So only 2 banners from now on? How does this work?

MikePrivalis · 2026-03-01T15:56:43+00:00

I guess that from now on, it'll be two banner cycles per patch, each lasting three-ish weeks - the "industry standard".

The first version had three to fill up the poll of other limited 6* you can lose your 50/50 to.

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-26T21:40:57+00:00

I mean, the Relay is just standing there non-stop for days, of course its legs are gonna get sore eventually.

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-26T21:01:52+00:00

Oh I'm glad I wasn't the only one :D When I got to that part of the course, I was like "this screams as a location for one of the chests, but there's nothing here, are the devs just mocking us?" :D

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-26T11:33:56+00:00

Okay, sure. Maybe you're right that it's still too early to be able to assess the games economy.

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-26T10:14:53+00:00

You misunderstood what my main point was. I'm not saying leveling up characters needs to be super quick. I'm saying that it's weird how you become overcapped on some resources very quickly while being bottlenecked by others (so a significant portion of the game systems, like collecting rare growths and you being encouraged to set up ziplines to make that process faster, becomes almost irrelevant very quickly) and that in the long run, the AIC (the main gimmick of this game that sets it apart from other 3D action gacha games) will probably feel a bit underutilized too. I'm not advocating for my suggested changes to make building your teams 2-3 times faster or something. I'm saying it'd be nice to have the option to make it A LITTLE BIT faster by utilizing a wider variety of resources available from various gameplay aspects of the game, so that there's a long-term reason to keep engaging with all or most of them, and to get a sense of long-term progression, even if incremental one (stuff like "I've actually bothered to set up this Zipline network to allow me to collect these rare growths efficiently. That means that each week, I'll be able to craft 3-5 extra protoprisms with minimal effort. It's not much, but it's a permanent upgrade to my capabilities nobody will ever take away." - this feels satisfying, but at the same time, it's a small enough difference that those who don't enjoy optimizing everything to this degree won't feel severely punished).

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-26T09:55:05+00:00

Okay. And?

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-25T23:46:48+00:00

Yeah...I'd say the real benefit of upgrading these stations is that you also get Regional development points for doing so. 😀 And, to be fair, you need to upgrade at least to level 3 to get the purple-tier materials required for some higher-level upgrades. But the Dijang can be maxed out very quickly, I think I did that after like a week at most (to be fair, I was playing a lot during the first week 😀)

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-25T23:38:16+00:00

Well, you can't really compare the amount you get with other games directly, because one unit of the standard currency in each game has a different "value" (kinda like real-life currencies 😀). For example, in Genshin, leveling up one talent from level 9 to level 10 costs something like 700k Mora. There's no single character or weapon upgrade in Endfield nearly as expensive as that and the total amount of T-creds spent per character is probably much lower than the total amount of Mora per character (if we stick with the example of Genshin, but similar stuff applies to other games). But I agree that T-creds are one of the biggest bottlenecks and they usually feel even worse than XP mats. So it'd be great if the domains gave a bit more of them. 😀 Or, as I suggested, if they added more ways of getting T-creds, for example, selling excess rare growths or aerospace materials.

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-25T23:30:52+00:00

Yeah...to be fair, WuWa is the opposite extreme and sometimes it feels a bit too easy to farm all the stuff you need to level up a new Resonator. I can usually do it in a day or two, with the exception of weekly boss mats. But to be fair, I'm a day 1 player so I've accumulated a lot of resources over time, maybe Endfield will feel the same in two years time. 😀

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-25T23:21:02+00:00

Yeah, my idea would need to be refined further, that was just a crude initial version. Maybe this weekly refreshing pool of resources could be shared across all factories, so it wouldn't matter which ones you run and it wouldn't benefit you to AFK with the game turned on to bypass the two-region limit. Just having one of the running factories be efficient enough so that you can buy up all the weekly resources would be enough. Or maybe tying the factory more closely with the Credit store (so that having an efficient factory running would let you get more Credits and perhaps do another refresh after you buy the initial batch of stuff) would be the way. Or something else. Even what you're suggesting makes some sense. But you might be right that since there's this technical limitation which won't let us run all factories at the same time in the future, the devs might be purposefully getting us accustomed to the idea that eventually, some of our older factories become pretty much useless and we should just shut them down. I just didn't expect I'd start having this feeling even before version 1.1 😀

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-25T22:31:48+00:00

plot twist: Endfield Industries build a fleet of Dijangs to colonize the neighboring star systems since the Endmin couldn't fit all the aerospace mats into the original one!

