I wanna hear your thoughts about the 6th LI
(To be clear, this post will contain main story spoilers sup to 'Death and Rebirth'. I haven't finished that part 'To our Yesterday' yet, since I've been busy with Uni. And when I say spoilers, I mean SPOILERS. I literally do an overview of pretty much each arc of the main story aside from the most recent one. Continue at your own discretion).
Okay, so my theory is that the next main story update will be the 6th Li's intro chapter. All the other LIs got one, including the OG three, after their initial introductions.
'To Begin' is the very first part of 'Under Deepspace', the first main story chapter. That's where we meet Xavier, when he's unconcious and found by MC on her first mission, followed by Rafayel, when he catches that fish, and finally, Zayne, when she goes to the hospital. I'm pretty sure that's also the chapter we first hear from Caleb, in the form of a phone call.
Following that, the next chapter is spent learning about, and finally meeting Rafayel, when we go to his studio for the first time. This is also where he's unlocked as a love interset.
The next chapter, 'Talented Hunter' is spent with Xavier in No-Hunt Zone 07, and also where we start learning about the existence of Onychinus. This is also the chapter where Mephisto is seen watching MC and Xavier.
We meet Caleb officially in 'Under Twilight', but he isn't unlocked as a LI yet. Half way through, he goes kaboom, and the rest of this chapter, along with the next one, 'Eternal Aurora', is spent with Zayne and learning more about him.
The chapter after, we go back to seeing Xavier and learning more about Onychinus.
In the very first part of the next chapter, 'Moonlight Under the Sea', we hear Sylus' voice for the first time, through a recording sent to MC while she was investigating what happened to Caleb and Josephine. I'm fairly certain this is also the first time we hear mention of EVER too. The rest of this chapter is spent with Rafayel, going to that island with him, and getting the invitation to The Nest.
The final chapter in 'Under Deepspace' is called Galactic sunset, and that's what builds up to Sylus' introduction as an LI. We spend it learning about Onychinus and the N109 zone from Xavier and Rafayel, the latter of whom is who eventually shows MC how to enter using the Nest. It's also meant to build on their own secrets and double life, making them a bit more mysterious, like through the man from EVER Rafayel was speaking to, Xavier and Jerehmia's unusual skill sets, as well as his connection to MC, the wanted posters, as well as how both Rafayel and Xavier seem familiar with the Nest.
It's only after all of this that we finally meet Sylus in 'Long Awaited Rivalry'. The whole chapter is dedicated entirely to him and MC, establishing him as LI.
Similarly, 'Prologue to Tomorrow', does something similar. The mini chapters for Xavier, Zayne and Rafayel build on them as characters, and set up for later main story updates, yes, but more importantly, confirms EVER as the main villain, while linking them to the explosion that took Caleb and Josephine.
This sets up 'Homecoming Wings' where we're finally introduced to Caleb as the 5th LI, and, you guessed it, the chapter is centered on reestablishing the dynamic between MC and Caleb, and showing how different it is from her memories, and the dynamic we glimpsed earlier on.
The point I'm making is that each LI is introduced, however briefely, before whole chapters are spent establishing who they are, and their dynamic with MC. And LIs introduced later, like Sylus and Caleb, don't appear out of thin air. Both are glimpsed or mentioned before hand. Sylus, through information we get about Onychinus from others, and Caleb through his role in MC's life pre-kaboom. This is why they work. It's how hype is built around them.
Maybe this is because I started playing after 'Death and Rebirth' was already out, and it was like this before both of them were announced too, but I'm wracking my brain, and I can't figure out if or where the story has hinted towards a 6th LI. Perhaps the traitor from the start of Death and Rebirth? But other than that, nothing's coming to mind.
Keeping the pattern in mind, I'm not sure there's going to be time for a main story update that will set up the new LI and the plot of his intro chapter properly. It's already been so long, and the other LIs, even Sylus and Caleb, are so far along in affinity and the cards released for them, that, in my opinion, if they're going to release a 6th LI, the sooner they do it, the better.
