Arknights

Arknight is a Tower Defense mobile gacha game from Chinese developer Hypergryph and published by Yostar Games. Its global server opened in January 16th and you can download the game here.

Honestly one of the most trope overloaded settings I've seen for a while. It reminds me of both Code Vein (crystalline mutagen, crumbling cityscapes, technomagic that draws on the user's life force, focus on fancy weapons and urban/post-apoc fashion) and XCOM 2 (rescuing the frozen Doctor, some elements of the base reconstruction). Which isn't to say that I dislike it! I'm having a blast. It's really nifty seeing such a variety of Infected people, too.

Edited by RedSavant on Jan 19th 2020 at 9:39:44 AM

Honestly, I'm finding the story to be a bit heavyhanded, and the setting to be somewhat nonsensical. Like everybody developed mobile cities to deal with these big-ass natural disasters, but from what I can tell, the world was always like that, so I'm questioning how they survived that long to create such technology. If it was a post-apocalyptic setting, I could wave it away with ancient advanced technology or something, but nope.

If tropes have taught me anything, the Catastrophes are related to originum in a way beyond just being a source of the mineral. And my guess is that, since the tip screen says evacuation from a Catastrophe zone is doable on a timeframe of weeks, that smaller groups simply moved away - the same way you would from a volcano that was starting to spew smoke, for instance. It wouldn't have been easy, but it sounds like there's generally forewarning.

Also, one thing I hadn't realized before - Oripathy doesn't turn people into kemono people. At least, I don't think so. Learning that the bear-like people are called Ursus suggests that the Ursus Empire is an actual civilization of bear people - which doesn't fit if you can only become an Ursus via Oripathy.

Didn't know that about the tip screen, though there's probably a better way to convey story info. Still, depending on how on big the cities are, they probably weren't that mobile while they were being built, and thus were likely stuck in the disaster zones. In short, I just find the creation and construction of the mobile cities improbable in such a setting.

Edited by RedRob on Jan 19th 2020 at 12:20:20 PM

Does anyone know how to get the currency for doing the gatcha? I know Recruit exist but if you want something decent it takes 9 hours. I've been told that trading in the premium currency you get from 3 starring missions isn't worth it and while I hear you can get them by buying level packs, I'm not at a high enough level to do that yet since you need to be level five or higher and I'm only at level three.

@Chariot: It looks like you can get small amounts (100 a pop or so) from daily missions and daily mission aggregate rewards (those tasks on the left that give you rewards for finishing multiple missions). You also get them from doing story, looks like.

^^Improbable, definitely, but it's also possible (and likely, I guess) that the rate of Catastrophes is increasing lately.

Edited by RedSavant on Jan 19th 2020 at 1:54:18 PM

I really like this game so far and also having guys is a plus too.

I got Exusiai twice from the half-off banner which I'm not sure is lucky or not but she's great for me so far. I picked Pramanix for the 5* voucher because I needed a debuffer and I already pulled Ptilopsis who's been a great medic so far.

Reunion are pretty interesting antagonists so far, though part of my interest is pretty shallow in that they all have great designs, especially Talulah.

You get big orbs for completing missions with three stars (ie: perfect wins), which are automatically converted into gacha currency when you try to roll. I assume those are finite, but that's where your big initial income will come from.

There are also seems to be a game mode that gives out about 1200 weekly. So 5 weeks for a 10 pull as the baseline, before taking events into account.

Ironically, Praminix doesn't actually have any debuffs until you promote her. And even then it's just defense down. So she can't really fulfill the support role the game expects you to be using, which is to slow down enemies.

Edited by Clarste on Jan 20th 2020 at 1:22:10 AM

Well I know about the automatic conversion, but like I mentioned I heard it wasn't worth doing it as a f2p player if you're planning on buying skins/costumes for your characters, which I am.

I, on the other hand, am now rolling in EXP cards and have zero LMD. I just now discovered that I can make gold bars instead of EXP cards in my Factory, so that should help solve that problem, at least, but are there faster ways to earn it?

My biggest single source of income has been reaching milestones in the Annihilation missions.

That makes sense, yeah. I just hit 200 on Chernobog, but I keep screwing myself because I lose the north passageway. I need another strong defender, and I need to start practicing when to get Scavenger back... though really, retreating her seems useful only for unit limits, since otherwise she basically prints DP.

https://vynli.com/clearing-annihilation-1-chernobog/

This guide was pretty good up until Cuora got swarmed around the 270 mark but I didn't have the exact units (namely, I wasn't really sure about my Sniper/Caster at the bottom) the guide used so maybe other people will have a better use for it with their roster.

Thanks, I may give that a shot. I don't expect to get to the end, but any rewards are better than no rewards.

LMD is the blue stuff, right? If you three starred a mission you can always auto play it to grind for LMD.

Okay, I finished the prologue and am liking it so far, really nails the tone, though I do wish they did two things:

First, just let me repeat the quest as soon as I finish.

Second, if you must make me go through the quest with auto-deploy, at least let me speed up more than 2x.

If anyone wants to add me to their FL, I'm Nouct#3502.

Chernobog Annihilation progress, those two Senior Casters are overall the biggest hump to victory so far.

How much of the main story is available right now?

Also what are these annahilation missions?

Annihilation missions are a type of mission you unlock a little ways into the game. They're basically endurance runs against 400 enemies, but you get scaling rewards even if you don't beat the entire mission.

Edited by Clarste on Jan 20th 2020 at 1:19:26 AM

I think the Annihilation quests unlock partway through episode 1, they're basically a survival mode where you have to fight several hundred enemies to see how long you can last with your current party.

It's pretty fair since you do get rewards even when withdrawing based on the number of enemies you've beaten.

@Chariot: Yeah, but when you can tear through 50k in just a few minutes leveling up Operators, 100 LMD per run doesn't really cut it.

Funny you mention that, I just ran out of cash.

So why does this Chinese game has no option for Chinese voices?

Anyway, Nouct I've sent you a request, anyone willing to add me I'm Muffins#3969.

Gamepress has a guide for clearing Chernobog Annihilation. It's a bit more flexible than the one posted above, though still requires you to have developed your units a bit.