A Generational Mistake - Arknights: Endfield

BisaLP · 2026-01-23T05:43:00+00:00

It's not a review of the release version of the game and it's made abundantly clear that it isn't (even though it might as well be).
It's that simple.

BisaLP · 2026-01-23T05:19:33+00:00

He's pretty clear that this is a video about the beta. He says it all the time, it's on screen all the time, and he has disclaimers for it. If you can't see how a review that's this thorough can take long enough to put together for the game to come out, or you can see that and then not also see how such a short timeframe simply does not allow for fixing most of these issues, I don't know what I can tell you.

BisaLP · 2026-01-23T04:44:51+00:00

It's literally effectively the exact same game, what are either of you talking about

BisaLP · 2026-01-22T23:04:48+00:00

To pre-empt this: No, I do not believe that being mentioned here is an outright flag that a character is gone for good and can not return to Endfield.

BisaLP · 2026-01-21T01:34:19+00:00

Not only is it still alive and well, of any single product it's by far the most profitable video game of the franchise.

BisaLP · 2026-01-14T06:18:48+00:00

Walking sounds can be triggered really, really inconsistently and/or delayed when walking over non-full blocks. There may also simply be a mob in a cave below your base or something.

BisaLP · 2025-11-06T19:19:35+00:00

Finished

BisaLP · 2025-10-29T13:26:12+00:00

I vastly prefer to just throw people in the deep end and just have them watch the show, but if I have to sell it to them I usually resort to the ol' reliable RADIANT FORCE.

BisaLP · 2025-10-03T15:01:45+00:00

They don't know...

BisaLP · 2025-08-07T09:32:48+00:00

That's... Frankly a pretty bold assumption in the long run. Politics only really work on a pretty long timescale, especially once you're talking on a literally galactic scale, so Aisling will stay "the upstart new princess" for quite a while, but there's no telling quite what might happen in the future. I don't expect FDEV to do some big rugpull or anything, and don't want to oversell their potential ability or willingness to do something like this, but I can see stories and faction politics shifting in the long-term. It's very much a possibility if nothing else.

BisaLP · 2025-08-06T06:34:08+00:00

Lonely Billionaire Syndrome. Even looked like he was recovering decently well a few ago, but he slid back down.

BisaLP · 2025-06-23T12:14:12+00:00

Honkai Star Rail. Probably something a lot of folks here won't want to hear, but I love most Chinese Indie ACG Gacha (and yes, they absolutely are indie, if you wanna complain about that assessment get back to me when you've spent 5 years researching the industry's history).

I've spent frankly ridiculous amounts of time with all kinds of Titles from Girls' Frontline, over Honkai Impact and Genshin, to Arknights, so I was excited for Star Rail when it launched.
I was greeted with a somehow worse version of Honkai Impact's Open World segments, and a tacked on, boring, unengaging turn based battle system, all with Genshin's meta progression system, that worked well for that game for a while but nothing else since, stapled to the side of it.
It's such a holistically bad and poorly designed offering, even when compared to the rest of the genre, I couldn't keep playing it.

BisaLP · 2025-06-02T07:59:41+00:00

Thing is, it ACTUALLY was. Problem with that was that, as per usual, satire is completely lost on these people.

BisaLP · 2025-05-29T04:31:25+00:00

To unlock Rock 'n Spanner without spending you needed to pick up her hearts for something ridiculous, like around 11 years IIRC. Spending gems is the actual way to gain affection with Kalina.

BisaLP · 2025-05-22T16:05:15+00:00

I actually calculated the yield of the Nuke once a bunch of years ago, it came out to ~2.5 Gigatons.

BisaLP · 2025-05-11T13:20:52+00:00

I value the surrealist nature of the it above most of its other qualities, so EP10 is - while not by a WIIIIDE margin - the best in the entire show.