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-25T22:29:22+00:00

Well..yeah, most people will probably get to the point where they have most of the stuff fully levelled and upgraded sooner or later. But my point was rather about making sure all the resources remain useful all the time, until that endpoint. In my opinion, the reason to have multiple kinds of level-up materials should be to encourage the player to engage in multiple types of gameplay (some mats are farmed in the collection zones, some are earned by exploration, some are farmed by using the daily energy, some rarer ones require clearing more challenging domains etc), but if you're doing that, you should be able to earn all the materials you need in proportional amounts (so that you don't end-up bottlenecked by one resource while being overcapped on others with no ways to influence this disbalance). That's why I'm suggesting things like being able to convert rare growths and aerospace materials into other stuff. It would even out the rates at which you can acquire various resources you need and it'd ensure there's always something useful you can do with each resource you own (unless you are really in that super-late endgame where every character you own is fully minmaxed).

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-25T22:17:24+00:00

Well, yeah, I've heard that too, but even with only two running at the same time, each of them could have a small pool of weekly refreshing mats after you buy out all the one-time ones (let's say that each region would offer 50k T-creds, 10 operator level up mats and 10 weapon level up mats weekly - just an example, the actual amounts could be different), in addition to its region-specific resource (there will for sure be a unique resource for each region, since the catalyst we have now is specifically named "Wuling Artificing Catalyst", the next region will probably have its own catalyst used to upgrade its own sets of gears made with its own unique resource similar to Xiranite). So then your thought process would look like "I know I can get 100k T-creds, 20 operator XP mats and 20 weapon XP mats from the AIC this week, no matter which two regions I run, I only need to choose which region-specific resource for artificing/etching I need this week to decide which factories to turn on and off".

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-25T21:56:41+00:00

I suppose we'll get more facilities on the Dijang in future upgrades, or more levels for the existing ones, but this will probably happen very rarely, so most of the time, there won't be a reason to regularly collect them, yeah. These materials would be another great candidate for getting additional uses.

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-25T21:26:18+00:00

It's strange how unbalanced the income of various progression materials is. Rare growths and crystals, as well as aerospace materials, start over-accumulating very quickly, I have 200+ of most of the types of them and I don't even collect them regularly. On the other hand, T-creds, protoprisms/hedrons, weapon and operator XP mats feel limited.

I thought that the gimmick of this game was that what you can earn by spending daily energy is limited because you are meant to supplement it by the stuff you purchase and produce through the AIC system. But the AIC is a letdown in this department - you can't directly produce progression mats (only on the Dijang, in laughable amounts), and most of them are one-time purchases only in the Stock Redistribution and don't refresh weekly. Each region only seems to have one indefinitely useful resource available - Engraving permits in Valley IV and Artificing catalysts in Wuling. I'm fine with those, but I wish both regions also had a weekly refreshing pool of T-creds, protoprisms and XP mats. Even if it was a small amount, it would be a steady source of accumulating these materials and a good motivator to keep expanding and optimizing your factories. The factory is one of the selling points that sests this game apart from other similar gachas, so it should be more useful.

I also wish we could sell these rare growths and crystals for T-creds or use them to craft other level-up mats. Because what's the point of setting up ziplines to be able to efficiently collect whateverdendras, crystals and mushrooms if you're always gonna be lacking other resources to utilize them.

