#AK rants

[artofkhaos404]

We are imperfect beings and God is just.

Therefore, He does not expect perfection out of us: only remorse for our sin and the willingness to get back up when we fail.

Repent and try again.

Remember not to compare your spiritual journey to those around you, either. Like in life, we all mature at different rates and none of us are better than the other.

Whether your sin of habit is as complex an issue as sexual immorality or as difficult to break as habitual lying... all sin is the same in the eyes of God. We each have our own struggle. What is thoughtless for you is a war for me. I may never understand why your battle is your own- hell, you may not comprehend it yourself! But what's amazing is God intimately knows each and every struggle you have and will ever face. Jesus is the gateway to eternal, pure empathy for the corrupted human heart.

He knows it's difficult for you...

He also knows you're trying.

Repent.

Try again.

[approximateknowledge]

just finished witches abroad (discworld)...

that wolf. what the fuck terry?! (positive)

discworld magic is so messed up; it's always *alive*, wether inside your mind as a cognitoparasite ("spells") or externally as a metanarrative "predator" ("stories")

i cannot recommend discworld enough it's insane

[rimeiii]

I'm just gonna go ahead and say it despite my fear of getring backlash:

I am not a fan with how WHB handles the usage of Solomon's Tears.

(Rant post, feel free to skip over, rest under the cut. I just needed to get this out of my chest.)

Thank god they've made a statement about the availability of Tears, but in my opinion, their way of handling this is the equivalent of slapping a bandaid on a gaping wound - it fails to address the root of the issue that's making Tears such a necessary material in the first place, it being several aspects of the game design.

There have been several design choices that confuse me when it comes to WHB, which I would chalk up to WHB being PB's very first game that purely isn't otome. But these design choices often involve game balancing issues, which for me personally directly impacts my enjoyment of the game. And it is these design choices that immediately impact the need for Tears, and why the initial update changing the availability of these Tears sparked so much controversy.

But before that, I have some menial complaints that can be chalked up to me being spoiled by other games. First of all, the large amounts of filler stages, while normal for a gacha, still doesn't make it a fun experience to play through - especially when there are barely any changes to the stage layouts. The only reason why Plants vs Zombies were able to do this is because of the way their stages are set up:

Stages 1, 3, 6, and 8 introduce a new mechanic/zombie

Stages 2, 4, 7, and 9 are harder stages that test what you knew from the previous stage

Stage 5 is a minigame stage

Stage 10 is a conveyor belt boss stage

Every stage gives you a new plant, oftentimes one that is relevant to the new mechanic/zombie at play/about to be introduced (for example, Puff Shrooms upon ending 1-10, a 0 Sun plant with shorter range that helps in earlygame because the next world is nighttime, which means no Sun from the sky)

As for the other TD games in the market? Arknights has different maps for each story stage. So does Path to Nowhere, from what I recall. If there are filler stages, they're very few and far in between. It's why Granblue Fantasy changed their story chapters to no longer have a solo battle at each segment - it hinders the storytelling.

One of the most baffling things in my opinion is the fact that the game has the same upgrade requirements for all units regardless of rarity. This is such a weird design choice for me because in most games, lower rarities are cheaper when it comes to upgrade costs.

For comparison's sake, some screenshots I took for promoting S and A+ ranks.

Belial, an S-rank Marksman, requires 22k Gold, 22k Books, 10 Tears, and 22 Fire Jellybeans.

It's the same for the A+ Healer Morax, save for the elemental jelly beans which is changed to his element, Light. And this is the same amount needed for upgrading L characters as well.

This design choice isn't particularly good, in my opinion. It bottlenecks players and puts them in a mindset position of "upgrading anything apart from Ls and some choice S/A+ ranks is a resource sink". It makes people think that building anything except the strongest of units isn't worth it, which in turn renders the existence of lower rarity/weaker units moot, especially considering the scarcity of the Tears in the first place. Because why would you raise them if you're going to gain more of an advantage from building these high-rarity units? You're going to get a more immediate and significant power boost by upgrading Ls in the first place.

This is even more pronounced in WHB specifically because in most gachas, lower rarity units tend to require less to upgrade. Take a look at the E2 requirements of three Tactician Vanguards in Arknights, in which Elite upgrades are the closest approximation to promotion in WHB.

Beanstalk is the lowest rarity of the archetype at 4*, and her E2 material requirements consist of two types of tier 3 materials (Coagulating Gel and Manganese Ore, both with blue borders), Vanguard Chip Packs, and LMD.

Then you have the 5* Blacknight, whose material requirements now include a tier 4 material (Incandescent Alloy Block, with a pink border) in addition to a tier 3 material (Loxic Kohl), Vanguard Dualchips (crafted from Vanguard Chip Packs and Chip Catalysts, both of which are farmable regardless), and more LMD.

And finally, the 6* Vigil, whose material requirements are now a tier 5 material (Crystalline Electronic Unit, with a yellow border) and a tier 4 material (Optimized Device), more Vanguard Dualchips (4 to Blacknight's 3), and even more LMD.

