General / QoL

• Dark Mode is now available as a setting and on by default. We also tied down the guy (who wrote the flashingly bright note about seizures) in a opthalmic speculum, in a dark room while opening and closing the said bright note for 3 hours.
• Light Mode uses grayish / genshin-impact-blue color scheme.
• Users can now map keys in settings.
• New user center setting : Allow Teyvat Times to publish my in-game alias (not username) and last 4 digits of my UID (When you set a world record of hunting fowl and etc.)
• Added setting for persistent aiming mode. If turned on, your character will try to get back to aiming mode even when you dash or you are knocked back.
• Going in and out of aiming mode is now much smoother. You can still dash, cast skills and still keep the cursor on. Inspired by Tombraider? Idk why I wrote this.
• When crafting an item and you run out of materials for it, the item selected stays in place and will not scroll all the way down.
• When choosing characters for the abyss, the preview button to see which enemies you will face is also there.
• When finishing an abyss floor, you can return to the abyss menu without ending the "run" to collect rewards or browse around.
• Fixed a bug with sucrose/xinqiu bonus materials when crafting.
• Fixed a bug with razor's c1 constellation not increasing his damage and not displaying a buff indicator.
• All buffs are now grouped/stacked by icon category, attack/defense/regen etc. Hovering the cursor in the grouped icon will display verbose info. (e.g. thrilling dragon tales, character talent, gouba pepper etc).
• Daily Login Bonus is permanent.
• Claim All and Repeat Buttons are now available in Blacksmith, Battlepass, Expeditions and the Like.
• VA/CV list is displayed instead of current selected voice language in character details. (e.g. if you go to a character screen, and have english voice language, you will only see english voice actor and you have to change language just to find out who the cn and jp voice actor is)
• Hide ui/hud setting and dedicated hotkey is added for creating fan-made cinematics.
• Unless it is an artifact or a weapon, an item previously recorded and consumed will no longer display as "new"
• Added shield bar on top of health bar
• Added party icon on the top right ui and a dedicated hotkey to switch parties
• Added hotkey to switch to your saved Comps 1 to 4
• Resin is now always visible at the top of UI (without needing to open up the map)
• Moved UID a bit further down by 2px so it doesn't overlap with the buttons
• Changed UID Opacity by 75% and has grayish text color, inspired by "windows is not activated"
• Added a space character on the launcher download text (e.g. "Downloading75%" into "Downloading 75%")
• Bonus damage from element-affected status (e.g. "deal 15% increased damage against cryo affected enemies" are enclosed in parentheses
• Expedition Slot Remembers Last Character Used
• Expedition Slot Remembers Last Hour Used
• All map objects are navigatable for consistent experience. and are not overridden by quests. You will always be directed towards the one you choose.
• Navigated Map Object Always Display Their Distance and Light Beacon (e.g. Leylines not having those)
• Added enemy weakspot zones with varying degrees (green,orange,red) in the adventurer's handbook, if you kill 150 of a certain enemy type. Humanoid types generally have the head as a weakspot.
• Fraction of Fraction of a bullet time effect and a red particle glows when you hit the weakest spot of an enemy.
• Reading and Clearing Story/Voice Lines syncs across all devices you own.
• Statues' Remaning Healing Energy now Visible on the Tower Itself. Dat Glowy thingies deplete when you use them.
• Statue's First Healing Tick Revives Fallen Characters by 10hp%. Second Healing Tick is Full Restoration or until Remaining Healing Energy Allows it.
• Critical strike Indicator
• Enemies in the handbook are dynamically arranged by type , then alphabetically. All hypostasis are lined up.
• All enemies are displayed in the handbook regardless of what region you currently are.
• Journal (J) is now binded to (F1), since this is where you look commissions for rather than the Adventurer Handbook (F1)
• Journal , Handbook and Archive are compressed and combined.
• We bought a time machine and went back to the time when we did the hypostasis event. The last challenge in the event is now a new hypostasis after the three old hypostasis.
• Andrius's Boss Fight is now properly a Trounce Domain, For consistency with other weekly boss.
• Changing a Team Member in your active roster won't override that slot in your saved team comp
• Active Roster and Saved Team Comps are now a seperate thing
• Selecting a Saved Team Comp will replace the Active Roster (so you can replace one member before "deploying")
• Clicking Deploy in a Saved Team Comps will immediately send you back to the game
• Switching Party Members is smoother than an oiled tits smooth, regardless of network latency. Especially in Single Player Mode.
• Resource and Player Position in the map has better visual clarity. (Imagine klee collecting wolf berries or philly mushrooms)
• Option to adjust map size , and resource/player icons.
• PC , map pin size collision reduced. If I clicked Taishan Mansion, I meant Taishan Mansion.
• Mora , Artifact Limits and etc always visible in inventory screen regardless of which tab you are on
• Blacksmith remembers the quantity of ores you refine
• Adventurer's Handbook remembers the last filter you used when browsing enemies (all, elite ,boss)
• Adventurer's Handbook points you the next enemy you are hunting (when you kill 1 ruin guard, you dont have to open handbook again to see the next one in the map)
• Adventure's Handbook knows ALL of the elite enemy locations. The list seem to be manually added instead of dynamic, possibly due to chest concealment similar mechanic. If you hunt ruin guards, I think the book only lists 4 of them in the whole map.

Gameplay

• Training dummy added near favonius hq. You have to do a story quest and spend resource to have it constructed.
• Enemies now have a difficulty rating. The higher the difficulty rating is, the higher character xp/gold they will provide. XP scales off your adventure rank level. Extra Large enemies have a guaranteed chance to drop 1-4* artifacts. They will respawn longer as a consequence. It doesn't make sense that a huge lawachurl and smol hilichurl both give 20xp.
• First and Second Dash now have different color indicators.
• If you used 2 dashes consecutively, a subtle glow/indicator pops around your character for when you are able to dash again. Inspired by Deadcells.
• Added Treasure Compass for Dragonspire.
• All excess anemoculus/geoculus/dendroculus and crimson agate can now be traded in the antiques shop.
• Treasure Compass will automatically change depending on what region you are on. If you don't have a treasure compass for that region, it will remain unchanged from what is the last equipped.
• Treasure Compass search radius is increased region wide. It will point the "nearest" treasure chest's direction. The color of the direction changes the farther you are.
• Treasure Compass will now consider puzzles as treasure, and display a different indicator. It won't tell you what steps to take to open it, though.
• Added a domain for gladiator and wanderer's troupe artifact sets. Artifact drop rate from world bosses are FURTHER reduced. Weekly boss artifact drops are unaffected.
• Prototypes will now drop at least once in the last weekly boss you face, if you are unlucky. The chance to acquire multiple prototypes within a week is unchanged. Drop rate is reduced consequently.
• World Boss Artifact Drop Rates are now visible in the adventurer's handbook.
• Prototype Drop Rates are now visible.
• Domain Artifact Drop Rates are now visible.
• 1-3* Weapons are now craftable. They will require a shit ton of ores and materials. Cold Steel for instance will require 200 pieces of mint.
• Added 6 new craftable weapons. Of course it will require prototypes you f2p piece of shit.
• Craftables, Shops and Loot have higher priority versus signboards and npc.
• Monsters and Enemies have higher priority (when attacking or casting skills) versus ores and flaming/freezing flowers and other resource objects.
• You can now equip up to 3 gadgets.
• New Action : long pressing a gadget opens up Gadget Wheel to switch gadgets without opening the inventory. Gadget goes into long cooldown.
• Domains now consider your condensed resin before saying you are out of resin.
• After completing a domain challenge, The start challenge object will respawn in the center of the arena. Game will no longer go into a loading screen. This is for the console peasants.
• When claiming domain challenge rewards, it also displays how much condensed resin you have (so you know you can still do 1 more, or gtfo) when it asks if you want to continue or leave
• Anemo Hypostasis will die if you manage to collect all the orbs, for a more consistent experience with other hypostasis.
• Weekly boss timers are now consistent. (Some have none , some at top, some at bottom)
• Dvalin's Mini Cutscene will hold your altitude (if you are gliding) when it triggers
• Childe's Mini Cutscene is now automatically skippable (named "skip when already viewed once" found in settings).
• Food is now sortable by type.
• When choosing a revival food, the icon sizes are reduced and displayed in a grid rather than a long line. When in single player mode it slows down time. Like witcher 3 or tomb raider.
• MRE can now hold all types of food, up to 3 slots.
• You can long click/hold the MRE button and switch the food it holds. Goes into long cooldown.
• Charged Longsword and Bow Attacks (for claymoreless comps) will now allow you to mine ores more effectively. This affects rock shield wall hilichurls as well.
• No one uses claymore charged attacks, even with stunned enemies. Claymore charged attacks now deal increasing damage the longer it was charged uninterrupted. You will get staggered and take more damage as a consequence. The last attack of a charged attack deals more damage and wipes half of the planet's population.
• Constellation can now be toggled on/off

Gacha / Shop

• The first cheapest crystal top up (60+60) has been buffed to (80+80) crystals. We realized it wasn't even enough for a single pull and we laughed until our sides hurt. As a tiny token of goodwill this will retroactively affect everyone who purchased this item for n amount of times the person has purchased this item.
• All in-game currencies (primo/fate/genesis/future except mora) are always displayed in the topright corner when wishing and shopping.
• Pity Counter. When it reaches 75 it glows like christmas.
• Gifting of purchase is now possible. In the case of chargebacks , the gifter gets banned. Gifts can only be sent after 60 days of purchase, and usable by the recipient after a week. Maximum of 1 gift per month.
• Gifter must have a track record of >= $20 of purchase within the last 3 months.
• Gifting is a sensitive topic. Chargeback scams fucks up game companies, banks and third party payment platforms.
• Purchase history and total is added to track expenses.
• Gambling addicition reminders when you rage spend. Also alerts a mhy employee when huge purchases are being made in error. It displays a huge red alert on the employees screen.

In Consideration

• Reworked Elemantal Mastery to also increase Elemental Skill Damage by 25% (base, some current/future characters might interact with less or more) of your total Elem Mastery. Consequently, Skill Damage from Attack Ratios are lowered. Think of ad/ap ratios in League of Legends.
• Character skills to deal compound damage of physical+element when using a weapon (e.g. diluc smash bouncing off pyro slimes, despite his big sword being sharp and shiny)

Items

• Wind Catcher Gadget now refills with anemo energy particles.
• Prototype Aminus/Archaic's proc cooldown refinement is restored. (Used to be 15/14/13/12/10)
• Boar Traps are now craftable and equippable as a gadget. You can leave it up to 48 hours to check if you caught something.
• Cast net are now craftable and equippable as a gadget. Can be used to catch multiple fish and crystal flies.
• Crab Traps , can be left in the wild for 48 hours and catches 3 crabs per trap.
• Inflatable balloon for safe swimming. Requires anemo slime materials.
• Portable towers no longer expire.
• Portable towers max deployed count is increased up to 5.
• Condensed Resin can now be used on World Boss
• Condensed Resin cap increased to 5.
• Artifact Inventory Limit increased to 5000.
• Weapon Cooldown Indicator displayed as status icon (sacrificial sword, archaic, etc)
• Seelie Companions give 1% passive bonus CharXP(Blue), CompanionXP(Purple), Mora(Gold)
• Crafting Table no longer consumable
• Portable Cooker no longer consumable (requires fuel , 1 fire stamen = 3 uses)
• Portable Warmer no longer consumable (requires fuel , 1 fire stamen = 3 uses)
• Items mined are ores
• Refined ores are ingots
• Option to refine Magical Crystal Chunk without resin, but with immensely increased cost and time

Coop

• You can see the general direction and how far an ally is like in pubg.
• In-game voice chat for random players in matchmaking

Battlepass / 12 Episode Anime

• Battlepass can now have excess points up to 3000xp , for the times when you do your reputation bounty and missions earlier before the next battlepass comes out.
• When a new Battlepass starts, it starts on mondays , so no mission gets left out. All excess days until the next new-battlepass-monday are dynamic and flexible.
• When using a condensed resin in a domain, it counts as 2 domains cleared in the Battlepass
• Cooking ingredients (sugar, bacon, cheese, etc) counts as cooking in the Battlepass
• You don't need to switch tabs in the battlepass when using claim all. Clicking claim all, claims all.
• New battlepass campaign for 12 episode anime. Milestones are displayed on website and forum. Sales earned are transparent in game and website. Inspired by dota 2 international.
• Percentage of battlepass campaign sales will go to anime funding.
• Having at least 1 season of anime puts mihoyo in the "mainstream" status in the leagues of Fate, Princess Connect, Grand Blue etc. It solidifies the IP.

Quests

• Option to abandon story quests (restart from scratch) to prevent blocking of coop
• Repeatable Quests Ideas below. Coop and matchmaking is enabled. 15~30 minutes long, walking pace. Not mandatory for daily activity/event/battlepass for people with little time to play. Gives worthwile rewards (3 pieces of adventurer's wit, 5k mora etc)
• Long escort caravan mission, from Mondstadt all the way to Liyue. From Springvale to Liyue. People and Caravan must survive. Enjoy the beautiful world of Teyvat, optional pit stops, coop chat/discord, region guard checkpoints and enemy ambush. Multiple client routes available. Go through dragonspire for a shorter, but more dangerous path. Get harassed by Fatui at borders. Board a ship and load the caravan. Get checked by Border Patrol for smuggled goods and diseases.
• Repeatable Town defense without towers. Defend the Town from hordes of invaders. Something fun with coop.
• Fatui and Friends Battle Royale. All npcs and doors disabled. You and the fatui bots duke it out. Healing only comes from special food that you pick up. Matchmaking enabled.
• Beach Defense. Prevent the Fatui from invading the coastline. Your friends rain arrows from starsnatch cliff.
• Beach to Mondstadt/Springvale goods escort services.

