#arknights really knows how to make a roguelike

[wistfulvulpine]

wait. i also need to show off this Big Sad Lock clear without the Blank Suicide Note (nullifies boss’ regen)

so i got both relics that increase ASPD based on how many ingots you have (i had at least 50 iirc), then i got the relic that grants SP when ops take damage, and ALSO the relic that gives guards 2 SP every attack. Thorns and Amiya go brrr

also got the relic that increased medics’ ASPD which probably saved the run tbh

okay. the real kicker is the hallucinations i got for the final floor that actually helped me! Imagined (enemies have increased ATK, DEF, HP) was a detriment obviously

but i also got Survivalist (friendly units and non-boss enemy units will take constant damage but receive increased ATK and ASPD) which essentially rendered the boss’ health regen useless because Schwarz’s s3 cycle was too fast for it to keep up >:] she killed him so fast the golems didn’t have time to show up thank god

#who gives a hoot #roguelike sometimes really says RNG upon with ye both as a threat and blessing #arknights really knows how to make a roguelike #time to suffer trying for the third ending

[toskarin]

Do you have any recommendations for mobile games? I’m interested in knowing how your taste intersects with that specific market

not really! I guess I recommend Arknights, but that's really it

mobile games are in a really dire place for people with my specific brain problems. everything's either too involved for a phone or too uninvolved, if that makes sense

if a game is a full scale Game, it feels weird to try and find time for it while I'm in a position where I'd be playing it on my phone. if it's an emulated game, it kind of falls into that same problem area. but I do need gameplay or else I just don't feel driven to open the app ever

I used to like gps games, but it feels like niantic's market dominance turned them into a much more stingy genre that's much more strict on behaviour like... playing while riding the train

my ideal mobile game would probably be a roguelike of some kind, but all the mobile roguelikes are either extremely questionable ports done by guys who don't understand mobile UX or extremely streamlined roguelites that have been successfully stripped of all texture

so... winner by process of elimination is still Arknights! Arknights is good.

[cerastes]

I think a big part of the difficulties people seem to have with Integrated Strategies comes from not knowing how to fine tune team building, and it’s understandable, it’s only one of two modes in which this matters, the other being Contingency Contract, and even then only if you’re doing 25+ Risk in general, which is the minority of players. In every other situation, you grab your preferred 12+1, and go apeshit. Unless you intentionally indulge in challenging yourself through comps and other sorts of map-clearing (3*s only, MinOp, 1OPrally, etc), it’s very likely the average Arknights player just doesn’t have the experience to truly learn how building and finetuning beyond “shove all my meta and or favorite units in the team” works.

I’ve talked about this before but something I find helps is making a little checklist of what your ideal team has, and then pruning this into a checklist of what are the barest requirements you need to succeed at a run.

Let me use JT-8, for example. JT-8 needs you to deal with:

The boss and all their normal gimmicks.

The boss’ gimmick when they lose a lifebar.

The boss’ phase 2 bomb gimmick.

The non-boss mobs, which include dogs, casters, and 2-block lancers.

So you prepare:

Healing.

Maybe fast-redeploy to lure some of the bosses attacks + block/kill some phase 2 bombs.

Damage dealing.

Sufficient block.

Something to hold the boss.

These four points are very easy to cover with 12+1 units. Alright, now let’s prune that into bare essentials.

Healing and bulk (to resist Arts and survive) can be acquired with Nightingale.

Further healing and boss holding can be covered by Saria S1.

Enemies in JT-8 besides the boss deal low damage and are not bulky, so you don’t need a lot of bodies or a lot of bulk, and can focus on bringing damage. Thorns and SilverAsh have enough damage and block that they can each hold a lane, as well as ranged attacks that allows them to hit the boss when it’s in the center.

And we have reduced our entire checklist of needs into 4 units. These four units are all you need to clear JT-8. That’s your team. Anything else you throw on top of these units is gravy and will make the process even easier.

Of course, your comp needs to be consistent with what you actually have. So if you don’t have some of these units, or any, you look at what units you have that can achieve this. No Nightingale? Maybe use Perfumer+Ptilopsis instead to make up for the lack of Res with more pure healing. No Thorns and/or SilverAsh? You bring dedicated blockers instead (Specter, Cutter, etc) and bring Snipers and Casters to deal damage to the boss. No Saria? Use any other boss holder, like Nearl or even Spot, and make up for the Saria factor by bringing additional healers, or maybe even debuffers, like Shamare or Mousse. Maybe you can’t do it with 4 units only, but you can with 8 or 9, which is great, because that still gives you leeway to bring other QoL units in those remaining slots, like Gravel or Texas.

You prune and prune until your needs are met. This sounds like an involved process, and for high Risk and some IS2 runs, it can be, but for the most part, you simply know your roster, and know what it can and can’t do. You get that with experience, and you get a taste of team building.

In the case of IS2, specifically, there’s the roguelike factor unique to it, which means you can’t really build exactly the way you want unless you get lucky, but the point is, don’t rely only on luck, if you learn team building -- how to prune your ideal checklist into bare essentials checklists -- then you Make Do With What You Get, and you end up with more successful runs than failures. 

IS2 is, in part, a knowledge check of your own Operators. It’s a very niche knowledge check of your own Operators which exists only in the game mode, but that’s what makes it fun.

