After 2 months playing... thoughts and experience

Arknights AK Discussion
#1

Good day everyone,
This is just my personal thoughts and experience after playing AK for about 60days. Should I stop or keep going?, this question been lingering in my mind lately as i wrote this post.
Feel free to share your story or even ask, maybe we could satisfy your cultured minds.
And I beg your pardon for my lacking at pouring my word, as English is not my first tongue, therefore i apologize in advance, hope you guys get what I’m trying to interpret.

Let’s start about what do i have now,
90 Ops with only 6 E2
story 6 completed in day 40 or so
Base already fully upgraded within 2 week, and maxed for all Ambience and complete auto Annihilation3 in a month.

At first, I thought this is a P2W game, but after only 1st day i realise, nope… We can grind stuff, with time and a few resource spend, I can do this.

Then, about gacha… Hohoho this is not a new stuff for me and many of you also, as we occasionally find a game with this type, but TD mechanics? That’s rare.

Reroll?
Nope, not my kind of play style, when I dig down what intrigued my mind, There is no going back.
First jump all the way.
And i don’t even know such thing exist smh.

First day experience,
Been interested how the TD works in waifu’s game type, and wanna try my luck in several attempt at free gacha in the beginning (just like any other game).
and the reality…

At first, "okay… not bad for TD mechanics, It’s easy as it should be for beginner, but for me the story, it’s too damn long hahaha… First few hours just for that one.

Gacha
Finally the awaited moments, core of the game.
I don’t have any idea who the hell and at what extend those Ops usefulness in the first banner.
I just want to try my luck and see what I’ve got, and boom
I got 2 6*, Shining and Hoshi
For 5*, 2 Zima, 2 Ptilopsis and Liskarm.
And few gacha after that is just random stuff, some 4 and 5, and one or two 6.

I have no idea what to do, so many high rarity for me at that time. And that’s make me interested even more,
“Who are they? How did i suppose to use them? Role? Upgrading cost?” So many question.
Then i started to find any guide available, GP help me the most, but yeah… Can’t get a hold a lot of information at once in the first day, but that help me decide… I should keep going, even starting to buy monthly pack.
It’s not much, but it’s an honest work.

I keep playing, keep learning, and it’s CC0 at that time, in it last few days, of course i can’t keep up hahahaha, later i know CC are for veterans.
Youtube channel help out the most, most notable KyostinV and Eckogen.
also entertain us with meme compilation and short animation, music also a good point.

After getting a little about the game and already plan to build my late game composition, I still lacking a lot, experience and of course, Operator.
But low rarity guide in youtube gave so many great learning material, it made us think, not only for beginners, but also for veterans.
Composition, basic mechanics, what we have, what we need in map, alternative Ops, so many potential. And such complexity… Is what i strive for.

And thus, with limited operator i keep going, building and finishing Base asap. Then after a few weeks things started to get weird…

My team composition, although it’s not perfect, it’s pretty complete, and also their each ability really help to hasten the advance.
I assume the progress are quite real, getting all of those guide really pays off.
Then, it’s about gacha and recruitment…

After a month, there are several… If not many, spook all the way.
Silverash from Rec, damn, my first E2 units
Schwing Schwing Lord step up the game even more.

Then, several 5*, even not used, It really makes me happy having them to complete the archive.

Back to the first day, getting Shining and Ptilopsis means that Healer role is check.
Zima also have good sync with other Vanguard, for beginner, it helps a lot.
Defender with Liskarm and Cuora should be enough, i can’t afford to upgrade my Hoshi, Gummy not used.
Sniper? Not a chance, i keep using Jessica and Meteor for a long time, Kroos on standby, for Aoe only Shirayuki.
Specialist, basic push and pull used, Orchid for slow, and Gravel and Red still not used, only after TW event i started using and realise how good Gravel was.
Caster? No big names also, best I got is Gitano, only after failing Eyja banner 30x, I bought her in shop, after that… Her E2 is another step up for me hehehe. She fills the role of ST and Aoe Caster at once.
I forgot the rest, it’s just niche units I guess, and I keep using several 3* for alternatives.

As SilverAsh and Eyja become my first two E2 Ops, because i realise I’m lacking in offense, it’s an overkill.
And help me trough several event and getting all Medal.

Then I got another 6* from rec, Saria.
The tag are meant for her, defender and support, beside Top Operator of course. I couldn’t believe my eyes that time, as for Healing Defender role is what i need, my 6th E2.

