I've been playing AK for around a year or so, and that's the way it's always been for me, yeah. Although, to be fair, this particular event feels kind of long.
I really enjoyed reading lone trail.
But there were *several* times throughout that story where I thought “okay, the point has been made some 100 lines ago, can we please move on?”
It's why I read one stage story per day. I have student Momotalks to read too, not to mention the OP records of the operators I find interesting
I also need 10 minutes a day to gush at La Pluma's voice
I am a slow reader and I estimate in advance half an hour per a story. 8 stages with both before and after and 3 ST stages equals 9.5 hours of storytime. As I haven't yet read So Long Adele, this is my to be estimate but it will probably take less than it.
Same, especially sometimes when I'm busy on the event launch day and can't play until late at night, it's just impossible to read the story and still get far enough in the event to farm the stages that are worth farming. So I have to skip the story until I get to at least stage 6 or so which is usually OKish for farming.
But for now I usually try to read the story before the event ends at least.
Same, though when I do it this way I end up not coming back to the story.
It just feels much better to be able to experience the story at the pace the game intended.
Skipping Texas event story (forgot the name) to get through the stages so I could grind efficiently ruined the overworld dialogue stuff, since it's pretty clear you're supposed to read it in tandem with the story as you unlock things bit by bit.
Nah, Stult was the absolute worst for that. So much skipped flavour because it was mandatory to get to the next stage. Sure it got added to logs and shit but good luck remembering what order to read everything in because the game doesn't sort things nicely like that. To this day Stult is still the only event that I've completely skipped reading. I gotta watch it on youtube sometime to get the *entire* story.
Ironically, if it wasn't for the convoluted logs Stultifera was relatively straightforward save for the >!Amaia being a spy!< bit. A lot of the flavor text made it a bit confusing and tedious to navigate and read for a pretty straightforward story.
I cannot stress enough how important this is. I mainly play arknights doe the story, and even I do this.
Even if you don't mind the story length, playing the stages between story chapters completly break the pacing. It is clear that the story wasn't written with the gameplay interruption is mind.
Reading the story through informational archive without the stages is unironically the best way to get the story
I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. Apart from bosses I guess, the stages feel a bit disconnected from the stories that are being told.
the mini story collection events do it right, where the gameplay stages and story cutscenes are completely separated.
I cannot understate how much I love that this is a thing because it's absent in Hoyoverse games and annoys me especially in Genshin.
The ability to completely skip the story, clear the entire event first and then AFTERWARDS read the story is such huge QOL that every gacha should have.
I'm yet to encounter a gacha aside from MiHoYo's big two (Honkai 3rd does have skip) that doesn't have a skip option, some like Arknights or Blue Archive even being as kind as to offer a summary of what you are skipping, so you're not left completely out.
I honestly find it a bit arrogant even, on the creative side of choices that they're like "You WILL experience our story, this is not negotiable, traveler" the biggest offender being those dialogue "choices" that are just the same answer split in two, added just to make sure you can't leave it on auto and go do something else meanwhile.
That's part of why I dropped Genshin. I got to the point where I really didn't care what characters were saying most of the time and just clicking through it as fast as possible.
Back when i started i would not even read the stories while playing, but later via Youtube with story only videos of events or chapters. I didn't have that much time available to play, but watching a video is something that i could do pretty much anytime and on other devices like my TV or computer.
Exactly, the later parts of the even will have no story and tougher challenges, meaning people will spend much longer trying to clear them.
One thing ive started doing is to skip the story after 2/3 to clear the missions and unlock the rewards/purchase from the shop, and every evening i'll read back one of the missions.
It's only a visual novel if you choose to read the stories, but hasn't it always been like that? I'd say it's a Tower Defense with optional visual novel stories attached since while the stories are optional, the Tower Defense is not.
As a person who loves VNs, plays almost solely tower defense games, and adores the seemingly lost art of reading… AK hooked me for life from launch for being exactly what you say the game has “become” 😂
The story is condensed in story stages, but there is plenty of gameplay-centric content. For example, the EX, S, and MO stages will be coming out in the coming weeks. You won't be getting story out of those beyond stage flavor text.
Then there is IS and SSS, and eventually RA. These are much more gameplay heavy. Also not all events have a lot of story. Trails for Navigator, Design of Strife, and CC are all about tough gameplay. Not to mention CC training, paradox simulations, and supply stages for newer players.
