about communism and that everyone is partying, taking drugs and this type of stuff.
Also consider that they do not have to focus the story that much about this like in GTA V.
​

• The unrealistic hope that some characters from GTA Vice City will return

Apparently a few people still think this. They won't return GTA Vice City is in the 3D universe and GTA VI most likely will be in the HD universe. The city itself as well as Gangs and vehicles can exist in both universes, but characters can only exist in one.
​
I also want to add some advantages that a GTA in modern times would have.

• Modern Cars

Cars are the biggest reason why I do not want GTA 6 in the 80s. We could still have 80s cars there would be just more variety on the street. The argument that there were cool cars in the 80s too is stupid. It still can't replace modern cars. It's like saying you can never eat chocolate in your life again but hey there are a lot of other cool desserts.
​

• Smartphones

Yes most of the functionality of a smartphone could be replaced by a menu but it would be still cooler. And pulling out a brick phone out of your ass would be kind of weird.
​

• Longevity

Also a big reason. We will probably have to stick to GTA 6 for a long time until GTA 7 releases. If GTA 6 could in the present, they could add a lot of new things over the time and would not be limited by the time Perion. That is the reason why RDR2 online is not really that successful. I do not mean alien vehicles but stuff like modern fighting jets, modern guns, vehicles and stuff like this.
​
This aren't a lot of advantages, but I already wrote a lot of advantages in the counter argues.
Thanks to everyone who made it this far. I hope we can talk about it in the comments. At the end of the day this is just speculation only Rockstar can decide how GTA 6 will be. No matter what time period GTA 6 will be great.

It's been a while since I've done one of these, but there was actually content to play through up until recently. I was going to take a cheap shot in the title but decided not to (original version was "What if AE actually had a good UI"). I've seen a bit of discussion recently regarding the game's user interface (UI) and so I'm taking a look at problems I have with it and the changes I feel it could use.
The Problems
Navigation

One of the biggest timesinks when dealing with UIs and menus is how long it takes to navigate them. For me, a particular sore spot is having to open up the menu, going to my mail to collect my daily chronos, then exiting the mail and being completely kicked out of the menu. This means I now have to open up the menu again to go to the store for the other daily chronos. And then closing the shop completely kicks me out of the menu again right when I want to go do the 5 daily ads. A minor complaint? Sure. But having to do this unnecessarily convoluted process every day just leads to a poor UX.
In addition, the UI is often quite laggy and unresponsive. This is especially noticeable when trying to access Awards after earning a decent number of achievements. While this most likely has to do with the game having to check with the server each time the Awards menu is loaded, it doesn't make this complaint any less valid.

Inventory/Grasta

The biggest offender in terms of UI navigation comes in trying to navigate the inventory. If you have 1000 badges and want to find one near the bottom, you need to scroll though 990 other badges first. The same thing goes for dealing with grasta and equipment. Much of this has to do with the fact that each item is considered unique and will not stack with other identical items.
In addition, the game is very stingy about what information it gives you and when. For upgradeable weapons and armor, it'll tell you that things are increasing but won't give any hard values. And when trying to equip armor with unique effects, you can't even see what they are. You have to navigate out of the character menu and into the items menu.

Characters

On a similar note, trying to navigate characters is also a chore. With only a maximum of 7 characters visible when using Grasta/Board (and less when trying to change characters), it can take a while to find the one you want. In addition, despite the large amount of space the portrait takes up, very little information is actually displayed. You have to check the character's status to see any sort of details.
The sorting/filtering function is also very rudimentary at best. There's no way to filter based on multiple terms and it lacks common sense terms such as filtering/sorting by element and speed. In addition, while I understand why they might name it "class," why can't the option be called sort by "rarity" or "stars" instead?

Actual Numbers

To jump back on a subject touched upon in the inventory section, the game is very adverse to giving hard numbers about anything. Damage is described in terms of S, M, L, and XL even though within XL there can be wide ranges of modifiers. Buffs, debuffs, and heals are similarly described without any hint as to the actual values. While possibly meant to be newbie friendly, this obfuscation just leads to confusion about how strong certain things actually are (and could settle the Joker Trick ShooteTriple Burst fiasco once and for all).

Translations

And finally, poor translations can lead to confusion when dealing with the UI. For example, while inside an Another Dungeon, opening the Party menu gives you the following message: "Another Dungeons can only be played in order." What is this message trying to tell you? It's supposed to tell you that, "While in an Another Dungeon, you are only allowed to change the order of characters in the party." Did you get that meaning from the original statement? Neither did I. A similar example occurs when dealing with the daily 5 ads and keys.

Proposed Solutions
Navigation

Adding a back button would solve the entire first paragraph here. Many things already feature it so it seems strange the mail and shop do not. As far as responsiveness goes, I don't have a clear answer for this. It most likely will come down to optimizing the code base and limiting the number of times a database call to the server has to take place.

Inventory

For the love of Isuka, let identical items stack. I don't want to scroll through 42 Power of the Blaze grasta with POW/LCK stats anymore. Just group them as a single instance and stick the number 42 next to them. Boom, easy, done. Allow multi-option filtering by making terms checkboxes instead so we can select more than one and then save the choices until I fully leave the menu. Have a quick clear option in case I want to filter for something entirely new. Add an option to hide already equipped items and grasta. A bonus: It becomes easier to get rid of unwanted grasta since with stacking comes batch operations (such as batch Separate).

Characters

Let us toggle the style between the current bar view and a more compact grid view so we can have 16+ characters on screen at one time. Display a brief summary of their stats if using the bar view so all that unused space isn't wasted purely on aesthetics. And for the feature players have been begging for since the beginning, display and let us sort/filter by character element(s) as well. A toggleable option to also separate out and display AS/ES forms would also be good considering ES may no longer follow the NS element/weapon type.
As a bonus, give us a compact view for parties as well and then raise the limit on the number of parties we can save. Scrolling through parties is a horrid experience and needs to be improved ASAP.

Actual Numbers

It is hardly gamebreaking to give us an idea of how good an actual piece of weapon or armor is. Oh, Miaki's Lance has Damage+ When HP Low and Type Attack+? How much Damage+? How much Type Attack+? What counds as When HP Low? How does it compare to the damage boost from Ulcanactos which also has Type Attack +? Players shouldn't need to spend time on a target dummy testing these values out. The same thing goes for skill damage multipliers. Does Triple Burst (XL) really do more damage than Trick Shooter (L)? Or are the current multipliers from testing correct (180% vs 190% respectively)? Make it a toggleable option for a Simple/Advanced display (with Advanced giving all the numbers) and everyone is happy.

Translations

Just fix these please. Thank you.

Wish List
In addition to everything listed up there, there are also a few "pie in the sky" proposals I have.
Display enemy HP values/percentages and make HP stoppers visible

It's no fun to have to play the guessing game as to if there is an HP stopper and where it could be. The game should reward the player for skill and it can do so by giving the player all the information they need to succeed and seeing what they do with it. Make this another toggleable option if you have to, but this is long overdue.

Let parties have individual loadouts

AS forms can now have individual loadouts of weapons/armograsta. Extend this to cover the entire party. While this may not seem like a UI issue at first glance, it actually serves several different purposes:

1. It reduces the need for an equipped filter since you're dealing with only 5 other characters as opposed to 100+.
   
2. It makes it easier to compare characters when sorting by stats. Current sorting takes into account equipment making it hard to compare characters off base stats. With party based loadouts, all characters are considered unequipped until placed into a party which makes sorting and comparison easier.
   

Thoughts? Ideas? Concerns? What UI nuisances have I missed? What other things would you like to see improved?