#is3

[wolfgirlfloof]

RESERVE

OPERATOR

GAMING

[the-cornuthaum]

So we got the stats for IS3 today, with its runtime officially over.

0.16% of doctors collected all relics.

And we all fucking know why. Because of head-ass relics like Pathfinder Fin (you will literally never get this if you don't play with the Dice squad), Silver Forks and Cathedral Puzzle.

This got me to think long and hard about why I ended up *not* 100%ing all of IS3 - I never got the Pathfinder Fin even after I did All Endings All Squads before the content expansion, and I just couldn't make myself grind more dice squad (which I did not enjoy, as the dice mechanic largely sucked until the content expansion)

Goodbye IS3. You were in so many ways a huge improvement over IS2. No longer did we have to do 5-6 runs just to get to see the ending 3 or 4 encounter chain happen once. The maps were much faster and generally more challenging. You had a much more fleshed-out difficulty system. Better relics that led to more fun combos.

Goodbye IS3. You were a fucking disappointment full of glaringly half-baked implementations and poor design decisions. Whether it was the completely asinine unlock requirements for some of your relics, the completely binary light mechanic where you either had 100 light or no light as far as curses went, the poorly laid out difficulty curve (+1 hope cost, literally the single biggest swing, at level 4? rather than the nothingburgers that they put at 13 and 14?), two of the worst bosses in all of Arknights (I'm looking at you, The Last Knight and Izumik) and generally the lingering feeling that you could have been SO much better if only they'd actually put more thought into the supporting mechanics for each run.

I will miss you, but not nearly as much as I could have.

[oltammefru]

The IS exclusive Healer Touch is pretty neat in general and I like her design quite a bit:

But my favorite thing about her is this voiceline of her's which is just so very over-the-top edgy to me in a way I think is hilarious. (respect):

It's even funnier when you think about how the Rhodes Island Elite Operators are basically Rosmontis' family and the influence they've definitely had on her.

[squidflavor]

Highmore; daughter of the sea, yet willful rejecter of the ocean.

[laegjarnisbestgirl]

Imagine having to attack to kill the boss. This squad just quotes Low Tier God and the enemies listen

[dekapm0048]

Glorious Gloria

I draw this as my dedication for my IS#3 run with only Gloria as my fav characters in AK

[cerastes]

Thoughts about IS3

I love IS2, and I love IS3. I completed Surging Waves 15 on week 1, and am now trudging to do a 100% completion of IS3, as I did with IS2. I played IS2 a lot, and I will be playing IS3 a lot. With this in mind, I’ve had a lot of thoughts regarding IS3, by itself and as a successor to IS2. I will be sharing these thoughts.

The balancing on IS3 is done very well, because the Surging Waves is a good system. Some may know it as “Intensity” or “Heat”, but Surging Waves is a concept often used in modern Roguelikes to add different modifiers to the base systems and balance of a Roguelike to further increase replay value. The fundamental design of IS3 is easier than IS2, but with Waves, it becomes harder than IS2. This is a good thing: IS3 is more welcoming than IS2 to newcomers both to the game as a whole and to endgame content. You can tackle Waves 0 as a mid-range player, as long as you have basic understanding of building a team, without much difficulty. The clear rates of IS3, visible in the game itself, are pretty high already, and I see a lot of people say they feel IS3 is easier than IS2. I agree with the sentiment, the base balancing of IS3 is much less demanding than IS2, but as you ascend the waves, it becomes significantly harder than IS2 between the slowly ascending stat heft as well as the extra conditions.

Team building flexibility is far more permissible in IS3 than IS2. IS2 had this problem where a Berry pick (Honeyberry or Mulberry) as a Medic was pretty much always the correct choice due to the sheer amount of Nervous Impairment that the game dishes out, with almost every IS2 exclusive enemy and two out of the four bosses inflicting it in heavy quantities. Not only that, but the very nature of Nervous Impairment as a type of Elemental damage is particularly dangerous: Heavy burst damage plus several seconds of Stun compromise your defense and offense significantly! In IS3, on the other hand, there’s more varied types of Elemental Damage, with the main type being Corrosion: Indeed, plenty of enemies inflict Corrosion, but Corrosion as a type of Elemental damage allows for FAR more flexibility in team building: A Berry is suddenly not always the right choice, they remain VERY good choices, but not the Best choices necessarily when gauging where to put your Hope. Likewise, Crowd Control-capable Operators, irregular range Operators, and other such characters are all good choices in IS3 due to deliberate enemy design and tile placement that makes them great to have, as opposed to the fundamentally simplistic, rudimentary style of map design seen in IS2 that, by nature, benefited Marksman (AA) Snipers heavily.

