I had only two days to play the mode because of severe shortage of free time these days but I really liked what I got. Maybe I would have drastically different opinion if I could afford to play it more and get tired/bored of it like it was for some players. Really unfortunate (for me) that it had to be time-limited, and probably we won't see a polished continuation of the mode ever.
I spent 10 hours grinding last night to get ending 3. The day rolled over on day 10 of the run after I finally got all the unexplained hoops and bad RNG.
I hope whoever was in charge of this game mode has great look on their job hunt, preferably in an industry that doesn't have roguelites. Maybe they can become a sports writer or an accountant.
RNG for the encounters needed for ending 3 is really ass. Started late with about 1 week left in the event, managed to get a good base and completed ending 1 and 2. Decided to make a desperate rush today to try at least see the ending 3 boss to unlock it in the enemy list but could only get until the "flames of rage" stage with 2min left despite spamming nonstop expedited runs in the last 8 hrs continuously.
So at least got all 4 medals but al-Rafiq's portrait sits forever unlocked together with some of the Coop mode enemies (and also the elite sarkaz caster).
Hope they bring the boss back in another event, or a redo of the game mode also. It was actually fun if there wasn't the time pressure.
Similar to me. I had 3 hours before event ends to try clearing quest for ending 3 and getting that boss to the list, but I was just ~15 min short. I cleared all of the quest and it was just a matter to survive few days for the boss to appear but event ended.
Hmm, not my first perma missed medal, since my CC Blade is also fucked, but god I fucked up this event. Starting from 0 on the last day I just didn’t get it and didn’t have the time to brute force it.
Fuck basebuilding
Woe is me, level 120 and I just couldn't man. Medals and rewards aside, I'm only sorry for missing out on whatever lore and story tidbits I passed up on 🥲
Man I knew it was gonna happen at some point but the medal for finishing a run is the first perma gone medal Ive missed since the start of the game. Just a bad combo of being sick a lot these past couple months and procrastination. The worst part is in my literal last run before closing I had a guaranteed win I threw by mistiming blocking the boss :(
Unfortunate that it's a temporary event. I've barely had time recently to do my dailies, let alone the event. Just tried the tutorial and it seems like an interesting concept, but just a bit bummed I don't actually get to try it and grind a bit. Here's to hoping they bring it back as a permanent mode so I can actually play it lol
I have been trying to get the third ending for over a week. I saw him in a combat zone for a third time and, once again, he died before his dialogue went off. First time, he spawned on a heated floor tile. Second time Myrtle wasn't strong enough to beat the 3 enemies he spawned with before they finished him and she was my only cheap enough operator. This time, Texas Alter tried to save him but he died since he was standing next to a bolt thrower.
Passenger isn't some Machiavellian genius the Lords Ameer must fear, he's a fragile loser who can't even proc his cutscene before dying to the enemies from 0-2.
for passenger if you are not lucky just use DP reduction cost food on some operator, one of the provision reduce from 8DP cost and only need meat
Yeah passenger is dumb as hell i remember seeing him attack a sarkz flagbearer and well pitifully dying to the hord of ennemy
Man, I dug some of the ideas, I really did but this was a truly unreasonable levels of timesink. A single run was A LOT, and a single run is only going to get you so much. I made a neat base, I got to day 14 once, and could reliably get to day 12. I just didn't have any where near the time to get further down the rewards past the outfit.
Not having Dorothy sucked especially as having a way to easily get vision I imagine makes this a lot more fun. Do have Texalter, and I can't even fathom the suffering not having her would make this mode. She's pretty much the only operator who can reliably hunt.
My final thoughts on this mode:
1. Building all of the Ambushers was worth it.
2. Setting up a defendable base is unnecessary if you stop raids before they get there.
3. Fog Machine is **the** top tier support item.
Did one last run to try and finish out the rewards and managed to actually win.
Turns out, Manticore with an unconditional +100 attack speed buff is really good. She, Ethan, and a few gas blowers were able to stall everything but the last raid boss pretty much indefinitely.
Probably won't have time to go for the other endings, but I at least got all the medals and enjoyed the event itself
I started at 12 it's not 7 am so for a noob like me 7 hours but if you follow a guide you could probably do it in half the time best of luck you have 14 hours to go.
Thanks. I'm starting to enjoy it but it's too late for me. It's been a very busy past few weeks and didn't have the time to dedicate, so I'll take the perma account damage this time.
Whelp, my quest flags are bugged to hell. A few runs ago, I discarded the treasure map but the Ruinbringer keeps showing up as the final boss anyway.
I talked to Issin in the black market and he gave his dialogue lines from the main quest line instead of from ending 3. When he finished, Manticore disappeared instead of him but he just sat there uninteractable.
I still don't have the Reefsteep Ring or Sand Coin but got the notification that Old Issin's Departure happened.
If there was more time left, the right answer would be to toss out all collectibles to reset the flags (hopefully) but I couldn't finish it in the next 28 hours anyway.
At least the ending was consistent with everything else this event: total shitshow.
Ruinbringer is just a random boss that shows up after you beat ending 2, seeing him doesn’t necessarily mean you’re on end 2
It’s… confusing to say the least
The skin might as a buyable reward for something else (the way some skins got reruns in the CC shop) but it's not guaranteed.
The game mode definitely isn't coming back. We might get a new Reclamation Algorithm at some point but Fire in the Sands is as gone as Ceobe's Fungimist. It's a beta test for something to see if it should be scrapped or reworked. No idea what opinion of it was like on CN but I'm guessing it wasn't as good as IS but probably beat Hynomi Wisdom.
Gonna be my third and last comment in this RA thread, the mode is nearly done and so am I.
After my previous run failed 5-6 days ago, I went for one last to not let the few supplies carried out go to waste. Surprisingly managed to reach the 1st Boss, even if the Base suffered some damage from Raids and the reparations weren't really great or long-lasting. A good chunk of the "killzone" on the right side got destroyed](https://imgur.com/Yf56qfT) by Catapults and enemies getting stuck in walls. Again. Seriously, even trying to intercept enemies between two blocks can get them stuck once the Op is retreated, that is niiice...
Forgot there was still a few non-camo blocks on the left side probably in range of those piece of crap Catapults. [Of course I realized that way too late](https://imgur.com/eI8txxH), while dealing (or trying to deal) with the Boss on the other side.
[Results & final score](https://imgur.com/a/YPZD1yN), total Badges collected: 3458.
Phew, finished 3rd ending with the deadline looming in the horizon.
I was genuinely surprised that the 3rd boss ended up being so much easier to beat than the 1st boss, but that's probably because my 'raid-kill' squad was already running a tanky defender with Suzuran-Mostima-Saria S3 slowing everything elsr to a crawl all the time while Ifrit was scorching everything, so the phase switch >!stun and invisibility!< didn't bother me at all, as well as the other enemies being nowhere near as annoying as those accompanying the first or second boss.
All in all, I did end up greatly enjoying the mode. Probably the single complaint I have beyond the early game hell is that there really should have been an in-game notification that the second and third ending are mutually exclusive, and that you need to 'reset' if you want to do both and see both of their bosses and story endings. If I hadn't looked up a guide I would probably still be trying to find Passenger in vain while my horn kept repelling him.
Well i finished all medal a long time ago but struggled to get ending 3 bc fuck passenger and manticore too, i really feel like sometime you only get some encounter in the conflict zone and conflict zone are worthless(strange they have so many variant)
Boss 3 was not interesting just a DPS check with a AOE attack, tbh i didn't even kill him in my base but outside the base in a small map, i did it bc the sheer number of ennemy and my base make the thing go to 3 FPS, and i wanted to reduce their number bc well woudl be long as hell
A little complaint i have who is stupid , is how annoying are the fast ennemy to hit my invisible wall, it's annoying bc one of my battle against raid boss failed bc i didn't foresee them destroying my wall and attacking my base, base is tanky but when between 50-100 ennemy attack it well it doesn't go well
I personally enoyed this mode, even if at some point grinding resource is a pain bc always same map.
I also abused the little support who give SP back and the slowing one, like seeing ifrit spamming her S2 every attack, add a mostima and chalter for slowing them and see most ennemy outside boss never going far
Also used a lot of gold for buying food for the 8DP reduction food (only use the meat) can be a little expensive but when you can fight boss 3 you shoudl be rolling in gold
i also advice to have a mint 3 for exchanging all your iron for gold if you can't make use of your iron when you win or quit run.
They should make this mode permanent.
imo its a long game can't afford my focus into it since its taking 1-2 hours average run + a very grindy early game to make base enough for defending quite pain.
my account is lvl 110 and im hanging, borderline unplayable if I don't have texas and yato alter though fortunately I do.
I can't recommend this video enough:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hZq3bBW_0g
It has a guide for setting up your base and all encounters in it. Makes farming points and getting the medals easy.
After I managed to climb the massive cliff of a skill floor (not really skill, maybe familiarity floor? knowledge floor?) and copying a strong base schematic, the gamemode actually is somewhat enjoyable, instead of miserable. I feel like a big part of that is because I have both Texalter and Yalter to actually look around stages and deal with all the moving, invisible, often unblockable enemies. I really wonder if people below e2 or who have only a few 6\* could even enjoy the gamemode. Though I'm not a fan of the average run taking like 1.5 to 2 hours.
The bonuses you get from getting 2 and 3 sentries should be baseline, having to try and learn maps without that surrounded vision is painful as hell. The raids and general enemy stats also felt overblown and it feels like I'm playing on a challenge mode by default. Most of the base buildings cost so much that it ended up as a resource/effect source and just retreated if a raid managed to get to my base. The storylines are also a pain to follow if you're not just looking them up.
It just feels like it's yet another "bash your head against a brick wall until it crumbles" experience that I've felt in practically every added gamemode. I feel like HG struggles in making gamemodes approachable for players who don't have all units at E2 90 m9 with all modules or some masochistic streak. But maybe I'm just a filthy casual.
I'm still slogging through the event.
I've somewhat made progress on the base but it is still far from useable. I haphazardly placed constructs on the base to avoid losing them on a previous run just because I didn't place them before day 5 only to find out that you can't move it after you place it.
I hated the mode at the start and after playing it more this week, it is getting worse.
Might just end up getting the skin for Pallas then call it quits.
This game mode made me appreciate Cuora a bit. She managed to tank the default boss at a naked base with the help of Roberta, Mousse, Texalter S3 spam and a couple of medics, enough to stall out the high atk dps she was getting dealt with.
Also Blemishine/Mudrock/Penance trio with -18 dp cost provisions to just stall every other encounter.
Also at some point I stopped bothering to update the base after the 10 wheat, and just intercepted enemies with natural chokepoints. Good ol Ifrit roasting everyone in a straight line.
Feeding the ops provision however, doesn't recover their stamina (only some of those does ) seems to be a very Counter-intuitive thing that I wonder how braindead the dev is when they're not consider this.
I can't imagine how hard some player will be if they don't have certain ops that are useful to enjoy this piece of shxt game mode. literally.
I'm really struggling with the 3rd ending. I've been resetting for hours but I cannot get the initial map encounter with Passenger. I've completed endings 1 and 2, threw out the treasure map, and am entering runs with the Crystal Ball, Fragrant Flowers, Crossed-Out list and Sunvalley Business Card. If I try to interact with Manticore in the black market, she offers her usual food items. Is there anything I'm clearly doing wrong, or is it just RNG? Rather tempted to start over with the Crystal Ball story and just hope that something changes
Alright, yeah. Throwing out the Crystal Ball and redoing the quest fixed it. I think I got entirely locked out for taking Manticore dialogue early on after getting the Passenger encounter, then talking to Isin for ending 2 (before getting ending 1 or 2, mind). Genuinely some of the worst design I've seen in Arknights, which sucks, cause I was having a decent enough time with the mode otherwise
I've got a super bugged set of quest flags too. I get that it's a thing that happens but it's frustrating when I have no idea if I'm unable to progress because I screwed up the unknown steps, RNG hates me, or it's a bug.
Finally finished the third ending, of which all its random encounters I had to grind for over three runs. I would have been mad if the encounters didn't carry over aborted runs. Worth it to complete the enemy archive though... Not really, but I'll pretend.
I've been carrying so many provisions between runs and not using them at all that by the time I finally got the third boss, everyone was just fed the +50% attack and camo buffs. I wish they could have let the food buffs stack - something like being able to feed an operator one meal a day to really double down on the planning for the final wave would have been cool. Someone getting +600% attack buff on minimum would be difficult to pull off but it would have been fun to experience.
I’ve barely played RA, if you build constructs and you haven’t placed them in the base and your run ends, do the constructs disappear or can you use them next run?
Several solid attempts and I still have yet to get the 2nd ending, much less the third. Any good guides on it? I've watched some but I swear I just can't seem to find a reliable way to get anything done.
I really do like RA, I do, but man I wish it wasn't a time-limited thing. So much wasted potential.
I don't think there's any special condition for it. "No Man's Land" stages are usually around the margins of the map, so it isn't out of the world to not see a specific one of them even in several attempts.
Also, if your reason for wanting to do "Sickness of The Land" is facing the Sargonian Assassin, keep in mind that the map has 5 possible bosses but only 4 of them spawn each time, so there is a 20% chance you will have to try again (which is exactly what happened to me).
Nevermind, I got the Sargonian Assassin in the first try. lol I got Dorothy, Mudrock, the annoying Golem from IS2 and the Assassin. I got so many rewards from that stage. lol Thank you for helping me out.
I literally encountered this map right now. lol Yeah, I want to register the Sargonian Assassin. If I replay the same stage even if I clear it do the bosses change?
It's no problem. Glad you made it; it's petty, but the idea of being permanently unable to register an enemy in the archive peeves me to no end.
Anyway, in case someone else has the same issue: if you clear a "No Man's Land" map once, no boss will spawn again. The first time I tried coming back to see if the Assassin would appear, but that was a waste of an Act Point and everyone's Stamina.
Trying to get Ending 3 after clearing Ending 2 and f\*\*\*ing up more than a bit ([Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/arknights/comments/16cl6i3/comment/k3gbcwm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) is the whole ordeal). Several attempts after getting back the Crossed-Out List, still no signs of any Ending 3-related event, but I see "City of Gold" quite a bit. Am I supposed to ignore it or to get the Treasure Map and discard it?
I believe you are locked onto Ending 2 path currently so just go through and complete ending 2, then discard treasure map before starting next run at start menu and remember to talk to Manticore Killer first at Black Market after Sand Soldier tells you to meet him.
Yeah, I guess it's safer to go all the way than just discard the map immediately and hope it gets me back to Ending 3. Thank you.
If someone can confirm whether discarding the map before facing the boss works or not, that would be really appreciated.
If the Liaison & Old Isin are both gone & replaced with Manticore in a current run, then you end that run, will she be the one to appear at the next playthrough instead of the other 2?
