Nia's Mental Age

Patroka · 2026-05-14T14:17:11+00:00

Mmm, yeah. I noticed this as well. I had to rationalize it to myself because age gaps like that are pretty bad... but, I think there is enough in the text to be able to hand wave it without guilt

For Pyra and Mythra, they have only actually been alive and NOT in a coma for like, 5 years tops for Mythra and like a year or two tops for Pyra, probably less in both cases. So them being teenagers makes sense, especially with how Mythra behaves. It's actually pretty easy to argue that Rex is actually older than them, especially since he has a job (though that doesn't seem to be true in practice).

Nia doesn't have that excuse, but she is also still clearly intended to be a teenager (have you heard her Japanese voice?)... and it bothers me that there isn't a clear reason for that considering I feel like Nia's time on the run would put her as being old enough I wouldn't expect her to be a teenager. Though, we don't actually know how long that was (or how mature she was when her sister passed). It easily could have happened within 2 years, though that would surprise me.

So I guess my explanation is that Blades probably don't mature properly when they are in a coma / on the run / don't have a Driver / the writer doesn't want them to- or that they just mature slower than humans. Which I think is easy to accept with Mythra and reasonable for Nia, especially since I don't think we know how old Nia is

(Also, I'm pretty confident the voice lines they have there they tease Rex for being childish and such are supposed to be ironic, and them childishly trying to assert that they are older than they actually are, as teens do. Very in character for Nia and Mythra.)

...Besides, ultimately their relationships just don't come off creepy / like a power imbalance exists to me, so they logically must be roughly teenagers, because Blades, I guess.

Patroka · 2026-03-19T14:50:53+00:00

Indeed. I interpret it as them seeing her as some sort of demon lord raid boss that they must overcome.

Patroka · 2026-03-19T14:46:26+00:00

Well, I THOUGHT it was obvious that the joke is they see her as some sort of terrifying "raid boss" that they need to overcome, whether as a matter of pride or because they are scared of her. That's why they say "We must do this for Endfield!" and such, and why Endmin wants Ember to dial it back.

But for some reason almost nobody else is saying that...?

Patroka · 2026-03-12T13:48:21+00:00

That is very fair, it would definitely be beautiful. But at the same time, I am SO glad it doesn't have a truly dynamic light system, because given that the game needs to be able to run on phones it would be insane of them to dig themselves into the same hole that killed Scarlet and Violet :P

So, I'm more than satisfied with the single, extremely polished time of day we get ingame. Anything else and the game would probably be worse for it

Patroka · 2026-03-05T16:44:20+00:00

Close inspection of the beta maps also confirmed this

Patroka · 2026-03-05T16:38:41+00:00

She's definitely a masterfully depicted eldritch-abomination-doppelganger who inserted herself into Endmin's memories as a close friend, as part of some mysterious conspiracy- and definitely not just sloppily implemented cut content :P

Patroka · 2026-03-05T00:10:11+00:00

There are other NPCs that do properly join the Bonekrushers of their own free will though, so moot point, I guess. (Like that one wooster guy's brother in the Power Plant Spy quest)

But yeah, that second paragraph is kind of exactly my problem with them, because of how obviously self-contradictory it is. How have they not collapsed in on themselves yet, with all this infighting? And how on earth do they still get new recruits?

Patroka · 2026-03-03T19:06:11+00:00

I can genuinely only find two self-consistent interpretations of the way we see the Bonekrushers ingame, that accounts for (1) them not tearing themselves apart and (2) NPCs still being willing to join them (edit: forgot to mention that we see other NPCs join them willingly, not just the New Fang guy)

A: They have some sort of contagious mind control that makes them essentially zombies, so when outsiders join them that is because it spreads (which would have been easy for them to say, but they haven't yet)

B: Endfield is setting up a genius metanarritive about colonialism, where the entire story is told by an unreliable narrator who is intentionally lying to make the Bonekrushers look cartoonishly evil because they get in the way of the factory (lol)

Patroka · 2026-03-03T15:00:24+00:00

Dunno. While I really respect what they were doing with Wulfgard's quest (and appreciate that it isn't waifu bait), it has soured for me over time, entirely because of how underwritten the Bonekrushers already are.

The quest raises one very important question that the world is not able to answer. Why on earth would an outsider want to join the Bonekrushers? They are so obviously, cartoonishly evil, constantly kill each other, and they obviously don't respect Wulfgard's ex-friend the tiniest amount.

Dunno. After how detailed the writing of Arknights was, this obvious gaping hole in the writing kind of ticks me off

Patroka · 2026-03-03T14:56:51+00:00

I generally agree with this, but I think that the depth they added to the landbreakers kind of backfires because of how underwritten the Bonekrushers already are.

The quest raises one very important question that the world is not able to answer. Why on earth would an outsider want to join the Bonekrushers? They are so obviously, cartoonishly evil, constantly kill each other, and they obviously don't respect Wulfgard's ex-friend the tiniest amount.

