April 15th, 2025

Didn't do much. Just never made up my mind about what I wanted to do this evening so I just haven't really done much. I guess I haven't rambled about the Arknights event yet, and the EX stages for it opened today. It kinda stinks tbh. I can't comment on the story (for once I actually have a good reason to not read it, as it's effectively the epilogue to episode 14 and part 2 of the main theme as a whole), but the mechanics are just bluh. You have equipment on the field that both operators and enemies can pick up to get a buff, and little factories that can make the equipment. Little worker bots walk to the factories when you activate them, and also if the enemies drain their health they explode into some equipment (but recover after a bit). There's three main problems with this. The first is that the enemies are just better at taking advantage of the mechanic than you are; they get a barrier when they get equipment, but your ops don't (at the cost of the equipment breaking when the barrier is gone, but then they can just pick up another one), and also they can like. Move. To pick up equipment. The second is enemy variety. Most events have about 7 enemies, this one (excluding the boss and the friendly bots) only has 5, and only one of them is even remotely threatening. The rest are just a nuisance really. The third is that the boss is pathetic. He doesn't have global range despite being stationary, his mechanics can just be ignored even if you don't exploit that, and the stage-ending ability he has if you take too long can be fucking silenced! One of the bosses of all time.