Elemental Reactions

• Vaporize's Steam deals aoe damage
• Overloads damage (electro->pyro) now deals x1.5 (pyro) damage
• Overloads damage (pyro->electro) now deals x2 (pyro) damage.
• Overload's knockback decreased significantly
• Superconduct's damage (electro->cryo) now deals 2x (cryo) damage
• Superconduct's damage (cryo->electro) now deals 1.5x (cryo) damage
• Superconduct's negative armor debuff is moved to Melt
• Melt gains the negative armor debuff due to the sudden temperature change, making surfaces brittle.
• Melt damage consequently reduced. (pyro->hydro) at x1.4% , (hydro->pyro) at x1.8%
• Geo New Reaction : Smoldering Rock or something (pyro->geo)(reverse not applicable) deals x0.3 (pyro damage) on top of crystallize
• Geo New Reaction : Mud or something (hydro->geo)(geo->hydro) deals x0.1 (geo damage) on top of crystallize, slows enemy movement
• Geo New Reaction : Snow or something (hydro->geo)(reverse not applicable) deals x0.2 (cryo damage) on top of crystallize, slows enemy attack speed
• Geo New Reaction : Seeds or something (dendro->geo) deals x0.1 (dendro damage) on top of crystallize, restores 3% of your hp. Or entangle. Prevents enemy movement (can still attacc and cast spells)

Enemies

• Enemies inside domains and abyss have their return-to-spawn-point-then-regenerate-to-full-health disabled.
• Enemy AI a bit smarter. Those with mobility skills (whopper, smol geovishap, cycin mages) won't follow you to drown in the water. The game will not check if you are wet , but if you are in a swimming state.
• Enemies attack cycle improve. Fixed bug when enemies stop attacking. Baedou Problems.
• Hydro Abyss Mage's and Hydro Fatui Gunner's Hydro Barrier now takes the same damage rate/ratio from opposing elements (cryo,electro) for consistency.
• Hydro barrier new opposing element : Geo. It makes it harder to maintain the water shield due to the mud soaking up the water and adding weight.
• Boss Childe's Spirit Whale Attack generates water in the sides of the arena, pushing you towards the center. You must have enough stamina to keep dashing to the sides before he does this, or you will have to perfectly dodge the spirit whale attack.
• Hydro SamaChurl now heals at a rate of +300/HoT per AR Milestone instead of percentage. This is for when you are hunting a LawaChurl Bounty that is near dead and healed to full health in 3 seconds. Having a fixed amount of healing ensures that it is big enough for the intended smaller enemies and portionally good enough for large enemies. The other option is to use different healing ratios for small and large enemies.
• Queen of Pain , I mean Cycin Mages have a stagger window when they are about to cast their almost-undispellable shield
• Zed , I mean Shadow Fatui Agent makes use of his shadows to dodge your attack sometimes.
• Smol Geo Vishap now drops less geo shields
• Smol Geo Vishap now uses his rolling attack near you, not 150m away from you.
• Smol Geo Vishap now burrows a bit less frequently
• Ruin Hunter doesn't stay in the air up and raining artillery forever , in consideration of bowless comps
• Fatui Cryo and Hydro Gunner Turn Rate Reduced by 10% when on Spray Mode.
• Primo GeoVishap now has a tired/exhausted animation, instead of standing still and looking at you and what life could have been for 10 seconds.
• Primo GeoVishap spin attack now has a 0.2 dodge window (previously none) and Spin Radius Decreased by 100m.

Characters

• Dvalin's Cutscene when you dispel his barrier is removed and much smoother. He just falls in place and no clipping.
• Character's "Main Stat" is now visible in attributes. Previously you can only know it when ascending or when using google, or if you really have a big brain.
• All characters passive talents are now combat related.
• All characters now have their own cooking/exploration/crafting/smithing talents. It is possible not to have OR have multiple talents in each category. We get it , everyone can taste what a good gravy is, but not everyone can make a good gravy.

Ayaka

• Alternate sprint binded to a different hotkey.
• Yes I came from the future.

Albedo

• Elevator can be activated to go up and down by using the F key.
• C2 stack counter / indicator via particles (think of razor geo sigils)
• C4 plunged attack covers albedo's sword in geo energy (like noelle, but smol)
• C6 crystallize shield has a different shape (leaf)

Amber

• Increased ultimate radius by a tiny bit.
• Allow targeting of ulimate by holding the ultimate button.
• If baron bunny is present in the ultimate radius, it will absorb all pyro damage and deal it as bonus damage when it blows up.
• If baron bunny was "charged" with pyro rain and hit with a C2 charged shot, it will trigger a micheal bay explosion animation.

Barbara

• Restored Barbara's Energetic Voice Lines
• New Lines sold seperately as Dark Barbara™ , comes with a Dark Dress
• C6 Revive indicator is now visible as a buff.
• C4 now generates flying energy particles instead of instantly regaining energy. Mind you that this is a fucking nerf to this piece of shit healer that freezes you. It's just that there's no flying particles when you use this hero.

Beidou

• Casting the elemental skill applies a strong taunt and re-initializes enemies attack loop.
• Bullet Time effect added when triggering a perfect counter, when playing in single player mode.
• The ultimate's chain lightning deals tiny spark damage if it didn't jump.
• C2 chain lightning has a different color.
• C4 buff is triggered when you do a perfect counter (Taking damage to activate a skill promotes bad gameplay)
• C4 perfect counter grants the maximum damage bonus
• C4 shield has a different color.
• C6 has aura on the ground (inspired by Dota 2's Necrophos , but purple)

Bennet

• C6 Ultimate pyro infusion just adds pyro damage to your attacks, and won't convert them fully into pyro.
• C6 Ultimate restores up to 100% hp.

Childe

• Improved manly posture when in aiming mode
• C4 Riptide slash and flash uses different coloparticles/animation
• C6 has an indicator when it works and when it is available

Chongyun

• Cryo Field's Cryo infusion just adds cryo damage to your attacks, and won't convert them fully into cryo.

Diluc

• What seriously? You really want more?
• Fuck this guy in particular
• Elemental Sword Duration Indicator added
• C6 his flames has some bluish tint

Diona

• Fixed shield duration bug and increased by additional 1.1 seconds per claw.
• Shield ratio based off max hp increased by 10%
• C2 reduces skill cooldown by -2 seonds (press) and -4 (hold). The coop shield is added by default out of the box. Anything coop should not be locked behind a paywall because it will hurt the game and fanbase.
• C4 has been reworked to grant normal and aimed uncharged shots 25% chance to deal charged attack shots.
• C6 radius is increased and uses a different color.

Fischl

• Ultimate now deals tiny bit of damage per 0.2 seconds tick when making contact with enemies (aside from getting hit by lightning once)
• Ultimate can fly/pass through thorn walls. I'm looking at you Dendro Samachurl.
• Shadow Raven Let Night F---!!!
• C4 Ultimate hp restored now scales off damage dealt by the ult.

Ganyu

• holding the elemental skill allows you to aim and won't make you backdash
• C4 Freezing Field changes color intensity per damage increase
• C6 free frost charged arrow now works with normal unaimed attacks.
• C6 uses a different particle color. Sometime it turns into a bazooka.

Jean

• Reduced Increased swaying of boobs by a tiny amount while holding the skill. You can kinda feel them slapping against your face. You can almost describe their softness and warmth in a minimum of 10 pages apart from you going sommelier describing how deep her sweat tastes like.
• Jean's Charged Attack Launch Height is too damn high that you cant even hit the enemy, so - Reworked Jean's Charged Attack : Holding the attack button launches the enemy in the air. If you keep holding it down you will perform 3 slashes in the air. If you let go early you will stay on the ground.
• Base Attack Increased by +5
• Jean can now pick up the slimes dropped by enemies and use it against them for a bighead move
• Ultimate radius is increased
• Ultimate Wall Mechanic Reversed. Enemies are now trapped inside. When you use your skill (usually to regain energy) you can air-wall slam them. Block Projectiles from outside.
• If any of you actually played jean support, a normal person would use ult to heal, cast skill to regain energy, then switch back to other characters. It doesn't make fucking sense to push them outside your wind arena because you want to fight inside the swirl/healing zone.
• Ultimate swirls every 0.2 seconds , depending on what elements are inside. Field Changes Color Each Time Like a Disco Ball
• Ultimate now slowly succs enemies to the center(without lifting them up)
• Ultimate Damage is consequently reduced.
• C1 Uses a different colored windblast
• C2 Buff Indicator
• C4 uses a different color wind field
• C6 Ultimate is now an aura and moves with you. To break away from "buffed area" convention.
• C6 Ultimate will get you to keep the windsaber for the ult's duration
• C6 Shield Buff Indicator via Particle and Status Icon

Kaeya

• Base attack incresed by 5
• Elemental Skill (Hold) Sprays Ice , think of Igni but Ice in Witcher 3 or DND's Burning Hands
• C2 Icicles light up when you defeat an enemy indicating that it really works
• C4 Barrier is of different shape
• C6 uses a different icicle particle for bling purposes

Keqing

• Aiming mode feels a lot smoother. You can aim while moving and cursor immediately shows and the kungfu pose is only done when throwing the stilleto.
• When in single player mode, casting your ultimate produces a bullet time effect.
• C4 Buff Indicator
• C6 Description is confusing as fuck.
• C6 Buff indicator
• C6 Makes your sword light up like a lightsaber.

Klee

• Imroved Torch/Bonfire/Campfire and the likes Lockon (if there's any to begin with)
• Throwing Jumpty Dumpty provides 0.1s iframe during her spin
• Ult is now no longer greedy. Pyro satellites remain when you switch characters, making our lovable klee open up for support options. Child support.
• C4 is now manually triggered, Pressing q again will make her explode, bigger damage based off remaining duration. less duration left, less damage.
• C6 klee uses different bombs

Lisa

• A lingerie shop is opened in Mondstadt to change her pantsu, socks and garter belt style and colors. Black Leather Tight Suit™ Sold Seperately.
• Option to wear glasses as a Librarian added.
• Climbing voice volume is re-mastered in asmr microphone, in all languages.
• Requires "i am of legal age" consent in the user center
• Elemental skill (press) aoe slightly increased.
• Base attack increased by 15.

Mona

• Alternate dash is now binded to alt key.
• Hydro Puppet now deals half damage upon cast and half damage upon explosion.
• C6 normal attacks use a different attack animation.

MC (Anemo)

• Palm vortex can be casted in midair to break your fall (but not propel you up)

MC (Geo)

• When you overlap geo boulders (aimed mode) it will trigger the geo explosion of the older rock, then replace it with a new one

Ningguang

• Holding the skill button surrounds her in mini jade screens , unable to perform any action until it is released or ends. Useful for cinematic stuff. Imagine tanking childe's whale attack. Or someone wants to recreate triple rashomon scene.
• C6 has a chance to use different attack animation.
• C6 star jade now resembles a primo gem.

Noelle

• Elemental Sword Duration Indicator added
• C1 heals have a special effect and voice line when conditions are met.
• C2 upgrade uses a different charged attack animation.
• C4 uses a different barrier color
• C6 upgrade uses different ult (possibly red with the same hue as her skirt) color.

Qiqi

• C2 reworked as -15% attack debuff
• C4 reworked as -20% elemental resistance debuff
• C6 cooldown/availability indicator.
• C6 has a different bling/color

Razor

• Transformation Duration Indicator added
• C1 increased damage now really works
• C1 now has a buff indicator that it really works
• C2 now has a special crit indicator
• C4 armor shred now has a (claw mark) armor shred indicator that it really works
• C4 (hold) has increased damage so it doesn't feel left out. It also has electro explosions similar to when you mine an electric ore as a special effect to indicate that you are C4 and have a big PP.
• C6 covers your sword with electricity (like diluc) when it is charged and ready
• Yes I play razor a lot.

Sucrose

• Fixed crafting bug not producing any bonus when using large quantities (say 100+)
• Improved lock on when blowing off dandelion flowers. Idk how she keeps missing them even at point blank range, Hell , at any given range.
• C1 if you overlap the wind nukes the second one will be a 0.1s delay then it will go off with a slightly bigger radius
• C2 ult has a different color
• C4 has an indicator that it works
• C6 buff indicator

Venti

• Wind current generated by skill (hold) allows him to fall slower without gliding, and allows him to shoot wind lasers. Ehe
• C2 Charged Shot produces a bullet time effect when shot at point blank or if all 3 arrows hit a single enemy. Sometimes he draws the holy lyre and it transforms into a primitive shotgun.
• C4 buff indicator.
• C6 uses different vacuum color

Xiangling

• Ultimate deals additional damage when cast at point blank because you get stab and bonk while she is twirling her spear.
• C2 last attack leaves a flaming trail special effect (inspired by kyo or iori from king of fighters)
• C6 upon cast, Xianling automatically does a speed-up full normal attack combo and then releases the pyronado normally (while covered in flames or some shit). If you are in single player mode and there are no other enemies within 150 radius the ult will cause the screen to black out, like in legend of legaia.
• C6 during the ultimate if it contacts with gouba's flames it produces micheal bay effects while raining carpet bombs and shit.
• Yes flat is justice.

