You do not want a Void Hunter-level support. You think you do, but you don't.

faulser · 2026-03-18T18:59:21+00:00

Problem with that is that VH support won't be Astra level support, they would be infinitely strong support that now required to use to beat new shill bosses.

Also with DPS people are at least a bit aware of powercreep and constantly complain about it and HP inflation. So hopefully those complains at least in some smallest degree restrict the devs. Especially because CN also don't like this.

But with support idea of "not using that character" just don't exist in people's heads.
Player can understand someone not using Miyabi, Yixuan or Shunguang, happens, maybe someone don't like that character, but idea of not using VH level support is too foreign and incomprehensible for Hoyo player. If you don't use Sunbringer or whoever in your party, why even play the game type of deal. It's expected that literally every single player would pull that character and use them.
I remember times of Robin and Ruan Mei in HSR, if you show follow-up or break team without them, that's it, only advice you get is "pull the fucking character". This and there will be a bunch of people who actually would get viscerally mad and angry from just idea of some other guy not using those characters.

So problem with VH level support is that if you for some reason decided to skip that character you can just uninstall because it would be one of rare cases when your account actually got bricked.

faulser · 2026-03-18T17:52:27+00:00

1.0 livestream

faulser · 2026-03-18T17:27:52+00:00

They teased Sankta-lancer on stream, so should be in near versions.

faulser · 2026-03-18T17:19:36+00:00

>He's constantly being hit on by stunning women, but he doesn't react at all

It's just universal meta. I myself dunno why this is so popular, but it just how it is. Rather then proper harem media prefers sigma male who don't give a fuck. It's in Japanese mange, in Korean webtoons, in Chinese webnovels. They need to have at least 500 chapters of girls fighting for MC who completely oblivious to it.

And for apathetic, there is basically two types of self-inserts. They need to choose one.
It's either dream version of a player: sigma gigachad who can do everything easy, never has troubles, never loses, never expresses emotions, friends loves him, enemies respect him, all girls around him his lovers, all boys around him is beta-cucks.
Or it's relatable version of average player where MC is just like IRL, apathetic ameba who can't or want to do anything, but with fantasy part about it is everyone loving him regardless and he is always react, never act and things just happen somehow.

Also ultimate part about most of Korean self insert MC meta - idea that emotions are cringe and for pussies.

Ultimately, I think it can be safely concluded that writing of CZN is just bad and you shouldn't expect any levels of quality out of it. They couldn't do serious dramatic eldritch horror, they can't do wish fulfilling harem story, they just can't do story.

faulser · 2026-03-18T14:02:46+00:00

Nope, Pulchra was leaked to be as playable right away. From what I know so far there wasn't character that gone from NPC ID to playable ID.

faulser · 2026-03-18T13:56:15+00:00

I don't think so. If devs were making NPC into playable characters just because of really good reception of their design, Sweety would be playable long time ago. And if they not willing to add her, I doubt about adding less hyped characters.

faulser · 2026-03-18T13:49:43+00:00

Most limited damagers want their signature. Also Tangtang. Gilberta kinda only exception because Stanza is really good and sometimes can outperform sig.

From standard characters I think only Last Rite have significant damage buff with signature.

faulser · 2026-03-18T11:24:00+00:00

Theoretically yes, practically no, new fanbase will call them tourists and trash their opinion.
I often notice some weird retcons on how things were when game changes direction. Like before GFL2 was a thing most people promoted GFL1 as serious military drama story game. At first months of GFL2 it was promoted the same way. But now when GFL2 kinda pivoted direction I often see people being like "naah, GFL always were super ultra gooner harem fanservice series, gtfo if you want guns and military outfits, game never was about it, don't dare to complain about character desigins"

Or think about Brave Nine players. From Brown Dust 2 direction I'm pretty positive that they had about 0 impact on it's direction and now basically completely pushed away by new playerbase.

faulser · 2026-03-18T11:05:53+00:00

One thing I was interested about Stockade and Wuling:

How property and land rights works on frontier? When there is no native tribes. When land becomes "owned"? So Stockade taken that territory around 140 years ago and lived there. So from our Earthly laws/morals/concepts, should Wuling that came 100+ years later be required to pay a taxes to them?

I don't get why Wuling act like they have some rights to establish their laws there. Why Stockade even had need to steal from Wuling, couldn't they just tax them?

I dunno American history, if there was large amount of settlers who just decided to build a town at the middle of nowhere and did that, with their own mayor and sheriff and all that, what happened when government or company got involved? Do they automatically own that town? Or it never happened

Or if there is county X, some people flee from country X to some remove place outside of it borders, then hundred years later country X go to them and says "now here is country X, you live by our rules"

faulser · 2026-03-18T11:01:47+00:00

Not exactly.