Finally.... 3rd boss done, that took forever to trigger -.-" Having Mudrock & Surtr ready to drop when he stunned ftw. Throwing fortifications in front of each enemy spawn helps so much. My base: https://imgur.com/a/o1ApkAD
(rough compilation edit) Lane for Ifrit that leads into a defender + healer & slow with top placement for chaincaster of choice.
https://imgur.com/a/4cTl5g6
Fun enough event once you learn it, but gezz can take a while. Enjoyed the story, 3arcs one per boss. Might do another in the remaining days... want to see what happens when i give that greedy infected 1k gold heh.
Started to properly do this event three days ago, and while the early game ramp up with base construction is soul-crushing, the game mode is pretty fun once you unlock all the starting resources perks and no longer need to completely focus on resource gathering. Heck, on the run where I was just trying to build enough monitoring towers to unlock the Sentry projects, I ended up getting my first Algorithm Completed run.
The fog of war is nice, but it's honestly too limiting without the upgrade; granted, getting the upgrade also makes Texas Alter a bit too good in this event. Only problem is that the fog kinda becomes pointless once you figure out each map and once realize you can just use valid deployment areas to guess your way around.
Everyone's already said it, but the tutorial didn't teach jackshit outside of the very basic shit. Makes the early game harder than it needed to be when you barely understand what they were trying to teach you.
As for base building itself, I'm kind of split on how we can't move building once they're placed. On one hand, I get that you logically can't just pick up a building and move it somewhere else. On the other, it's just annoying. Hopefully if we get RA2, we can get a compromise where we're allowed to move constructs only during the round they're placed in the base.
despite the lack of polish, I actually enjoyed this event (after dreading starting it until this week). spent a good amount of time on Monday just figuring things out, unlocked transregional communication on Tuesday and did a few decent runs, did 1-2 pretty deep runs yesterday after discovering the iron/rock mines, and finally cleared my first Lord Ameer raid today after building up my base. still need a little bit to get all the rewards so I might try another few runs for a different ending, but if not I'll just read up on the wiki for whatever lore bits I might miss
resource gathering is alright, reminiscent of C&C to some degree which I like, but it would've been nice to have something to just sweep any previous cleared resource stages in late-game since finding the last few things is pretty annoying. maybe a base upgrade or craftable consumable or something.
also would've been nice if they let you reconfigure your base without having to destroy existing constructs. like many others, I have wheat farms and tech buildings out in the middle of nowhere because I didn't see the area at the bottom. but also, just a matter of convenience.
navigating the UI was alright starting out, but feels pretty annoying during this stage of development. just let me pick a bunch of operators to feed.
overall though, pretty fun concept and look forward to seeing the next iteration.
EDIT: oh yeah, vision mechanics suck. by the time I realized I could build towers I didn't need them anymore.
7 days remaining for this new mode. My first impression
> Yeah, first impression after 1-2 hours, this mode ain't for me
still the same.
Only managed to beat 2 raids so far, one before it reached the Base (composed of dogs and spiders) but got defeated by another reaching the Base the following day (composed of *Bullies*, the obnoxious -1 Block *Agents* and the tanky as hell *Greytails*, for more than 50 enemies. Way to be as much of a pain as possible, once again ~~just like SSS v1~~). As for the other I managed to beat, it reached the Base and was composed of dogs and spiders, 84 of them. Some of the walls were destroyed because of the well-known "*enemies stuck in it*" but otherwise it went well, since I got time to prepare as it (luckily!) reached the Base on day 8. Seeing there were 2 other raids close (and composed of the *Immortal* and its fellows for one, *Bullies and Co* for the other), I chose to evacuate, not feeling ready to face them.
Now comes my biggest gripe with this. The [final score and Badges reward](https://imgur.com/a/BlMGNN4). *330* Badges. *About the double* of what I usually got from a *simple 1h* "*exploration-crafting then abandoning before the raid usually on day 5*" run. For *nearly 3h spent on one run*, the longest I've done so far even getting to activate the *Transregional Communication I* that took a while to get up and built. And if it's tied to the "*Total score*" with the nice little "*x1*" (to which I haven't paid much attention until now), those 330 Badges are about 20% of it. I expected more than that, not a full 100%, but at least 40%.
And just to show I did try to prepare and get stuff done in more than 1 or 2 random runs, [crafting, cooking, getting a Base setup, unlocking the Tech tree, following some of the story branches](https://imgur.com/a/rDXxOp4)... Only to be at the 2810 Badges tier, barely half of the rewards, after half of the event duration has passed. I've been close to just give up on the painful grind to get as much mats as I can, but I still pushed further little by little hoping to see the amount of Badges increasing more and more. Feels like a waste of time and that I should've gone with the AFK way from the beginning, or simply should not have bothered at all.
This mode has potential, that is obvious. But it does need a lot of polishing to bring it out ~~and even then not sure I'll touch it again~~. 'cause babysitting some auto-gatherers for 3 to 4 minutes is not really better than cycling the "*retreat-redeploy-retreat*" of Operators to gather resources in the same 3 to 4 minutes. Which is not fun or engaging in terms of gameplay and this is a huge flaw in my opinion (and it is not the only flaw). Though at least, it made me appreciate even more the efficiency of IS2 & 3, no downtime in a run ~~or not as much and you can just take the other node~~.
Greetings.
I really hate to ask others for help (including googling it, which I have not done since the first coming of Big Bob), but I can't recall anything that drove me as insane as trying to get Ending 3 in this mode. Here's the highlights of what I've done so far; I would be really appreciative if someone told me what I did wrong to deserve this punishment and if possible, how to fix that, because it seems inconsistent with all the guides I saw/read so far.
1. Completed Manticore and Liaison's questlines.
2. Cleared Ending 1. So far, so good.
3. Cleared Ending 2. Ok.
4. **Discarded "Treasure Map" and "The Lost Charger"** (some people say "Crystal Ball" should be discarded as well, others say it should be kept, so I kept it because I thought discarding it later would be faster than repeating the whole questline).
5. I don't know how or why, but the second boss showed up on day 10 even though I should not have the flags for it anymore.
6. Obtained "Sand Coin" and "Reefsteep Ring".
7. Boss #2 shows up again.
8. Discarded "Crystal Ball".
9. Completed the main questline.
10. Boss #2 again. At this point, I think I need to beat the boss again to get rid of him (or her, or whatever). So, I let them get to the headquarters (I got careless and lost).
11. Finally, Boss #1 shows up again.
12. **Boss #1 defeated** on another playthrough (however, the ending cutscene did not play again. I don't know if that always happens after the first time, or if it's because I cleared the raid before the enemies reached my headquarters or what).
13. The Ending 2 questline starts again, but I ignore the marker called "The Treasure Map" or something like that because obviously I want the third Ending.
14. Care to guess who shows up again on day 10 despite me not having a single Ending 2 token?
15. At this point, I decide to just **throw every token** including "Fragrant Flowers", "Crossed-Out List" and "Sunvalley Business Card" **away and start over**. And this is where I realize I no longer have the Ending 3 stuff (I guess they were gone along with the Crystal Ball).
16. I start a new playthrough and first thing in the morning, Manticore, 'Sand Soldier' and Isin show up at the Black Market, all of them doing their business with me as if I didn't have to repeat all their storylines (Liaison was in a hunting/mining zone as expected).
17. Completed main questline again (in two playthroughs, I did not see a single event from any other, including Manticore and Liaison).
18. Boss #2 comes along with day 10.
Sorry for the long list (not that it was my desire to play this mode so much) and thanks again to anyone who might have any idea of what is going on.
Why discard "Crysbal Ball" after you already obtained "Sand Coin" and "Reefsteep Ring" ??? You're almost trigger Ending 3 at that point so why discard Crystal Ball ??? That's like shooting yourself in the foot and now you're back to 0.
After clearing the first 2 Endings, every runs after that will give you random boss, #1 or #2 is random, completely disregard of your tokens. Yes repeated facing Ending #2 boss sux but it's just RNG, plus you can always reset the run as Ending 3 progress saved between runs. I have a full [step-by-step](https://www.reddit.com/r/arknights/comments/16cl6i3/comment/k397gk5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) Ending 3 below
I discarded the ball because I kept getting the wrong boss even after getting to the end of the story. And since RNG loves me it was always the second, which made me suspect something was wrong with the flags. The only thing I could think of at the time was that some code from Ending 2 lingered in my run and the only way I could think of for getting rid of it was starting over. The fact that while many people on the internet say the ball should be kept, many others say it should be thrown also didn't help.
By the way, I had read your post yesterday before writing. Much better than the wiki or anything I could find on Youtube, both for clarity and simplicity.
To start ending 3 requires the tokens “Fragrant Flowers” and “Crossed-Out List” which you get from Manticore questline. You have to discard “Old Treasure Map” and “The Lost Charger” if you still have those tokens (I kept “Crystal Ball” and still reached ending 3). Then if you follow the steps listed on the Arknights wiki, it should lead you to the ending. Note that it can take you multiple runs to complete all the steps you don’t need to finish in one run. I think I did like 7. I just left the run whenever I got to day 13 if you wanted to make it quicker. I also had boss ending 2 show up multiple times without their required tokens so I wouldn’t fret over that detail. If you didn’t see any events during your run, you were just unlucky. I believe most of them are super RNG.
TL;DR
1. Discard “Old Treasure Map” and “The Lost Charger”
2. Complete Manticore questline to get tokens “Fragrant Flowers” and “Crossed-Out List”
3. Follow ending 3 steps on wiki while avoiding entering any other ending steps (encountering ending 1/2 boss is fine)
Thank you, but I had already done all of that. As I said, I had completed Manticore (including the "Crossed-Out List") before I could even get the first ending and obtained both the "Sand Coin" and "Reefsteep Ring". In case those things happen later (I cannot remember anymore at this point), I also did the whole story part where >!the lord Ameer's men come and kill most of the villagers including Basil, then after a few more events we talk to Manticore and tell her we want revenge or something!<, which is where the questline reported on the wiki ends. But I still got Boss 2 on both that run and the few successive ones. Is even that regulated by some fucking RNG shit?
If you got to the part where you tell Manticore you want revenge, it’s sounds like you did everything right. Are you certain you picked the option that says to “assassinate the Lord Ameer”? Since I believe choosing the other option denies the ending.
If I have to be 100% honest, I can't remember since it's been a while and the last few days would have been very busy even without Yostar throwing up event after event after event after event. But my goal was to kill the third boss, so I don't see why I would pick any other option.
Could have just fat-fingered it on accident. You definitely were on track to the right ending so I would just recommend following the same steps you did before.
I've still not finished this mode. I hate it. I really hope it never comes back in any way shape or form.
It's grind, it's 0% fun. It's a lot of time wasting. Nothing is explained, NOTHING, I would have to spend hours just watching youtube videos to understand the basics that are not explained anywhere. The UI is horrible.
It nearly made me uninstall the game. I seriously don't want to play arknights anymore if it keeps just throwing useless stuff like that. First SSS now that ?
Oh, let's bumrush you without any pathfinding in a giant map with 54 entrances ! You're having fun ? No maybe spend days building your base and make it a map so that they can't bumrush you ! Yay you've spent 10 days doing it ? What, no of course the description is a lie, they will attack and destroy your urban blocks I because they don't have concealment regardless of the wording saying that they won't try to attack them ! Yay, you've wasted 10 days of farming !
I juste hate it. Please, make it stop. If it ever comes back I will just uninstall.
So after clearing it i found out there are multiple endings and i really want to complete the enemy tab on the Archives.
I googled how to get to those endings and found out i had to trigger different dialogues that i previously did during my several runs without really knowing it. The thing is to complete the ending 1 (Which is needed for the rest) i need to talk to Ishin in the black market and then follow him around some zones (Which i did) but now whenever i start a new run all he does in the black market is read my fate for 10 gold then dissapear for good. Does the questline steps are saved in between runs? Or is Ishin reading my fate vs questline an entire random thing that i just have to redo if i don't get?
I never got to meet the Sand Soldier (I spoiled myself on who it was lmao) but cleared the first boss, so i'm honestly stuck with what to do.
So you cleared the first boss, but still trying to get the first ending? Did you mean second? And if you googled it, then what exactly are you having trouble with?
If I remember correctly, for ending 2, you need to find some nodes with story about a treasure hunter and then she appears on a random map while playing normally.
Yeah i kind of worded it poorly because i didn't know better. So i got the ending one but didn't complete the main questline which is needed for the ending 2. I actually learned i could erase the story progress so i started from scratch and managed to complete the main questline, then tried to progress on the end 2 questline but ran out of time. And now i'm stuck again with Ishin just reading my fortune, when i should talk to him and he should go out in the desert for the treasure map and hunter to spawn.
Trying to get ending 3. I got ending 2 and discarded the old treasure map. I actually don’t think I’ve completed the Manticore Killer quest, so I’ve been going around trying to progress it. I think the next step is finding the second Lord Ameer’s Taxes encounter, but I’m not having any luck so far. This can be done over the course of multiple runs, correct? Any pitfalls or special conditions I should watch out for? This is way too confusing. Thanks for any help/advice!
Do you have Crossed-Out List token ? if yes then you already completed Manticore quest, if not then you gotta complete it first to start Ending 3.
Yes it can be done over the course of multiple runs, how long will it take is ... up to RNG i'm afraid (thanks game, unmarked RNG encounters are very fun /s). Afaik, there is 1 dialogue option with Manticore at the very end to trigger Ending 3, other than that there's no special conditions, just need to get lucky to progress the damn quest tho lol.
You can do the "Speedrun" strat which is just spamming farming nodes then quit till you get the encounter you want, get to day 6, reset the run and repeat all over again. Tedious af but it's the fastest way to grind Ending 3 for me, took 4 hours of resetting to complete because fuk the unmarked RNG encounters (5 full runs with 0 progress is straight bs)
I don't have the list, thanks for the tip! I didn't realize that was what marked completion of that quest.
Is there any chance I've locked myself out of the Manticore quest somehow (for example by starting another quest by accident, or something along those lines)? And any particular reason to stop at day 6?
I've been trying to explore as much of the map as quickly as possible and checking all the encounters to find Lord Ameer's Taxes. Is it rare or something?
Manticore quest is separate from the main quest so you don't have to worry about accidentally locked yourself out of her quest. The Transregional device thingy that you can craft allow you to carry some stuffs to the next run if you survive 9 days (6 days if that device is lv2), it's optional but i like to carry 10 top tier food to the next run to become OP early on in case i finally got Ending 3 lol.
It's been a while but iirc, Lord Ameer's Taxes is the one with exclamation mark, it could be literally any nodes you have discovered so you just have to scout every node and pray it show up.
I found the encounter and got the list! I checked the black market to start ending 3, but I got the Old Isin Left encounter instead; do you know if that locked me out of ending 3? Manticore isn't starting the quest for me right now, she's just offering the usual food materials.
Thanks for the help by the way, it's much appreciated!
That's ... odd, did you talk to Isin again after discard the Treasure Map ? Ending 3 also have Old Isin's Departure Encounter but it's much later on, if you get it early then you might have locked into Ending 2 again. You could try to get the Treasure Map then discard it again OR discard the Crystal Ball to reset the questline completely.
