I started playing Elite 0 Level 1 over a year and a half ago. Back then I started it as a joke thinking to myself "how far could I possibly get doing this?". Now I have gotten to ch 5 and cleared a good number of event story boss stages. I get off and on comments saying how crazy I am for doing it but honestly it has been some of the most fun I have had playing Arknights. When I was starting this out at the time on my normal account I was getting to the point where event story stages besides the boss didn't really challenge me anymore with my well built account making it easy to ignore a lot of event mechanics by the high stats I had until the said boss stage stage or EX stages and even then it wasn't until the later EX stages where I really felt challenged (EX-5+) enough to need to learn the mechanics well (although events have gotten harder generally since). Sure I could've used my unbuilt operators but I didn't find those operators interesting enough to build so why use them now? Going down to E0 Lvl 1 it has made it so whether I like it or not I HAVE to learn the event/stage mechanics right from the start because of how weak my operators are and it has made experiencing these events so much more fun because of it with thinking of creative solutions to solve the stages. Also I come in each event with no expectations so it is always a surprise on how far I can get whereas on my normal account I always beat all the stages. I guess the point I wanted to make with my essay is that if I can get this far with such weak operators by "gitting gud" then surely you can build whomever you want as long as you know what they do and can be good for. Just like when you use crushers against super high def enemies that (I and) other players would just use arts dmg instead but still works. Doing crazy stuff like that and still being able to clear stages I think is what makes Arknights so special.
So, the real joy of playing arknights were the pain and suffering we endure along the way? Ngl, the most fun (and hardship) i get in arknight were the 2-6 months after i started playing. It was easier after that but in return, less challenging and less fun. However, here and there, some challenges are so frigging hard that you cant use whatever random unit you have anymore. Lets not forget Harold, "Clip" cliff, seaborns, drunk durins, Lone Trail's robot, and so long caster sheep. These are newer challenges that cannot be tackled if your "underrated" niche cant clear it. It also doesnt help that even niches tend to be extreme. Most niches i've seen always used maxed character and maxed module, or like OP, E0 unit. This come with huge trade off that you cant level other, more useful unit (or even not raising anyone at all !!) There are other things i wanna talk about but this "How could/should i have fun in arknight?" is too nuanced to get an easy answer.
Issue is playing with low level characters actually need larger investment into the game. If you actually want to play the niche, then you must have to get high pots for a lot of meta ops otherwise you can't really get far.
The problem is that progression is super slow and there's not really any room for experimentation, as you barely get any sanity and items to level your OPs. AK is a prime example of why mobile games and gacha games suck. They're not really games as you're encouraged to only play a few minutes every day, and "play" usually means autoing stages. If you play the game in any other way you'll quickly get annoyed with everything wrong with it. The little amount of sanity you have, trying to level new operators (which involves leveling like 4 different things) and the general lack of difficulty. Most of AK's difficult past a certain rather early hurdle comes from boss stages. Events are especially bad with this as none of the base stages are difficult at all, bar maybe the boss stage, but that usually depends on the boss and the event mechanics. Then you have EX which are usually easy too, till you get to the final 1-2 stages of it. The game is just lopsided and there's very little to actually do. If it wasn't for IWS I would've dropped it ages ago. It's a shame that AK is a crappy mobile game instead of a normal $40-60 video game you buy once and that's it.
The one thing I appreciate the most is that you aren't telling people "you aren't allowed to play how you want because it's inefficient / terrible / bad / stupid" and instead just state a differing viewpoint with a rationale behind it. I can respect that level of thought as flexibility and open mindedness seems rare nowadays.
I agree that it's hard to find someone open-minded regarding your playstyle these days. Most people(atleast, from what I see) would just use the best of the best and straight up criticize any operators below that, as if S- tier is just the equivalent of a fancy F I remember once seeing someone saying that they enjoy using SilverAsh, and half of the replies on that person just go "RAWRR MLYNAR RAWRRRR"
@@matjaz5684 never once did I say that I'm upset when my playstyle is criticized, in fact I'm more than ready to learn to improve in this game instead of malding 24/7 What pisses me off though, is how some Arkguards are more than ready to jump onto someone if they dislike said person's opinion(like previously mentioned, how there will always be someone who brings up Mlynar when you mention SilverAsh)
This vid explains why I want level modulator. Once you level up an ops, there's no going back. Playing your favorite ops on 'easier' maps on its intended difficulty to appreciate the map design of it is not possible.
100 million percent. Doing cool niches and guide runs would be so much easier if this was a feature. It doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything, it only allows for new stuff.
I wish there was an option to intentionally lower your operator's level/masteries; I've had some operators that I wanted to use at e2 because I don't want to bother with a stage, but sometimes I want to use them in my own niche clears, or want to clear with only e1s; modules somewhat do this, and my hope is that more mechanics that can be easily detached like modules are introduced in the future; I'm not strictly referring to things that a player invests in, it could be a stage/CM having different conditionals that you could pick from(CC)
I've been playing Arknights for about 3 years now, so my account is stacked with many 6 stars. Ironically, many of which I don't use happen to be the "meta" operators (even the used-to-be meta picks like SilverAsh). I would much prefer a downgrade system so I could put those resources into units that I actually like for their unique kits rather than eternally suffer from DPS-maxxing.
Well Integrated Strategies do that to a certain degree - they demote all ops to e1 lvl whatever (max e1 level for ops that one has built above e2 or they just stay at whatever e1 level one has stopped building them). Unless one uses a team config that has chance for certain classes to be promoted automatically or promotion costs 0 hope, one can play with nerfed e2 operators on any IS difficulty level 🤔
@@rainzerdesu Hopefully people would start enjoying gameplay then, but considering how most events only last for 2 weeks, yeah.... Lots of people would go crazy lolz
Nice video, I can see most points, but I feel the idea that the idea of "two paths of progression" are more just 2 axes. When I started arknights a year ago one of my first operators was Mlynar, which lead to him being one of my first e2 operators. However early on I also quickly realized additionally areas I lacked meaningful gameplay interaction in, such as defenders and snipers, leading me to heavily utilize 3 stars constantly as well. I feel this caused me to use both ends of "meta" and, uhhh, "trashfire", as I have maxed out both Kirara and Vigil and use them as much as I can. I feel being able to do whatever I want and do weird clears with my favorite operators is one of the main draws to Arknights, regardless of meta or not. All in all I'm excited to see more content in the future.
Given that all events scale up E2, 3 stars are kind of a dead end top me. AK wants you to waste resources on levelling 3 and 4 stars, to pad out the game's progression. Which would be fine, but you'd miss out on a bunch more event rewards, some of which you won't be able to get later.
@@EvanOfTheDarkness uh, except that gummy, cardigan, kroos, and even spot are all really, really good ops and have higher stats than higher rarity ops of the same level, so in most events they are still usable.
@@ic4192 They are fine until you get to the E2 stages in the event. And the game forces you to level up some 3* and 4* operators with DP limits anyway. Better operator cost more DP, so you can't deploy them right away. But you should really only level up 3-4 of the best 3*-s before throwing the rest in the trash can, and going for operators that you can scale to E2. And you shouldn't ever bother levelling 2*-s.
This is just my interpretation of it, but I imagine a big draw for building meta is the social aspect of it. When all your friends are at max level running whatever they please, it forms a sort of pressure to catch up so you can be in the conversation of what's new. I was lucky enough to start at launch, back when there really wasn't anything to chase. Medals and the like didn't exist yet and the playerbase was new enough to where Warfarin was considered bad up until the point someone used her with Exusiai. Under that lack of pressure I really got the chance to just build whoever I wanted to try and my skill level went up with the difficulty curve. If I started nowadays, I'm not sure if I'd do the same. We're at a point where a lot of the basics are simply assumed by the veterans, so newer players who choose to learn from videos or whatnot sadly end up missing the finer details in their rush to be up to date on the game. I don't think this is unique to Arknights. There are plenty of people who are in the community who are not in it for the game, so to them, learning the fundamentals isn't as important.
Early on, gacha based team formation caused most of our groups to have wildly different playstyles due to what we had. I was considered sort of the meme of our group because I solved most things with Mayer, replenishable-cheap summons, explosions, and stun timing... mostly because I had notoriously bad luck on pulls generally. Trying to get a friend back into the game much much later, he ends up with a lot of high end units and the later-added capability to just blast them to max level. While this was useful on generally letting him progress however he wanted, it did mean that he was basically playing an extended tutorial and many concepts didn't occur to him, such as being able to simply punch over defense with higher single atk numbers rather than needing high end arts units he didn't have.
that's why every operator under 4* ops had their base skill unlocks at e1. they encourage you to use/up them first then use/up those *5 ops above after you have more resource or getting understand more complex mechanics of higher rarity.
The problem is, that it's also a gatcha game, with time limited events and FOMO. Even if levelling up 3 and 4 stars first is how the game is _designed_ to be played, wasting resources on them, means you get less resources from events and missing out more.
There's always the option of just upgrading 6* meta operators then just focusing on the good 4* instead of the 5* archetype to save more resources but I'm the type of player where I like splash art I like skin I like char design I build. All in all E2 lvl 60 for 6* E2 lvl 50 for 5* and E2 lvl 40 for 4* is a good benchmark.
i remember seeing an arknights youtuber taking the "vertical progression" idea to the extreme: they tried to clear every single (mainstory) stage with a new account that only raised the first 12 gacha operators, most of which ended up being 4-stars. obviously this person was not new to the game (and had a pretty long history of running alt accounts) and i don't think anyone should endure this challenge if not for the sake of making content, but it was definitely a wild ride to see someone fumble through ch 8 with about the most anti-meta squad you could make... a lot of the stages were brute forced through sheer levels, but honestly i didn't think even that would be possible. tbh i find a lot of community discussion around arknights meta a bit strange, because... on one hand, the game *has* to be clearable without 6-stars besides the ones you are literally handed for free. 4-stars at maximum investment are more than capable of clearing content, which led the competitive-minded players to optimize for double the flex... on the other hand, it's a gacha game that falls into all the gacha trappings of time limited events, daily grind, obvious design bias towards high rarity, and of course all the small RNG annoyances designed to make you waste in-game and IRL sanity. i'm sympathetic to people who just want to get their stars and move on with their day, and that mindset leads people to gravitate towards the same operators that show up in every easy AFK high end guide. although it is really sad to see many operator discussions devolve into trying to figure out who has the highest DPS when the thing i love the most about arknights is how it offers many viable solutions to a stage. of course DPS will always be one of the more straightforward solutions (why bother reading mechanics when you can just watch a youtube guide on how to animation cancel with degenbrecher), but this is also the community that discovered the mr nothing + erato permastall, which is still one of my favorite synergies for how much they were obviously *not* intended to work together... anyway i don't know where i'm going with this comment other than confirming arknights does still have a chokehold on my 3 remaining braincells... oh yeah. raise indigo. (stop saying ebenholz fixed mystic casters!!! indigo fixed mystic casters before he even existed!!!)
@@anastil mr nothing needs module level 2 and erato can just be SL7. but basically the cooldowns of erato S1 and mr nothing talent align so that the enemy is constantly in sleep or stun. it's not that useful in general content where the most threatening enemies are usually immune to both statuses, but it's still funny. pengod probably has a video on it.
indigo fixed mystic caster's case of zero case usage (she is a great, low cost high uptime bind alongside ethan) while ebenholz fixes the damage issue of mystic caster.
no there's a ton of really cool interactions like this and that what makes the game so fun! I remember back in CC#2 Blade, instead of actually fighting the main choke, I kept multiple brawlers punching for chip damage at Liskarm, fueling Weedy S3, and stalling the knocked back enemies with Manticore S1. It took a bunch of retries and a support Angelina, but it was easily the coolest experience I ever had with early AK. I think that was my first R18, too.
Early vertical progression moment, my first E2 6 star was Ifrit. Ifrit requires certain maps to clear but as long as you have one tile you can bring her to annihilate mobs. She influenced the way I handled stages and the strategies I used when clearing a majority of my early game. At one point I decided to max level all 3 stars for a baseline set of characters, and max levelled up Matoimaru as my "Duelist" operator with her massive health pool. I used her to beat Talulah by sheer hp brute force. End game my vertical ceiling stops at modules, but sometimes I go the extra mile if I want to see the full potential of an operator (poncirus,bryophyta,swire alter).
I always thought of modules as like the very highest upper end of operator progression. What are you leaving out if you "stop" there? Masteries? Max level? Do you only get module level 1?
It always depends. I stop at module level 1/2 if the effect is good enough for the resources. Level 7 skill mastery is usually good, but sometimes I want a skill at full potential. Levels don't affect alot of operators past E2 40/60 compared to cost, but sometimes I want the full potential like increasing Poncirus to E270 so I can max out HP and DEF.
@fieldrequired283 I do think that's true for the most part. What also helps your point is that you need to heavily invest in operators to get access to them (upper-mid level E2, high trust). There are a few operators that kind of do need their modules maxed out for them to do what they're supposed to do, or they just feel kind of awkward otherwise. Lin S3 and April instantly come to mind with this.
@@pointvee Doesn't have to be the first to be honest. The third 6* I ever got was Schwarz and well... 5 snipers per squad became a regular habit of mine for a good year and a half.
Really appreciate the fact that someone well articulated like you is getting good reach in videos on this topic. People should be able to play however they want but something that really bothers me is some circles force this "only x units are worth building", "building y is throwing resources in the trash" mindset so hard on new players who haven't had the chance to engage with the game and decide how they want to play. With such strongly worded advice from older players it's only natural they end up insecure about building anything not recommended. It's nice to see people get reassurance from your content and hope that continues being the case. On the limited resources front though, while I believe you were talking about resources required for early progression / getting a broad and reasonably leveled roster, in which case yeah, I agree people value resource efficiency way more than they should, I'd argue saying resources aren't limited is something that doesn't leave the realm of "technically accurate". Having been playing actively for over 3 years, actually spending for farming purposes, and wanting to build a lot of different units, I'm still broke the whole time. Module blocks are also the worst thing they ever introduced. "Catching up" in its full sense is pretty much something that won't happen for years and years unless you're a massive whale. (And I'm talking solely about building units, fully disregarding pots.)
IS2 single-handedly forced me to learn the 'Deploy SilverAsh to Win Immediately' game and I absolutely adore the gamemode for that (also temporary recruitments are the best thing to get to know Ops you'd never build/have in your friends list otherwise)
If you really play IS on high ascensions long enough, you realise that you only need 6* and 3* for it and there's no much variation in which 6* and 3* you use. Good thing they're makong 4* free in IS5. It can lead to some really fun strategies
@@jeffwu7188 yes lol. IS1 was an time limited event while 2 (Crimson Solitaire), 3 (Caerulan Harbor or something), 4 (Expeditioners' something), and later 5 are all permanent
I love it when articulate and insightful people play the same silly game I'm playing. Those who showcase niche breaking operators are a dime a dozen, so finding one who explores topics other then the newest operators and expands on them is a breath of fresh air. Hearing some of your points and then going "oh yea that makes sense" is funny to me, as while in hindsight it wouldn't have needed too much thinking to come to that same conclusion, I HAD to hear about it first before it even came to my attention. So every new video I'm like "what else else did I miss because I'm speedrunning progression cuz I have other stuff to do in life." Also I'm writing this on the toilet and my legs have gone numb. Curse you and your ak content
4:09 Who on earth is calling Exusiai and Archetto bad lmao. I think most would agree that Archetto is decent and Exusiai is niche. And people are really disappointed by Hoerderer's kit but he's still mid and not unusable
This video is pretty well made. It's nice to see someone look at both sides. Though, I disagree on one point: 11:07. While it is true for a general playthrough, "meta" is too generic. The meta for high risk CC does favor unique qualities over raw numbers. For instance, Weedy and Gladiia are pretty good in high risk CC. Liskarm is too. Mostima is cool. Cantabile is used because being the (currently) 5th (?) best Vanguard means she sometimes gets a spot. However, when you consider that the best operators for comparatively lower difficulty content do rely on their stats, it can be argued that this is their unique quality: stats and ease of use. For instance, it can be argued that Mountain's unique qualities are that he is easy to use with low investment and low requirements for someone that can hold an entirely lane, under the condition that the enemies aren't too strong (for some definition of strong). I feel like it would be wrong to recommend a newbie to build Suzuran because she is meta. Likewise, I feel it would be wrong to recommend prioritizing Mountain S2's Mastery for someone chasing high risk CC, even though it can also be considered "meta". Additionally, I think it's worth noting that anyone can borrow a Ling. I cleared almost all of Dorothy's Vision except the last CM stage in less than one month of playing thanks to Ling (I don't use guides. If you do use guides, it's probably possible to clear the CM too). I couldn't even auto-farm DV-6. And I finished almost all of Near Light rerun except NL-S-5 CM, in less than 2 months since starting, albeit with Mlynar. Friend support Ling is breaking Arknights progression much more than following the meta, except maybe Wisadel, but we'll have to see
Yeah I agree. CC does allow for unique options, that is something I didn't bring up in my video, which is my own fault. I was instead more focused on how certain, newer operators have such a high power level, that their power level is more designed for this crazy difficult endgame content, rather than for general gameplay. The mountain situation is weird because he's such an odd outlier in the game. If you are cursed with pulling him naturally from your freebie 6-star then now you have a centurion that's as cheap as a pioneer and can trivialize a good chunk of the game. To me, its more his poor S2 design that makes him meta, not necessarily that he can carry you through the end game.
@@BloopsArknights to me, I see mountain as an admission of defeat from HG. He's a brawler/fighter guard in the post flagpipe world, one of the worst baseline situations a unit could ever be in from a meta perspective. Flagpipe made it so you could skip from the early game to the mid game in just seconds, so all the early game units had to be competitive with mid game units in order to be a part of the meta. Mountain was created with that in mind.