I always try to get guaranteed 5* in every new Banner along the way, as a beginner it helps completing my Squad composition and archive.

TW event, Nightingale and Suzuran, 2 Banner at once,
I got them both, with a single pull, that’s some crazy stuff happened that night, I didn’t use Nightingale as i already got Ptilopsis from the start, and love her SP boost at E2.
For Suzuran, since i heard she will be used in later event, I immediately upgrade her as my 4th E2. And also really useful in TW event.

The failed pull, aside from Eyja, is Hellagur and Ange, also Skadi event. Damn it hurts, but… Skadi is coming again, as i wrote this, the story is different.

Then few 5* banner, thank God i got them below 10pull, sometimes below 5, the only thing in my mind is gratitude for whomever God out there that help me hehehe.
Less resource used for later event.

I forgot about Myrtle, as a 4* Vanguard she is a beast, immediate E2 for S1M3 help me getting all Medal in CC1.
You guys should use her asap. Paired with any needed vanguard, you will have a fast start, and thus snowballing your game progress. Mainly used for challenge map and faster clearance farming mats.
Not long after her, Texas come from recruitment, and already put my Siege on max E1, my Vanguard squad almost complete hahaha.

Last, it’s Grani re run Event, 3 banner at once
Skadi, Chen, and 5*.
Been preparing for this circumstances, i assume to spend 30 pull for guaranteed. But fate tells another story… Within only 10 pulls, 3 of them are on my squad.
More resources saved for later event yeaay.

Considering my Bad luck in any other game, I find this quite disturbing, as if it’s keeping my ego satisfied with several Ops for late game build, some used some still stay as L1 hahaha.

Another main target is, Hellagur, Bagpipe, Nian maybe
and Ange, and the rest for completing archives.

I find the game quite stagnant, since I thought I already have most of role needed complete. Thus make me think,
So this is the phase the veterans talk about, I might not on their positions yet, but having this a lot of great Ops made me wonder. Cycles will continue, up and down, waiting new event, this stagnation… will this ever end?
The joy, excitement, satisfaction, I hope i could make this until the server closed.

That’s all for now
Sorry for the long post, and my word a bit repetitive and weird hahaha, Thanks for your time.

4 Likes
#2

I already play this game more than 6 months. At first my friend insist me to play it but refuse since in my opinion most gacha games is p2w which i hate it. But at a time i decide to give a chance. I would think i would stop after 2 month since usually td will repeating at higher content (more enemy, more hp) and nothing more… But ak seems defy it since higher content still clearable with low unit (yes kyo and ecko guide is superb)

Some reason i still playing

  1. Not p2w
  2. I like to collect the op which I like (waifu)
  3. Not very demanding for competition
  4. There is a lot of way clearing a stage.
  5. Fun to bully some boss (especially crown slayer)
2 Likes
#3

Hi Jamza,

Stagnation is a problem all players will encounter sooner or later. Play for 11 months, and you’ll think you’ve seen it all. Autoreplay and base management becomes a routine chore, events seem to crawl by, and the gacha will still shit on you XD

Trying new creative strategies is one way to beat stagnation.

Diving into the lore will keep you committed to the game. AK has excellent storytelling and worldbuilding.

Appreciating the art and the inspiration for characters, places and events will keep things interesting.

Interacting with fellow members of the community (on Reddit for example) is rewarding. There is discussion on strategies, trivia, theories, memes, etc.

(If you treat this as a side game as most players do, stagnation isn’t a big issue. If you main a game such as Genshin Impact, then you’ll see full stamina (gulp) almost every time you log into AK.)

Set a goal for the game. Do you want to max level/mastery for your favorite ops? Do you want to E2 everyone? Collect all achievements?

This month is just the calm before the storm! AK EN is celebrating its first anniversary soon and with it, a new story chapter and exciting operators. Right after their anniversary, CN rolled out a string of events that will overwhelm you when it comes to EN.

By all means, stay for a while. You can determine whether the game is worth continuing in the following months ~

3 Likes
#4

Hmm, I play since February and can’t say i feel stagnation. yes, story chapters come slowly, but you always have something to do in this game, and at the same time, you don’t need to spend all your free time here (hello from FGO lottery PTSD).