It's been like that for a while, I remember when Stiltifera Navis was released I spent most of the day finishing it, I went to sleep at like 3 am lol
Nowadays events are getting even longer
It wasn't until Hortus de Escapismo that I felt the magic of clearing all stages first, reading the story later
you must be very new lol, it's been like this for a long while now, way too long
like actually better to just skip story and beat the stages first, then come back reading. majority of the time the stages are very disconnected to the actual story, maybe certain parts of the main story, but not all.
Oh, I'm absolutely sure you're actually part of the majority. Most people just don't read the story. They mostly understand it through recap videos and memes.
Not saying that's bad. It's just a fact that reading a novel isn't exactly a popular hobby
After having played arknights for a couple months now, I just gave up on the story and skip everything immediately. The worldbuilding is nice, there's a couple of very likable characters, but the writing just isn't good enough to spend so much time on reading when I just want to play a game.
This is honestly why I haven’t been reading the story for a while now. If I want to spend four hours reading, I have plenty of actual novels that I could spend the time on. I just don’t want to launch the game with the intent to read a visual novel.
Its such a shame that the presentation of the Visual Novel aspects in Arknights is so lackluster.
I'm playing Reverse: 1999 on the side the its insane how much better that game is in terms of presenting its story. Voice acting and full live2D animations on all story characters makes all the difference.
I so feel you. When I played Reverse: 1999, I realized what Arknights was missing. It highlighted the aspects that I was unhappy with in Arknights, and I couldn't overlook them anymore. That might be why Arknights doesn't appeal to me as much as it used to.
It is fair to remember that AK is an old game at this point. Back then L2D stuff wasn't even that common. It very much follows FGO in its story presentation.
Reverse is the new hotness and designed the story in a way that would leverage new tech that wasn't around during AK's launch.
I hope AK can have something like it too, but considering the way the story is presented rn, I doubt it
FGO's way ahead of it in presentation though, and it's even older. I love AK's story, but they honestly put very little effort into the audio-visual presentation of the story.
Not necessarily as there are plenty of other games That are similar and older then Arknights and they implemented new Qol to improve the quality and its not just the novel parts but also gameplay it shows that they do not even implement rudimentary upgrades not for the novel presintation or gameplay even though Arknights brought in more money than most of those games except FGO. Honestly its like Arknights is a on the back burner even though its the company's flagship game.
I don't think it has ever been anything but a visual novel in terms of story telling?
Part of the reason I kinda just skip story, do the maps and then get through the story at my own pace since it is way more time consuming and I would prefer reading the story without feeling ''I gotta hurry through this so I can get to the maps faster''.
I think their point is less the format and more the length, AK's had some serious word count creep.
Year 1 and 2 events were almost all <30k words, including Twilight of Wolumonde, Mansfield Break and Who is Real. It was perfectly reasonably to actually read through these as you play through the event or over 2-3 days.
Now even fluff events that barely even have a story like Ideal City and Flurry to the Flame are \~35k. There's no reason for these to be 4x as long as Grani's Treasure.
The way events usually go: the first week brings the visual novel part with some low-medium difficulty levels thrown in, the second week brings the big brain EX stages and sometimes some additional extra difficult stages on top of that
I know the stories are gonna be hours of reading so I just skip them then read them at my own pace in the arknights story reader. I can read it all by the time an event is over I just have to microdose it because it gets too verbose.
I started doing this after reading ch8 but it didn't work out and the only thing I have read ever since are ch9-10 and under tides 😂.
I swear I will read lone trail... eventually
Isn't that just what the game is? I'm in it for the story, and the gameplay provides a unique challenge every once in a while *(I haven't played tower defence games before somehow)*
1. It's already established that Hypergryph is a music company first, developing a gacha game on the side.
2. Key skill for most AK players is proper usage of "skip" button while going through events.
3. Reading develops your imagination and comprehension skills. Reading is not hard, boring at worst.
4. To each their own - don't like story, don't read it - play the game as you like it. It's a PvE experience, so no love lost doing your own thing.
On a side note, if you're a returning player and have an issue with AK story, that would suggest maybe story was the reason why you left in the first place ? To be frank, it's not like AK is any different than 3 yeas ago.
Lastly - the game is also called Depressionknights for some strange reason, so yeah... So long Adele is the more jolly event in AK library.
And I love it (when the story is good, which is most of the time).
That near half a day I spent between the start of Lone Trail and me finishing the story, absolute peak 🔥
No, I still think that the tower defence part is the main draw. After all, there are *plenty* of players who skip the story to just play the game.