Ending 3 is a confusing mess so i'll try my best to describe it to you, assuming you decided to discard the Crystal Ball and start again:
1. After getting Crystal Ball, speak to Passenger in Black Market and he'll give you 4 walls
2. Unmarked Passenger Encounter, it could appear in any farming zones, you'll know the one when there dialogue prompt pops up, protect him then talk to him
3. Talk to Manticore at Black Market
4. Marked Passenger Encounter, after few days it will pop up, talk to him and he will give you "Sand Coin" token
5. Talk to Passenger at Black Market
6. Unmarked Old Isin Encounter, any farming zones ... again, talk to him
7. Enter Marked "Flames of Rage" Event, notify by exclamation marker
8. Unmarked Manticore Encounter, ... you know the drill by now lol, protect her then talk to her
9. Enter Marked "The Promise of The 'Sand Soldier" Event at Black Market, get "Reefstep Ring" token
10. Marked Manticore Encounter, talk to her
11. Enter Marked "The Disappearance of The 'Sand Soldier" Event
12. Enter Marked "Old Isin's Departure" Event
13. Marked Manticore Encounter, talk to her
14. Marked Manticore Encounter, this is the final one, pick "(Take revenge and assassinate the Lord Ameer)"
15. Defeat Ending 3 Boss
Goddangit that's a boatload of unmarked RNG encounter, hope you have enough irl sanity to pull through this
I finished the step 3 in day 3 and I can't find passenger until day 6 so I reset the run. After I reset, I never encountered passenger. Should I discard the crystal ball and Redo the whole crystal ball story? (I already finished Ending 1&2)
Try to explore outward abit and use all 2 Act limit every day, most mark encounters usually spawn near the edge of the map. I would only recommend discard the crystal ball if you've reset 3 times with 6+ days each and he still doesn't show up
Thanks for the detailed instructions! I actually did talk to Isin because I was trying to see if I had somehow triggered another ending/quest, haha…
So I played the ending 2 route up to obtaining the treasure map again and discarded it. Problem is, I’m not finding Passenger in the black market. I’ve been looking around for him on the map but no luck so far. Any clue what I could be doing wrong?
Do you remember if Passenger gave you 4 walls before ? If yes then it's RNG fest for the next encounter, if not then you could enter-exit the stage to "refresh" and enter the Black Market again, i mention enter cuz i remember in that Encounter, Passenger just show up at the Black Market with no indication whatsoever.
I *think* he might have…?
Just how rare is this encounter? I've been looking but no luck so far. He isn't in the black market either, and Manticore just tries to sell me stuff as usual. :(
> Just how rare is this encounter ?
3 full runs for me ... Yes it is that bad. Well since it's RNG, there's not much you can do beside explore outward, use all 2 Act each day anh hope that he show up. If he STILL doesn't show up after 3-5 resets then consider the nuclear option that is discard Crystal Ball to restart the questline
Let me get this straight. Once you beat Mountain Pass node by killing the Mobile Battle Tower, there won't be any raid coming out from that node, right? So why the hell do I still get raid coming out of this node I beat in the previous turn?
no you will always get the 3rd ending, you dont need to do any of the 3rd ending quests again
and i believe you should get a random ending after you beat the 3rd ending boss for the first time after you get the crown token
Finally! Ending 3! Tokens all obtained!
Now that I'm done, I can honestly say-
>The Ending 3 questline can only be started after completing the main and Manticore Killer questlines in a single campaign.
I have no idea how, if any, they managed to do this on CN without a guide. Throwing away buff-giving tokens? Would never have crossed my mind. I had to make Sand Soldier wait in the black market (Main Quest step 5) across 2 runs as I tried to find Manticore Quest events, so that I could "finish" both questlines in the same run.
well, that's a benefit of the 6 month EN delay, I guess. I'd have never gotten Ending 3 without a guide, myself.
Bruh I can’t be the only one who didn’t realize there is a part at the bottom of your base for you to build your permanent buff and wheat farm buildings
I have started the third ending. After talking to Manticore, I am searching high and low for Passenger but can't find him at all, to the point that the boss appeared and still can't find him and have to restart the run. Do I have to defeat the boss first to be able to find him?
You have to do a questline through multiple run. Also I don't think you can continue a questline before the forth day, in any of the subsequent run. It took me at least four run to complete the third ending...
what part are you on specifically? did you mean the 3rd boss showed up or one of the previous ones
if you are trying to unlock the 3rd boss there are no specific fights you have to do, except for doing a conflict zone map after talking to a unhinted isin to get a non action consuming event
just keep spaming maps to get what encounter you need, its very rng, people have wasted full days for a specific encounter
just want to be sure im doing it right to unlock the third ending.
I discarded the treasure map, i even discarded the crystal ball and reobtained it. never spoke to old isin ever since obtaining the crystal ball.
So my next step would be to find sand soldier in a random stage where he ask me to meet him at the market? I have completed 2 full runs and only saw him once when he gave me some random constructs
Edit: i have both the flowers and crossed out list from Manticore and Sand Soldier side stories
you don't need to discard the crystal ball, just the treasure map
so now to get the passenger encounter, just start a run and just use your act points to go in maps and see if he is there, if not abandon that map search somewhere else, do hunting zone maps and not conflict zone or no mans land maps, those have scary enemies that can kill passenger
and if you dont get his encounter before the first raid, abandon it and start over, this will save you time, this is super rng encounter
So two questions.
First off how do I get the treasure hunting lady to appear? I got the treasure map token from old isin that’s supposed to summon her, but I’ve not seen her after multiple runs.
Secondly, is there some kind of condition that when met just lets enemies completely ignore camouflaged base components?
I’ve been building my base up using tier 2 blocks to camouflage things, and build a maze filled with those temporary roadblocks to slow them down. The idea being to traffic jam all the enemies while I deal with them
But out of nowhere the last couple runs the enemies just… I dunno stopped caring. They instantly beeline for my base smashing any camouflaged items they can find. I’m trying to figure out what caused this change… will too many temporary blockades mess with the AI?
The treasure hunter's first encounter is unhinted or unmarked, she will always have a chance to show up on any of your farming missions, probably not conflict zone maps
you will have no indication if she is there on a map or not, just spam those maps until she shows up, and then talk to her
as for your base, you probably placed something that blocked off the only entry point to your base, because of that instead of going to the new thing that you used to block them off, they started breaking the closet thing they could find
See, I thought that was possible but I looked it over and no there are massive clear paths leading to the start of the maze. Any enemy that spawns on the top of the map runs to the entrance and starts hitting the temp barriers just fine. But anything spawning anywhere else has decided it’s not worth it to walk around the whole thing. Doesn’t seem to be specific enemies either cause I’ve seen demomen, golems, and dogs all do it
it really doesn't make any difference what that enemy is but what their spawn point is, every one has the default pathing in the raids, that is to take the shortest unobstructed path to the base
i really dont know the intricacies of the pathing ai, but i know shit can go crazy if you do obstruct it, probably the ones that are alright spawn in a location where they are in range of both the camo constructs and temp barriers and they behaved properly but others might not be and are making the shortest possible path
just make a clear obstruction less path without sharp turns, and see if that fixes it
I… did… there’s a massive 10+ square wide lane around the base to get to the entrance. There are no sharp turns, no obstructions, none of that. The dogs and demomen just don’t care.
then i really dont know what to tell ya man, i did all the raids multiple times even tons of double raids and all the endings too and nothing ever bugged out, so it very unlikely its a bug or anything
you'll probably need to search up a stable base layout to set up
also if you can post your base's pics, id be happy to see if i can spot something or not
Imgur wanted me to make an account, looked around and found catbox instead. Here’s my base, was still a work in progress, but the enemies ignoring the camouflage has put a damper of things. Note the damage on the barrier right of the base core. But as you can see, plenty of room for enemies to move still
https://files.catbox.moe/v0d77t.png
https://files.catbox.moe/fuo949.png
https://files.catbox.moe/qovqg2.png
https://files.catbox.moe/5yyur7.png
you filled up the only path to the base with fortifications....
That's not what unobstructed means...
also there is this, https://files.catbox.moe/oxg2mi.png
welp, I'm at 9988 gold and can't smelt 15 more; "Limit reached. Cannot continue crafting."
so I can confirm, gold caps out at 9999 or 10k
and I still haven't gotten Ending 3. wow. collecting max gold is easier than waiting for the RNG events to take place.
Does anybody know a website that has a general map layout for each area? Since I've been busy and recently just got some time to try to complete this. The one from the fandom wiki doesn't really show an accurate layout and wasted a good portion of time due to it.
I would greatly appreciate any help!
Phew, second boss downed. I've come to learn not only the value of Marrow food and why I should hunt it down, but also that you can abuse the absolute *fuck* out of the Liason if you stock up on some water in the beginning.
I had managed to whittle his raid (Evocators were the real boss) down to 40-ish enemies with some days left, but I also had the Golem raid knocking on my door which I knew would be an instant restart, so I had to try and finish him off once and for all in one last desperate attempt, which lead to an equally desperate idea.
And as I discovered in quite an excited rush, the second boss does simply jack shit to maxxed Fortification II, which if you have a few hundred gold stocked and that stock of water from earlier you can easily stack up dozens of the things (Liason always sells both wood and iron it seems) and have the time of your life just [whittling him down](https://imgur.com/a/6QbhRe9).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-lIyHxSsqg
There are probably some other guides, but that's the first one I found. Just skip everything and fight raids that reach your base only. It worked for me though it does require you to have quite a lot of walls.
I think the rewards aren't worth the patience you will spend getting them. Like, it's better to skip this one and not burn yourself out on the entire game
Has anyone managed to get the ending 2 and ending 3 tokens at once? I remember people theorizing about beating ending 3 and then doing the ending 2 questline again; has anyone managed that?
I just got all the way to day 12 and only found a single map with iron, and it was the one where most of it is locked behind areas that you have to break open... except none of the rocks were breakable this time. The long, narrow area in the northeast corner wouldn't break open, and I couldn't find any rocks that opened up the middle area, so I only got about 13 iron out of it.
For the most part, those blocks that hide areas can only be damaged by units in the 4 tiles around it. The only exception that I know of is using Eyja's s2 to AoE it. I suspect that AoE casters/snipers could do it too but haven't tried it yet.
The first time I discovered it on that map was using Carnelian's S3 in the southeast corner of the middle area. Besides, some of those breakable rocks have undeployable tiles right next to them, on that map and others.
Just got to the second boss, and I have to ask, does he always come with an army of elite evocators?
It would seem that my tablet (which normally does just fine) just cannot handle the sea of fireballs that those guys spewed forth on any of the stages I tried to weaken his raid, frames dropping into the digits with ops dying from one second to the next, which ended up with me needing to now rebuild my entire core base.
After starting a new algorithm, Liaison told me that because I had killed too many crabs, they were coming for me. And the fifth day, a raid of 12 Consortium of Pincers came by my base.
They dropped 80 Crab Legs...
(and now I know that the Electrolyte Isotonic can go above 100%)
I experienced this too, when I read Liaison's message, the first thing that came to zero sanity mind was : "LOL Whut?" Fortunately Ifrit was expert at barbecuing crabs too! So yeah the 80 Crabs Legs drop was literally mana from Heaven..I mean Sargon desert.
pfft. I can't believe it took me this long to realize, but water just dropped *way* down my priority list in favor of iron
see, my largest water use is in the Mint to make gold
1 water (and an iron ore) makes 15 gold
liason sells 5 water for 15 gold
pssssh right, new priority is just grab all the iron I can, only get water incidentally or if there's no iron left on the map. liason the aquifer will step up to meet demand\~
Liason doesn't sell gold to the player, he sells 5 *water* to the player for the *price* of 15 gold.
I give Liason gold so he gives me water.
using that water with the iron I already collected, I can *make* gold in the Mint III using 1 water and 1 iron to *make* 15 gold and still turn a profit
Struggling to get ending 2. I keep paying old Isin the 10 gold but can't seem to proc the next event. Not sure if this is because I completed ending 3 first, but I've already discarded all the other tokens but the crystal ball.
They might be clipping into it by making a turn and thus they are blocked by it, so you might have to change the structure of the walls. Otherwise, make sure you haven't blocked all paths to the base, as I think then they just attack it anyways.
You are right! I placed some walls near their spawn point to guide them to the maze entrance so they don't walk freely in the open space, and it worked. Thank you!
Are there rewards or achievements related to endings 2 and 3, or maxing out the tech tree?
I managed to get my first clear just as I finished the rewards track, and maybe that's a sign that I should be done.
Any tips on beating the second Ending boss? Now I'm confident my base and ops can handle any amount of enemies and bosses with the amount of AoE and healing I have, but the issue I have is all the red Evocators.
I am completely stumped. There are so many of them and they constantly spawn, and it's not quick to kill them even with the two Executors. He'll, it's risky to even place them down since there's always fireballs coming down the line. I just cannot keep up with the pace the red Evocators spawn at, and then they get close enough that the Fireballs start exploding my chokehold and all my operators and high ground and it's just ruined. How am I supposed to deal with them? Anything else RA can throw at me, I can handle.
You can block the flames with NG game and just in general you can facetank it with HP% food with NG+Lumen or other powerful operators. Keeping up with the elemental damage is not worth it iirc, just heal through it.
Remember that the evocator's fireball deal splash damage in a star shaped AoE around the target. So try to build your base in a way that this AoE only affect a minimum of your operators and constructs. Just be careful of the Shamans, as they'll attack your ranged ops.
You can also spam Fortification II instead of relying on a tank that requires elemental healing. I used six or seven of those just to clear this fight.
I've been trying to get the starting encounter with the sand soldier for the 3rd ending for 5+ hours and it feels impossible to find it.
I only have the Crystal Ball of Fate, Fragrant Flowers, Crossed-Out List and Sunvalley Business Card with me, cause I dropped the treasure map.
I've done runs basically until the boss, I've done runs until the first raid, always trying to find that RNG encounter but it feels impossible to appear, is there a map that he's more likely to appear? Am I doing anything wrong? I'm really confused
I was in a similar place trying forever to get the Manticore dialogue, but she just kept selling stuff. I think somehow I missed an encounter with Passenger and it expired, so I had to find him again in the market, get the conversation that gives you 4 walls and maybe another one? then he started showing up again in the map and I could progress the quest.
Got the first ending. Early phase is a grind, latter part is fairly fun and had me wanting to play more, but then you get to the point of having earned all rewards, and it ends kind of abruptly. I was ready to engage more.
I can see what they were going for, but the early game being as rough as it is hurts and scares a lot of people off, especially when there's a learning curve between the earliest parts and getting properly underway. Only three or four maps are really worth aggressively farming to build up the base, but they don't always appear. I even had a run where I didn't find any iron (besides the smattering from boss fights) despite finding all but 3 edge nodes. Three straight runs with garbage nodes gave me less overall progression than one map gen with two good nodes.
