Units
In order to perform in Lives, you will use your cards to create one or more units. How you arrange your units will help you to get better scores and combos, clear goals to win prizes, obtain the Idol Pieces you want, and see your favorite idols perform.
Building a Unit
Units can be arranged in one of two ways.
- 1. Go to Unit Arrangement (ユニット編成) in the Menu. You can have a maximum of 12 distinct units at a time, accessible through the 12 tabs up top.
- Outfits (衣装): Change the MV outfits of your unit members.
- Switch Display (表示切り替え): Tap to see each member's ability stats, Live Skills, Level, and Fan count layered over top of their image.
- Skill Check (スキル確認): Access a thorough list of each member's Skills.
- Arrange it for me (おまかせ編成): Select which attributes and abilities you want to focus on, and the game will build you an ideal unit with those characteristics.
- 2. Arrange your unit directly from the Unit Select screen that appears before you perform a Live. This screen is described in detail under the Lives section of the guide.
Each unit must be made up of five "Live Members" and two "Support Members".
- Live Members (ライブメンバー): Members whose ability stats will be factored into the scoring for the song, and the members whose Live Skills will activate during the song. They can be moved into Center or Stage positions for the background music video, and be set as Performer. They also gain fans each time you play a Live, and Idol Pieces of them can drop.
- Support Members (サポートメンバー): These members' contributions to the Live are much more limited. They only provide Support Skills, which aid in performing the Live and maintaining good scores and combos. Support Members don't gain EXP or fans after a Live, and Idol Pieces of them will not drop.
How Unit Arrangement Affects Lives
The strength of a unit depends not only on the stats of the members in the unit, but also on the song being played. If you use the "Arrange it for me" (おまかせ) feature when arranging your unit for a particular song, the game will take into account everything listed below and create your ideal unit for that song. So there's no need to put tons of thought into it- the explanations below are just to provide a better sense of what's going on. They can also are helpful if you want to figure out how to create the strongest unit you can using only your favorite idols or cards.
- Total Combined Ability Stats for Your Unit: This is the number displayed prominently beneath your unit. This is the most basic measure of the strength of your unit. The higher this number is, the greater the scores you will be able to obtain in Lives. (Getting high scores allows you to clear goals to receive Live bonuses, and also increases the number of event points you can earn from clearing a song.)
- Member Attributes When playing a song with a certain attribute (Brilliant, Flash, Sparkle, Glitter), cards in your unit which have the same attribute as the song gain get a +50% increase to all of their ability stats. (You can see the attribute of each card and song by looking at the color and icon in the top left corner of the card or above the song title.) When playing a song with all attributes (the color in the top left corner will be rainbow), every card in your unit gains a +30% increase to all abilities.
- Performing a Unit’s Songs With Members of The Original Unit: Each member of your unit who is a member of the song’s original unit (e.g., when you play a Trickstar song with Subaru on your team) will get a stat boost during the song. The size of the stat boost each card gets is proportional to the number of members in the original unit. For example, because RYUSEITAI has so many members compared to, say, Valkyrie, each member would get a smaller stat boost individually. The boost per member for each unit size is summarized below:
| Size of unit | Bonus per card | Maximum bonus for a full unit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 100% | 100% |
| 2 | 55% | 110% |
| 3 | 40% | 120% |
| 4 | 35% | 140% |
| 5 | 30% | 150% |
- To even out the difficulty of collecting cards for larger units, songs with larger units have a higher potential score than songs by smaller units — if you can collect a full unit, that is.
- Live Skills As you add members with stronger Live Skills, or unlock Idol Road upgrades to the Live Skills of idols already in the unit, you will be able to improve your scores with that unit even more. The positioning of members in your unit also determines what order their Live Skills will activate in when you tap each Skill Note during the Live. The order goes rightmost member, leftmost member, inner right member, inner left member, and finally the center.
- Support Skills: You can choose which members to put in your Support based on their Support Skills. Depending on your goals, different types of Support Skills will be more helpful. For example, if you’re going for Full Combo or Perfect Combo, try to pick Support members whose Support Skills turn Bads into Goods, or Greats into Perfects.
- Center Skills: Center Skills always boost ability stats by a certain percentage. So the higher the value for that ability is in the first place, the bigger the boost. For example, if a lot of cards in your unit are Flash and have relatively high Vocal ability, a Center Skill that increases the Vocal ability of all your Flash cards by X% would be an optimal Center Skill.