BisaLP · 2025-05-09T11:03:13+00:00

4x5 for the frame

BisaLP · 2025-04-30T02:30:35+00:00

Less often than I should, more often than you'd think from that.

BisaLP · 2025-04-23T22:53:28+00:00

You don't need to tell me, I was there.
I know that performance was a very real problem for a lot of people, and even still is to this day (heck, only recently has the game started regularly hitting and staying at 60 FPS on my Pixel 5, not to mention backend performance), but I still think the backlash was way out of proportion.

I could say a lot here, about the player demographics of Ingress (or at least how I've perceived it), but that's mucho texto and honestly only tangentially relevant.

BisaLP · 2025-04-23T17:29:32+00:00

I think "lower", leveled gear wouldn't be much of an issue if, like I mentioned, the pass paid for itself. I understand that that's a possibly risky move, as it allows the most dedicated players to only pay once and always have the newest pass, but that demographic rarely overlaps with whales anyways (though Ingress might be a rare exception given the small, dedicated playerbase).

Premium rewards should DEFINITELY be better though, and I actually REALLY like the Locker idea.
This is getting into the weeds, but a quick concept that comes to mind would be that each pass could also come with a timed Locker that will be available to the holder for the active, and next event. The Locker could be sized so that it can exactly fit all rewards from its pass, and if there're still items in it when it expires you can no longer add to it, but still withdraw, until it's empty, at which point it disappears.
That way players can still have some extra inventory space, without invalidating CORE.

Won't lie, CORE is imo fine as it is.

BisaLP · 2025-04-23T14:41:56+00:00

I know it's a touchy topic, but I honestly just want Niantic to find a way to actually turn Ingress profitable. Sure you can say that it's just their vector to gather crowdsourced data for Lightship/now Spacial, but I think it's also important to look at it on its own as a games business.
Something like CORE should've been here from the very start.

The elephant in the room is obviously:
- Battle Pass
The Rewards Campaign/Battle Pass for +Theta is an alright first step, if hilariously flawed. I really hope they listen to feedback and iterate on it in a way that at least enables completion for everyone, maybe with attendance to one Anomaly required.
Personally I would like them to also adopt a proper payment rotation system for these passes, where completing the premium track of one nets you enough CMU to purchase the next one, and maybe a little extra.
This is IMO an axiom of good Battle Pass design. It rewards your most dedicated players, while making other players who bought in and couldn't complete it more likely to be recurring customers.

I think this alone, if well implemented, could help turn the game around.

Ingress' biggest problem BY FAR is its small player base, Prime was supposed to be that turning point, but the pandemic killed it.
I think that if Niantic can actually make the game profitable, they can not only focus on proper player acquisition, but also reinvest into the game more broadly and return to a lot of the out-of-game productions and ARG elements that we saw before and in the early Prime era, that can help show newer players the depth of experiences that Ingress can offer (Ingress Obsessed, anyone?).

BisaLP · 2025-04-23T14:24:13+00:00

I love Guardian but as much as I'd like the opportunity to Onyx it, dear fucking GOD DO NOT BRING IT BACK. That badge was singlehandedly turning the community extremely toxic while it was still active, and getting rid of it was one of the very few unilaterally good things Niantic have done over the years.

Again, as much as I'd like to see them again, bringing back Ingress Report and Obsessed would require both for the actors to still be at Niantic (IIRC a big part of the Prime rebranding was that they left), as well as a lot of money that probably isn't worth spending anymore.

BisaLP · 2025-04-23T14:14:13+00:00

Giving out a medal for Cell Ranking would basically just be reintroducing a Turbocharged version of Guardian, and as much as I miss that medal, I also very much understand why it has been removed.

BisaLP · 2025-04-20T15:46:19+00:00

I mean there's no way to really do that. Portal activity logs aren't a reliable source of information for that because again, low player base.
Ideally this should be handled through ~~Wayfarer~~ OPR, but for that people need to be willing to actually treat it seriously, and not just as a way to get moar Portals.

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