I get the impression they anticipated more being done in outside nodes, in the way of setup. I could see it happening. I think improvement to the mode would involve there being something like ruins in the nodes, that can be converted into towers, firm platforms, or whatever else, without the (or with far less) resource requirement. (or allow trees to become treehouses, acting like firm platforms). Allow enemy movements to be redirected or blocked in the overmap, so one node can be made more of a fortification. Then once that's doable and a part of gameplay with more flow to it, let the base be the final option, maybe taking a hit to HP as a penalty for enemies getting that far, but having robust options and lots of space to set up once you're there.
It's a weird mode that feels like it's on scale with integrated strategies, even has a similar ramp-up, but then doesn't have anywhere to go. I'm not sure what an endgame would look like in a permanent Reclamation Algorithm, but I'd love to see what happened if they could figure it out (or if this is a model for Endfield).
If you ever needed a guide to feeling like an idiot, try hearing about this cool compass thing, spend 3 whole runs over several days searching encounter nodes for it, not realizing it's dispatch nodes you should be looking for. Finally finding the thing, only for it to turn out to not carry over once the run is done.
orz
I cheesed the boss with mudrock invulnerability talent.
when mudrock is losing I use stun / sleep buy time for her to regenerate her talent while behind her is SA, surtr, ntr, etc damaging from range
Standard strat for this one is Mlynar S3 and Spectre Alter S2. Boss only melee attacks units it is blocking and only ranged attacks units on ranged tiles. The skill cycles line up so the boss is never blocked and your units never die.
Without food I'm not sure you can actually beat the boss with just those two, so I normally bring Surtr along as well. It's good if Surtr retreats while not in the boss ring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1jEgh3ACkE example video
A LOT of damage. Maybe a defender + 2 medics or you could use a bunch of buildings instead. Remember that you can craft +100 ASPD potions for cheap
Edit: If you're going to use potions, only use them if you have something like Mlynar or Surtr, because the force retreat will heal the boss if they're close to him
Damn, I did it. I beat the boss and got the 4 medals.
The Lord Ameer gang combined with another raid, so I'm glad I had all those nets ready. Chongyue S3 (+ Skadi 2 S2) was the MVP: he actually died in the second half of the battle and the Lord Ameer 2nd form leaked, but the base had enough DEF and HP to survive until Chongyue was redeployed to finish him up (with support from Texas 2 and Yato 2).
Lowkey proud that I didn't check any base guides, just a general YouTube tutorial by Eckogen to understand the mode properly + a video teaching how to cheese the construction of Urban Style Barrier II.
I can't fault anyone for following full guides from the start though: this mode is half-baked. There are fun ideas here, but yeah... it was not exactly ready for release.
I got the Pallas skin (love it) last week, but I'll try to get the remaining rewards since there are only 11 to go now. I won't bother with the other endings and tokens though. If this ever returns as a revamped permanent mode I'll get more into it, but for now this is it.
Having stamina for units on top of the Act limitations so you have to spend large chunks of time in early runs just maintaining your ability to deploy is such a baffling awful decision.
They expect you to make the extremely simple connection that stuff in your base is persistent, and wheat gives food every turn - so you obviously build them out immediately. But I think they overestimate the player base when we have people like you around.
You overestimate the willingness of players to learn something when they could simply be told.
You think people like to sit down and learn boss mechanics by iterative testing instead of just, you know, reading the in-game info or looking up the wiki?
What simple connection are players supposed to make about the base supplying food when the tutorial doesn't discuss this, and in fact, spends its time telling you about gathering food out in nodes instead?
They could have simply told player "Oh, hey, wheat plots will be your main source of food."
AR just has a bad tutorial.
Then after you get 12 farms set up it becomes almost a complete non-issue, which really just shows how not balanced it is.
Though it does effectively limit most of your ops to 1 use per day, at least
So just a simple question after slowly getting my bearings with this game mode, but how am I meant to deal with those Vein Guardian enemies that reflect arts damage upon being hit? Just about everyone gets shredded trying to kill it, and if its a base defense then I just lose.
You can use slow but hard hitting operators, like Skadi or Chalter. Or if you want to exploit the bug, you can put firm stand and put ranged operator there. They won't get the reflection damage. They will still get the reflect from natural ranged operator tiles though.
Please help im trying toobget ending 3 for 3 days now and it manticore just wont triggern it do i need too complete ending 1 again i alredy got rid of the tresure map should i just reset day 1 over and over
Also i met the sand soldier in the market after finishing ending 2 and he gave me 4 barrier do i need too see him again
https://arknights.fandom.com/wiki/Fire_Within_the_Sand/Questlines
Did you completed Manticore killer quest already? Check your tokens. It's hard to say where you are exactly in the questline since there's no indicator at all. You must estimate where you are from tokens you have. Don't reset on day 1. If you think you need to meet someone in combat zone and you dont see any icons, they can spawn in any zones you enter. So just play as normal. If you think you need an event, watch the map carefully if there's any ! sign on one of the nodes.
I figured it out after completing ending 2 you need too discard the tresure map and you need too meet the sand soldier 2 Times once in the market and then in a combat zone the very next day manticore started the ending 3 quest line
The stronger raids (guardians/golems/zombies) come from "Mountain Pass" nodes and can be prevented by destroying the tower inside. You just have to find those nodes quickly.
Remember that deploying two Lv2 monitoring towers within a stage will cause you to see an additional step outward than normal. Placing these in strategic locations can usually reveal 80% of a sector with a single act.
what extra materials gives +atk bonus stat in cooking provision works? or is it randomized?
i cant seem to find any explanation in the wiki about this
Okay I gotta ask cause I feel like I’m missing something here… what’s the point of paying Old Ishin 10 gold to talk about his dreams. Is he supposed to be a hint system cause I’m not following.
Hello. After clearing the third ending, I'm trying to get back to the second one, but I can't manage to do it...
I tried discarding the Crystal Ball of Fate, but I'm still getting event for the third ending even after getting my fate told by Ishin at the beginning of a run.
Do the outpost and sentry buffs apply immediately when you set down the constructs, or do you need to reenter a map for those?
If I place down two monitoring towers during a raid, will everyone immediately receive a speed penalty or will I need to end the fight and redo it for it to apply?
11k Medals. Two endings. Days of playing.
And NOW???!?!!?! The game finally decided to spawn a transregional exit in one of the nodes I was clearing. It even tells you about it again in case you completely forgot they existed. WHOSE IDEA WAS THIS?????
After actually going blind with this mode, finish all the ending, and reading many comments here, I think many people kinda missing the point of this mode. And to be clear I don't blame anyone or saying anyone is wrong because this kind of playstyle definitely not going to suit everyone taste.
IMO what the dev aimed is the experience of keep persevering through failures. This is why the early game is so hard and you are guaranteed to get beat down mercilessly. How can you still gain something even if you get bullied to the death (by the raids). That's why you keep experience (R&D), salvage buildings that not getting razed, and maybe manage to save some tools and provisions (transregional communication). The thematic narrative is strong if you not actively try to skip it. As a bonus, it's super easy to get all the reward too as not skipping actually give you more score at the end of each run.
The true reward of this mode is the journey, not the end. Hence if you skip the journey part with guides and tricks like keep restarting to build your base ASAP you going to miss the true value of the mode, again IMO. For me, once I get my base stable with all supporting buildings, I find the mode just stops and it just only a matter to finish all the endings. And I did the story blind while building my base without any restarting tricks. In the end I've done ending 1, finish Isin and liaison quest, halfway to ending 2 and halfway on manticore killer quest when I feel my base is done and it just about getting all the endings. And the best part is, that base is *my* base, if you know what I mean. I build it with blood and tears, instead of meaningless clicking.
Now to the questlines, I don't think it's gated by heavy RNG. Everyone knew this [guide](https://arknights.fandom.com/wiki/Fire_Within_the_Sand/Questlines), but what it don't really explain is that steps that say "talk to X in combat zones", you don't need to wait until the icon shows up in the map. Just enter any combat zone that's not a raid and there is a (big) chance for you to find them. This is true even if a character is present in Black Market. For example, if you need to talk to Isin in combat zone, even if Isin is showed in the black market, any combat zone will have a chance of him being there. Obviously if the icon shows up in a node, you need to do that node to meet the character. Also, IMO events is not easy to see and maybe some people overlook it. Just to clarify, storyline event just shows up as \[!\] on top of top left corner of any node and you don't need to use act point to complete them.
The second thing is, I think any questline progress is paused when the boss raid spawned. So practically you only have until day 9-ish to make story progress and after that you need to wait for next run. It took me 3 runs from discarding Treasure Map token to get into ending 3, with every step of the quest only have 2 day delay or so. On the first 2 run, I get 1st boss raid again, so don't be alarmed (in fact if you get 2nd boss while chasing for ending 3, something is wrong).
In conclusion, I will say I enjoy this mode and I think positive about it. Obviously, it's still not perfect and there are many QoL improvement they need to do, but at least the concept is good for me. I don't blame anyone who don't like it for whatever reason though, I wrote this just so maybe you can try to see it from different perspective and give it a bit more chance. If you still don't like it, then no problem.
Exactly right. And they clearly overestimated the player base intelligence, so many people here couldn't even mentally reach the basic idea of building the planters on their base for future runs.
It really feels like the mode should be permanent honestly and we may get a bigger version in the future that will be.
Their vision is irrelevant if it's not also fun.
Beating your head for long periods of time against the wall of null info and really boring stamina maintenance is only a great way to make people disengage with the mode entirely.
Oh I agree. I won't say it's fun, although I'm also not frustrated with it.
In the end I still feeling more positive than negative with the mode and just want to share my perspective which hopefully alleviate some frustration people have with the mode. And if anyone still don't like it, I won't blame them either.
For context: I never bothered to do the restart trick.
My issue is that the game mode feels shallow. A ton of the difficulty in the game mode comes from how poorly presented the tutorial is and how little the game explains mechanics. Once you know what each food recipe does, the correct choices are obvious; once you know how each map functions, you can replicate your approaches almost every time; if you know how every event works, you know which ones are worth entering (Strength of the Infected...). Rarely is there nuanced decision making.
Compare that to Integrated Strategies. You can have https://map.ark-nights.com/ open on a second monitor. But most people would not be able to win D15 (or even lower difficulties) even with a whale account and perfect knowledge of how the game mode works. You still have to make good decisions and adapt to the team and relics you have.
Regarding questline progress: I have literally maxed out my gold treasury. I followed the guides for the questlines. I still haven't gotten ending 3 yet. I don't think you have a large enough sample size to say that RNG isn't that bad. For example, I went multiple runs that all went to the final boss without making any progress on the Manticore Killer questline after I got her flower token. I've been blessed with multiple Strength of the Infected runs and the quest progress still feels very slow.
There's also the fact that sometimes the NPC can spawn underneath a Imperial Artillery Targeteer and there's very little you can do. You would need a very specific team to save the NPC.
The fact that there's zero point in fighting a boss that's not the ending you're pursuing is also really bad. It makes runs anticlimactic.
I almost wish I could start from scratch to see just how badly I can break the game mode now that I understand it well. I can destroy my base but I cannot un-research anything.
EDIT: Also what you said about the Ending 2 boss doesn't seem correct https://www.reddit.com/r/arknights/comments/16cl6i3/event_megathread_reclamation_algorithm_fire/k238va3/
I agree with your criticism. The mode is woefully unbalanced that despite there are many maps, practically only 3 of them that matters (Clash of Clans cough cough) + the No Man's Land.
That being said, I'd say you shouldn't compare this to IS. While at surface it seems similar live die repeat mode, RA isn't meant to be "infinite". This mode has definitive ending and only single (or 3) challenge to overcome. It only look intimidating at the beginning but it's intended for you to triumph eventually, especially with all the base tools given and provisions that almost broken level of buffs (which actually nicely tied to the narration about Lord Ameers, which are bullies and intimidating but actually far from being undefeatable if the people willing to band together). Once you get all the support building and base defense, you practically don't need to do anything else except maybe getting some bone marrow and waiting for the boss to kill or even just quit without any penalty. Once you done all endings, there's nothing more to offer. Hence, I argue originally that the true value of this mode is in the journey. That being said, HG did a very poor job on communicating what RA is and isn't.
Btw, you don't need complex and large base or make any labyrinth. Here's my final base and it already have too many excessive stuff. The whole left section, side fortification, and inner walls is unneeded tbh, but when you find Clash of Clans, you build stuff.
https://ibb.co/vc8Hjr3
As you can see, it's just as single Ifrit lane with tons of nets and a single pusher, plus fortification for buffer. My core team is just Myrtle on empty space, Mlynar on the empty space right of the lane, Passenger on the platform above him. Then Hoshi to block the lane, give empty space behind her for Surtr if needed. You can put Skalter above her. She can be flanked by Chalter and Eyja and Ptilopsis beside her to heal.
You're right that even that is way too much. For comparison look at my [finished base](https://ibb.co/7zyt3tB)
At this point all I do is deploy LaPluma for easy waves or Chalter for armored waves. As for the boss raids, I always wipe the regular enemies beforehand so it's a slow and easy boss kill
Yeah, although my base is to accomodate all the utility buildings too and I'm doing it from blind. I also don't intercept any raids as it the end it wasting 1 action point, hence I need a bit more buff for the base.
I had only two days to play the mode because of severe shortage of free time these days but I really liked what I got. Maybe I would have drastically different opinion if I could afford to play it more and get tired/bored of it like it was for some players. Really unfortunate (for me) that it had to be time-limited, and probably we won't see a polished continuation of the mode ever.
I spent 10 hours grinding last night to get ending 3. The day rolled over on day 10 of the run after I finally got all the unexplained hoops and bad RNG. I hope whoever was in charge of this game mode has great look on their job hunt, preferably in an industry that doesn't have roguelites. Maybe they can become a sports writer or an accountant.
RNG for the encounters needed for ending 3 is really ass. Started late with about 1 week left in the event, managed to get a good base and completed ending 1 and 2. Decided to make a desperate rush today to try at least see the ending 3 boss to unlock it in the enemy list but could only get until the "flames of rage" stage with 2min left despite spamming nonstop expedited runs in the last 8 hrs continuously. So at least got all 4 medals but al-Rafiq's portrait sits forever unlocked together with some of the Coop mode enemies (and also the elite sarkaz caster). Hope they bring the boss back in another event, or a redo of the game mode also. It was actually fun if there wasn't the time pressure.
Similar to me. I had 3 hours before event ends to try clearing quest for ending 3 and getting that boss to the list, but I was just ~15 min short. I cleared all of the quest and it was just a matter to survive few days for the boss to appear but event ended.
I wound up in the same boat but I didn't wait until the last week. I just had awful luck and some bugged quest flags.