Lives
Much like in Basic, having your idols perform Lives is the backbone of the game. By performing Lives with your units, you can obtain items necessary for leveling up cards, purchasing Idol Road upgrades, outfits, backgrounds, and SPP's, and scouting. During events, you can also collect event points and event items.
All songs have 4 difficulty levels: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Expert. However, in keeping with the original idea of Ensemble Stars not needing to be an aggressively skill-based game, the rewards obtained for performing Lives are the same at every difficulty level. The amount of BP required to perform a song is also the same at every difficulty level. The amount of BP used per Live can be adjusted if you're short on time and want to use up your BP quickly. Spending more BP per Live does result in diminishing returns when it comes to EXP and rewards. However, there are no diminishing returns when it comes to event points and passes.
| BP Used | EXP/Item Drop Rate | Event Points/Passes |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | ×1 | ×0 |
| 1 | ×5 | ×1 |
| 2 | ×8 | ×2 |
| 3 | ×10 | ×3 |
| 6 | ×15 | ×6 |
| 10 | ×20 | ×10 |
*The 0BP option is only available if you have no BP left. The 6BP and 10BP options are only available during events.
Live Select
- By tapping ライブ Live Stage on the Home Screen, you can enter the Live Select Screen, where you can select a song and difficulty level to play.
- Downloading Songs to Play: The data for each song must be downloaded in order to play. This can be done in two different ways:
- To download data for each song on an individual basis, players can simply scroll to the desired song in Live Select and tap 楽曲ダウンロード(Song Download). This will download the song and all of its difficulty charts. (It will not automatically download the 3D video for the Live— you will be asked to do that as the final step before you play the Live, if you still have your Environment set to 3D in the settings).
- To download data for multiple songs at a time, players can go to Menu → Data Room → 楽曲データ管理 (Song Data Management), check all desired songs, and tap 選択項目のダウンロード(Download all selected songs). Note that there are four 歌い分け songs in the game (Walk with your smile, BRAND NEW STARS!!, Toshikoshi Ensemble!! 2020→2021, and FUSIONIC STARS!!). For 歌い分け songs, individual vocals are recorded for every idol, and the game will select the vocals that match whoever you have in your unit. Downloading these songs from Song Data Management will download ALL voice data for the songs at once. That is why the download size for these songs is so large. If you prefer not to download all of that voice data and would instead like to download voice data on a case-by-case basis each time you play the song, simply play the 歌い分け songs with whatever unit you like, and if you change the members in your unit, the game will request you to download new vocal data as necessary.
- Song Lookup (検索): By selecting Song Lookup, the player can change the order that songs are displayed in, or look up songs based on specific qualities, listed below.
- Song Order (並び順): There are two options for song order— Default Order (デフォルト順) and Order by Level of Difficulty (楽曲レベル順)
- Song Search Terms (検索条件): By selecting one of the five search terms in the top row, the player can then select an option from the bottom row in order to search for songs with particular attributes. Check the Attribute (属性) box to filter songs based on their attribute (Sparkle, Brilliant, Glitter, Flash). Check the Unit (ユニット) box to filter songs based on the original unit that performed them, by tapping the drop-down bar that appears and selecting the desired unit. Check the High Score (ハイスコア) box to filter songs based on the player’s highest score. (Selecting スコアS未満 will display only songs for which the player has NOT achieved Score S or above. Similarly, selecting スコアS+未満 will display only songs for which the player has NOT achieved Score S+ or above.) Checking the Highest Combo (最大コンボ) or Times Cleared (クリア回数) boxes works the same way as checking the High Score (ハイスコア) box, but with regards to combo or the number of times a song has been cleared.
- Category (カテゴリ): Tapping this button simply alternates between displaying all songs (すべての楽曲) and displaying Campaign Songs (キャンペーン) only. In many cases there will be no campaign songs, so the message 条件に該当する楽曲はありません(There are no songs which fit the search conditions) will display.
- Song Info (楽曲情報): Displays info about the song.
- Check Bonuses (ボーナス確認): Displays the table of bonus items that can be earned for clearing Score, Combo, and Clear goals for each song at each difficulty level, as well as the bonuses the player has already obtained.
- MV Mode: Unlocked by clearing a song once on any difficulty, this mode simply generates an MV for that song with all of the characters in whatever unit you choose. There are no notes. In other words, it is a fun mode where you can put whatever characters and outfits you want (provided you have them, of course) into whatever MV you want.
Unit Select Screen
Selecting the song you wish to play will take you to the Unit Select (ユニット選択) screen.
- Side Arrows: Tap the yellow side arrows to scroll through your different units.