I started playing arknights not too long ago. Around a year and a half. For 6 months, I play mostly using 4 starts, becouse, I didn't have 5 starts that match my playstyle. I create impressive strategies (that still impress even me) to clear LS-5, and than 6, using only normal 6 star that I had, Mountain (other are Skadi, Holeheyah and Maggalan). But in 1 moment, suddenly everything changed, I pulled Goldenglow and Mlýnar. Despite they didnymatch my style, they were just doing their job that good, that in most situations, they were overhelmo. Now not even chalenge EX-8 stages or inferno story stages, causing me a lot of troubels (not to mention recent episode 13 inferno stages). Only time that I truly struggle, was SSS in CC. And thing got worse, now I had a lot of powerful units, and in just 18 fays, I will empty mu stash to get Ling (becouse I like her). To people who will write "just don't use them": I am not as patient, as some of arknights community, and after some timw, will eventually use my meta squad. I just want to tell my story, I still love arknights for it's story, and just want to say that it's sad, that interesting mechanics, could be just brute forced, and hypergriph need to think, how to give some challenge onto event stages, not to how make them interesting.
one thing i love about arknights especially compared to other gachas are the rarities all have a function, even in "end game content" and not just to collect dust in the inventory (they even give free skins for them just in case a low star is a persons fave unit) 1* doesnt cost deployment limit. so if you have an extra slot in the team put in a 1*, they can help. like in cc1s2 i wouldnt have gotten 620 if it wasnt for the terra cats delaying the cars. in pinch out friston took on the bots, also like extra flashlights in near light 2* are bait units. yato is cheap fast redeploy, and when chp 10 was released noir was mvp for a bunch of people, durin and 12F has straight up 50% dodge which i use for ammo type enemies like the sanktas. 3* are the general line of the game. even during anniversary streams when the developers showcase stages they use 3* squads. to show that for main and event story stages you can clear it with 3* and 1 6* and not gatekeeping content under paywall. 4* are the most common units most of the ops are made for general content as this is the most accesible from the gachas and easy to build 5* are for niche/unique roles alot of the 5* have a unique skillset that not even 6* have. showing more to what the gameplay can do. and 6* bring damage
I love AK and played almost since the the beginning, one to the issue I look back on is random pulls. I got lappland before I even got Midnight so there for she carried me through a lot of progress. Even with the explosive slugs, I didn't need to figure out things because she just dealt with them. I think this was a bit detrimental to my learning curve and is also why early early on I would resort to guides for hard content. Luckily that didn't last long because I thought, ' it's a strategy game, you should be using your own strategy to overcome it not someone else' . But this did mean I struggled a lot more but the reward was more enjoyable. And this is where I think another issue with a lot of games comes into pla, people just ask what to use, who to pull, what character/weapon is good, what skill tree to build or class to pick in games. This means people will choose without knowing really WHY they are good or even if they are good for their situation/style. And I am not bashing guide users or makers, if you are struggling and need or want to use a guide go for it, but it shouldn't be the go to answer. I have just gone through and beat all bosses in story and even without 6* just for fun and see how I can do and it was very fun and an interesting challenge showing me you don't need op units to play(though I build for waifu over meta so Kal and Surtr are the only two real meta units I built).
My guy, this video is amazing. I freaking love the way you analised the game, being objective about the way things work and the many ways to see them; Instead of rights or wrongs and why they should make us angry/happy at the devs decisions, you talked about the push and pull game that the developers of any game go through when making any decision during development. I could talk so much about this game and how it, weirdly, borders on both being trully amazing and frustratingly flawed is. Point Being, I subscribed
hey, great video! i'm really glad that you don't judge anyone's playstyles, especially as a timmy who plays with both meta *and* niche operators, and i have fun with both! i think people shouldn't feel restricted to only playing with one or the other, as it really limits the experience and what you can accomplish, for me, it really depends on what i'm feeling at the moment; if i'm busy and only have a half-hour left to clear the event stages? use meta operators like chalter and kaltsit; if i have all the time in the world and feel like having fun while finishing the story on cm? play with more supoptimal operators/my niche! and sometimes i even restrict what meta operators i *do* use if i'm not having fun with them, e.g: whenever i turn on chalter's skill and she immediately kills all the enemies on the map with minimal to no effort, i decide "yeah, she's no fun here" and boot her out of the squad, chalter is honestly more of an emergency option if things aren't going well haha, again, great analysis video! i'm excited to see the day when your operators are strong enough to tackle late-game content like cc :D stay awesome and enjoy doing what you love! ❤ (sorry if i don't have much to comment in terms of the actual video...i think i already explained my thoughts about progression on the dobermann video haha)
Very well done analysis! HG is really between a rock and a hard place when it comes to stage balancing, because they can't really stagnate material progression (ex. by not introducing powercreeping characters) since that fundamentally goes against the allure of Gacha, and they can't exponentially increase a stage's difficulty to encourage spending resources because it fundamentally goes against the nature of being a somewhat competitive strategy game. I feel there's a parallel to draw to something like Plants vs Zombies, which I'd say has linear material progression, but is eventually crossed over by skill progression as you learn the mechanics of each zombie and timing of your plants.
I'd like to poke few weak points in your arguments, and few misconceptions contained in them. I hope that posting from this account that has some AK videos on it will help my comment not to be discarded as "an AK speedrunner" who didn't understand the point of the video. First thing first, live-service games are not the same as single-player offline games. There is time-limited content. Its difficulty and time allotted for doing it are balanced with all players in mind, i.e. how other players play the game affects how stages are balanced which in turn affects you. I agree that for long-term enjoyment it is better to play AK however you want, but I believe we should be a lot more cautious about how we present this idea to newer players. What I prefer to say is "Play however you want, but first build few meta operators so that you don't get stuck and have means to get all time-limited rewards you want." I'd rather see people getting ahead in material progression, than people being held down by material progression. Having your "player skill" outpace your material progression can be very infuriating. Like you understand how you are supposed to do the stage, but don't have levels or operators for it. And then you see people just brute forcing it with overpowered E2 6-stars without even realizing what the game mechanic was. This is very disheartening and almost got me dropping AK in the past. There is an important distinction here between "I choose to play in a more challenging way (i.e. some kind of nicheknights)" and "I was forced to play in a harder way (because I don't have operators or levels)". Those two situations are perceived very differently by the player. Second, you have concepts of late game, meta, and "high risk CC" jumbled a bit. Let's start with "high risk CC". What do you mean by "high risk" here? Is "risk" required by various medals and other rewards "high"? Or may be it is "risk" that is close to highest achievable? Depending on the answer "high risk" might not be clearable with nicheknights. CC allows to scale difficulty to absurd levels. Nicheknights hit their limit long before unrestricted roster does. But anyway, CC does favor various situational specialized operators, which are often anything but meta. Saying that "meta" are operators that are good in late game while meaning CC as late game is wrong. The answer to "what meta operator means in AK" is weird and somewhat hilarious. Basically, meta operator is an operator that has been frequently featured in youtube videos recently. Take Cuora and Bubble for example. They have very similar performance. The former is used by the biggest AK content creator on YT (Kyo), the later is favored by smaller 4-star only creators (Silvergun and ZPKF). The former is considered very strong 4-star, the later is barely mentioned in the discussions. Or Shining S2 suddenly spiking in "meta" discussions after yet another AFK clear video with her (CC heavily favors her S3 btw). Or Exu and Archetto in your own video being marked as "bad" (we didn't have a stage for them to shine for some time, but they are still best AA snipers, and no, Ch'alter however broken she is can't completely replace AA snipers). Third, you talk about intended progression, being ready, etc. It is hard to look into developers' heads to see what "intended" progression should be, but we can estimate some things indirectly. The very first CC season happened around 6 months after the game release. This means, that devs assumed, that 6 months old f2p accounts were far enough in material progression to handle risk 8 dailies and risk 18 permanent stage back then. If your account requires 1 or 2 years of material progression to handle CC on this level, then it is reasonable to assume that you are behind the intended player progression. That said, we should not forget my first point. The "intended" might have been affected by other players.
Thank you for your comment. It was worded much nicer than other comments, but I do still disagree. 1. I dont feel giving into FOMO isn't an excuse to rush your account. If you can reach the stage right before the boss and the boss is too hard for you, that means the boss is too hard for you. Yes the event is time limited, but that doesn't mean the content is gone forever. Reruns and Record Restore still exist, and yeah you will have to wait awhile for the content to return, which does suck, but I personally don't feel rushing your account for the sake of short-term satisfaction is worth it in the long run. Yeah it sucks if someone brute forces the stage with all their fancy operators, but that is a personal issue rather than a game issue at that point. I encourage people to take the game at a slower pace, instead of rushing their operators to high levels to beat a stage they may not be ready for otherwise. If you can't beat a stage, then I don't think you aren't ready for that stage yet. 2. I agree with you that high risk CC doesn't necessarily force players to use "meta" operators. There is situations where operators can shine due to the restrictive nature of CC. I also agree with you that Chalter replacing marksman snipers wasn't a great comparison, that is the fault of my own shitty writing skills. When I talk about meta, I am referring to the "high meta", which is a sect of operators who are designed in such a way that normal content is trivialized and higher-difficulty endgame content can be completed. I'm sure you can beat this crazy high-end content without 6-stars, which is what I said in my video. But my point was, the existence of these absurdly broken "high meta" operators is to compensate for some players' skill to allow them to engage with endgame content. And so, if a player hyperfixates on these units, they are focusing their progression around the end game. 3. It is possible that I am 100% wrong, but I will continue to stand by my position. In response to the 6 month CC: Contingency Contract is nice in that it can appeal towards ANY style of player, from newbies to whales. I would feel the implementation of the highest difficulty, high risk challenge wasn't there for the average player, but for the whales and those who really want a challenge. This doesn't mean that I think that HG expects you to be at the end game that quickly, instead I feel they were just simply compensating for those who have, and no longer have any content to engage with. Thank you for your comment.
@@BloopsArknights "FOMO" and "personal issue" was not a nice choice of words, especially the later one. I've basically shared my own subjective experience about my early days in AK, and you discarded it as something wrong with ME because it doesn't quite fit into your arguments. You can't deny me my own subjective feelings. And I don't think you should discard them as some kind of my own weirdness. I've seen people expressing similar sentiments in various games. It is basically the feeling of unfairness when multiple people are presented with the same challenge, only some of them are given access to better means of solving this challenge than others (in my case people who overpowered content with full team of E2 6-stars were whales, f2p or low spenders didn't have such teams yet). But anyway, this gives me an opportunity to breach an unpleasant subject. Are you sure when your talk about not being ready for a stage yet you are not making an excuse to not engage with anything that can challenge you? I'm sorry it sounded rude, but I think it is too important for the conversation to avoid it. I had the feeling while watching your videos that this might be the case, but I wasn't sure. After reading your reply regarding CC#beta I'm quite sure though. Risk 18 in CC#beta was very much doable for f2p and low spenders. Even higher was possible for those who were ready to put some effort in (I managed risk 21 as a low spender, TeamWnJ managed risk 22 as a f2p). It was never seen by community as something made for whales. I'm fairly sure it was not intended by HG as something for whales (it is really weird to put in your game rewards that are accessible only to whales, people won't like it). Risk 25 or 26? Sure, that was whale territory (but it also required some insane player skill to accomplish). Risk 18? No, it was doable for average players with 6 months old accounts, even if they needed a help of a guide (many people need a help of a guide even on normal stages, so this is a very low bar). I probably should clarify one thing. Casual attitude "I'm here to kill time or play waifu collection game, I don't care about challenging myself or rewards that I miss" is a valid approach that I respect. I call it "true casual" in contrast with "pseudo casuals" who don't want to put any effort, but want to beat all stages and get all rewards regardless, and thus blindly follow meta and copy guides. But I don't think avoiding engaging with challenging content and repeatedly using "not ready" or "don't have operators" as an excuse is a right way to go. It is dishonest. Going back to challenging oneself, it is the only way to reliably increase your skill level. If you don't do stages that feel too hard for you, your skill level will stagnate. This is a serious pitfall of the approach you are proposing. You've correctly identified, that relying on meta operators too much is detrimental for player skill level, but the same applies to avoiding hard stages. As for intended progress, based on my observation of the game and community over several years I think it goes something like this. Every content that gives any kind of rewards can be cleared with 4-star only team, but it requires exceptional player skill on some stages. Average Joe can clear stages with a team at recommended level that includes a couple of strong 6-star operators. Couple here goes from 1-2 in early chapters to almost an entire team in later chapters and CC. I strongly recommend you try hard content with meta operators. If you want to talk responsibly and with nuances about progression, meta, importance of different operators, you need context and experience. You need both, meta and nicheknights/waifuknights for this topic. You need to compare both to come to a conclusion, and if you have experience only with one side, you end up imagining the other side (which usually ends up being pretty far from reality). For example, I really hate "everything can be cleared with low-rarity team" statement. It is technically true, but it seriously undersells the difference in difficulty between clearing stages with low-rarity team and high-rarity team. I've never head Silvergun, who actually clears everything with 4-stars only team, saying it by the way. Because he knows the amount of effort it takes. It takes trying both meta and nicheknights to fully appreciate the busted power of meta. Right now you have a lot of good arguments, but they get undermined when you start talking about end game or meta (because you keep saying strange things, like CC#beta being for whales, or using Vigna instead of Bagpipe).
As far as easy clearing content goes, Exu is still meta. The only sniper on global who compares is Typhon. Ch'Alter is not in the running at all. And Typhon's use rate comes at the expense of Thorns, not Exu.
as someone who played a lot of gacha games but STILL struggling with AK, despite having a first year account, you really explained it well. I can clear story easily just by having 3 characters properly built in other games, but not here. I still haven't passed the "early game" phase (I quitted several times due to malding and storage issues), but I plan to conquer it now... hopefully...
a big thing that enforces this thinking early on is how the story of side events is often just not completable by very new players. a player finds an operator they think is fun and want to use? well dont complete the side story you were invested in!!! it sucks and the fact is even if it was a meta operator they dont have the levels yet to even use them so if a player wants to read the story they have to engage in meta to even have the chance to read at the time of event or disregard story altogether and treat arknights as purely gameplay counter: "but archives" very new players dont know this but they do see the ever ticking event timer leading to a player mindlessly bashing their heads against a wall they are not equipped to deal with yet in my opinion side stories should be locked until chapter 2 and current event stories locked until at least chapter 4 preferably chapter 8. at chapter 2 have a tutorial pop up explaining vignettes and side stories archives and encouraging players to read those if they want. that way they dont engage with the story of the event until the rerun ends when they would be more ready but can also still farm current events
legendary youtube recommended pull seriously, this is one of the best, if not THE best breakdowns of arknights’ gameplay design ive ever seen. more people need to see this! subbed!
Hi! I'm one of the people who you consider the status quo! I really enjoyed your video! It's a breath of fresh air! I have a friend who is like you, a 4* enjoyer! The reason why I enjoy 6* over the 4* is their complexity, sure Surtr and friends murder everyone but they're just really cool to use, their animations are more fleshed out and some of the older 6* are as simple as 3* (Skadi), thank you for making a video like this, most people can't get into arknights nowadays since the older playerbase doesn't even give a chance to try a new perspective (insert get "x" operator here). I hope you keep enjoying our niche gacha game! Good Luck on Here a People Sows!
When I was starting out the game I did look up some tier lists and the like since I didn't know where start. Around the time I had my first couple of E2s, I tried out a variety of maxed out meta and non-meta ops like Ling or Magallan in IS. Now after a year and a half, I've racked up a pretty varied roster including a bunch of the newer meta ops like Mlynar. However, aside from personal character faves like Specter, I found myself using meta ops less because I got tired of brute-forcing stages with 6*s. Recently I started to take more event related ops to new stages, whether or not I had prior experience with them. Seeing same ol team comps with predictable performance results over and over again gets boring after a while, it's a lot more interesting to see people making unconventional teams work!
You are right when you say there are no bad operators but something the devs don't cooperate with is making those said suboptimal ops actually usable in any sense without putting yourself in a blaint disadvantage against a hypothetical case where you use that character's "better version" instead. I personally would love to see some reworks/changes to those operators that don't work as well as others do since either way the only people who use them are either new to the game or doing some sort of challenge anyway and while I respect the people who do "challenges" or just like an operator (I'm a jessica enjoyer personally) I would love to see jessica have some utility that no other sniper has or anything special at all not just a raw 20000% buff. I did enjoy the video a lot by the way.