Xingqiu

• Floating Swords Duration added
• Fixed crafting bug not producing any bonus when using large quantities (say 100+)
• C4 Allows you to hold the elemental skill for double backflips (inspired by law from tekken) cooldown is 1 month.
• C4 Elem Skill leaves a faint rainbow (when ulted)
• C6 Swords emit faint rainbow color. Rainbow power motherf-

Xinyan

• Hitting large enemies counts as 2 enemies.
• C1 buff indicator
• C2's level 3 shield has some bluish flames
• C6 charged attack uses a diffent attack animation or has an indicator that it works

Xiao

• Transformation Duration Indicator added
• C2 now leaves a trail of anemo energy that deals tiny bit of damage , trail lasts for 1 second and deals at 0.2s intervals.
• C6 plunge attack counts large enemies as 2.
• C6 plunge-attack-no-cooldown-empowered-dashes uses a different particle color and produces a bullet time effect when used for the 3rd time onwards. useful for cinematic purposes
• C6 during the bullet time you can sneak in a normal attack once per dash
• Bullet time is always disabled in multiplayer

Zhongli

• Increased pillar aoe by a tiny bit
• Generates energy particles per pulse, maximum of 1 enemy per pillar
• Base attack increased by 5
• Travelers can redeem promo code "WHOSYOURDADDY" for additional +5 damage, regardless if they have the hero or not.
• Attack ratios increased by 3% per attack category.
• C1 has a slightly bigger dong eherm statue
• C4 Chaos Meteor errrr I mean Order Meteor has a different rock color
• C6 shield uses a different color , come on you get the drift already.
• C6 Meteor is affected by the element of the barrier you are wearing. The element is dealt as secondary damage, primary damage is still geo. (flaming space rock?)

Why different coloparticles/animation when you have C1-C6 upgrade?

It makes whales feels special, and it gives F2P players something to aspire for. It makes you want to spend with all the bling. Particle recolor is easy peasy and can be deployed within minutes. Attack animations on the other hand are time consuming. It almost always put smile in people's faces when a whale shows up in a ferrari. "Dude check this out a C6 GeoDaddy joined my domain run. Look at the size of his statue. Oh my what a BIG meteor."

Why are you doing this?

It's just for my amusement. I'm still adding random thoughts now that 1.3 has launched. I don't care if nothing gets implemented. I would nut hard in my shorts with QoL and alleged bug/bugfixes mentioned in this post more than anything.

Afterword

Leave your thoughts below. Sorry and not sorry for the broken engrish , feel free to copy and paste whatever, use it wherever idc as long as it doesn't annoy or harm someone. Translate it in your language etc. No credits needed etc. Let your mind flow

After-Afterword

• Thanks for the awards and all kinds of reception
• You guys are awesome and insane that's a shit load of awards thank you.

Note: Many of the links are to the Amity Arena Library, a website devoted to the game which includes tracking the history of it through patchnotes and a running history of what cards entered and left the meta. Their website was a valuable resource for this post.

Mobile gaming has taken off like a wildfire since the advent of the smartphone boosted the average processing power a phone could carry. Initially it took the form of crossing over older, more easily runnable games onto the mobile market to... mixed success, but in recent years we've seen both the West and East use mobile gaming to replace the old fashioned movie tie in game. It's easily accessable, has a much wider reach than consoles or PC, you can take it on the go and standards are inherently lower for mobile games than they are a full 60 dollar game.
Since the 2010s, mobile gaming has shifted to what's called the "Freemium" module. The game itself is free to download and start playing, but is insideously designed with obnoxious paywalls or artificial limiters put in place to limit how much you can play each day. If the game is part of a pre-existing franchise, additional money can be made through a premium currency or a chance to obtain high-powered units by rolling a slot machine random chance mechanic. And thus, gacha gaming was born. This sub has had several threads in the past on high profile gacha games, such as the monolithic Fate Grand/Order, Pokemon Go or Genshin Impact. One of the more popular things to roll for in gachas as a consequence is wallpapers for your homescreen, especially for high-grade units as they're usually animated to move a little bit on the homescreen. Today we're looking a low to mid-tier gacha game that rose and fell with the advent of one catgirl. Let's talk RWBY.
RWBY is an online web anime made by Rooster Teeth focusing on four prospective monster hunters who get embroiled in a world-spanning shadow war. It's of debatable quality in matters of animation, combat, voice acting, story, worldbuilding, romance, and it's kind of a little racist if I'm being honest, but one of the major positives of RWBY is that the series tends to have good character design. Series creator Monty Oum set in the guidelines for the show while making it that most if not every design should be made to be cosplay friendly, hence why most of the outfits have things most costume designers haven't heard of like... pockets. And Rooster Teeth, above all else, likes making money. So they know people like RWBY's character designs, enough so that in 2017 plans were made to release a gacha game themed around RWBY called Amity Arena, which would be developed by Korean company NHN Entertainment.
Amity Arena is a PvP tower defense game. Each player controls two turrets and a tower and has three minutes to use units themed from the show to destroy the other player's structures. Whoever took out more wins, destroying a tower is an instant victory. When the game launched, it had three tiers for units- Common (generally held for mooks or low-tier characters in the show), Rare (roughly protagonist-level or elite mooks go here) and Epic (High tier characters usually with an active ability that did lots of damage or stopped enemies in their tracks). The game launched in October 2018 to generally positive reviews from both mobile game players and RWBY fans alike. Fans were happy to get a lot of new official art for the characters in the game and the base gameplay loop was fun. Criticism at the time was largely themed around the lack of content besides PVP matches and some issues with the meta but overall, the launch went well. Each month, the developers would add new units, including popular characters like Neopolitian, Cinder Fall, Zwei the dog, and more.
But everything changed with February 20th 2019, which introduced Neon Katt, the titular catgirl (RWBY characters are themed around fairytales, except for Neon, who is themed around Nyan Cat, and her partner Flynt Coal, who is themed off a potentially racist joke made by Rooster Teeth).
Neon is a character from RWBY Volume 3 who's part of a team that RWBY face during a tournament arc. Her partner, Flynt Coal, was part of the game at launch, and Neon would join him a few months later. Neon in the show is a cocky fighter who taunts the heroes and zips around on rollarskates, which in-game is represented by Neon skating towards the nearest enemy structure to her and hitting it, while all units within a radius of Neon are taunted and provoked into attacking her above all other targets unless they-selves are coded to hit structures. On its own, not a bad idea for a unit, but Neon came with four big caveats:

• Neon was the fourth corner of the square that became known as the Artillery Arena meta, which saw Neon, Cinder (who had an AOE ability she could use which was wide enough to hit a turret and tower and single-handedly killed the entire launch meta of using fragile swarm units), Zwei (an on-summon high damage AOE on any part of the map) and Penny (another AOE ability that instead did chip damage and locked a location down) turn the game's meta into a chip game. Every player ran at least one of the above cards, if only to counter the others. Neon was the universal counter in being anti-swarm and the hardest to stop, especially at launch where her taunt range was so large, it could grab units from the other lane.
  
• Neon launched with a unit weight of "Heavy", which meant that if she was behind a unit she could push it on her way to the turret. This launched a sub-meta where Neon was placed behind a larger unit such as the Ursa (which like Neon was a unit that focused on structures but was made slow to cover its tankiness), to push them towards the turret faster. This was called Disco Bear. They eventually patched this so Neon phased through units by making her a lightweight.
  
• Neon couldn't die. She was invincible until she hit a structure, which combined with her taunt meant that Neon was very annoying to fight and could lock down an entire lane of the battlefield by being placed well and taunting enemies to let you prepare a counter.
  
• Neon was a very cheap unit to summon. Amity Arena uses a mechanic called "Aura" where all units cost a certain amount and it recharges over the match- for instance, protagonist Ruby Rose has a Rare card that costs four Aura to summon, while Weiss Schnee has two rares that cost three and five. Neo only cost two Aura, which made her one of the cheapest units of the game and thus disproportionately powerful for her cost and easy to cycle through your deck so you could spam her.
  

From the word go, Neon is an unpopular unit; she's clearly overbalanced and elements such as the Disco Bear glitch have players thinking she'll have to get knocked down in a nerf- she'll either be made slower, more expensive, or able to die pre-hitting a structure, right?
Neon doesn't show up in the next patch. Instead, before she's fixed, an entire new class of units called Legendaries are introduced, and this is where the game goes full gacha. Legendaries were meant to represent the highest tier characters in the game, the ones who were either the most popular characters or the highest-tier fighters in the show. Or in some cases, the popular ships such as combo cards for White Rose (Ruby/Weiss), Bumblebee (Blake/Yang) and Flower Power (Ren/Nora). Legendaries, representing their value, were impossibly rare and had an infinitely small chance of actually appearing (The most reliable method was to buy the premium chests and hope you'd roll a Legendary, which often cost tons of money), and if you did get one, there was no way to guess which Legendary you'd actually get. Some such as White Rose and Adam were high tier units, others like Hazel or Checkmate were... kinda broken at launch. The playerbase isn't happy at this, especially as free to play players are left out in the cold and reliant on the game giving them high tier units effectively out of pity.
Neon would get a small nerf in the April patch which lessened her taunt range and killed the Disco Bear meta, but her invincibility would be left untouched, even as players submitted feedback regarding how to make it more efficient. The official Amity Arena discord has a weekly feedback section on Tuesdays where players could submit up to four suggestions on how to nerf/buff units and general requests for quality of life such as "Can this character get a new skin from this part of the show," or "Can we have an option to lower music volume that's not just muting all music?" (they never did add that second request) Neon would then remain in this state until the November patch, despite constant weekly requests for a Neon rework, and all it would do is make Neon functionally mortal, in that she had a flat shield bar of 20 that would be lowered by one for each attack before the next hit would kill her. Neon could now die... but your chances of actually doing enough damage to stop her were slim, and regardless, you were now at a serious Aura defecit.
It took seven months for this one unit to get a substantial nerf, all while the game added new units every week and the number of units being affected by patches each month began to gradually sink. To round up some of the major issues people had with Amity that developed throughout 2019 alongside Neon's general existance making life hell:

• Common units were meant to be chump fodder, but could level up the most amount of times with a level cap at 13. This meant longer-term units that had a long time to level such as the Xiong Family card, the AK-130s the Beowolf Pack, or the White Fang gunners, could become shockingly strong if players grinded the money up to reach max level.
  
• A pre-existing divide between free players and players willing to burn money IRL to get access to premium currencies led to a huge disparity in play. Free players have long complained about how hard it is to scrounge money together to level up units at higher costs as even the basic currency of Lien is hard to get large quantities of (you get a certain amount every match win but otherwise you need to burn the Schnee Premium Dust currency for the highest payouts, but SPD is also needed for shop resets, buying crates or unlocking cosmetics). The developers used to do frequent double weekends where all gains were doubled for a weekend, but these became less and less frequent as time went on. Legendaries only added to the divide, as their rarity was bad enough for players willing to spend money (one player, known as one of the largest whales in the community, in trying to get Sienna Khan, reported burning nearly nine hundred dollars on her, while taking nearly six hundred to get the Ice Flower card).
  
• One actual counter was born to fight Neon in the Argus Shield, a stationary unit that existed solely to stall units and take damage. At 2 Aura, it was the first structure to counter Neon, which allevated one of the primary problems with Neon in that no way to counter her was cost-efficient for an enemy player. They buffed the Wall to 3 Aura eventually which killed that hope, and all this happened before Neon's November nerf.
  
• The Summer of 2019 saw a large number of defensive units released; alongside the Argus Shield, several different units were released themed around turrets for the technological kingdom of Atlas, such as the Beam Turret. The Atlesian Burrow Gun was the straw that broke the camel's back and made for a miserable meta as the Burrow Gun would only appear (and be available to take damage) when a unit entered its range. These three units together were all very overpowered on launch and led to a large exodus of players sick of defensive and chip-based metas, especially as what few offensive units that were good enough to counter these metas (such as Professor Port and Adam Taurus) were often nerfed into the ground within a month of release.
  
• Also around this time it became apparent that the developers were unable to meet the quotas that Rooster Teeth was forcing on them. The social media team admitted that a certain number of units needed to be in the game in time for Winter 2019 when Volume 7 was set to start, and as the year went on more and more game-breaking bugs were being found in units, or they were at best horrifically undertuned or overpowered. The Apathy was perhaps the largest case of this, as an unfound bug pre-release meant that the Apathy (who have a passive ability that let them self-duplicate) had no cap on their power, meaning that they could immediately overwhelm defenses and in the case of some phones, be such a resource hog the phone would crash. Many Legendary units were especially guilty of being under-tuned due to low Legendary availability meaning they were simply weren't powerful enough to compare with high-levelled units. Checkmate's ability simply didn't work at launch, and Neon made several more such as Hazel Rainart a joke. May Marigold's invisibility bubble would have been an interesting game changer... were it not for a bug that made it that units placed in the bubble still played their sound lines, meaning players knew what to expect. Things were so bad that when Flower Power launched and wasn't broken or needed an emergency patch, the playerbase were shocked.
  

