Gameplay flow

Gameplay Flow
All right, we're ready to start to get a handle on this game. Even though it seems like a confusing mess of buttons, there's a general flow to what you, as a newer player, should do when you log in each day in order to get the most out of your play time and start building up your team and making them stronger.

Quick Reference
Below, I will go into great detail about each of these steps. However, for your convenience, here is a high-level reference list laying out the basic pattern you should follow when you log in to FFBE each day. There are many exceptions to this pattern; it is more of a starting point for making sure you are progressing through ranks, leveling your characters, and unlocking more content on a regular basis. The Story quests are the backbone of the FFBE experience, at least until you reach the limit of the current storyline. (New story is released roughly once per month.)
 * 1) Announcements. Check new announcements on the bulletin board, if there are any.
 * 2) Inbox. Check your Messages and receive any rewards waiting for you.
 * 3) Friends. Check your Friends page. Receive gifts from your friends, and send gifts to them in kind.
 * 4) Menu. If there are notifications for you on the Menu button, check them and claim your rewards.
 * 5) (Optional) Treasure Chest. Visit the Bundle shop and see what today's new bundle(s) is/are.
 * 6) Daily Quests. Choose at least 5 to complete from the list. Try to pick quests that line up with what you wanted to do anyway. This is not as important for newer players as it used to be, as some of the daily quests are now relatively inaccessible for newer players.
 * 7) Limited-time Vortex quests. Special Vortex events only stay around for a couple of weeks at a time, and even the easiest levels for beginning players often have good rewards. It typically doesn't take very long to complete the Vortex quests you can reasonably complete, since you only need to do most of them once, but if there's an event you haven't played through yet, do that as soon as you finish with your daily quests.
 * 8) Story Quests. Continue doing Story Quests until you run out of NRG. If you have already beaten the Vortex quests you can handle for the latest special event, you can jump straight to this step after finishing your daily quests.
 * 9) Colosseum. Visit the Colosseum and fight there until you run out of Orbs.
 * 10) Item management. This includes claiming extra completion rewards from your questing, crafting items and abilities, shopping in towns and exploring them for new items, equipping your characters, and spending gil as needed to facilitate all of the above.
 * 11) Enhancement. This includes feeding Magicite to your Espers, as well as enhancing and awakening your characters.

Here's an even higher-level overview: All right, now on to the excruciating details!
 * 1) Check your updates (anything with a number in red on it).
 * 2) Send and receive Friend gifts.
 * 3) Complete daily quests (if it seems sensible to do so) and time-limited Vortex quests.
 * 4) Work on story progression until you are out of NRG.
 * 5) Spend any remaining non-NRG resources that automatically replenish (such as Colosseum Orbs).
 * 6) Manage and improve your items, Espers, and units.

To Start With: From the Home Screen
Let's take a look at the Home screen again: When you log in, you'll usually see that some buttons have a number in a red oval next to them. This means you have new things to see or do inside the associated area(s) of the game. The first time you log in each day, there will be three menus that will almost always have a number in red: When you log in, look for these red numbers, as they are usually your first order of business. On Tuesdays or Wednesdays each week, the Bulletin Board icon, between the Special Bundles and Messages icons, will also have a number beside it. When you see a number on the Bulletin Board, that is where you should tap first. You can read a little more about the Bulletin Board and FFBE's update schedule here.
 * The blue treasure chest near the top left (Special Bundles),
 * The envelope near the top right (Messages), and
 * the Friends menu in the lower right.

Most days, there will be no new Bulletin Board announcements, so you will normally '''check the envelope first. '''This is your Inbox.

The Messages Inbox
Exvius sends you a free gift every day just for logging in, and the pink envelope icon is your "inbox" for receiving such gifts. Tap the icon and you'll see a screen that looks a little bit like this:



If you want to see what a message has inside, just tap on it. To claim every gift you haven't yet received, tap the "Claim All" button near the top right of the screen. (Tapping "Refresh" clears all your previously read and received messages. You don't have to tap Refresh, but it doesn't hurt to clean out your messages periodically.)