- Change BP (BP変更): Tapping this allows the amount of BP used for the Live to be adjusted. At any time, 1 to 3 BP can be used per Live. If you have 0 BP, it is possible to perform Lives with 0 BP, but if you have any BP, you must use it. During events, it also becomes possible to use 6 or 10 BP per Live. The amount of XP, reward drops, and event points varies based on the amount of BP used.
- Original Member (オリジナルメンバー): Tapping this section to the right of the song title will provide the option to automatically construct a unit with all the members of the song’s original performing unit. (Using this feature will overwrite whatever unit you currently have displayed on screen.)
- Stats (ステータス): Displays the total combined Ability values of your entire unit, plus Center Skills and Song Bonuses (obtained by including members in the Unit who are original performers of that song, for example), to predict roughly what Score grade you will receive. This is a good way to gauge the strength of your Unit. However, by getting a good combo, it is often possible to obtain one grade higher than whatever the Stats bar predicts.
- Performer (パフォーマー): Allows you to designate which member of the Unit is the “Performer” by checking the box beneath them. When you designate a member as the “Performer”, the drop rate for Idol Pieces of that member increases. You must also set a member as the "Performer" in order for their SPP to trigger during a song. The Center is automatically set as the Performer, but you can change that by using this tab. Note that only members marked with "STAGE" or "CENTER" can be selected as the Performer, and the number of members marked as such corresponds to the number of original members for the song.
- Outfits (衣装): Allows you to choose which outfit a character will wear in the background music video. Outfits besides the default outfit will need to be unlocked, often through the Idol Road. Only outfits marked MV can be worn during Lives.
- Positioning (配置): Allows you to tap two members of your Unit in turn in order to switch their positions in the Unit. This is a quick way to just rearrange your existing Unit without having to wait or scroll through all your cards, to change who is in "Center" and "Stage" positions. The positioning of members in a Unit can be surprisingly important when it comes to clearing certain goals. Some goals involve “performing a song with its original arrangement”. If you wanted to complete the goal “perform Kiss of Life with its original arrangement”, and you included every member of ALKALOID in your unit, but you didn’t put everyone in the right positions, that would not count as performing the song with its original arrangement. Luckily, if you just use the automatic Original Member feature mentioned above, the game will make sure everyone is in the right position.
- Arrange it for me (おまかせ編成): Tap this to have the game build an optimal unit for you, based on parameters of your choosing. You can use this to obtain the best possible score on a particular song, or other purposes. The options are described below.
- Filter Cards by Type (編成したいカード属性): This helps the game to narrow down which cards from your collection should be used to create a team. Besides All Types (全ての属性), you can also narrow down your selection to only Sparkle, Brilliant, Glitter, or Flash cards.
- Attributes to focus on (重視する能力値): The game will choose the best cards from your collection in accordance with one of the following metrics:
- Total value (総合値): This creates a team prioritizing the highest possible team strength, and likewise the highest Live Score. It takes into account the ideal Center Skill based on your collection of cards as well as any relevant bonuses from original members of the song's unit, but it won't necessarily find the optimal arrangement for your cards' Live Skills, which will vary by song anyway and contribute very little to the high score in general. If you just want to find the strongest possible team for a song, filtering by the Attribute that matches the song and using this option will find the strongest team in almost every situation.
- Da, Vo, Pf: The game will prioritize cards in your collection with the highest Dance, Voice, or Performance; note that these stats don't necessarily correspond to the Sparkle, Brilliant, and Flash attributes respectively. (That is, a Sparkle card's highest stat is not always Dance.)
- Event Bonus (イベントボーナス): The game will prioritize cards in your collection which boost your event point gain for the currently running event. These cards are the ones from the current Scouting promotion.
- Card training (カードの育成を優先): The game will prioritize low-leveled cards, allowing you to level them up through the EXP gained from Lives.
- Fan acquisition (ファン獲得を優先): The game will prioritize cards in your collection with fewer Fans; see the Music Cards section for more details.
Performing a Live
The Live itself is a rhythm game, in which the goal is to tap notes at the right time in order to score well and maintain a combo. At the bottom of the screen is the Deciding Line (判定ライン), a curve with nine circles spread across it. Notes will come out from the top of the screen, and you must tap the notes right as they cross the Deciding Line. Each note will be graded as Perfect, Great, Good, Bad, or Miss depending on your timing and whether you executed the note properly.
Types of Notes
There are several different kinds of notes. The colors described below refer to the default appearance for each note type (this can be changed in the Options menu).