This potentially ties into another thing that feels a bit lost in the sauce when it comes to operator discussion; that low op isn’t the only way to optimize Arknights. Out of combat goals like base optimization are the best example, but you also have low step, 1p relay no hit, and lower progression clears like e0l50 and e0l1. How people approach difficulty doesn’t need to be homogenized in the same way that generally is thought about - Ling is absurdly strong primarily in the context where you want to minimize operator count, but she’s an active detriment to the squad as squad size increases. 2 deploy cost unhealable summons are generally not that helpful in scenarios where you don’t have a bard and are in a situation where your dragons are being threatened; it’s not impossible to deal with, and dragon management is legitimately fun, but it causes too many arguably unnecessary limitations on the squad and asks for a lot more management than you’d expect. This is why Ling is, ironically, a pretty weak operator in general content. Not weak in that she’s inherently a low impact operator, but weak in that she calls for a lot of management and focus in a manner not really expected for a general use operator. In other words, she’s still a summoner, and arguably a harder to use one than Scene. At least with s3, hee strongest skill. Contrast this with Ayerscarpe, an operator we like to use as an example of an operator particularly screwed by the prevalence of low op clears. Ayerscarpe is perhaps the single most squad-size dependent operator in the game with s2; he wants a lot of blockers, and is at his strongest with 8 other operators to use alongside him. This means him with s2 is crippled when it comes to low op clears, he simply isn’t designed with low operator counts in mind, and it shows through how his usage is predominantly centered around s1 in terms of nicheknights. In this sense, these two operators are showcasing how people engage with “the meta” as a concept: they are simultaneously talking about 2 different ideas. The first is an operator’s ease of use, showcased by Ling and how she tends to be underrated. This can be generalized into “general content”, where an operator’s general gamefeel and how they interact with a simple, low stakes environment is focused upon. This applies to operators like Ling who are strong but feel bad to use (through the necessary effort needed to properly execute her strategies), but also operators who aren’t bullshit but just feel… ineffective. This is where we’d put Valarqvin, an operator we have an interesting and complex opinion on where she feels bad to use even when she is being effective, but also she’s an incredibly balanced and healthy necrosis applier which feels good. The second arm of “the meta” is low op count optimization, which ties into vertical progression as you described in this video. Operators are considered “strong” when they reduce the necessary operator count dramatically, which is where the classical “meta” operators tend to sit; Surtr, Chalter, Degenbrecher; an operator’s strength in a low op count model is directly tied to how much they reduce the need for other operators. This is where Mlynar comes in, not as a particular example of one branch or the other, but as an intersection of both. Mlynar (and to a lesser extent Chalter and an even lesser extent Degenbrecher and Surtr) feels good to use AND significantly reduces necessary operator requirements. As a matter of fact, it is more likely that an operator who eliminates the need for other operators also feels good to use, which makes Ling not an example of a rule but rather a notable outlier. (If you want another example of an op like Ling in this context we’d point to Dorothy, who is relatively weaker but also feels a lot better to use in a general context. It’s not that either feels bad to use it’s just that the necessary effort is higher than one would expect for general use). This places us in an interesting position, as we’re both incredibly meta-brained but also incredibly “play for fun, don’t care about optimization” brained when we actually play the game. We find the fun in the game as a whole, and whilst we sometimes chase clears we generally feel good no matter how we play the game. Additionally, it’s interesting to see the juxtaposition between general opinion and more meta-brained contexts; Hoederer, as an operator, is able to mitigate his strengths well enough to where he’s generally regarded as a fairly strong operator in the circles we occupy. Similarly, Archetto is a fairly underrated operator in our opinion despite aging better than Exu (who honestly feels incredibly outdated atp). And finally, remember the things we talked about aren’t rigid concepts. They’re inherently malleable in their nature and we intentionally focused on particular operators that we felt were relevant to what we were saying. As such, strong meta ops like Ines didn’t get mentioned despite her potential addition to the discussion, mostly because we’re typing all this on mobile and making this any longer than it is feels hellish. Have a good week, month, and year, anyone reading this!
I feel like certain ops break this balance though. You mentioned mylnar and Ines, but bagpipe (Myrtle) and surtr sorta fit this. These operators like you said are within their roles entirely self sufficient and provide both ease of use and fun. However the also become multiplicatively better with support like surtr mylnar with defenders/debuffers/stall, or how the bagpipe Myrtle Ines (cantabile as well sometimes) trio make themselves better by having skill on deployment, and making the rest of your squad better by allowing high dp cost units to drop down immediately. This isn’t to say what you’re saying is wrong, it’s just that I do feel at this point in the Arknights life cycle that thin line is being beat to a pulp. Especially with a certain alter coming up for fifth anni…
Of course I wanna use the OPOP characters because I want easy trust farms Then on the other hand I always choose my favourite 6-star to start high difficulty IS runs to prove a point, whether or not he’s promoted or he’s at a higher cost. There’s a BN14 wall to reach 15 but I’ve climbed this far with Stainless first so I’ll keep going!
An amazing video! Something I would like to show a friend while recommending the game. I was lucky to play it "as intended" due to a miraculous combination of F2P and an incredible gacha luck spicing my roster up right when it was needed. I've heard a comparison of each different account to runs in roguelikes, and I think it fits nicely.
Personally? I'm a "Horizontal Investment" type of person I like to Spread out m resources building lossa different character! Optimal? Prolly not. Fun? Absolutely!
Glad someone understand what progression is to Arknights. I think you've nail it extraordinarily well. Also, few point about Horizontal and Vertical Progression, The vertical progression in AK actually can be very2 short, as short as 3 months or unfortunately as long as forever. Ultimately, it is up to the player when they want to stop their vertical progression. I've seen players stuck in vertical progression mindset for years, and feels sad on how they skipped many of the enjoyable part of AK. Also some veteran players advising "this bad, this trash, this must pull" is actually detrimental, as it put the one taking this type advice to the vertical progression oriented player. Regarding the horizontal progression, I think it may come naturally to some players once they felt that they had enough of the vertical progression, but once again it is up to themself. And hopefully many players open their mind to horizontal progression after seeing this video.
I think that part of AKs fundamental progression problem lies in 5* units as well. They cost 2/3-3/4 of a 6* but lack a 3rd skill and are often not much of an upgrade over a good 4* unit that you'll have max potted in a few months from random pulls. Thus people tend to hop from 4* to 6* outside a couple of essentials like Warfarin or Specter if you get them early enough. I was quite lucky in my early AK days, so I've mostly been E2'ing 6* units because I got a lot of them early on - not because I dislike others but because I end up looking at the cost curve and see that even a meh 6* claps the average 4* or 5* so hard you're wasting your resources. Once you have your base maxed and can clear the events, you realize the main expense of a 6* (LMD) is about 4-5 days of passive base income and dailies compared to a 5*. The material differences should largely be covered by the stamina spent during those days. Also, while you're joking with your 6*, whoever put Lumen out of the meta list must be a clown: He's still the top pick if you didn't get Eyja 2: Electric Boogaloo ;)
13:57 "content I'm not really supposed to be engaging with yet" I agree that you should play Arknights the way you want, but you make it sound like you can just go to the Terminal and play Design of Strife or Contingency Contract anytime you want. These are timed events and if you didn't do the necessary preparations you may not be able to clear the hardest events and may never be able to clear them at all, because the chance to clear them went away. I can completely understand if a player doesn't have the urgency to clear everything, but I always question the claim of those who say that you don't need to build the strongest 6 star operators without making the clarification that this statement comes from someone that doesn't mind not clearing everything and letting the hardest events pass. Perhaps the above clarification is not important when we are talking among us who have played Arknights for a long while now, but I am thinking more of how we talk to newcomers.
I believe the fact that I didn’t go all out in buying ordeum, monthly subscriptions and head hunter packs didn’t burn me out. I could have had a ton of operators instead of the few I had at the start which made me appreciate what I had more and made me just sink in resources into everyone. Since I didn’t know who I would need in the future and I still haven’t gotten past the third story campaign. I never finished a Contingency Contract or IS2, 3 or 4 and I haven’t even touched the side stories yet. I don’t mind sometimes it is nice to take things slow and like you said enjoy the journey.😊
"if you want to build your account with a bunch of high level endgame units before you beat frostnova" hey that's me! I never went past ch3 for a looong time, instead focusing on just events pretty much, then when I came back and started progressing story again I already had a lot of endgame units and really didn't have to interact with stages at all, which made me sad at the time already. Somehow I didn't consider simply NOT using those units then... maybe I was in a hurry or something but still Well not like I can't go back and do the stages again differently!
SAME I still rmb rolling Frostnova with Schwarz. These days Im more in the camp of build a carry and then what you want but even then I would say doing stuff like that and progressing too fast feels like an issue (my friend's half a year old account can sometimes feel like its at the end of progression, but also sometimes feel like its way too behind, mainly when hellish endgame content appears, think DoS, CC wasnt that hard in terms of requirements)
I won't lie, chilling at 3-5 for about 2 years my struggle is just with the lack of ways to obtain the new materials from later stages, I agree with a lot of this though. Won't lie, when i read progression in the title, i thought you were talking about event stages progression, which sometimes is just the worst thing i have ever seen.
I definitely appreciate different play styles then my own. While I mostly stick to my meta operators I have learnt a lot more about the game and gotten better at it from listening to people like you. I sure has shit didn’t learn anything from people telling me “just surtr it and you’ll be fine”.
I started playing AK in early March of 2020 at the behest of a friend. Despite being fully F2P only, I have most of the operators in the game, and most of my 6 star roster is at least E2/90. That's mainly due to me having sat on daily rewards/base production for a positively silly amount of time, and i do that because AK is mostly a tomogachi to me; a pet game to maintain and bemuse myself with. As someone intimately familiar with the Tower Defense genre, I can definitely state that despite the problems identified in this video (which are quite real), the general difficulty for AK is actually really well done for the most part. There are very few maps/modes where building "meta" is hard required and the core operators are sufficient to handle most of the game with enough skill, stat growth and player experience. (this was absolutely not the case in the prior Gacha I played, Fire Emblem Heroes. Certain heroes were just flat out useless no matter how you built them, and several PVE maps hard required brute force stat blocks to complete.) I say all of that to say this: My main mode of play for AK today revolves around semi-random teams, theme teams, or personal challenges now. It's been that way ever since I acquired Ling back in 2022. Ling, frankly, forced my eyes wide open to the absolute state of power creep in AK by making the game boring. As such, I can count on one hand the number of solutions I've used her for, despite having her completely maxed out (E2/90, M3 skills, module). Two years, and I've used her a grand total of 4 times, in earnest attempts. And it's necessary to do that because if I didn't, I probably would have dropped the game early last year, when I got into an awful luck streak where I pulled nothing but junk for something like 600 straight pulls (still a pittance compared to what I put up with in FEH before finally dumping that trash fire). TL;DR if you focus too heavily on 'Meta' units, you're missing out on a lot of what AK has to offer. The best tower defense games walk a fine line between difficulty and novelty for their solutions, with many of them falling apart due to either being too rigid in their approach, or too easy. AK is well designed in a way that manages to bypass most of the problems Gacha games have...but only if you're willing to let it.
Damnn, i think i have a new favorite Arknights youtuber, I love the way you share and try to understand the views of other players, you are the only rare ones that encourage not meta not waifu but fun player, do whatever you want if it is fin for you
It's kinda problematic... as I want to build "fun" or my favorite operators, I really don't think the game gives enough mats for you to mindless spend it. Let's be real, almost everyone wants to invest in meta 6* operators and the reason why is others gachas will likely put a progress/dps wall in front of you early on. I also think it's the game fault itself, it takes MONTHS just to max a single operator, it's insane I'm still struggling with lmd/xp mats, and I've been playing this game since day 1
To be fair it’s also correct that maxing operators is both inefficient and generally not needed, alongside the fact that arknights is just not a game that fundamentally asks you to be maxing new operators frequently
@@idontbelieveinmagic Just to clarify when I say "maxing" it's not E2 90, it's just E2 40/50/60 to be able to unlock modules. It's a shame I wanted to try using different operators in IS, but I'm always out of mats
@@Zidminder ah yeah fair enough. as far as experimenting goes it does suck but even then i guess my point is that moreso the amount of investment you need to "beat" all content is pretty low, so you can still fuck around just maybe not as much as you could if arknights wasnt a gacha game, and even then it's still worthy to note that arknights is still on the better end for this sort of stuff due to not having an rng gear system to deal with. even then though, months is a pretty big over exaggeration. it takes about 6000~ sanity worth of material to e2 an operator, which is only 3 and a bit weeks of active play, and that's before taking into account the fact you get more efficient ways to farm resources during events, and all the free lmd/exp mats that base, dailies, and weeklies give you.
I you ignore 6* and focus on lower rarity it is much easier and faster to level multiple units. 4* especially are really cheap even if you add modules on top
@@aizeroth8858 I've been upgrading low rarity operators since IS2 (thanks to IS now i apreciate low rarity units more than before), but my point of view is players are missing out on experimenting others operators because of how slow lmd/xp system is. I don't want to fully ignore 5/6* operators because of that, but it is what it is
I started playing at launch and i do remember setting "goals" to how far I'd level the operators I wanted to use to feel comfortable It's start at e0lv30, then e0 max, then e1lv0 and so on and it was super comfy Then once I got comfortable with E2lv60 and masteries, that's when resources started feeling scarce; sure I already had a lot of operators to uze but I was discouraged from leveling new ones I wanted to play with because of how much they cost individually
Ive been playing for more than a year now and my first goal was to get Mizuki who was my first actual 6 star from a banner to e2 cuz 1. Art was amazing and 2. Bro was just too good in my eyes; an op that can deal basically true aoe dmg, has arts dmg and zero block with high dph on his first skill was really strong for a new player. One thing I guess I think differently is that Im always searching for ways of making my life as a player easier as I progress so I do try to get meta ops but not all of them are my type, I may like being strong but Im not that sold just cuz the op is broken, reason why I got uncle horse and he is still at lvl 1... together with Virtuosa (mostly cuz Im addicted to lvl 1 gaming ngl)
thankfully i've always prioritized leveling operators i liked or interested me over meta, especially after IS got added as a permanent game mode, in fact after watching this video i will be adding Kirara to the build queue and get started on her once i am done with Platinum and Enforcer
Though i liked this guide, i feel like its important to say that playing in a way you feel good. This guide is a good way to learn AK but I was given the gift of falling in love with the Summoner Archetype and with for ampong time i struggled to force summoners in game into every level i played. I did this so much that i couldnt really interact with normal guides since my mindset was fully centered around the ability to edit summons, quickly redeploy units, and protect key operators at all costs. When Ling came out, that was the only time i saw the difficult learning curve finally ease up, where the levels flowed more naturally and strategy became eaoser to formulate since i could use Ling and her dragons for a great many things that common units were being used for in the guides. All-in-all my learning curve was difficult because i wanted it to be, because thats how i wanted to play. So play how you want! Thats what counts
I've just beat chapter 9, and I and now at level 8 of chapter 10. I only have 5 six stars built - Shwarz (by far my highest inv op, lv 60 s3 m3 and module 2 lv3), Kal'stit, my favorite op in the game, Typhon, Nightingale (who I got from recruitment), and Jessica alter. I have 25 e2 operators in total. Playing through the game, there have been many moments where, looking back, I have no idea how I would've cleared a stage without characters like Kal and Typhon. Especially with the sarkaz artillery in chapter 10, Mon3tr is the only op I have that can consistently tank, and their s2 has been so effective that I've found dealing with the mechanic very easy, even on adverse conditions. It's super interesting that just having different operators can massively shift a player's experience. I can confidently say that if I had my Degenbrecher built instead of Kal, chapter 10 would be way harder for me, despite Degen being a way more "optimal" operator. I've also been using my Shwarz to kill every boss since the first Frostnova, not because she's "optimal" (not that she's bad, by any means), but because I enjoy how she works.
Great video. I think one of Arknights's greatest strengths is that it doesn't balance new content around having all the newest and most powerful units, the way other gacha games do. This leads to the potential pitfall you describe -- optimizing your progression allows you to quickly outpace the game's difficulty and minimize the necessity of player skill, which can lead to a feedback loop where a player doesn't bother to improve their skill early on because their optimized team can carry them, which leads them to struggle in later stages, which encourages them to further lean on account progression over skill acquisition, which further inhibits their opportunities to improve, and so on. But I feel like the pros outweigh that potential con -- I love trying to build "lore appropriate" teams for events, or failing them, falling back on building a thematic team (Abyssal Hunters-only, Lee's Detective Agency core, etc.) And I really appreciate that IS and SSS encourage horizontal development, giving you reasons to build up low-rarity options or go wide on certain classes. Letting players who are far enough into progression essentially choose the difficulty level that's right for them is awesome.
This why I play with a self imposed limit of E2L1 (masteries allowed). While I would love to interact with modules and end gameplay like IS/SSS, I prefer having to actually think when I have to play around event mechanics with underlevelled operators. If we had a way to roll back the operator levels, that would solve all of my personal issues with progression.
This video speaks to me a lot. I feel that I recently switched from horizontal progression to vertical progression, but as a result of realizing that my account progression had already moved past the point I enjoyed, and deciding to give late-game content a go in resignation. And it's still been fun, primarily because I don't bother much with 6-star units, but I miss the parts around E1 Lv. 40 where I spent a lot of time thinking about my team, who'd be good to put on the team, who'd be good to bring up to that level, who'd be good to boost higher if necessary. That was probably my ideal, and this has been a potent reminder of that fact. So, thank you. If I create a second account, "who to boost higher" probably won't be a question I ask myself anymore.
I appreciate this kind of content, like seriously. Game is supposed to be you having fun and most contents nowadays jusy flex about what op is meta and which one isn't. In reality, you're free to do whatever you wish, however the hell you wanna play the game. Some niche like the 3* only and 4* really brings back my enjoyment on playing this game after feeling a burn out when i played for a year back then. Turns out, even if i do want to surf easily through the game, i need only just bring 1 or 2 broken units while i clear the rest with my collection of wives 😂 but in all seriousness, i think this kind of content really helps a lot to reinvigorate many players burnouts of "meta elitism". So thanks for being eloquent about it.
Your talk of emphasis on subclass reminds me of something. I'm relatively new and generally focus what my friends tell me to pull, and I've noticed most if not every 6 or 5 star I have have really weird subclasses I don't know how to properly use (ReedAlter, Penance, Lin). I've never approached the star system as a learning curve, so I never learned how to use these ops.
I mostly agree. But Desighn of strife and CC while having easier stages (and no not many starting players can finish them with 4* they are really demanding even if an experienced player probably can do them with 4* or 5*) offer a great challenge for less buildup accounts. And the reason vertical progression so wide spread in this community is because gacha is f2p game at it's core and people wanna optimize it so they can pull more. Sadly it's puts them in the loop of building meta units for building meta units and many players just can't break out of it.