Bosses have a unified design philosophy of “Alternate Bulk”. Instead of making stat sticks in order to deal with burst damage compositions and strategies, they instead give them a range of base stats not far removed from the IS2 final bosses, instead opting to give them different ways to mitigate damage that can be circumvented by the player one way or another in order to gain an advantage: Highmore has high HP but low DEF, however, she also significantly cripples the ASPD of nearby units (-60 phase 1, -80 phase 2) and has multi-target with Corrosion damage in order to prevent just easily being able to absorb her hits with one superbuffed tank (3 targets phase 1, 5 targets phase 2). The Last Knight has a whooping 4000 Defense that can be reduced to a paltry 800 with a special item, much like how you could remove the Big Sad Lock’s regen with an item and he Freezes units that damage him twice in the space of 2 seconds (4 seconds under 25% HP), however, he moves very slowly, has to work through a bunch of Rubble, moves ONLY in a straight line, and is susceptible to every status effect in the game except Silence. Skadi seems straightforward at first, but she necessitates you to place your units in specific tiles to slow down her SP charge, and if it fills, she transforms into Ishar’mla, and He must be defeated to turn Him back, all the while gaining access to a fast triple target 4-tile range True Damage autoattack. This all means that bosses come with their own counters and mechanics to deal with, but not invalidate, burst damage: Burst damage compositions are still very strong! In fact, if you get lucky with items, you can really just burst right through their mechanics all unga bunga style, but even if you don’t win the item lottery, a good burst composition will still pay great dividends, it’s just, the game wants you to sub-build something else alongside your burst composition! It can be bulk, it can be crowd control, it can be global control, it can be sustained damage, anything! This not only incentivizes varied builds, it rewards playing the game in your own desired way instead of always rewarding burst, all without actually weakening or invalidating burst. Coming from a mobile game, this is fantastic game design not usually seen in that sector of the industry, with mobile games usually taking a heavy-handed “completely negate a style of play” approach to ‘balancing’ whether long-term or for gimmicks.

It’s all actually fresh new maps. I’m astounded, because I thought IS3 was going to be Mostly IS2 But With A Couple New Maps And A Creepy And Wet Coat Of Paint, the way IS2 was IS1 But With A Couple New Maps And A Creepy And French Coat Of Paint. Nope, they legit just made a whole slew of new maps. I wouldn’t have minded IS2 2 but I am very very happy that IS3 is its own thing!

The Squads are still kind of lopsided. Not all Squads are made equal, and I don’t think they were meant to be, but I also don’t think they were meant to be this unequal. In IS2, Resource Squad, Leader Squad, and Class-specific Squads blew the other Squads out of the water pretty badly. In IS3, the three new Squads are pretty damn good, and I think it has to do with the fact that you can upgrade them with the all-new talent tree whereas... You Can’t Do That with the other Squads. This is a very weird decision, because the three new Squads are very very strong if played with their strengths in mind, further incentivized by the new systems like Surging Waves, Dice, Light, Caches, and Wish Fulfillment. For instance, one of the few decisions I dislike about Surging Waves is the fact that Waves 4 increases Hope cost of everything 3 Stars and above by 1... This is huge! That single increase in price makes 3 Stars that aren’t Reserves cost 1 Hope! It’s a pretty massive game-changer in terms of building and early run economy! I would’ve made that something like Waves 7 or 8 personally, but it’s very early at Waves 4. However, People-Oriented Squad complete gets rid of it, while still offering its discounted Promotion costs. I’ll be honest, I don’t play Waves 4 and above if it isn’t People-Oriented as of the making of this post, because being able to Not deal with that is simply too strong. And if I wasn’t doing that, I’d definitely grab either of the two new Squads to try and make up for it in other areas, and if not those, the Class-specific Squads, again, for Hope efficiency. I wish they would make the other Squads a bit more appealing or upgradable. They aren’t unplayable by any means, but I think there’s a clear disparity in potency. *I understand part of this is also because my strategy is based on Hope-efficiency, but putting that aside, I do believe there’s a disparity in potency, even with my possible bias.

These are my main thoughts regarding IS3. I’ve been enjoying the game mode a lot and I can’t wait to experiment more with it.

[tsukishiroism]

the last tidewatcher

[therwriter]

I love IS3 ❤️

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

"Ahhh, so that's what 7 tiles of range looks like" *nodding sagely*

*goes to throw my computer out a window as I get Emergency Op Territorial Tendies again*

[waitingongravity]

While I'm a little sad that my usual IS3 starting team (Texas, Jaye, and Bloopy. Seriously they've never let me down) is not applicable in IS4, I really appreciate how Integrated Strategies makes you consider operators that you may have replaced over time or simply looked over. Cantabile has been very fun to use, for instance.

That being said, I'm still just winging it I have no idea what a good starting team looks like for Sami.

[wolfgirlfloof]

me in my impenetrable fortress guarded by legions of loyal bunnygirls and puppyboys

[meeblo]

Why do people hate IS3 compared to IS2?

