General Info

This page is dedicated to frequently asked questions about the game mechanics, and common "newbie" errors. Avoiding those could save you precious resources to advance further in the game.

# Frequently Asked Questions

## What are the shortest tracks in the game?

The shortest tracks for each attribute are:

* Ruby Tuesday - Your Own Miracle (Vocal) at 1:18

* Oriental ST8 - Shoreline (Dancer) at 1:29

* Glasslake - Driving Lazy Bee (Session) at 1:30 (requires charged Sonic) **OR** BEXTER - Boom! (Session) at 1:31 (does not require charged Sonic)

These are best suited for grinding Gold Channel/Tapi Channel or anything that requires fast completion.

## Questions regarding stars' skill usefulness

In general, the following star skills are considered to be the best ones, in decreasing order of usefulness:

1. Combo x2 (e.g. Paris Upton)
2. All-note increase (e.g. Slasher)
3. Type-note increase (e.g. Carol)
4. Score+ and initial score+ for easy/normal tracks, particularly in Ghost Battle.

### How useful is the Combo x2 skill?

Although it might not seem like the best star skill at first, this skill is actually the heart of the meta in competitive play. It sure doubles the combo count for each note hit during its duration, but it also doubles the point added to score by those notes. It does not stack with itself, but it does stack with note score up skills (e.g. Carol's Tap Note Increase), hence doubling those multipliers.

There is a helpful tool that was made by a few dedicated players to determine which combo x2 skill stars pair well with each other for a certain difficulty of a song. This tool can be accessed through the following link:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1lt-gXdyMVLm66BX4Xh\_2Bg409n5PU1RsmuOgpNTmRns/edit?usp=sharing

### How useful are the Score+ skills?

There are two types of Score+ skills: skills giving a fixed amount of score points on cooldown (e.g. Genii, Franken), and skills giving a fixed amount of points at the beginning of the song (e.g. Partina, Charon).

These stars are best suited for generating score in easy or normal difficulty, given that these charts are fairly low on notes. Only high power teams (typically over 50k) outscore Score+ teams in these charts.

It is worth mentioning that initial score+ stars are typically most effective when set as the leader, as their leader skill is simply a much larger lump sum of initial score bonus.

A typical Score+ team includes 3 cooldown score+ stars and 1 initial score+ star set as leader. Do **not** set any cooldown score+ star as leader.

### How useful is the Judgement Upgrade skill?

The Judgement Upgrade skill upgrades Perfect notes to Perfect+ notes (thus leaving Good notes unchanged) and increases All Note score by a low percentage. Perfect+ notes give more score points and charge the leader gauge faster, but this benefit is outperformed by the other skill types cited above.

Perfect+ stars are nearly useless when playing competitive modes. They're only ever useful in 2 situations:

* For Perfect+ song missions in Solo Play
* For Perfect+ only scoring missions in Adventure Mode

Should you be willing to level-up a star for these modes, Flange is worth mentioning as a good candidate, given the length and cooldown of her skill.

## Which stars are worth upgrading?

This is a question we get asked very frequently, and one that is hard to answer in a short manner.

Apart from a few exceptions, you should only consider upgrading 3★ stars and above.

Here is a short list of stars that *could* be worth upgrading, although **the final worth of a star depends on which star you're using in this slot at the moment and what song(s) you'll be using them in**.

Generally speaking, flick stars are mostly used for their skills, not their base score, as very few charts contain a significant amount of flick notes, so spending a lot of resources in awakening or classing them up should not be your priority.

Finally, keep in mind that some choices are up to personal preferences, and that some stars can have a great potential in precise situations (e.g. when combined with another stars, or for a particular song).

#### S Tier

Here are stars regarded as *god-tier*. Upgrading these is highly recommended! It is advisable to use a Sonic Ball to upgrade these, with priority given to the more versatile Tap/Long/Slide stars without asterisks.

Tap:

* Elly
* Jessi
* Patra
* Carol
* Arwen
* Lucifer

Long:

* Beatrice
* Django
* Raphael
* Valentine\*
* Dr. Trasher
* Franken\*\*

Slide:

* Nicol
* Asura\*
* Horyeon
* Paris Upton
* Titana\*
* Dominiciel

Flick (used for their skills, don't enhance with Sonic Balls unless you know what you're doing):

* Slasher
* Rose

\*These are situational stars that only excel in a relatively limited selection of songs. Sonic balls should be used on other more versatile S tier stars first.

