Currency Earning Guide - Prize Bulbs!

Hi everyone,

In this guide, I will cover the different ways that you can earn Prize Bulbs in this game. You use Prize Bulbs for the Prize Map, from start to finish, and that is its only use. You use them to buy exclusive cosmetics and emotes, among other items, which are not available anywhere else in the game. I will discuss the strategies for obtaining them, how much you get for each strategy, and how effective they are. You can only hold a maximum of 50 Prize Bulbs at once, so if you get fairly close to the maximum amount, just spend them on the Prize Map, or if you already have everything in the Prize Map for the month, just ignore that until next month. Just so you know, Prize Bulbs and all methods of obtaining are renewable. There are a total of 12 Prize Maps and they repeat each year, so do not fret if you do not manage to obtain it, wait until next year and make sure you have enough Prize Bulbs then. 

On the Nintendo Switch version, you are able to hold up to 999 Prize Bulbs at a time (virtually infinite) and you are able to access the 12 available Prize Maps at any time, meaning you should basically never need to wait to spend Prize Bulbs, and you do not need to worry about spending the Prize Bulbs quickly.

WAYS TO OBTAIN PRIZE BULBS

Earning XP

You get 1 Prize Bulb every time you gain a total of 4,000 XP on your characters, regardless of the character you use. Just note that the extra XP boost of the Levelling Up, along with any use of the XP Machine, does not affect or increase your total Prize Bulb gain. Any other way of earning XP, even if your character is at Grandmaster 5, does count and you will get progress on the Bulb-o-Meter. Check your menu ingame to see how close you are to getting another Prize Bulb. XP can be obtained in many ways, so just play the game and you should earn a decent amount of XP without even thinking about it.

For a guide on how to improve your XP income, check out this guide: https://answers.ea.com/t5/General-Discussion/Currency-Earning-Guide-XP/m-p/9415324#M25441

How many Prize Bulbs do you get? 1, each time you get a total of 4,000 XP with any character.

Daily Challenges

Daily Challenges are another effective way of gaining Prize Bulbs. You get 2 Prize Bulbs for each Daily Challenge you complete, and once you have completed a Daily Challenge, you only need to wait another 20 hours before you can do another one. You have a maximum of 2 Daily Challenges you can hold on to at once, you can also reroll one if you are not satisfied to change the challenge you need to achieve, but you do not know what challenge you will get, so this could be a risk as you will not be able to reroll the challenge again until the next day, potentially losing out on Prize Bulbs that you could have earned more quickly. For this reason, if you are not happy with trying to complete a specific daily challenge or are having trouble doing it, consider this risk before deciding you want to reroll it. These Daily Challenges are really effective at getting you Prize Bulbs at a steady rate. 

How many Prize Bulbs do you get? 2, for each completed Daily Challenge.

Character Challenges

Completing Character Challenges gives you a significant amount of Prize Bulbs. There are a total of 4 sets of Character Challenges that you can complete each month. Each Challenge you complete for a Character gives you 2 Prize Bulbs. Completing all of a character's challenges gives you an additional 5 Prize Bulbs as an additional reward, adding up to a total of 15 for each character. By doing all 4 of them in the month, you get an exclusive universal hat, which is worth trying to strive for as an extra reward as these universal hats cannot be obtained in any other way, and 60 Prize Bulbs, which is heaps. The great thing is that you have plenty of time to do these challenges each month and can do them in any mode, all you have to do is use that particular character and complete the challenges that you have been provided with by the end of the month to get the rewards. When a new festival starts, you automatically unlock another character challenge set. However, you need to wait a week before unlocking each other set of character challenges for the month. That means that you have more time to complete some, but less time to complete others. For this reason, consider what character challenge sets you unlock first and last. Luckily, you still have over a week to complete the last set of character challenges. The other good thing is that these challenges do not tend to take long in free-roam regions. Because completing these character challenges they can be greatly rewarding, it is worthwhile to do them.

How many Prize Bulbs do you get? 2 for each completed Character Challenge, 5 as a Completion Reward (a total of 15 for each character).

Buying them with Rainbow Stars

You can use Rainbow Stars to buy Prize Bulbs, but because Rainbow Stars are already hard enough to obtain without having to buy them, but this is not particularly effective as Rainbow Stars are actually harder to obtain (unless you buy them). If you really want Prize Bulbs quickly though, this could be a viable option. To buy Prize Bulbs by paying Rainbow Stats, you need to try and buy an item in the Prize Map you do not have enough Prize Bulbs for, then a shop menu will come up. That is how you can buy Prize Bulbs with Rainbow Stars (if desired). If you desperately want items in the Prize Map, and you have the fear of missing out, this option could work well for you, but consider carefully whether you really want to do this or not.

How many Prize Bulbs do you get? It varies based on how many you buy. Think of it this way: the more Rainbow Stars you spend, the more Prize Bulbs you get. 

WHAT YOU CAN SPEND PRIZE BULBS ON

Only Prize Map items, but all Prize Map items cost Prize Bulbs. You can only hold on to 50 Prize Bulbs at a time, unless you buy more using Rainbow Stars or in other very rare circumstances. If you have nearly 50 Prize Bulbs and you have fully completed the month's Prize Map, there is not much you can do to counteract this, but you will be prepared for next month. Otherwise, if you have completed all Prize Maps, there is nothing you can spend them on, so just disregard the Prize Bulbs.

CONCLUSION

I did not cover farming techniques for Prize Bulbs, but hopefully this guide outlined the main ways in which you can obtain Prize Bulbs in-game. Just get that XP whenever you can, check out my XP guide if you want more, do daily challenges as often as possible and make sure to complete your character challenges and you will be able to get plenty of Prize Bulbs without much trouble, along with an exclusive universal hat! After that, you can enjoy collecting lots of cool and exclusive goodies in the Prize Maps!

Thanks for reading!

Regards

@TheSprinter85