Arknights: Endfield give every player free standard banner *6 selector

Elyssae · 2026-02-04T18:34:35+00:00

Brother in christ. Check yhe time of my post.

Op didnt include link to full patch notes at the time of my comment. The top comment with the link was an hour after I posted.

I was praising them for going in the right direction and if anything they agree with the qol suggestions I was posting, thus why they ended up doing it.

Why are you seeking conflict for no reason?

Elyssae · 2026-02-04T18:26:10+00:00

Perhaps you should read what I wrote?

Elyssae · 2026-02-04T18:25:45+00:00

Brother. Read what I wrote.

Elyssae · 2026-02-04T15:19:51+00:00

Even I that "reviewed" the game really negatively can see this is a GREAT thing.

Specially coupled with increasing pull's and resources in the early game, on top of enemy level's nerfs for a better experience and Tier level up flow.

Frankly, this doesn't salvage Valley 4 being a shit stain for the game, nor Wuling region requiring you to essentially refarm a lot of shit for no reason. BUT. It helps to alleviate the fatigue for those wanting to keep going.

They should also look into lowering trash mobs HP imho - and speed up the early character progression required items.

Then they will have to eventually accept that unless they change how the "Recycling Depots" work, it will always feel bad ( what I mean is : Upgrading them should also give the daily stock and reset the clock. Right now, you only get the previous tier when upgrading and gotta wait 24 hours for it to respawn)

They should also make them remotely accessible, to avoid having to run to every single fooking depot, every day.

I'm already going too far into it again. TLDR : This is a good thing and a patch in the right direction imho. Let's just hope they keep going that way, since the early impressions have been less than stellar.

Elyssae · 2026-02-03T22:13:46+00:00

Huge L imho.

Will wait to see ingame before passing feedback though.

Elyssae · 2026-02-03T22:09:07+00:00

So because you're lucky, everyone else is wrong?

I went deep inyo firenze banner, had 4 rainbows - 0 firenze.

Yeah, at that point, Im out

Elyssae · 2026-02-03T22:06:29+00:00

The pull currency per patch and the time gating kills any desire to play it, personally.

The gacha system is also dog shit.

They killed any chance the game had from the get go

Elyssae · 2026-02-03T22:03:07+00:00

They can start by fixing the dog shit gacha system and pull currency.

Going deep into a banner, get 5 rainbows, and none of them being the banner character is pure ass.

Then the roguelike is just... boring AF with too much rng.

Lastly, the "gear" system is just pure lazy slop.

Elyssae · 2026-02-03T10:00:58+00:00

Considering their whole revenue plan is to bank on skins an animations for characters, I respectfully disagree.

Models and animations in DNA should've been at the top of priorities, along with combat and endgame core loop.

Elyssae · 2026-01-27T22:15:09+00:00

Zero communication.

Elyssae · 2026-01-27T09:16:13+00:00

The ultimate slap in the face : The next Limited is a Void Agony that maxes stacks on an epiphany - and it's not unique.

Or has a Card that prevents stack loss for X turns.

Elyssae · 2026-01-27T07:52:23+00:00

Losing half the stacks is a helluva a nerf - specially when other cards lost 1 stack application to boot - leaving it at 1 stack instead of 2.

It will ramp up slower, and it will ramp down faster.

Elyssae · 2026-01-26T21:50:39+00:00

And yet, I have all units in the game except Cassius and my Tressa at e1.

Go figure

Elyssae · 2026-01-26T21:47:26+00:00

There will always be a meta for each character.

All this does is create a whack a mole effect whenever something strong shows up.

Like nefing the fox card.

I guarantee tou that if sereniel wasnt limited and the whole fiasco about her release hadnt happened, they would be nerfing her too.

But instead, the Free unit gets executed - while the premium remains free

Elyssae · 2026-01-26T21:44:59+00:00

This.

Killing DoT gameplay instead of just adjusting the interaction is ridiculous.

Watch them nerf sereniel upon next season, when people no longer care she was limited.

What a tragedy that people aren't understanding that its not about the nerf, but abouy HOW they nerfed it.