Currently, the pattern for main story updates seems to be to LIs per chapter. 'Death and Rebirth' has arcs for both Sylus and Zayne, meanwhile 'To our Yesterday' has arcs for both Xavier and Rafayel. The next main story update with Caleb, we can assume, will centre on Caleb, plus another LI. I don't think they'll jump back to any of the other LIs, since their chapters were pretty recent. Except maybe Zayne? Mostly because I feel like he and Caleb are each other's character foils, but that's not for this post. I also don't think that next main story update with Caleb will focus entirely on Caleb. Not unless it was significantly shorter than the last two main story updates.
This is why I think the 6th LI's intro chapter will be next, followed by a main story update with Caleb and 6th Li. Especially since it's heavily theorised that the next Li will focused a lot on the enemies to lovers arc, with the Li being part of EVER. Perhaps the traitor mentioned in 'Death and Rebirth'?
But I'm still worried about how they'll transition the 6th Li into the game, and it's schedule.
There are already so few cards for Caleb and Sylus compared to the others.
In the permanent wish pool, Xavier, Zayne, and Rafayel have five five star cards, with two of them being their standard Myth pairs, eighteen four star cards, and eighteen three star cards.
Sylus and Caleb each have five five star cards, including their standard myth pair, six four star cards, and six three star cards. They each have less than half the amount of four and three star cards the og trio have, as it is.
If a sixth LI is added, will they begin with the same amount of cards as Sylus and Caleb, being five five stars, including their standard myth, plus six four stars and six three stars? That's not very much, and given that Sylus and Caleb mains have had time to collect free four and five star cards, limited cards and promise cards for them, they'd be much farther ahead than the 6th LI.
Infold could use his introduction to add at least six, preferably twelve, more four and three star memories each for both of them, while starting the 6th LI on eighteen four stars, and eighteen three stars? Because I feel like starting him with more cards than Sylus and Caleb currently have in the permanent wish pool would be unfair to players who main them.
On the other hand, I think adding new four and three star cards for Sylus and Caleb in that same update would take away from the 6th LI's intro, because that many four stars is a decent amount of content and lore for Sylus and Caleb.
But all this is just considering the permanent wish pool. If we include limited cards and banners, the app shows us how many cards each LI has.
Sylus and Caleb are, as you can see, pretty far behind the others, even if we include limited time cards.
Introducing the 6th LI without giving us more content for, at least, Sylus and Caleb, as well as time to digest them, would just make players not want to invest their time and (if you're a p2p player) money in the 6th Li as much.
Content for the 6th LI would also be slower, given the rerun schedule, as well as the 'Heartfelt Gift', 'Promise', and 'Ten Days with You' events tend to cycle through one (or two, in the case of the promise) LIs at a time.
As of writing this, the current rerun is the 'Lingering Gaze' banner. This rerun only includes the OG three, Xavier, Zayne and Rafayel. But what about highly requested banners like 'Wander in Wonder' or 'Tomorrow's Catch 22'? The former has Sylus but not Caleb, while the latter includes Caleb as well. What if they rerun the Wedding banner, 'Witnessed by Deepsace' or the 'Hearbeats Ablaze' banner? That wouldn't include the 6th LI, unless they planning on making new cards and adding them into the rerun, though that would mean they'd have to do that for Sylus and/or Caleb in other banners.
If a 6th LI is added, infold would have a few options. The first, and probably best option, would be fewer reruns, which I doubt they'd do. Infold is greedy. Though, I did hear a suggestion on Tiktok where someone said that the reruns should be a separate wish pool. One where the rerun is changed on a regular basis. Kind of like how 'Abyssal Chaos' and 'Echo of Khali' both cycle through trial companions every two weeks, only in this new wish pool, it would be mostly re-rurns, with the only change being what, exactly, is rerunning, every few weeks. I like this idea, plus, maybe, throwing in event limited four and three star cards, like the ones in the Galaxy explorer.