Tap Notes are blue, and the most common kind of note. Tap the circles toward the bottom of the screen right as the notes reach them. Double Notes are two blue notes connected by a line. These must be tapped at the same time.
Flick Notes are red or orange depending on direction, with arrows pointing to the right or left. Rather than just tapping when the notes reach the circles toward the bottom of the screen, you must quickly slide/flick your finger in the direction of the arrow. Just tapping it or flicking in the wrong direction is a Miss.
Long Notes (left) are yellow, and are called this because they must be held for a period of time. However, you can actually let go of a long note in the middle. All long notes have a glowing circle to indicate the end of the note, and many also have additional circles at various points throughout the note. So long as you are holding down the note at the times when these circles cross the Deciding Line, you will not get a Bad or a Miss. There is also no penalty for holding the note for longer than you need to. (This may not be the case in other rhythm games, so be careful.)
Slide Notes (right) are exactly the same as Long Notes, with the added twist that they bridge multiple parts of the Deciding Line, and require you to slide your finger across the screen.
Skill Notes appear 5 times per Live, and when you tap one with Good or better timing, the Live Skill of one of your unit members will activate.
Ensemble Notes will appear once in a song. If you tap this note with Good accuracy or better, when the Ensemble Gauge is full, you will successfully complete Ensemble Time.
On Easy mode, there are mostly Tap notes, while at higher difficulty levels, more flick notes and slide notes appear, and there are more complex combinations of the different types of notes.
- When something interrupts your playing or you pause the game via the pause button on the top right, a screen pops up to announce it.
- If you want to resume the Live (ライブ再開), press the left button, in black. You will be given 3 seconds to regain your bearings before the notes start moving again.
- If you want to quit the Live (ライブ中止), press the right button, in red. You will be taken back to the Lives list. Any BP used will not be refunded.
Succeeding in a Live
- Voltage: While you play a Live, there is a bar in the top left labeled "Voltage". In order to successfully complete a Live, the bar must be filled up past the "Clear" point by the end of the Live. During the Live, every Good and above causes the bar to fill up, while every Bad or worse causes the bar to empty. If you don't successfully complete the Live, you won't get any rewards at the end.
- Score: As you hit more and more notes accurately, your score increases. Reaching certain scores will get you certain Score Grades, which are displayed on the score bar at the top of the screen so you can see how you're doing. Getting high scores lets you achieve score goals to get rewards, and also increases the event points you gain for playing songs during an event.
- Combo: Your Combo is the number of notes you hit in a row that are Good or better. If you get a Bad or a Miss, the Combo resets from 0. As your Combo increases, you get progressively more points for each note you hit accurately, which helps you to get a better score on the Live. In addition, getting high Combos lets you achieve combo goals and get rewards.
Ensemble Time & SPP
Almost every Live has a section called "Ensemble Time". You'll know when this has happened because the Deciding Line will turn yellow, and a gauge called the Ensemble Gauge will appear toward the top of the screen. Once Ensemble Time begins, for every Good or better, the Ensemble Gauge will fill up.
Ensemble Time is important because it is how you trigger a card's Special Performance (SPP) during a song. Before starting the Live, at the Unit Select screen, set the character whose SPP you want to see as Performer. Then, while playing the song, you must activate Ensemble Time and fill the Ensemble Gauge by getting lots of Goods or better. Finally, while the Ensemble Gauge is full, you must tap the Ensemble Note with Good accuracy or better. All of this will activate the Performer's Special Performance.
Live Bonuses
For every song, there is a set of bonuses that can be earned by achieving certain goals. These goals are completed by achieving progressively higher Score, Combo, and Times Cleared. The Times Cleared goals apply to the song as a whole, while the Score and Combo bonuses are unique to each difficulty level. These bonuses are a good way to gather type pieces and even diamonds. As you scout better cards and upgrade them, the higher goals become attainable. Once a goal has been attained, you can't get any more bonuses for achieving the same score, combo, etc.
Tips for Play
- If you want to play on Hard difficulty or higher, play on a flat surface, in such a way that your phone can't move around too much. Double flick notes and slide notes can be pretty difficult if your phone is sliding all over the place.
- If you're trying to learn how to get Perfect Combos, it helps to set a custom note speed for all difficulties -- this helps to make songs on easier difficulties look less cluttered, and helps you to establish a rhythm for hitting notes you can apply to harder levels.
- Don't discount the settings— you can change almost everything to your liking, and playing with the settings can really make the play experience easier and more fun.