Unfortunately, the Novemember patch did little to stop the problems with Neon, and a new problem would rear its head for Christmas: Jinn. This unit embodied many of the problems players had: She was a Legendary so it would be hard for free players to get her, and only added to the sheer number of Legendaries that were out there. She was another structure card, and she was horrifically broken. Stopping time for seven seconds in an area around any friendly units, Jinn broke the game overnight, with players horrified at how little playtesting she'd clearly had. Most chip units now couldn't damage structures as Jinn simply could stop time and freeze the turret for the duration of the attack. And to make matters worse? She cost two Aura, meaning it was very easy to cycle a deck and start Jinn spamming.
And yet at two aura she was still one of the only cost-efficient Neon counters... until they patched her to be worth three Aura instead. Talking of the feline menace, January saw Neon get a HP nerf that set her shield at 14. Finally, Neon could be realistically be taken out, still at an Aura defecit but at least it can be countered and now they just have to raise her Aura- why are you buffing her game?
Less than a month later, Neon got, of all things, a buff. Her HP shield was set at 20, and her attacks now did double damage. This is around the point where a lot of players begin to suspect the developers aren't listening to feedback and more long-term players dip out or drop the game. Neon got touched one more time in April, which slowed her down (which itself was a problem as Neon's lessened speed on spawn simply made her better at generating aggro), she dealt 10% less damage and made it somewhat easier to hit her enough to kill her, but a new problem was on the horizon. Because Neon was now no longer the game's White Whale for patches.
Meet the White Fang Gunner Barracks. Added in September 2019, the Barracks fell under many player's radar simply because they were horrifically undertuned. Their gimmick was that every few seconds, a White Fang Gunner would spawn, with three spawning on death. In April, as Neon got her last appearance in the patches, the Barracks got a huge buff and became the centerpiece of the meta; they now spawned two Gunners, which made them immensely valuable for just five Aura. You could overwhelm many anti-swarm units before they had a chance, and shred your way through turrets.
The Barracks would then go six months before this overtuning was rectified, barring one nerf in August that lowered their health to try and stem the tide of units. To sum up every other thing that went wrong during the year meta-wise:

• The playercount was getting so low that players were able to make lists of the AI bots the developers had in place so lower-level players had a challenge (Amity breaks up players by a trophy system where you gain trophies with every win, and by this point most of the active players were in the 2500 to 3500 range. This also meant new players steamrolled through the lower levels only to hit a brick wall in the 3000 range, with the only reliable solution being to willingly lose matches until you were in your optimal range and grind victories until you reached a certain level.
  
• The patches became more and more threadbare, going from 8+ units getting changed each month in early 2019 to three units at most getting changed in 2020 patches outside of the anniversary patch going back to the golden days of eight. The only area where they didn't get more threadbare was in the cosmetics and emotes that the developers were cranking out, all of which were only available through hours of grinding or premium currencies. This was despite the fact that the units were being released slower, going from once a week to once a fortnite.
  
• The majority of units added in 2020 were Epic or Legendary tier, which were the hardest to get for free players unless they got lucky and they were added to the store (and if they had the lien as a Legendary in the store costs a flat 40,000 Lien). One Common and four Epics were released compared to twelve Epics and seven Legendaries. The release of Moonslice Adam especially was annoying for this regard, as Adam already had a Legendary released (at least for Team RWBY, each of them headlined a Legendary when it came to the team attack cards), and this was clearly done to pander to Adam's fans again as his first unit saw a spike in interest in the game. The math was done and showed how artifically scarce Legendaries were made.
  
• The undeovertuning was still in play. Colossus is seen as one of the worst cards in the entire game because of its gimmick. I have literally never seen anyone play it. Flynt became overtuned and now he's a staple thanks to his trumpet's AOE attack being able to hurt turrets and shred most units. Launcher Nora was an especially overtuned unit thanks to her high-damage constant AOE barrage and long range meaning she could annhilate most anything if given enough cover. Even after patches she's still dangerous. September saw the White Fang Dropship Formation added, which was widely seen as a terrible unit and done as an emergency addition because the planned unit for September in the Grimm Seer had to be cut last minute for technical reasons.
  
• The game has barely had significant content added since launch, with the primary gameplay still just being PVP. Barring Battle of Beacon (a mode where you can play as Ruby and Weiss and fend off Grimm which most players just use to grind chests, and no, they still haven't added Blake or Yang) and Plaza (a lobby where you can dress up as a character and run around Beacon), the game has added no new features and quality of life content players have requested since launch (rerolling in the shop, Superior Crates having guaranteed Legendary spawn rates) have been released at a snail's pace (you still can't reroll Legendaries if you're looking for a specific unit). Academies where players can unite to trade units and chat still lacks features that have been requested for years such as the ability to delete messages. And Plaza immediately went to hell because players were doing erotic role play in the chats and after people came forward with proof that minors were being sexually harassed in the Plaza or being coerced into side-channels, the dev response was to... just turn off the chat entirely instead of banning the accounts or implementing moderation. This also removed the chatlog which deleted a lot of the evidence of said harassment.
  

As OctobeNovember comes in, the players are getting more and more furious. The weekly feedback includes a near constant demand for an acknowledgement from the developers given how often it feels like the feedback is being ignored. The social media team get caught several times hyping up how the coming patch would address player concerns, only for said patch to lack those units. The meta has been locked down to the Xiong Family, Flynt, Launcher Nora, Spider-Mines and the hell-cat herself in Neon. Everyone runs at least one of these, people run meta decks not because they want to, but because it's the only way to have a chance of victory.
And then in December, things implode. The patch for the month was set to launch on December 10th with the monthly event missions. But when the clock rolls around, the event missions (which usually take about two weeks to do if you're doing as many as you can a day)... has a six day timer. And the update doesn't come out. The art team doesn't release new unit art. The shop has no special timed bundles. There's no patch notes. And then the Twitter team who've been hard carrying the game through... actually talking to the players and acknowledging the grievances they have... admitted that they don't know what's going on either. The best guess is that the devs have come down with Covid, but no statements to confirm or deny this leave it as guesswork. The timer eventually got reset and people could do the event, but then on Christmas itself, another issue.
Ruby has appeared in the plaza on Halloween (her canonical birthday) and Christmas, and if you go talk to her you get free stuff. But on Christmas people, people discovered that Ruby was talking as if you'd already talked to her. Because they hadn't updated Ruby yet for 2020. She still thought it was 2019 so if you'd talked to her then for goodies, she had none now. They patched it eventually but a lot of people didn't see this fix before the timer ran out to get the free stuff.
Some have resorted to memes to cope with the fact that the game just seems to have died out of the blue. Others have been trying to desperately rally the players and find a way to save it. Some resorted to friendly mockery of the whales who'd spent thousands on a game that seems to be dying (seriously though gacha games need to curb this shit but they won't because whales are godsends for their bank balances).
If the game doesn't get an update in January then two months without new content will mark the end, and the already significant playercount drops will only increase. And it's hard to say if any one thing could have turned Amity Arena's fate around beyond just "Have a better balancing team who can respond better to feedback." Neon began the time of death, but by the time December rolled around the meta was in a horrifically toxic place where if you wanted to make any progession, you had to get down and dirty with the pigs. The team just constantly failed to balance problem units outside of their emergency hotfixes of Jinn, and more often then not they went after units and buffed or nerfed them at random going off playcounts to determine what needed fixing instead of the actual written feedback they were getting. It's clear from the references to the show and some of the attempts to reach out to the community that at least one person in the team genuinely wanted to make the good appealing to RWBY fans, but somewhere during the game's lifespan, they lost their way. Less focus needed to be put on how to milk the players, and instead focusing on making a game sustainable and enjoyable enough to warrant the cosmetics and emotes. The game's failure ultimately isn't on the playerbase. It's on the people who were actually making the game who chose to slack off because they thought it acceptable to do so.
Thanks for reading.
EDIT: HOT OFF THE PRESSES, I JUMPED THE GUN
Had I waited one more day, my story would have had a far more sudden ending, as the game just announced its shutdown for January.
RIP.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s when I was a young teen growing up in far North Austin, it was a popular custom for many boys in the neighborhood to assemble at the local Stop-N-Go after school on a regular basis for some Grand Champion level tournaments in Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat. The collective insistence of our mothers and fathers to get out of the house, get some exercise, and refrain from playing NES or Sega on the television only led us to seek out more video games at the convenience store down the road. Much allowance and lunch money was spent as well as hours that should have been devoted to homework among the 8 or 9 regular boys in attendance, often challenging each other to 'Best of 5' matches. I myself played Dhalsim and SubZero, and not very well, so I rarely ever made it to the 5th match. The store workers frequently kicked us out for the day only to have us return when they weren't working the counter anymore if not the next day.
There is something about that which has been lost in the present day. While people can today download the latest games on Steam or PSN or in the app store on your smartphone, you can't just find arcade games in stores and restaurants like you used to be able to. And so the fun of a spontaneous 8 or 10 person multiplayer video game tournament has been confined to places like bars, pool halls, Pinballz or Dave&Busters.
But in truth it was that ubiquity of arcade video games, how you could find them in any old 7-11 or Laundromat, which is what killed the original arcades of the early 1980s before the Great Crash of 1983 when home video game consoles started to catch up to what you saw in the arcade.
I was born in the mid 1970s so I missed out on Pong. I was kindergarten age when the Golden Age of Arcade Games took place in the early 1980s. There used to be a place called Skateworld on Anderson Mill Road that was primarily for roller skating but had a respectable arcade in its own right. It was there that I honed my skills on the original Tron, Pac Man, Galaga, Pole Position, Defender, and so many others. In the 1980s I remember visiting all the same mall arcades as others in my age group. There was Aladdin's Castle in Barton Creek Mall, The Gold Mine in Highland, and another Gold Mine in Northcross which was eventually renamed Tilt. Westgate Mall also had an arcade but being a north austin kid I never went there until later in the mid 1990s. There were also places like Malibu Grand Prix and Showbiz Pizza and Chuck-E-Cheeze, all of which had fairly large arcades for kids which were the secondary attraction.
If you're of a certain age you will remember Einsteins and LeFun on the Drag. They were there for a few decades going back way before the Slacker era. Lesser known is that the UT Student Union basement used to have an arcade that was comparable to either or both of those places. Back in the pre-9/11 days it was much easier to sneak in if you even vaguely looked like you could be a UT student.
But there was another place I was too young to have experienced called Smitty's up further north on 183 at Lake Creek in the early 1980s. I never got to go there but I always heard about it from older kids at the time. It was supposed to have been two stories of wall to wall games with a small snack bar. I guess at the time it served a mostly older teen crowd from Westwood High School and for that reason younger kids my age weren't having birthday parties there. It wasn't around very long, just a few years during the Golden Age of Arcades.
It is with almost-forgotten early arcades like that in mind that I wanted to share with y'all some examples of places from The Golden Age of the Video Arcade in Austin using some old Statesman articles I've found. Maybe someone of a certain age on here will remember them. I was curious what they were like, having missed out by being slightly too young to have experienced most of them first hand. I also wanted to see the original reaction to them in the press. I had a feeling there was some pushback from school/parent/civic groups on these facilities showing up in neighborhood strip malls or next to schools, and I was right to suspect. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First let's list off some places of interest. Be sure to speak up if you remember going to any of these, even if it was just for some other kid's birthday party. Unfortunately some of the only mentions about a place are reports of a crime being committed there, such as our first few examples.
Forgotten Arcade #1
Fun House/Play Time Arcade - 2820 Guadalupe
June 15, 1975

ARCADE ENTHUSIASM
A gang fight involving 20 30 people erupted early Saturday morning in front of an arcade on Guadalupe Street. The owner of the Fun House Arcade at 282J Guadalupe told police pool cues, lug wrenches, fists and a shotgun were displayed during the flurry. Police are unsure what started the fisticuffs, but one witness at the scene said it pitted Chicanos against Anglos. During the fight the owner of the arcade said a green car stopped at the side of the arcade and witnesses reported the barrel of a shotgun sticking out. The crowd wisely scattered and only a 23-year-old man was left lying on the ground. He told police he doesn't know what happened.

March 3, 1976

ARCADE ROBBED
A former employee of Play Time Arcade, 2820 Guadalupe, was charged Tuesday in connection with the Tuesday afternoon robbery of his former business. Police have issued a warrant for the arrest of Ronnie Magee, 22, of 1009 Aggie Lane, Apt. 306. Arcade attendant Sam Garner said he had played pool with the suspect an hour before the robbery. He told police the man had been fired from the business two weeks earlier. Police said a man walked in the arcade about 2:45 p m. with a blue steel pistol and took $180. Magee is charged with first degree aggravated robbery. Bond was set on the charge at $15,000.

First it was called Fun House and then renamed Play Time a year later. I'm not sure what kind of arcade games beyond Pong and maybe Asteroids they could have had at this place. The peak of the Pinball craze was supposed to be around 1979, so they might have had a few pinball machines as well. A quick search of youtube will show you a few examples of 1976 video games like Death Race. The location is next to Ken's Donuts where PokeBowl is today where the old Baskin Robbins location was for many years.
Forgotten Arcade #2
Green Goth - 1121 Springdale Road
May 15, 1984

A 23-year-old man pleaded guilty Monday to a January 1983 murder in East Austin and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Jim Crowell Jr. of Austin admitted shooting 17-year-old Anthony Rodriguez in the chest with a shotgun after the two argued outside the Green Goth, a games arcade at 1121 Springdale Road, on Jan. 23, 1983. Crowell had argued with Rodriguez and a friend of Rodriguez at the arcade, police said. Crowell then went to his house, got a shotgun and returned to the arcade, witnesses said. When the two friends left the arcade, Rodriguez was shot Several weeks ago Crowell had reached a plea bargain with prosecutors for an eight-year prison term, but District Judge Bob Perkins would not accept the sentence, saying it was shorter than sentences in similar cases. After further plea bargaining, Crowell accepted the 15-year prison sentence.

