Greetings all! When I left off last time, my struggling musician had opened up the Tier 2 missions and I was busy collecting Fan Boost cards to make him more popular.
Things were going great until I realized that Fans were no longer my limiting factor. Instead, I was now gated by experience. The level requirements for Tier 2 have an even steeper climb than the Fan requirements. Radio Interview, the lowest Tier 2 Mission, requires level 20; the Record a Demo Mission, halfway through the Tier 2 options, requires 40; and the Final Mission, Band Auditions, requires level 75!
I was level 28 when I began running Tier 2 Missions, and now, two weeks later, I'm level 35. Getting close to being able to record my first Demo, but damn is the grind slow.
I'm now saving up to purchase XP Boost cards. They are not cheap, however, the 10 XP Boost, the smallest option, costs 8000+ Starbits! Ouch! Well I now have two, soon to be three.
I also found out that once you hit 1000 Fans, you get the bonus of dealing with an Ego meter! Basically, your Ego meter is a percentage difference between the number of Fans you have, and your Skill level. I already had a pretty decent Skill level from my card collection, but once the meter was triggered I found myself at 22% Ego, which put a significant dent in my potential Starbits earnings (Ego directly affects the maximum Starbits you can earn from any mission). Also, just introduced this week, Missions now also increase your Ego, increasingly so if you repeatedly run the same Missions (so continuously working the lowest Energy missions is no longer a viable tactic).
Luckily, the game has a way to help you out with any Ego problems, Music Lessons! These Missions cost lots of Energy, and provide no income (personally, I think they should cost Starbits to run), but they do give Experience and most importantly, permanent Skill gain to help combat the eternal inflation of a musician's Ego. Skill gains from Music lessons are apparently also enhanced based on the instrument cards you have, but I'm not really sure how that all works.
Development continues on the game, with tweaks and additions landing at a fairly regular cadence. The developer has announced that they plan on moving into an official Beta state on November 1st! You can read about that and the recent Ego changes in this post - https://peakd.com/hive-195370/@risingstargame/rising-star-beta-release-date-and-important-information