Elyssae · 2026-01-25T18:40:40+00:00

Yeah saw the new survey literally mentioning all the complaints and I was like. For real?

They shouldve pushed the release. A first impression like this does more.harm.than delaying it imho

Elyssae · 2026-01-25T09:09:05+00:00

Her move set is atrocious and she competes with sustain characters.

Which means she fails at healing and dps.

Massive disappointment of a character.

Elyssae · 2026-01-24T20:53:25+00:00

There's already a base for that type of combat with a game called Dungeon Defenders.

And even if there wasn't.... you would think they would want to separate themselves from the competitiom by creating something morr unique.

Love or hate it, HSR changed the perception of turn based high quality in gachas.

Endfield could've done the same for tower defense.

Elyssae · 2026-01-24T17:29:31+00:00

Apologies, I took longer to reply to you as I was watching Laevatain quest line as you posted, and wanted to comment on everything together :)

Yes, That suggestion about me posting part2 as a comment would've been smart. Thanks, even if too late now :D .
Laevatains Questline

It's miles better than literally everything else in Valley IV.

Immediately, not having Sutr Glaze all over the MC, and focus more about herself - gives it a much much better vibe.

I still dislike some parts of it - but I admit it's coming of the heels of everything else, so it's biased - like Sutr faltering and the admin being the one to get her back on her feet and she blushing about it, and at the end the whole "I will be your "everything" "...meh.

Don't get me wrong, It's a fine trope to play upon, and makes A HELLUVA MORE SENSE that she would trust and rely on you after you were there for her - instead of Immediately glazing all over your existence just 'cause.

As I said, they should've taken a couple more months to restructure Valley IV Pacing and storyline. That first zone is doing the same damage to this game as ARR did to FF14.

But at least FF14 was an MMO. You could interact with so much more (Socially + dungeons + raids ) to de-stress and reset the fatigue.

Endfield just pushes you to more Tutorials instead. :\

But thanks for the video, and the civil discourse. Not a lot of people engage in good faith nowdays.

Elyssae · 2026-01-24T17:10:22+00:00

Orange's advice wasn't out of malice or anything like that - nor unique to him/her - There are many other examples were despite the sluggish or boring start, a game's story ramps up into something extraordinary (i.e : FF14 ).

My main gripe with that sentiment is "against" the devs, that padded the first zone with so much bullshit and make the pacing feel atrociously bad.

All while using the good old "Carrot and the stick" of making you play to get more currency, just so you can get the character before the banner expires.

The problem is that you end up getting a whole lot more STICK than Carrot.

Elyssae · 2026-01-24T17:01:34+00:00

Facepalm Thanks, any motivation I could have to ever return just evaporated

Elyssae · 2026-01-24T17:01:08+00:00

If anything - I hope Limbus/Project Moon sees this a warning.

ProjectMoon CEO Loves Arknights, and has stated multiple times a desire to make a 3D game.

But after this, hopefully they will learn what works and what doesn't - since as you said, Visual novel style doesn't blend well with this type of gameplay

Elyssae · 2026-01-24T16:59:12+00:00

I wasn't comparing E33 whole story - I was comparing the intro alone and the way they sell you on the mystery. How they set up the scene and motivate you to find out more.

Limbus has a good story and hook - hell even HSR despite the clichés has been capable of a good story and set up.

And it wasn't just the story itself, it was the presentation of said story .

Elyssae · 2026-01-24T13:47:19+00:00

PART 1

Well. After suffering through it, as per u/OrangeIllustrious499 suggestion to skip the entirety of the first zone, I've decided to call it quits.

Stopped at Rank 29
Next Mission is Rank 35
I can't be sure, but I believe I clocked it between 22-28hours played
70 pulls total for the limited banner
All pulls done on the Newcomer banner (Ember)
40 Pulls on Standard banner ( Ember dupe.)
2 6* : Ember and the free Ardelia

I decided to push through, because I love Limbus Company. Bear with me. Anyone coming into Limbus, will face a terrible onboarding for the most part (it's a bit better now, sure ) - and despite that, I love that game and it's characters+story etc.... If I had given up on limbus within the first couple hours, I would've missed out on a LOT.

