A few things I noticed: - There is a new element (the panda) - No more pursuit attacks after skills - The color of the skill button on the character UI tells you what type of damage it will do (white is physical) - Chen's skill and ult seem to consume the physical and light debuffs on the enemies - When doing the tower defense combat the player tries interrupt the elite mobs charge with chen's skill but she ends up hitting a different mob. This is one of my biggest fears with the AI if the time slow and aim mechanic is removed - endmin's normal attack finisher regenerates the skill point bar faster. - SP bar starts 2/3 similar to hsr and it generates over time. The system makes it so you no longer need to save certain skills to counter certain boss moves you just save sp. - Perlica's food item looked to go on cooldown after one of her chain attacks. - Xaihi and Wolfgard have been moved to two different classes that weren't present in the tech test. Maybe OG arknights players may know what they mean. (Edit: looked it up seems like specialist and support)
I think that with the Q swap still in the game, if you instead of pressing 1-4 for instant skills, press Q then 2-4, it will slow mo the fight then lets you skill target the enemy(s) like on tech test on top of switching to the corresponding character, hopefully. Because to my observation, the demo doesn't even show Endmin using her own skill... It's possible if you use the 'current' character's skill it will slow mo. like IF you Quick Cast Skill (press 2-4) it auto targets, but if you Swap Cast ( Q > 2-4 ) it slow mo, swap to respective chara, and lets you target your skill.
@Alphagammabeta possibly but two reasons I don't think that is case - endmin does use her skill at 3:43 in the demo and there is never slow mo - the UI for the switch button (Q) does not have the the small down arrow on top of it indicating to hold down similar to the ult buttons.
I don't even know how to express with words how much I trust Hypergryph and Lowlight. Been playing Arknights since launch, and they've had very many chances to just make it a generic cashcow and let that be that. But they continue to innovate and expand, instead of staying stagnant and in their comfort zone. I really believe that the Arknights IP is gonna be one of the biggest IP's in the future.
I love the idea for a party based system rather than swapping them in and out. That is way more strategic, which makes total sense for the Arknights IP. Arknights is the only gacha game I've ever had trust in to innovate and think outside the box, and it's the only one I've stuck with for years and years.
At about 49 minutes in, you understand them "improving the AI over time" as a game mechanic. Now, I'd personally love that, but I don't think that's what they meant. (I think you got that later on, but I'll still leave this here to make sure). I don't think they'd do that, because that would run the risk of being misunderstood by the uninformed part of the playerbase, kind of like how No Man's Sky orbiting mechanic was adjusted because it got reported as a bug. I can easily see some new player entering the game, having a bad experience with basic bond level 1 AI, and leaving forever because of their perceived "bad AI". I think what they mean is that the improvements (the devs) have made thus far will make (the playerbase) hopeful for further improvements. I'm very passionate about companion AIs in games, and I'd also love to finally see a gacha with AI that's not completely useless, but I don't want anyone to have expectations for something that's not happening. I do agree with the Bond-locked abilities though. Bond systems in gacha as a whole could be expanded upon, in general. Like, abilities locked behind bond levels sound obvious, and I disagree with people who think otherwise. Like, you're telling me that stats and abilities being locked behind gambling for multiple copies of a character are fine, but something that rewards you for playing the game is not? Do you people even want to PLAY the game? (I'm kidding, this is the gacha community, of course they don't.) And it's not unprecedented either. Fate Grand Order has Bond CEs, which are character-specific equipment unlocked at a certain Bond level. Speaking of Fate, I'll now indulge in a bit of daydreaming, myself. You know what I think would be great? A game where every companion AI has a different personality, and the rarity is offset by the eccentricity of stronger characters. If handled well, this would make power-creep much easier to control(just make stronger characters harder to use, forehead lol /j), and would also help in keeping low-rarity characters relevant by making them more reliable and less explosive. I brought up Fate because it is a good example. Imagine an open-world game where your MC is much weaker than most enemies, but you have an AI companion you can switch out and summon, and gacha for new ones. And in that hypothetical game, someone like Cursed-Arm Hassan(a 2-star in FGO), could have lower stats but be more easily controllable, due to his loyalty. Meanwhile, someone like Gilgamesh(5-star in FGO) could have much higher stats but be very volatile, due to his nature as a prideful ruler and king, who wouldn't hesitate to turn on you and kill you if you got in his way, disrespected him, stole a kill from him or just simply bored him too much.