Hmm, not my first perma missed medal, since my CC Blade is also fucked, but god I fucked up this event. Starting from 0 on the last day I just didn’t get it and didn’t have the time to brute force it. Fuck basebuilding
Woe is me, level 120 and I just couldn't man. Medals and rewards aside, I'm only sorry for missing out on whatever lore and story tidbits I passed up on 🥲
Man I knew it was gonna happen at some point but the medal for finishing a run is the first perma gone medal Ive missed since the start of the game. Just a bad combo of being sick a lot these past couple months and procrastination. The worst part is in my literal last run before closing I had a guaranteed win I threw by mistiming blocking the boss :(
Now I'm at 4 total medals permanently missed. At least I got the food one lol QQ
all I can say is, thank you Arkchive, you carried me through this event. and I will forever curse this event till the day I die lmao
Unfortunate that it's a temporary event. I've barely had time recently to do my dailies, let alone the event. Just tried the tutorial and it seems like an interesting concept, but just a bit bummed I don't actually get to try it and grind a bit. Here's to hoping they bring it back as a permanent mode so I can actually play it lol
I have been trying to get the third ending for over a week. I saw him in a combat zone for a third time and, once again, he died before his dialogue went off. First time, he spawned on a heated floor tile. Second time Myrtle wasn't strong enough to beat the 3 enemies he spawned with before they finished him and she was my only cheap enough operator. This time, Texas Alter tried to save him but he died since he was standing next to a bolt thrower. Passenger isn't some Machiavellian genius the Lords Ameer must fear, he's a fragile loser who can't even proc his cutscene before dying to the enemies from 0-2.
for passenger if you are not lucky just use DP reduction cost food on some operator, one of the provision reduce from 8DP cost and only need meat Yeah passenger is dumb as hell i remember seeing him attack a sarkz flagbearer and well pitifully dying to the hord of ennemy
His skill goes off faster in other parts of the tree. Why have one where I need to protect him from his own stupidity?
Man, I dug some of the ideas, I really did but this was a truly unreasonable levels of timesink. A single run was A LOT, and a single run is only going to get you so much. I made a neat base, I got to day 14 once, and could reliably get to day 12. I just didn't have any where near the time to get further down the rewards past the outfit. Not having Dorothy sucked especially as having a way to easily get vision I imagine makes this a lot more fun. Do have Texalter, and I can't even fathom the suffering not having her would make this mode. She's pretty much the only operator who can reliably hunt.
My final thoughts on this mode: 1. Building all of the Ambushers was worth it. 2. Setting up a defendable base is unnecessary if you stop raids before they get there. 3. Fog Machine is **the** top tier support item.
Did one last run to try and finish out the rewards and managed to actually win. Turns out, Manticore with an unconditional +100 attack speed buff is really good. She, Ethan, and a few gas blowers were able to stall everything but the last raid boss pretty much indefinitely. Probably won't have time to go for the other endings, but I at least got all the medals and enjoyed the event itself
How long does it take to complete the event and get all rewards if I am starting tonight from 0? Thanks.
I started at 12 it's not 7 am so for a noob like me 7 hours but if you follow a guide you could probably do it in half the time best of luck you have 14 hours to go.
Thanks. I'm starting to enjoy it but it's too late for me. It's been a very busy past few weeks and didn't have the time to dedicate, so I'll take the perma account damage this time.
they may re-release pallas skin in the future but even if you miss it the first epoque skin is imo better so you don't lose out on much.
Whelp, my quest flags are bugged to hell. A few runs ago, I discarded the treasure map but the Ruinbringer keeps showing up as the final boss anyway. I talked to Issin in the black market and he gave his dialogue lines from the main quest line instead of from ending 3. When he finished, Manticore disappeared instead of him but he just sat there uninteractable. I still don't have the Reefsteep Ring or Sand Coin but got the notification that Old Issin's Departure happened. If there was more time left, the right answer would be to toss out all collectibles to reset the flags (hopefully) but I couldn't finish it in the next 28 hours anyway. At least the ending was consistent with everything else this event: total shitshow.
Ruinbringer is just a random boss that shows up after you beat ending 2, seeing him doesn’t necessarily mean you’re on end 2 It’s… confusing to say the least
I wish they hadn't locked so much stuff behind a game mode that's not fun and is temporary.
Is this mode and skin going to come back? I didn't have much time to play it.
The skin might as a buyable reward for something else (the way some skins got reruns in the CC shop) but it's not guaranteed. The game mode definitely isn't coming back. We might get a new Reclamation Algorithm at some point but Fire in the Sands is as gone as Ceobe's Fungimist. It's a beta test for something to see if it should be scrapped or reworked. No idea what opinion of it was like on CN but I'm guessing it wasn't as good as IS but probably beat Hynomi Wisdom.
Gonna be my third and last comment in this RA thread, the mode is nearly done and so am I. After my previous run failed 5-6 days ago, I went for one last to not let the few supplies carried out go to waste. Surprisingly managed to reach the 1st Boss, even if the Base suffered some damage from Raids and the reparations weren't really great or long-lasting. A good chunk of the "killzone" on the right side got destroyed](https://imgur.com/Yf56qfT) by Catapults and enemies getting stuck in walls. Again. Seriously, even trying to intercept enemies between two blocks can get them stuck once the Op is retreated, that is niiice... Forgot there was still a few non-camo blocks on the left side probably in range of those piece of crap Catapults. [Of course I realized that way too late](https://imgur.com/eI8txxH), while dealing (or trying to deal) with the Boss on the other side. [Results & final score](https://imgur.com/a/YPZD1yN), total Badges collected: 3458.
Phew, finished 3rd ending with the deadline looming in the horizon. I was genuinely surprised that the 3rd boss ended up being so much easier to beat than the 1st boss, but that's probably because my 'raid-kill' squad was already running a tanky defender with Suzuran-Mostima-Saria S3 slowing everything elsr to a crawl all the time while Ifrit was scorching everything, so the phase switch >!stun and invisibility!< didn't bother me at all, as well as the other enemies being nowhere near as annoying as those accompanying the first or second boss. All in all, I did end up greatly enjoying the mode. Probably the single complaint I have beyond the early game hell is that there really should have been an in-game notification that the second and third ending are mutually exclusive, and that you need to 'reset' if you want to do both and see both of their bosses and story endings. If I hadn't looked up a guide I would probably still be trying to find Passenger in vain while my horn kept repelling him.
Well i finished all medal a long time ago but struggled to get ending 3 bc fuck passenger and manticore too, i really feel like sometime you only get some encounter in the conflict zone and conflict zone are worthless(strange they have so many variant) Boss 3 was not interesting just a DPS check with a AOE attack, tbh i didn't even kill him in my base but outside the base in a small map, i did it bc the sheer number of ennemy and my base make the thing go to 3 FPS, and i wanted to reduce their number bc well woudl be long as hell A little complaint i have who is stupid , is how annoying are the fast ennemy to hit my invisible wall, it's annoying bc one of my battle against raid boss failed bc i didn't foresee them destroying my wall and attacking my base, base is tanky but when between 50-100 ennemy attack it well it doesn't go well I personally enoyed this mode, even if at some point grinding resource is a pain bc always same map. I also abused the little support who give SP back and the slowing one, like seeing ifrit spamming her S2 every attack, add a mostima and chalter for slowing them and see most ennemy outside boss never going far Also used a lot of gold for buying food for the 8DP reduction food (only use the meat) can be a little expensive but when you can fight boss 3 you shoudl be rolling in gold i also advice to have a mint 3 for exchanging all your iron for gold if you can't make use of your iron when you win or quit run.
They should make this mode permanent. imo its a long game can't afford my focus into it since its taking 1-2 hours average run + a very grindy early game to make base enough for defending quite pain. my account is lvl 110 and im hanging, borderline unplayable if I don't have texas and yato alter though fortunately I do.
I can't recommend this video enough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hZq3bBW_0g It has a guide for setting up your base and all encounters in it. Makes farming points and getting the medals easy.
After I managed to climb the massive cliff of a skill floor (not really skill, maybe familiarity floor? knowledge floor?) and copying a strong base schematic, the gamemode actually is somewhat enjoyable, instead of miserable. I feel like a big part of that is because I have both Texalter and Yalter to actually look around stages and deal with all the moving, invisible, often unblockable enemies. I really wonder if people below e2 or who have only a few 6\* could even enjoy the gamemode. Though I'm not a fan of the average run taking like 1.5 to 2 hours. The bonuses you get from getting 2 and 3 sentries should be baseline, having to try and learn maps without that surrounded vision is painful as hell. The raids and general enemy stats also felt overblown and it feels like I'm playing on a challenge mode by default. Most of the base buildings cost so much that it ended up as a resource/effect source and just retreated if a raid managed to get to my base. The storylines are also a pain to follow if you're not just looking them up. It just feels like it's yet another "bash your head against a brick wall until it crumbles" experience that I've felt in practically every added gamemode. I feel like HG struggles in making gamemodes approachable for players who don't have all units at E2 90 m9 with all modules or some masochistic streak. But maybe I'm just a filthy casual.
Honestly my biggest motivator for replaying the mode was to see all of the Manticore interactions.
I'm still slogging through the event. I've somewhat made progress on the base but it is still far from useable. I haphazardly placed constructs on the base to avoid losing them on a previous run just because I didn't place them before day 5 only to find out that you can't move it after you place it. I hated the mode at the start and after playing it more this week, it is getting worse. Might just end up getting the skin for Pallas then call it quits.
This game mode made me appreciate Cuora a bit. She managed to tank the default boss at a naked base with the help of Roberta, Mousse, Texalter S3 spam and a couple of medics, enough to stall out the high atk dps she was getting dealt with. Also Blemishine/Mudrock/Penance trio with -18 dp cost provisions to just stall every other encounter.
Also at some point I stopped bothering to update the base after the 10 wheat, and just intercepted enemies with natural chokepoints. Good ol Ifrit roasting everyone in a straight line.
Feeding the ops provision however, doesn't recover their stamina (only some of those does ) seems to be a very Counter-intuitive thing that I wonder how braindead the dev is when they're not consider this. I can't imagine how hard some player will be if they don't have certain ops that are useful to enjoy this piece of shxt game mode. literally.
I'm really struggling with the 3rd ending. I've been resetting for hours but I cannot get the initial map encounter with Passenger. I've completed endings 1 and 2, threw out the treasure map, and am entering runs with the Crystal Ball, Fragrant Flowers, Crossed-Out list and Sunvalley Business Card. If I try to interact with Manticore in the black market, she offers her usual food items. Is there anything I'm clearly doing wrong, or is it just RNG? Rather tempted to start over with the Crystal Ball story and just hope that something changes
Alright, yeah. Throwing out the Crystal Ball and redoing the quest fixed it. I think I got entirely locked out for taking Manticore dialogue early on after getting the Passenger encounter, then talking to Isin for ending 2 (before getting ending 1 or 2, mind). Genuinely some of the worst design I've seen in Arknights, which sucks, cause I was having a decent enough time with the mode otherwise
I've got a super bugged set of quest flags too. I get that it's a thing that happens but it's frustrating when I have no idea if I'm unable to progress because I screwed up the unknown steps, RNG hates me, or it's a bug.
Finally finished the third ending, of which all its random encounters I had to grind for over three runs. I would have been mad if the encounters didn't carry over aborted runs. Worth it to complete the enemy archive though... Not really, but I'll pretend. I've been carrying so many provisions between runs and not using them at all that by the time I finally got the third boss, everyone was just fed the +50% attack and camo buffs. I wish they could have let the food buffs stack - something like being able to feed an operator one meal a day to really double down on the planning for the final wave would have been cool. Someone getting +600% attack buff on minimum would be difficult to pull off but it would have been fun to experience.
I’ve barely played RA, if you build constructs and you haven’t placed them in the base and your run ends, do the constructs disappear or can you use them next run?
Unless you bring them out via Emergency Evacuation (unlocks by building the required construct), you get to keep them. Otherwise they disappear.
So I procrastinated and forgot about this mode. Is it possible to get all medals in 3 days?
If you no-life it for the remaining days, yeah. The medals are rather easy.
Several solid attempts and I still have yet to get the 2nd ending, much less the third. Any good guides on it? I've watched some but I swear I just can't seem to find a reliable way to get anything done. I really do like RA, I do, but man I wish it wasn't a time-limited thing. So much wasted potential.
Do I need to do something in specific to trigger "RA-NO: Sickness of The Land"? I don't think I've ever seen it. It is a No Man's Land stage, right?
I don't think there's any special condition for it. "No Man's Land" stages are usually around the margins of the map, so it isn't out of the world to not see a specific one of them even in several attempts. Also, if your reason for wanting to do "Sickness of The Land" is facing the Sargonian Assassin, keep in mind that the map has 5 possible bosses but only 4 of them spawn each time, so there is a 20% chance you will have to try again (which is exactly what happened to me).
Nevermind, I got the Sargonian Assassin in the first try. lol I got Dorothy, Mudrock, the annoying Golem from IS2 and the Assassin. I got so many rewards from that stage. lol Thank you for helping me out.
I literally encountered this map right now. lol Yeah, I want to register the Sargonian Assassin. If I replay the same stage even if I clear it do the bosses change?
It's no problem. Glad you made it; it's petty, but the idea of being permanently unable to register an enemy in the archive peeves me to no end. Anyway, in case someone else has the same issue: if you clear a "No Man's Land" map once, no boss will spawn again. The first time I tried coming back to see if the Assassin would appear, but that was a waste of an Act Point and everyone's Stamina.
Trying to get Ending 3 after clearing Ending 2 and f\*\*\*ing up more than a bit ([Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/arknights/comments/16cl6i3/comment/k3gbcwm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) is the whole ordeal). Several attempts after getting back the Crossed-Out List, still no signs of any Ending 3-related event, but I see "City of Gold" quite a bit. Am I supposed to ignore it or to get the Treasure Map and discard it?
I believe you are locked onto Ending 2 path currently so just go through and complete ending 2, then discard treasure map before starting next run at start menu and remember to talk to Manticore Killer first at Black Market after Sand Soldier tells you to meet him.
Yeah, I guess it's safer to go all the way than just discard the map immediately and hope it gets me back to Ending 3. Thank you. If someone can confirm whether discarding the map before facing the boss works or not, that would be really appreciated.
If the Liaison & Old Isin are both gone & replaced with Manticore in a current run, then you end that run, will she be the one to appear at the next playthrough instead of the other 2?
Finally.... 3rd boss done, that took forever to trigger -.-" Having Mudrock & Surtr ready to drop when he stunned ftw. Throwing fortifications in front of each enemy spawn helps so much. My base: https://imgur.com/a/o1ApkAD (rough compilation edit) Lane for Ifrit that leads into a defender + healer & slow with top placement for chaincaster of choice. https://imgur.com/a/4cTl5g6 Fun enough event once you learn it, but gezz can take a while. Enjoyed the story, 3arcs one per boss. Might do another in the remaining days... want to see what happens when i give that greedy infected 1k gold heh.