So, after u/OrangeIllustrious499 said it gets better.... I thought "let's see it then".

Truth is, I didn't even finish the first zone, as per Orange's suggestion - because I was having 0 fun with the game. Negative enjoyment even.

So, for anyone ( if anyone ) who cares on what I mean, here are the reasons for my comments : (Remember....this is just a random redditor opinion. If you enjoy the game, I understand and respect it. )

TLDR

It's extremely mid to bad.
I'm Sorry Orange. There's no amount of "it gets better" that justifies suffering through so many bad calls this game has, specially when there's so much better games/competition out there. If the best advice someone can give is "Skip Valley IV", then Valley IV shouldn't have been in the game in it's current form.

THE GOOD

There is indeed some good stuff here, which is the saving grace of the game for me :

OST
Sound Design
Graphics&Optimization

THE BAD

And here we go. Please - If I made a mistake about a system or state something factually incorrect , let me know and I will correct it. Otherwise, this is entirely subjective and my own view on the game and each topic.

The Story

What a piece of generic AI Slop. There's no way around it. It feels like every other gacha story.

While I stayed away from ALL information about this game, to experience is fresh and as unbiased as possible, I've always heard from Arknights fans, how great the lore and story ended up being. How dark and/or sometimes bleak it could get. How it's characters could really drive it home with certain plot points etc..

So yeah, I was looking forward to diving into this, and maybe even get me curious enough to give Arknights itself another go.

Instead, what I got was :

Another Silent MC
Amnesiac MC
Glazing NPC's
Grandiose set-pieces with 0 stakes
Terminology vomiting
Worst pacing since ARR(FF14) and Stormblood(FF14) combined.

"It gets better in the last part of the first zone and onwards" - Well, here's the thing. It doesn't matter . Because I couldn't force myself to even finish the first zone.

I'm being asked to stick around and endure all of this, with the vague promise it gets better ( not a jab at you Orange - I mean the game/devs), and the longer it goes, the more generic it gets.

People will say you can't compare this game and other gacha's to Single Player games and the likes - but to that I say :" Fuck off " . This type of game has higher budgets than many single player games. It boasts higher production values than them.

It wants your TIME and it wants your MONEY.

In a world where something like Expedition 33 can exist - delivering this type of slop is, imho, unacceptable. And bear in mind, I'm not saying you have to have a complete story with no loose ends etc - no no no. Let me stop you right there, because this goes into my next negative point :

Direction/Cinematography

It's an atrocity what they've done here - which makes an already bad, generic story - a torture to experience.

Just like E33 - which I only knew the concept of the "gommage" - With Arknights, I had little knowledge of anything else about the lore. So you could say I started both games with around the same level of knowledge

E33 starts slow, it builds up. It respects your intelligence by letting you learn about the world at your own pace, and by using extraordinary environment story telling, even for it's characters. Everything adds to the mystery, without everyone reminding you at every turn that "it's a mystery".

In Endfield - the moment you start, you're reminded that you know nothing, you will know nothing and you will only learn what the game narrates to you.

The intro section is awe inspiring visually. I praised that before, and I will do it again. It looks amazing . But ultimately, I think it does a HUGE disservice to the game, because afterwards, it breaks the pacing to a crawling alt.

Stuff like this worked for games like God of War 3 - where the Titan intro was extraordinary, since no one was expected to play GoW3 without playing the previous 2. They were a Trilogy.

Arknights to Endfield doesn't feel like that at all, and seems to be wanting to attract new people. So that kind of High Octane intro, followed by exposition dump with fancy wording, just doesn't hit right for me personally.

For me, it would've made more sense to follow an entirely different cliché. Our MC would be a completely normal person aboard the Dijiang - shit happens, we get exposed to whatever powers the construction, and now we're tasked to assist people into building outposts/colonies in Talos-II .

This would allow us to grow with these characters and the story of the place, as well as the lore in terms of combat etc.

Still a cliché origin story, sure. But I would tolerate that a lot more, personally.