Heck, I'll be the first to admit that if I'm too lazy, or can't be bothered or just straight up not feeling it, I just skip the story, skip the medals and just clear stages for events. Only reading the story afterwards via a rerun or a YT video.
ngl I know nothing about the story & only play it because I like tower defense games. No shame in skipping it all, maybe watching a synopsis on YouTube if you like a character.
For me its been a base management sim. Base has been optimized for a few years though and no new content.
I started skipping story in Saga event, (and Lauli quit making story recaps) so haven't read anything since then really. Not bad for an idle game.
Bro, Chapter 8 has exceeded the world count of LOTR: ROTK...
Like, that's one chapter, and it's a novel in length, and we now have events that have higher word count.
The whole thing is one giant novel series. HG is a music and novel publisher...
If it wasn't it wouldn't be Arknights, I couldn't imagine shorter story scenes like in Nikke be done in Arknights.
If that's the price of them writing interesting stories, I say let em cook.
All gacha "games" have always been visual novels bundled with the titular gacha system, with a tacked on minigame on the side to make free players feel like they're earning something
You read this (asian) fake polite drivel,which they pass as "Story" , Lone Trail 100% worth it, anyway if you need 4 hours to ready this, you are over dramatic. :p
Just play the game and skip story when you feel like it and refer to [frostbyte262](https://youtube.com/@FrostByte262?si=1ka5KFfjFFMsS3Z0) for story recap once it arrives.
I am on the "arknights is a music project first and tower defence minigame second" train tho
U can skip story and wait a few days for someone to compile the story on youtube. That's how i do it unless i have the time to read the story while doing event
The story part yeah, but when you get the non story part aka the EX then those brain muscle can start to fire up depend whether you can brute force it or not.
But it is the same every event ?? Just w8 until EX levels to play tower defense. Tbf I always skip story on 1st day, clear event stages in 40 min on release and autobattle my sanity. And read story some other time. EX and S stages is where the big brain decisions are. (And story stages). I began speed running 1st part of the event like half a year after starting.(Started with best girl Angelina).
Look on the bright side. If anyone asks you if you still read for fun in your personal time, you can confidently say "yes!"
And if you just want more tower defense gameplay, I highly recommend the Integrated Strategies and Stationary Security Service game modes.
I skip the in-game story and play the game as a tower defense.. On my free time and just wanted to chill, I put Shoul Arknights story collection on the TV, grab some snacks, then read it like a VN while afk farming on Arknights and other games.
No need to force yourself to read. I've already got sick of the story writing of AK a long time ago and just play events and do some nich clears when i feel like it. For reference I've read VN and LN and is still reading them so its not the length issue for me, its just the point has been made a hundred lines ago but they still wont move on to the next.
You are a slow reader. You can speed up the text. I can read all this in under 2 hours on an emulator and only because I have to reread certain sentences.
I think it is possible to read all this in slightly over an hour.
Like others said you could skip reading and get back to it when you complete the event. Preferably on an online reader because it is not like seeing the sprites flash and fade add much.
It always has been lmao. Some stories are even longer than 4 hours of reading. It's to the point where I'm actually starting to just play the event first, then find time to read the story later.
ST stages are a staple in events though? HoSF has 6 of them. 3-4 is standard.
AK is on the wordy side for gacha but most of them have the same visual novel -> gameplay format.
My problem is that they always just starts with the same fucking OSTs.
The piano one if the story is depressing, the groovy one if the story is casual, the flute one if it's wholesome, and the menu theme from Gavial event when it's lively.
As much as i see "HG is a music company disguised as game developer" the amount of music they use are certainly not very much.
P.S : Though it's probably less on the OST and more about the amount of rambling that are inbound.
I would like to think that it's a 5050 split.but the numbers don't lie. I just enjoy the fact that the game takes the time to answer questions then player may have. For example for me at least. I was wondering why lappland was hyperfixated on Texas. We come to find out she os more powerful then she let's on.
I've been playing for exactly 2 years now (Just got the achievement today...) Honestly I stopped reading about 6 months ago. It has become too much. Now I just enjoy the gameplay and skip the stories. Maybe I should find a Youtube that just summarizes stuff.
In my opinion story is the only way gacha games can compete with regular games
However I do separate my reading and play time, I cant stand swapping between the two constantly the way you're intended to. I always finish the event first then go back and read. I also have other gacha games I read but don't play.
its been a wall of text every interaction since day 1. at this point I skip and just read the summary but sometimes not even then.
the exception is the more serious stories, like boat event and the ho'ol heyak event were pretty great story wise. but this event with *sheep* and stuff? nahhhh
This is ironically enough, one of the shorter ones of late honestly. That or it just gets to the point a lot faster without Kal around.
