P&D Pass

P&D Pass comes to North America

36 Comments

Introduction

The P&D Pass will be making a debut in North America after the most recent maintenance and offers players a subscription-based service in order to acquire additional Magic Stones, rolls, and other in-game items.

As a whole, this is an efficient ratio of real life money to in game currency and if you are someone who is already comfortable IAPing (in-app purchasing), this will be a blessing overall.

With that being said, P&D Pass will still cost real life money ($9 USD / $12 CAD) which in turn can be off putting for many players. Thankfully, Puzzle and Dragons is a non-competitive, primarily PvE (player versus environment) game which means this has no actual impact on your own experience should you choose to forgo this service.

On the other hand, there is a 7 day free trial along with a special first time bonus to any one who subscribes (paid or trial) within the next 3 weeks. This special bonus is a Spring Forward Medal which can be redeemed for either Jiraiya , Yuri , or Grandis .

As a disclaimer, I do not work for GungHo and have never received any form of momentary, in-game currency, or support beyond a couple of Retweet/Facebook shares in the past. As such, all opinions are my own.

Official GHNA links:

Video commentary

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Entertainment money

Money is always a sensitive topic, especially when spent on entertainment as it can be considered “wasteful.” By wasteful I mean it does not contribute to advancing your overall status in life (eg. paying down rent/mortgage, food, etc.).

On the other hand, spending on entertainment is usually the most enjoyable part of our lives as it is what brings us joy and the medium we choose to do so will vary from person to person. At the same time, certain activities are more socially acceptable which makes no sense to me.

Generally speaking, it is considered the norm to go out for food and drinks which will get pricey quite quickly as the drinks aspect is grossly overpriced. Yet, spending $30-50 on a single evening would be considered socially acceptable but spending that same amount on a video game (let alone a Gatcha game) or digital property is seen in a more negative light.

This is absurd overall because people should be allowed to freely spend their hard-earned money on what makes them happy and unlike dinner/drinks, it is not pooped out the next morning as you can still continue to derive entertainment from your purchase for many months to come.

The key is spending within your limits and living within your means.

Cost to purchase Magic Stones

In addition to the release of the P&D Pass, the price for Magic Stone bundles/packs has been decreased:

Due to the fact that I live in Canada, I will be using the CAD prices to reflect the value offered with the various options. As such, Magic Stones cost approximately 76 cents each (65/85) when using the 85-Stone format as it is more efficient compared to the other options.

What is offered in the P&D Pass

The P&D Pass offers 30 different Gift Dungeons which automatically means players will gain 30 Magic Stones along with whatever goodies are offered within the each Gift Dungeon.

Right away, this translates into 12/30 = 40 cents per Magic Stone which is almost twice as efficient compared to the 85 Stone bundles. In fact, if you purchased the P&D Pass for 5 months ($60), you would have acquired 150 Stones along with 150 other goodies while still spending less compared to the 85-Stone pack.

In regards to the Gift Dungeons offered, each day has something different but the more notable drops include, but not limited to:

  • 30 Magic Stones (1 per gift dungeon)
  • Free Roll (Day 1, Guaranteed GFE at Level 5)
  • Plus points (Day 4, 1-5x +297s)
  • Super Snowglobes (Day 10, 1-5x)
  • Rank EXP (Day 20, 2-10M rank EXP)
  • Monster Points (Day 25, 100,000-500,000 Monster Points)
  • AA4 Latent Tamadra (Day 26, random one appears, can restart to get desired one)
  • 1 Rainbow Event Medal (Day 28)

(Reddit source & PAD Protic source)

You will can also acquire Diamond Dragon Fruits, Trigod Masks, and other rarer materials on the other days.

Finally, you will also receive 5 extra team slots along with +5% Rank EXP for completing a dungeon in solo mode.

Dungeons last for 48 hours and can be missed if you fail to actually play it within that time frame.

Subscription levels

The P&D Pass offers 30 different Gift Dungeons with some of them starting at Level 1. Once you successfully clear that dungeon, it will become Level 2 for the next cycle of the P&D Pass and caps at 5.

This in turn will offer better rewards for these Level dungeons with a guaranteed GFE being available for Day 1’s Level 5. As such, there is incentive to be subscribed for a prolong period of time in order to gain the largest benefits

Even if you stop subscribing, these Levels will not be lost and you will simply restart at your previous Level if you resubscribe.

Who benefits the most from this?

GungHo

Naturally, anyone who already is comfortable spending money on PAD will find the P&D Pass to be amazing as it offers truly outstanding benefits for the price point. On the other hand, spending in Gatcha-style games tends to be the most helpful for newer players or those with less developed boxes.

This is because PAD has an absurd number of different cards and in order to build competent/functioning teams, you really need a deep Monster Box in order to have the right leader, subs, and inherits. As such, there is a much greater urgency to roll in every event as it will most likely be their first time doing so. Furthermore, many of the daily Gift Dungeon drops will be prized commodities as they may be in short supply.