I can't find anything else on Green Goth except reports about this incident with a murder there. There is at least one other report from 1983 around the time of Crowell's arrest that also refer to it as an arcade but reports the manager said the argument started over a game of pool. It's possible this place might have been more known for pool.
Forgotten Arcades #3 & #4
Games, Etc. - 1302 S. First St
Muther's Arcade - 2532 Guadalupe St
August 23, 1983

Losing the magic touch - Video Arcades have trouble winning the money game
It was going to be so easy for Lawrence Villegas, a video game junkie who thought he could make a fast buck by opening up an arcade where kids could plunk down an endless supply of quarters to play Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Asteroids. Villegas got together with a few friends, purchased about 30 video games and opened Games, Etc. at 1302 S. First St in 1980. .,--.... For a while, things, went great Kids waited in line to spend their money to drive race cars, slay dragons and save the universe.
AT THE BEGINNING of 1982, however, the bottom fell out, and Villegas' revenues fell from $400 a week to $25. Today, Games, Etc. is vacant Villegas, 30, who is now working for his parents at Tony's Tortilla Factory, hasn't decided what he'll do with the building. "I was hooked on Asteroids, and I opened the business to get other people hooked, too," Villegas said. "But people started getting bored, and it wasn't worth keeping the place open. In the end, I sold some machines for so little it made me sick."
VILLEGAS ISNT the only video game operator to experience hard times, video game manufacturers and distributors 'It used to be fairly common to get $300 a week from a machine. Now we rarely get more than $100 .
Pac-Man's a lost cause. Six months ago, you could resell a Pac-Man machine for $1,600. Now, you're lucky to get $950 if you can find a buyer." Ronnie Roark says. In the past year, business has dropped 25 percent to 65 percent throughout the country, they say. Most predict business will get even worse before the market stabilizes. Video game manufacturers and operators say there are several reasons for the sharp and rapid decline: Many video games can now be played at home on television, so there's no reason to go to an arcade. The novelty of video games has worn off. It has been more than a decade since the first ones hit the market The decline can be traced directly to oversaturation or the market arcade owners say. The number of games in Austin has quadrupled since 1981, and it's not uncommon to see them in coin-operated laundries, convenience stores and restaurants.
WITH SO MANY games to choose from, local operators say, Austinites be came bored. Arcades still take in thousands of dollars each week, but managers and owners say most of the money is going to a select group of newer games, while dozens of others sit idle.
"After awhile, they all seem the same," said Dan Moyed, 22, as he relaxed at Muther's Arcade at 2532 Guadalupe St "You get to know what the game is going to do before it does. You can play without even thinking about it" Arcade owners say that that, in a nutshell, is why the market is stagnating.
IN THE PAST 18 months, Ronnie Roark, owner of the Back Room at 2015 E. Riverside Drive, said his video business has dropped 65 to 75 percent Roark, . who supplied about 160 video games to several Austin bars and arcades, said the instant success of the games is what led to their demise. "The technology is not keeping up with people's demand for change," said Roark, who bought his first video game in 1972. "The average game is popular for two or three months. We're sending back games that are less than five months old."
Roark said the market began dropping in March 1982 and has been declining steadily ever since. "The drop started before University of Texas students left for the summer in 1982," Roark said. "We expected a 25 percent drop in business, and we got that, and more. It's never really picked up since then. - "It used to be fairly common to get $300 a week from a machine. Now we rarely get more than $100. 1 was shocked when I looked over my books and saw how much things had dropped."
TO COMBAT THE slump, Roark said, he and some arcade owners last year cut the price of playing. Even that didn't help, he said. Old favorites, such as Pac-Man, which once took in hundreds of dollars each week, he said, now make less than $3 each. "Pac-Man's a lost cause," he said. "Six months ago, you could resell a Pac-Man machine for $1,600. Now, you're lucky to get $950 if you can find a buyer." Hardest hit by the slump are the owners of the machines, who pay $3,500 to $5,000 for new products and split the proceeds with the businesses that house them.
SALEM JOSEPH, owner of Austin Amusement and Vending Co., said his business is off 40 percent in the past year. Worse yet, some of his customers began returning their machines, and he's having a hard time putting them back in service. "Two years ago, a machine would generate enough money to pay for itself in six months,' said Joseph, who supplies about 250 games to arcades. "Now that same machine takes 18 months to pay for itself." As a result, Joseph said, he'll buy fewer than 15 new machines this year, down from the 30 to 50 he used to buy. And about 50 machines are sitting idle in his warehouse.
"I get calls every day from people who want to sell me their machines," Joseph said. "But I can't buy them. The manufacturers won't buy them from me." ARCADE OWNERS and game manufacturers hope the advent of laser disc video games will buoy the market Don Osborne, vice president of marketing for Atari, one of the largest manufacturers of video games, said he expects laser disc games to bring a 25 percent increase in revenues next year. The new games are programmed to give players choices that may affect the outcome of the game, Os borne said. "Like the record and movie industries, the video game industry is dependent on products that stimulate the imagination," Osborne said "One of the reasons we're in a valley is that we weren't coming up with those kinds of products."
THE FIRST of the laser dis games, Dragonslayer and Star Wan hit the market about two months ago. Noel Kerns, assistant manager of The Gold Mine Arcade in Northcross Mall, says the new games are responsible for a $l,000-a-week increase in revenues. Still, Kerns said, the Gold Mine' total sales are down 20 percent iron last summer. However, he remain optimistic about the future of the video game industry. "Where else can you come out of the rain and drive a Formula One race car or save the universe?" hi asked.
Others aren't so optimistic. Roark predicted the slump will force half of all operators out of business and will last two more years. "Right now, we've got a great sup ply and almost no demand," Roark said. "That's going to have to change before things get- significantly better."

Well there is a lot to take from that long article, among other things, that the author confused "Dragonslayer" with "Dragon's Lair". I lol'd.
Anyone who has been to Emo's East, formerly known as The Back Room, knows they have arcade games and pool, but it's mostly closed when there isn't a show. That shouldn't count as an arcade, even though the former owner Ronnie Roark was apparently one of the top suppliers of cabinet games to the area during the Golden Era. Any pool hall probably had a few arcade games at the time, too, but that's not the same as being an arcade.
We also learn from the same article of two forgotten arcades: Muthers at 2522 Guadalupe where today there is a Mediterranean food restaurant, and another called Games, Etc. at 1302 S.First that today is the site of an El Mercado restaurant. But the article is mostly about showing us how bad the effects were from the crash at the end of the Golden Era. It was very hard for the early arcades to survive with increasing competition from home game consoles and personal computers, and the proliferation of the games into stores and restaurants.
Forgotten Arcades #5 #6 & #7
Computer Madness - 2414 S. Lamar Blvd.
Electronic Encounters - 1701 W Ben White Blvd (Southwood Mall)
The Outer Limits Amusements Center - 1409 W. Oltorf
March 4, 1982

'Quartermania' stalks South Austin
School officials, parents worried about effects of video games
A fear Is haunting the video game business. "We call it 'quartermania.' That's fear of running out of quarters," said Steve Stackable, co-owner of Computer Madness, a video game and foosball arcade at 2414 S. Lamar Blvd. The "quartermania" fear extends to South Austin households and schools, as well. There it's a fear of students running out of lunch money and classes to play the games. Local school officials and Austin police are monitoring the craze. They're concerned that computer hotspots could become undesirable "hangouts" for students, or that truancy could increase because students (high-school age and younger) will skip school to defend their galaxies against The Tempest.
So far police fears have not been substantiated. Department spokesmen say that although more than half the burglaries in the city are committed by juveniles during the daytime, they know of no connection between the break-ins and kids trying to feed their video habit But school and parental worries about misspent time and money continue. The public outcry in September 1980 against proposals to put electronic game arcades near two South Austin schools helped persuade city officials to reject the applications. One proposed location was near Barton Hills Elementary School. The other was South Ridge Plaza at William Cannon Drive and South First Street across from Bedlchek Junior High School.
Bedichek principal B.G. Henry said he spoke against the arcade because "of the potential attraction it had for our kids. I personally feel kids are so drawn to these things, that It might encourage them to leave the school building and play hookey. Those things have so much compulsion, kids are drawn to them like a magnet Kids can get addicted to them and throw away money, maybe their lunch money. I'm not against the video games. They may be beneficial with eye-hand coordination or even with mathematics, but when you mix the video games during school hours and near school buildings, you might be asking for problems you don't need."
A contingent from nearby Pleasant Hill Elementary School joined Bedichek in the fight back in 1980, although principal Kay Beyer said she received her first formal call about the games last Week from a mother complaining that her child was spending lunch money on them. Beyer added that no truancy problems have been related to video game-playing at a nearby 7-11 store. Allen Poehl, amusement game coordinator for Austin's 7-11 stores, said company policy rules out any game-playing by school-age youth during school hours. Fulmore Junior High principal Bill Armentrout said he is working closely with operators of a nearby 7-1 1 store to make sure their policy is enforced.
The convenience store itself, and not necessarily the video games, is a drawing card for older students and drop-outs, Armentrout said. Porter Junior High principal Marjorie Ball said that while video games aren't a big cause of truancy, "the money (spent on the games) is a big factor." Ball said she has made arrangements with nearby businesses to call the school it students are playing the games during school hours. "My concern is that kids are basically unsupervised, especially at the 24-hour grocery stores. That's a late hour for kids to be out. I would like to see them (games) unplugged at 10 p.m.," adds Joslin Elementary principal Wayne Rider.
Several proprietors of video game hot-spots say they sympathize with the concerns of parents and school officials. No one under 18 is admitted without a parent to Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre at 4211 S. Lamar. That rule, says night manager David Dunagan, "keeps it from being a high school hangout. This is a family place." Jerry Zollar, owner of J.J. Subs in West Wood Shopping Center on Bee Cave Road, rewards the A's on the report cards of Eanes school district students with free video games. "It's kind of a community thing we do in a different way. I've heard from both teachers and parents . . . they thought this was a good idea," said Zollar.
Electronic Encounters in Southwood Mall last year was renovated into a brightly lit arcade. "We're trying to get away from the dark, barroom-type place. We want this to be a place for family entertainment We won't let kids stay here during school hours without a written note from their parents, and we're pretty strict about that," said manager Kelly Roberts. Joyce Houston, who manages The Outer Limits amusements center at 1409 W. Oltorf St. along with her husband, said, "I wouldn't let my children go into some of the arcades I've visited. I'm a concerned parent, too. We wanted a place where the whole family could come and enjoy themselves."

Well you can see which way the tone of all these articles is going. There were some crimes committed at some arcades but all of them tended to have a negative reputation for various reasons. Parents and teachers were very skeptical of the arcades being in the neighborhoods to the point of petitioning the City Government to restrict them. Three arcades are mentioned besides Chuck-E-Cheese. Electronic Encounters in Southwood Mall, The Outer Limits amusements center at 1409 W. Oltorf, and Computer Madness, a "video game and foosball arcade" at 2414 S. Lamar Blvd.
Forgotten Arcade #8
Smitty's Galaxy of Games - Lake Creek Parkway
February 25, 1982

Arcades fighting negative image
Video games have swept across America, and Williamson and Travis counties have not been immune. In a two-part series, Neighbor examines the effects the coin-operated machines have had on suburban and small-town life.
Cities have outlawed them, religious leaders have denounced them and distraught mothers have lost countless children to their voracious appetites. And still they march on, stronger and more numerous than before. A new disease? Maybe. A wave of invading aliens from outer space? On occasion. A new type of addiction? Certainly. The culprit? Video games. Although the electronic game explosion has been mushrooming throughout the nation's urban areas for the past few years, its rippling effects have just recently been felt in the suburban fringes of North Austin and Williamson County.
In the past year, at least seven arcades armed with dozens of neon quarter-snatchers have sprung up to lure teens with thundering noises and thousands of flashing seek-and-destroy commands. Critics say arcades are dens of iniquity where children fall prey to the evils of gambling. But arcade owners say something entirely different. "Everybody fights them (arcades), they think they are a haven for drug addicts. It's just not true," said Larry Grant of Austin, who opened Eagle's Nest Fun and Games on North Austin Avenue in Georgetown last September. "These kids are great" Grant said the gameroom "gives teenagers a place to come. Some only play the games and some only talk.
In Georgetown, if you're from the high school, this is it." He said he's had very few disturbances, and asks "undesirables" to leave. "We've had a couple of rowdies. That's why I don't have any pool tables they tend to attract that type of crowd," Grant said.
Providing a place for teens to congregate was also the reason behind Ron and Carol Smith's decision to open Smitty's Galaxy of Games on Lake Creek Parkway at the entrance to Anderson Mill. "We have three teenage sons, and as soon as the oldest could drive, it became immediately apparent that there was no place to go around here," said Ron, an IBM employee who lives in Spicewood at Balcones. "This prompted us to want to open something." The business, which opened in August, has been a huge success with both parents and youngsters. "Hundreds of parents have come to check out our establishment before allowing their children to come, and what they see is a clean, safe environment managed by adults and parents," Ron said. "We've developed an outstanding rapport with the community." Video arcades "have a reputation that we have to fight," said Carol.
Kathy McCoy of Georgetown, who last October opened Krazy Korner on Willis Street in Leander, agrees. "We've got a real good group of kids," she said. "There's no violence, no nothing. Parents can always find their kids at Krazy Korner."
While all the arcade owners contacted reported that business is healthy, if not necessarily lucrative, it's not as easy for video entrepreneurs to turn a profit as one might imagine. A sizeable investment is required. Ron Smith paid between $2,800 and $5,000 for each of the 30 electronic diversions at his gameroom.
Grant said his average video game grosses about $50 a week, and his "absolute worst" game, Armor Attack, only $20 a week. The top machines (Defender and Pac-Man) can suck in an easy $125 a week. That's a lot of quarters, 500 to be exact but the Eagle's Nest and Krazy Korner pass half of them on to Neelley Vending Company of Austin which rents them their machines. "At 25 cents a shot, it takes an awful lot of people to pay the bills," said Tom Hatfield, district manager for Neelley.
He added that an owner's personality and the arcade's location can make or break the venture. The game parlor must be run "by an understanding person, someone with patience," Hatfield said. "They cannot be too demanding on the kids, yet they can't let them run all over them." And they must be located in a spot "with lots of foot traffic," such as a shopping center or near a good restaurant, he said. "And being close to a school really helps." "Video games are going to be here permanently, but we're going to see some operations not going because of the competition," which includes machines in virtually every convenience store and supermarket, Hatfield said.

