Festival:Advanced Mechanics

Kemono Friends Festival is not necessarily a complex game to play or even beat, nor are there right and wrong ways of doing so; pragmatically speaking, the only real recommendation in order to have relatively safe chances at beating the game are probably a team of ★★★ Friends on your first roll (see Re-Rolling on how you can make that happen) and knowing when you should stop progressing and start grinding.

However, as with any game that crunches numbers to get things done, there are many ways of utilising the game's mechanics to the fullest, and just as many ways of outright abusing them. This page will document known strategies and tips.

Re-Rolling
Like several other mobage, Festival 'offers' a jerry-rigged method to re-roll your first gacha pull as many times as you like, allowing you to start the game with powerful, high-rarity Friends given time and patience. Unlike several other mobage, however, this method involves simply re-installing the app.

At the start of the game, every player is given 3300 Gold KSK; 300 for a single, mandatory 'tutorial' pull, and another 3000 from pre-registration bonuses. In total, this gives 12 rolls with which to start the game. However, the game does not have a way of tracking what devices have installed the game in the past; clearing the player data starts you over completely, crucially including all of the pre-registration bonuses being offered anew when you restart. This means that uninstalling (hence clearing the player data), re-installing, and re-opening the app allows you to essentially replay your first rolls over and over until a good set of Friends is pulled.

IMPORTANT: '''Make sure you are connected to your home internet or WiFi (preferably unlimited) when you do this! The entire Festival download is over 200MB a pop and will eat through your mobile data in a matter of minutes!''' Android users can mitigate the size and time somewhat by going into their Applications Manager and using the Clear Data function, skipping the installation of the App itself; however, iOS users have no such alternative and must use the App Store each time.


 * 1. Install Festival from the App/Play Store or QooApp.
 * 2. Open the application and enter the game, navigating through the opening menus as normal. If you aren't sure what buttons to press, consult Festival:Getting Started.
 * 3. Tap the title screen to enter the game; download of game data will commence, which usually takes a couple of minutes but will vary depending on your Internet speed.
 * 4. Play through the tutorial and spend the 300 KSK you get on the first of the 12 rolls.
 * 5. Upon arriving at the Home screen, open the Menu and go to Gifts to claim the 3000 KSK pre-reg gift.
 * 6. Do a 10+1 pull.
 * 7. If you are unsatisfied with the results, repeat the process. Otherwise, begin the game!

Be aware that it is likely wiser and definitely quicker to aim for a number of specific rarities rather than specific Friends; the odds of getting any three ★★★ pulls are much more manageable than getting even one high-rarity Friend in particular.

Comparing Stats (AKA the 'tier list')
An important property of Friends' stats in Festival is that they are remarkably linear; every stat (except for Weight, which never changes with levels) increases according to specific linear co-efficients. It is perfectly possible to extrapolate the stats of a Friend at any level given their stats at level 1 and the equation by which they increase with level; the only other factor that needs to be accounted for is how many points in a stat have been added as a result of Level Points.

Despite being only moderately difficult maths-wise, listing them all here and providing methods for empirically determining every stat is long and ultimately unnecessary. Instead, a spreadsheet has been developed (calculated and tabulated by Red Orange) that lists the statistics of each Friend at levels 1 and 20. Additionally, the user can copy the table and change the level number used, and the spreadsheet will automatically recalculate the stats.

A direct consequence of these linear stats is that it is very easy to compare them, and subsequently evaluate the effectiveness of different Friends on those grounds. In this vein, the spreadsheet also contains a 'tier-list' comparing same-rarity Friends based purely off of raw stats. Be warned, however: exclusively using raw stats mean several important factors are not taken into account:
 * Skills and KemoPowers
 * The role of weight in a team; almost all heavyweights are C or below despite being a fairly important inclusion
 * Team synergy, i.e. Friends that enhance other's strengths and account for weaknesses

In general, it is more comprehensive to build your team based on the *numbers* rather than the letters. And remember: the game isn't hard enough that a team of all 'high-tiers' is even required!

Optimising Skill Cooldowns
For the most part, picking and arranging your team is based on the stats of the Friends you have in your inventory and how well they can work with each-other. However, there is another esoteric consideration to take if you already have an assortment of Friends and skills to choose from.

Every Friend in the game has a cooldown for their skill (ranging anywhere from 21 to 12 at base level), which ticks down every time your team is able to move (including Turn 1, the very beginning of a stage). However, due to this, it is possible to have a Friend's skill ready on the turn after they moved, effectively wasting turns that could be spent using a powerful Skill on a boss wave, for example.

The optimal places in your team to put particular cooldowns are as follows:
 * First - 9, 13, 17, 21
 * Second - 10, 14, 18, 22
 * Third - 11, 15, 19
 * Fourth - 8, 12, 16, 20

Note that, since skill cooldowns decrease when levelled, your team will often switch places within this sort of structure as you build them up.

Stalling
In later stages of the game, you will come across layouts such as this:


 * [A PICTURE IS REQUIRED HERE]*

Here, there are both breakable and hazardous objects separating you from the enemy. The intent is that the player uses their opening turns to carefully break the obstacles keeping them from damaging the enemy.

However, there are three important things to remember about enemy Friends here:
 * 1. Enemies cannot break any breakable obstacles. It must be done by the player.
 * 2. Enemies take damage from hazards similarly to the player.

In these waves, the player doesn't have to do anything. Waiting for the enemies to simply throw themselves around uselessly and damage themselves until the wave is cleared will save the player HP that would've normally been spent being attacked and hitting hazards. The downside, of course, is that it takes quite a long time... but in that time, you'll be charging all of your Friend's skills for free!