I kinda view the "spending tiers" as abstract difficulty levels, optimization wise.. F2P is just the hard mode, Monthly card and maybe the beginner packs is just the normal mode, limited time packs is then the easy mode. So in that sense, sticking to F2P because you want to immediately optimize out everything is like "the deep end", when really if you want a more normal game progression with more freedom to expand and make "mistakes" it'd be more appropriate to pay your small subscription toll. - Though, I say all this as someone who only ever spent money to make sure I got Reed Alter after the gacha odds filtered me out lol.. Hope Arknights will get turned into a offline game whenever it's "done". Would be interesting to see.
I've done both and F2P is not that different from monthly card spender since even if you don't get the OP characters you can just pick them from friend list. I would not put them on a different tier in terms of difficulty. Monthly card just makes the game more fun because you get more resources to get and level up non-meta and niche units.
i could never do so much research on arknights, i just brute force every stage, if i cant, i will wait until i get a character from the gacha that will single handedly carry the stage, it is what it is, there's too much content and i simply do not wish to sit down and learn
I'm a returning player and I've lost my old account a while back. I dropped this game exactly because of the mindset you mentioned in this video. This time around I'm not rushing, ignoring things aren't for me and trying varieties of different strategies if something doesn't work. And it's fun, it's so much more fun. And when something works and I perform better than the last time or getting closer and closer by the end of first annihilation by trying to mix and match operators I feel proud for figuring things out. I wouldn't be surprised if I'd fall in the bad mindset about the game sooner or later again. But your video would keep me grounded now.
I'm so glad i started ak fully blindfolded, i didn't even knew that it's tower defense (one of my favourites since wc3 custom maps), and all the "meta"&shit catched up with me few months late Tho i skipped every 2* and almost every 3*, every 4&5* i get was so exciting like "leo is aoe caster, thats cool. Wait, he can hit everyone in range, reduce their res AND its 2 charges? THATS SO INSANE" Now it's just meta/non-meta and if it's latest there's full academic research on if i can afford spending resources on this op and will it benefit me in any way? RIP good ol' days...
To be fair, with the newest unit that have good dph and dps, on top of good skill cycle and manual activation, its safe to say that Exu is now obsolete. Ela is coming, and she will set a new standard of meta for "marksman sniper" (yes, she is a trapmaster specialist that can be put on the ground, you know what i mean)
As someone who plays a lot of videogames but not a lot of gachas I feel like the level of patience required for what you're describing as the "way Arknights is meant to be played" is pretty ridiculous. For your average JRPG if you're underleveled and "not supposed to be this far" as you put it - it takes a matter of hours in order to grind and get to the requisite level to reach that point. Like you said in the video, for Arknights this could be a matter of years depending on how you approach the game because of how sanity is time gated. Just as you are probably baffled at players who steamroll through stages with braindead meta team compositions I am equally baffled how someone can see some game content they want to complete and then go "Well, shit. Maybe in two years I'll be strong enough." This isn't just singling you out, I see similar mindsets throughout the gacha community especially when it comes to pulling. People often say "don't pull for this character because you can get them for free in a year" or "save 6 months of pulls because ___ banner is coming." Planning to play the same single player game for the next decade is an absolutely wild concept for me.
nah man, this is how I currently play Arknights. It is fun for me. I am perfectly fine with admitting that I am not ready for some content yet and that I will be in the future. It's a mobile game, that's just how it is.
That's cool I just don't have that sort of patience personally lol. Patience aside, I think playing like this alienates you from a large portion of the community. You're both unable to contribute to discussions about new content and have to actively avoid these discussions if you don't want to be spoiled. It's like watching a movie years after it's out of theaters. You can still talk about it but there will be a lot less discussions about it and you'll probably just be saying things that have already been said.
@@MorbidRitual That's a very extroverted view of the world. Though I suppose it's not wrong to *want* to engage with the community just so you're in with the crowd.
Funny thing is that I had to spread my resources thin in the beginning so I couldn't build all the ops I wanted, but now after having a SOS squad in case I can't do stage without much issue, now I can build whatever I want and try different combinations.
For me, the way I've played most of the game has been using the operators I find fun and when there is an event, I'd try to use the new operators along with my other operators i enjoy. Given I've played for over 4 years, Ive stacked up a huge amount of operators ready for any type of stage while keeping it fun for me
I agree with you man. Regarding bad operators, I like to use eunectes as an example. You could just put down another defender to block an enemy coming down on a solo lane and have a caster/ sniper support but you could also put Eunectes down to do the 1v1 that she's built for. This is what I love about Arknights there is a lot of powercreep where its click to win skills but the game doesn't lock the majority of content behind these skills, except for maybe top cc but you don't even need to do cc. Even CC has freedom, i used friston in my 625 Clear and he was perfect for the job, i needed a drop-in operator but I couldn't use Project Red or Gaviel bc of the CC restriction i also got a benefit bc robots don't take up slots so I used Friston 3 to drop in and tank one shot and let exu kill one enemy and I wasn't held back from setting up the rest of my squad
The big issue with this game is the limited amount of practice runs you get per day, plus the fact that a lot of content is time-sensitive. When you have to finish things in two weeks and you eventually have to spend sanity/money to get more practice, you feel pressured to look at a guide and get things done. At the very least, practice runs should be unlimited. This includes annihilation. I am willing to spend the time to het better, but it feels like I get punished for putting in the effort. That's bad.
My problem with Arknights as someone that almost never plays gacha and tower defense to an extent, is that the game is either too easy or too difficult for me to engage in, the overwhelming amount of information that the game presents at you means that whenever i get stuck on a level, it made me question whether my strategy sucked or my team is not leveled enough, and even if i did have enough level, I'm not even sure if i leveled the "correct" operators for that situation All of this vids show that this game has a lot more going on, but i gave Arknights multiple passes over the past 6 months and ultimately could never got into it, I'm glad it's popular but it's just not for me
One perk to using an OP operator, or several, is it lets you go sub optimal elsewhere. And vertically invested sub optimal characters can gain enough power to be fine. It also means you can clear with fewer ops, upping the challenge level. Of course, this type of thing is easier with an older account so you have a solid core, and then happily invest in your faves.
"The player will be trained more to focus on qualities of individual operators, rather than understanding the roles of individual subclasses" This happened to me, hard. I spent the first year or so of the game just brute forcing stages with the best operators I had. I've nominally kept up with the game over the last few years, but I mostly follow guides and struggle tremendously in Integrated Strategies. I feel like I never actually learned the game. I'm currently in the process of trying to get back into the game, unlearn these habits and get better at figuring things out myself, though. It helps that there's a lot more resources for explaining game mechanics out there nowadays (and that roles have been better defined with the existence of subclasses, which literally hadn't been implemented yet back when I was most active 😭)
most of the time i didnt pull for the unit cause its meta but the chars i usually like just happens to be meta units i also prefer afk knight play style as a result i have a bunch of e2 lvl 90 m3 chars that carry me trough anything even with my huge skill issues
Great video I personally have started the 'tower challenge' i may have a lot of strong ops but the challenge forces me to think about my entire roster and is making me thing....maybe i can build this 5 or 4* in the future to expand the roster.
Hmmm. Thanks for an interesting video, but here's a point of view of an AK speedrunner (but not the way of a Surtr+Mlynar max level speedrunner). I started playing AK at launch, even donated on a few banners and packs, then had to quit bc I didn't have time to play the game, plus it was too difficult for me as a newbie to the genre. I returned 4+ years later, becoming jobless for the whole summer so having to entertain myself somehow for the time being. So, I picked up my severely underbuilt account 2 months ago and decided to focus on progressing with the story. I started playing based on the guides and I adjust who I build to what I lack to clear the next stage. I am rushing forward bc I know that soon I won't have time again and will most prob have to quit. This way, I reached the end of chapter 10 so far (while also clearing 95% of the side events for 75-100%). I have 10 E2 6-stars atm (none maxed) and 6 more at E1 lv60-70 (and a few more unbuilt). But I keep building 4-stars too when I cannot follow the guide with my built operators at all. I don't worry about my low skill bc I am almost sure I wouldn't be able to play the game at all otherwise, but I have my reasons to play it - I like visual aesthetics, lore, the process of building my account and ofc the gacha. I am certainly worse than people who clear the story and events on their own, but I also play IS daily without guides, and I cleared a few endings in IS-3 and reach final boss in IS-2 and IS-4. What I'm trying to say, is Idk what type of progression my example fits in, but I am doing my best to enjoy the game to the fullest within the time period I can spare on it. I believe there are more types of players in AK than just meta slaves and niche knights ones.
I lvlup like 40 or 50 6star operators but now i get bored of using just myulnar blaze saria eyja and all meta. So then new event start i ussually complete first levels with pack that consist of those operators who need to upgrade their module. Last 2 or 3 lvls i ussually google some good trust farm strategy. And then it comes to EX lvls i try using 4 and 5 star operators who noone uses. Or even 6 stars who noone likes. Its just more funny this way. Yeah maybe at last lvl it would be hard without top tier operators but all lvls untill last one much interesting to complete with lower lvl operators.
Imo I enjoy steamroll every fucking stage with my 6* roster for almost 2,5 years (I spend my first 2 year building my account to lvl 120 and make it strong af, from a team with mix 3,4,5,6 star to 12+ 6*party now) and I still enjoy the game so much, didn’t experience burnout at all. Although recently where I get my hand on… Wisadel. Hell girl even make a player that enjoy steamrolling everystage brainlessly like me feel “holy shit this girl make the game too easy, this isn’t even funny anymore I have to use something else” And then at that moment I finally understand the mindset, the feeling of the people that play Nicheknight, Dr Silvergun, Danbo, the guy that make e0 operators vid. I felt truly enlightened
I haven't realized that stage TG 7 could be beat by using ONE puller standing in the middle of the map. Instead I tried to slow down the boars once they headed to the exit... and of course I lost every time. :))))) so like, lol, skill issue of the highest order I have NTRK and my favourite skill of hers is the first one. Got Pluma but Ima raise Humus and use him instead because I just like him more. Good vid man :)
This assumes we are not having fun,. Enegy and time limited events also punish you for not having a solid core... not fun. That said, you do not need that many ops to have that solid core. Especially since you can borrow one from friends.
This horizontal progression playstyle you described is exactly what I did when I started and it was incredibly fun and rewarding. In my opinion this should be the "default" recommended playstyle when a new player enters the community and asks for advice. I'm not saying to force them into this playstyle, but telling a new player immediately what are all the broken ops and destroy every stage will not allow them to acquire the skills necessary for tackling the harder stages in the game. This will lead to various problems like how most people couldn't handle DoS and just gave up on the cardigan skin, which should have been more than doable for all veteran accounts. It would be better if the community didn't always assume that every player asking for advice is trying to speedrun the game.
The Game gives you a certain content lock out You get e1 or e2 promotion or like skill masteries only after a certain point of the main story, as you need these weird mechanical poles (idk the Name) or need to have a boss lvl cleared to unlock the chip stages or SSS Good way to not overwhelm new doctors with all the stuff And after it, you are free to go
I always had this issue every time i try to play arknights, i make my 3* supported by a couple of 6* because i want to not miss out in the current event, then after i have 3-4 6* it becomes boring because they're so much stronger than what the maps are designed for. I try to do 4/5* only runs but usually if a stage makes me use all my plans i just end up using the 6* in the end. And quitting not much time later.
I'm 6 months in and I have like 66% of the total operator pool. lol. So yeah I relate to this video in terms of trying to learn and decide who i want to build.
I think one thing that discouraged me personally from playing horizontally is the fact you cant see stage enemies before you encounter them during the stage. This has pushed me into a mindset of wanting to clear on the first run but not being able to assemble a good picture of what the stage is like without playing a run. So I level a bunch of generalist five and six stars and slap them into every stage, get frustrated when they don't work, and in my frustration look up a guide rather than slowing down and checking the mechanics and creating my own strategy. I really need to break this habit, and start just accepting that for some stages my first runs are going to be experimental and I am going to need several runs to beat a stage. I do also think however, there isnt really a reason why the enemies should be hidden at the start of a stage. Like, at the most it makes sense to hide enemies you have never encountered before. But thats not how it works, it hides all the enemies regardless of if you have encountered them. I think if I was able to see at least some of the enemies before entering a stage I would be more encouraged to check the enemies, throw together a basic squad based on the enemies and mechanics I'm going to face, and then adjust the squad and strategy as I explore the stage further.
I just recently stumbled upon arknights and decided to see how far i could get with a random set of operators. I rolled no medics which makes the Defense ops ray more difficult but it was worth it for E1 Bubble
I came back to arknights after a big burnout. I strictly followed the meta, cause I liked to spend a bit of money on the game so wanted to get the best return, got to Młynar and Texalter. Had fun with them for a while but called quits around the time Quibai released. My clears were just Młynar Texas spam. And then Yato alter to top it off. Now I got back after like a year I think and well, I still use those operators cause they are fun but more sparingly. Now I enjoy setting up artilerry lines with Ines, Mudmud and Horn. Still top units but not autoclearing. Went back on older OPs too, like IBERIA NO DESTRETZA. And of course my favorite gimmick: giving people more SP with Stainless to make Holo work or Passenger spam his ability. Or put Lin somwhere and nuke enemies with glass. And just forcing enemies to face Chongus, who I heard is now super strong with the new module. Now with all taht I still want Walter and Degenbrecher. And continue to play until I get bored again. But then IS mode is there to still challenge me so thats cool.
I was stuck in act 1 with fire dragon lady for 4 months, it was my goal to progress in story for a long time. So in order to achieve it, I started to collect my resources to get more 6 stars. I received Mudrock, Kal'tsit and Bagpipe to my Thorns from gacha gods. And with new found powers I finally beat a hot dragon lady possesed by Snake like old man, and after that I got mlynar and cleared every stage available 😅 Found arknights through dodjinshi. Interestingly enough, this option wasn't on the list of sources from which I learned about this game 🤭
It's pretty hard to have a consistent progression, there is new and old players, and I think mods like IS, RA, TN is a good example for both playerbase, you can try the gamemode without being progression-blocked
I won't lie and say I don't chase after meta or overall good units, but I think it's great that I can get through stages chilling with lower output units compared to others of their archetype like Ho'olheyak, Highmore, Base Amiya, and Firewhistle; all of which barely leave my team just cause I like em even though I have better options (La Pluma and Horn are benched).
Similar thoughts come to mind when I hear "waifu over meta" (or vice versa) argument. For me it is more like: I like to have various different tools in disposal, more ways to interact with the game and it's mechanics. So in that regard I fall somewhere in between (or in a third way) waifus and meta.
Introduce 'Arknights Level Sync', hit a button and your units are synced down to the recommended level and rarity for the stage (and not up), below 60? Lose module. Below e2? Lose masteries and s3. Could be interesting
my favorite part of arknights is doing the same stage like 100 times, either i change my strategy or characters, or i resign myself to my skill issue and find a tutorial
This video kinda reminds me of a concept I've seen a while ago about game devs protecting the player from themselves. Something about "maximizing the fun" or something. From what I remember, most players tend to go to meta so that they "don't loose the fun" of partaking in a side quest or area, in fear that it would be lost if not using that specific build or weapon or so on. When, in reality, the player could have have more fun if they played with a build they liked, even if more dificult. If I remember correctly, I once ranted on your channel about clears that the only good things that that clear has is the lvl of operators (like puting GG to tank the boss' spikes from dorothys vision event), and imho, this is a symptom of this mindset of "maximizing the fun".
![Is New Operator Nymph Worth To Wait? [Arknights]](/img/1.gif)
I started playing Elite 0 Level 1 over a year and a half ago. Back then I started it as a joke thinking to myself "how far could I possibly get doing this?". Now I have gotten to ch 5 and cleared a good number of event story boss stages. I get off and on comments saying how crazy I am for doing it but honestly it has been some of the most fun I have had playing Arknights. When I was starting this out at the time on my normal account I was getting to the point where event story stages besides the boss didn't really challenge me anymore with my well built account making it easy to ignore a lot of event mechanics by the high stats I had until the said boss stage stage or EX stages and even then it wasn't until the later EX stages where I really felt challenged (EX-5+) enough to need to learn the mechanics well (although events have gotten harder generally since). Sure I could've used my unbuilt operators but I didn't find those operators interesting enough to build so why use them now? Going down to E0 Lvl 1 it has made it so whether I like it or not I HAVE to learn the event/stage mechanics right from the start because of how weak my operators are and it has made experiencing these events so much more fun because of it with thinking of creative solutions to solve the stages. Also I come in each event with no expectations so it is always a surprise on how far I can get whereas on my normal account I always beat all the stages.
I guess the point I wanted to make with my essay is that if I can get this far with such weak operators by "gitting gud" then surely you can build whomever you want as long as you know what they do and can be good for. Just like when you use crushers against super high def enemies that (I and) other players would just use arts dmg instead but still works. Doing crazy stuff like that and still being able to clear stages I think is what makes Arknights so special.
Thank you gigachad and goat for your honorable sacrifice, we shall never forget you brother-in-arms. 😂🎉
So, the real joy of playing arknights were the pain and suffering we endure along the way?
Ngl, the most fun (and hardship) i get in arknight were the 2-6 months after i started playing. It was easier after that but in return, less challenging and less fun.
However, here and there, some challenges are so frigging hard that you cant use whatever random unit you have anymore. Lets not forget Harold, "Clip" cliff, seaborns, drunk durins, Lone Trail's robot, and so long caster sheep. These are newer challenges that cannot be tackled if your "underrated" niche cant clear it.
It also doesnt help that even niches tend to be extreme.
Most niches i've seen always used maxed character and maxed module, or like OP, E0 unit. This come with huge trade off that you cant level other, more useful unit (or even not raising anyone at all !!)
There are other things i wanna talk about but this "How could/should i have fun in arknight?" is too nuanced to get an easy answer.