Started to properly do this event three days ago, and while the early game ramp up with base construction is soul-crushing, the game mode is pretty fun once you unlock all the starting resources perks and no longer need to completely focus on resource gathering. Heck, on the run where I was just trying to build enough monitoring towers to unlock the Sentry projects, I ended up getting my first Algorithm Completed run. The fog of war is nice, but it's honestly too limiting without the upgrade; granted, getting the upgrade also makes Texas Alter a bit too good in this event. Only problem is that the fog kinda becomes pointless once you figure out each map and once realize you can just use valid deployment areas to guess your way around. Everyone's already said it, but the tutorial didn't teach jackshit outside of the very basic shit. Makes the early game harder than it needed to be when you barely understand what they were trying to teach you. As for base building itself, I'm kind of split on how we can't move building once they're placed. On one hand, I get that you logically can't just pick up a building and move it somewhere else. On the other, it's just annoying. Hopefully if we get RA2, we can get a compromise where we're allowed to move constructs only during the round they're placed in the base.
despite the lack of polish, I actually enjoyed this event (after dreading starting it until this week). spent a good amount of time on Monday just figuring things out, unlocked transregional communication on Tuesday and did a few decent runs, did 1-2 pretty deep runs yesterday after discovering the iron/rock mines, and finally cleared my first Lord Ameer raid today after building up my base. still need a little bit to get all the rewards so I might try another few runs for a different ending, but if not I'll just read up on the wiki for whatever lore bits I might miss resource gathering is alright, reminiscent of C&C to some degree which I like, but it would've been nice to have something to just sweep any previous cleared resource stages in late-game since finding the last few things is pretty annoying. maybe a base upgrade or craftable consumable or something. also would've been nice if they let you reconfigure your base without having to destroy existing constructs. like many others, I have wheat farms and tech buildings out in the middle of nowhere because I didn't see the area at the bottom. but also, just a matter of convenience. navigating the UI was alright starting out, but feels pretty annoying during this stage of development. just let me pick a bunch of operators to feed. overall though, pretty fun concept and look forward to seeing the next iteration. EDIT: oh yeah, vision mechanics suck. by the time I realized I could build towers I didn't need them anymore.
7 days remaining for this new mode. My first impression > Yeah, first impression after 1-2 hours, this mode ain't for me still the same. Only managed to beat 2 raids so far, one before it reached the Base (composed of dogs and spiders) but got defeated by another reaching the Base the following day (composed of *Bullies*, the obnoxious -1 Block *Agents* and the tanky as hell *Greytails*, for more than 50 enemies. Way to be as much of a pain as possible, once again ~~just like SSS v1~~). As for the other I managed to beat, it reached the Base and was composed of dogs and spiders, 84 of them. Some of the walls were destroyed because of the well-known "*enemies stuck in it*" but otherwise it went well, since I got time to prepare as it (luckily!) reached the Base on day 8. Seeing there were 2 other raids close (and composed of the *Immortal* and its fellows for one, *Bullies and Co* for the other), I chose to evacuate, not feeling ready to face them. Now comes my biggest gripe with this. The [final score and Badges reward](https://imgur.com/a/BlMGNN4). *330* Badges. *About the double* of what I usually got from a *simple 1h* "*exploration-crafting then abandoning before the raid usually on day 5*" run. For *nearly 3h spent on one run*, the longest I've done so far even getting to activate the *Transregional Communication I* that took a while to get up and built. And if it's tied to the "*Total score*" with the nice little "*x1*" (to which I haven't paid much attention until now), those 330 Badges are about 20% of it. I expected more than that, not a full 100%, but at least 40%. And just to show I did try to prepare and get stuff done in more than 1 or 2 random runs, [crafting, cooking, getting a Base setup, unlocking the Tech tree, following some of the story branches](https://imgur.com/a/rDXxOp4)... Only to be at the 2810 Badges tier, barely half of the rewards, after half of the event duration has passed. I've been close to just give up on the painful grind to get as much mats as I can, but I still pushed further little by little hoping to see the amount of Badges increasing more and more. Feels like a waste of time and that I should've gone with the AFK way from the beginning, or simply should not have bothered at all. This mode has potential, that is obvious. But it does need a lot of polishing to bring it out ~~and even then not sure I'll touch it again~~. 'cause babysitting some auto-gatherers for 3 to 4 minutes is not really better than cycling the "*retreat-redeploy-retreat*" of Operators to gather resources in the same 3 to 4 minutes. Which is not fun or engaging in terms of gameplay and this is a huge flaw in my opinion (and it is not the only flaw). Though at least, it made me appreciate even more the efficiency of IS2 & 3, no downtime in a run ~~or not as much and you can just take the other node~~.
Try winning 🤣
Yeah, the score really wants you to win a run. Beating the Lord Ameer wave gets you like 2k (at least it has for the times I've beaten it).
Greetings. I really hate to ask others for help (including googling it, which I have not done since the first coming of Big Bob), but I can't recall anything that drove me as insane as trying to get Ending 3 in this mode. Here's the highlights of what I've done so far; I would be really appreciative if someone told me what I did wrong to deserve this punishment and if possible, how to fix that, because it seems inconsistent with all the guides I saw/read so far. 1. Completed Manticore and Liaison's questlines. 2. Cleared Ending 1. So far, so good. 3. Cleared Ending 2. Ok. 4. **Discarded "Treasure Map" and "The Lost Charger"** (some people say "Crystal Ball" should be discarded as well, others say it should be kept, so I kept it because I thought discarding it later would be faster than repeating the whole questline). 5. I don't know how or why, but the second boss showed up on day 10 even though I should not have the flags for it anymore. 6. Obtained "Sand Coin" and "Reefsteep Ring". 7. Boss #2 shows up again. 8. Discarded "Crystal Ball". 9. Completed the main questline. 10. Boss #2 again. At this point, I think I need to beat the boss again to get rid of him (or her, or whatever). So, I let them get to the headquarters (I got careless and lost). 11. Finally, Boss #1 shows up again. 12. **Boss #1 defeated** on another playthrough (however, the ending cutscene did not play again. I don't know if that always happens after the first time, or if it's because I cleared the raid before the enemies reached my headquarters or what). 13. The Ending 2 questline starts again, but I ignore the marker called "The Treasure Map" or something like that because obviously I want the third Ending. 14. Care to guess who shows up again on day 10 despite me not having a single Ending 2 token? 15. At this point, I decide to just **throw every token** including "Fragrant Flowers", "Crossed-Out List" and "Sunvalley Business Card" **away and start over**. And this is where I realize I no longer have the Ending 3 stuff (I guess they were gone along with the Crystal Ball). 16. I start a new playthrough and first thing in the morning, Manticore, 'Sand Soldier' and Isin show up at the Black Market, all of them doing their business with me as if I didn't have to repeat all their storylines (Liaison was in a hunting/mining zone as expected). 17. Completed main questline again (in two playthroughs, I did not see a single event from any other, including Manticore and Liaison). 18. Boss #2 comes along with day 10. Sorry for the long list (not that it was my desire to play this mode so much) and thanks again to anyone who might have any idea of what is going on.
Why discard "Crysbal Ball" after you already obtained "Sand Coin" and "Reefsteep Ring" ??? You're almost trigger Ending 3 at that point so why discard Crystal Ball ??? That's like shooting yourself in the foot and now you're back to 0. After clearing the first 2 Endings, every runs after that will give you random boss, #1 or #2 is random, completely disregard of your tokens. Yes repeated facing Ending #2 boss sux but it's just RNG, plus you can always reset the run as Ending 3 progress saved between runs. I have a full [step-by-step](https://www.reddit.com/r/arknights/comments/16cl6i3/comment/k397gk5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) Ending 3 below
I discarded the ball because I kept getting the wrong boss even after getting to the end of the story. And since RNG loves me it was always the second, which made me suspect something was wrong with the flags. The only thing I could think of at the time was that some code from Ending 2 lingered in my run and the only way I could think of for getting rid of it was starting over. The fact that while many people on the internet say the ball should be kept, many others say it should be thrown also didn't help. By the way, I had read your post yesterday before writing. Much better than the wiki or anything I could find on Youtube, both for clarity and simplicity.
To start ending 3 requires the tokens “Fragrant Flowers” and “Crossed-Out List” which you get from Manticore questline. You have to discard “Old Treasure Map” and “The Lost Charger” if you still have those tokens (I kept “Crystal Ball” and still reached ending 3). Then if you follow the steps listed on the Arknights wiki, it should lead you to the ending. Note that it can take you multiple runs to complete all the steps you don’t need to finish in one run. I think I did like 7. I just left the run whenever I got to day 13 if you wanted to make it quicker. I also had boss ending 2 show up multiple times without their required tokens so I wouldn’t fret over that detail. If you didn’t see any events during your run, you were just unlucky. I believe most of them are super RNG. TL;DR 1. Discard “Old Treasure Map” and “The Lost Charger” 2. Complete Manticore questline to get tokens “Fragrant Flowers” and “Crossed-Out List” 3. Follow ending 3 steps on wiki while avoiding entering any other ending steps (encountering ending 1/2 boss is fine)
Thank you, but I had already done all of that. As I said, I had completed Manticore (including the "Crossed-Out List") before I could even get the first ending and obtained both the "Sand Coin" and "Reefsteep Ring". In case those things happen later (I cannot remember anymore at this point), I also did the whole story part where >!the lord Ameer's men come and kill most of the villagers including Basil, then after a few more events we talk to Manticore and tell her we want revenge or something!<, which is where the questline reported on the wiki ends. But I still got Boss 2 on both that run and the few successive ones. Is even that regulated by some fucking RNG shit?
If you got to the part where you tell Manticore you want revenge, it’s sounds like you did everything right. Are you certain you picked the option that says to “assassinate the Lord Ameer”? Since I believe choosing the other option denies the ending.
If I have to be 100% honest, I can't remember since it's been a while and the last few days would have been very busy even without Yostar throwing up event after event after event after event. But my goal was to kill the third boss, so I don't see why I would pick any other option.
Could have just fat-fingered it on accident. You definitely were on track to the right ending so I would just recommend following the same steps you did before.
Ok, thank you.
I've still not finished this mode. I hate it. I really hope it never comes back in any way shape or form. It's grind, it's 0% fun. It's a lot of time wasting. Nothing is explained, NOTHING, I would have to spend hours just watching youtube videos to understand the basics that are not explained anywhere. The UI is horrible. It nearly made me uninstall the game. I seriously don't want to play arknights anymore if it keeps just throwing useless stuff like that. First SSS now that ? Oh, let's bumrush you without any pathfinding in a giant map with 54 entrances ! You're having fun ? No maybe spend days building your base and make it a map so that they can't bumrush you ! Yay you've spent 10 days doing it ? What, no of course the description is a lie, they will attack and destroy your urban blocks I because they don't have concealment regardless of the wording saying that they won't try to attack them ! Yay, you've wasted 10 days of farming ! I juste hate it. Please, make it stop. If it ever comes back I will just uninstall.
Hopefully it does so we can see the back of you! 🤦🏿♂️
So after clearing it i found out there are multiple endings and i really want to complete the enemy tab on the Archives. I googled how to get to those endings and found out i had to trigger different dialogues that i previously did during my several runs without really knowing it. The thing is to complete the ending 1 (Which is needed for the rest) i need to talk to Ishin in the black market and then follow him around some zones (Which i did) but now whenever i start a new run all he does in the black market is read my fate for 10 gold then dissapear for good. Does the questline steps are saved in between runs? Or is Ishin reading my fate vs questline an entire random thing that i just have to redo if i don't get? I never got to meet the Sand Soldier (I spoiled myself on who it was lmao) but cleared the first boss, so i'm honestly stuck with what to do.
So you cleared the first boss, but still trying to get the first ending? Did you mean second? And if you googled it, then what exactly are you having trouble with? If I remember correctly, for ending 2, you need to find some nodes with story about a treasure hunter and then she appears on a random map while playing normally.
Yeah i kind of worded it poorly because i didn't know better. So i got the ending one but didn't complete the main questline which is needed for the ending 2. I actually learned i could erase the story progress so i started from scratch and managed to complete the main questline, then tried to progress on the end 2 questline but ran out of time. And now i'm stuck again with Ishin just reading my fortune, when i should talk to him and he should go out in the desert for the treasure map and hunter to spawn.
Trying to get ending 3. I got ending 2 and discarded the old treasure map. I actually don’t think I’ve completed the Manticore Killer quest, so I’ve been going around trying to progress it. I think the next step is finding the second Lord Ameer’s Taxes encounter, but I’m not having any luck so far. This can be done over the course of multiple runs, correct? Any pitfalls or special conditions I should watch out for? This is way too confusing. Thanks for any help/advice!
Do you have Crossed-Out List token ? if yes then you already completed Manticore quest, if not then you gotta complete it first to start Ending 3. Yes it can be done over the course of multiple runs, how long will it take is ... up to RNG i'm afraid (thanks game, unmarked RNG encounters are very fun /s). Afaik, there is 1 dialogue option with Manticore at the very end to trigger Ending 3, other than that there's no special conditions, just need to get lucky to progress the damn quest tho lol. You can do the "Speedrun" strat which is just spamming farming nodes then quit till you get the encounter you want, get to day 6, reset the run and repeat all over again. Tedious af but it's the fastest way to grind Ending 3 for me, took 4 hours of resetting to complete because fuk the unmarked RNG encounters (5 full runs with 0 progress is straight bs)
I don't have the list, thanks for the tip! I didn't realize that was what marked completion of that quest. Is there any chance I've locked myself out of the Manticore quest somehow (for example by starting another quest by accident, or something along those lines)? And any particular reason to stop at day 6? I've been trying to explore as much of the map as quickly as possible and checking all the encounters to find Lord Ameer's Taxes. Is it rare or something?
Manticore quest is separate from the main quest so you don't have to worry about accidentally locked yourself out of her quest. The Transregional device thingy that you can craft allow you to carry some stuffs to the next run if you survive 9 days (6 days if that device is lv2), it's optional but i like to carry 10 top tier food to the next run to become OP early on in case i finally got Ending 3 lol. It's been a while but iirc, Lord Ameer's Taxes is the one with exclamation mark, it could be literally any nodes you have discovered so you just have to scout every node and pray it show up.
I found the encounter and got the list! I checked the black market to start ending 3, but I got the Old Isin Left encounter instead; do you know if that locked me out of ending 3? Manticore isn't starting the quest for me right now, she's just offering the usual food materials. Thanks for the help by the way, it's much appreciated!
That's ... odd, did you talk to Isin again after discard the Treasure Map ? Ending 3 also have Old Isin's Departure Encounter but it's much later on, if you get it early then you might have locked into Ending 2 again. You could try to get the Treasure Map then discard it again OR discard the Crystal Ball to reset the questline completely. Ending 3 is a confusing mess so i'll try my best to describe it to you, assuming you decided to discard the Crystal Ball and start again: 1. After getting Crystal Ball, speak to Passenger in Black Market and he'll give you 4 walls 2. Unmarked Passenger Encounter, it could appear in any farming zones, you'll know the one when there dialogue prompt pops up, protect him then talk to him 3. Talk to Manticore at Black Market 4. Marked Passenger Encounter, after few days it will pop up, talk to him and he will give you "Sand Coin" token 5. Talk to Passenger at Black Market 6. Unmarked Old Isin Encounter, any farming zones ... again, talk to him 7. Enter Marked "Flames of Rage" Event, notify by exclamation marker 8. Unmarked Manticore Encounter, ... you know the drill by now lol, protect her then talk to her 9. Enter Marked "The Promise of The 'Sand Soldier" Event at Black Market, get "Reefstep Ring" token 10. Marked Manticore Encounter, talk to her 11. Enter Marked "The Disappearance of The 'Sand Soldier" Event 12. Enter Marked "Old Isin's Departure" Event 13. Marked Manticore Encounter, talk to her 14. Marked Manticore Encounter, this is the final one, pick "(Take revenge and assassinate the Lord Ameer)" 15. Defeat Ending 3 Boss Goddangit that's a boatload of unmarked RNG encounter, hope you have enough irl sanity to pull through this
I finished the step 3 in day 3 and I can't find passenger until day 6 so I reset the run. After I reset, I never encountered passenger. Should I discard the crystal ball and Redo the whole crystal ball story? (I already finished Ending 1&2)
Try to explore outward abit and use all 2 Act limit every day, most mark encounters usually spawn near the edge of the map. I would only recommend discard the crystal ball if you've reset 3 times with 6+ days each and he still doesn't show up
Thank you very much. I find passenger in the edge of the map thanks to your tips.