#arknights #hope this helps anyone #I talk about this a lot in my IS2 streams but I think it's important enough that I should put it in blog as well

[coldgoldlazarus]

Arknights makes an absolute hypocrite of me.

I love that it has actual gameplay that requires you to put in lots of effort and brainpower to figure it out, yet I also hate how hard it is and whinge about Contengiency Contract existing every time it rolls around. I don't even want to try the roguelike mode. (Though that may be partially that I don't care about the theatre kid faction and preferred the creepy jazz vibes of Ceobe's Fungi Mist, but still)

I don't typically go for grimdark stories and settings where everyone sucks to some degree or another and everything reflects the shittiness of reality more than I'm comfortable with, but somehow I enjoy the way Arknights does it?

I love that the characters are really fleshed out and generally not sexualized and are given their own lives and relationships that have nothing to do with the player character. I also regularly lust over Nian and wanna marry like twenty-some and counting other ladies even aside from her.

And the main appeal of the game to me is the story, I love how thematically rich and in-depth it all is... but aside from Invitation To Wine, I haven't actually read most of it for over a year and a half now, and am so horribly out of the loop with both the events and main story that most of my understanding of anything is secondhand through tumblr discussions of stuff and even then I'm still horribly lost a lot of the time.

(Case in point, new Dude(tm) dropped today, and people are like "harder horse daddy" or "ugh fuck this shitty uncle" and I'm just like "I don't know this man he just looks boring as shit")

It's just like, how did I get here? Everything I love about this game, I'm failing to connect with it on.

#not a reblog #arknights #stray thoughts #im a bad fan lol

[shuttershocky]

https://www.reddit.com/r/arknights/comments/ouhnuq/the_summer_event_controversy_seems_to_be_out_of

Here is a good summary.

No more summer limited banner. - I completely agree. What is this, Fate/Grand Order? They're gonna sell us Summer SSR versions of existing SSRs? Get that outta here.

Promise no more producing alter characters in a lighthearted way. - I also agree. Alternate characters should stick to the Guardmiya / Purgatory / Corrupting Heart thing where there's a real lore reason for the alternate character to exist even if Ch'en in a swimsuit is really hot. I'm especially glad to see the Chinese fans are just as enthusiastic about Brawler Gavial as I am.

Decreasing the 300 guarantee limit until 120. - PLEASE DEAR GOD YES IT WOULD ONLY BE FAIR

Cancel this limited banner and change it to Mizuki single banner. - Don't think this is happening after they put in all the work to make Female Tourist C, but I'd like it if she were the last one.

Change holiday Ch'en's E2 art. - They already adjusted her face to look more like Ch'en and less like Blaze...

Change ALL the old character arts in-game, i.e. Theresa's. - I don't particularly agree with this. I see no problem with Theresa's art.

Explain why Amiya's "Planter" skin and Eureka (the spokeswoman for this event) has G-Dragon's "PEACEMINUSONE" on them. They suspect that HG is committing plagiarism by drawing the "PEACEMINUSONE" on them, which is a registered logo. They look somehow identical.This is not the first time HG was blamed for this. Long ago, someone found out that Lappland's, Liskarm's and Provence's archives were plagiarized from Rainbow Six Seige. Upon knowing this, HG immediately reworked on it and issued an apology. People miss the old HG which responds immediately. - Yeah they should definitely explain this. That being said, I am flabbergasted that Liskarm, Lappland, and Provence's profiles were straight up stolen from Rainbow Six Siege who they would eventually collab with and make canon within Arknights. That's hilarious. Also they need to really check with their collaborators because goddamn, between stealing from Siege and the composer for CC#3 plagiarizing the music for the Permanent Map that forced HG to immediately replace it with a track from Darknights Memoirs, they might get a bad reputation for not vetting who works for them.

Demand Wei@W to explain the issues concerning the in-game character arts and the recently published art book. - I do feel like an art book should be more than just interviews and E2 art yes. Where's the concept art for the operators?

Readjust the contain in the RMB 198 package. - A complaint exclusive to the CN server. I have no comment!

Explain why the pink doggo has been delayed all the time. - WHERE THE HELL IS SHE HYPERGRYPH

Promise that the new module system is F2P. - Completely agree. The modules are free /now/, but so was the game not having a single limited character until Nian came out. They better goddamn remain free for everyone. They shouldn't lock such powerful upgrades behind any kind of gacha system.

Do proofreading to ALL the previous story dialogues and wordings. - Not critical, but yes please

Stop releasing event reruns in one shot. - I don't particularly mind this one actually. A ton of event reruns in a row is fine with me, but I'm just like that.

Give a maximum deadline for releasing each new main story arc and speed up the process. - I disagree with this actually. I think HG should take all the time they need to write chapters. 6 months between story chapters doesn't even begin to faze me. How long was the longest gap between story chapters in FGO? 1 whole year Between LB5.2 and 5.5? These things take time. 

Explain that will there be new roguelike events and will they be permanent. The previous Interlocking Competition receives many negative feedbacks because there is too few maps for the players. On the other hand, they are demanding for either the rerun of Ceobe's Fungamist or other new roguelike events because they love it. Also, they want roguelike gameplay to be permanent in the game. This is more of the players' personal opinion. - HELL YES PLEASE BRING BACK FUNGIMIST MY LOVE I MISS ROGUELIKE MODE MAKE IT PERMANENT SO WE CAN PLAY WITHOUT SANITY

#Arknights