- Even if you prefer not to play songs on Easy mode, if you want as many free diamonds as you can get and have the time, it's probably worth it to get 7 free diamonds per song just by achieving an S+ score, and 5 more by also getting Combo S+, on Easy mode. (Combo S+ may seem like a pain, but on Easy mode, with Support Skills, it becomes more doable.) If you do that for every song in the game over time, that's at least 455 free diamonds, or over 700 free diamonds if you also get Combo S+; by doing that on Normal, you'll get twice that number!
Live Settings (ライブ設定)
Live (ライブ) Tab
- Notes Speed (ノーツスピード)
- Recommended Settings (オススメ設定): This box is automatically checked. Checking this box easily restores the default settings for how fast the notes move at each song difficulty level.
- Custom Settings (カスタム設定): Checking this box allows you to set a single, custom note speed that will be used at ALL difficulty levels. This is in contrast to the default settings, in which the notes in an Expert chart move much faster than the notes in an Easy chart, for example. This custom speed can be changed at any time, so for players who struggle with the default note speed of Expert charts, changing to a slower custom speed may be helpful.
- Note Design (ノーツデザイン): This section is self-explanatory.
- Note Timing (ノーツタイミング): In this section, you can either manually change the timing of the notes to better match your individual device and play, or select Set by Tapping (タップで調整) to re-do the calibration that was done before your first Live to determine the note timing.
- FAST / SLOW Display (FAST / SLOWの表示): Toggling this option causes the game to display additional info on non-Perfect note judgments, letting you know whether you hit a note faster or slower than the correct timing. During Live Challenges, this also displays a FAST or SLOW for Perfect notes which are earlier or later than the Amazing timing window.
- Mirror Mode (ミラーモード): Turning on this setting will reverse the right and left sides of a song chart, allowing you to play mirrored versions of each song chart.
Sound (サウンド) Tab
- BGM音量: Change the volume of the song itself.
- ボイス音量: Change the volume of character voices.
- ノーツ音量: Change the volume of the sounds made when notes are tapped.
- 初期設定に戻す: Restore original settings
- Note Sound Effects (ノーツ効果音): This can be used to change the sound scheme used when notes are tapped, which depends on the player’s accuracy (Perfect, Great, Bad, etc.). The タップ音確認 (Check tap sound) and フリック音確認 (Check flick sound) buttons allow you to check the noises for tap notes and flick notes under each different sound scheme.
Environment (環境) Tab
- 2D Mode: Instead of the default 3D dance video, the background in each Live will be either a screenshot from the 3D dance video or the card art for the center of your chosen unit, if the center is a 4-star card or above. It is easier to see the notes in this mode. It also drains less battery on your phone, and is much easier on your phone in general. This also helps to conserve space on your phone by not requiring you to download 3D video data, if that's an issue.
- 3D mode: The default mode, in which the background of each Live is a 3D dance performance by the members of the player’s unit.
- 3D Rich: 3D mode, but even better. This will quickly drain your phone battery, though.
- Background Brightness (背景の明るさ): Allows you to adjust the background brightness during Lives.
Detailed Settings (詳細設定) Tab
- Note Size (ノーツサイズ): Alter the note size.
- "Deciding Line" Design (判定ラインデザイン): Change the design of the part of the screen where you actually tap the notes.
- Display Settings (表示設定): Alter the position of the combo number display (COMBO表示位置) and the note accuracy display (判定表示位置).
- スキル発動時の演出を表示する: Toggle whether or not a notice will be displayed when Skills trigger.
Skills
All cards have three types of skills: their Center, Live, and Support skills. Each type of skill contributes to improving your Live experience in different ways — usually through increasing your score — detailed below.
Center Skills
The Center Skill activates for the card which is designated as the Center of your team. Generally speaking, its effect is to boost the stats of cards that share the same Attribute as the Center, which underscores the importance of building teams with a unified Attribute in mind.
There are generally two types of Center Skills:
- All-stat/cumulative Center Skills: Written in-game as Sparkle/Brilliant/Glitter/Flashタイプの総合値X％up, these Center Skills take into account the cumulative stats of your cards.
- Specific-stat Center Skills: Written in-game as Sparkle/Brilliant/Glitter/FlashタイプのDa/Vo/PfX％up, these Center Skills boost only a specific stat of the affected cards.