Issue is playing with low level characters actually need larger investment into the game. If you actually want to play the niche, then you must have to get high pots for a lot of meta ops otherwise you can't really get far.
@@zball_6396 I don't use any pots for my clears though but normally for low level niches yes, you're right.
The problem is that progression is super slow and there's not really any room for experimentation, as you barely get any sanity and items to level your OPs.
AK is a prime example of why mobile games and gacha games suck. They're not really games as you're encouraged to only play a few minutes every day, and "play" usually means autoing stages.
If you play the game in any other way you'll quickly get annoyed with everything wrong with it. The little amount of sanity you have, trying to level new operators (which involves leveling like 4 different things) and the general lack of difficulty.
Most of AK's difficult past a certain rather early hurdle comes from boss stages. Events are especially bad with this as none of the base stages are difficult at all, bar maybe the boss stage, but that usually depends on the boss and the event mechanics. Then you have EX which are usually easy too, till you get to the final 1-2 stages of it.
The game is just lopsided and there's very little to actually do. If it wasn't for IWS I would've dropped it ages ago. It's a shame that AK is a crappy mobile game instead of a normal $40-60 video game you buy once and that's it.
The one thing I appreciate the most is that you aren't telling people "you aren't allowed to play how you want because it's inefficient / terrible / bad / stupid" and instead just state a differing viewpoint with a rationale behind it. I can respect that level of thought as flexibility and open mindedness seems rare nowadays.
I agree that it's hard to find someone open-minded regarding your playstyle these days. Most people(atleast, from what I see) would just use the best of the best and straight up criticize any operators below that, as if S- tier is just the equivalent of a fancy F
I remember once seeing someone saying that they enjoy using SilverAsh, and half of the replies on that person just go "RAWRR MLYNAR RAWRRRR"
Bro is anti-SUPAH
If someone critizing your playstyle actually upsets you you might have other issues to look into
@@matjaz5684 never once did I say that I'm upset when my playstyle is criticized, in fact I'm more than ready to learn to improve in this game instead of malding 24/7
What pisses me off though, is how some Arkguards are more than ready to jump onto someone if they dislike said person's opinion(like previously mentioned, how there will always be someone who brings up Mlynar when you mention SilverAsh)
@@BigGachaAddict waifu vs meta debate exists everywhere, the problem is when people actually take it seriously.
This vid explains why I want level modulator. Once you level up an ops, there's no going back. Playing your favorite ops on 'easier' maps on its intended difficulty to appreciate the map design of it is not possible.
100 million percent. Doing cool niches and guide runs would be so much easier if this was a feature. It doesn't prevent anyone from doing anything, it only allows for new stuff.
I wish there was an option to intentionally lower your operator's level/masteries; I've had some operators that I wanted to use at e2 because I don't want to bother with a stage, but sometimes I want to use them in my own niche clears, or want to clear with only e1s; modules somewhat do this, and my hope is that more mechanics that can be easily detached like modules are introduced in the future; I'm not strictly referring to things that a player invests in, it could be a stage/CM having different conditionals that you could pick from(CC)
Especially given the Support slot mechanic already has a system for de-leveling an operator in it
I've been playing Arknights for about 3 years now, so my account is stacked with many 6 stars. Ironically, many of which I don't use happen to be the "meta" operators (even the used-to-be meta picks like SilverAsh). I would much prefer a downgrade system so I could put those resources into units that I actually like for their unique kits rather than eternally suffer from DPS-maxxing.
Well Integrated Strategies do that to a certain degree - they demote all ops to e1 lvl whatever (max e1 level for ops that one has built above e2 or they just stay at whatever e1 level one has stopped building them). Unless one uses a team config that has chance for certain classes to be promoted automatically or promotion costs 0 hope, one can play with nerfed e2 operators on any IS difficulty level 🤔
A polite way of saying AK community have a massive skill issue
Lol
all the AK creators should troll for 1 week and release no guides for an event and see how many people lose their sanity irl
@@rainzerdesu Hopefully people would start enjoying gameplay then, but considering how most events only last for 2 weeks, yeah.... Lots of people would go crazy lolz
@@rainzerdesuThats why many dokutah able to get trimmed medal in CC but cant even clear IS 😂
@@rainzerdesuthat would be hilarious to see xD
Nice video, I can see most points, but I feel the idea that the idea of "two paths of progression" are more just 2 axes. When I started arknights a year ago one of my first operators was Mlynar, which lead to him being one of my first e2 operators. However early on I also quickly realized additionally areas I lacked meaningful gameplay interaction in, such as defenders and snipers, leading me to heavily utilize 3 stars constantly as well. I feel this caused me to use both ends of "meta" and, uhhh, "trashfire", as I have maxed out both Kirara and Vigil and use them as much as I can. I feel being able to do whatever I want and do weird clears with my favorite operators is one of the main draws to Arknights, regardless of meta or not. All in all I'm excited to see more content in the future.
Given that all events scale up E2, 3 stars are kind of a dead end top me. AK wants you to waste resources on levelling 3 and 4 stars, to pad out the game's progression. Which would be fine, but you'd miss out on a bunch more event rewards, some of which you won't be able to get later.
@@EvanOfTheDarkness uh, except that gummy, cardigan, kroos, and even spot are all really, really good ops and have higher stats than higher rarity ops of the same level, so in most events they are still usable.
@@ic4192 They are fine until you get to the E2 stages in the event. And the game forces you to level up some 3* and 4* operators with DP limits anyway. Better operator cost more DP, so you can't deploy them right away.
But you should really only level up 3-4 of the best 3*-s before throwing the rest in the trash can, and going for operators that you can scale to E2. And you shouldn't ever bother levelling 2*-s.
This is just my interpretation of it, but I imagine a big draw for building meta is the social aspect of it. When all your friends are at max level running whatever they please, it forms a sort of pressure to catch up so you can be in the conversation of what's new. I was lucky enough to start at launch, back when there really wasn't anything to chase. Medals and the like didn't exist yet and the playerbase was new enough to where Warfarin was considered bad up until the point someone used her with Exusiai. Under that lack of pressure I really got the chance to just build whoever I wanted to try and my skill level went up with the difficulty curve. If I started nowadays, I'm not sure if I'd do the same. We're at a point where a lot of the basics are simply assumed by the veterans, so newer players who choose to learn from videos or whatnot sadly end up missing the finer details in their rush to be up to date on the game.
I don't think this is unique to Arknights. There are plenty of people who are in the community who are not in it for the game, so to them, learning the fundamentals isn't as important.
I like this point a lot. there is definitely a huge fomo or communal drive for being on-par with each other.
Early on, gacha based team formation caused most of our groups to have wildly different playstyles due to what we had.
I was considered sort of the meme of our group because I solved most things with Mayer, replenishable-cheap summons, explosions, and stun timing... mostly because I had notoriously bad luck on pulls generally.
Trying to get a friend back into the game much much later, he ends up with a lot of high end units and the later-added capability to just blast them to max level.
While this was useful on generally letting him progress however he wanted, it did mean that he was basically playing an extended tutorial and many concepts didn't occur to him, such as being able to simply punch over defense with higher single atk numbers rather than needing high end arts units he didn't have.
that's why every operator under 4* ops had their base skill unlocks at e1.
they encourage you to use/up them first then use/up those *5 ops above after you have more resource or getting understand more complex mechanics of higher rarity.
The problem is, that it's also a gatcha game, with time limited events and FOMO. Even if levelling up 3 and 4 stars first is how the game is _designed_ to be played, wasting resources on them, means you get less resources from events and missing out more.
@@EvanOfTheDarkness it's not a waste actually, I prefer investation. coz you'll need lower rarity on IS mode.
@@WulanaVwlina Eventually yes. But the #1 priority is events. And there you need E2 many stars.
@@EvanOfTheDarkness yeah true, first priority is to have decent operators to clear event.
There's always the option of just upgrading 6* meta operators then just focusing on the good 4* instead of the 5* archetype to save more resources but I'm the type of player where I like splash art I like skin I like char design I build. All in all E2 lvl 60 for 6* E2 lvl 50 for 5* and E2 lvl 40 for 4* is a good benchmark.
i remember seeing an arknights youtuber taking the "vertical progression" idea to the extreme: they tried to clear every single (mainstory) stage with a new account that only raised the first 12 gacha operators, most of which ended up being 4-stars. obviously this person was not new to the game (and had a pretty long history of running alt accounts) and i don't think anyone should endure this challenge if not for the sake of making content, but it was definitely a wild ride to see someone fumble through ch 8 with about the most anti-meta squad you could make... a lot of the stages were brute forced through sheer levels, but honestly i didn't think even that would be possible.
tbh i find a lot of community discussion around arknights meta a bit strange, because... on one hand, the game *has* to be clearable without 6-stars besides the ones you are literally handed for free. 4-stars at maximum investment are more than capable of clearing content, which led the competitive-minded players to optimize for double the flex... on the other hand, it's a gacha game that falls into all the gacha trappings of time limited events, daily grind, obvious design bias towards high rarity, and of course all the small RNG annoyances designed to make you waste in-game and IRL sanity. i'm sympathetic to people who just want to get their stars and move on with their day, and that mindset leads people to gravitate towards the same operators that show up in every easy AFK high end guide.
although it is really sad to see many operator discussions devolve into trying to figure out who has the highest DPS when the thing i love the most about arknights is how it offers many viable solutions to a stage. of course DPS will always be one of the more straightforward solutions (why bother reading mechanics when you can just watch a youtube guide on how to animation cancel with degenbrecher), but this is also the community that discovered the mr nothing + erato permastall, which is still one of my favorite synergies for how much they were obviously *not* intended to work together...
anyway i don't know where i'm going with this comment other than confirming arknights does still have a chokehold on my 3 remaining braincells... oh yeah. raise indigo. (stop saying ebenholz fixed mystic casters!!! indigo fixed mystic casters before he even existed!!!)
Fellow Aria enjoyer spotted xD
Now im genuinely intrigued by erato and mr nothing syngery, somehow hadn't seen any videos on them, will definitely look those up, thanks for the tip!
@@anastil mr nothing needs module level 2 and erato can just be SL7. but basically the cooldowns of erato S1 and mr nothing talent align so that the enemy is constantly in sleep or stun.
it's not that useful in general content where the most threatening enemies are usually immune to both statuses, but it's still funny. pengod probably has a video on it.
indigo fixed mystic caster's case of zero case usage (she is a great, low cost high uptime bind alongside ethan) while ebenholz fixes the damage issue of mystic caster.
no there's a ton of really cool interactions like this and that what makes the game so fun! I remember back in CC#2 Blade, instead of actually fighting the main choke, I kept multiple brawlers punching for chip damage at Liskarm, fueling Weedy S3, and stalling the knocked back enemies with Manticore S1. It took a bunch of retries and a support Angelina, but it was easily the coolest experience I ever had with early AK. I think that was my first R18, too.
Module partsModule partsModule partsModule partsModule partsModule partsModule partsModule parts
Early vertical progression moment, my first E2 6 star was Ifrit. Ifrit requires certain maps to clear but as long as you have one tile you can bring her to annihilate mobs. She influenced the way I handled stages and the strategies I used when clearing a majority of my early game. At one point I decided to max level all 3 stars for a baseline set of characters, and max levelled up Matoimaru as my "Duelist" operator with her massive health pool. I used her to beat Talulah by sheer hp brute force. End game my vertical ceiling stops at modules, but sometimes I go the extra mile if I want to see the full potential of an operator (poncirus,bryophyta,swire alter).
I always thought of modules as like the very highest upper end of operator progression.
What are you leaving out if you "stop" there? Masteries? Max level? Do you only get module level 1?
It always depends. I stop at module level 1/2 if the effect is good enough for the resources. Level 7 skill mastery is usually good, but sometimes I want a skill at full potential. Levels don't affect alot of operators past E2 40/60 compared to cost, but sometimes I want the full potential like increasing Poncirus to E270 so I can max out HP and DEF.
its super interesting to see how a player's first 6* can influence their gameplay later on.
@fieldrequired283 I do think that's true for the most part. What also helps your point is that you need to heavily invest in operators to get access to them (upper-mid level E2, high trust).
There are a few operators that kind of do need their modules maxed out for them to do what they're supposed to do, or they just feel kind of awkward otherwise. Lin S3 and April instantly come to mind with this.
@@pointvee Doesn't have to be the first to be honest. The third 6* I ever got was Schwarz and well... 5 snipers per squad became a regular habit of mine for a good year and a half.
Really appreciate the fact that someone well articulated like you is getting good reach in videos on this topic. People should be able to play however they want but something that really bothers me is some circles force this "only x units are worth building", "building y is throwing resources in the trash" mindset so hard on new players who haven't had the chance to engage with the game and decide how they want to play. With such strongly worded advice from older players it's only natural they end up insecure about building anything not recommended. It's nice to see people get reassurance from your content and hope that continues being the case.
On the limited resources front though, while I believe you were talking about resources required for early progression / getting a broad and reasonably leveled roster, in which case yeah, I agree people value resource efficiency way more than they should, I'd argue saying resources aren't limited is something that doesn't leave the realm of "technically accurate". Having been playing actively for over 3 years, actually spending for farming purposes, and wanting to build a lot of different units, I'm still broke the whole time. Module blocks are also the worst thing they ever introduced. "Catching up" in its full sense is pretty much something that won't happen for years and years unless you're a massive whale. (And I'm talking solely about building units, fully disregarding pots.)
tbh this is why I love integrated strategy so much because tldr it just forces you to use everything
IS2 single-handedly forced me to learn the 'Deploy SilverAsh to Win Immediately' game and I absolutely adore the gamemode for that (also temporary recruitments are the best thing to get to know Ops you'd never build/have in your friends list otherwise)
If you really play IS on high ascensions long enough, you realise that you only need 6* and 3* for it and there's no much variation in which 6* and 3* you use. Good thing they're makong 4* free in IS5. It can lead to some really fun strategies
@@iaroslavagapov2671 There's a IS5? wtf I thought there were only 3 lol
@@jeffwu7188 yes lol. IS1 was an time limited event while 2 (Crimson Solitaire), 3 (Caerulan Harbor or something), 4 (Expeditioners' something), and later 5 are all permanent
IS4 is just deploy typhon S2 and watch her sweep the stage. what roster?
this is a really well made video, i never thought about progression with as much detail as you have here and this is a very cool way to explain it.
I feel exonorated for my decision of maxing skadi, heidI, and delphine
LFGGGGGGGGGGGG
Delphine is greatly underappreciated. More love for Delphine!
@@RavenAdventwings and hate for Sarkaz with her 4th charge
Toddifons 🤝 Delphine
I love it when articulate and insightful people play the same silly game I'm playing. Those who showcase niche breaking operators are a dime a dozen, so finding one who explores topics other then the newest operators and expands on them is a breath of fresh air.
Hearing some of your points and then going "oh yea that makes sense" is funny to me, as while in hindsight it wouldn't have needed too much thinking to come to that same conclusion, I HAD to hear about it first before it even came to my attention. So every new video I'm like "what else else did I miss because I'm speedrunning progression cuz I have other stuff to do in life."
Also I'm writing this on the toilet and my legs have gone numb. Curse you and your ak content
4:09 Who on earth is calling Exusiai and Archetto bad lmao. I think most would agree that Archetto is decent and Exusiai is niche. And people are really disappointed by Hoerderer's kit but he's still mid and not unusable
Sadly aa snipers aren't seen as good nowadays because they usually just get stat checked.
This video is pretty well made. It's nice to see someone look at both sides.
Though, I disagree on one point: 11:07. While it is true for a general playthrough, "meta" is too generic. The meta for high risk CC does favor unique qualities over raw numbers. For instance, Weedy and Gladiia are pretty good in high risk CC. Liskarm is too. Mostima is cool. Cantabile is used because being the (currently) 5th (?) best Vanguard means she sometimes gets a spot.
However, when you consider that the best operators for comparatively lower difficulty content do rely on their stats, it can be argued that this is their unique quality: stats and ease of use. For instance, it can be argued that Mountain's unique qualities are that he is easy to use with low investment and low requirements for someone that can hold an entirely lane, under the condition that the enemies aren't too strong (for some definition of strong).
I feel like it would be wrong to recommend a newbie to build Suzuran because she is meta. Likewise, I feel it would be wrong to recommend prioritizing Mountain S2's Mastery for someone chasing high risk CC, even though it can also be considered "meta".
Additionally, I think it's worth noting that anyone can borrow a Ling. I cleared almost all of Dorothy's Vision except the last CM stage in less than one month of playing thanks to Ling (I don't use guides. If you do use guides, it's probably possible to clear the CM too). I couldn't even auto-farm DV-6. And I finished almost all of Near Light rerun except NL-S-5 CM, in less than 2 months since starting, albeit with Mlynar. Friend support Ling is breaking Arknights progression much more than following the meta, except maybe Wisadel, but we'll have to see
Yeah I agree.
CC does allow for unique options, that is something I didn't bring up in my video, which is my own fault. I was instead more focused on how certain, newer operators have such a high power level, that their power level is more designed for this crazy difficult endgame content, rather than for general gameplay.
The mountain situation is weird because he's such an odd outlier in the game. If you are cursed with pulling him naturally from your freebie 6-star then now you have a centurion that's as cheap as a pioneer and can trivialize a good chunk of the game. To me, its more his poor S2 design that makes him meta, not necessarily that he can carry you through the end game.
@@BloopsArknights to me, I see mountain as an admission of defeat from HG. He's a brawler/fighter guard in the post flagpipe world, one of the worst baseline situations a unit could ever be in from a meta perspective. Flagpipe made it so you could skip from the early game to the mid game in just seconds, so all the early game units had to be competitive with mid game units in order to be a part of the meta. Mountain was created with that in mind.
