How the Dating and affection system works, why intimacy matters beyond flavor, and the approach to raising bonds efficiently.
✦Pre-launch draft. Compiled from the original global version ahead of the Illusion Connect: Re relaunch. Rankings and details will be refined as the live meta settles.
What the Dating system is
Dating is Illusion Connect Re intimacy system. Each partner has an affection track you raise through scripted dating conversations, affection gifts, and simply fielding them over time. The community hub publishes a Dating menu with the preferred conversation answers for every partner, sorted by faction. It reads like flavor content, but the payoff is a real combat stat.
Why intimacy matters
Intimacy raises a partner SPEED. Speed sets turn order, and acting first wins in Arena and Ten Saint. Treat affection as a stat investment, not a side quest.
Eden of Gaming reads this as a stat track, not a romance sidebar. In speed-priority modes the team that moves first lands the opening burst, the first stun, or the first heal before damage lands. Because intimacy feeds speed, every partner you raise nudges your turn order earlier. The leverage compounds in Ten Saint, where you field a deep bench rather than one team: spreading intimacy across many partners lifts the total speed of the whole roster you deploy, not just your single best five.
How to raise affection
Three inputs feed the same intimacy track. Run them in this order.
1Run the dating conversation and pick the answer she likes. Each partner has a short branching conversation in the Dating menu. The right reply grants the most intimacy. The community Dating menu lists the preferred answer for every partner by faction, so you can clear the dialogue cleanly instead of guessing and wasting the daily attempt.
2Give affection gifts, but only the ones she loves. Gifts add intimacy directly. The catch is that each partner has strong preferences. A gift the partner highly prefers is flagged in the gift screen, and only those gifts give full value. Hand out a loved gift and you get the most intimacy per item; hand out a neutral one and you have burned a finite resource for a fraction of the return.
3Field her and let time do the rest. Intimacy also accrues passively from keeping a partner in active rotation. This is the free input. It rewards consistency, so the partners you actually deploy climb on their own while you spend conversations and gifts on the bench you want to lift faster.
EOG efficiency rules
The rules that stop you bleeding gifts and turn intimacy into turn order.
Only gift the double-heart preferencesA gift the partner loves is marked with a double-heart icon in the gift menu. Give those and only those. Spending a preferred gift on the wrong partner is the single most common way new players waste affection items.
Spread intimacy for Ten Saint speedTen Saint asks for a wide bench, not one team. Raising intimacy across many fielded partners lifts your total deployed speed, so the whole lineup acts earlier. A few maxed favorites help one team; broad intimacy helps the format.
Prioritize partners you actually fieldConversations and gifts are finite per day. Spend them on the partners in your real Arena and Ten Saint rotations first. Intimacy on a partner who never leaves the box buys you no turn-order advantage where it counts.
Clear the dating dialogue dailyThe conversation attempt is a small daily tick. Use the published answer key, clear it in seconds, and let the passive time bonus stack on top. Skipped days are intimacy you never get back.
Where to find the answer keys
The published Dating menu groups every partner answer key under their faction, so you can jump straight to the partner you are raising. The six in-game orders plus the outside-world guests each carry their own roster of answer keys.
Phoenix
The oldest Dream Warrior military order. Front-line partners.
Tobunkai
An Eastern dream-research academy. Martial and rune specialists.
Liberos
Free-roaming adventurers and explorers. Mobile, unbound partners.
Uroboros
A society studying the dark side of dreams. High power, deep secrets.
Muscipula
An entertainment house and intelligence network. Charm and illusion.
Seed
Healers and protectors of life. Sustain-leaning partners.
Outsiders
Visitors from beyond the dream world, including collaboration guests.
Open the Dating menu in game, pick the faction, then the partner, and follow the flagged reply. Gifts surface their own preference flags on the gift screen.
The Dating menu is newer relaunch content. Answer keys and gift preferences are compiled from the community hub for Illusion Connect Re and will be refined as the live build settles.
Next
Raising intimacy is a speed play. See how turn order pays off in the tier list, or fill out your roster from the character index.
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