#playing nte

[exploding-cactus]

Soggy socks for him

[kyogre-blue]

Finally all done with 999 event.

For the story, tbh I started skipping really quickly. Overall, the premise of characters doing DnD just doesn't interest me, and while Mint is cute enough, I didn't find the character interactions enough to carry it. It really didn't help that Iroi... felt kinda off-putting. Glad we could play her here (and that the meta is quite mild right now) so I know to skip her, since I was considering her previously. It also doesn't help that the story seems to be just filler that introduces Shinku, who seems to not have any plot relevance either.

But that's fine. Skip button exists for this reason.

The gameplay is a mixed bag. It's fine for an event, but it's pretty shallow and not terribly refined. I liked the Jump King platforming the best out of everything. It was also fun getting to play Mint (and MC) for a good while before I got to the real endgame builds(tm). (btw, here is the video I used as a guide for those.) That said, it does start to drag later on because it's just mobs that die to the special event dot effects and are too tanky for literally anything else.

Probably the worst part was this damn accomplishment:

There seem to be very few sources of equipment to appraise? I think it's just mythic weapons and accessories that are repeatable. I got those endgame builds just for this and have vastly overfarmed the buttons in the process.

I'm actually a bit unsure how to spend them. I got all the MC outfit stuff, but I only like one of Mint's outfits. I did end up getting all the base versions for her too because why not, and I got the namecard and phone decorations. But the Shinku icon, icon border, costume, those are useless to me, I'm not going to pull her. I'm thinking maybe getting one of Iroi's outfits just in case, but they're currently locked anyway. The other option is really just getting the daily refreshing enemy drop substitutes anyway...

Now, tomorrow I start the prop hunt event, haha

[kyogre-blue]

Continuing to collect reddit posts about gachas: 2025 Number of employees(+new hires in 2025) at Chinese ACG companies

From the comments:

1. Mihoyo 6891 (+214 hires) 2. Kuro Games 2368 (+363 hires) -> Wuwa, PRG 3. Hypergryph 2165 (+493 hires) -> Arknights, Endfield 4. Happy Elements 1036 (+429 hires) -> Ensemble Stars, Silver Palace 5. Manjuu 661 (+184 hires) -> Azur Lane, Azur Promilia 6. Yostar 657 (+96 hires) -> mostly a publisher, Stella Sora 7. Seasun 565 (+84 hires) -> Snowbreak 8. Yongshi 554 (+13 hires) -> Aether Gazer 9. Hotta (Perfect World) 516 (+125 hires) -> ToF, NTE 10. Bluepoch 509 (+55 hires) -> Reverse 1999

and

For the people curious about mihoyo specifically As of the beginning of 2025 hoyo had -about 1000 employees for the studio working on ZZZ and tears of thermes -about 1300 working on HSR -about 2600 working on Genshin And had 100 working on HI3 back at that time, though om sure thats been cut since.

That said, there's obviously going to be special considerations for each company. Some of these are notably working on major new projects, so these employees aren't working on their actually live games.

[kyogre-blue]

An.... "interesting" thing about NTE is that the nature of the gacha board means it is actively possible to be really fucking unlucky and actually go to hard pity.

Here is me on 89 of 90 for standard banner:

You cannot get this in other games. The highest I've ever gone in HSR is 84. Genshin was either 84 or 85 as well. That's the point where the soft pity escalation gets to be so high that you can't really go past that. But I'm not an exception for hitting 89 in NTE. I've seen comments and screenshots from other as well.

(Btw, for those curious, if you hit pull 90 and trigger the hard pity, you roll the die -> a backhole appears and your die is swallowed up, disregarding whatever number you rolled -> you get the character -> your position on the board does not change.)

(I got Daffodill A1.)

[kyogre-blue]

lol the fish tank update in NTE is so buggy.

Aside from the text box issues, it's also just kind of confusing about what is needed or how things are used.

Also, you can't see to set the pH adjustment to run manually, despite having that possible for feeding and temperature, and it's unclear if the temperature setting will use up multiple regulator items. And of course, there's no auto-delivery feature like with the cafe, so you will need to continually go and buy these items from the shop.

[kyogre-blue]

Took the screenshots while checking Chaos build in NTE, so I might as well use them.

Chaos build while out of the active party, 57% crit:

When in active party but not yet in combat, you can see Street Boxer's first +14% crit has been applied (71% total):

After triggering Remora, second +14% applied (85% total):

I plan to run him with Hathor for her passive, so he'll get an additional 10% crit from her. It's when attacking Remora-affected enemies, so it probably won't show on the stat screen though. Still, the aim in Genshin and Wuwa was around 70% crit, so 85% should already be fine.

NTE is really nice in regard to the gear because there are no duplicate rolls into the same substat, unlike Genshin/HSR. Rather, you unlock a set of substats as you level up, like Wuwa, and you can see them when you get the module, like Genshin and HSR updated later to be.

But even better than Wuwa, there are no min/max rolls on substats. For example, Crit rate is always exactly 1% per square block on the gold pieces. So a Type II module (has two blocks) will always give 2% crit, a Type III will give 3%, etc.