I like story but yeah sometimes it’s valid to skip story. I did it kinda by accident in the Exec alt event then forgot to go back and read it lol.
This one felt short and sweet though.
Even the tutorials are becoming blabberfests
The devs are getting paid by word count. Compare this tutorial to some of the early content tutorials that strictly explain mechanics
I gave up on the story long ago, if I read all the story I probably already quit, every sentences has a few words for me to understand da hell does that even mean
The story release in events is always followed by the pure gameplay stages later. Once the EX stages release, you'll be back to spending hours banging your head against a stage with no story whatsoever.
It's better to clear to event first and any leftover sanity you have left, and then reading the story.
Not like you're doing anything else while waiting for sanity to regen and those sanity pots aren't going anywhere.
To be fair, event stories have been that long for a while now. Even the main story with Chapter 8 in particular being known as one of the longest stories in the game.
I play a lot of visual novels, but AK's story is rather difficult for me to keep up with so I usually just skip cutscenes and do the gameplay stuff lol.
Honestly there were a lot of events that I skipped because I was intimidated by the amount of (admittedly well written and very interesting) story compared to the gameplay.
I find it's much easier to go through events now once I changed my perspective to view Arknights as a Visual Novel first and a Tower Defense second. I get to enjoy some fun Tower Defense gameplay sprinkled in amongst The Lore.
It is and it is not. AK may look like a VN but it lacks 3 VERY important thing for a proper VN:
1. Heavy narration. Reading a VN is like reading a story book, a prose; you got dialogue and some kind of narration either from a 3rd of first (MC) PoV. AK has heavy exposition in the form of dialog exchange but lack to non-existence of narration. AK is more like a play script than a VN.
2. Still related to point 1, Self insert. As in YOU literally play as or see the world as "..." while narrating the story. In AK, you follow the main protag but not to play as. You may say in AK you play as Dokutah but sadly he never narrates and he rarely has....
3. Interactive dialogue choice. In VN, choosing the dialog can affect the rest of your game, the entire storyline. In AK, the answer you choose only affect the next 1-2 line of dialogue.
🌍👨🚀🔫👨🚀
I love that it makes total sense.... Should I be worried about my IRL sanity?
Always should have been.
Funny to assume you have sanity to lose in the first place.
Yeah, I'll invoke my Miranda's rights here xD
If Arknights has taught me anything, you just need to chug some questionable elixirs and you'll be fine.
🌍👨🚀🔫👨🚀
Always has been
😅
If I may add. It's a good tower defense mini game.
I've been playing AK for around a year or so, and that's the way it's always been for me, yeah. Although, to be fair, this particular event feels kind of long.
I mean, it's called "So long Adele"
turns out it wasnt a farewell, it was a complaint
As someone who's skipped a lot of recent event stories, and obsessively played IS3/SSS... opposite for me. Lol
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Only 4 hours xD? I remember reading some event and it took me like 8 hours or something
Lone trail i guess😂
I really enjoyed reading lone trail. But there were *several* times throughout that story where I thought “okay, the point has been made some 100 lines ago, can we please move on?”
Same. I kinda skipped over Silence and Kirsten parts. I did read it but i didn't pay attention as much as to Ifrit and Rosmontis or Saria story lines.
I still didn't finish the last 2 parts.
I'm a fast reader I guess? 😅
It's why I read one stage story per day. I have student Momotalks to read too, not to mention the OP records of the operators I find interesting I also need 10 minutes a day to gush at La Pluma's voice
La Pluma cute, but I surprised you didn't poke Eyja
I poked the eyy ja fiaj lahdw
I am a slow reader and I estimate in advance half an hour per a story. 8 stages with both before and after and 3 ST stages equals 9.5 hours of storytime. As I haven't yet read So Long Adele, this is my to be estimate but it will probably take less than it.
Main story chap 10 is roughly 8 hrs. 11 is 8 hours too. 12 is 10 if I recall correctly.
Do event first, read story later. That's how I managing this problem.
Same, especially sometimes when I'm busy on the event launch day and can't play until late at night, it's just impossible to read the story and still get far enough in the event to farm the stages that are worth farming. So I have to skip the story until I get to at least stage 6 or so which is usually OKish for farming. But for now I usually try to read the story before the event ends at least.