When you're done with your messages, you can either tap "Back" (upper left), or you can tap the red "Home" button in the lower left.


 * Where do rewards go when you receive them from your messages? They will be filed into the proper place for their item type. Bonus characters will join your unit roster, weapons will go to your Equipment list, Lapis will be added to your total, and so on.

Your Friends List
Keeping a Friends list allows you to save a roster of other people's Team Leader units that you can use to aid you in your adventures. It's also the most reliable way to get Friend Points, which are used for summoning common units. You can choose to receive other daily gifts as needed, too, so whichever way you look at it, it's important to always keep up with your Friends list.

First, it's time to see how many gifts your friends have sent you. Tap the pink Friends button in the lower right corner of the screen. You'll see a new screen that looks like this:



Ignore the other buttons for now - they are mostly for finding new friends (which is more easily done by going on missions with non-Friend units), or removing old friends you no longer want. Instead, tap the Gifts button (the one with the red number on it). This is where you can collect the daily gifts that your in-game friends (other real players) have sent you. Take a look at the screen:



...then tap Receive All (top center of the screen) to receive your friends' gifts. Here are a few important things to know about the friend gift ystem:
 * 1) Most regular players expect you to send them gifts each day as well. If you have befriended someone with a powerful Leader and you want to be sure they stay in your list, it's best to at least log in long enough to send them a gift each day. We'll cover how to do that shortly.
 * 2) Sending gifts to your friends costs nothing. For example, if you were to send gil to a friend, you wouldn't lose gil from your own balance.
 * 3) The gifts you can choose to send and receive are preset. You can select the type of gift you want by tapping the white-bordered square next to your Team Leader's icon at the top of the screen. When you do that, you'll see this screen:



...in most cases, you will want to ask for the pink icon, Friend Points (x10), which means every player who sends you a gift will send you 10 Friend Points. Every 200 Friend Points will let you summon a common-level character, which will not be very useful in combat, but which can be combined with later copies of itself to earn a Trust Master Reward. Your other options include 20 gil per gift, or 1 Cryst. We aren't worried about Crysts right now.

When you've received your gifts, the next step is to send gifts to your friends. This is important to do, because again, regular players (the ones with the strongest Leaders to share) usually expect their friends to send gifts on a daily basis. Neglect that, and you might lose useful friends from your list. Fortunately, sending gifts is very easy: Note: Because your friends may log in at different times throughout the day, you will often see a red number pop back up on the Friends menu later on. Feel free to receive new gifts as many times as they're sent to you. You only need to send your gifts out once per day; they will go to your friends even if they are not logged in when you send them.
 * 1) Next to the Receive All button you just used to receive your gifts is another button titled "Send." Tap that, then
 * 2) find the small "Send All" button at the top, and click it.
 * 3) When you're done, tap the Home button to return home. That's it!

Daily Quests
It's possible that after you sent your gifts for the day, you saw a pop-up menu that said something about a quest to send gifts to 5 friends. This is one of your Daily Quests. Feel free to tap the button and collect your reward for finishing it. (When you're done, use the Home button to get back home.) Daily quests used to be a very important part of keeping up with the game, but they are not always viable for new and lower-level players anymore, so completing them can be optional for now, as you see fit.

There are up to 8 daily quests per day. They change slightly from day to day, and you can check them by tapping the upper left icon on the Home screen, the one that looks like a piece of paper and a yellow starburst with an exclamation point inside it. You can view your daily quests on the "Daily Quests" tab near the top of the screen, which is the default tab.

Note: There is also another tab featuring "Newbie Quests;" these can only be done once each, but they'll give you an early boost to help you as you level and improve your characters. In most cases, you'll end up doing these as a natural part of playing the game, but you can always check them to see what's still available.

If you complete at least 5 daily quests, you will be rewarded with 50 Lapis, the in-game currency used to buy rare character summons in the Summon menu. This is a wise strategy for building up reserves of Lapis to spend on trying to get characters you really want. (If you want to take an in-depth look at the gacha summoning system and/or get an idea of which characters are considered the best to use, I highly recommend visiting the "real" Exvius Wiki. You can also view this hand-curated short list of good units by base star level, but it is not nearly as comprehensive.) However, recent changes have made some daily quests less feasible for new players, so if a given day's selection seems overwhelming or unreasonably difficult, feel free to skip daily quests for that day and jump ahead to the next step.