The second option is to have fewer solo banners for the first five Lis, and focus on the 6th Li to begin with, which would be unfair to people who main the others, and risk those who don't like or don't want to invest in the 6th Li pulling away from the game.
The third option is to start slow for the 6th Li, with only a few solo banners, and occasionally free four/five cards/promise, maybe even a multi banner that includes him, but that might slow down potential hype for this character, and turn people away from investing in him.
A workaround I can see, to increase the number of cards Sylus and Caleb have, infold could make some of the solo banners, promise and free cards part of the permanent wish pool. Not ones from the multi or themed banners (like idol, or spring banners), at least not unless they plan to add each LI's card from the banner to the permeant wishpool. I mean cards like 'Passionate Appraisal', and 'Lost Oasis' for Sylus' five stars, and 'Searing Touch' and 'Night Glow' for his four stars. Caleb has fewer four and five star cards, but maybe I think cards like 'Painful Signal' would be pretty important to add, since if the memories are canon, then people without it wouldn't know about Caleb's metal arm, since it isn't revealed in the main story yet.
It's not much, but I think it's a good start to bridging the gap between Caleb, Sylus and the OG three. Perhaps, every year, they could add previous free cards and a couple of solo cards from that year to permanent wishpool. Maybe players could even vote on their favourites from that year to add.
None of this takes into account the MYTHS! We're currently on the third round of myths. If the 6th LI is added, they'll only have their standard myths. And I doubt infold will release him with three myths ready to go. Again, there are a couple of ways they could handle this.
The first, and least likely, is, as I mentioned, releasing him with at least two myths, and then, running his third myth after Caleb's upcoming third one. I doubt this will happen.
The second is that they post pone the fourth round of myths, and cycle through the sixth LI's second and third myths before continuing, with the fourth round of myths which would include the 6th LI. Again, this might turn off players who either don't want to invest in the 6th Li, or just don't end up liking him as much as the others.
The third, would be to continue the Myth cycles as they are, releasing the 6th LI along sided them, but they'd be disjointed. Think, releasing the fourth round of myths for the first five guys, while the 6th Li is still on his second myth. That feels super annoying, but I kind of feel like that's what they'll end up doing.
But, I do have a solution for this that I think could work.
I think Infold should have saved the second myth reruns for after the 6th Li, which would allow them to use the reruns to fill the gap between the 6th Li and the fourth myth cycles. Perhaps, they could've even rerun the entire event, not just the cards. I think that probably would've helped most players while waiting for 6th Li to catch up, regarding myths, and that time could've been used to prep more content for current Lis.
However, they didn't do that. And I don't think Infold instead of just rerunning the second myths again, or re-runing the third ones so soon, what if Infold did an event, kind of like the one they did at the start of the year, where you get to pick which five stars you want, but make it just their myths. After the 6th Li is released, wait to release their second myth, but before that, do an event where players can chose which of the second myths they want to pull for, but they can only pick one myth set per event. Then rerun the same event before the 6th Li's third myth, later on.
Is this idea selfishly motivated, because I started playing around Caleb's birthday, and desperately want Zayne's Master of Fate Myth plus Rafayel's God of Tides myth? Absolutely. But I think it would work for later game players who missed them. It'd also be appreciated by players who did get the reruns but weren't able to R3 them and want that. The wishing pool could also include the limited four stars for each of their myths. Especially for f2p players who may have had to skip certain reruns or events in favour of others, to maximise their resources.
These are just my thoughts, because, I feel like it's pretty late in the game, so if you're going to introduce a whole other LI that you want people to invest time, energy, resources and money into, Infold really needs to prioritise how to seamlessly transition that LI into the current schedule and roster without causing a disruption that could end in them losing a lot of players. Especially when there are already issues amongst the current Lis, like how limited their cards are, which makes things like Deepspace trials, the Hunter contest and other battle mechanics more difficult.
But let me know what you think.
How can Infold introduce the 6th Li in a non-distruptive way?
How can they bridge the gap between existing LIs?
How do they catch the 6th Li up to the others without rushing it?