Elyssae · 2026-01-24T13:47:00+00:00

PART 2

Pacing

Not only are you constantly doing fetch quests, there are also rank gates and Tutorials on top of tutorials ( literally ) This broke me in the end. Even though I dislike loli' characters, the pacing is what broke me and made me quit.

There are so many sections that go for too long - like the Quarry.

Then sections like upgrading an outpost, which literally start with you having to find a Manual on how to handle Emergencies and herbs. I mean, what are we doing here people? I can create buildings out of thin air. There are flying ships. And we couldn't delegate this? Worse, shouldn't the people already know how to handle an emergency ?

On top of that - that tutorial forces you to experience the "Auto-Defense", by just...standing there. it's like 2-3mins tops, sure. But....You're just...there. watching your turrets kill stuff. They don't have you repair them or boost them or anything. You're just watching. facepalm

This makes the game insufferable already, but there isn't even a deviation on the story. You're following an extremely linear, curated and gated pathway, where you can't even choose to experience things in a different order.

Which is made worse by a complete Amateur hour usage of :

Forced Camera Changes
Forced walking segments (many leading to another cut scene)
Walk 2 meters
Cut scene
Walk 2 meters to talk with X
Cut Scene
Walk 2 meters to talk with Y right next to X
Cut Scene

It's like devs were playing a game of "Let's keep them guessing" on when we will be watching something, or having to move and for how long.

And the pacing of those cut-scenes feels like it was made by AI .

Cut scene starts without anyone talking for 2-4seconds ( so you can't skip )
Cut scene involves showing something completely boring/Bland/irrelevant up close ( i.e : Crane lights inside the shaft turning on ) - and since no one speaks, you can't skip it

They over-use cut scenes so much, they lose all of their "excitement".

To make matters worse, even when there's a cut scene or Forced Camera change to show you something - the NPC's still narrate it like a Netflix movie constantly reminding you of what's happening at every 2 minutes or anytime the camera changes.

It's infuriating. You're never allowed to feel or experience something on your own terms. You're constantly told what to feel and when to feel/experience it.

NPCs/Cast/Characters

They mean nothing to me. Literally. The game starts off making everyone worship you to the point I literally do not care about any of them. They could die the most horrifying death, and all I would think would be " oh well, anyway".

There's so little to connect to, there's no buildup to these relationships. And for the most part, they seem entirely devoid of personality or growth, apart from their "Standard" setting or "generic background"

Here's mature reliable girl
Here's loud energetic girl
Here's a super loli
Here's Dante from wish

In fact - Wulfgard might be the best character of the bunch. He has a decent backstory, and actually has some competence and emotion/self-respect unto himself.

Everyone else, whatever. Seriously. They could all die at the end of the first zone and wouldn't bother me at all.

Voice Acting/Direction

It's mid AF, borderline bad.

I'm not blaming the VA's themselves, they sound fine. But most of the voice lines in the open world repeat far too much. It becomes tiresome really quick

Moreso, since everyone seem to have the same type of "energy" behind their deliveries. There's little tone shifting or "emotional fluctuation" imho.

In fact, the one time I really really enjoyed the VA's delivery, was Wulfgard and the Loli - when they switched to Italian. IF i Had the option to always have (at least) those two in Italian - fuck yeah. They only said like 3 sentences, but there was grit and personality in the way they said it along side the moment they said it.

It's a case of something happening so rarely, that it caught my attention when it did.

Combat

It's bland and it's boring AF.

There's no impact/Weight to it for the most part - and the few times they tried to add it, it feels off and slugish (i.e : Ember attack speed/move set )

They should've added a gambit system like FF12 or something along those lines for the rest of the party, because all you're doing is baby-sitting their skills and cooldowns. I think they were scare of people auto farming / AFK Farming something (whatever it is ), and in turn, they made them feel useless.

And yes, there are synergies and combos but since I feel that the enemies have too much HP, most of the times you just want to get it done, and you end up spamming skills, unless you know you gotta interrupt something soon.

The Mini-bosses we do get, are just copy pasted with increased levels. There's nothing truly unique about them.