Also, I don’t ever feel satisfied with my operators, especially when CC comes (somehow, I always need to stress level someone even if I prepared for the event beforehand). You lack materials, LMD, and EXP all the time because first you find out that one healing defender is not enough, then it dawns on you that your fire lamb’s level is too low for higher risks in CC and have to raise her past E2L70, then you stumble upon the fact that FEater dies too soon because she can’t punch the biggest bad guy all the way up BECAUSE she doesn’t have enough mastery done for her skill, and your CC attempts are ruined, and so on. I have a pretty good main team, but it’s just not enough for tougher content. And there are actually a lot of unique niches different operators fill even if they are of the same class. Take Myrtle and Elysium: they are both insane DP generating machines, but when Myrtle can moonlight as a healer, Elysium boosts Snipers’ performance and reveals invisible enemies. Texas stuns and deals arts damage with her S2 and gives extra DP in the beginning, Chiave lowers enemies’ RES and enables more robots’ strategies.

I dunno, there’s a lot of things to explore in this game. Also, with CC training grounds available for us all the time now, you can test a lot of things and have fun absolutely sanity-free)

But if you are for once-and-done kind of stuff in this game, yeah, you’ll probably get insanely bored really fast. The main question is, what do you expect from this game? Do you want to challenge yourself, or are you content with bare minimum? Because there’s a lot of room for challenge. Especially considering how little time we get between events.

Also, feel free to join our Bored Doctor Chronicles off-topic thread :)

AK talks, non-AK talks, helpful and not so helpful pieces of advice, and so on)

4 Likes
#5

Day 1 player here.

I’ve played for 11 months alr, upgraded many E2s and M3s - but there is still a long way to go. Once my main dps units are M3, next is my vanguards, healers, defenders, niche specialists and so on. I also haven’t forgotten by niche CC units to M3 in preparation for CC blade, then prep for roguelike, then the next cc cinders, etc. I always aim to get risk 20+ and double digits for daily risks for every cc using my newly build M3 units. It gives me something to do. In short, your sanity will never be enough.

Then even after all that, there are still some niche waifu units I wanted to raise just for their E2 art, but I’ve always delayed them since they offer little to no value to my needs (e.g. grani, ceylon, provence, etc.). Perhaps I would later want to min-max my base by E2ing units with good base skills. There may also be units with niche utilities or strategies that seems interesting to you. Don’t forget that some 5* or 6* units you don’t have can spook you sometimes, then more sanity is needed to build them. The possiblities are endless, especially since I derive joy and satisfaction from continously building and strengthening my roster of operators - it keeps me going.

3 Likes
#6

I have just played this game from August and I don’t feel stagnation yet, you’ll always find yourself lack of lmd, exp, materials to level or master your op, CC is the time you want to level your op to prepare for it, saving Orundum for the op you like, etc etc. grant, there are lots of things to do and with the accelerated schedule we’re having right now, you will even want that they can have a dead week in between events. I know that I always rant about the gacha elements of global schedule but it’s kind of good when you don’t know what’s coming next.

There’s also depend on what is your goal in game, if it’s just once and done, you won’t find any fun in playing, set up your own goal like get to xx risks in the next CC for example, raise your op to prepare for it. I always treat it like a side game when rolling for pokedex (grant that I don’t have much time to spend for game or even at game forum at my place right now anyway), raise my op to E2, farming trust and enjoy it’s story, lore, music, etc. My motto for all games is to enjoy it while it last, mobile games are going to have their end sometime in the future so try to enjoy yourself more, or to move on to other things if you can’t, what’s the point in playing a game that makes you feel bored anyway :fgo_seibagun:

1 Like
#7

Day 1 Whale here

All I can say is right now arknights feels like a chore to me you should never spend money or even look at guides for this game if you do want to enjoy the game for what it is.

Having nearly all the operators missing only 4 5 star units all from the last few 5 star banner I didnt bother pulling all I can say is I run the same team and brute force every map without any strategies what so ever.

All I am actually hoping for is that the new rouge like will bring me some actual joy to the game.

Currently all I do for every map is drop down myrtle use skill, drop bagpipe if needed, if not drop eyja or eyusai, drop defender or angelina, if leak use ch’en. Having 8 maxed out (leveled maxed) e2 m3 operators and around 20 more e2 and around 14 of those are m3 usually left at m1 cause not efficient everything gets really boring.