Since Chaos can fill out all 20 of his grid, he can get a max of 30% crit rate (one of his type IIs doesn't have crit here, so he's only getting 18%). The console meanwhile can give 18% for the mainstat of 10% for the substat. These can double up (same main and sub stat), like in Wuwa, but this only applies for the console, not the modules.

So the total you can get on a character from console is 30+10+20=60% assuming they can fill their entire grid... though some characters can't, the requirements of the set make it impossible to maneuver the pieces to fully fit, like Hotori on Lost Radiance:

Those gaps are unavoidable from what I can see.

Chaos's sig gives 24% crit rate, while the BP arc on Hotori gives 22%.

So the total you'll get from console and arc will end up for 87-89%, counting the base 5% crit rate. But of course, this also means that character who don't have a crit arc or any other form of crit boost in their kit will end up with only 65%.

That said, my other DPS, Nanally who doesn't have a crit arc but does have the crit rate bonus from equipping specifically Type II pieces, up to 36%.

This means that for her and also Chaos, it's actually possible to overcap on Crit rate if they get it from every source they can. This is why Chaos should not run Crit rate console main stat (I'm trying to decide between Lakshana and cdmg for him), same for Nanally if you have her sig (though I don't).

Now that I'm finally Hunter level 50, it's almost time to start the console grind, so I've been trying to organize my thoughts, sigh...

[kyogre-blue]

The issue I have with Baicang.... is that he and male Zero just look like siblings.

He definitely looks like an older brother character? And for what??

[kyogre-blue]

Wrapped up NTE 1.1 main story (and also Lacrimosa side story, but there's nothing to say about that)

And it was... okay but definitely nothing outstanding. I can understand everything they're going for, more or less, and they have the basic pieces, so it feels like a passably complete story. It's like... it's whatever. Fine if your expectations weren't high (and there is no reason for them to be high, frankly).

I would say though that they fall short on the presentation. They are trying really hard to translate these ideas into visuals using the in-game assets, and sometimes that just doesn't quite work out. It's the opposite of what HSR Amphoreus got dragged for, where everyone was just standing around in circles to talk or talking over CGs. NTE is trying to have the models do things but doesn't seem to be accounting for what is not really possible. Where some other story would frame shots or cut away when they couldn't make something look good on screen, NTE tries to show it, but unlike older games where this was kind of an expected aspect of technological limitations, here it's like... the models look good, so why does the action look comparatively not as good? It just feels jank. But on the other hand, they do try, and that can be worth something in itself. Still, for me, this breaks immersion more than retreating to a CG would.

As for the story, there are some bits that are particularly nice. I appreciate the focus on Eibon, and Zero even takes a moment to be like "wait, did I just think of these weirdos as my family?" and also to question their own missing past. The Daffodill sections do a fair job conveying that she fucking hated Scarlet Letter, and the Nanally sections make it clear why she'd be sensitive about her found family. Probably the weakest part is Thyme. The confrontation with her comes out of nowhere in terms of the extended philosophical debate that is part of it. She is just not present in the story enough to go into this kind of thing, but the story as presented also doesn't have room to give her more presence. Probably they needed to have her appear and speak to Zero during the Daffodill and Nanally sections, but you can also see why they wouldn't want to do that and instead focus on, you know, Daffodill and Nanally...

Thyme is the worst about this, but there are other instances of the pacing being rather brisk. But, again, I can see why they'd prefer to keep things moving along.

Now, some speculation.

So far, Scarlet Letter has specifically targeted three anomalies. One was First Branch, which is said to have abilities related to time, I believe it was something to do with prophecy, since Hotori brings that up during the auction. Two was Eternal Present, which grants immortality. Three is now... I think it's called Helm of Theseus. It's quite hard to understand which parts of the Corridor were from Thyme (a seemingly separate anomaly) and which were from the Helm, but it seems to be related to "returning to the past."

It was also mentioned that the people of OG human!Thyme's village were all killed due to the secret of their immortality, she was the only survivor, and she and (current) Thyme encountered each other in a "game," which is seemingly set to occur again soon.

It was furthermore stated by child Daffodill that she already killed Mother when trying to leave Scarlet Letter.

Which creates some interesting questions.

Mother/Inanna seems to be immortal already, so she shouldn't have any need for Eternal Present, unless we assume her current immortality has limits of some kind. And even then, why does she want the other two anomalies?

My simplest guess would be that she wants to resurrect someone. Or rather, recreate them using some combination of the Helm and I guess First Branch, then make them immortal. The base assumptions would be a child/family, or else perhaps she is also an anomaly that took on the appearance of a previous contractor, since it was specifically mentioned that there are many cases like Thyme.

Of course, there's no real basis for this, just speculation.

Aside from that, it's interesting that they named the third anomaly after the Ship of Theseus, which is basically a philosophical question about when something stops being the original thing if you keep replacing parts of it. Probably the most straightforward interpretation is that the doppelgangers of the missing persons were perfect copies but without their anxieties and regrets, and this is essentially an answer: they are not the original person because those key parts were removed.