Yet in other games, I don't mind raising lower rarity units - for several reasons, depending on the game. In Granblue Fantasy (despite my complaints about how quickly the meta evolves and how lim-centric it is), SR units serve as the stopgap for party comps until you can fill out your roster with SSR characters, and some of these SR characters still see use like Lyria. In other games like Fire Emblem Heroes, Memento Mori, and Princess Connect: ReDive, all units gain the potential to hit the highest rarity - I have a Yukari (originally a 1* unit) ready to hit 6* in PriConne, while I have a +9 merged 5* Fallen Takumi (farmable unit at 3*/4* base) in FEH. Arknights' case is more nuanced, where it's partly the same case as GBF, but also the fact that lower rarity units can fit into niches that high rarity units don't fill.

With these other games, I never feel like raising a lower rarity unit is a waste of resources. The costs of uncapping characters in general is negligible in GBF, except for the Eternals and the Evokers - those of which are reasonably time-gated because of their sheer meta impact and how strong they are compared to all other characters. Except for particularly egregious cases like Tsukinogi, every single Arknights Operator has their uses, and they often see use in Integrated Strategies.

And let's not get into the debacle that are skill levels, because of course you need more materials for that. I don't mind having high costs for optimizing skills - Masteries in Arknights works like that, after all. Pictured below is the cost of M3-ing Bagpipe's third skill.

That's right - a tier 5 (Bipolar Nanoflake) and tier 4 (Oriron Block) material. And luckily, you can farm for all of these skill upgrade materials outside of events, crafting the higher tiers as necessary. There is less opportunity cost for me to E2 my 4* and 5* units because I can just farm the materials again anyways - and even then I some Masteries on these units are amazing. S1M3 Myrtle (4*) is probably the best DP generator in the game, while S2M3 Lappland (5*) also helps with her skill uptime.

Then you go back to WHB's skill upgrades, which mind you is also the same cost between rarities, and guess what else you need?

Yep. Tears. A ludicrous amount of it, considering its availability. And let's not even get into the Tears required for the Unholy Board, if that matters to you (and it does, because it also gives buffs for your L units).

This skews the game balance towards the L units even more. Ideally you'd be raising skill levels once your units reach high levels, because everything is percentage based and the lower your base stats, the lower effect these skill levels have on your skills. But that just means you'll still need Tears because, well, you still need to promote. And remember the opportunity cost again, because all rarities have the same skill upgrade cost, further incentivizing you building Ls and ignoring everything else.

It's ridiculous.

And the added nail in the coffin: the reduced rewards that basically halved the amount of Tears you get.

I seriously, genuinely hope they take the availability of Solomon's Tears as well as game balancing into consideration when performing the next balance patch. Because otherwise, I can't see this game being an enjoyable experience for me moving forward.

Unless, this was the intended way the game was designed, in which I just...I have no more words to say.

[bergerhandcuffs]

It might be a crazy idea ,but I want to read and rate all arknights event stories ,because I've been curious about the lore ,that and I find some stories contradictory to the broad knowledge the fanbase have ,and the some that say that the events writing differ in quality

[onewingedangels]

I think ff/7 reb/irth devs need to stop talking about the game and let just wait for it to actually come out in the end of the next month

[glitter-alienz]

am i going to repurpose an old vent fic and turn into its own thing and post it? mayyybeeee

[dlartistanon]

hi there, ive always liked your art and rambles ever since your touhou days, and now im also enjoying your arknights stuff!

anyway, id say hoshi's height is about as true as mudrock's combat experience (and also height. i refuse to view her as shorter than joyce)

Oh wow, you've been around for literal years then. Almost everyone I know has a Touhou phase.

Don't even get me started on how lazy and a copout Mudrock's unmasked appearance is. People keep telling me stuff like "Asians are statistically short, Hoshiguma is tall by their standards" as if I don't know that. But it's still ridiculous to expect me to believe a woman who barely scrapes past 6 feet has trouble getting through doors, unless you want to seriously tell me Rhodes Island is built for actual midgets. And somehow none of the men supposedly taller than her experience this issue?

And Mudrock filling up her suit with dirt to look big doesn't erase the fact that her looking conventionally waifish for the purpose of mass appeal is just lame? "Ooh she stuffs her clothes full of mud, isn't she quirky?" yeah well she can be quirky AND be built like a 7-foot-tall brickhouse? Do these people not realize that the vast majority of fictional women who are "strong" but not allowed to Look Strong plague media? How their strength gets handwaved through in-universe magic or whatever? What's so bad about wishing that a girl actually looks physically imposing for once?

[krenia]

I'm very normal about this lizard I totally didn't make him a ref because colorpicking from official art is hell

[elrondsscribe]

Also — the Vampire Chronicles absolutely have a grey morality and nobody’s an uncomplicated hero and a lot of characters (including characters I love and sympathize with) do terrible, terrible shit.

But …

I know the good tumblr take is “stan Ak!sha” but I can’t really get behind it.