Center Skills which boost specific stats will typically outperform Center Skills which boost all stats only if a majority of the cards on the team (usually four or more cards) have the same specific stat as their strongest value. For this reason, veteran players with deeper collections who can build teams around a specific stat are more likely to benefit from Center Skills that boost those, whereas newer players are more likely to benefit from a card whose Center Skill boosts all stats — a fact which highlights the importance of unlocking as many nodes on your cards' Idol Roads to maximize the benefits that Center Skills bring.
A good rule of thumb for Center Skills is that the boost granted by members of the song's original unit generally overshadows the bonus from a Center Skill. This can result in situations where two or more cards whose strongest specific stat differs can ensure that a Center Skill boosting a specific stat would generally lose to one boosting all stats due to the lack of synergy between the unit's members. For instance, when performing a Brilliant-type ALKALOID song, you'll notice that Hiiro, Aira, and Mayoi all have different strongest stats (Vo, Pf, and Da respectively), which makes it unlikely that a Center Skill boosting a specific stat would result in an optimal team.
Live Skills
A card's Live Skill activates when a Live Skill note, shown on the right, is hit with GOOD accuracy or better; these skills boost the score gained from notes for a set duration of time.
Each song has five Live Skill notes; each one corresponds to a specific member of your Live Team. This means that, for example, the last Live Skill note will always activate your Center's Live Skill; the second Live Skill note will always activate the skill of your leftmost Live member, and so on. For cards, Live Skills vary by their duration: the larger the score boost, the shorter the duration, and vice versa.
Live Skills have a maximum level of 10 at five copies of a card (the maximum); at one copy, the maximum level for a Live Skill is Lv. 5. 4☆ and 5☆ cards have the same multipliers for Live Skills, and these boosts and durations are as follows:
| Duration of effect | Lv. 1 | Lv. 2 | Lv. 3 | Lv. 4 | Lv. 5 | Lv. 6 | Lv. 7 | Lv. 8 | Lv. 9 | Lv. 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 seconds | 20% | 25% | 30% | 35% | 40% | 45% | 50% | 60% | 70% | 80% |
| 8 seconds | 13% | 16% | 20% | 23% | 26% | 30% | 35% | 40% | 45% | 50% |
| 12 seconds | 8% | 10% | 12% | 14% | 16% | 18% | 20% | 25% | 30% | 35% |
Regardless of whether a card was promotional, obtained through scouting, or otherwise obtained through event rewards, their Live Skill multipliers are the same — a factor which makes cards such as the Subaru card obtained from the Start Dash mission valuable for a very long time, as their stronger Live Skills allow them to compete with other cards.
Optimizing the order of your team's Live Skills to account for a song's specific notes generally won't change the score by drastic amounts.
Support Skills
The Support Skill only activates for the cards in the two Support slots of your Live team. Some Support Skills are passive effects, like drop rate boosts; others directly affect the Live performance itself. The different types of Support Skills are explained below.
At one copy of each card, the maximum level for any Support Skill is Lv.3. Additional levels unlock at three and five copies. To view lists of cards with a specific Support Skill, click on the headers to navigate to the linked category page.
Voltage Protection
In-game description: VOLTAGEの下降量がダウン
Cards with this Support Skill will lessen the decrease in the Voltage Gauge after a BAD or MISS.
The Voltage Gauge, the bar in the top left, increases as you hit notes correctly and decreases as notes are missed or hit poorly. If it is not filled past the CLEAR threshold at the end of the song, the Live is failed, and you won't receive EXP or any item drops.
This Support skill is generally useful for Tour Event missions where you must control your score to end on an exact digit. Since you're trying to manipulate your score to end on an exact digit, you'll likely attempt to drop notes on purpose. As a result, cards with this Support Skill would make it easier to drop more notes.
Ensemble Time Gauge Boost
In-game description: あんさんぶるタイムゲージの上昇量がアップ
Cards with this Support Skill boost the amount that a note fills the Ensemble Time Gauge.
During Ensemble Time, the gauge that appears at the center of the screen must be filled by hitting notes at GOOD accuracy or better. To activate your characters' SPPs, the Ensemble Time note at the end must be hit when the gauge is full; if the gauge isn't completely filled, the MV's generic animation will play instead, even if the Ensemble Time note is correctly hit.
Combo Saver
In-game description: BAD / MISSをX回までGOOD / GREAT / PERFECTにする
Cards with this Support Skill will convert notes which are BAD or MISS into either GOOD, GREAT, or PERFECT depending on the skill's level.
This Support Skill will catch the first notes which are BAD or MISS at any time during the song. When this skill activates, the SUPPORT marker will flash alongside the note's judgment, indicating that the skill has triggered.
