The second zone is the average serious newbie's hangout. One can easily reach the second area without any XP Boosters, just by playing after a few weeks of grinding. (Of course, that progress could easily be hastened with an XP Booster or two, but even after getting XP Boosters, getting to the third Zone could take anywhere between a month or two - no need to mention the slow process without boosters!)
As I was stuck in the second Zone (prior to getting my Boosters and jumping to the third Zone), the mission choices were too limited and the Shopping Mall mission was the mission that offered the best value out there, hence the usual grinding spot!
The point is how steady progress could help you reach greater height - not instantly, but most definitely!
Back then I used to spam the Shopping Mall mission like crazy (and the Ego was not that bad either - started from 1 and after the fifth run on the same day it went up to 3!).
The rewards, however, were what had caught my interest (yea, we're all in for the STARBITS and no one can deny that - even if you're in for collecting, your STARBITS output does affect your collecting!). Back then I could run a 1 hour Shopping Mall mission and get anywhere between 150 and 750 STARBITS in exchange for 1 Ego (which I could easily recover). That 750 increased as I accumulated more fans, which surpassed 1000 at some point, but the deal is this:
Now I can do the Full Band Support mission on the third Zone with the same reward range as before - or even more! Sure, it does smack me with more Ego as the base Ego is higher due to the number of fans, but it takes 15 mins rather than the Shopping Mall's 1 hour and that, I believe, is the progress and satisfaction that I haven't experienced in any other game...
is none other than my usual advice to stack more instruments (I look like a scammer trying to create my exit liquidity by shilling instruments 馃槀) but yea, one reason that I don't have any worries about the tripled amount of Ego is that I have accumulated enough instruments to cover that.
Back then I didn't have as many instruments and that 1 Ego I used to get from the Shopping Mall was harder to cover up than the much higher Ego I get from these short missions with more base Ego right now. If anything, I am getting even further from Ego!
Hope that helped,
Stay safe and keep rising!
Cheers~