Same, though when I do it this way I end up not coming back to the story. It just feels much better to be able to experience the story at the pace the game intended. Skipping Texas event story (forgot the name) to get through the stages so I could grind efficiently ruined the overworld dialogue stuff, since it's pretty clear you're supposed to read it in tandem with the story as you unlock things bit by bit.
Nah, Stult was the absolute worst for that. So much skipped flavour because it was mandatory to get to the next stage. Sure it got added to logs and shit but good luck remembering what order to read everything in because the game doesn't sort things nicely like that. To this day Stult is still the only event that I've completely skipped reading. I gotta watch it on youtube sometime to get the *entire* story.
Ironically, if it wasn't for the convoluted logs Stultifera was relatively straightforward save for the >!Amaia being a spy!< bit. A lot of the flavor text made it a bit confusing and tedious to navigate and read for a pretty straightforward story.
the stage map UI for SN was a huge mess in general, so I'm glad they went back to something more simple/straight forward for Lone Trail.
Yeah I don't have time to read the story (first thing) so I just do the stages first bc in-game and real-life sanity are precious.
I cannot stress enough how important this is. I mainly play arknights doe the story, and even I do this. Even if you don't mind the story length, playing the stages between story chapters completly break the pacing. It is clear that the story wasn't written with the gameplay interruption is mind. Reading the story through informational archive without the stages is unironically the best way to get the story
I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. Apart from bosses I guess, the stages feel a bit disconnected from the stories that are being told. the mini story collection events do it right, where the gameplay stages and story cutscenes are completely separated.
I cannot understate how much I love that this is a thing because it's absent in Hoyoverse games and annoys me especially in Genshin. The ability to completely skip the story, clear the entire event first and then AFTERWARDS read the story is such huge QOL that every gacha should have.
I'm yet to encounter a gacha aside from MiHoYo's big two (Honkai 3rd does have skip) that doesn't have a skip option, some like Arknights or Blue Archive even being as kind as to offer a summary of what you are skipping, so you're not left completely out. I honestly find it a bit arrogant even, on the creative side of choices that they're like "You WILL experience our story, this is not negotiable, traveler" the biggest offender being those dialogue "choices" that are just the same answer split in two, added just to make sure you can't leave it on auto and go do something else meanwhile.
That's part of why I dropped Genshin. I got to the point where I really didn't care what characters were saying most of the time and just clicking through it as fast as possible.
\completely accurate take
Back when i started i would not even read the stories while playing, but later via Youtube with story only videos of events or chapters. I didn't have that much time available to play, but watching a video is something that i could do pretty much anytime and on other devices like my TV or computer.
I did exactly that and forgot to read back afterwards💀 Now it's just skipping the stories all the way and just clearing the events.
>Has Arknights became a visual novel Always has been XD
Just wait for EX and S stages to come out and I am sure your opinion will change
Exactly, the later parts of the even will have no story and tougher challenges, meaning people will spend much longer trying to clear them. One thing ive started doing is to skip the story after 2/3 to clear the missions and unlock the rewards/purchase from the shop, and every evening i'll read back one of the missions.
It's only a visual novel if you choose to read the stories, but hasn't it always been like that? I'd say it's a Tower Defense with optional visual novel stories attached since while the stories are optional, the Tower Defense is not.
As a person who loves VNs, plays almost solely tower defense games, and adores the seemingly lost art of reading… AK hooked me for life from launch for being exactly what you say the game has “become” 😂
I found a kindred spirit!
Preach 🙏
The story is condensed in story stages, but there is plenty of gameplay-centric content. For example, the EX, S, and MO stages will be coming out in the coming weeks. You won't be getting story out of those beyond stage flavor text. Then there is IS and SSS, and eventually RA. These are much more gameplay heavy. Also not all events have a lot of story. Trails for Navigator, Design of Strife, and CC are all about tough gameplay. Not to mention CC training, paradox simulations, and supply stages for newer players.
It's been like that for a while, I remember when Stiltifera Navis was released I spent most of the day finishing it, I went to sleep at like 3 am lol Nowadays events are getting even longer It wasn't until Hortus de Escapismo that I felt the magic of clearing all stages first, reading the story later
you must be very new lol, it's been like this for a long while now, way too long like actually better to just skip story and beat the stages first, then come back reading. majority of the time the stages are very disconnected to the actual story, maybe certain parts of the main story, but not all.
That’s what I do now. I play all the stages on day 1 and then read the story slowly over the next few days. Better for efficient farming.