I started playing arknights not too long ago. Around a year and a half. For 6 months, I play mostly using 4 starts, becouse, I didn't have 5 starts that match my playstyle. I create impressive strategies (that still impress even me) to clear LS-5, and than 6, using only normal 6 star that I had, Mountain (other are Skadi, Holeheyah and Maggalan). But in 1 moment, suddenly everything changed, I pulled Goldenglow and Mlýnar. Despite they didnymatch my style, they were just doing their job that good, that in most situations, they were overhelmo. Now not even chalenge EX-8 stages or inferno story stages, causing me a lot of troubels (not to mention recent episode 13 inferno stages). Only time that I truly struggle, was SSS in CC. And thing got worse, now I had a lot of powerful units, and in just 18 fays, I will empty mu stash to get Ling (becouse I like her).
To people who will write "just don't use them": I am not as patient, as some of arknights community, and after some timw, will eventually use my meta squad. I just want to tell my story, I still love arknights for it's story, and just want to say that it's sad, that interesting mechanics, could be just brute forced, and hypergriph need to think, how to give some challenge onto event stages, not to how make them interesting.
one thing i love about arknights especially compared to other gachas are
the rarities all have a function, even in "end game content" and not just to collect dust in the inventory (they even give free skins for them just in case a low star is a persons fave unit)
1* doesnt cost deployment limit.
so if you have an extra slot in the team put in a 1*, they can help. like in cc1s2 i wouldnt have gotten 620 if it wasnt for the terra cats delaying the cars. in pinch out friston took on the bots, also like extra flashlights in near light
2* are bait units.
yato is cheap fast redeploy, and when chp 10 was released noir was mvp for a bunch of people, durin and 12F has straight up 50% dodge which i use for ammo type enemies like the sanktas.
3* are the general line of the game.
even during anniversary streams when the developers showcase stages they use 3* squads. to show that for main and event story stages you can clear it with 3* and 1 6* and not gatekeeping content under paywall.
4* are the most common units
most of the ops are made for general content as this is the most accesible from the gachas and easy to build
5* are for niche/unique roles
alot of the 5* have a unique skillset that not even 6* have. showing more to what the gameplay can do.
and 6* bring damage
Unique (and useful) skillset are now 6star's job.
5tar job are now being the guinea pig of new (and sometimes terrible) kit.
@@vanzeralltheway8638 I think Wangqing's the last 5* whose kit isn't "terrible guinea pig"
I love AK and played almost since the the beginning, one to the issue I look back on is random pulls. I got lappland before I even got Midnight so there for she carried me through a lot of progress. Even with the explosive slugs, I didn't need to figure out things because she just dealt with them. I think this was a bit detrimental to my learning curve and is also why early early on I would resort to guides for hard content. Luckily that didn't last long because I thought, ' it's a strategy game, you should be using your own strategy to overcome it not someone else' . But this did mean I struggled a lot more but the reward was more enjoyable. And this is where I think another issue with a lot of games comes into pla, people just ask what to use, who to pull, what character/weapon is good, what skill tree to build or class to pick in games. This means people will choose without knowing really WHY they are good or even if they are good for their situation/style. And I am not bashing guide users or makers, if you are struggling and need or want to use a guide go for it, but it shouldn't be the go to answer.
I have just gone through and beat all bosses in story and even without 6* just for fun and see how I can do and it was very fun and an interesting challenge showing me you don't need op units to play(though I build for waifu over meta so Kal and Surtr are the only two real meta units I built).
My guy, this video is amazing. I freaking love the way you analised the game, being objective about the way things work and the many ways to see them;
Instead of rights or wrongs and why they should make us angry/happy at the devs decisions, you talked about the push and pull game that the developers of any game go through when making any decision during development.
I could talk so much about this game and how it, weirdly, borders on both being trully amazing and frustratingly flawed is.
Point Being, I subscribed
hey, great video! i'm really glad that you don't judge anyone's playstyles, especially as a timmy who plays with both meta *and* niche operators, and i have fun with both! i think people shouldn't feel restricted to only playing with one or the other, as it really limits the experience and what you can accomplish, for me, it really depends on what i'm feeling at the moment; if i'm busy and only have a half-hour left to clear the event stages? use meta operators like chalter and kaltsit; if i have all the time in the world and feel like having fun while finishing the story on cm? play with more supoptimal operators/my niche! and sometimes i even restrict what meta operators i *do* use if i'm not having fun with them, e.g: whenever i turn on chalter's skill and she immediately kills all the enemies on the map with minimal to no effort, i decide "yeah, she's no fun here" and boot her out of the squad, chalter is honestly more of an emergency option if things aren't going well haha, again, great analysis video! i'm excited to see the day when your operators are strong enough to tackle late-game content like cc :D stay awesome and enjoy doing what you love! ❤
(sorry if i don't have much to comment in terms of the actual video...i think i already explained my thoughts about progression on the dobermann video haha)
We really needed you and this video for this discussion to give Arknights RUclips more nuance and perspective. Thanks for the vid.
Very well done analysis! HG is really between a rock and a hard place when it comes to stage balancing, because they can't really stagnate material progression (ex. by not introducing powercreeping characters) since that fundamentally goes against the allure of Gacha, and they can't exponentially increase a stage's difficulty to encourage spending resources because it fundamentally goes against the nature of being a somewhat competitive strategy game. I feel there's a parallel to draw to something like Plants vs Zombies, which I'd say has linear material progression, but is eventually crossed over by skill progression as you learn the mechanics of each zombie and timing of your plants.
I'd like to poke few weak points in your arguments, and few misconceptions contained in them. I hope that posting from this account that has some AK videos on it will help my comment not to be discarded as "an AK speedrunner" who didn't understand the point of the video.
First thing first, live-service games are not the same as single-player offline games. There is time-limited content. Its difficulty and time allotted for doing it are balanced with all players in mind, i.e. how other players play the game affects how stages are balanced which in turn affects you. I agree that for long-term enjoyment it is better to play AK however you want, but I believe we should be a lot more cautious about how we present this idea to newer players. What I prefer to say is "Play however you want, but first build few meta operators so that you don't get stuck and have means to get all time-limited rewards you want." I'd rather see people getting ahead in material progression, than people being held down by material progression. Having your "player skill" outpace your material progression can be very infuriating. Like you understand how you are supposed to do the stage, but don't have levels or operators for it. And then you see people just brute forcing it with overpowered E2 6-stars without even realizing what the game mechanic was. This is very disheartening and almost got me dropping AK in the past. There is an important distinction here between "I choose to play in a more challenging way (i.e. some kind of nicheknights)" and "I was forced to play in a harder way (because I don't have operators or levels)". Those two situations are perceived very differently by the player.
Second, you have concepts of late game, meta, and "high risk CC" jumbled a bit. Let's start with "high risk CC". What do you mean by "high risk" here? Is "risk" required by various medals and other rewards "high"? Or may be it is "risk" that is close to highest achievable? Depending on the answer "high risk" might not be clearable with nicheknights. CC allows to scale difficulty to absurd levels. Nicheknights hit their limit long before unrestricted roster does. But anyway, CC does favor various situational specialized operators, which are often anything but meta. Saying that "meta" are operators that are good in late game while meaning CC as late game is wrong. The answer to "what meta operator means in AK" is weird and somewhat hilarious. Basically, meta operator is an operator that has been frequently featured in youtube videos recently. Take Cuora and Bubble for example. They have very similar performance. The former is used by the biggest AK content creator on YT (Kyo), the later is favored by smaller 4-star only creators (Silvergun and ZPKF). The former is considered very strong 4-star, the later is barely mentioned in the discussions. Or Shining S2 suddenly spiking in "meta" discussions after yet another AFK clear video with her (CC heavily favors her S3 btw). Or Exu and Archetto in your own video being marked as "bad" (we didn't have a stage for them to shine for some time, but they are still best AA snipers, and no, Ch'alter however broken she is can't completely replace AA snipers).
Third, you talk about intended progression, being ready, etc. It is hard to look into developers' heads to see what "intended" progression should be, but we can estimate some things indirectly. The very first CC season happened around 6 months after the game release. This means, that devs assumed, that 6 months old f2p accounts were far enough in material progression to handle risk 8 dailies and risk 18 permanent stage back then. If your account requires 1 or 2 years of material progression to handle CC on this level, then it is reasonable to assume that you are behind the intended player progression. That said, we should not forget my first point. The "intended" might have been affected by other players.
Thank you for your comment. It was worded much nicer than other comments, but I do still disagree.
1. I dont feel giving into FOMO isn't an excuse to rush your account. If you can reach the stage right before the boss and the boss is too hard for you, that means the boss is too hard for you. Yes the event is time limited, but that doesn't mean the content is gone forever. Reruns and Record Restore still exist, and yeah you will have to wait awhile for the content to return, which does suck, but I personally don't feel rushing your account for the sake of short-term satisfaction is worth it in the long run. Yeah it sucks if someone brute forces the stage with all their fancy operators, but that is a personal issue rather than a game issue at that point. I encourage people to take the game at a slower pace, instead of rushing their operators to high levels to beat a stage they may not be ready for otherwise. If you can't beat a stage, then I don't think you aren't ready for that stage yet.
2. I agree with you that high risk CC doesn't necessarily force players to use "meta" operators. There is situations where operators can shine due to the restrictive nature of CC. I also agree with you that Chalter replacing marksman snipers wasn't a great comparison, that is the fault of my own shitty writing skills. When I talk about meta, I am referring to the "high meta", which is a sect of operators who are designed in such a way that normal content is trivialized and higher-difficulty endgame content can be completed. I'm sure you can beat this crazy high-end content without 6-stars, which is what I said in my video. But my point was, the existence of these absurdly broken "high meta" operators is to compensate for some players' skill to allow them to engage with endgame content. And so, if a player hyperfixates on these units, they are focusing their progression around the end game.
3. It is possible that I am 100% wrong, but I will continue to stand by my position. In response to the 6 month CC:
Contingency Contract is nice in that it can appeal towards ANY style of player, from newbies to whales. I would feel the implementation of the highest difficulty, high risk challenge wasn't there for the average player, but for the whales and those who really want a challenge. This doesn't mean that I think that HG expects you to be at the end game that quickly, instead I feel they were just simply compensating for those who have, and no longer have any content to engage with.
Thank you for your comment.
@@BloopsArknights "FOMO" and "personal issue" was not a nice choice of words, especially the later one. I've basically shared my own subjective experience about my early days in AK, and you discarded it as something wrong with ME because it doesn't quite fit into your arguments. You can't deny me my own subjective feelings. And I don't think you should discard them as some kind of my own weirdness. I've seen people expressing similar sentiments in various games. It is basically the feeling of unfairness when multiple people are presented with the same challenge, only some of them are given access to better means of solving this challenge than others (in my case people who overpowered content with full team of E2 6-stars were whales, f2p or low spenders didn't have such teams yet).
But anyway, this gives me an opportunity to breach an unpleasant subject. Are you sure when your talk about not being ready for a stage yet you are not making an excuse to not engage with anything that can challenge you? I'm sorry it sounded rude, but I think it is too important for the conversation to avoid it. I had the feeling while watching your videos that this might be the case, but I wasn't sure. After reading your reply regarding CC#beta I'm quite sure though. Risk 18 in CC#beta was very much doable for f2p and low spenders. Even higher was possible for those who were ready to put some effort in (I managed risk 21 as a low spender, TeamWnJ managed risk 22 as a f2p). It was never seen by community as something made for whales. I'm fairly sure it was not intended by HG as something for whales (it is really weird to put in your game rewards that are accessible only to whales, people won't like it). Risk 25 or 26? Sure, that was whale territory (but it also required some insane player skill to accomplish). Risk 18? No, it was doable for average players with 6 months old accounts, even if they needed a help of a guide (many people need a help of a guide even on normal stages, so this is a very low bar).
I probably should clarify one thing. Casual attitude "I'm here to kill time or play waifu collection game, I don't care about challenging myself or rewards that I miss" is a valid approach that I respect. I call it "true casual" in contrast with "pseudo casuals" who don't want to put any effort, but want to beat all stages and get all rewards regardless, and thus blindly follow meta and copy guides. But I don't think avoiding engaging with challenging content and repeatedly using "not ready" or "don't have operators" as an excuse is a right way to go. It is dishonest.
Going back to challenging oneself, it is the only way to reliably increase your skill level. If you don't do stages that feel too hard for you, your skill level will stagnate. This is a serious pitfall of the approach you are proposing. You've correctly identified, that relying on meta operators too much is detrimental for player skill level, but the same applies to avoiding hard stages.
As for intended progress, based on my observation of the game and community over several years I think it goes something like this. Every content that gives any kind of rewards can be cleared with 4-star only team, but it requires exceptional player skill on some stages. Average Joe can clear stages with a team at recommended level that includes a couple of strong 6-star operators. Couple here goes from 1-2 in early chapters to almost an entire team in later chapters and CC.
I strongly recommend you try hard content with meta operators. If you want to talk responsibly and with nuances about progression, meta, importance of different operators, you need context and experience. You need both, meta and nicheknights/waifuknights for this topic. You need to compare both to come to a conclusion, and if you have experience only with one side, you end up imagining the other side (which usually ends up being pretty far from reality). For example, I really hate "everything can be cleared with low-rarity team" statement. It is technically true, but it seriously undersells the difference in difficulty between clearing stages with low-rarity team and high-rarity team. I've never head Silvergun, who actually clears everything with 4-stars only team, saying it by the way. Because he knows the amount of effort it takes. It takes trying both meta and nicheknights to fully appreciate the busted power of meta. Right now you have a lot of good arguments, but they get undermined when you start talking about end game or meta (because you keep saying strange things, like CC#beta being for whales, or using Vigna instead of Bagpipe).
As far as easy clearing content goes, Exu is still meta. The only sniper on global who compares is Typhon. Ch'Alter is not in the running at all. And Typhon's use rate comes at the expense of Thorns, not Exu.
as someone who played a lot of gacha games but STILL struggling with AK, despite having a first year account, you really explained it well.
I can clear story easily just by having 3 characters properly built in other games, but not here. I still haven't passed the "early game" phase (I quitted several times due to malding and storage issues), but I plan to conquer it now... hopefully...
never give up! you can do it. i believe in you.
your problem is you don't play the game everyday as it's supposed to be played. i have over 100 fully built characters. year 1 player too
@@KiraCain I know full well about it. Had storage issues bro. AK isn't my main game so I had to let it go for some time
a big thing that enforces this thinking early on is how the story of side events is often just not completable by very new players. a player finds an operator they think is fun and want to use? well dont complete the side story you were invested in!!! it sucks and the fact is even if it was a meta operator they dont have the levels yet to even use them so if a player wants to read the story they have to engage in meta to even have the chance to read at the time of event or disregard story altogether and treat arknights as purely gameplay
counter: "but archives" very new players dont know this but they do see the ever ticking event timer leading to a player mindlessly bashing their heads against a wall they are not equipped to deal with yet
in my opinion side stories should be locked until chapter 2 and current event stories locked until at least chapter 4 preferably chapter 8. at chapter 2 have a tutorial pop up explaining vignettes and side stories archives and encouraging players to read those if they want. that way they dont engage with the story of the event until the rerun ends when they would be more ready but can also still farm current events
legendary youtube recommended pull
seriously, this is one of the best, if not THE best breakdowns of arknights’ gameplay design ive ever seen. more people need to see this! subbed!
Hi! I'm one of the people who you consider the status quo! I really enjoyed your video! It's a breath of fresh air! I have a friend who is like you, a 4* enjoyer! The reason why I enjoy 6* over the 4* is their complexity, sure Surtr and friends murder everyone but they're just really cool to use, their animations are more fleshed out and some of the older 6* are as simple as 3* (Skadi), thank you for making a video like this, most people can't get into arknights nowadays since the older playerbase doesn't even give a chance to try a new perspective (insert get "x" operator here). I hope you keep enjoying our niche gacha game! Good Luck on Here a People Sows!
Good video, reminded me of myself playing during year 1
beautifully articulated and very reasonable points made all throughout the video, what a banger
When I was starting out the game I did look up some tier lists and the like since I didn't know where start. Around the time I had my first couple of E2s, I tried out a variety of maxed out meta and non-meta ops like Ling or Magallan in IS.
Now after a year and a half, I've racked up a pretty varied roster including a bunch of the newer meta ops like Mlynar. However, aside from personal character faves like Specter, I found myself using meta ops less because I got tired of brute-forcing stages with 6*s. Recently I started to take more event related ops to new stages, whether or not I had prior experience with them. Seeing same ol team comps with predictable performance results over and over again gets boring after a while, it's a lot more interesting to see people making unconventional teams work!
You are right when you say there are no bad operators but something the devs don't cooperate with is making those said suboptimal ops actually usable in any sense without putting yourself in a blaint disadvantage against a hypothetical case where you use that character's "better version" instead. I personally would love to see some reworks/changes to those operators that don't work as well as others do since either way the only people who use them are either new to the game or doing some sort of challenge anyway and while I respect the people who do "challenges" or just like an operator (I'm a jessica enjoyer personally) I would love to see jessica have some utility that no other sniper has or anything special at all not just a raw 20000% buff.
I did enjoy the video a lot by the way.
This potentially ties into another thing that feels a bit lost in the sauce when it comes to operator discussion; that low op isn’t the only way to optimize Arknights. Out of combat goals like base optimization are the best example, but you also have low step, 1p relay no hit, and lower progression clears like e0l50 and e0l1.