On the result screen, the game will display a SUPPORT count over the combo count, indicating how many times this skill was triggered — this differentiates such results from Full or Perfect Combos achieved without the aid of this Support Skill.
As the name suggests, the skill is vital to achieving or maintaining Full Combos. Since scores can drop drastically as a result of combo breaks, cards with this Support Skill can help you to maintain high scores (which can be a factor in achieving the S+ score rank, which rewards diamonds). This especially matters for repetitive play during which you can lose focus — for example, repeating the same song over and over again when playing events, where a high score bonus directly affects your event point gain. This skill is also useful for missions during Tour Events which require the player to achieve Full Combos.
If you have two cards with this Support Skill in your support slots, their effects will stack: for instance, if you have both Sora and Midori with skill levels of Lv.3 and Lv.5 respectively, they will combine to convert up to a total of three notes.
The effects of this Support Skill vary by skill level as shown below.
| Skill Level | Effect |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1 BAD notes can be converted into GOOD |
| 2 | 1 BAD or MISS note can be converted into GOOD |
| 3 | 1 BAD or MISS note can be converted into GREAT |
| 4 | 2 BAD or MISS notes can be converted into GREATs |
| 5 | 2 BAD or MISS notes can be converted into PERFECTS |
Perfect Saver
In-game description: GREAT • GOODをX回までPERFECTに
Commonly known in similar games as Perfect Locks or PLocks, cards with this Support Skill will convert notes which are GOOD or GREAT into PERFECT. However, unlike other rhythm games, wherein similar skills activate at set intervals for a duration of time, this Support Skill will catch the first notes which are GOOD or GREAT at any time during the song. When this skill activates, the SUPPORT marker will flash alongside the note's judgment, indicating that the skill has triggered.
On the result screen, the game will display a SUPPORT count over the number of PERFECT notes, indicating how many times this skill was triggered — this differentiates them from Perfect Combos achieved without the aid of this Support Skill.
As the name suggests, the skill is vital to achieving Perfect Combos, which reward diamonds (5 for normal songs, and 3 for event songs) when first achieved for each difficulty of a song. Apart from obtaining Perfect Combo rewards, this skill is also useful for missions during Tour Events which require the player to achieve Perfect Combos.
If you have two cards with this Support Skill in your support slots, their effects will stack: for instance, if you have both Shinobu and Shu with skill levels of Lv.3 and Lv.1 respectively, they will combine to convert up to a total of four notes.
This skill does not cooperate with the Combo Saver Support skill. That is, with a Combo Save and Perfect Save in your support slots, a BAD / MISS will be converted into a GREAT, but any notes that register as GOOD or GREAT normally will be converted into a PERFECT as usual.
The number of notes saved increases linearly, starting at 1 note at Lv.1, up to 5 notes at Lv.5, for a maximum of 10 notes if you have two cards in your support slots with this Support Skill maxed.
| Skill Level | Notes Saved |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 2 |
| 3 | 3 |
| 4 | 4 |
| 5 | 5 |
Stat Piece Drop Rate Boost
In-game descriptions: - ステータスピース（赤/青/黄小/中/大 / 全色全サイズ）のドロップ率をX倍にする
- 全ステータスピース（赤/青/黄）のドロップ率をX倍にする
Cards with this Support Skill increase the drop rate of the specified sizes and colors of status pieces. On the result screen, a SUPPORT marker indicates that a drop rate boost is active.
小 refers to small pieces, 中 refers to medium pieces, and 大 refers to large pieces; 赤 refers to red pieces, 青 refers to blue pieces, and 黄 refers to yellow pieces. Some cards may boost the drop rate of all pieces of a certain color, while others may boost the drop rate of all sizes and all colors (全色全サイズ). The effects of multiple cards with these Support Skills in the two support slots will stack.
The multipliers for each skill level and card rarity are shown below.
| Rarity of card | Lv. 1 | Lv. 2 | Lv. 3 | Lv. 4 | Lv. 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3☆ | 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.5 |
| 4☆ | 1.25 | 1.35 | 1.5 | 1.65 | 1.75 |
| 5☆ | 1.5 | 1.6 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 2.0 |
Cards which boost the drop rate of specific sizes and those which boost the drop rate of all sizes of status pieces have different multipliers; so far, only 5☆ cards boost the drop rate of all sizes of pieces.
| Skill Level | Drop Rate Multiplier |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1.25 |
| 2 | 1.35 |
| 3 | 1.5 |
| 4 | 1.65 |
| 5 | 1.75 |
Scoring
The basic scoring formula for Music, per note, is as follows:
Each factor in this basic formula is explained below.