This article talks about three arcades. One in Georgetown called Eagles Nest, another in Leander called Krazy Korner, and a third called Smitty's Galaxy of Games on Lake Creek Parkway "on the fringes of North Austin". This is the one I remember the older kids talking about when I was a little kid. There was once a movie theater across the street from the Westwood High School football stadium and behind that was Smitty's. Today I think the building was bulldozed long ago and the space is part of the expanded onramp to 183 today. Eventually another unrelated arcade was built next to the theater that became Alamo Lakeline. It was another site of some unrecorded epic Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat tournaments in the 90s.
But the article written before the end of the Golden Era tell us much about the pushback I was talking about earlier. Early arcades were seen as "dirty" places in some circles, and the owners of the arcades in Williamson County had to stress how "clean" their establishments were. This other article from a couple of weeks later tells of how area school officials weren't worried about video games and tells us more arcades in Round Rock and Cedar Park. Apparently the end of the golden age lasted a bit longer than usual in this area.
At some point in the next few years the bubble burst, and places like Smitty's were gone by the late 80s. But the distributors quoted earlier were right that arcade games weren't going completely away. In the mid 1980s LeFun opened up next in the Scientology building at 2200 Guadalupe on the drag. Down a few doors past what used be a coffee shop and a CVS was Einsteins Arcade. Both of those survived into the 21st century. I remember the last time I was at Einsteins I got my ass beat in Tekken by a kid half my age. heheh
That's all for today. There were no Bonus Pics in the UT archive of arcades (other than the classical architectural definition). I wanted to pass on some Bonus newspaper articles (remember to click and zoom in with the buttons on the right to read) about Austin arcades anyway but first a small story.
I mentioned earlier the secret of the UT Student Union. I have no idea what it looks like now but in the 90s there was a sizable arcade in with the bowling alley in the basement. Back in 1994 when I used to sneak in, they featured this bizarre early attempt at virtual reality games. I found an old Michael Barnes Statesman article about it dated February 11, 1994. Some highlights:

Hundreds of students and curiosity-seekers lined up at the University of Texas Union to play three to five minutes of Dactyl Nightmare, Flying Aces or V-Tol, three-dimensional games from Kramer Entertainment. Nasty weather delayed the unloading of four huge trunks containing the machines, which resemble low pulpits. Still, players waited intently for a chance to shoot down a fighter jet, operate a tilt-wing Harrier or tangle with a pterodactyl. Today, tickets will go on sale in the Texas Union lobby at 11:30 a.m. for playing slots between noon and 6 p.m.
Players, fitted with full helmets, throttles and power packs, stood on shiny gray and yellow platforms surrounded by a circular guard rail. Seen behind the helmet's goggles were computer simulated landscapes, not unlike the most sophisticated video games, with controls and enemies viewed in deep space. "You're on a platform waiting to fight a human figure," said Jeff Vaughn, 19, of Dactyl Nightmare. "A pterodactyl swoops down and tries to pick you up. You have to fight it off. You are in the space and can see your own body and all around you. But if you try to walk, you have to use that joy stick to get around."
"I let the pterodactyl carry me away so I could look down and scan the board," said Tom Bowen of the same game. "That was the way I found out where the other player was." "Yeah, it's cool just to stand there and not do anything," Vaughn said. The mostly young, mostly male crowd included the usual gaming fanatics, looking haggard and tense behind glasses and beards. A smattering of women and children also pressed forward in a line that snaked past the lobby and into the Union's retail shops.
"I don't know why more women don't play. Maybe because the games are so violent," said Jennifer Webb, 24, a psychology major whose poor eyesight kept her from becoming a fighter pilot in real life. "If the Air Force won't take me, virtual reality will." "They use stereo optics moving at something like 60 frames a second," said computer science major Alex Aquila, 19. "The images are still pretty blocky. But once you play it, you'll want to play it again and again." With such demand for virtual reality, some gamesters wondered why an Austin video arcade has not invested in at least one machine.

The gameplay looked like this.
Bonus Article #1 - "Video fans play for own reasons" (Malibu Grand Prix) - March 11, 1982
Bonus Article #2 - "Pac-Man Cartridge Piques Interest" - April 13, 1982
Bonus Article #3 - "Video Games Fail Consumer" - January 29, 1984
Bonus Article #4 - "Nintendoholics/Modems Unite" - January 25, 1989
Bonus Article #5 and pt 2 "Two girls missing for a night found at arcade" (truly dedicated young gamers) - August 7, 2003

Hi All,
We’re excited to announce the Open Beta of our brand new game, Super Truck Life; an idle RPG about driving a truck across the world, collecting loot and upgrades, and making friends along the way. Yeah, it’s just as weird as it sounds. Some core features include:

• A social network complete with friending, gifting, chatting, and DMs
• The Track, an AI-driven race track where you bet on your favorite drivers for scrap
• Procedurally generated parts like engines, nitro tanks, and totems
• Over 200 individual paints and toppers to customize your truck and make it yours
• 5 custom-built radio stations with hours of music, fake commercials, and comedy
• An unnecessary amount of world building
• 6+ unique regions to explore in including a forest, swamp, desert, ice, and more!
• Random map events
• Multiple ascensions with rewards
• Several upgrade categories
• Several different buffs to increase your performance
• A fully functional slot machine
• Weekly updates and open communication

We look forward to seeing you in the game, and feel free to invite your friends!
Register at https://supertrucklife.com, or log in with Steam, Discord, Google, Twitch, Reddit, or Amazon!
Your BFFs,
The Super Truck Life Team
(Mike & Dan)
NEW YEARS EDIT:
Happy New Year! We've received a lot of feedback (like a lot) and we've been compiling everything into one place so we can properly address some concerns, comments, and hopefully clarify a few things.
First, the registration process. We use SSO (single sign on), so relatively quick and painless. We've included Google, Reddit, Discord, Steam, Twitch, and Amazon. We do plan on adding a guest account option in the future, but registration is required so we can handle your game progression, inventory, and preferences. Your info is 100% private and exclusively used for account purposes (we will never sell your info). We apologize if this made people uneasy; not our intention!
Regarding optimization: the excessive memory usage is 100% something we're working on and is due mostly to the hours of radio we built and included (think GTA radio) without having a third party service to stream it. This and other optimization is ongoing. The game went from a fun little project to a beast in a matter of a few months and we're playing a little optimization catch up. Good times.
Loading times. The game is huge, and Chromium is less happy about that than other browsers. We've seen the loading bar lock up, only to magically load the game anyway 5 minutes later. We've had people report massive load times in Firefox. This is not acceptable to us, either. We're trying to trim the hell out of the fat. There is, in fact, quite a bit of it. In addition, we're going to move the radio files elsewhere so they aren't part of the initial download. That should help a lot.
The game is free to play. There are no paywalls, third party ads, energy mechanics, or punishing systems if you don't spend money. You can literally play for a month straight without any intrusive reminders aside from an ad carousel in the corner. Speaking of which...
Microtransactions. Everyone's favorite part of a free to play game! Seriously though, we hear you. We can assure you this game was not designed around microtransactions. The "ad carousel" in the lower right corner was the last thing we added to the UI. The initial intention was a free crate reminder, player spotlight, news/update CTAs, and somewhere in the shuffle a shop promotion. Instead, we launched with a 5 second rotation carousel where 2/3 of the CTAs were for MTX. This resulted in uh, not great responses. We're sorry about that; we'll reel it in. We've already slowed down the rotation so it's less intense. Also, as mentioned below the skins don't make sense until you can share your aesthetic; we agree, and we're working on that too.
We made a game we worked hard on and we thought some people might actually enjoy playing it. We're very straight forward with the shop; there are 0 shady, misleading business practices at play. That doesn't mean we aren't two idiots that are going to make mistakes and unintentionally piss people off. We hear you, we're working on solutions and we hope you'll give us a chance.
If you're still not interested, we 100% respect that, but we'd like to be fairly represented here.
Thanks!

We’re releasing Update 22 today, which includes new features like One Wasteland, Daily Ops, Legendary Perks, and the start of our second Fallout 76 Season. This update also brings a number of additional improvements and bug fixes to the game, so be sure to read on to catch the patch notes.

Update 22 Highlights

• One Wasteland: Creature levels now adjust dynamically to more closely match character levels, so you can adventure anywhere in Appalachia, whether alone or with your friends!
• Fallout 76 Season 2: Join Armor Ace and the Power Patrol in their battle against the Red Vipers by ranking up on an all-new S.C.O.R.E.board and claiming tons of rewards along the way.
• Daily Ops: Gear up, grab your pals, and get ready to take on challenging, repeatable, and randomized encounters called Daily Ops.
• Legendary Perks: Become legendary with new high-level Perk Cards that will offer more power and build diversity to your characters.

Update Version

Check below for the update version and download size for today’s patch on your platform of choice:

• PC (Bethesda.net): 1.4.0.20 (23.3 GB)
• PC (Microsoft Store): 1.4.0.20 (37.8 GB)
• PC (Steam): 1.4.0.20 (27.5 GB)
• PS4: 1.4.0.20 (35.2 GB)
• Xbox: 1.4.0.20 (42.6 GB)

One Wasteland

• With today’s update, we’re excited to introduce One Wasteland to Fallout 76, which allows creatures to dynamically adjust their levels up or down on the fly to more closely match each player they encounter.
  • If multiple players all come across the same enemy at the same time, its level will simultaneously rise for the higher-level players and drop for the lower-level players.
• In addition to their levels, each creature’s damage, health, and resistances, as well as the loot they drop and the XP they award, will also better match each player.
  • This means that all players who are adventuring together can have an impact on any given combat encounter, even if there is a large level gap between them.
  • While creatures will still have minimum and maximum levels, such as a max of level 50 in The Forest, they are now much more flexible overall.
• One Wasteland opens up more opportunities to adventure anywhere in Appalachia, whether alone or with your friends. It also smooths out some of the early game bumps for new players, allows higher-level players to get max-level loot in previously lower-level regions, and should offer more consistent combat encounters for everyone.
• Catch even more details by reading our recent One Wasteland Preview article on Fallout.com.

New Season, Board, & Rewards

• Join Armor Ace and the Power Patrol in their march against the oppressive Subjugator and his army of Red Viper minions during Fallout 76 Season 2, which begins today!
  • Season 2 brings the all-new “Armor Ace” S.C.O.R.E.board to the game, featuring 100 ranks for you to achieve during the next 10 weeks.
  • We’ve added a host of rewards that you will unlock as you rank up, including new Power Armor paints, Armor and Weapon Skins, themed cosmetics, C.A.M.P. items, in-game currencies, Perk Card Packs, and more.
• We’ve made several adjustments this Season that you may want to keep in mind as you dive in:
  • Rank-ups will be purchasable immediately, so those who would like to rank up using Atoms can join the fight to crush the Red Vipers starting today.
  • We’ve implemented some new Daily and Weekly Challenges, such as Daily Ops themed Challenges, to offer you even more day-to-day variety as you rank up.
  • We’re also adding more Weeklies to the Challenge lineup so you have more flexibility to progress on your schedule.
  • Finally, we’ve made several of last Season’s rewards, like Lunchboxes, the Ammo Converter, available at Gold Bullion vendors so players who missed them have another opportunity to unlock them.
• Head to the Seasons page on Fallout.com and read our recent Season 2 Preview article to get more information about Season 2, as well as a look at the rewards that will be up for grabs.

Daily Ops

Put your skills to the test by taking on instanced, randomized, and repeatable encounters called “Daily Ops.” Daily Ops are fairly challenging, and so we recommend them for characters who are level 50+.

• Our first Game Mode for Daily Ops is called “Uplink,” which will require you to secure a series of Uplinks to track down and destroy enemies that are threats to Appalachia.
  • In Daily Ops, you’ll square off against enemies from a single faction who are affected by a unique “mutation,” which will make them deadlier and more challenging to take down.
  • Complete your objectives, eliminate the enemy threat, and you will be rewarded for your efforts to make Appalachia a safe place for everyone.
• To join a Daily Op, open the Map screen and find the new World Activity tracker we’ve added in the lower-left corner.
  • Select a Daily Op from the list to learn more about it, including which location, enemies, and mutations you’ll face.
  • Enter Daily Ops directly from the tracker by clicking the “Join” button.
  • You can take on Daily Ops alone or in a team of up to four other players.
• Each day, Daily Ops will feature a fresh combination of location, enemy faction, and enemy mutations to keep you on your toes.
  • Locations: The Burrows, The Burning Mine, Valley Galleria, or Vault 94
  • Enemy Factions: Super Mutants, Blood Eagles, or Robots
  • Enemy Mutations:
  • Piercing Gaze: This mutation is always applied to enemies the “Uplink” Daily Ops mode, and gives them greatly enhanced perception of players.
  • Volatile: Enemies will explode on death
  • Active Camouflage: Enemies will be cloaked when not attacking
  • Resilient: Enemies can only be killed by a melee attack
  • Freezing Touch: Enemy attacks will freeze players
• Since you will be facing constant combat and deadly threats during your Operations, we’ve reduced the condition damage taken by your weapons and armor by 50% while in a Daily Op.
• Like the event “A Colossal Problem,” creatures in Daily Ops will drop ammo based on the weapons you’re using when you take them down. This will help keep your ammo reserves topped off through lots of combat.
• You can repeat Daily Ops as often as you’d like each day, and you will receive a base set of rewards every time you complete one. However, there are three additional reward tiers that you can reach once per day by completing a Daily Op within certain time limits:
  • Initiate Tier: 16 minutes or less
  • Paladin Tier: 12 minutes or less
  • Elder Tier: 8 minutes or less
  • The higher the tier you achieve, the higher your chances to get better rewards, including more XP, larger amounts of in-game currencies, legendary items, and even brand-new items like the War Glaive, which is a customizable two-handed melee weapon.
• After finishing a Daily Op, you’ll be able to view an Operation Report, which shows you how fast you managed to complete it, which reward tiers you reached, and a list of the rewards you earned (except for XP and currencies).