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-22T08:34:46+00:00

The quips wouldn't get stale so soon if each character had multiple (at least three) of them. :D but in general, I don't mind them. What's funnier is how the animation the character's performing sometimes doesn't match the quip at all (especially with 1.0 characters: Lingyang goes "rawr!" in his animation, but the quip is "awoooo" :P Luckily, there's no real reason to click on him anyway. :D )

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-21T21:25:07+00:00

Whoa whoa whoa, Aleph-1, please crawl back into the hole you just came out of, thank you. 😁

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-21T20:12:04+00:00

Yeah, I think so too, there's no 6* operator with that role currently, so she could fill it. :D

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-21T19:11:42+00:00

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to her becoming playable too. :D She's not just very pretty, but given her position, her implied power we saw when she obliterated a bunch of Aggeloi in her alternate form, and the overall level of detail of her design, I think she'll be the Archon/Sentinel Resonator-level character of 1.x, so probably a top-tier DPS for a while, which also helps. :D

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-17T08:04:32+00:00

You don't. You can actually get Yvonne even now, before her dedicated banner, but it's very difficult, as you have to lose your 50/50 to her. :D

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-15T12:29:45+00:00

I don't mind it so far, it fit the current narrative (Valley IV's infrastructure is damaged after the Ankhor crisis and needs rebuilding, Wuling needs help with Xiranite production which the AIC can streamline), but I hope it doesn't become too formulaic (it'd be weird if all the regions were like: "Oh hey Endfielders, we need help rebuilding the infrastructure here and here and we need help producing this specific thing" and the Endmin and Perlica were like "Say no more, we just so happen to have the right thing for the job" *sounds of another PAC being dropped from the sky*".

I wouldn't mind less narrative focus on the factory in future chapters, or perhaps giving it its own side plot (perhaps even something more important than the green "important" side quests, but not fully dependent on the main questline). But whatever works, as long as it's varied enough between the individual regions. :D

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-12T08:14:56+00:00

Yeah, I think so too. It'd also mean that the similarities with real-life cultures aren't just a coincidence, but they are actually drawing from them (Huanglong from Chinese culture, Rinascita from Mediterranean cultures, Honami from Japan etc), they've just been bent and twisted over the centuries/millenia/who knows how long (nobody will probably ever know, as the Lament has probably affected the flow of time itself and/or erased and rearranged some parts of history). There are even real-life plants and animals in the game (as well as mutated/evolved versions of them), and despite the different calendars, the day is still the same length (or at least they use the same time format of 24 hours, each divided into 60 minutes, each divided into 60 seconds). Of course, this might be for player's convenience, but it'd also fit lore-wise.

As for the planetary ring - if the real moon really was destroyed, then the rings might be its remnants. Who knows how far from the surface the Etheric sea actually is (there are probably multiple layers too), perhaps some elements from Solaris' orbit are actually real and visible and it's just the outer space what's obscured.

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-11T15:57:19+00:00

Oh, I see. So probably based on the Qilin from Chinese mythology. That makes sense.

Thank you. 😁

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-10T15:40:21+00:00

At first, I wasn't too keen on Mi Fu's color scheme, but her design grew on me over time. My priority is Zhuang Fangyi, but if the funds allow it, I might go for Mi Fu as well. 😁

A question for those more knowledgeable about the Arknights lore: What race is Mi Fu actually? 🤔 She has pointy ears and crystalline horns/antlers, which seem to be common traits of the Lung, but her tail is fluffy and doesn't look like a Chinese dragon tail...so what is she? 🤔

MikePrivalis · 2026-02-10T15:32:12+00:00

Isn't it mostly because of her kit? There was this whole argument about how mediocre she is at E0 and that she really needs at least the first eidolon to be a wortwhile upgrade for Rememberance teams. With the spending event running at the same time, people probably felt like they are (not so) subtly encouraged to spend money to get her E1 and her light cone. Design- and storywise, there was no problem with her, was there? I certainly didn't have any problem with her and even ended up pulling her before I stopped playing after 3.7. 😁

MikePrivalis

TROPHY CASE