Base Score and Score Constants
The base score of a note is a value calculated as:
The final result is rounded to the nearest ones digit.
The base power of your team is the number displayed on the Live Unit selection screen right before you play a song. In the image shown below, this value is 142,389.
The score constant of a song is a hidden value unique to each song and each difficulty of a song. Generally speaking, the higher the score constant, the lower the score per individual note, and vice versa. Songs with more notes will tend towards a higher score constant, while songs with fewer notes will have lower score constants, which ensures that songs generally will not score higher by virtue of having more or fewer notes, even accounting for combo bonuses.
The score constant for each song can be derived with the formula
where:
- N is the total number of notes in the song;
- H is the number of hold notes (not including the beginning note of holds); and
- E is the number of Ensemble Notes (either 1 or 0).
For the above Live Unit example, a base power of 142,389, calculated against the score constant for Kiss of Life on Easy (67.75) would result in a base score of 2,102.
Judgment
The judgment of a note is either PERFECT, GREAT, GOOD, BAD, or MISS. During Live Challenges, notes can be judged as AMAZING, which is a grade higher than PERFECT; however, as Live Challenges calculate using an accuracy-based scoring formula, this judgment grade will not be covered here.
All notes, regardless of type, may be adjudged as anything from PERFECT to MISS. The scoring multiplier for each judgment type is as shown:
| Judgment | Multiplier |
|---|---|
| PERFECT | ×1.0 (100%) |
| GREAT | ×0.8 (80%) |
| GOOD | ×0.5 (50%) |
| BAD / MISS | ×0 (0%) |
Note Type
Each type of note has a different multiplier.
| Note Type | Multiplier |
|---|---|
|
×1.0 |
|
×1.0, but changes the Live Skill multiplier |
|
×1.0 |
| Hold note (beginning) | ×1.0 |
| Hold note (middle or end) | ×0.5 |
|
×10.0 |
If a flick note appears in the middle of a hold, it is worth ×1.0, and is not treated as a middle or end note (worth ×0.5).
Combo Bonus
The combo bonus is an additive value that gradually increases at certain combo thresholds, relative to each song's total note count. It is calculated as follows; all final values are rounded.
The threshold bonus is a percentage value of the base score; the multiplier varies by difficulty, as shown below. The first row is the combo count over the total number of notes in the song you must maintain.
| Difficulty level | 10% | 20% | 40% | 70% | 90% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Easy / Normal | 10% | 20% | 30% | 40% | 50% |
| Hard | 15% | 30% | 45% | 60% | 75% |
| Expert | 20% | 40% | 60% | 80% | 100% |
As an example: Distorted Heart on Expert, with 949 notes, will gain a combo multiplier from a combo count of 95 or higher; at 855 notes, or 90% of the total note count, the combo bonus is 100%, effectively doubling your base score per note. Likewise, Knockin' Fantasy on Easy, with 106 notes, will gain a combo multiplier from a combo count of 11 or higher; at 75 notes, the fourth combo bonus kicks in, and 40% of your base score is added on top of your score per note.
This scoring bonus is not related to the combo rank rewards (i.e., B, S+) associated with a song's clear rewards.
Live Skill
The Live Skill multiplier is ×1.0 (no effect on the formula) unless a Live Skill triggered by a Skill note is active; the multiplier of a Live Skill boost is dependent on a card's rarity, the duration of the Live Skill, and its' level in the card's Idol Road. Shown below are the multipliers for the Live Skills of 4☆ and 5☆ cards.
Note that the values displayed in-game are percentage-based — that is, a multiplier shown here as 1.35× is written as 35% in a card's skill descriptions.
| Duration of effect | Lv. 1 | Lv. 2 | Lv. 3 | Lv. 4 | Lv. 5 | Lv. 6 | Lv. 7 | Lv. 8 | Lv. 9 | Lv. 10 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 seconds | 1.2× | 1.25× | 1.3× | 1.35× | 1.4× | 1.45× | 1.5× | 1.6× | 1.7× | 1.8× |
| 8 seconds | 1.13× | 1.16× | 1.2× | 1.23× | 1.26× | 1.3× | 1.35× | 1.4× | 1.45× | 1.5× |
| 12 seconds | 1.08× | 1.1× | 1.12× | 1.14× | 1.16× | 1.18× | 1.2× | 1.25× | 1.3× | 1.35× |
