Not sure if this is just my optimism talking but it seems like we've had a bit of an uptick in participation over the last couple of seasons. Hopefully the trend continues and we can have an awesome season 99 and 100!

Hoping to medal in every circuit, I already got it in band (and technically in guard, although the game put me in div 2 for some reason) and I got close in corps, so I guess that is my goal for this season.

New player! First season and I think I have most of it figured out. But there are some things that I have questions on.
1. how much experience is between director levels,
2. Is it better to hold campaigns or save the energy for rehearsals, and which campaign is the best
3. Is it better to spend more money on staff, or invest in a event and hope for profit!
Thanks
-StoneCommander
The Cosmere bands
DC, MB, CG, DL.

Welcome! I am by no means an expert but I think I can help you out.
1. If i remember correctly, it takes 400 or 500 xp to level up the very first time. Beyond that, i have no idea what the exact numbers are but it takes my level 80ish drum corps about 2 weeks to level up and my level 25ish drumline 2-3 days
2. While youre new, i think its definitely better to save your energy for rehearsal as campaigning doesnt really come into play unless you desperately need money or are in the very very very late game where influence basically determines whether or not you win
3. People have different strategies about using money but i think a good rule of thumb is to use roughly half your money per season on staff and roughly the other half on events

Good luck!

Welcome to FMA StoneCommander! I know Lemon answered your questions already but another opinion can't hurt.

1. Not sure the exact numbers, as there becomes a point where leveling up is so rare that I don't really pay attention. Just know that the amount of experience between levels increases every level, so your first skill points should be used on the skills you find most important (since you will be getting them easily.)

2. It would likely be best for you to save the energy for rehearsals. I have personally operated with the belief that influence is the best campaign to run but it is still somewhat slow. A full season of 60 energy influencing campaign will only net you around 8k influence or 16k if you have the "Administrator" perk. Unfortunately, this is honestly the only way to truly build a large amount of influence. While some groups are able to score very high without a lot of influence (Rebels last season for example), groups with 100k+ or even 200k+ require less rehearsing over the course of the season to get high scores. While this is the only way to build lots of influence, hosting your own event is an alternative way to earn money (and a lot more of it). This leads into

3. Hosting an event is extremely important for gaining money in FMA! A full, 30 group event, with $40 ticket prices has given me easily over $100k in past seasons. Honestly, I'm not sure what the optimized set up would be for events and I can only talk from personal experience, but I always try to host as large of an event as I can with high ticket prices. While upgrading staff can be important at times, I always host my event first and then spend the rest of my money on staff.

TL;DR 1. A little, then a lot. 2. Rehearse now, Campaign influence when you need it and have Administrator. 3. Event first, staff last.

Hope this was helpful!

Hey StoneCommander! I would say focus foremost on making money off of your events. Right now, host the largest event you can with the money you have. I would put the tickets at about 25-40 dollars. (I usually put mine at 40 but I would recommend start around 25 and then figure it out from there)

Place your event in the later half of the season, in like the second to last week to the end. This will ensure that you have time for people to buy tickets. Try to avoid hosting on a day with many events or one big event, this will ensure you get big groups to apply. When people apply, make sure you accept the bigger groups first. The more influence a group has, the more money you will make. And it affects everything.

Ideally if all goes well you will gain more money than you spent, I would continue this cycle and invest all money possible into events season after season(Invest any money left over into staff), until you can comfortably have 20-30 slot events.

Then I would create the event and spend all the spare money on staff. I think if you can get all of this working together you should reliably be able to increase in money pretty easily.

Only mildly annoying to have your colorguard still be placed as division 2 when from scores you would’ve gotten 3rd in div 1…. Sorry to those of you in div 2 :/

I wonder if that has something to do with FastForward, because I vaguely remember something like that happening a while ago with people getting shunted down into Div 2. Then again it looks like he's only using 3 accounts this time around so who knows

The event shortage certainly seems to have gotten worse this season

Hey, newish player here (been playing casually on and off for a while, just never popped by the forums). I've recently gotten into lurking on the forums and looking at scoring (becoming cool). I've had a few questions that I've not really asked before.

What decides whos div 3, 2, or 1? I've noticed some groups who've placed high last season still in div 3, where as others moved on? My other question is what decides the minimum difficulty when you're auditioning groups? The last season my minimum was 1, then on some of my groups/accounts it's moved to 2 on some categories? I figure the answers are going to be mostly not knowing, but maybe I'll get lucky. I'll probably have more questions later tho lol.

Welcome to the forums Karaline!

As far as I can tell, what division you're placed in is determined automatically by your rehearsal scores in the pre-season week and by the rehearsal scores of other groups in the same circuit

Challenge levels sort of scale with your groups as they improve, e.g. better/more staff, more influence, stuff like that. So at the beginning, the minimum will be 1 and the max will be 8 (I think) and when you're a ridiculous level like gcurrier I think the max is somewhere around 25 and the min is somewhere around 17

Hopefully that helps and don't hesitate to ask more. Heck, maybe someone more qualified than myself will be there to answer too

That makes more sense. I appreciate the response!

My max difficulty for Vis this season was 20, the min was like 12 or something. Like Lemon said, its just dependant on your staff and influence.

I am not having my groups compete this season mainly due to the need to fundraise and also I was on vacation during pre-season which knocked them down to Division 2. I can not wait to come back in Season 100!

I'll be back in Season 100 as well, hopefully it'll be an exciting season!

That's good to hear from both of you. Hopefully 100 can be a turning point for the better and I'm planning on letting a lot of people know about it and maybe we can even get some of the OG's back too

Maybe a special Season 100 event would be nice? That would be fantastic.

Personally I'd be down to see Regionals make a comeback though I don't think they've been a thing for like 60 seasons or something like that

I have never seen a regional event during my active time sadly

What are regionals?