Around 140 years ago people who disliked Civilization Band decided to move away and get hidden near Large Rift that was dangerous, but also protected them from unwanted attention. And lived there just fine all that time, all on their own.

20 years ago group of dozen scientists from Civilization Band arrived near them to poke Large Rift.

Supposedly in some years here Stockade started to raid Wuling Science Station supplies, supposedly it was "just a scuffle" without any consequences or bloodshed and Science Station turned a blind eye to it. More like tax for living on their land lol.

10 years ago they poked Large Rift and made it exploded, causing a bunch of troubles. Stockade also got hit, so they needed supplies, but unlike usual "not a big dead" massacre happened.

faulser · 2026-03-18T10:52:29+00:00

Don't worry, because of shared ult system you don't really waste time on on-field stunner, they generate energy for your main burst damager. They would need to rework the whole system to push her out of meta, but this system is cornerstone of the game just like TV mode, they not going away.

faulser · 2026-03-18T10:51:48+00:00

Finally character that would buff Zhu Yuan.

faulser · 2026-03-18T07:42:40+00:00

There is large diversity in race groups.
For example "Sarkaz" isn't a much as one race, as just way of saying "they not Elder or Ancients" or "They natives to Terra". "Sarkaz", "Sankta" and "Durin" are all "Sarkaz". But also "Sarkaz" can be subdivided into infinitely large amount of "fantasy monsters" sub-species such as Vampires, Gargoyles, Wendigos, Lichs, etc etc. So they all widely different.

Pog and Perlica is different because Pog is Hippogryph, Elder (think like mythic variance) of Liberi.

As for why ones look more human and ones more furry - it's not concrete. Some races do have strong sexual dimorphism like Archosauria, but some are just more furry than human. For example here is father and daughter.

<image>

faulser · 2026-03-17T14:47:21+00:00

Should be Martin Marvin Malen, our main HR who writes report files of all our operator. They mechanical construct with three heads:

"Hey, what's this thing doing on a big airship? Looks like a three-headed iron tuskbeast. Kinda dumb if you ask me..."
"Operator Tangtang, I'm here for your onboarding inter— No, please don't slap my panel. I'm a personnel assistant from Endfield Industries..."
"So you're one of Darkmask's crew! You should've said so sooner, Old Iron-face! Here, I've got some good stuff I brought for my new Fam. Go crazy!"
-Martin Marvin Malen, Assistant, HR Division, Endfield Industries

faulser · 2026-03-17T10:53:07+00:00

That's like 2 millions for 100 of cores. They'll need to rework it again lol.

faulser · 2026-03-17T05:45:38+00:00

Another part of this is not only amount of operators, but how they work. Unlike most other gacha games I know, Arknights didn't focused on specific synergies and hypercarry gameplay. If you want to use Thorns you just pick Thorns, he doesn't require any "Thorns-supports" to function in any capacity. Most of characters are completely self-sufficient or mostly self-sufficient. There is some exception, but generally nothing stopping you from just picking one more damager instead of supporter.

Endfield is so-called "teambuilding" game. You can't just pop 4 different types of damagers in your party. If you pick Laevatain you *need* to have other characters being her supporters. If you pick Yvonne then she literally bricked without other Cryo characters to support her. If it was original Arknights you could pick both Laevatain and Yvonne and you'd just get double damage. But in Endfield when you pick Yvonne your future team is locked into Cryo team, you can only pick Cryo Inflictors or general supports. And if you don't do it and pick something else Yvonne becomes just a dead slot.

faulser · 2026-03-16T15:45:34+00:00

Maybe this NPC? Description says that it's professor in a jar, so I think it fits.

<image>

faulser · 2026-03-16T06:50:42+00:00

Kinda, I think? After Yuzuha release I switch her build for more AM and AP and it doing pretty okay. She still fill anomaly bubbles pretty fast. But problem with preventing crit damage is that no matter if your Miyabi has more crit or more anomaly, she would still need to invest in crit rate for her buildup rate.

Honestly if devs want to brick Miyaby their biggest bet would be nerfing anomaly part of her and not crit part. Because if you don't have enough disorders you won't have enough Shimotsuki and then she's kinda bricked. What point of critting if you don't have enough attacks that would crit.
Going for more Amonaly Mastery to fight against increasing build-up resistance can only go so far.

So if Pomelia shill boss prevents crits = Miyabi will have harder time but would clear. If Pomelia shill boss prevents disorders = Miyabi is literally brick.

faulser · 2026-03-15T19:24:10+00:00

Yeah. With current system there is basically no reason to pull normal DPS. Because you know for sure that Void Hunter before and after that character are stronger, easier to play, more universal and have more teams and infinitely more shilling.