After thinking it through I thought of a good idea for the co op raids, I still believe it should be a 2 player co op with 4 characters per person but I think the boss should be a double boss like the twin sarkaz knights from Maria nearl where when one boss dies the other gains significant buffs to attack and speed or something like that, except each one is designed to be beaten by a 4 person team like as if it were a normal boss that way you would be incentivized to coordinate with the other player to kill each boss at the same time and get punished for trying to solo it. Other than that I think another thing that would be really cool to implement is mounts/pets for multiple reasons and with multiple uses, for example it would be cool to have to tame a burdenbeast as a mount and then have a system where they could also be used in battle by leveling them up, this is obviously could be too comfy so I think adding restrictions like having permadeath for mounts is fine as long as you can tame new ones, but I also saw a lot of people that wanted cars or bikes instead for mounts and I think having both but making their battle uses/restrictions different could be cool like if the car gets destroyed it blows up and deals damage to you but is comparatively easy to rebuild than taming an animal mount, I also think the animal mount could lead to a separate mechanic that would be cool that’s in RA and some of IS which is “allied enemies” so having enemies that you can recruit as temporary party members like the Pokémon system in RA, this could be really cool if they were to have some side missions specifically to tame strong enemies like a Pompeii type of boss that would have a leveling system but would also have permadeath and for strong enemies like that you could also restrict it by only allowing you to tame one and having like a week cooldown to retame it if it dies, I think this addition would add a lot of fun to the game even if these extra allies are only allowed in the overworld and restricted from using for certain bosses
I also wonder if they will give us elemental/status turrets (like graviton tower that knocks up enemies in the area every few seconds). Imagine having so bad of a luck, you don't have a character of an element you need this other character to use follow up skill on, you can still utilize those turrets to fill in the gap your accounts are lacking on. Or maybe straight up make a team comp that fully abuse these turrets, that doesn't have elemental/status ailment that affects each other... just a thought :'v *edit : inb4 a frost turret that requires both electrical pylons and a water pump source to activate, or flame turret that requires Oil/maybe straight up Lava :'v
As a base lover myself i do have some opinions about the replayablity of the system that you mentioned, i dont think that having your mining rig be destroyed and having to constantly rebuild it is a good thing since it would be more of a chore to do than playable content (just like how the base system in AK is hated by a lot of players), though i like the idea of having to build your defenses to defend your base from hoards, but those can easily be "finished" too, so im thinking of a seasonal system like in CC where each season/patch of the game will have a different kind of hoards and types of enemies thatll invade your base, and those enemies have different gimmicks or resistances every season that different towers can fulfill, so you will have to change your defenses layout, types of turrets and defenses like barricade to fight them more effectively. Also on the dungeon system i love it but having multiple players will remove the QTE system which could be a major part of a character's kit, that applies for having multiple skills since they would be balanced around being used on their own (think of how some AK operators would benefit more from having 3 skills than others). Having 4 players with 4 characters wont have these issue but then itll be an issue with clutter and the AI, itll also makes the game heavier by having to render all 12 characters and accounting for their AI, ect. I do wish for a coop system of some sort so i can play with my friends tho, i wonder how will they address these problems.
I think a seasonal thing could solve the need to rebuild the regular factory as well without needing enemies to destroy things. In the tech test there were certain resources that were given to faction vendors in order to get rewards. They could easily change the required materials each week or month so players are forced to tweak factory lines to stay efficient. Or they could just make certain resources have a better exchange rate than others so that you aren't "losing" progress if you don't do anything but are still incentivized to make some changes.