I've seen a decent amount of people who dislike IS3 and prefer IS2, or even find IS3 to be a regression or a push away from what made IS2 good. This isn't me trying to refute those claims necessarily, just understand them

Here's two of the most common things I seem to see people say, and why I don't really understand them:

IS3 has more RNG run-killing bullshit This complaint probably comes from things like rejections and a few bad emergency ops (territorial tendencies, water and fire union, etc). While those things can be a pain, I personally find IS3 to have far less RNG compared to IS2. Wish Fulfilled nodes offering a choice of collectible rather than just a random one is far better for shaping the kind of synergies you want to get rolling, and the odds of losing out on a good collectible you really want are slim as you can reroll a 1. Fortuitous Opportunities likewise give you a chance to turn otherwise worthless collectibles into something that contributes to your overall strategy. Whereas in IS2 targeting an ending like Mouthpiece or Playwright is a hellish RNG farm to get maybe 10% of runs through the required random encounters to trigger it, in IS3 a solid majority of my runs see the encounter necessary for Last Knight, Ishar'mla, or both. Additional shop options such as rerolling or fighting Cannot also help to let you see more collectible choices throughout the run and give you more agency in shaping your synergies. Overall, I find that IS3's tough run ending stages are more than balanced out by the far greater agency IS3 gives you compared to IS2 in developing your collectible synergies. (and besides, those tough run ender stages aren't so bad when you get a feel for them. Unless you're going for Ishar'mla, rejections are also largely a nonissue so long as you avoid leaks or only burn objective shield. Even on high waves where you start at 70 light, I rarely end up getting a run killed by a rejection. If it's someone important hit, I reroll it, or utilize the emergency dispatch node. There's other nodes as well that can cure rejections. Always grab random reserve ops and never skip recruitments, they'll soak up rejections. Most rejections are barely an issue anyway, it's just the stat halving one that sucks).

IS3 is too hard, minimizing the freedom IS2 had to let you use non-meta characters Frankly I don't really understand this one. IS2 is far more strict with stages that require certain operators. Wandering medics are far more important to IS2 than IS3, as Nervous Impairment is generally a much more strategy-disrupting status effect than Corrosion. Stages like Justice are functionally an instant run ender without investing in a fast-starting DP generating strategy (cough, flagpipe). Drone heavy stages are more common in earlier floors, and IS2 has poison mist stages where IS3 doesn't have any, both serving as squad checks more than skill checks in the majority of circumstances. Difficulty wise, yes, IS3 does generally have harder enemies. But the mere presence of enemies with more stats, more mechanics, or both, does not require you to break out the meta operators. Texas alter is great for stunning drifting sea skimmers, but you know who else is? May, a 4 star. Kroos alter, given out for free. Regular Texas, free from pinboard missions. Aak with his talent. Ambriel, Beeswax, Click, Cliffheart who came free with your fucking xbox, Flametail, Mostima, Skyfire. The list goes on. Can't keep up with a retching broodmother killing your melee units and wasting your block? Have them attack a defensive recovery operator, they charge defensive skills real fast. Take them out with ranged units before you place melee units down, works great for maps like Omen. And as mentioned above, it's way easier to reliably get a good collectible setup without rng farming in IS3 than it is in IS2 due to having more agency in what collectibles you get.

Other Those are the main arguments I remember seeing, but I'm sure to have missed or forgotten others. Also, what perspective are people approaching this from relative to the rest of the game? Are the people complaining about Sanguinarch's Legacy in the same breath as Territorial Tendencies just people who haven't gotten to ep10 yet?

Feel free to correct me, clarify, or dispute anything said here.

[oltammefru]

I'll be honest when I saw your post yesterday about differences comparing is3 and 4 and you brought up rejections I kinda wondered "what is she talking about" but apparently you're just fucking built different huh. Relics-less N15. . . . .

The thing about rejections is like. You have to fail a lot of consecutive rolls for them to like really matter. If you're taking every voucher you get offered (you should be, if only because it pads out your chances of getting rejections on some random reserve operator) you're generally at like 7 operators at the end of f1, 11 at the end of f2.

To roll a rejection that's actually significantly negatively impactful you need to:

Roll the wrong rejection

Roll low on your dice

Roll low on your dice again, one time (because you have a reroll)

Have the rejection land on an actually relevant operator and not just one of the reserve operators you have in the back

Not have a good way to get rid of it (which to be fair are somewhat rare, but they do exist and are perfectly useable)

A somewhat smallish number of rejections skip a few of the steps, but they still have to fail several "in your favor" rolls for it to matter.

And then if you're playing at a difficulty where you start at 100 Light, you have to leak to be able to get rejections in the first place.

Furthermore, there's a surprising number of situations where rejections are actually beneficial. Neurogeneration is incredibly easy to get some benefit out of: any throwaway melee unit that gets neurodegeneration is now suddenly a really good block-stalling-without-dealing-damage tool (which sounds like it might be just some irrelevant highly niche tech but it is something is genuinely really useful to have in IS3, specifically in the stages Craft Brewer Killer, Nethersea Brand Land, 'Joy' From A Box, and Ubi Bona). When it lands on a good unit, metastatic is terrible like 75% of the time but like 20% of the time it doesn't matter or might even improve the unit somewhat (Weedy, Texas2, a good portion of vanguards) and 5% it turns an ok unit into a phenomenally good one. (Metatstatic Yato1 solo stalls Highmore on D15 Relicless! I've done it before!)

ADHD and bleed are harder to find good upsides for (although they do exist), they also tend to be the rejections that are the easiest to play around or ignore or brute force through.

[squidflavor]

mizuki LOVE

[laegjarnisbestgirl]

The deep dives are fun