\*\*Franken is considered S tier for Easy difficulty only.

#### A Tier

These stars are great replacements for hard-to-get god tier ones, or stars that can net you the best score in less common situations than the former ones. They're definitely worth awakening, enhancing with duplicates, and skill and attribute leveling through staffs. It is not advisable to use a Sonic Ball to upgrade these, unless you know what you're doing.

Tap:

* Kermilla
* Shirley
* Demon
* Roa
* Medusa

Long:

* Aria
* Kraken
* Tanya
* Poet
* Jaguar
* Arki

Slide:

* Bonie
* Sui
* Okid
* Ramsus
* HIGHTEEN Czerny

Flick:

* Suah
* HIGHTEEN Senah
* Aresmus

#### B Tier

These stars are decent replacements for hard-to-get god tier ones, or stars that can net you the best score in less common situations than the former ones. They're not ideal but can be worth awakening, enhancing with duplicates, and skill and attribute leveling through staffs while waiting for better stars. It is not advisable to use a Sonic Ball to upgrade these, unless you know what you're doing.

Tap:

* DJMAX El Clear
* Eve
* Hyuk
* Hyeonie
* HIGHTEEN Jay
* Joke Erisgod
* Veromica
* Joy

Long:

* HIGHTEEN Yuri
* Miro
* Dorothy
* Weanie
* Jasmine

Slide:

* DJMAX El Fail
* Tommy Schulz
* Cynthia
* Hana
* Glory

Flick:

* Girl Wing
* Senah
* Wolfgang
* Sujin

#### C Tier

Far from being top-tier, these stars are really easy to come by and can help you in the early stages of you progression, when awaiting for better ones. Leveling them and their skill/attribute (to some extent) can net you decent scores or help you in some situations.

Tap:

* Sorph
* Sonicky
* Bongyi
* Orpheus
* Foras

Long:

* Yuri
* Tarzany
* Officy
* Flange

Slide:

* May
* Hiro
* Czerny

Flick:

* Blackee
* Hani

## Score+ Stars

A popular strategy in Ranked Mode (mainly on Easy difficulty) is to use score+ stars. These are not really viable in Hard/Expert and have limited use in Normal. If your goal is to play Rank Mode on Easy, then these stars are a must have. It is not advisable to use a Sonic Ball to upgrade these as they do not help you in the long run while your skill increases towards playing higher difficulty levels.

#### S Tier

Score on Start:

* Partina
* Apollo
* Charon (for songs shorter than 96 seconds / 1 minute and 36 seconds, otherwise, use Amy)

Score+:

* Franken
* HIGHTEEN Jay
* Seete
* Chops
* Amy (for songs longer than 95 seconds / 1 minute and 35 seconds, otherwise, use Charon)

#### A Tier

Score on Start:

* Uriel
* Spacy

Score+:

* Dyna
* Angela (for songs longer than 134 seconds / 2 minute and 14 seconds, otherwise, use Charon)
* Genii (for songs longer than 116 seconds / 1 minute and 56 seconds, otherwise, use Charon)

#### B Tier

Score on Start:

* Tallia

Score+:

* Orpheus
* Younghee
* Venus
* Sheriff Kid

#### C Tier

Score on Start:

* Zeuss
* Eugene
* Shaker

## What are the max levels?

* Producer Level: 50
* Star Level: 60
* Attribute Level: 20
* Skill Level: 10
* Enhance: +9
* Super Enhance: S9

## What are fodders?

Fodders are any stars that are not worth investing resources into and have more value being sacrifices to boost a better star (see below). They are usually the 1★, 2★, and 3★ characters.

## How does Class-Up work?

Classing up a star means resetting their level to 1, without decreasing their base score, and increasing by their level cap by 10.

The star that you wish to class-up must first reach the MAX level of their current class (10 x the star's current ★ class).

You must then "feed" the star a number of stars of the same class (same number of ★), that number being the number of ★ at the moment (e.g., a 3★ star requires 3x 3★ fodder stars to class-up to 4★).

Keep in mind that the star's current level resets to 1, *but* it is actually like a level-up, in that the star not only retains their base stat from the previous class' level cap, but also receives an initial stat boost. You must re-level a star back to their current class' MAX level in order to class-up them again.

The highest "natural" class level is 5★; the highest class achievable via Class-Up is 6★.