Once you have completed 5 quests, you will be able to tap the Quests button at the top left of the Home screen and collect 50 Lapis for your troubles. Over time, this adds up - see Lapis for more information about acquiring and spending Lapis.

Note: Some days, you can complete all 8 daily quests for an additional reward. Even moreso than the usual 5, don't worry about doing all 8 unless you really feel like it.

Special Events / Limited Time Vortex Missions
Your next priority after completing (or skipping) Daily Quests is to take advantage of any special events that won't be around forever, and won't periodically reappear. Such missions are invariably found in the Dimensional Vortex. In order to spot which events in the Vortex are time-limited, it may help to get a little more familiar with the Vortex screen. Also, please note the Vortex has been divided into tabs since I first wrote this; explore all three tabs to see all the available Vortex options.

As a general rule, the following Vortex selections are permanent: This means you can access them at any time, so don't feel like you have to rush to do them.
 * Chamber of the Fallen
 * Chamber of Arms
 * The entire "Enhance" tab (middle tab)
 * Training the Soul

The following are rotating weekend-only bonus selections that periodically recur; while often useful, they do not, strictly speaking, offer rewards you couldn't get elsewhere: These missions will be available periodically, one weekend every 1-2 months, typically in the Events tab at the top left of the screen. If you miss one, you will be able to try it again later. They're good places to get rare and useful materials, but they don't have any unique rewards that can be permanently missed.
 * Gil Snapper's Cave
 * Cactuar Dunes
 * Chamber of Crystals
 * The Enchanted Maze

That means anything else you see in the lists on the Vortex screen (also typically under the Event tab on the upper left) is probably a limited time event. Because these events often provide unique rewards you won't be able to obtain afterwards, or at the very least, cheap and easy access to valuable items like Rare Summon Tickets, it's important to always try them out as soon as possible. (A Rare Summon Ticket can be used to perform one rare character summon, which would otherwise cost 500 Lapis instead.)

Generally speaking, most Vortex quests come in multiple difficulty levels. Beat the first level, and the next unlocks. For each limited time event, do your best and go as far as you can until your party gets wiped out, then call it good and move your efforts back to progressing through the main story. If you advance quickly enough, you may want to retry the mission that stopped you after a couple of weeks, when your party has gained some levels and equipment.
 * In most cases, the rewards you get from these Vortex events will be sent to your Messages inbox.
 * You might want to save my Leader (on your Friends list), the dragoon Reberta, to help push your party over the top on tougher levels of these quests. Reberta is a powerhouse who can usually handle everything up to (and sometimes through) the PRO level all by herself, so feel free to use her as a resource whenever she's available - the rewards at higher levels are often well worth it!
 * Reberta is strong, but she is also one of the more difficult units to understand and use. Use this Guide to Using Reberta to help you make the most of her unusual skill set.
 * The levels you can unlock for most events are as follows, in order from easiest to hardest
 * BEG - Beginner
 * INT - Intermediate
 * ADV - Advanced
 * PRO - Professional
 * ELT - Elite

Progressing Through the Story
As a part of your daily questing, and then again after you finish your daily quests, you will want to complete Story Quests. These grant good amounts of EXP (both kinds) and gil, plus bonus Lapis, new areas to explore, additional playable characters, and more. To access story quests, tap the World button (map icon) on the Home screen. You will be taken to a map that looks kind of like this: If you ever need to return to the Home screen, you can tap the red Home button in the upper right corner. You can also reach the Vortex using the Vortex button, but that isn't really important right now.