On the other hand, for someone like myself has less motivation to roll in general as I am already able to field competent teams along with being able to farm any dungeon in the game. I do not have many of the newer/top rarity cards but am able to get along just fine along with the ability to acquire any farmable material in the game.

This is not to say that more veteran players cannot benefit from this, but I just generally feel IAP bundles tend to be the most helpful for newer players for any game.

Free trial and timing your free trial *EDIT*

All players will be able to utilize a 7-day free trial for the P&D Pass once per account but be aware that you will be automatically charged if you do not opt out before the trial ends:

GH P&D FAQ

Generally speaking, it should not truly matter when you begin your P&D Pass Free Trial outside of timing the best 7 days but GungHo will be giving all players who do subscribe (free trial or paid) within the next three weeks a Spring Forward Medal. This Medal can be Monster Exchanged for either Jiraiya , Yuri , or Grandis .

This is a terrific first time bonus and should be capitalized upon by every player. Furthermore, the reward for tomorrow (June 26) will be one of the AA4 Latent Tamadras which are incredibly difficult to acquire. The delivery system is via Gift Dungeon with one of the five appearing at random. If the one that spawns is not the one you actually want, you should simply menu -> quit and then reenter the dungeon again which in turn will re-radomize the spawn. Repeat until you acquire the one you need most.

For most players this will be either a VDP or Poison Surge Latent.

Timing this free trial is important and doing so right away will grant the AA4 Latent along with a random roll on the first of July and can be opted out of right away if you do not wish to be charged at the end of the free trial.

Conclusion

The P&D Pass is the most efficient medium for acquiring Magic Stones when spending real life money as it is around $0.40 CAD per Stone. This is significantly more efficient compared to the 85-Stone bundles (even with the new price decrease) along with offering a plethora of valuable loot on a daily basis.

Generally speaking, players with less developed boxes will gain the largest benefit as the additional gift dungeon drops can possibly yield otherwise difficult to acquire cards.

With that being said, there is a free 7 day trial which should ideally be redeemed today (June 25) in order to acquire the AA4 Latent, free roll, along with a limited time Spring Forward Medal which can be redeemed for a 7* GFE. This Spring Forward Medal is only available for the next three weeks and if you use the free trial, you can opt out before the 7 days are over.

Let me know what you think about P&D Pass in the comments below along with your thoughts on subscription based services.

Happy Puzzling!

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36 thoughts on “P&D Pass comes to North America”

      1. I live in Europe and just have a European Credit Card That didn’t work with the us account. Do you know if pad pass works with iTunes gift cards?

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  2. Have 2 accounts, one apple id. I wonder if it would work to sign up on one account for a few months, un-subscribe and sign up on the other account for a few months, basically rotate them. Kind of a hassle to create a second apple account just for pad.

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  3. The GFE machine seems kind of disappointing, at least at my current level (lowish IAP spending < 50$/year) they aren’t including any of the newer witches and no current SS/S level leads. Its a bargain if one normally buys packs, but I don’t see it being game changing.

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  6. wait, matastic, ive heard some people say that Jp got an event to get a free GFE medal with pad pass, has that been bundled into the start for NA? or is there some other event that might give us 2 medals?

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    2. It has been bundled into the first 3 weeks of signing up (free trial or paid) so you should be at least getting your free trial asap and ideally today for the AA4 Latent

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  7. Thanks for your writing, very interesting as usual.
    This help me to feel less guilty with spending money.
    I usually throw some money ( 20$ ang 1$ bundle for collabs, and sometimes a pack or 2 for unteresting GF).
    PAD is a mobile-phone game I use daily and have good time with it. Seems normal to me to give some bucks to keep the game updated.
    On the other hand, I understand those who stay F2P.

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    1. Tell us your teams, leads/subs, at least a bit, because it’s hard to advise who to latent in a total vaccuum for poeple just getting their first latent…

      In a pure vaccuum, something that is both lead and sub, like chakeol is fine, as Chakeol dual lead you don’t have absurd rcv and don’t want to be poisoned, and as a sub you’re a desirable utility sub for several teams. That kind of broad guideline rule logic seems fine.

      However, if you have one best team that you are trying to take into aa4, especially if it’s a key safety/boost to help you stabilize farming more latents, the answer may just be that aa4 lead, no matter if it doesn’t dual use or slot anywhere else.

      By contrast, no one on Roah team is getting it, as Roah incidentally converts poison orbs as a minor side effect. I stuck one on v.ideal just because I have farmed several and the poison end floor fight in aa4 is mildly annoying, but almost didn’t as her team rcv is bananas and just plays through even heavy skyfall posion with mostly shrugs. Once you can farm latents, you get pretty liberal sprinkling them about, tbh.

      The transform leads are good anti-poison candidates, noting they care about anti-swap much more, but if your friend lead has that covered, the leads already transform floor 1 with very fast cd abilities and don’t usually care about 0 skill delay resists from big latents eating all their latent slots, and they usually have shields but not great natural poison handling.