How people approach difficulty doesn’t need to be homogenized in the same way that generally is thought about - Ling is absurdly strong primarily in the context where you want to minimize operator count, but she’s an active detriment to the squad as squad size increases. 2 deploy cost unhealable summons are generally not that helpful in scenarios where you don’t have a bard and are in a situation where your dragons are being threatened; it’s not impossible to deal with, and dragon management is legitimately fun, but it causes too many arguably unnecessary limitations on the squad and asks for a lot more management than you’d expect.
This is why Ling is, ironically, a pretty weak operator in general content. Not weak in that she’s inherently a low impact operator, but weak in that she calls for a lot of management and focus in a manner not really expected for a general use operator. In other words, she’s still a summoner, and arguably a harder to use one than Scene. At least with s3, hee strongest skill.
Contrast this with Ayerscarpe, an operator we like to use as an example of an operator particularly screwed by the prevalence of low op clears. Ayerscarpe is perhaps the single most squad-size dependent operator in the game with s2; he wants a lot of blockers, and is at his strongest with 8 other operators to use alongside him. This means him with s2 is crippled when it comes to low op clears, he simply isn’t designed with low operator counts in mind, and it shows through how his usage is predominantly centered around s1 in terms of nicheknights.
In this sense, these two operators are showcasing how people engage with “the meta” as a concept: they are simultaneously talking about 2 different ideas.
The first is an operator’s ease of use, showcased by Ling and how she tends to be underrated. This can be generalized into “general content”, where an operator’s general gamefeel and how they interact with a simple, low stakes environment is focused upon. This applies to operators like Ling who are strong but feel bad to use (through the necessary effort needed to properly execute her strategies), but also operators who aren’t bullshit but just feel… ineffective. This is where we’d put Valarqvin, an operator we have an interesting and complex opinion on where she feels bad to use even when she is being effective, but also she’s an incredibly balanced and healthy necrosis applier which feels good.
The second arm of “the meta” is low op count optimization, which ties into vertical progression as you described in this video. Operators are considered “strong” when they reduce the necessary operator count dramatically, which is where the classical “meta” operators tend to sit; Surtr, Chalter, Degenbrecher; an operator’s strength in a low op count model is directly tied to how much they reduce the need for other operators.
This is where Mlynar comes in, not as a particular example of one branch or the other, but as an intersection of both. Mlynar (and to a lesser extent Chalter and an even lesser extent Degenbrecher and Surtr) feels good to use AND significantly reduces necessary operator requirements. As a matter of fact, it is more likely that an operator who eliminates the need for other operators also feels good to use, which makes Ling not an example of a rule but rather a notable outlier.
(If you want another example of an op like Ling in this context we’d point to Dorothy, who is relatively weaker but also feels a lot better to use in a general context. It’s not that either feels bad to use it’s just that the necessary effort is higher than one would expect for general use).
This places us in an interesting position, as we’re both incredibly meta-brained but also incredibly “play for fun, don’t care about optimization” brained when we actually play the game. We find the fun in the game as a whole, and whilst we sometimes chase clears we generally feel good no matter how we play the game.
Additionally, it’s interesting to see the juxtaposition between general opinion and more meta-brained contexts; Hoederer, as an operator, is able to mitigate his strengths well enough to where he’s generally regarded as a fairly strong operator in the circles we occupy. Similarly, Archetto is a fairly underrated operator in our opinion despite aging better than Exu (who honestly feels incredibly outdated atp).
And finally, remember the things we talked about aren’t rigid concepts. They’re inherently malleable in their nature and we intentionally focused on particular operators that we felt were relevant to what we were saying. As such, strong meta ops like Ines didn’t get mentioned despite her potential addition to the discussion, mostly because we’re typing all this on mobile and making this any longer than it is feels hellish.
Have a good week, month, and year, anyone reading this!
I feel like certain ops break this balance though. You mentioned mylnar and Ines, but bagpipe (Myrtle) and surtr sorta fit this. These operators like you said are within their roles entirely self sufficient and provide both ease of use and fun. However the also become multiplicatively better with support like surtr mylnar with defenders/debuffers/stall, or how the bagpipe Myrtle Ines (cantabile as well sometimes) trio make themselves better by having skill on deployment, and making the rest of your squad better by allowing high dp cost units to drop down immediately. This isn’t to say what you’re saying is wrong, it’s just that I do feel at this point in the Arknights life cycle that thin line is being beat to a pulp. Especially with a certain alter coming up for fifth anni…
Of course I wanna use the OPOP characters because I want easy trust farms
Then on the other hand I always choose my favourite 6-star to start high difficulty IS runs to prove a point, whether or not he’s promoted or he’s at a higher cost. There’s a BN14 wall to reach 15 but I’ve climbed this far with Stainless first so I’ll keep going!
An amazing video! Something I would like to show a friend while recommending the game.
I was lucky to play it "as intended" due to a miraculous combination of F2P and an incredible gacha luck spicing my roster up right when it was needed.
I've heard a comparison of each different account to runs in roguelikes, and I think it fits nicely.
Personally? I'm a "Horizontal Investment" type of person
I like to Spread out m resources building lossa different character!
Optimal? Prolly not.
Fun? Absolutely!
You are doing horizontal my man.
@@chimera1381 You are absolutely right, I got them mixed up! My Bad~
Amazing analysis as always
well made and comprehensive video
This video is beautiful, puts to words why I fell in love with the game and how it breaks other gachas' conventions
Glad someone understand what progression is to Arknights.
I think you've nail it extraordinarily well.
Also, few point about Horizontal and Vertical Progression,
The vertical progression in AK actually can be very2 short, as short as 3 months or unfortunately as long as forever. Ultimately, it is up to the player when they want to stop their vertical progression.
I've seen players stuck in vertical progression mindset for years, and feels sad on how they skipped many of the enjoyable part of AK.
Also some veteran players advising "this bad, this trash, this must pull" is actually detrimental, as it put the one taking this type advice to the vertical progression oriented player.
Regarding the horizontal progression, I think it may come naturally to some players once they felt that they had enough of the vertical progression, but once again it is up to themself. And hopefully many players open their mind to horizontal progression after seeing this video.
I think that part of AKs fundamental progression problem lies in 5* units as well. They cost 2/3-3/4 of a 6* but lack a 3rd skill and are often not much of an upgrade over a good 4* unit that you'll have max potted in a few months from random pulls. Thus people tend to hop from 4* to 6* outside a couple of essentials like Warfarin or Specter if you get them early enough. I was quite lucky in my early AK days, so I've mostly been E2'ing 6* units because I got a lot of them early on - not because I dislike others but because I end up looking at the cost curve and see that even a meh 6* claps the average 4* or 5* so hard you're wasting your resources. Once you have your base maxed and can clear the events, you realize the main expense of a 6* (LMD) is about 4-5 days of passive base income and dailies compared to a 5*. The material differences should largely be covered by the stamina spent during those days. Also, while you're joking with your 6*, whoever put Lumen out of the meta list must be a clown: He's still the top pick if you didn't get Eyja 2: Electric Boogaloo ;)
13:57
"content I'm not really supposed to be engaging with yet"
I agree that you should play Arknights the way you want, but you make it sound like you can just go to the Terminal and play Design of Strife or Contingency Contract anytime you want. These are timed events and if you didn't do the necessary preparations you may not be able to clear the hardest events and may never be able to clear them at all, because the chance to clear them went away.
I can completely understand if a player doesn't have the urgency to clear everything, but I always question the claim of those who say that you don't need to build the strongest 6 star operators without making the clarification that this statement comes from someone that doesn't mind not clearing everything and letting the hardest events pass.
Perhaps the above clarification is not important when we are talking among us who have played Arknights for a long while now, but I am thinking more of how we talk to newcomers.
I believe the fact that I didn’t go all out in buying ordeum, monthly subscriptions and head hunter packs didn’t burn me out.
I could have had a ton of operators instead of the few I had at the start which made me appreciate what I had more and made me just sink in resources into everyone.
Since I didn’t know who I would need in the future and I still haven’t gotten past the third story campaign. I never finished a Contingency Contract or IS2, 3 or 4 and I haven’t even touched the side stories yet.
I don’t mind sometimes it is nice to take things slow and like you said enjoy the journey.😊
Waifu over meta!
"if you want to build your account with a bunch of high level endgame units before you beat frostnova"
hey that's me!
I never went past ch3 for a looong time, instead focusing on just events pretty much, then when I came back and started progressing story again I already had a lot of endgame units and really didn't have to interact with stages at all, which made me sad at the time already. Somehow I didn't consider simply NOT using those units then... maybe I was in a hurry or something but still
Well not like I can't go back and do the stages again differently!
SAME I still rmb rolling Frostnova with Schwarz. These days Im more in the camp of build a carry and then what you want but even then I would say doing stuff like that and progressing too fast feels like an issue (my friend's half a year old account can sometimes feel like its at the end of progression, but also sometimes feel like its way too behind, mainly when hellish endgame content appears, think DoS, CC wasnt that hard in terms of requirements)
same lmao I showed up to the frostnova fight with an m2 typhon
Or you can be smoking copium like me and skipped finishing Chapter 6, lmaooooooo
I won't lie, chilling at 3-5 for about 2 years my struggle is just with the lack of ways to obtain the new materials from later stages, I agree with a lot of this though. Won't lie, when i read progression in the title, i thought you were talking about event stages progression, which sometimes is just the worst thing i have ever seen.
I definitely appreciate different play styles then my own. While I mostly stick to my meta operators I have learnt a lot more about the game and gotten better at it from listening to people like you. I sure has shit didn’t learn anything from people telling me “just surtr it and you’ll be fine”.
I started playing AK in early March of 2020 at the behest of a friend.
Despite being fully F2P only, I have most of the operators in the game, and most of my 6 star roster is at least E2/90.
That's mainly due to me having sat on daily rewards/base production for a positively silly amount of time, and i do that because AK is mostly a tomogachi to me; a pet game to maintain and bemuse myself with.
As someone intimately familiar with the Tower Defense genre, I can definitely state that despite the problems identified in this video (which are quite real), the general difficulty for AK is actually really well done for the most part. There are very few maps/modes where building "meta" is hard required and the core operators are sufficient to handle most of the game with enough skill, stat growth and player experience.
(this was absolutely not the case in the prior Gacha I played, Fire Emblem Heroes. Certain heroes were just flat out useless no matter how you built them, and several PVE maps hard required brute force stat blocks to complete.)
I say all of that to say this: My main mode of play for AK today revolves around semi-random teams, theme teams, or personal challenges now.
It's been that way ever since I acquired Ling back in 2022. Ling, frankly, forced my eyes wide open to the absolute state of power creep in AK by making the game boring.
As such, I can count on one hand the number of solutions I've used her for, despite having her completely maxed out (E2/90, M3 skills, module).
Two years, and I've used her a grand total of 4 times, in earnest attempts.
And it's necessary to do that because if I didn't, I probably would have dropped the game early last year, when I got into an awful luck streak where I pulled nothing but junk for something like 600 straight pulls (still a pittance compared to what I put up with in FEH before finally dumping that trash fire).
TL;DR if you focus too heavily on 'Meta' units, you're missing out on a lot of what AK has to offer.
The best tower defense games walk a fine line between difficulty and novelty for their solutions, with many of them falling apart due to either being too rigid in their approach, or too easy. AK is well designed in a way that manages to bypass most of the problems Gacha games have...but only if you're willing to let it.
Damnn, i think i have a new favorite Arknights youtuber, I love the way you share and try to understand the views of other players, you are the only rare ones that encourage not meta not waifu but fun player, do whatever you want if it is fin for you
It's kinda problematic... as I want to build "fun" or my favorite operators, I really don't think the game gives enough mats for you to mindless spend it. Let's be real, almost everyone wants to invest in meta 6* operators and the reason why is others gachas will likely put a progress/dps wall in front of you early on. I also think it's the game fault itself, it takes MONTHS just to max a single operator, it's insane I'm still struggling with lmd/xp mats, and I've been playing this game since day 1
To be fair it’s also correct that maxing operators is both inefficient and generally not needed, alongside the fact that arknights is just not a game that fundamentally asks you to be maxing new operators frequently
@@idontbelieveinmagic Just to clarify when I say "maxing" it's not E2 90, it's just E2 40/50/60 to be able to unlock modules. It's a shame I wanted to try using different operators in IS, but I'm always out of mats
@@Zidminder ah yeah fair enough. as far as experimenting goes it does suck but even then i guess my point is that moreso the amount of investment you need to "beat" all content is pretty low, so you can still fuck around just maybe not as much as you could if arknights wasnt a gacha game, and even then it's still worthy to note that arknights is still on the better end for this sort of stuff due to not having an rng gear system to deal with.
even then though, months is a pretty big over exaggeration. it takes about 6000~ sanity worth of material to e2 an operator, which is only 3 and a bit weeks of active play, and that's before taking into account the fact you get more efficient ways to farm resources during events, and all the free lmd/exp mats that base, dailies, and weeklies give you.
I you ignore 6* and focus on lower rarity it is much easier and faster to level multiple units. 4* especially are really cheap even if you add modules on top
@@aizeroth8858 I've been upgrading low rarity operators since IS2 (thanks to IS now i apreciate low rarity units more than before), but my point of view is players are missing out on experimenting others operators because of how slow lmd/xp system is. I don't want to fully ignore 5/6* operators because of that, but it is what it is
I started playing at launch and i do remember setting "goals" to how far I'd level the operators I wanted to use to feel comfortable
It's start at e0lv30, then e0 max, then e1lv0 and so on and it was super comfy
Then once I got comfortable with E2lv60 and masteries, that's when resources started feeling scarce; sure I already had a lot of operators to uze but I was discouraged from leveling new ones I wanted to play with because of how much they cost individually
Ive been playing for more than a year now and my first goal was to get Mizuki who was my first actual 6 star from a banner to e2 cuz 1. Art was amazing and 2. Bro was just too good in my eyes; an op that can deal basically true aoe dmg, has arts dmg and zero block with high dph on his first skill was really strong for a new player.
One thing I guess I think differently is that Im always searching for ways of making my life as a player easier as I progress so I do try to get meta ops but not all of them are my type, I may like being strong but Im not that sold just cuz the op is broken, reason why I got uncle horse and he is still at lvl 1... together with Virtuosa (mostly cuz Im addicted to lvl 1 gaming ngl)
thankfully i've always prioritized leveling operators i liked or interested me over meta, especially after IS got added as a permanent game mode, in fact after watching this video i will be adding Kirara to the build queue and get started on her once i am done with Platinum and Enforcer
Though i liked this guide, i feel like its important to say that playing in a way you feel good.
This guide is a good way to learn AK but I was given the gift of falling in love with the Summoner Archetype and with for ampong time i struggled to force summoners in game into every level i played. I did this so much that i couldnt really interact with normal guides since my mindset was fully centered around the ability to edit summons, quickly redeploy units, and protect key operators at all costs.
When Ling came out, that was the only time i saw the difficult learning curve finally ease up, where the levels flowed more naturally and strategy became eaoser to formulate since i could use Ling and her dragons for a great many things that common units were being used for in the guides.
All-in-all my learning curve was difficult because i wanted it to be, because thats how i wanted to play. So play how you want! Thats what counts
I've just beat chapter 9, and I and now at level 8 of chapter 10. I only have 5 six stars built - Shwarz (by far my highest inv op, lv 60 s3 m3 and module 2 lv3), Kal'stit, my favorite op in the game, Typhon, Nightingale (who I got from recruitment), and Jessica alter. I have 25 e2 operators in total. Playing through the game, there have been many moments where, looking back, I have no idea how I would've cleared a stage without characters like Kal and Typhon. Especially with the sarkaz artillery in chapter 10, Mon3tr is the only op I have that can consistently tank, and their s2 has been so effective that I've found dealing with the mechanic very easy, even on adverse conditions. It's super interesting that just having different operators can massively shift a player's experience. I can confidently say that if I had my Degenbrecher built instead of Kal, chapter 10 would be way harder for me, despite Degen being a way more "optimal" operator. I've also been using my Shwarz to kill every boss since the first Frostnova, not because she's "optimal" (not that she's bad, by any means), but because I enjoy how she works.
Great video. I think one of Arknights's greatest strengths is that it doesn't balance new content around having all the newest and most powerful units, the way other gacha games do. This leads to the potential pitfall you describe -- optimizing your progression allows you to quickly outpace the game's difficulty and minimize the necessity of player skill, which can lead to a feedback loop where a player doesn't bother to improve their skill early on because their optimized team can carry them, which leads them to struggle in later stages, which encourages them to further lean on account progression over skill acquisition, which further inhibits their opportunities to improve, and so on.
But I feel like the pros outweigh that potential con -- I love trying to build "lore appropriate" teams for events, or failing them, falling back on building a thematic team (Abyssal Hunters-only, Lee's Detective Agency core, etc.) And I really appreciate that IS and SSS encourage horizontal development, giving you reasons to build up low-rarity options or go wide on certain classes. Letting players who are far enough into progression essentially choose the difficulty level that's right for them is awesome.
This why I play with a self imposed limit of E2L1 (masteries allowed). While I would love to interact with modules and end gameplay like IS/SSS, I prefer having to actually think when I have to play around event mechanics with underlevelled operators. If we had a way to roll back the operator levels, that would solve all of my personal issues with progression.
This video speaks to me a lot.
I feel that I recently switched from horizontal progression to vertical progression, but as a result of realizing that my account progression had already moved past the point I enjoyed, and deciding to give late-game content a go in resignation. And it's still been fun, primarily because I don't bother much with 6-star units, but I miss the parts around E1 Lv. 40 where I spent a lot of time thinking about my team, who'd be good to put on the team, who'd be good to bring up to that level, who'd be good to boost higher if necessary. That was probably my ideal, and this has been a potent reminder of that fact. So, thank you. If I create a second account, "who to boost higher" probably won't be a question I ask myself anymore.
IS at least helps with that. And myself, I almost always start with the random operator start.