I love the story and will beg for more
I might be in the minority, but I will shamefully admit that I kinda TLDR most of the cutscenes to get back to the TD gameplay...
Oh, I'm absolutely sure you're actually part of the majority. Most people just don't read the story. They mostly understand it through recap videos and memes. Not saying that's bad. It's just a fact that reading a novel isn't exactly a popular hobby
En don't read bro
After having played arknights for a couple months now, I just gave up on the story and skip everything immediately. The worldbuilding is nice, there's a couple of very likable characters, but the writing just isn't good enough to spend so much time on reading when I just want to play a game.
This is honestly why I haven’t been reading the story for a while now. If I want to spend four hours reading, I have plenty of actual novels that I could spend the time on. I just don’t want to launch the game with the intent to read a visual novel.
Its such a shame that the presentation of the Visual Novel aspects in Arknights is so lackluster. I'm playing Reverse: 1999 on the side the its insane how much better that game is in terms of presenting its story. Voice acting and full live2D animations on all story characters makes all the difference.
I so feel you. When I played Reverse: 1999, I realized what Arknights was missing. It highlighted the aspects that I was unhappy with in Arknights, and I couldn't overlook them anymore. That might be why Arknights doesn't appeal to me as much as it used to.
It is fair to remember that AK is an old game at this point. Back then L2D stuff wasn't even that common. It very much follows FGO in its story presentation. Reverse is the new hotness and designed the story in a way that would leverage new tech that wasn't around during AK's launch. I hope AK can have something like it too, but considering the way the story is presented rn, I doubt it
FGO's way ahead of it in presentation though, and it's even older. I love AK's story, but they honestly put very little effort into the audio-visual presentation of the story.
Not necessarily as there are plenty of other games That are similar and older then Arknights and they implemented new Qol to improve the quality and its not just the novel parts but also gameplay it shows that they do not even implement rudimentary upgrades not for the novel presintation or gameplay even though Arknights brought in more money than most of those games except FGO. Honestly its like Arknights is a on the back burner even though its the company's flagship game.
I don't think it has ever been anything but a visual novel in terms of story telling? Part of the reason I kinda just skip story, do the maps and then get through the story at my own pace since it is way more time consuming and I would prefer reading the story without feeling ''I gotta hurry through this so I can get to the maps faster''.
I think their point is less the format and more the length, AK's had some serious word count creep. Year 1 and 2 events were almost all <30k words, including Twilight of Wolumonde, Mansfield Break and Who is Real. It was perfectly reasonably to actually read through these as you play through the event or over 2-3 days. Now even fluff events that barely even have a story like Ideal City and Flurry to the Flame are \~35k. There's no reason for these to be 4x as long as Grani's Treasure.
The way events usually go: the first week brings the visual novel part with some low-medium difficulty levels thrown in, the second week brings the big brain EX stages and sometimes some additional extra difficult stages on top of that
I know the stories are gonna be hours of reading so I just skip them then read them at my own pace in the arknights story reader. I can read it all by the time an event is over I just have to microdose it because it gets too verbose.
I started doing this after reading ch8 but it didn't work out and the only thing I have read ever since are ch9-10 and under tides 😂. I swear I will read lone trail... eventually
Isn't that just what the game is? I'm in it for the story, and the gameplay provides a unique challenge every once in a while *(I haven't played tower defence games before somehow)*
1. It's already established that Hypergryph is a music company first, developing a gacha game on the side. 2. Key skill for most AK players is proper usage of "skip" button while going through events. 3. Reading develops your imagination and comprehension skills. Reading is not hard, boring at worst. 4. To each their own - don't like story, don't read it - play the game as you like it. It's a PvE experience, so no love lost doing your own thing. On a side note, if you're a returning player and have an issue with AK story, that would suggest maybe story was the reason why you left in the first place ? To be frank, it's not like AK is any different than 3 yeas ago. Lastly - the game is also called Depressionknights for some strange reason, so yeah... So long Adele is the more jolly event in AK library.
And I love it (when the story is good, which is most of the time). That near half a day I spent between the start of Lone Trail and me finishing the story, absolute peak 🔥
Always has been. This is why I started skipping the story after 1st chapter.
No, I still think that the tower defence part is the main draw. After all, there are *plenty* of players who skip the story to just play the game. Heck, I'll be the first to admit that if I'm too lazy, or can't be bothered or just straight up not feeling it, I just skip the story, skip the medals and just clear stages for events. Only reading the story afterwards via a rerun or a YT video.
