hey ! a question , do we know anything of if p5x will be/is f2p friendly at all ? /genq
As someone who's been entirely free to play with P5X (I'm not even sure how I'd pay money, since I'm playing the Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau version), I can assure you it's been very friendly overall! The developers have even said they want to make sure the game's still enjoyable if you're F2P, though they obviously add a lot of stuff that you can benefit from if you pay money.
Without paying any real-world money, I've pulled every character from the gacha at least once (besides Cherish, who was only added to my game yesterday, haha), and haven't had much issue fully participating in every event and update! Granted, I make sure to not to miss any dailies, weeklies, or other events with rewards, and I only ever spend gacha pulls on new banner characters rather than trying to get duplicates of the ones I already have (which would power them up) or trying for weapons, so I'm a bit conservative with in-game resources in that respect, and probably a little lucky, but I think that's pretty good for never paying any money? I'm certainly not in the top player rankings, but I have fun with the game and don't feel like I'm missing out on much.
There is an energy system! Technically two, in fact. You can read more about game mechanics like that here!
Pulling for characters requires you to gain a resource called "Metaverse Crystal Amber", which are purple gemstones that can be used to buy character pulls, weapon pulls, and some other stuff from Marthym's store. Some events/etc. will also directly reward character pulls and/or weapon pulls, such as the collab chapters and some daily login bonuses. From there, you can perform a 1-pull or 10-pull.
I don't know the weapon gacha as well off the top of my head, but since you specifically asked about characters, I know in the original gacha, you're guaranteed to get a 5-star character after 80 pulls, and if the guaranteed 5-star you pull isn't the banner character, then you're guaranteed the banner character after another 80 pulls. I forget the exact odds (if it's really important I can check in-game later, so let me know), but you're also guaranteed a 4-star character every 10 pulls.
Whenever you pull a Persona from the gacha instead of a character, you get a bit of currency that can be used to buy resources, and sometimes character pulls are available there in small quantities as well. Pulling a character from the gacha gives you a different currency, which can always be spent on character or weapon pulls, as well as a few other things. When the game first launched, it was possible to use this currency to buy one Key and one Sepia, specifically, but I haven't seen any characters available in that store since.
(I believe the above also applies to 2/3-star weapons and then 4/5-star weapons in terms of which currency you get, but since I pull for weapons so rarely I'm not sure whether the numbers are exactly the same.)
There's also a general character gacha, separate from the banner(s), that's permanently available, and contains all non-limited characters, so almost all the 4-stars (I don't think the story teammates are included?), and a handful of the 5-stars (Rin, Riddle, Phoebe, Marian, Mona, Skull, and Panther, I think?). Pulls for this one are obtained in the same ways, but you can also find them while exploring Palaces, and are generally a bit more frequently rewarded. I believe the 5-star guarantee mechanic might have slightly different numbers as well, but I don't remember for sure, and this general gacha doesn't really have a banner character (I don't think?).
As of the most recent game update, Version 2.3.2, they added another type of gacha with different odds, which players can now switch between at will for any available character banner(s), though the "guaranteed pulls" count isn't shared between them. In this one, you're guaranteed the banner character at... I want to say 110 pulls (?), rather than having a chance to get a different 5-star from the guarantee. It also guarantees you a free non-limited 5-star at 165 (?) pulls, separate from the banner guarantee, and I believe you can even choose which 5-star you get, though I haven't hit this guarantee yet so I can't say for absolute sure.
I hope that answers your questions, and is adequate for your friend! This is the only gacha game I play or know much of anything about, so I'm not sure I used the proper terms for everything, heh.