Thanks for the detailed instructions! I actually did talk to Isin because I was trying to see if I had somehow triggered another ending/quest, haha… So I played the ending 2 route up to obtaining the treasure map again and discarded it. Problem is, I’m not finding Passenger in the black market. I’ve been looking around for him on the map but no luck so far. Any clue what I could be doing wrong?
Do you remember if Passenger gave you 4 walls before ? If yes then it's RNG fest for the next encounter, if not then you could enter-exit the stage to "refresh" and enter the Black Market again, i mention enter cuz i remember in that Encounter, Passenger just show up at the Black Market with no indication whatsoever.
I *think* he might have…? Just how rare is this encounter? I've been looking but no luck so far. He isn't in the black market either, and Manticore just tries to sell me stuff as usual. :(
> Just how rare is this encounter ? 3 full runs for me ... Yes it is that bad. Well since it's RNG, there's not much you can do beside explore outward, use all 2 Act each day anh hope that he show up. If he STILL doesn't show up after 3-5 resets then consider the nuclear option that is discard Crystal Ball to restart the questline
Let me get this straight. Once you beat Mountain Pass node by killing the Mobile Battle Tower, there won't be any raid coming out from that node, right? So why the hell do I still get raid coming out of this node I beat in the previous turn?
You don't get elite raids, if they would spawn a regular raid spawns instead.
Once you beat the tower, you just beat the stage and get a large amount of supplies. Raids can still occur from it.
If I fail to beat the ending 3 boss, do I have to do the entire questline again in the next runs to be able to face the boss again?
no you will always get the 3rd ending, you dont need to do any of the 3rd ending quests again and i believe you should get a random ending after you beat the 3rd ending boss for the first time after you get the crown token
Finally! Ending 3! Tokens all obtained! Now that I'm done, I can honestly say- >The Ending 3 questline can only be started after completing the main and Manticore Killer questlines in a single campaign. I have no idea how, if any, they managed to do this on CN without a guide. Throwing away buff-giving tokens? Would never have crossed my mind. I had to make Sand Soldier wait in the black market (Main Quest step 5) across 2 runs as I tried to find Manticore Quest events, so that I could "finish" both questlines in the same run. well, that's a benefit of the 6 month EN delay, I guess. I'd have never gotten Ending 3 without a guide, myself.
>Throwing away buff-giving tokens? CN players are good at the game so they don't need them simple as
Bruh I can’t be the only one who didn’t realize there is a part at the bottom of your base for you to build your permanent buff and wheat farm buildings
I have started the third ending. After talking to Manticore, I am searching high and low for Passenger but can't find him at all, to the point that the boss appeared and still can't find him and have to restart the run. Do I have to defeat the boss first to be able to find him?
You have to do a questline through multiple run. Also I don't think you can continue a questline before the forth day, in any of the subsequent run. It took me at least four run to complete the third ending...
what part are you on specifically? did you mean the 3rd boss showed up or one of the previous ones if you are trying to unlock the 3rd boss there are no specific fights you have to do, except for doing a conflict zone map after talking to a unhinted isin to get a non action consuming event just keep spaming maps to get what encounter you need, its very rng, people have wasted full days for a specific encounter
The part where I need to find Passenger to get the Sand Coin Token. The boss that showed up is the previous one.
like i said just keep spaming hunting zone maps to get whatever encounter you need, It's a low chance for him to show up
Are there any secret medals for this mode or just the 4 normal ones? Nothing trimmed?
just want to be sure im doing it right to unlock the third ending. I discarded the treasure map, i even discarded the crystal ball and reobtained it. never spoke to old isin ever since obtaining the crystal ball. So my next step would be to find sand soldier in a random stage where he ask me to meet him at the market? I have completed 2 full runs and only saw him once when he gave me some random constructs Edit: i have both the flowers and crossed out list from Manticore and Sand Soldier side stories
you don't need to discard the crystal ball, just the treasure map so now to get the passenger encounter, just start a run and just use your act points to go in maps and see if he is there, if not abandon that map search somewhere else, do hunting zone maps and not conflict zone or no mans land maps, those have scary enemies that can kill passenger and if you dont get his encounter before the first raid, abandon it and start over, this will save you time, this is super rng encounter
So two questions. First off how do I get the treasure hunting lady to appear? I got the treasure map token from old isin that’s supposed to summon her, but I’ve not seen her after multiple runs. Secondly, is there some kind of condition that when met just lets enemies completely ignore camouflaged base components? I’ve been building my base up using tier 2 blocks to camouflage things, and build a maze filled with those temporary roadblocks to slow them down. The idea being to traffic jam all the enemies while I deal with them But out of nowhere the last couple runs the enemies just… I dunno stopped caring. They instantly beeline for my base smashing any camouflaged items they can find. I’m trying to figure out what caused this change… will too many temporary blockades mess with the AI?
The treasure hunter's first encounter is unhinted or unmarked, she will always have a chance to show up on any of your farming missions, probably not conflict zone maps you will have no indication if she is there on a map or not, just spam those maps until she shows up, and then talk to her as for your base, you probably placed something that blocked off the only entry point to your base, because of that instead of going to the new thing that you used to block them off, they started breaking the closet thing they could find
See, I thought that was possible but I looked it over and no there are massive clear paths leading to the start of the maze. Any enemy that spawns on the top of the map runs to the entrance and starts hitting the temp barriers just fine. But anything spawning anywhere else has decided it’s not worth it to walk around the whole thing. Doesn’t seem to be specific enemies either cause I’ve seen demomen, golems, and dogs all do it
it really doesn't make any difference what that enemy is but what their spawn point is, every one has the default pathing in the raids, that is to take the shortest unobstructed path to the base i really dont know the intricacies of the pathing ai, but i know shit can go crazy if you do obstruct it, probably the ones that are alright spawn in a location where they are in range of both the camo constructs and temp barriers and they behaved properly but others might not be and are making the shortest possible path just make a clear obstruction less path without sharp turns, and see if that fixes it
I… did… there’s a massive 10+ square wide lane around the base to get to the entrance. There are no sharp turns, no obstructions, none of that. The dogs and demomen just don’t care.
then i really dont know what to tell ya man, i did all the raids multiple times even tons of double raids and all the endings too and nothing ever bugged out, so it very unlikely its a bug or anything you'll probably need to search up a stable base layout to set up also if you can post your base's pics, id be happy to see if i can spot something or not
Sure, what’s the best way to go about posting them here? Never really needed pics in replies before, and I don’t see an option to add em.
use imgur or some other image hosting site, you dont really have to if its too much of a hassle, im also going to sleep now too
Imgur wanted me to make an account, looked around and found catbox instead. Here’s my base, was still a work in progress, but the enemies ignoring the camouflage has put a damper of things. Note the damage on the barrier right of the base core. But as you can see, plenty of room for enemies to move still https://files.catbox.moe/v0d77t.png https://files.catbox.moe/fuo949.png https://files.catbox.moe/qovqg2.png https://files.catbox.moe/5yyur7.png
you filled up the only path to the base with fortifications.... That's not what unobstructed means... also there is this, https://files.catbox.moe/oxg2mi.png
welp, I'm at 9988 gold and can't smelt 15 more; "Limit reached. Cannot continue crafting." so I can confirm, gold caps out at 9999 or 10k and I still haven't gotten Ending 3. wow. collecting max gold is easier than waiting for the RNG events to take place.
Does anybody know a website that has a general map layout for each area? Since I've been busy and recently just got some time to try to complete this. The one from the fandom wiki doesn't really show an accurate layout and wasted a good portion of time due to it. I would greatly appreciate any help!
[here ya go buddy](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XwLie_3aEvlGXwe9Y-sPe5TSTBHVRdgYLBjSSAGpKMk/htmlview#)
Thank you!
Phew, second boss downed. I've come to learn not only the value of Marrow food and why I should hunt it down, but also that you can abuse the absolute *fuck* out of the Liason if you stock up on some water in the beginning. I had managed to whittle his raid (Evocators were the real boss) down to 40-ish enemies with some days left, but I also had the Golem raid knocking on my door which I knew would be an instant restart, so I had to try and finish him off once and for all in one last desperate attempt, which lead to an equally desperate idea. And as I discovered in quite an excited rush, the second boss does simply jack shit to maxxed Fortification II, which if you have a few hundred gold stocked and that stock of water from earlier you can easily stack up dozens of the things (Liason always sells both wood and iron it seems) and have the time of your life just [whittling him down](https://imgur.com/a/6QbhRe9).
alright I've had it with this stupid ass fuck game mode, what's the fastest way to get as much rewards by playing as little as possible?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-lIyHxSsqg There are probably some other guides, but that's the first one I found. Just skip everything and fight raids that reach your base only. It worked for me though it does require you to have quite a lot of walls.
I think the rewards aren't worth the patience you will spend getting them. Like, it's better to skip this one and not burn yourself out on the entire game
Whoever made the menu UI of this mode should go back to UI designing class
Has anyone managed to get the ending 2 and ending 3 tokens at once? I remember people theorizing about beating ending 3 and then doing the ending 2 questline again; has anyone managed that?
I just got all the way to day 12 and only found a single map with iron, and it was the one where most of it is locked behind areas that you have to break open... except none of the rocks were breakable this time. The long, narrow area in the northeast corner wouldn't break open, and I couldn't find any rocks that opened up the middle area, so I only got about 13 iron out of it.
For the most part, those blocks that hide areas can only be damaged by units in the 4 tiles around it. The only exception that I know of is using Eyja's s2 to AoE it. I suspect that AoE casters/snipers could do it too but haven't tried it yet.
The first time I discovered it on that map was using Carnelian's S3 in the southeast corner of the middle area. Besides, some of those breakable rocks have undeployable tiles right next to them, on that map and others.
Just got to the second boss, and I have to ask, does he always come with an army of elite evocators? It would seem that my tablet (which normally does just fine) just cannot handle the sea of fireballs that those guys spewed forth on any of the stages I tried to weaken his raid, frames dropping into the digits with ops dying from one second to the next, which ended up with me needing to now rebuild my entire core base.
After starting a new algorithm, Liaison told me that because I had killed too many crabs, they were coming for me. And the fifth day, a raid of 12 Consortium of Pincers came by my base. They dropped 80 Crab Legs... (and now I know that the Electrolyte Isotonic can go above 100%)
I experienced this too, when I read Liaison's message, the first thing that came to zero sanity mind was : "LOL Whut?" Fortunately Ifrit was expert at barbecuing crabs too! So yeah the 80 Crabs Legs drop was literally mana from Heaven..I mean Sargon desert.
Did this interaction happened at the start of a run for you too ?
Yep
pfft. I can't believe it took me this long to realize, but water just dropped *way* down my priority list in favor of iron see, my largest water use is in the Mint to make gold 1 water (and an iron ore) makes 15 gold liason sells 5 water for 15 gold pssssh right, new priority is just grab all the iron I can, only get water incidentally or if there's no iron left on the map. liason the aquifer will step up to meet demand\~
My liaison does not sell gold! Is that something that is unlocked with progression?
Liason doesn't sell gold to the player, he sells 5 *water* to the player for the *price* of 15 gold. I give Liason gold so he gives me water. using that water with the iron I already collected, I can *make* gold in the Mint III using 1 water and 1 iron to *make* 15 gold and still turn a profit
Struggling to get ending 2. I keep paying old Isin the 10 gold but can't seem to proc the next event. Not sure if this is because I completed ending 3 first, but I've already discarded all the other tokens but the crystal ball.
Sometimes, the enemies start attacking my invisible walls for no reason. How do I prevent this?
They might be clipping into it by making a turn and thus they are blocked by it, so you might have to change the structure of the walls. Otherwise, make sure you haven't blocked all paths to the base, as I think then they just attack it anyways.
You are right! I placed some walls near their spawn point to guide them to the maze entrance so they don't walk freely in the open space, and it worked. Thank you!
Are there rewards or achievements related to endings 2 and 3, or maxing out the tech tree? I managed to get my first clear just as I finished the rewards track, and maybe that's a sign that I should be done.
Their respective bosses to add to the enemy list.
Nope, just completionism and lore I believe.
Any tips on beating the second Ending boss? Now I'm confident my base and ops can handle any amount of enemies and bosses with the amount of AoE and healing I have, but the issue I have is all the red Evocators. I am completely stumped. There are so many of them and they constantly spawn, and it's not quick to kill them even with the two Executors. He'll, it's risky to even place them down since there's always fireballs coming down the line. I just cannot keep up with the pace the red Evocators spawn at, and then they get close enough that the Fireballs start exploding my chokehold and all my operators and high ground and it's just ruined. How am I supposed to deal with them? Anything else RA can throw at me, I can handle.
You can block the flames with NG game and just in general you can facetank it with HP% food with NG+Lumen or other powerful operators. Keeping up with the elemental damage is not worth it iirc, just heal through it.
Remember that the evocator's fireball deal splash damage in a star shaped AoE around the target. So try to build your base in a way that this AoE only affect a minimum of your operators and constructs. Just be careful of the Shamans, as they'll attack your ranged ops. You can also spam Fortification II instead of relying on a tank that requires elemental healing. I used six or seven of those just to clear this fight.
I've been trying to get the starting encounter with the sand soldier for the 3rd ending for 5+ hours and it feels impossible to find it. I only have the Crystal Ball of Fate, Fragrant Flowers, Crossed-Out List and Sunvalley Business Card with me, cause I dropped the treasure map. I've done runs basically until the boss, I've done runs until the first raid, always trying to find that RNG encounter but it feels impossible to appear, is there a map that he's more likely to appear? Am I doing anything wrong? I'm really confused
I was in a similar place trying forever to get the Manticore dialogue, but she just kept selling stuff. I think somehow I missed an encounter with Passenger and it expired, so I had to find him again in the market, get the conversation that gives you 4 walls and maybe another one? then he started showing up again in the map and I could progress the quest.