A few things I noticed:
- There is a new element (the panda)
- No more pursuit attacks after skills
- The color of the skill button on the character UI tells you what type of damage it will do (white is physical)
- Chen's skill and ult seem to consume the physical and light debuffs on the enemies
- When doing the tower defense combat the player tries interrupt the elite mobs charge with chen's skill but she ends up hitting a different mob. This is one of my biggest fears with the AI if the time slow and aim mechanic is removed
- endmin's normal attack finisher regenerates the skill point bar faster.
- SP bar starts 2/3 similar to hsr and it generates over time. The system makes it so you no longer need to save certain skills to counter certain boss moves you just save sp.
- Perlica's food item looked to go on cooldown after one of her chain attacks.
- Xaihi and Wolfgard have been moved to two different classes that weren't present in the tech test. Maybe OG arknights players may know what they mean. (Edit: looked it up seems like specialist and support)
I think that with the Q swap still in the game, if you instead of pressing 1-4 for instant skills, press Q then 2-4, it will slow mo the fight then lets you skill target the enemy(s) like on tech test on top of switching to the corresponding character, hopefully.
Because to my observation, the demo doesn't even show Endmin using her own skill...
It's possible if you use the 'current' character's skill it will slow mo.
like IF you Quick Cast Skill (press 2-4) it auto targets,
but if you Swap Cast ( Q > 2-4 ) it slow mo, swap to respective chara, and lets you target your skill.
@Alphagammabeta possibly but two reasons I don't think that is case
- endmin does use her skill at 3:43 in the demo and there is never slow mo
- the UI for the switch button (Q) does not have the the small down arrow on top of it indicating to hold down similar to the ult buttons.
@@eggfold i do hope they implement the slow mo targeting system in the final product, this is a beta after all... :(
@@Alphagammabeta we should do some feedback about targeting system. If there will be enough complaints then they will change it.
I don't even know how to express with words how much I trust Hypergryph and Lowlight. Been playing Arknights since launch, and they've had very many chances to just make it a generic cashcow and let that be that. But they continue to innovate and expand, instead of staying stagnant and in their comfort zone. I really believe that the Arknights IP is gonna be one of the biggest IP's in the future.
I love the idea for a party based system rather than swapping them in and out. That is way more strategic, which makes total sense for the Arknights IP. Arknights is the only gacha game I've ever had trust in to innovate and think outside the box, and it's the only one I've stuck with for years and years.
At about 49 minutes in, you understand them "improving the AI over time" as a game mechanic. Now, I'd personally love that, but I don't think that's what they meant.
(I think you got that later on, but I'll still leave this here to make sure).
I don't think they'd do that, because that would run the risk of being misunderstood by the uninformed part of the playerbase, kind of like how No Man's Sky orbiting mechanic was adjusted because it got reported as a bug. I can easily see some new player entering the game, having a bad experience with basic bond level 1 AI, and leaving forever because of their perceived "bad AI".
I think what they mean is that the improvements (the devs) have made thus far will make (the playerbase) hopeful for further improvements.
I'm very passionate about companion AIs in games, and I'd also love to finally see a gacha with AI that's not completely useless, but I don't want anyone to have expectations for something that's not happening.
I do agree with the Bond-locked abilities though. Bond systems in gacha as a whole could be expanded upon, in general. Like, abilities locked behind bond levels sound obvious, and I disagree with people who think otherwise. Like, you're telling me that stats and abilities being locked behind gambling for multiple copies of a character are fine, but something that rewards you for playing the game is not? Do you people even want to PLAY the game? (I'm kidding, this is the gacha community, of course they don't.)
And it's not unprecedented either. Fate Grand Order has Bond CEs, which are character-specific equipment unlocked at a certain Bond level.
Speaking of Fate, I'll now indulge in a bit of daydreaming, myself.
You know what I think would be great? A game where every companion AI has a different personality, and the rarity is offset by the eccentricity of stronger characters. If handled well, this would make power-creep much easier to control(just make stronger characters harder to use, forehead lol /j), and would also help in keeping low-rarity characters relevant by making them more reliable and less explosive.
I brought up Fate because it is a good example.
Imagine an open-world game where your MC is much weaker than most enemies, but you have an AI companion you can switch out and summon, and gacha for new ones.