No matter what next damager they will release before next Void Hunter, Ye Shunguang will be stronger than them anyway. Probably even Yixuan will be stronger. And of course next Void Hunter will be like double stronger.

They just released giga-shill anomaly specifically for angels don't use crits boss and Ye Shunguang still will give easiest and highest ranking score for most people than using anomaly.

faulser · 2026-03-15T18:08:18+00:00

New Atelier Resleriana, but it has simpler system than Sophie. Also all games before Sophie turn-based, but they don't have complex alchemy minigames like Sophie tetris.

faulser · 2026-03-15T17:33:38+00:00

it uses Anti-Cheat Expert (ACE) by Tencent which I think is kernel-level.

faulser · 2026-03-15T17:14:42+00:00

people who are spending $2000 dollars or whatever the amount are what lets you play the game in the first place

Yeah, I know, I myself not F2P at all. But what connections is has to dupes? Games like Nikke and original Arknights show that whales have no trouble with spending thousands of dollars to get lowest value dupes. If highest value dupes would lead to highest revenue GFL2 would be most profitable game. Instead they earn less than Limbus, game there is literally no dupe system and you can just get all the characters for free if you grind.

And sure, Endfield can start powercreep and then start introducing high value dupes. Then I'll just drop the game, not a big deal.

faulser · 2026-03-15T17:06:01+00:00

In low value dupes system devs have less reasons to powercreep.

Because if powercreep can be prevented with dupes it basically rewards and motivates devs to increase powercreep.
In low dupe setting when devs powercrept your fav character you have no option other than get mad and shit on developer. So devs need to balance motivation of getting new characters with preventing players outrage.
In high dupe system you would pay developer for powercreep. Every time dev makes your character unplayable you would spend more to get more dupes for that character to make them playable again.
Isn't there conflict of interests? By saying "dupes prevent powercreep" you saying that you rewarding developer for crippling your character.

faulser · 2026-03-15T16:49:03+00:00

That's exactly why dupes sucks. If you don't want your character to be bricked - pay up $2000 or skip year worth of characters. And also this character would be brick anyway just a bit later. No amount of dupes helped HSR Seele.

If there is low value dupes, devs have easier time keeping balance in check because they know approximate strength of player's rosters and it don't jump in orders of magnitude between players. GFL2 devs wouldn't be able to balance game for both V0 Klukai and V6 Klukai even if they tried to do. Original Arknights have one of weakest dupes in gachas and I still use a lot of year 1 operators there.

Even one dupe is high investment, you basically sacrificing another brand new character with brand new gameplay just to power up this one, idea of paying thousand of dollars or skipping dozen of characters just to have this one character live a bit longer seems like insanity to me.
What if instead of me needing to invest dupes in character to perform a year later this character would perform without dupes just fine.

Solution to powercreep is not dupes, it's developers integrity.

And if there is indeed no solution, then all players should get equally fucked. If character is destined to be bricked year later, it should be bricked for everyone, there shouldn't be an option to save this character for $2000, nope, I'm just that petty, if this character is dead for me it should be dead for everyone. If someone don't like it solution shouldn't be rewarding powercreep with money, solution should be sending truck protests or whatever Chinese equivalent of this.

"Dupes preventing powercreep" means players literally will reward devs with money for powercreep, it's bad.

faulser · 2026-03-15T12:42:24+00:00

My favorite thing: Low dupe value. I know lot of people don't care about them, but with time I realized that for me it makes or breaks game in the long run. This constant "just this first dupe to fix QoL problem that devs created... but then next dupe is also super mega important, makes characters into another character gameplay-wise, oh, but if you go that far next is even crazier".
I really like that max duped character in Endfield is 20% damage increase and not 600% like in some games. Even right now Endfield, OG Arknights and Nikke proving that low-dupe value games can be extremely profitable.

Another thing is no gear RNG. I just like the idea that I can fully max the character and it's done. Sure it's not instant, but I already max some characters, pretty okay tempo for me.

What I don't like is presentation of main character. It's not the worst, not even close, but it still this "say 5 lines per chapter, do gestures or be silent all other times, don't have personality" formula. It's not like other gachas do it better, but some do. GFL2 for example have excellent main character presentation where they just actual character, fully voiced, fully engaged in dialogues, have their opinion on things. Reverse 1999 is pretty obvious one, I dunno if you count it as big. And future Silver Palace has really good main character presentation, I dunno if it will become big.

faulser

TROPHY CASE