Legendary Perks

Legendary Perks are new high-level Perk Cards for players who have reached level 50+, which will help you add even more power and build diversity to your characters.

• We’ve added a new “Legendary Perks” button to the top of the normal Perk Card Menu, which you can use to access and modify your Legendary Perk Slots and Cards.
• You will unlock your first Legendary Perk Slot at level 50, and up to 6 slots in total at certain level milestones after that: 75, 100, 150, 200, and 300.
  • If you already have high-level characters, they will immediately have access to one Legendary Perk Slot for each of the above milestones they've reached.
  • For example, a level 250 character will have access to 5 Legendary Perk slots, and will gain a 6th slot at level 300.
  • One Legendary Perk Card can be equipped to each slot, and you can unequip them at any time in exchange for 1 Perk Coin (more on Perk Coins below).
• Legendary Perk Slots are account-wide, and will be available to all of your characters as soon as you unlock them.
  • Even your characters below level 50 will be able to equip Legendary Perks in these slots, which gives them access to more power at an earlier stage of the game than your higher-level characters had at that level.
• With Legendary Perks, we’re introducing “Perk Coins,” which you can use to increase the power of your Legendary Perk Cards by upgrading them.
  • Earn Perk Coins by scrapping your unused normal Perk Cards. Each Perk Card you scrap will grant you 2 Perk Coins per rank.
  • For example: When you scrap a rank 1 Perk Card, you’ll receive 2 Perk Coins, and scrapping a rank 3 Perk Card will award 6 Perk Coins.
  • Each Legendary Perk Card can be upgraded up to three times, at a price of 50, 100, and 150 Perk Coins to reach ranks 2, 3, and 4, respectively.
  • While Legendary Perk Slots you’ve unlocked are account-wide, your Legendary Perk Selections and upgrades are separate for each of your characters.
  • To help give your Perk Coin collection a boost, we’ve added a “Become Legendary” Challenge to the Character Challenge Menu, which awards 50 Perk Coins to characters who reach level 50.
  • Please note: If your characters are already level 50+, this Challenge will already be completed for them the next time you log in, and the 50 Perk Coin reward will be added to your Perk Coin total automatically.

Design Updates

General

• Fast Travel: It is now free to Fast Travel to Foundation and Crater.

Combat

• Bonus Damage: We’ve changed the way that damage bonuses are calculated so that they now apply additively instead of multiplicatively.
  • Please Note: While stacking damage bonuses will now have a smaller overall effect on your damage output than before, these changes will make the resulting damage much more predictable and allow for future improvements. This is very important for the health of the game going forward. It will also create better opportunities for us to make smarter and more effective balance changes.
  • We are still evaluating feedback we gathered on these changes from the PTS, but we also welcome your thoughts on how different weapons and builds feel after today’s update so that we can make additional adjustments in the future.

Items

• Alien Blaster: Damage increased by 30%.
• Legendary Weapons: The Assassin’s legendary attribute now applies its bonus damage to human NPCs.
• Secret Service Armor: Plans for Light and Ultra-Light Limb Mods for Secret Service Armor have been added, and they are now purchasable from Regs in Vault 79.
• Shishkebab: Now deals Fire damage instead of Energy damage.

Perks

• Modern Renegade: Increased Modern Renegade's chance to cripple limbs from 2%/3%/4% to 4%/8%/12%.
• Tank Killer: Pistols now benefit from the Tank Killer Perk Card.

User Interface

• Public Teams: We've renamed the "Building" team to "Casual" and removed the Casual team bonus. In its place, we’ve added a “Daily Ops” team type, which offers bonus XP for completing Daily Ops (+25% bonus XP to start, +100% bonus XP for a fully bonded team).
  • We did this in part because it is not possible to build in Public Teammates' C.A.M.P.s., and partly because most players were using the Building team the way we had intended Casual to be used anyway.
  • Removing the Casual team option, it made room for us to add the new Daily Ops team type, which we feel players will find more useful following today’s update.

World

• Vault 94: Is now accessible during world exploration in Adventure Mode and Private Worlds.
• Vault 51: We've added a new no-C.A.M.P. zone around Vault 51's exterior in preparation for future content.

Bug Fixes

Art & Graphics

• Apparel: Underarmors no longer clip through Chally the Moo-Moo Outfits.
• Emotes: While equipped, Grognak’s Battlecry Emote now correctly displays its icon in the Emote Wheel.
• Headwear: Extreme facial features no longer clip through the Ghillie Suit Hood’s facemask.
• Lighting: Corrected lighting issues affecting the inside of the Charleston Capitol Building.
• Lighting: Corrected lighting issues that were affecting building interiors in Morgantown Trainyard.
• Loot Bags: Fixed an issue with the Vault-Tec Duffel Bag model that made it difficult to interact with.
• Weapons: Fixed additional issues that could cause clipping when reloading a Handmade Rifle with the Screaming Eagle paint.

C.A.M.P. and Workshops

• Ammo Converter: Attempting to sell 40mm Grenade Rounds no longer results in a “Transaction Failed!” error.
• Blood Eagle Nest: Allies can now enter and exit the Blood Eagle Nest more easily.
• Blueprints: The “Select” option in the Blueprint menu now correctly appears greyed out when the player is not currently highlighting an object.
• C.A.M.P.: Resources generated by objects like the Collectron, Fertilizer Producer, and etc. are now stored in the player’s Stash or Scrapbox if they move C.A.M.P. locations before collecting them.
• C.A.M.P.: Fixed an issue that could prevent Fast Travel to another player’s C.A.M.P. if the C.A.M.P. owner had the Future-Tec C.A.M.P. skin equipped.
• Camp Fires: Objects that can only be placed in dirt can no longer be built on a Camp Fire.
• Communist Bunker: Objects placed on the floor of the Communist Bunker no longer appear to float.
• Communist Bunker: The interior walls of the Communist Bunker are now hexagonal rather than cylindrical to help players more easily place wall décor.
• Communist Bunker: The building requirements for the Communist Bunker now correctly call for Concrete instead of Asbestos.
• Communist Fence: Added an alternate version of the Communist Fence that can be freely placed without needing to snap to other objects.
• Displays: Wall Weapon Racks can now be correctly snapped to Walls.
• Exploit: Items can no longer be stacked on objects that are in disrepair.
• Exploit: Fixed an exploit allowing players to build Workshop Ammunition Factories in their C.A.M.P.s.
  • Please note: As a result of this fix, C.A.M.P.s and Blueprints that contain a Workshop Ammo Factory are now invalid and can no longer be placed.
  • Players will also receive a notification that their C.A.M.P. or Blueprint cannot be placed if it contains a Workshop Ammo Factory.
• Exploit: Addressed a C.A.M.P. budget exploit related to Generators.
• Floors: Farmable Dirt Tiles can no longer be replaced by other floor types.
• Floor Décor: The Standing Taxidermy Gorilla Plan now correctly unlocks the Standing Gorilla instead of the sitting version, and vice versa.
• Floor Décor: The Standing and Sitting Taxidermy Gorillas now correctly display their destroyed states when they are in disrepair.
• Fusion Generator: When scrapped, Fusion Generators now correctly return Aluminum, Copper, and Rubber.
• Log Cabin: Players can now correctly place items in the window of the Log Cabin.
• Rain Water Collector: No longer becomes invisible when destroyed.

Challenges

• Daily: Scrapping Fertilizer now correctly progresses the “Collect Fertilizer” subchallenge for the “Gather Building Supplies” Daily Challenge.

Death & Respawn

• Ash & Goo Piles: Players now die immediately when turned into an Ash or Goo Pile, rather than entering the “down but not out” state.
• Respawn: Implemented a fix to reduce cases where players could become unable to respawn after being killed during an event or in an interior.
  • Please Note: This fix may not address all situations that can cause this issue to occur, but it should help, and we are continuing to work on a more complete fix.

Enemies

• Scorchbeast Queen: The Scorchbeast Queen’s wings can now be crippled to cause her to land, and her legs can be crippled to slightly reduce her rotation speed.

Items

• Aid: Fixed an issue in which players were unable to die from Radiation damage while affected by +Max Health buffs, like those offered by Buffout, Bufftats, and Psychobuff.
• Aid: Mud Cookie, Swamp Tofu, and all Omelette Recipes no longer incorrectly appear in the Cooking Station’s Meat category.
• Aid: Seared Venison with Berries and Cranberry Meatball Grinder now correctly appear in the Cooking Station’s Meat category, and will now progress the “Cook a Meat-Based Meal” Daily Challenge.
• Alien Blaster: Players can now correctly switch back to the Standard Grip mod after applying the Sharpshooter Grip.
• Armor: The Pocketed Mod for the Raider Chest Piece no longer incorrectly grants more carry capacity than the Deep Pocketed Mod.
• Exploit: Addressed an exploit in which players could intentionally double the stat bonus offered by Unyielding Armors.
• Fireworks: Equipping Fireworks no longer causes players to reload much faster than intended.
• Gatling Gun: Erroneous “Crafting item unlocked” notifications no longer appear when scrapping Gatling Guns.
• Loot: Enemies that drop contextual ammo can now correctly drop Arrows, Crossbow Bolts, .38 rounds, 40mm Grenade Rounds, Ultracite Plasma Cartridges, and Ultracite 2mm Electromagnetic Cartridges instead of random ammo when players kill them with the appropriate weapons.
• Power Armor: Fixed an issue in which Power Armor with the Junkyard Paint was not providing the correct amount of Radiation Resistance.
• Shotguns: Fixed an issue affecting Suppressor Shotgun Mods that could cause the weapon’s range value to be negative.
• Underarmor: Secret Service Underarmor Lining Mods can now be correctly applied to Camo Secret Service Underarmor.
• Underarmor: Fixed an issue that allowed players to craft the Camo Secret Service Underarmor without knowing the Secret Service Underarmor Recipe.

Mutations

• General: Players can now correctly acquire more than one Mutation in a given play session.
• Speed Demon: Fixed an issue that reduced Stimpak healing while under the effects of the Speed Demon Mutation.

NPCs

• Critters: Now cap at level 5 and can no longer spawn as legendary.
• Fishbones: No longer flees from nearby hostiles at Ohio River Adventures.

Performance and Stability

• Client Stability: Fixed a crash that could occur when using the Pip-Boy.
• Client Stability: Improved client stability on Xbox One when players sign out of their profiles during active gameplay.
• Performance: Fixed an issue with the Tesla Rifle that could result in poor framerates for nearby players.
• Server Stability: Addressed multiple issues that could result in a server crash during normal gameplay.
• Server Stability: Addressed a server crash that could occur during Nuclear Winter matches.
• Server Stability: Addressed a server crash related to player Vending Machines.
• Server Performance: Addressed an issue that could cause a “Waiting for response from server” message to appear after using a nuke keypad.

Perks

• Class Freak: Fixed an issue that caused some Mutations to not interact correctly with the Class Freak Perk Card.
• Concentrated Fire: Rank 3 of the Concentrated Fire Perk no longer causes the chance-to-hit in V.A.T.S. to suddenly jump to 95% when using an automatic weapon.

Quests and Events

• A Colossal Problem: Players will no longer receive the MIRV Frag Grenade Plan multiple times after completing the event.
• A Colossal Problem: Fixed an issue where equipping certain types of thrown explosives caused Wendigo spawns to drop random ammo on death.
• An Ounce of Prevention: Further addressed an issue that could block quest progression when attempting to analyze the Ghoul Blood Sample.
• Primal Cuts: Quest targets will now appear on all Prime Beasts, instead of only on the last few, which will help players track down any wayward Beasts.
• Primal Cuts: During the final wave of Prime Beasts, players are now only required to kill the boss to complete the event.
• Vital Equipment: Fixed an issue in which a player could complete Vital Equipment multiple times per day if they already had one of the quest items in their inventory.

Sound

• C.A.M.P.: Sound effects now play after use the “Repair All Items” option in C.A.M.P.
• Music: The music volume in the Atomic Shop no longer reverts to its default setting when the first song finishes playing.

User Interface

• Controls: Fixed an issue that could prevent the quick-heal button from working properly after switching game modes.
• Controls: Fixed an issue that could cause the controls to become unresponsive when opening the Social Menu under certain conditions.
• Damage Numbers: Grenades and Mines now correctly display damage numbers when they hit enemies.
• Item Transfer: Fixed an issue that could cause items to be transferred from unintended inventory categories when spamming the transfer button.
• Notifications: Reduced the size of Season rank progress bars and rank-up notifications so that they take up less space on the screen.
• Notifications: The “Challenge Complete” flyout notification is now correctly translated in non-English versions of the game.
• Notifications: S.C.O.R.E. rank-up progress and reward notifications now correctly appear to players who are wearing Power Armor.
• Notifications: Purchasing multiple rank-ups using Atoms and then leaving the Season board no longer causes the S.C.O.R.E. meter to progress very slowly or rank-up sound effects to loop repeatedly.

World

• General: The following locations can now be accessed at all times, and attempting to enter them no longer sometimes displays a “Location available at a later date” error.
  • Arktos Pharma Biome Lab
  • Eta Psi House
  • Pi House
  • The Burrows
  • The Nukashine
  • Van Lowe Taxidermy
• Fort Defiance: The No C.A.M.P. zone at Fort Defiance has been expanded to include the road in front of Allegheny Asylum to resolve an exploit affecting enemy spawns during the Line in the Sand event.

The only thing different is the format... also a lot more.
Disclaimer: I own nothing of the links and ideas, even if some came from me. Me just compiler no @.
Blackkat FAQ. Seems too aged to work now.
DMesse FAQ. Still seems useful... maybe.

Newbie Guide

GFL Corner	Matsuda	GFC	Gamepress	GFWiki
G-Doc #1	G-Doc #2	G-Doc #3	"Official" Vid	Prio Guide
1st Ech

I've heard things about Newbie Career Quests. What is it and how do I get it?