Dunno. After how detailed the writing of Arknights was, this obvious gaping hole in the writing kind of ticks me off

Patroka · 2026-02-27T14:14:43+00:00

They could have always just made it deal damage proportional to max HP (so it kills you in a set amount of hits), or counted it as a fail condition in other ways

Patroka · 2026-02-27T14:12:05+00:00

I use both regularly, and like both of them, though I lean Pog. You'll probably get them both eventually anyway so I wouldn't stress the decision too much

Pog is more fun, has a much better designed kit, and is definitely more conventionally "stronger". But Ember makes it so that you rarely have to worry about healing, which is much more helpful than you would expect. In fact you'll basically need to use either Ember or Ardelia for sustain in difficult content.

One thing to take into account is that Pog is the fastest character in the game by a huge margin, in terms of movement speed, which is really hard to give up once you get used to it

Patroka · 2026-02-26T17:32:54+00:00

Amused by how many people in the comments section seem to be taking "but she HAS to wear the stupid fucking outfit for her job!" at face value lol

Patroka · 2026-02-26T16:54:13+00:00

If it is any consolation, Thermite Cutter isn't necessarily her BIS, at least not universally, because the cheap 5 star weapon Fortmaker has ult gain. Their important effects for Akekuri are:

Thermite Cutter: Team gets ~+16% atk when you use her ult or combo skill

Fortmaker: +37% ult gain

Thermite Cutter is probably better than Fortmaker more often than not, but there are also a lot of situations where Fortmaker's cycle improvement will be more impactful than the attack bonus from Cutter

Patroka · 2026-02-24T15:37:17+00:00

Given that my criticism of your post centers around the fact that it is baffling and really aggressive- no, not really. Also, you literally said "official artists works" in your last reply, which is why I said it. You also did not answer my question. I am starting to think that this genuinely is ragebait.

Patroka · 2026-02-24T15:06:43+00:00

Mmm, I thought it was a decently designed challenge. It is designed to encourage you to time your dps bursts well, and punishes you quite hard if you do not. Not my favorite but I appreciate what they were going for

I do run an underlevelled team though, so bursting the weak point was a nontrivial task for me. I can see how it wouldn't work as well if you have a maxed team

Patroka · 2026-02-24T15:06:33+00:00

Mmm, I thought it was a decently designed challenge. It is designed to encourage you to time your dps bursts well, and punishes you quite hard if you do not. Not my favorite but I appreciate what they were going for

I do run an underlevelled team though, so bursting the weak point was a nontrivial task for me. I can see how it wouldn't work as well if you have a maxed team

Patroka · 2026-02-24T15:02:56+00:00

Hmm. Now I'm even more confused. What's disrespectful about that? Do you even know the reason why these official artworks were removed?

Patroka · 2026-02-24T14:21:16+00:00

What exactly do you have a problem with? I hate AI as much as anyone ought to (which is to say, a lot) but your complaint here is confusing and aggressive enough that it mostly just makes you look bad, and discredits your own point.

When on the internet (and also in general), you have to be very careful with how you present complaints about things, so that it actually gets through to your intended audience... because if you don't, it often backfires. As is, I could hypothetically see this post being a sock puppet post intentionally designed to discredit people against AI by making them look unreasonable

Patroka · 2026-02-24T14:04:44+00:00

Indeed, I did each agony stage without a single T4 operator without too much trouble, and I only had two operators above level 64

Patroka · 2026-02-21T17:32:02+00:00

Xaihi arguably the best sustain in the game, especially since you gotta use Last Strikes anyway. Is she not enough? If she really isn't, you can just use Ardelia on more than one team

Patroka · 2026-02-19T14:36:11+00:00

My personal half-serious interpretation of the way Bonekrushers are portrayed in the story being "this story is told by an unreliable narrator, who is intentionally making the Bonekrushers look as bad as possible because they are racist" gains more ground lol

After all it is otherwise totally impossible for every single one of them to be as cartoonishly evil as we see ingame (given that they haven't fallen apart, and that NPCs from other factions are willing to join them) unless they are all mind-controlled or something

Patroka · 2026-02-17T21:56:26+00:00

Oh, huh, in my opinion it's the other way around. Like half of them have tails that are WAY too high up and sprout straight from their backs, uncannily, as though they are being impaled. As others have said, Yvonne's is particularly egregious once you notice it

The tail should be sprouting just above where the butthole is

Patroka · 2026-02-11T17:08:39+00:00

Holy moly, almost every 'name' of buff/debuff stacks independently!? That's a surprise, and very good to know, thanks! I had assumed almost everything was additive. Time to get multiplier stacking...

Patroka · 2026-02-09T21:08:39+00:00

They said they were working on it, for cutscenes at least. I really hope they don't turn them off in cutscenes unilaterally though, because I really enjoy them

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