## How can I get a higher score?

~~git gud~~

Unlike most rhythm games where all notes have a pre-determined value, TAPSONIC TOP's scoring system revolves around the stats and skills of your stars, who have two primary categorizations: song type (Vocal, Dancer and Session) and note type (Tap, Hold, Slide and Flick). Stars of any song type can be used in any song (though matching song types will provide a considerable bonus multiplier to the star's base stat), but stars can only be placed in their respective note type slot. The base stat of a star directly corresponds to the amount of points acquired for one PERFECT-timed note in that category. Multipliers to this score are applied for different timings (PERFECT+ timing receives 20% bonus), star skills, etc.

Achieving high scores is dependent upon upgrading your stars. The various upgrade paths for stars can be found in the the Star Room and include training (Tapi stars and fodder for level), enhancement and super enhancement (base stat bonus), class up (level cap/stat growth tiers), awakening (one-time percent base stat bonus), and schedule training with staff stars (skill staff to improve a star's skill and attribute staff to improve a star's base stat).

## How can I fill up the leader gauge faster?

PERFECT+ timing gives you more charge to the leader gauge than PERFECT notes, so the most effective way to trigger leader skills is to improve your timing. According to observations and some game data analysis, it takes approximately 100 Perfect+ notes to fully charge the leader gauge. In this case, Perfect notes give 0.6 charge point each and Perfect+ notes give 1 charge point each. This is true of all stars and skill types, provided they have a leader skill.

There are stars with skills that periodically boost the leader gauge like Glory, Dalcy, and Busky, though they are rarely used because having an additional skill (e.g. note type boost or Combo x2) is almost always better for scoring purposes.

## What difficulty yields the best rewards in Solo Play?

According to current data, song difficulty does not seem to influence rewards in Solo Play. Only score grade (C to S+) influences rewards for certain.

Here are the results of data collected from a bit over 100 runs for Easy and Expert with the same song:

*Legend: GP = GP points (not tickets), LLS = Legend Leveling Staff tickets, SLS = Super Leveling Staff tickets, NLS = Normal Leveling Staff tickets and so on with Skill and Attribute.*

Note that some rewards seem more frequent in Easy while other ones seem more likely to be earned in Expert, but keep in mind that the number of runs is relatively low compared to how random rewards are.

## How does Autoplay work?

Autoplay is a mechanic by which the game can be set to "play" itself. Unlocking autoplay is on a per-chart basis (easy/normal/hard/expert for any given song), and requires the player to achieve ALL COMBO on the chart before they are granted the ability to autoplay that chart. Autoplay uses the "ghost" data of your highest-scoring full-combo completion of the chart. In Solo Play and Event Channel modes, autoplay can be set to loop a specific amount of times, up to the amount of stamina available.

Most, but NOT ALL, rewards of "completing" a song can be acquired through autoplay. This includes star EXP, song completion rewards, song missions, and daily missions. The following things CANNOT be accomplished through autoplay:

* Recording of high scores in ADVENTURE mode
* Recording of RANK mode scores
* Acquiring star ranks for stages in ADVENTURE mode (RIVAL battles done via autoplay will still deal damage)

Autoplay cannot be used in GHOST BATTLE mode.

## What are common mistakes to avoid?

1. Putting resources into fodder stars
	* It is not recommended to use your resources (gold, Sonic Ball, Class Ball, Akashic Ball, awakening stones) to upgrade *fodder* stars or any star that you will not be using in the long run. These resources are more precious than they might seem at the beginning of the game.
	* Enhancing them using their duplicates is also a very common newbie mistake: although you will have plenty of stars as base material, it also costs a lot of gold (over 500k to get to +9) that is better spent elsewhere. That said, there are some instances in which this can be a good tactic - see above for a list of useful beginner stars.
2. Neglecting Ghost Battle and Ranked Mode
	* It will be a while before you get to that top 100 rank, but there are some very good rewards just for entering the competition each week.
	* Moreover, once you get the hang of it and decent stars, it is quite easy to reach some reward milestones by just putting a little bit of time in it (e.g. getting to silver or gold in GB, or above top 200 in Ranked).
3. Using Highteen stars and DJMAX stars as fodder
	* There might come a time when you may want to use those free 4★ you got from Story Mode as fodder. This is definitely not advisable since they can **only** be cast through scout points obtained from Story Mode or special limited event Scout Channel, so you may never be able to cast them again. Moreover, they are decent replacements for *god tier* stars. This is even more true for HIGHTEEN Jay, who is one of the best Score+ Tap star and also the only one you have until you get Chops or Seete.