For all new players the joy of getting a new operator new strats isnt there anymore once you get all the strong operators so the best way to enjoy the game is either spend nothing or just 5 dollars a month for the monthly and thats all. I know its tempting to get the 26 dollars monthly headhunting but trust me all it does it makes the game dull really fast for you. I missed using 4 star operators like jessica and 3 star character like kroos but I cant justify using my maxed out kroos instead of a s3m3lvl90potential6 eyusai costing 12 for deploy only.

I hope this resolve peoples issue if they want to actually whale in the future as most of my whale friends already left this world with thousands of dollars in the game

1 Like
#8

I think this is my first post here… hello! ^^

When I read this topic, I check my AK profile to see when I start. It seems that I start at mid January… time sure flies! (･ิω･ิ)

I understand that feeling of stagnant (kinda) life of Arknights. To be fair, I think most of the game will face this after the popularity goes down in some month after the boom XD.

But I don’t feel bored at all with Arknights. Even with all the same route event (cc or side story) + new operator / new banner all over again. Maybe because I really see this game as side game and I love the lore. Or maybe because this is literally my first gacha game and I want to enjoy it at my own pace with my sister whom I force to try this too (but hey, she still playing this with me too! With more luck than me ಥ‿ಥ*cri ) . I even set my own goal while playing.

I do agree with some people might feel bored fast if they rush it. Especially when they doesn’t give any shot to the story as well. Maybe… just maybe… people should try put up some weird goal? Who know it can make life of Arknights Doctor goes lively and long XD.

Joining community is good too! Since you can have same interest people to talk to. Maybe that’s why I join this place too… hmmm ( ´･ω･)

4 Likes
#9

Welcome to the community ^^ It’s a bit dead (yep, I know how this sounds ^^’), but we’re trying to keep it breathing. Feel free to drop by our off-topic-sometimes-on-topic thread as well:


But probably don’t try to read all 800+ posts at the beginning, it’ll drive you insane :D

people should try put up some weird goal?

I’d say “Try every map up to Chapter 6 with your low stars without guides”, but the pace Global throws events at us you might not even have time to raise enough low stars for this. But it’s as good a goal as any.

Also, there are those crazy people who clear maps with only a single operator present at a time. And there’s always “the highest CC risk there can be” goal which definitely makes a great challenge :fgo_buster:

3 Likes
#10

We had a challenge thread for an event before where someone made challenges for every event stage.
Only happened once sadly but it was really fun and interesting.

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#11

We can always resurrect the tradition provided people will want to take part in it.

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#12

That was @Thisoldworldkeepsspi

2 Likes
#13

Thank you for the welcome! ヾ(＾-＾)ノ

Lmao, I honestly haven’t even finish chapter 6 despite playing for so long. I’m planning to do this if there’s an event that required to finish chapter 6 or when chapter 7 already out >:3 .

I remember once hearing a challenge of using only 4* operator on frostnova. The one who use most least operator will be considered as the winner XD. I remember thinking of taking part of it, but due to the time limit, forgetful brain, and not really invest on 4* at that time (except Myrrh and Frostleaf), I’m skipping it lol.

Community challenge sure gonna be interesting despite how the result gonna turn out later ᕕ(˵•̀෴•́˵)ᕗ

1 Like
#14

I don’t think any event actually requires of you to clear Chapter 6, but Darknights’ Memoir is coming somewhere this month, apparently, and it’s a prequel to Chapter 7 (or at least linked to it). So you’ll probably want to catch up to the story before it drops for Global.

And I think the running community challenge right now is “Save your rolls, you weaksauce!” :D HG releasing Operators no one expected yet before the imminent arrival of a limited Operator in January is rocking everyone’s boat :D

#15

I think it’d be fun to start up doing our own special challenges again. I don’t think I participated last time, but I’m starting to run low on my own personal challenges, and I’ve got a bit more spare time until my next school semester starts in January. And I’m making good progress on getting all of my operators at least E1, so I should be able to accomplish more of the challenges these days :smiley:

And yeah, I’ve saved up just over a hundred rolls now, though I’m gonna have to make some real decisions if the Nearl event comes around before W’s banner. I really want Blemishine, she’d make some amazing synergy with Estelle. But I don’t trust my luck enough that I’d get both of them.

#16

We could do it again. I had a lot of fun with it as well.
Been trying to make up for the lost summer ahead of what I assume is about to be another winter lockdown. Putting bare minimum effort into events to clear the stages and the shops. Haven’t even been logging in enouugh to spend all my sanity on farming.

Maybe with the next event we can get a thread going with @Azurem and whoever else and somehow share out the input of the challenges.

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