Every area on the world map with a name plate under it is a place you can visit. If the name plate is red, that means it has story quests. If the plate is blue, that means it is a town or city. When you are progressing through the story, the game bookmarks your progress with a large golden icon that says "NEXT" hovering over the next area of the game you are supposed to beat. In addition, a smaller icon that reads "NEW" may appear next to the name plates of some areas. When you see that somewhere other than where the "NEXT" icon is pointing, that usually means there is an Exploration quest waiting for you. We will get to those later.
 * Towns and cities can be visited for free any time you like.
 * Townsfolk may give you side quests for extra rewards. None are required for progression through the story, but many lead to good rewards.
 * Towns have shops where you can buy and sell various things.
 * Towns also usually have hidden treasures scattered all over them, so be nosy and poke around everywhere!

For now, find the area that says "NEXT" and tap it. You will see a list with one or more red name plates. Each plate is a mission in this area, and you need to clear all of them to proceed to the next area. In any case, we want the one you haven't beaten yet. Tap on it as soon as you're ready.
 * If you have already played some of the missions in this area, they will be marked with the word "Cleared" or "Completed." "Cleared" means you have beaten all the fights in that mission; "Completed" means you not only did that, but you also completed all the optional goals for those fights.

Pre-Combat
Once you have selected your Vortex or story mission, you will usually be taken to a screen describing the optional goals of the mission for you. You don't have to meet these goals if they are too hard, but completing them will usually get you extra Lapis, so remember them when you need Lapis later.

Advance to the next screen by tapping 'Next,' and you'll be asked to choose a companion to fight alongside your party. People you have added as Friends will always be listed first, though not all of your friends will be listed at any one time. (If you are looking for a particular friend and you don't see them, you can exit and restart the game to reshuffle the friends that appear.) Below your friends are other random people. You can choose any one other person to accompany you on your mission.
 * In almost all cases, you will want to bring along an extra party member from this list, whether a friend or a stranger. Having a party of six makes the missions that much easier.
 * Whoever you bring will be yours to command for the duration of the mission - the other player does not actually get to play with you; they are just loaning you a character from their lineup.
 * There are advantages to bringing a friend instead of a stranger: Strangers can't build up or use Limit Bursts (powerful special moves), nor can they summon Espers that are attached to them. Friends can do both of those things; for example, my Reberta can summon Odin for you once your Esper summon meter is full even though you don't yet have the Odin Esper, because we are friends, and she has Odin equipped as her Esper.
 * In addition, questing with a Friend will get you 10 Friend Points each mission, while questing with a stranger will only get you 5 Friend Points. Friend Points are used to summon standard (common) units.

Once you have made your selection, you will have a chance to review your party. On this screen, you can do the following:
 * Examine your party members by tapping on them, if you like.
 * Change your party members by tapping the member you wish to change and choosing the Swap button from the menu that appears. (If you want to remove a character without replacing it, you can tap Swap and then tap the big blue arrow on the next screen that says 'Remove.')
 * Change the equipment or equipped abilities of party members, and/or view their detailed stats. Tap the character you wish to inspect, then tap the Equip button. Change views between character equipment and stats by tapping the hexagonal button underneath the character portrait on the next screen that appears.
 * Enhance your characters by fusing them with other units. Usually, you should not have to do this here, since you will do it elsewhere as a part of pre-battle preparation, after earning bonus units to fuse them with.
 * Switch to a different party by dragging the line of characters left or right. You can have a maximum of five different party configurations if you wish. For the first few months of play, you will probably not need or want more than one party.
 * Change which of your Espers is assigned to what character, by tapping the boxes underneath the characters. Each Esper can be attached to one character at most. Early in the game, this isn't terribly important, but it will come in handy a little later on when you have 4 or 5 Espers to work with, because some Espers are better at supporting certain roles (fighting, healing, magic damage, tanking, support) than others.
 * Examine your companion's stats and equipment by tapping on their character icon at the bottom left of the screen. You cannot change their equipment.
 * Change your item loadout by tapping the Manage Items button on the lower right. You can bring up to 10 different types of usable item with you into battle.

In most cases, you won't need to do any of these things, but it's helpful to know about them just in case. When you're ready, tap the large blue Depart button at the bottom of the screen to begin your mission.

Combat
You will enter combat once you tap Depart. You may also see a story cutscene before the fighting begins. Combat is at the heart of FFBE, and the way you will earn most of your rewards and experience. When you're ready, click Combat for a beginner's overview of how combat works.