      As a general rule, the cards with +2 extra latents slots, who can this 2 SDR + 1 big utility latent are good candidates, all other things being equal for subs. E.g. diochan, dark Ra dragon, etc. They should be reasonable subs first, of course. But you might as well throw some utility like jammer latent or poison latent on an 8 slot card like diochan you will sometimes/routinely be subbing anyway for 4 skill boosts and anti-blind super awakening.

      Your box will vary, but guideline rules of thumb guide the decision making, imho.

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      1. Fair fair, thank you for the detailed answer!

        For example, my Dyer team (subs Revo Indra, Mega Kanna, Revo Horus, Revo Odindra), I usually bring a VDP latent Aten!

        I was thinking of putting it on Indra, but wasn’t completely sure whether I should do him or Dyer. Apologies, I should’ve been more specific!

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        1. I would put it on OdinDra, because as a sub he seems to me more meta-rotation “stable” than indra, in the sense he appears on more teams, and in the sense his core profile (base FUA, 4SB +1haste, awaken unbind) is likelier to remain in demand as the meta and card pool evolves. He is not a candidate for other latents like void or anti-color, whereas a high damage role sub like Dyer has latent competition to have color or vdp latents because of his damage and his dps sub role on other teams.

          I’m mildly disinclined to indra is because imho he is only on the team for his skill boosts (primarily) and poison awakening, neither of which is an especially unique dimension, and the moment the card pool picks up competition in another sub card with Many skill boosts / poison awakening, as equips litter SB about, and SA proliferate, he will rotate out. I would put a less important latent like anti-jammer on Indra, I think, and poison on OdinDra.

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  9. Does anyone know the best solution when you currently have two accounts on the same Apple ID. I have a main on iPad, an alt on iPhone, happily coexisting for years, backed by the same Apple ID / email, and the dilemma now is that pad pass has the natural limitation that it is tied against a single Apple ID. So when I subscribe on main, that’s fine, but obviously doesn’t apply to alt on phone, and yet shows up under settings on either device, as both devices link against the Apple ID, and subscriptions lists the pad pass there.

    I don’t see a way to have two pad pass. I can’t sign up for a second for alt, as the Apple ID already has a pad pass subscription.

    Is there some workaround solution where one reassigns the Apple ID on a device to another email / newly created Apple ID? I am wary trying to do so will mess up or reset the alt phone device, making it think with a fresh Apple ID that it should blank out or reset all the installed apps, but I’m not sure / researched / clear. I setup the phone years ago sharing the Apple ID / email, and it’s been happy that way, with indepedantly installed apps of its own for years. (ICloud synch is turned off on both devices, obv.)

    Thanks if anyone knows, or knows a good forum with threads on this topic. (I’ll probably go search reddit in a bit, as well trafficked.)

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      1. I could try an id transfer, the part I’m unfamiliar with is that apparently when you do that, initially your installed applications stay present, and this odd Apple effect happens where if you install a new app, it takes your new password, but if you update an existing old app, it actually wants your old password, and I’m unclear if that also implies the existing app remains still associated to the old Apple id. I think the way is probably to take a backup, and screenshot the codes (plus defensive paranoia have a device transfer code open, though not intended to be used, just in case), make a new Apple ID and transfer to it, then actually delete the app, to reinstall it for sure under the new id, restore game data, then subscribe to pad pass under the new id. Im pretty sure that would be a clean unambiguous path. A lot of hoop jumping, but I suppose sets up better for the long term.

        Honestly, I just wanted pad pass on main account and to temporary 5 day on alt just for the exchange token for a mild luxury GFE, so I was hoping it wasn’t as involved as it seems.

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  10. As a non-IAP player I’m concerned that this new system will become the focus and those of us who don’t want to put money into our tablet/phone games will be left with an inferior experience. Any thoughts or mutual concerns of this nature?

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    1. Well with the P&D Pass, it just provides extra goodies, not actual game play enhancement nor QoL upgrades (i don’t think +5 team slots is that game breaking). If they gave bonus stats/multipliers/extra latent slots/awakenings etc it would become a problem

      By comparison, FEH’s Pass has QoL and game play improvement which is silly and unfair as it is locked behind a paywall

      As long as P&D Pass stays this way, it is a good thing as GH needs to make money and giving players a wonderful package is important

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  11. Mantastic, you may have talked me into purchasing the pass for few months. I only purchase once or twice a year, but it’s for 85 stones each time. I save those for the best events and because I’m only competing with myself, I’ve been satisfied. But the pass allows me to forgo those twice a year purchases and get more stones for my money. Gungho should thank you.

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  13. Are you going to make a video of your 100 free mail SGF rolls? Also, what do you think of all of the buffs to the godfest exclusives? I don’t know what to think of it.

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  14. Pingback: Version 18.5.2 Update – Piamon, DKali, Ameno Buffs, New Latent Skills, & More | Mantastic Puzzle and Dragons

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