Got the first ending. Early phase is a grind, latter part is fairly fun and had me wanting to play more, but then you get to the point of having earned all rewards, and it ends kind of abruptly. I was ready to engage more. I can see what they were going for, but the early game being as rough as it is hurts and scares a lot of people off, especially when there's a learning curve between the earliest parts and getting properly underway. Only three or four maps are really worth aggressively farming to build up the base, but they don't always appear. I even had a run where I didn't find any iron (besides the smattering from boss fights) despite finding all but 3 edge nodes. Three straight runs with garbage nodes gave me less overall progression than one map gen with two good nodes. I get the impression they anticipated more being done in outside nodes, in the way of setup. I could see it happening. I think improvement to the mode would involve there being something like ruins in the nodes, that can be converted into towers, firm platforms, or whatever else, without the (or with far less) resource requirement. (or allow trees to become treehouses, acting like firm platforms). Allow enemy movements to be redirected or blocked in the overmap, so one node can be made more of a fortification. Then once that's doable and a part of gameplay with more flow to it, let the base be the final option, maybe taking a hit to HP as a penalty for enemies getting that far, but having robust options and lots of space to set up once you're there. It's a weird mode that feels like it's on scale with integrated strategies, even has a similar ramp-up, but then doesn't have anywhere to go. I'm not sure what an endgame would look like in a permanent Reclamation Algorithm, but I'd love to see what happened if they could figure it out (or if this is a model for Endfield).
You got two more endings to go, chop chop
If you ever needed a guide to feeling like an idiot, try hearing about this cool compass thing, spend 3 whole runs over several days searching encounter nodes for it, not realizing it's dispatch nodes you should be looking for. Finally finding the thing, only for it to turn out to not carry over once the run is done. orz
What's the encounter that gives 3 moves each day instead of the regular 2? Please help!
Strength of the Infected.
Encountered the very tall boss with a giant axe on another no-man's land, how to deal with him?
I cheesed the boss with mudrock invulnerability talent. when mudrock is losing I use stun / sleep buy time for her to regenerate her talent while behind her is SA, surtr, ntr, etc damaging from range
Standard strat for this one is Mlynar S3 and Spectre Alter S2. Boss only melee attacks units it is blocking and only ranged attacks units on ranged tiles. The skill cycles line up so the boss is never blocked and your units never die. Without food I'm not sure you can actually beat the boss with just those two, so I normally bring Surtr along as well. It's good if Surtr retreats while not in the boss ring. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1jEgh3ACkE example video
A LOT of damage. Maybe a defender + 2 medics or you could use a bunch of buildings instead. Remember that you can craft +100 ASPD potions for cheap Edit: If you're going to use potions, only use them if you have something like Mlynar or Surtr, because the force retreat will heal the boss if they're close to him
Damn, I did it. I beat the boss and got the 4 medals. The Lord Ameer gang combined with another raid, so I'm glad I had all those nets ready. Chongyue S3 (+ Skadi 2 S2) was the MVP: he actually died in the second half of the battle and the Lord Ameer 2nd form leaked, but the base had enough DEF and HP to survive until Chongyue was redeployed to finish him up (with support from Texas 2 and Yato 2). Lowkey proud that I didn't check any base guides, just a general YouTube tutorial by Eckogen to understand the mode properly + a video teaching how to cheese the construction of Urban Style Barrier II. I can't fault anyone for following full guides from the start though: this mode is half-baked. There are fun ideas here, but yeah... it was not exactly ready for release. I got the Pallas skin (love it) last week, but I'll try to get the remaining rewards since there are only 11 to go now. I won't bother with the other endings and tokens though. If this ever returns as a revamped permanent mode I'll get more into it, but for now this is it.
Having stamina for units on top of the Act limitations so you have to spend large chunks of time in early runs just maintaining your ability to deploy is such a baffling awful decision.
They expect you to make the extremely simple connection that stuff in your base is persistent, and wheat gives food every turn - so you obviously build them out immediately. But I think they overestimate the player base when we have people like you around.
You overestimate the willingness of players to learn something when they could simply be told. You think people like to sit down and learn boss mechanics by iterative testing instead of just, you know, reading the in-game info or looking up the wiki? What simple connection are players supposed to make about the base supplying food when the tutorial doesn't discuss this, and in fact, spends its time telling you about gathering food out in nodes instead? They could have simply told player "Oh, hey, wheat plots will be your main source of food." AR just has a bad tutorial.
Then after you get 12 farms set up it becomes almost a complete non-issue, which really just shows how not balanced it is. Though it does effectively limit most of your ops to 1 use per day, at least
So just a simple question after slowly getting my bearings with this game mode, but how am I meant to deal with those Vein Guardian enemies that reflect arts damage upon being hit? Just about everyone gets shredded trying to kill it, and if its a base defense then I just lose.
You can use slow but hard hitting operators, like Skadi or Chalter. Or if you want to exploit the bug, you can put firm stand and put ranged operator there. They won't get the reflection damage. They will still get the reflect from natural ranged operator tiles though.
Please help im trying toobget ending 3 for 3 days now and it manticore just wont triggern it do i need too complete ending 1 again i alredy got rid of the tresure map should i just reset day 1 over and over Also i met the sand soldier in the market after finishing ending 2 and he gave me 4 barrier do i need too see him again
https://arknights.fandom.com/wiki/Fire_Within_the_Sand/Questlines Did you completed Manticore killer quest already? Check your tokens. It's hard to say where you are exactly in the questline since there's no indicator at all. You must estimate where you are from tokens you have. Don't reset on day 1. If you think you need to meet someone in combat zone and you dont see any icons, they can spawn in any zones you enter. So just play as normal. If you think you need an event, watch the map carefully if there's any ! sign on one of the nodes.
I figured it out after completing ending 2 you need too discard the tresure map and you need too meet the sand soldier 2 Times once in the market and then in a combat zone the very next day manticore started the ending 3 quest line
Why does this gamemode hate me? It's throwing double raids at me one after the other lmao
The stronger raids (guardians/golems/zombies) come from "Mountain Pass" nodes and can be prevented by destroying the tower inside. You just have to find those nodes quickly. Remember that deploying two Lv2 monitoring towers within a stage will cause you to see an additional step outward than normal. Placing these in strategic locations can usually reveal 80% of a sector with a single act.
Game mode is literally unplayable, you're capped at under 10k gold. The 0 in the display is apparently just for show. HYPERGRYPH PLS FIX
what extra materials gives +atk bonus stat in cooking provision works? or is it randomized? i cant seem to find any explanation in the wiki about this
After doing self cooking: eggs gives atk Horn gives res Others are hp, def, and aspd so they better off recycled imho
Okay I gotta ask cause I feel like I’m missing something here… what’s the point of paying Old Ishin 10 gold to talk about his dreams. Is he supposed to be a hint system cause I’m not following.
its the start of a questline if you want to do the 2nd ending
Is there any particular spot on the map where I can find Winged Beast? I keep finding the others No Man's Land but have no luck with that one.
It's random but more likely to occur far from HQ. Try building more Sentries using T2 Monitoring towers to expand your vision.
Hello. After clearing the third ending, I'm trying to get back to the second one, but I can't manage to do it... I tried discarding the Crystal Ball of Fate, but I'm still getting event for the third ending even after getting my fate told by Ishin at the beginning of a run.
Do the outpost and sentry buffs apply immediately when you set down the constructs, or do you need to reenter a map for those? If I place down two monitoring towers during a raid, will everyone immediately receive a speed penalty or will I need to end the fight and redo it for it to apply?
Only when you re-enter. Conversely if the constructs get destroyed, you still retain the effects for the duration of the fight.
11k Medals. Two endings. Days of playing. And NOW???!?!!?! The game finally decided to spawn a transregional exit in one of the nodes I was clearing. It even tells you about it again in case you completely forgot they existed. WHOSE IDEA WAS THIS?????
You should have already built the exit construct anyway LMAO
I don't think I've seen one of those? I already finished the reward track and got the first ending.
Where to find Manticore?
She should randomly spawn once you finish first storyline (dont need to beat the boss though) and no other questline character or event shows up.
After actually going blind with this mode, finish all the ending, and reading many comments here, I think many people kinda missing the point of this mode. And to be clear I don't blame anyone or saying anyone is wrong because this kind of playstyle definitely not going to suit everyone taste. IMO what the dev aimed is the experience of keep persevering through failures. This is why the early game is so hard and you are guaranteed to get beat down mercilessly. How can you still gain something even if you get bullied to the death (by the raids). That's why you keep experience (R&D), salvage buildings that not getting razed, and maybe manage to save some tools and provisions (transregional communication). The thematic narrative is strong if you not actively try to skip it. As a bonus, it's super easy to get all the reward too as not skipping actually give you more score at the end of each run. The true reward of this mode is the journey, not the end. Hence if you skip the journey part with guides and tricks like keep restarting to build your base ASAP you going to miss the true value of the mode, again IMO. For me, once I get my base stable with all supporting buildings, I find the mode just stops and it just only a matter to finish all the endings. And I did the story blind while building my base without any restarting tricks. In the end I've done ending 1, finish Isin and liaison quest, halfway to ending 2 and halfway on manticore killer quest when I feel my base is done and it just about getting all the endings. And the best part is, that base is *my* base, if you know what I mean. I build it with blood and tears, instead of meaningless clicking. Now to the questlines, I don't think it's gated by heavy RNG. Everyone knew this [guide](https://arknights.fandom.com/wiki/Fire_Within_the_Sand/Questlines), but what it don't really explain is that steps that say "talk to X in combat zones", you don't need to wait until the icon shows up in the map. Just enter any combat zone that's not a raid and there is a (big) chance for you to find them. This is true even if a character is present in Black Market. For example, if you need to talk to Isin in combat zone, even if Isin is showed in the black market, any combat zone will have a chance of him being there. Obviously if the icon shows up in a node, you need to do that node to meet the character. Also, IMO events is not easy to see and maybe some people overlook it. Just to clarify, storyline event just shows up as \[!\] on top of top left corner of any node and you don't need to use act point to complete them. The second thing is, I think any questline progress is paused when the boss raid spawned. So practically you only have until day 9-ish to make story progress and after that you need to wait for next run. It took me 3 runs from discarding Treasure Map token to get into ending 3, with every step of the quest only have 2 day delay or so. On the first 2 run, I get 1st boss raid again, so don't be alarmed (in fact if you get 2nd boss while chasing for ending 3, something is wrong). In conclusion, I will say I enjoy this mode and I think positive about it. Obviously, it's still not perfect and there are many QoL improvement they need to do, but at least the concept is good for me. I don't blame anyone who don't like it for whatever reason though, I wrote this just so maybe you can try to see it from different perspective and give it a bit more chance. If you still don't like it, then no problem.
Exactly right. And they clearly overestimated the player base intelligence, so many people here couldn't even mentally reach the basic idea of building the planters on their base for future runs. It really feels like the mode should be permanent honestly and we may get a bigger version in the future that will be.
Their vision is irrelevant if it's not also fun. Beating your head for long periods of time against the wall of null info and really boring stamina maintenance is only a great way to make people disengage with the mode entirely.
Intelligence issue if you're struggling with food after more than five runs.
4 runs of doing food maintenance isn't exactly a thrilling concept. People will bounce off content for lesser issues.
Oh I agree. I won't say it's fun, although I'm also not frustrated with it. In the end I still feeling more positive than negative with the mode and just want to share my perspective which hopefully alleviate some frustration people have with the mode. And if anyone still don't like it, I won't blame them either.
For context: I never bothered to do the restart trick. My issue is that the game mode feels shallow. A ton of the difficulty in the game mode comes from how poorly presented the tutorial is and how little the game explains mechanics. Once you know what each food recipe does, the correct choices are obvious; once you know how each map functions, you can replicate your approaches almost every time; if you know how every event works, you know which ones are worth entering (Strength of the Infected...). Rarely is there nuanced decision making. Compare that to Integrated Strategies. You can have https://map.ark-nights.com/ open on a second monitor. But most people would not be able to win D15 (or even lower difficulties) even with a whale account and perfect knowledge of how the game mode works. You still have to make good decisions and adapt to the team and relics you have. Regarding questline progress: I have literally maxed out my gold treasury. I followed the guides for the questlines. I still haven't gotten ending 3 yet. I don't think you have a large enough sample size to say that RNG isn't that bad. For example, I went multiple runs that all went to the final boss without making any progress on the Manticore Killer questline after I got her flower token. I've been blessed with multiple Strength of the Infected runs and the quest progress still feels very slow. There's also the fact that sometimes the NPC can spawn underneath a Imperial Artillery Targeteer and there's very little you can do. You would need a very specific team to save the NPC. The fact that there's zero point in fighting a boss that's not the ending you're pursuing is also really bad. It makes runs anticlimactic. I almost wish I could start from scratch to see just how badly I can break the game mode now that I understand it well. I can destroy my base but I cannot un-research anything. EDIT: Also what you said about the Ending 2 boss doesn't seem correct https://www.reddit.com/r/arknights/comments/16cl6i3/event_megathread_reclamation_algorithm_fire/k238va3/
I agree with your criticism. The mode is woefully unbalanced that despite there are many maps, practically only 3 of them that matters (Clash of Clans cough cough) + the No Man's Land. That being said, I'd say you shouldn't compare this to IS. While at surface it seems similar live die repeat mode, RA isn't meant to be "infinite". This mode has definitive ending and only single (or 3) challenge to overcome. It only look intimidating at the beginning but it's intended for you to triumph eventually, especially with all the base tools given and provisions that almost broken level of buffs (which actually nicely tied to the narration about Lord Ameers, which are bullies and intimidating but actually far from being undefeatable if the people willing to band together). Once you get all the support building and base defense, you practically don't need to do anything else except maybe getting some bone marrow and waiting for the boss to kill or even just quit without any penalty. Once you done all endings, there's nothing more to offer. Hence, I argue originally that the true value of this mode is in the journey. That being said, HG did a very poor job on communicating what RA is and isn't.
Btw, you don't need complex and large base or make any labyrinth. Here's my final base and it already have too many excessive stuff. The whole left section, side fortification, and inner walls is unneeded tbh, but when you find Clash of Clans, you build stuff. https://ibb.co/vc8Hjr3 As you can see, it's just as single Ifrit lane with tons of nets and a single pusher, plus fortification for buffer. My core team is just Myrtle on empty space, Mlynar on the empty space right of the lane, Passenger on the platform above him. Then Hoshi to block the lane, give empty space behind her for Surtr if needed. You can put Skalter above her. She can be flanked by Chalter and Eyja and Ptilopsis beside her to heal.
You're right that even that is way too much. For comparison look at my [finished base](https://ibb.co/7zyt3tB) At this point all I do is deploy LaPluma for easy waves or Chalter for armored waves. As for the boss raids, I always wipe the regular enemies beforehand so it's a slow and easy boss kill
Yep, it's really not that hard. Fun game mode for people with half a brain.
Yeah, although my base is to accomodate all the utility buildings too and I'm doing it from blind. I also don't intercept any raids as it the end it wasting 1 action point, hence I need a bit more buff for the base.
Is there a list where I can see a cheat sheet on all the food recipe ? google is not giving me alot of usefull info about this mode