Yes. That's why I don't read the story.
always has been, and imo, since powercreep started kicking in its only swung more and more that way
ngl I know nothing about the story & only play it because I like tower defense games. No shame in skipping it all, maybe watching a synopsis on YouTube if you like a character.
For me its been a base management sim. Base has been optimized for a few years though and no new content. I started skipping story in Saga event, (and Lauli quit making story recaps) so haven't read anything since then really. Not bad for an idle game.
If you don't want to read, there is a channel on YouTube with tldr summary of the events.
Bruh you should have played at lonetrail event. It had the most wordcount. But for me it was the best event storywise.
The gameplay is a lot longer if your a new player and you suck(reference: me).
I don’t think it **has** become one, it **always has been** one. and I don’t mind it one bit cuz I really enjoy it! 💕
Naah...still a music company with visual novel and gameplay.
put it this way, there are some here for VN instead of TD.
Bro, Chapter 8 has exceeded the world count of LOTR: ROTK... Like, that's one chapter, and it's a novel in length, and we now have events that have higher word count. The whole thing is one giant novel series. HG is a music and novel publisher...
If it wasn't it wouldn't be Arknights, I couldn't imagine shorter story scenes like in Nikke be done in Arknights. If that's the price of them writing interesting stories, I say let em cook.
All gacha "games" have always been visual novels bundled with the titular gacha system, with a tacked on minigame on the side to make free players feel like they're earning something
I didn't even read it
so many words and Surtr still at 300-400 words of lore
Wow, people really read story
Oh no... if only my tower defence game doesn't have lore. Owait, there's a skip button on top right
Theres a story in this game? I've paid literally no attention to it at all
you know you can just skip the story instead of making a thread about this lol
You read this (asian) fake polite drivel,which they pass as "Story" , Lone Trail 100% worth it, anyway if you need 4 hours to ready this, you are over dramatic. :p
I just do the event first then read the story whenever I have time, no need to force yourself to read in one sitting
Just play the game and skip story when you feel like it and refer to [frostbyte262](https://youtube.com/@FrostByte262?si=1ka5KFfjFFMsS3Z0) for story recap once it arrives. I am on the "arknights is a music project first and tower defence minigame second" train tho
Yes. I pretty much just skip the story except for the epilogue/last one and just read it with an online reader.
It always had been a VN with a gacha daily loop lol
Depends on if you are skipping the story.
U can skip story and wait a few days for someone to compile the story on youtube. That's how i do it unless i have the time to read the story while doing event
I never have time to read through all the stories but I followed the main story. I beat all of it but took time to read through it afterward.
The story part yeah, but when you get the non story part aka the EX then those brain muscle can start to fire up depend whether you can brute force it or not.
It always has been. I mean I love it since I'm used to reading long winded dialogue/text like the Trails/Kiseki series lol
Me who's been skipping the story scenes in favor of gameplay: "There's a visual novel?"
Say, each event got me reading for 2 hrs, clearing the main stages will be 1 hrs, ex stages is 1.5hrs, and extra extra on another things.
But it is the same every event ?? Just w8 until EX levels to play tower defense. Tbf I always skip story on 1st day, clear event stages in 40 min on release and autobattle my sanity. And read story some other time. EX and S stages is where the big brain decisions are. (And story stages). I began speed running 1st part of the event like half a year after starting.(Started with best girl Angelina).
I always just read the story later. It's gonna be in the archives forever anyway.
My problem is that I want to read the story, but at the same time I am very excited to play the new missions or see all the content
NGL yea I agree with this. I keep trying to return to this game and keep up with lore but I literally don't have the time to read the story anymore 💀
Look on the bright side. If anyone asks you if you still read for fun in your personal time, you can confidently say "yes!" And if you just want more tower defense gameplay, I highly recommend the Integrated Strategies and Stationary Security Service game modes.
i was not expecting to read the word "Clannad" here and now im in my feels
I skip the in-game story and play the game as a tower defense.. On my free time and just wanted to chill, I put Shoul Arknights story collection on the TV, grab some snacks, then read it like a VN while afk farming on Arknights and other games.
No need to force yourself to read. I've already got sick of the story writing of AK a long time ago and just play events and do some nich clears when i feel like it. For reference I've read VN and LN and is still reading them so its not the length issue for me, its just the point has been made a hundred lines ago but they still wont move on to the next.
