It's probably for the best, any of us who rolls PAD Island without whaling is probably going to be brutally, relentlessly screwed.
But at the same time, I'm still going to try. Why not? It's not like we get events like these often. And yet I'm going to feel the pain so bad.
There's something to be said for abandoning the IAP life after doing it for so long. I used to buy a pull now and then just because I was having a bad day and wanted a chance at making it better. But then that began to spiral out of control when I started overreaching ("Oh no you don't, we're rolling until gold!"). Eventually it was as if I went all nihilistic about it and just started buying pulls whenever I felt like it. Bad rolls meant nothing to me, just toss another 5 stones into the machine and hope for the best! It was if I had forgotten the value of a dollar and found myself thinking that it really is a huge ripoff in the long run-- when you IAP, you're spending real money on something intangible. Of course sentimental value is a thing, and that's something a lot of us have put a lot of real, literal stock into. But at the same time GungHo has nothing to lose and everything to gain with every dollar you dump into their system. It doesn't matter to them what we roll, because regardless of what it is, the value of any given pull is the same-- nothing. And it was traps like PAD Academy that finally hit me the hardest. That was the last time I spent a dime on PAD (though I've super cut back ever since the beginning of this year to begin with), and I don't regret it one bit. I look at those stupid hero chibis in my box and I'm all "well, I spent money on you, so I guess I should keep you... but what the fuck do I do with you, you're worthless". And it just hit me that none of this is really worth it and sentimental value is all that matters here. I started getting to the point where I put unnecessary value into rolls with no sentimental value --It should be worthless to me, but the fact that I spent money on it makes me resent the idea of getting rid of it-- and not putting enough value into genuinely good rolls-- "ugh, it's not _______, so that was a waste". And in the end my priorities were just all sorts of messed up (and there's going to be a mass cleaning of things I genuinely don't care about once the MP store comes. But until then, no more. That's why my one condition to dropping IAP is "unless FF collab comes back", because FF has huge sentimental value to me and I'm willing to throw some money at it.
But dropping it has also changed how I play too, and for the better. It has made me learn where my priorities lie, and it has taught me how to value my stamina and my stones and use them wisely. I refuse to use stones for continues (and get really angry at myself when I lose my temper and disregard it), not just because it's a waste of a stone, but because the victory feels hollow. So I started focusing on the niche I've made for myself in Wood types and started getting really good with it. Suddenly I'm making huge progress in the game, all just because I've stopped scrambling around making different teams and started focusing mostly on units that have good synergy the teams I use. And every bit of progress feels more valuable to me than it did when I would just buy my wins. And rolling REM now is way more exciting now too, because now good rolls feel like winning the lottery, but bad rolls hurt in an entirely different (but overall better) way that ultimately boils down to "well, at least I didn't lose money on this". Every stone has weight for me now and I put a lot of thought into where every single one of them goes. And it makes the gold rolls I would normally consider "useless" something worth more consideration now. Like the last godfest I rolled a while back and rolled 7/7 gold eggs? That was a fucking awesome day even though I didn't get a single thing I actually wanted. But instead of feeling defeated like I would have been had I spent money on them, I was far more inclined to step back and actually consider each pull's potential instead of writing them all off, and I ended up far more pleased than I ever could have expected.
So that's why I'm rolling PAD Island but not spending money on it. I fully expect to not get anything great, but if I DO end up pulling one of the gold exclusives, it'll feel like I won the fuckin' jackpot, especially since I could put every last one of them to use. But you're way better off not rolling anyway (and frankly GZL was worth all three of your pulls IMO) if you would feel really upset not rolling what you wanted. And spending money on it is a huge trap since your odds of getting what you want are astronomically low.
And yet that's the intrigue for me! Three rolls on a small chance of something super cool and guaranteed to be useful to me. Why not? But that is just the result of how I've changed the way I've been thinking about PAD in general.