I appreciate this kind of content, like seriously. Game is supposed to be you having fun and most contents nowadays jusy flex about what op is meta and which one isn't. In reality, you're free to do whatever you wish, however the hell you wanna play the game. Some niche like the 3* only and 4* really brings back my enjoyment on playing this game after feeling a burn out when i played for a year back then. Turns out, even if i do want to surf easily through the game, i need only just bring 1 or 2 broken units while i clear the rest with my collection of wives 😂 but in all seriousness, i think this kind of content really helps a lot to reinvigorate many players burnouts of "meta elitism". So thanks for being eloquent about it.
Your talk of emphasis on subclass reminds me of something. I'm relatively new and generally focus what my friends tell me to pull, and I've noticed most if not every 6 or 5 star I have have really weird subclasses I don't know how to properly use (ReedAlter, Penance, Lin). I've never approached the star system as a learning curve, so I never learned how to use these ops.
I mostly agree. But Desighn of strife and CC while having easier stages (and no not many starting players can finish them with 4* they are really demanding even if an experienced player probably can do them with 4* or 5*) offer a great challenge for less buildup accounts. And the reason vertical progression so wide spread in this community is because gacha is f2p game at it's core and people wanna optimize it so they can pull more. Sadly it's puts them in the loop of building meta units for building meta units and many players just can't break out of it.
I kinda view the "spending tiers" as abstract difficulty levels, optimization wise.. F2P is just the hard mode, Monthly card and maybe the beginner packs is just the normal mode, limited time packs is then the easy mode. So in that sense, sticking to F2P because you want to immediately optimize out everything is like "the deep end", when really if you want a more normal game progression with more freedom to expand and make "mistakes" it'd be more appropriate to pay your small subscription toll. - Though, I say all this as someone who only ever spent money to make sure I got Reed Alter after the gacha odds filtered me out lol..
Hope Arknights will get turned into a offline game whenever it's "done". Would be interesting to see.
I've done both and F2P is not that different from monthly card spender since even if you don't get the OP characters you can just pick them from friend list. I would not put them on a different tier in terms of difficulty. Monthly card just makes the game more fun because you get more resources to get and level up non-meta and niche units.
i could never do so much research on arknights, i just brute force every stage, if i cant, i will wait until i get a character from the gacha that will single handedly carry the stage, it is what it is, there's too much content and i simply do not wish to sit down and learn
I'm a returning player and I've lost my old account a while back. I dropped this game exactly because of the mindset you mentioned in this video. This time around I'm not rushing, ignoring things aren't for me and trying varieties of different strategies if something doesn't work. And it's fun, it's so much more fun. And when something works and I perform better than the last time or getting closer and closer by the end of first annihilation by trying to mix and match operators I feel proud for figuring things out.
I wouldn't be surprised if I'd fall in the bad mindset about the game sooner or later again. But your video would keep me grounded now.
I'm so glad i started ak fully blindfolded, i didn't even knew that it's tower defense (one of my favourites since wc3 custom maps), and all the "meta"&shit catched up with me few months late
Tho i skipped every 2* and almost every 3*, every 4&5* i get was so exciting like "leo is aoe caster, thats cool. Wait, he can hit everyone in range, reduce their res AND its 2 charges? THATS SO INSANE"
Now it's just meta/non-meta and if it's latest there's full academic research on if i can afford spending resources on this op and will it benefit me in any way?
RIP good ol' days...
>considered bad by metagame standarts
>shows Exusiai and Archetto
Are you ok?
Hey I love Exusiai and Archetto
Not my fault some people have bad opinions
@@BloopsArknights Fair.
@@BloopsArknights where did you get this opinions? gamepressgg shows them in the S an S- tiers
To be fair, with the newest unit that have good dph and dps, on top of good skill cycle and manual activation, its safe to say that Exu is now obsolete.
Ela is coming, and she will set a new standard of meta for "marksman sniper" (yes, she is a trapmaster specialist that can be put on the ground, you know what i mean)
@@vanzeralltheway8638 to be fair not many players have pulls for the newest unit. We wait for the new dragon and collab units
A very insightful analysis! :)
As someone who plays a lot of videogames but not a lot of gachas I feel like the level of patience required for what you're describing as the "way Arknights is meant to be played" is pretty ridiculous. For your average JRPG if you're underleveled and "not supposed to be this far" as you put it - it takes a matter of hours in order to grind and get to the requisite level to reach that point. Like you said in the video, for Arknights this could be a matter of years depending on how you approach the game because of how sanity is time gated. Just as you are probably baffled at players who steamroll through stages with braindead meta team compositions I am equally baffled how someone can see some game content they want to complete and then go "Well, shit. Maybe in two years I'll be strong enough." This isn't just singling you out, I see similar mindsets throughout the gacha community especially when it comes to pulling. People often say "don't pull for this character because you can get them for free in a year" or "save 6 months of pulls because ___ banner is coming." Planning to play the same single player game for the next decade is an absolutely wild concept for me.
nah man, this is how I currently play Arknights. It is fun for me. I am perfectly fine with admitting that I am not ready for some content yet and that I will be in the future. It's a mobile game, that's just how it is.
That's cool I just don't have that sort of patience personally lol. Patience aside, I think playing like this alienates you from a large portion of the community. You're both unable to contribute to discussions about new content and have to actively avoid these discussions if you don't want to be spoiled. It's like watching a movie years after it's out of theaters. You can still talk about it but there will be a lot less discussions about it and you'll probably just be saying things that have already been said.
@@MorbidRitual That's a very extroverted view of the world. Though I suppose it's not wrong to *want* to engage with the community just so you're in with the crowd.
My only excuse is not being able to manage it. Like. Theres so many events i can't even progress much into campaign. Just started on chapter 7
Funny thing is that I had to spread my resources thin in the beginning so I couldn't build all the ops I wanted, but now after having a SOS squad in case I can't do stage without much issue, now I can build whatever I want and try different combinations.
For me, the way I've played most of the game has been using the operators I find fun and when there is an event, I'd try to use the new operators along with my other operators i enjoy. Given I've played for over 4 years, Ive stacked up a huge amount of operators ready for any type of stage while keeping it fun for me
I agree with you man. Regarding bad operators, I like to use eunectes as an example. You could just put down another defender to block an enemy coming down on a solo lane and have a caster/ sniper support but you could also put Eunectes down to do the 1v1 that she's built for. This is what I love about Arknights there is a lot of powercreep where its click to win skills but the game doesn't lock the majority of content behind these skills, except for maybe top cc but you don't even need to do cc. Even CC has freedom, i used friston in my 625 Clear and he was perfect for the job, i needed a drop-in operator but I couldn't use Project Red or Gaviel bc of the CC restriction i also got a benefit bc robots don't take up slots so I used Friston 3 to drop in and tank one shot and let exu kill one enemy and I wasn't held back from setting up the rest of my squad
The big issue with this game is the limited amount of practice runs you get per day, plus the fact that a lot of content is time-sensitive. When you have to finish things in two weeks and you eventually have to spend sanity/money to get more practice, you feel pressured to look at a guide and get things done. At the very least, practice runs should be unlimited. This includes annihilation. I am willing to spend the time to het better, but it feels like I get punished for putting in the effort. That's bad.
My problem with Arknights as someone that almost never plays gacha and tower defense to an extent, is that the game is either too easy or too difficult for me to engage in, the overwhelming amount of information that the game presents at you means that whenever i get stuck on a level, it made me question whether my strategy sucked or my team is not leveled enough, and even if i did have enough level, I'm not even sure if i leveled the "correct" operators for that situation
All of this vids show that this game has a lot more going on, but i gave Arknights multiple passes over the past 6 months and ultimately could never got into it, I'm glad it's popular but it's just not for me
One perk to using an OP operator, or several, is it lets you go sub optimal elsewhere. And vertically invested sub optimal characters can gain enough power to be fine. It also means you can clear with fewer ops, upping the challenge level. Of course, this type of thing is easier with an older account so you have a solid core, and then happily invest in your faves.
"The player will be trained more to focus on qualities of individual operators, rather than understanding the roles of individual subclasses"
This happened to me, hard. I spent the first year or so of the game just brute forcing stages with the best operators I had. I've nominally kept up with the game over the last few years, but I mostly follow guides and struggle tremendously in Integrated Strategies. I feel like I never actually learned the game.
I'm currently in the process of trying to get back into the game, unlearn these habits and get better at figuring things out myself, though. It helps that there's a lot more resources for explaining game mechanics out there nowadays (and that roles have been better defined with the existence of subclasses, which literally hadn't been implemented yet back when I was most active 😭)
most of the time i didnt pull for the unit cause its meta but the chars i usually like just happens to be meta units
i also prefer afk knight play style as a result i have a bunch of e2 lvl 90 m3 chars that carry me trough anything even with my huge skill issues
Great video
I personally have started the 'tower challenge' i may have a lot of strong ops but the challenge forces me to think about my entire roster and is making me thing....maybe i can build this 5 or 4* in the future to expand the roster.
Hmmm. Thanks for an interesting video, but here's a point of view of an AK speedrunner (but not the way of a Surtr+Mlynar max level speedrunner).
I started playing AK at launch, even donated on a few banners and packs, then had to quit bc I didn't have time to play the game, plus it was too difficult for me as a newbie to the genre. I returned 4+ years later, becoming jobless for the whole summer so having to entertain myself somehow for the time being. So, I picked up my severely underbuilt account 2 months ago and decided to focus on progressing with the story. I started playing based on the guides and I adjust who I build to what I lack to clear the next stage. I am rushing forward bc I know that soon I won't have time again and will most prob have to quit.
This way, I reached the end of chapter 10 so far (while also clearing 95% of the side events for 75-100%). I have 10 E2 6-stars atm (none maxed) and 6 more at E1 lv60-70 (and a few more unbuilt). But I keep building 4-stars too when I cannot follow the guide with my built operators at all.
I don't worry about my low skill bc I am almost sure I wouldn't be able to play the game at all otherwise, but I have my reasons to play it - I like visual aesthetics, lore, the process of building my account and ofc the gacha. I am certainly worse than people who clear the story and events on their own, but I also play IS daily without guides, and I cleared a few endings in IS-3 and reach final boss in IS-2 and IS-4. What I'm trying to say, is Idk what type of progression my example fits in, but I am doing my best to enjoy the game to the fullest within the time period I can spare on it. I believe there are more types of players in AK than just meta slaves and niche knights ones.
they need the option to make the lv change to lv of recomendation or a bit lower
I lvlup like 40 or 50 6star operators but now i get bored of using just myulnar blaze saria eyja and all meta.
So then new event start i ussually complete first levels with pack that consist of those operators who need to upgrade their module.
Last 2 or 3 lvls i ussually google some good trust farm strategy.
And then it comes to EX lvls i try using 4 and 5 star operators who noone uses. Or even 6 stars who noone likes.
Its just more funny this way. Yeah maybe at last lvl it would be hard without top tier operators but all lvls untill last one much interesting to complete with lower lvl operators.
Imo I enjoy steamroll every fucking stage with my 6* roster for almost 2,5 years (I spend my first 2 year building my account to lvl 120 and make it strong af, from a team with mix 3,4,5,6 star to 12+ 6*party now) and I still enjoy the game so much, didn’t experience burnout at all. Although recently where I get my hand on… Wisadel. Hell girl even make a player that enjoy steamrolling everystage brainlessly like me feel “holy shit this girl make the game too easy, this isn’t even funny anymore I have to use something else”
And then at that moment I finally understand the mindset, the feeling of the people that play Nicheknight, Dr Silvergun, Danbo, the guy that make e0 operators vid. I felt truly enlightened
I haven't realized that stage TG 7 could be beat by using ONE puller standing in the middle of the map. Instead I tried to slow down the boars once they headed to the exit... and of course I lost every time. :)))))
so like, lol, skill issue of the highest order
I have NTRK and my favourite skill of hers is the first one.
Got Pluma but Ima raise Humus and use him instead because I just like him more.
Good vid man :)
reminds me of the quote by johnson and meier: “given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game”
This assumes we are not having fun,. Enegy and time limited events also punish you for not having a solid core... not fun.
That said, you do not need that many ops to have that solid core. Especially since you can borrow one from friends.
the amount of kirara usage makes me so happy with her as my fav & using her since day 1 😭
This horizontal progression playstyle you described is exactly what I did when I started and it was incredibly fun and rewarding.
In my opinion this should be the "default" recommended playstyle when a new player enters the community and asks for advice. I'm not saying to force them into this playstyle, but telling a new player immediately what are all the broken ops and destroy every stage will not allow them to acquire the skills necessary for tackling the harder stages in the game. This will lead to various problems like how most people couldn't handle DoS and just gave up on the cardigan skin, which should have been more than doable for all veteran accounts.
It would be better if the community didn't always assume that every player asking for advice is trying to speedrun the game.
The Game gives you a certain content lock out
You get e1 or e2 promotion or like skill masteries only after a certain point of the main story, as you need these weird mechanical poles (idk the Name) or need to have a boss lvl cleared to unlock the chip stages or SSS
Good way to not overwhelm new doctors with all the stuff
And after it, you are free to go
I always had this issue every time i try to play arknights, i make my 3* supported by a couple of 6* because i want to not miss out in the current event, then after i have 3-4 6* it becomes boring because they're so much stronger than what the maps are designed for.
I try to do 4/5* only runs but usually if a stage makes me use all my plans i just end up using the 6* in the end. And quitting not much time later.
I'm 6 months in and I have like 66% of the total operator pool. lol. So yeah I relate to this video in terms of trying to learn and decide who i want to build.
I think one thing that discouraged me personally from playing horizontally is the fact you cant see stage enemies before you encounter them during the stage. This has pushed me into a mindset of wanting to clear on the first run but not being able to assemble a good picture of what the stage is like without playing a run. So I level a bunch of generalist five and six stars and slap them into every stage, get frustrated when they don't work, and in my frustration look up a guide rather than slowing down and checking the mechanics and creating my own strategy. I really need to break this habit, and start just accepting that for some stages my first runs are going to be experimental and I am going to need several runs to beat a stage.
I do also think however, there isnt really a reason why the enemies should be hidden at the start of a stage. Like, at the most it makes sense to hide enemies you have never encountered before. But thats not how it works, it hides all the enemies regardless of if you have encountered them. I think if I was able to see at least some of the enemies before entering a stage I would be more encouraged to check the enemies, throw together a basic squad based on the enemies and mechanics I'm going to face, and then adjust the squad and strategy as I explore the stage further.
I got bored of high rarity ops and now im just mainly using 4 stars, and also on the journey to max them out, their niche are a lot of fun
I just recently stumbled upon arknights and decided to see how far i could get with a random set of operators. I rolled no medics which makes the Defense ops ray more difficult but it was worth it for E1 Bubble
I came back to arknights after a big burnout. I strictly followed the meta, cause I liked to spend a bit of money on the game so wanted to get the best return, got to Młynar and Texalter. Had fun with them for a while but called quits around the time Quibai released. My clears were just Młynar Texas spam. And then Yato alter to top it off.
Now I got back after like a year I think and well, I still use those operators cause they are fun but more sparingly. Now I enjoy setting up artilerry lines with Ines, Mudmud and Horn. Still top units but not autoclearing. Went back on older OPs too, like IBERIA NO DESTRETZA. And of course my favorite gimmick: giving people more SP with Stainless to make Holo work or Passenger spam his ability. Or put Lin somwhere and nuke enemies with glass.
And just forcing enemies to face Chongus, who I heard is now super strong with the new module.
Now with all taht I still want Walter and Degenbrecher. And continue to play until I get bored again.
But then IS mode is there to still challenge me so thats cool.
I was stuck in act 1 with fire dragon lady for 4 months, it was my goal to progress in story for a long time. So in order to achieve it, I started to collect my resources to get more 6 stars. I received Mudrock, Kal'tsit and Bagpipe to my Thorns from gacha gods. And with new found powers I finally beat a hot dragon lady possesed by Snake like old man, and after that I got mlynar and cleared every stage available 😅
Found arknights through dodjinshi. Interestingly enough, this option wasn't on the list of sources from which I learned about this game 🤭
It's pretty hard to have a consistent progression, there is new and old players, and I think mods like IS, RA, TN is a good example for both playerbase, you can try the gamemode without being progression-blocked
I won't lie and say I don't chase after meta or overall good units, but I think it's great that I can get through stages chilling with lower output units compared to others of their archetype like Ho'olheyak, Highmore, Base Amiya, and Firewhistle; all of which barely leave my team just cause I like em even though I have better options (La Pluma and Horn are benched).
Similar thoughts come to mind when I hear "waifu over meta" (or vice versa) argument.
For me it is more like: I like to have various different tools in disposal, more ways to interact with the game and it's mechanics.
So in that regard I fall somewhere in between (or in a third way) waifus and meta.
Introduce 'Arknights Level Sync', hit a button and your units are synced down to the recommended level and rarity for the stage (and not up), below 60? Lose module. Below e2? Lose masteries and s3.
Could be interesting
my favorite part of arknights is doing the same stage like 100 times, either i change my strategy or characters, or i resign myself to my skill issue and find a tutorial
This video kinda reminds me of a concept I've seen a while ago about game devs protecting the player from themselves. Something about "maximizing the fun" or something.
From what I remember, most players tend to go to meta so that they "don't loose the fun" of partaking in a side quest or area, in fear that it would be lost if not using that specific build or weapon or so on. When, in reality, the player could have have more fun if they played with a build they liked, even if more dificult.
If I remember correctly, I once ranted on your channel about clears that the only good things that that clear has is the lvl of operators (like puting GG to tank the boss' spikes from dorothys vision event), and imho, this is a symptom of this mindset of "maximizing the fun".
the quote by johnson and meier: “given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game.
I copied it from someone else here, lol