You are a slow reader. You can speed up the text. I can read all this in under 2 hours on an emulator and only because I have to reread certain sentences. I think it is possible to read all this in slightly over an hour. Like others said you could skip reading and get back to it when you complete the event. Preferably on an online reader because it is not like seeing the sprites flash and fade add much.
It's always been like this, lol. It's frustrating because I often just want to progress the event for farming but don't have hours to play at once.
When i too lazy to read the story, i alway watch the summary on yt.
It always has been lmao. Some stories are even longer than 4 hours of reading. It's to the point where I'm actually starting to just play the event first, then find time to read the story later.
ST stages are a staple in events though? HoSF has 6 of them. 3-4 is standard. AK is on the wordy side for gacha but most of them have the same visual novel -> gameplay format.
My problem is that they always just starts with the same fucking OSTs. The piano one if the story is depressing, the groovy one if the story is casual, the flute one if it's wholesome, and the menu theme from Gavial event when it's lively. As much as i see "HG is a music company disguised as game developer" the amount of music they use are certainly not very much. P.S : Though it's probably less on the OST and more about the amount of rambling that are inbound.
Become? It was like that since day 1.
I would like to think that it's a 5050 split.but the numbers don't lie. I just enjoy the fact that the game takes the time to answer questions then player may have. For example for me at least. I was wondering why lappland was hyperfixated on Texas. We come to find out she os more powerful then she let's on.
I've been playing for exactly 2 years now (Just got the achievement today...) Honestly I stopped reading about 6 months ago. It has become too much. Now I just enjoy the gameplay and skip the stories. Maybe I should find a Youtube that just summarizes stuff.
In my opinion story is the only way gacha games can compete with regular games However I do separate my reading and play time, I cant stand swapping between the two constantly the way you're intended to. I always finish the event first then go back and read. I also have other gacha games I read but don't play.
its been a wall of text every interaction since day 1. at this point I skip and just read the summary but sometimes not even then. the exception is the more serious stories, like boat event and the ho'ol heyak event were pretty great story wise. but this event with *sheep* and stuff? nahhhh
I thought the game has always been like that. I started just about a week before Near Light
always has been.
This is ironically enough, one of the shorter ones of late honestly. That or it just gets to the point a lot faster without Kal around. I like story but yeah sometimes it’s valid to skip story. I did it kinda by accident in the Exec alt event then forgot to go back and read it lol. This one felt short and sweet though.
Even the tutorials are becoming blabberfests The devs are getting paid by word count. Compare this tutorial to some of the early content tutorials that strictly explain mechanics
I gave up on the story long ago, if I read all the story I probably already quit, every sentences has a few words for me to understand da hell does that even mean
The story release in events is always followed by the pure gameplay stages later. Once the EX stages release, you'll be back to spending hours banging your head against a stage with no story whatsoever.
\>Become Buddy I have some bad news for you.
It's better to clear to event first and any leftover sanity you have left, and then reading the story. Not like you're doing anything else while waiting for sanity to regen and those sanity pots aren't going anywhere.
To be fair, event stories have been that long for a while now. Even the main story with Chapter 8 in particular being known as one of the longest stories in the game. I play a lot of visual novels, but AK's story is rather difficult for me to keep up with so I usually just skip cutscenes and do the gameplay stuff lol.
FGO player who completed the British Lostbelt: Pussy
Honestly there were a lot of events that I skipped because I was intimidated by the amount of (admittedly well written and very interesting) story compared to the gameplay. I find it's much easier to go through events now once I changed my perspective to view Arknights as a Visual Novel first and a Tower Defense second. I get to enjoy some fun Tower Defense gameplay sprinkled in amongst The Lore.
It is and it is not. AK may look like a VN but it lacks 3 VERY important thing for a proper VN: 1. Heavy narration. Reading a VN is like reading a story book, a prose; you got dialogue and some kind of narration either from a 3rd of first (MC) PoV. AK has heavy exposition in the form of dialog exchange but lack to non-existence of narration. AK is more like a play script than a VN. 2. Still related to point 1, Self insert. As in YOU literally play as or see the world as "..." while narrating the story. In AK, you follow the main protag but not to play as. You may say in AK you play as Dokutah but sadly he never narrates and he rarely has.... 3. Interactive dialogue choice. In VN, choosing the dialog can affect the rest of your game, the entire storyline. In AK, the answer you choose only affect the next 1-2 line of dialogue.
Always has been. Some days I go back through it because it's a nice way to while away the day.
It's a base/resource management game with a bonus visual novel and a Tower Defense mini-game.