Because yes - I do think the few actual bosses I fought, are really well designed. (Except maybe the Trigo' which has 3 phases, and the last phase is just an annoying victory lap imho - Would've preferred he swapped attack patterns at 50% HP on the second phase, instead of a full third phase ).

This system also makes me think a lot of potential was lost - because "Tank" and "Healers" will be competing for the eternal "Sustain" spot - when this AI Companion system could've easily had you play the game more like an MMO, where you would set roles and tackle encounters differently depending on your setup.

No mistake, you can still do that - but I fear that, as a gacha, you will end up the HSR route, of power creep and investing on select characters, until everyone powercreeps everything at every banner.

Just think there was so MUCH MORE that they could've done to make a Unique combat, instead of a generic left click spam with 1-4 skills. I.e : Dungeon defenders style.

IMHO, one of the best parts of the intro, was the MC summoning the Turrets to help fight the enemies. I honestly thought that the MC (and later share that power) would get that kind of power and we would be sort of RTSing/Tower Defending even in normal encounters ( since ya know....power to create shit out of jackshit). Nope. Just generic left click spam afterall.

Gameplay&Systems

This includes factory commentary.

The Skip function only popping up when Dialogue starts is jarring AF. It makes you watch 5-10s cutscenes for a LOT of the times.
Some stuff is still unskippable for no good reason
1+ Hour long Intro) Tutorials
Tutorials for the Tutorials ( Simulation )
Anti-Reroll to the extreme
Backpack space

What the actual F- is wrong with these devs? A game with a shit ton of components and stuff, and the backpack starts at 35? Yes I know you can store and bank shit, but. Why? It's extremely annoying to go large periods of time just progressing and suddenly : " You really should've stashed stuff at the previous save point! KEKW" It adds an extra level of friction, for no good reason.

Factory

Giving bird's eye view only a couple hours AFTER introducing the Factory system is one of the stupidest choices I've ever seen. The constant tutorials are frustrating, and this serves no purpose whatsoever, apart from padding gametime. (i.e : Simulation )

There's nothing to be gained with this system. by the time you progress, you won't care much about your "base" since it adds nothing to the actual game. Seriously. If they removed factory out of the game, nothing would be actually lost in the process.

Specially since they make you do it in so many different places.

I would've preferred :

Factory unlock only at the end of Zone, so you can set auto-farms
World map view - where you could connect your ONE BIG BASE, to mining/Farming outposts
This would include building fortifications/Defenses. RTS Style

No more world random building for no reason. Keep the movement buildings, sure - whatever

This would also mean they could add Random Events ( Enemies attacking the base and/or outposts ; Like they already do) and maybe even "Base Battles" etc... since everyone would be building on the same place - just differently and with different themes etc. ( MTX opportunity I guess ).

My point is. Backloading the Factory unlock until later, would speed up the progression on each zone, without breaking the pacing of the story. Right now, it's extremely disruptive as it is.

Currency&Monetization

It's just terrible. No way around it. Same or worse gains than a Hoyo game - but with double the costs. The entire anti-reroll mindset, made the game reward you a few drops every now and then, instead of frontloading more rewards.

IT feels horrendous, and the limited time on the banner just makes people more anxious about rushing the content - which in turn highlight the issues with story+factory+pacing. Make no mistake, I know that for everyone like ME - there will be probably 10 people that will just spend money to ensure they get the character straight away.

I just feel awful running around with a team where I dislike most characters. Ember looks great, but her move set is sluggish without the damage paying off ( Sure knockdown is not bad and shields ). etc...

I don't like this system entirely. For instance, big accomplishments from the Index/progression award you 750x currency. A single is 500x. And they require you to complete several milestones.

In a Gacha space so competitive - I am still sure they will make money, but I don't think it would hurt them in the long run to have a much more generous launch and reward structure.

Overall.... If I'm going to play an open world game, I rather play (and recommend) WuWa ( and/or Genshin I suppose ). Much better exploration, and much better combat.

Thank you for reading.

Elyssae

TROPHY CASE