And in that hypothetical game, someone like Cursed-Arm Hassan(a 2-star in FGO), could have lower stats but be more easily controllable, due to his loyalty. Meanwhile, someone like Gilgamesh(5-star in FGO) could have much higher stats but be very volatile, due to his nature as a prideful ruler and king, who wouldn't hesitate to turn on you and kill you if you got in his way, disrespected him, stole a kill from him or just simply bored him too much.
After thinking it through I thought of a good idea for the co op raids, I still believe it should be a 2 player co op with 4 characters per person but I think the boss should be a double boss like the twin sarkaz knights from Maria nearl where when one boss dies the other gains significant buffs to attack and speed or something like that, except each one is designed to be beaten by a 4 person team like as if it were a normal boss that way you would be incentivized to coordinate with the other player to kill each boss at the same time and get punished for trying to solo it.
Other than that I think another thing that would be really cool to implement is mounts/pets for multiple reasons and with multiple uses, for example it would be cool to have to tame a burdenbeast as a mount and then have a system where they could also be used in battle by leveling them up, this is obviously could be too comfy so I think adding restrictions like having permadeath for mounts is fine as long as you can tame new ones, but I also saw a lot of people that wanted cars or bikes instead for mounts and I think having both but making their battle uses/restrictions different could be cool like if the car gets destroyed it blows up and deals damage to you but is comparatively easy to rebuild than taming an animal mount, I also think the animal mount could lead to a separate mechanic that would be cool that’s in RA and some of IS which is “allied enemies” so having enemies that you can recruit as temporary party members like the Pokémon system in RA, this could be really cool if they were to have some side missions specifically to tame strong enemies like a Pompeii type of boss that would have a leveling system but would also have permadeath and for strong enemies like that you could also restrict it by only allowing you to tame one and having like a week cooldown to retame it if it dies, I think this addition would add a lot of fun to the game even if these extra allies are only allowed in the overworld and restricted from using for certain bosses
I also wonder if they will give us elemental/status turrets (like graviton tower that knocks up enemies in the area every few seconds).
Imagine having so bad of a luck, you don't have a character of an element you need this other character to use follow up skill on, you can still utilize those turrets to fill in the gap your accounts are lacking on.
Or maybe straight up make a team comp that fully abuse these turrets, that doesn't have elemental/status ailment that affects each other... just a thought :'v
*edit : inb4 a frost turret that requires both electrical pylons and a water pump source to activate, or flame turret that requires Oil/maybe straight up Lava :'v
As a base lover myself i do have some opinions about the replayablity of the system that you mentioned, i dont think that having your mining rig be destroyed and having to constantly rebuild it is a good thing since it would be more of a chore to do than playable content (just like how the base system in AK is hated by a lot of players), though i like the idea of having to build your defenses to defend your base from hoards, but those can easily be "finished" too, so im thinking of a seasonal system like in CC where each season/patch of the game will have a different kind of hoards and types of enemies thatll invade your base, and those enemies have different gimmicks or resistances every season that different towers can fulfill, so you will have to change your defenses layout, types of turrets and defenses like barricade to fight them more effectively.
Also on the dungeon system i love it but having multiple players will remove the QTE system which could be a major part of a character's kit, that applies for having multiple skills since they would be balanced around being used on their own (think of how some AK operators would benefit more from having 3 skills than others). Having 4 players with 4 characters wont have these issue but then itll be an issue with clutter and the AI, itll also makes the game heavier by having to render all 12 characters and accounting for their AI, ect. I do wish for a coop system of some sort so i can play with my friends tho, i wonder how will they address these problems.
I think a seasonal thing could solve the need to rebuild the regular factory as well without needing enemies to destroy things.
In the tech test there were certain resources that were given to faction vendors in order to get rewards. They could easily change the required materials each week or month so players are forced to tweak factory lines to stay efficient.
Or they could just make certain resources have a better exchange rate than others so that you aren't "losing" progress if you don't do anything but are still incentivized to make some changes.
inb4 queueing up dungeon as f2p as the pack mule, you set up the pylons and turrets while the whales team mates DPS-ing the enemies :'v
Yeah i don't think that concept will turn out as he expects