Like there’s a lot you can say about, for example, Marius the imperial Roman, but he didn’t personally go colonize the shit out of Bianca or Andrei’s people, attempt to disrespectfully co-opt their long-held spiritual powers for his own gain, and then blame them when the consequences hit.

Enkil and Ak!sha had ample warning about the temperaments of the spirits that Mekare and Maharet were in communication with, and chose to mishear that information because it didn’t suit their existing beliefs and entitled colonial agenda. On multiple occasions they offended the twins’ heritage and connection to the spirit world, and at every turn blamed and punished the twins when shit went bad.

Sorry to the Ak!sha stans but I’m way too attached to Maharet to let go of that shit.

As for “kill all men” …

Look, I don’t take misandry all that seriously as an irl systemic problem, ok? Let’s get that out of the way. But I absolutely do believe that, insofar as misandry is a problem, it ultimately loops right back around to misogyny. And Ak!sha’s actually a pretty good example of how that works.

When you say “kill all men” as a full and final solution to the problem of violent systemic misogyny, what that actually means in practice is making enemies of women who don’t immediately fall in line. Gabrielle doesn’t fall in line, and Akasha can’t deal with that from her.

When you say that men are inherently, ontologically evil and near-annihilation is the solution, doesn’t that buy into the essentialist notion that Man and Woman are two separate types of human being? You know, the same logic that misogynists and transphobes buy?

And doesn’t it ultimately loop back around to letting men off the hook for their actions and blaming women anyway? After all, if men are ontologically evil, you can hardly expect them to regulate their violent entitlement! No, it’s on women to regulate men’s behavior with Murder. Again with the logic of misogyny — never hold men to account for their choices!

Also, Ak!sha acts like cutting men’s numbers by 99% will automatically empower women, and I’m over here like,, maybe you did that, and maybe you just gave multiple millions of men still alive immeasurable bargaining power. Cause if you just cut their numbers and you don’t address the actual problem — you know, the fucking entitlement men have and the social programming urging women to center men — then that means women’s lives will still be shaped by the whims of men, only now with the added baggage of every one of those men being necessary for the survival of humanity.

Replacing the global cult of Centering Men with the cult of Worship Me As Deity doesn’t count as liberation, Ak!sha. Sorry.

[crocs-cringe-city]

oh my god i just woke up can everything CALM DOWN

[artofkhaos404]

In life, I believe we are all just addicts struggling with our drug of choice.

For some, it may be actual drugs. Meth, cocaine, heroine, marijuana... whatever suits them. For others it is alcohol or cigarettes or other tobacco products.

It may be pornography. Or self harm.

I have wrestled with my drug of choice for about four years. Indulging daily or weekly. I'm accustomed to counting wins by the day.

...

Tomorrow, I'm going out with some friends to celebrate two months clean. Eventually I may relapse back into my old habits, but that's not the point. The point is proving to myself that I am able. Recovery is possible.

I WILL NOT BE A SLAVE TO MY DRUG.

And I'll encourage you to adopt the same mantra. These addictions and this society that fuels them? It can't hold us. We are free.

[approximateknowledge]

i realised something while thinking about how the only other people besides eachother asuna and kirito ever really loved *like that*; which is to say, yuuki and eugeo respectively, both just died in completely unrelated ways

but then it hit me when thinking about the exact timeline, and there not being that much irl time between the 2 all things considered

eugeo and yuuki literally never existed simultaneously

like, think about it, considering little kirito in her second childhood in the underworld was born simultaneously with alice and eugeo, that inherently means that before kaz got hooked into the soul translator the first time (or technically second after testing), they just *didn't exist yet*

like, the way we see them as 11 year olds at the start of alicization, they're both litterally just 3 days old in irl time

before that they were just *nonexistent*

what the hell?!

[oncealoseralwaysaloser]

Looking through my old Spotify wrapped and actively burning my eyes

I still don't know what the fuck Otacore is.

Mental illness. What's worse is that it's definitely going to being even more this year.

.......oh god.

Please help what it is this. Please, I dont even listen to any of these anymore!!

this is the most embarrassing thing I've ever seen. (Except for the front bottoms of course, they're 100000% gonna be number 1 this year) also I hate McCafferty and I do not in ANY WAY support nick he is a disgusting human being.

Anyways the mentail illinois has just gotten worse but with better music taste I can't wait to see this year's wrapped!!

[mcbride]

imagine dissing showrunner Angela Kang, a female writer of color in a genre totally dominated by men, who breathed new life into a dying franchise and brought #caryl back from the ashes, and forgetting Scott Gimple exists!! the same white dude responsible for the worst seasons of the show ever, who kept dangling that carrot, leaving crumbs to keep us salivating, and always stopped short of ever actually delivering anything. 

i may dislike and disagree with some directions AK choose to take, but i’ll never ever forget those Gimple seasons i’d rather poke my eyes out than watch that shitshow. 

[celia-witch]

Star Rail really seems like a "I will coincidentally run into yuri" game to me, but then I'm really trying to avoid most gacha at this point.

[doodle17]

Yellow blue midnight grey/gray (tbh I never remember which version of that colour is the right spelling)

I never know either tbh

Also thank you! 😊