Things that newbie commanders can use to boost their early game.
Available in Quests button>Career Quests tab.

I think I drove myself into a wall not doing things efficiently. Do I have to restart my account to progress better?

Nah. You'll be just fine continuing. Just do things better from now on.

How do I level my girls? And I heard about corpse dragging, What is it?

First is grinding them on leveling maps. Corpse dragging is a resource efficient way to grind XP. The where and how. Dragging 0-2.
Second is using Combat Reports. You can get them in the Forward Basecamp or through the Data Room. You can give them by going to the Dorm>Warehouse>Gift tab or going to your owned doll profile and tapping the + button by the EXP bar. Note that they are not affected by dummy link EXP multiplier. They give 3000 fixed EXP per report.
Last one is the EXP mode combat sim. Total EXP per run is divided equally between all dolls present.

Is GFL being phased out/abandoned?

NO.

Not anytime soon, at the very least.

When do I do night campaigns?

Best metric would be when career quests send you there. Unlock them by completing the next chapter's emergency map (i.e. 11-4e unlocks 10-1n). Remember to equip PEQs to negate the accuracy penalty and bring HGs for map vision.

Is it worth to reroll in this game?

Depends on what you value more. If you want a pretty easy time until endgame, no need. Game gives you free strong dolls. Endgame? Mostly not, since this is a game of accumulation instead of meta characters.

What teams should I build?

ARSMG first, then whichever second ARSMG or RFHG you need more, then the other one you haven't made yet, then MGSG if you want.

Technical Help

Resupply/Costumes/Furnitures

Field Map

My team says Ammo/Ration depleted.

Move them to helipad. Double-tap them. Resupply is yellow button.

I just had a skirmish and saw that my team isn't in proper formation. Can I fix it without quitting the map?

me not caring enough to paraphrase it

How do I get the gold medals in maps?

• Read the Gold Medal description in the combat summary.
  
• Never retreat your team from the field map either by losing skirmishes (losses) or manual retreating (withdrawing).
  
• Never repair fielded teams (red warning at the bottom left tells you this, don't miss it).
  
• Retreating a doll from the battle phase/skirmish is fine. Really, anything that you SHOULD DO/ SHOULD NOT DO are already listed.
  

*Retreating Support Echelons does not prevent you from gold medals, nor does support kills (shown in green +#) count towards.

Do I keep the drops if I terminate/restart?

"Recently acquired" option in the armory says yes.

Why do I get the lack of ammo/ration warning and sometimes not?

You'll get the warning when you lack either of them and when you can see the enemy.

Combat/Battle/Skirmish

Story

I missed a major event, will it come back?

6mos. after their release they get added to the Campaign tab. For collabs... hope for the best.

What's the sequence of the stories?

Just the overview.

How to read the story again? It's not available in the story playback in Index.

Settings>Game>Story Playback then play the stage again. Or just Youtube it.

Where can I read the MOD, costume, event stories etc?

Every story and details should be included here.
Cafe stories.
MOD stories.

I want to read the GFL lore. Is there any summary out there?

Video format.

Commander Wardrobe

How do I change my commander's gender so I can change their dirty clothes?

Change gender in the commander's wardrobe, which can be visited by tapping the arrow below then tapping WARDROBE, or tapping your commander name then tapping on the avatar.

What does Infinite Surprise Dyes do?

Changes the appearance of your commander's clothes, IF they can be changed, that is.

What commander costume sets do the older servers have right now?

So far, nothing that the EN version doesn't have.

I saw that commander costumes have skills. How do I level it up?

Get another costume set with the same skill.

Expedition/Forward Basecamp

What should I buy from the black market?

Consumables first.

Which dolls should I use for expedition?

Maybe not Everything related to Forward Basecamp included. GFC Guide. ATM says CLv. 20 required.

Can I deploy two or three of the same pets in expedition?

Actually, that is the method used by min-maxers regarding advantaged pets.

Can the basecamp not give expedition loots?

Only if you didn't do one. If you did and no visible loot, restart app.

Which pet corresponds to which exploration material?

Cat - Bricks/City; Dog - Buttstock/Snowfield; Bird - Acorn/Forest; Misc - Fluid/Wasteland
Then use the corresponding food that gives higher chance to visit a locale for a near 100% visit.

If advantaged dolls change mid-expedition, which one determined your rewards, the advantaged on the start of exploration or at the end?

The start of the expedition.

Heavy Ordnance Corps

How to HOC?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

How high should my Reload stat be to have an effect in attack speed?

CC guide.

Which HOC chips should I use?

Your local reddit guide. Another guide. Gampress guide.The Android version.
Found another one.

Which HOCs should I iterate first?

AGS>2B/M2>AT4>BGM. No quoting.

When do I get to unlock the whole HOC grid/matrix/board?

At full promotion. The yellow ★★★★★ one.

Which HOC can destroy buildings?

All of them. Building attack damage uses the Pierce stat.

How can I get Data Patches?

Either from the Code Refactoring menu in the Garage or getting a 5★'d HOC's Core Data.

What are Data Patches used for?

For Iterating FSTs beyond yellow 5★. They have to be level 100 and at 5★ for Iteration to be available.

Factory Production

Is there a voodoo recipe for *insert pennies here*?

Freedom of information, just add net connection.

When should I do T-Doll Heavy Production?

Preferrably during rate-ups. Low priority otherwise.

Resource Management

Theater

Theater tips?

Theater tips. Theater tips. Theater tips. Theater tips.

Do I have to save HOC charges and Fairy points for the boss?

Nope. Joins boss battle regardless of charges. Replenishes on next raid. Go ham.

What does "Settle Reward" do? It sounds ominous.

More like "Settlement Reward". Just shows you things you'll get once Theater ends.

How much CE do I need for a good score?

Just put your best stacks in your unused slots, especially in boss nodes.

I can't beat the current stage. Is this it for me?

Nope. Just fall back to the last boss node you can handle. These nodes can mitigate the "beaten stage" penalty so it's worth more than non-boss higher node.

I wasn't able to place high enough to 5★ the reward HOC. Is there another way to get their central data?

Wait for the next theater and they'll join the HOC gacha.

I'm thinking of using Landmine Fairy. Will they work?

Well yes... as a stat stick. Can't use a Strategy Fairy skill in theater mostly because you can't tap a node to activate it in the first place. Stick to Combat Fairies if you want to use skills.

Tactical Dolls

Neural Upgrade/MOD

How do Neural Upgrades work?

Gamepress. ATM. GFLCorner.

What's the Fire Control Core for?

Necessary for modding 5★ dolls.

What's the time frame for modding dolls?

From their release 'til forever.

Which dolls have a Mod in the older servers?

Unupdated as of now.

If I Mod my T-doll, is Level 100 still considered max level?

Thankfully, this is where common sense wins. In short, NO.

Where can I Mod my dolls?

Research>Neural Upgrade tab at the left.

Who should I MOD first?

Gamepress version.

Can I use duplicates to raise my doll's MOD level?

Yes, unless you're modding 2★ dolls. First, go to factory then dismantle all dupes. When you get enough cores, you can use them to raise MOD levels.

Events

Why didn't I complete "Consume 100 batteries" for the bingo mission when I EXP trained my HOCs?

Because you can get them back, that's what. It only counts when the training is finished, meaning there's no way to take it back.

Do auto-battles count for "Defeat Enemies"?

No.

What do I do with unused Keycards during the bingo event?

Keep them. You'll get 5 Calibration Tickets per 1 Unused Keycard. Points go to trash. Source: Game info tab.

Will the current event currency carry over to the next event?

No. Event currencies are for the current ones only.

When will my event medals expire?

One week after the end of said event.

Will the *insert ranking reward here* be available in the future?

Only if they rerun ranking maps.

Where can I see rankings?

Tap the bottom-right arrow at the main screen.

I wasn't able to clear the event. Will I still get the clear rewards when they get added to Campaign?

Nope. Gutted rewards compared to original. Free shit is free shit, and doll rewards gets cycled to Limited Dolls.

What's the optimal way of clearing Bingo Key Card Events?

Using the Targeted Draws to fully clear the board in one go.

Fairies

What are fairies?

ATM Guide.

How do fairies work?

GFC.

Does the Fervor talent give a 10% boost at the beginning of the battle?

0s, 8s, 16s. So yes.

Can fairies be recovered from Index?

No, unfortunately.

Third Party

I've heard of GFAlarm. Is it safe to use?

It's not modifying anything that can affect their income nor does it modify gameplay elements that would necessitate a ban. Should be fine.

Is it fine to use GFCalc?

Recommended more like.

Are keybinds bannable?

"Officially" recommended not to use keybinds. If you're willing to take the risk, go for it. Macros ARE a bannable offense, full stop.

Which emulators are good for GFL?

Mumu is the most recommended. There's also Nox, Memu, LDPlayer... Bluestacks seems to get shat though.

Any substitute for brainlets damage sim?

Github version and non-English version for starters. ATM has one too. Hycdes.

Auto-battles

Auto-battles?

Saves your sanity from painful-AF-to-grind-for-drops maps for starters.

Which map is best for auto-battles?

List of auto-battle statistics. Commentary.

What does total exp in the auto-battle completion mean?

...Not sure.

I can't do auto-battle even though I met the required CE. What happened?

Is it a night map? If it is, refer to night CE. If it still doesn't let you, increase CE, some required CE are listed wrong.

Can I get SPEQs/Limited dolls from auto-battles?

Yes, you can.

Support Echelons

Do support echelons use equipments?

Equipments, formation, and apparently costumes too are saved instances. Doll levels, equipment levels, skill levels, and chibi aren't.

I can't deploy a friend echelon. What do I do?

"Unable to deploy Support Echelon before the mission starts!". Maybe it's possible to set support echelon after starting the mission". If it's still a no, restart or check how many are allowed.

Dormitories

How do friend batteries work?

From QnA.

Why aren't my dorm batteries appearing?

Either it's because it's not their time yet or that you should check your surplus batteries.

Which dolls appear in which dorms?

Echelon position corresponds to dorm positione i.e. Echelon 1 in Dorm 1, Echelon 2 in Dorm 2, etc.

What are all the available pets right now?

If the pet you're looking for isn't here, it might be a Cafe Costume Story reward.

Others

I didn't get *insert reward here*. I checked my inventory but they're not there. How do I get them?

Have you checked the quests? What about the mail? If you did and they're still not there, either restart or wait for a few days.

How do I get a higher success rate for logistics?

Levels.

Would the equipment I'm enhancing get bonus points if I used an enhanced fodder?

Apparently no.

Which SF units are considered dolls/machines/armored/unarmored?

Note that Jupiter Cannons count as unarmored machine type.

Will there be problems with switching between two devices regularly?

Only if you think that manually logging in is a problem.

What's the Double Jupiter formation?

M4 MOD II + self-buff RF (usually IWS) + 3 HG (usually ROF buffers).

I can't access the new map even though I already cleared the prerequisite map.

Beat it again.

When will dorm battery, daily gift, friend battery reset?

Clock for your every need. And ranking updates one hour after Kalina's Daily Gift.

How can I play GFL if Apple Store doesn't have it?

Use Android, use emulator, use VPN, use jailbreak.

How does the rescue station work?

I claim no ownership.

What're the rewards for the Defense Drill?

Also includes the things you'll fight.

When is the anniversary?

May.

What does the Download Data button in the settings do?

Basically fairy and equipment texture, and dorm-related stuff.

How do I bind my account?

Settings>Manage Account>Bind to your preferred account.

How do I kite using an emulator?

Keybinds are favored.

Is it fine to use green equips?

Advised to use if lack gold ones. Do calibration only on gold ones for efficiency. Otherwise, fine to level them up.

How do I fill up the Enemy Index?

Just fight them. Win or lose, we get them.

Where can I get doll/fairy costume art?

Updated to CN servers.

How do I remove HOCs from Target Practice?

Tap on them again.

What does "Event" mean on the left side of the mission select screen?

Combat Missions: If there is a new night map, SPEQ rate up for X-4n.
Combat/Campaign: 1.5x EXP
Logistics: Great Success Rate Up
Combat sim: All simulations unlocked.

Which should I prioritizein the Data Room, Combat Reports or Special Combat Reports?

SCRs primarily because you can just EXP sim, corpse drag, and auto-battle the dolls, and also because basecamp sells far more CR than SCR. Note that you'd need 5000 SCRs to fully level a fresh HOC.

How do I maximize the efficiency of my RFHG echelon's ROF?

...I'll just leave it here.

What do advantaged dolls in combat map mean?

20% FP boost for AR, RF, MG. 20% EVA boost for SMG, HG, SG.

Limited-only Dolls

★★★★★

DSR-50	Five-Seven	TAC-50	OTs-14	CZ-75
AK-74u	AUG	Ballista	R93	JS 9
Lewis	HS2000	M82A1	Desert Eagle

★★★★

KLIN	UMP40	Honey Badger	Cx4 Storm	PP-19
KSVK	M1895 CB

★★★
Arctic Warfare

Type81R	RPD	Super SASS	MT-9	Ots-44
Type59

Operation Cube

Z-62	6P62	62 Shiki	ASh-12.7	ARX-160

Deep Dive

AR70	SSG 69	F1	EVO 3	HK45

For more info...

Nice Things To Have

Vertical Messages on Dorms and Chat.
CE Fromula.
Chibi Rips and Character Arts. And the how to's.
GFL Loading Screen Splash Arts.
Pre-mission flavor text.
tehcavy rips of Division CGs and art.

Unobtainable

Anything collab.
Some Kalina costumes.

• Gems and Fireworks

Some doll costumes.

• UMP45 Griffin jacket.
  
• M1895 KFC.