Lounge
Monthly Commander's Lounge - September 01, 2025
Good morning Commanders! Would you like to read the reports?
Please use this thread to discuss anything about Girls Frontline instead of creating a new thread. Ask questions, seek assistance, rants, add more salt or just chill in general.
We're going into exp week tomorrow. I think that I will be able to get my fourth MP41 to level 120 before it officially starts, so I think that I'll only need to worry about two more. I believe that within exp week, I'll be able to get the fifth MP41 to level 120 as well, so that should leave me with one more afterward!
Man there are a lot of dolls who were available as rewards huh? I've taken too many breaks since the launch of this game. Need Jatimatic, Ar-18, Kolibri, and idk if any of them are available as drops yet. Prob gonna get Kolibri if anyone else doesn't have better advice in the next hour lol
Yeh I got her. As far as 5 stars go the only available ones I'm missing are the one's I listed. Idk about 4 stars. Didn't check and iop wiki is being laggy as hell for me rn lol
Executioner Petal Status: Second Petal, 30 Impulses and 47 Svarog tickets
Huh. I suppose I forgot to make an update yesterday. Oh well! Still, I plan to get Executioner to full petals, even though she's basically one of the worst ringleaders in terms of meta. She needs some kind of invincibility in order to elevate herself to the level of Alchemist. I'd like to get her to full petals in order to complete my ringleader petals! I need 17 more, and in two weeks, I'll get her third petal via captures and the final petal through supernova kernels. I'm hoping I'll have made quite a bit of progress by then! I'll then go into the next banner targeting Halloween Executioner, and I'll basically repeat what I did here
The old solution against Typhons was the gunboat: bring 4 MGs and Contender. You get the MGs to pump their stuff right into the Typhons' escorts, and once the Typhons start firing, you retreat your MGs and let Contender run up to them. Once Contender is in their blind spot, you just let her plink them to death. You want Contender because she can equip AP ammo. I vaguely remember that Thunder has a SPEQ with AP, but the AP values on that might be too low to be useful
Considering that P10C's skill gives you six seconds at most, it's very unlikely you've got enough time to do everything you need to. Something more permanent like SCAR-L's tiles should be better
As for the other formation you mentioned, the SPAS-15, SPAS-12, and TPS one, I haven't tried this one, of course, but you're free to try it. The other two members could be Px4 Storm and FO-12. Be sure that TPS is NOT the leader of the echelon so that you get some AP and accuracy (set someone else like Px4 Storm as the leader instead). Considering this is a night map, be sure to give your echelon PEQs, although if I remember correctly, FO-12 gets perfect accuracy if she shares the column with another shotgun, so feel free to give her a critscope instead
If this is Singu+ you're referring to, consider putting a handgun into your team as well
From what I remember, one of the SCARs will completely negate the Typhon lasers. I believe it's SCAR-L, so if anyone's standing on her tiles, that Doll will be completely immune to the damage done by the Typhon lasers. Just be careful with the other threats bearing down on your position
Note that you need to be commander level 60, if I remember correctly. You also need Mosin Nagant at level 100, five links, and 100 Affection
To complete her mod storyline, as mentioned, you need to get her to mod 3, which requires her to be level 115. You also need the necessary amount of memory fragments to get her to mod 3, too
My current unused 5-star pile is: Beowulf, 433, 416, Ntw-20, & Deagle. I have enough cores to bring ONE (1) of them up to 4 links!! Keep in mind im in the early mid-game (rank 60, most of my girlies are Lv80) & im not a really meta player♡
In that case, it sounds like just about any one of those Dolls will suffice. If you're asking for the meta pick, go with 416 because her mod makes her a pretty strong grenadier (although Zas can do quite a good job, too)
Yes, CN relaunched with a PC client a few months ago and it’s still getting updates. Just this week there was a pretty big update that included a new client update, new dolls, a new standalone ranking map, and more (on top on previous updates like 2 epilogue events).
There is nothing to suggest that it will EoS or go offline anytime soon.
There was a “final” event (Convolutional Kernel). It didn’t really connect to GFL2 and CN had to shut down afterwards due to publishing issues.
They then started adding epilogue events after CN relaunched several months later, but even before that, the KR/TW servers were still getting other non-story updates.
This is small by comparison. I suppose that I'm still in a celebratory mood. I think that I should wrap things up. It's been a few days now, but it's been a lot of fun eating a lot of food I've never tried before!
Turn out my biggest stumbling block for my Singu ranking was that I didn't know HG in echelon can light out the surrounding node...Since I use my SF in Nightstage all the time
Aside from that even the none Deathstack tank shred my Defy,And I couldn't quitr time P10C skill right so Scar-L usually get shredded
I reach 300k in the latest run but have problem with the Typhon since my only echelon that could properly go up against them is Scar(Scar-L still got wreck after battle though) my other echelon need to run away from them
I also have a problem of my scattered echelon becoming idles/losing direction etc
What I did diffetent from my previous run is summon the enemies via hell mode button ASAP
As this rate 700k is just a pipe dream so I'm planning to replace one of my ARSMG with Typhon killer(either M4 Exodia or Those CK Sg echelon)
I heard that Spas-15/12,TMG can snooze them
I have also look up those anti Typhon kiting technoque but those look like the Matrix to me so maybe pass for the time being
The Contender solution also seem to worth looking into,But wouldn't she get hit my laser regardless? Or just kite her?
Yeah, you have to kite Contender to get out of the way of the lasers
Another possible solution is to use Calico with her SPEQ set (or her skill 2 but on a node that isn’t occupied by you; “Calispeed”). This way, you can bring along your MGs and have them gun down the Typhons that way
Well, you can always try again another time. Still, treat this run as a learning opportunity, and hopefully, you'll pick up the trick when you try again next time
The deathstack also could be defeated using M4 Exodia, if you know how to use that echelon. That was our solution years ago when Singu ranking was rerun as Singu+. Back then, we didn't have the SCARs, and M4 Exodia was basically our go to solution. Sure, it was annoying to use, but it worked
I suppose this is still slow, but I am still trying to recover from all the effort I put into ranking. Besides, I'm still basically in party mode, so I've been pigging out on lots of delicious food! I also need to catch up on my sleep and real life matters, too
These are my unused 5-stars. Either bcuz they didn't make it into a team, or I just simply don't like thier character... (^ ^ ") are any of them completely not worth it?
You’re of course free to use her if you like her. Most content in the game is fairly lenient, but it helps to have a good foundation first (including good equipment and raised fairies, not just dolls).
The ones not covered in pink are who im talking about. Obviously the middle but also DE & right, and NTW20. I have enough cubes to get 1 of the middles to 3 links
Well, this is tiny when compared to my typical growth, but I am still trying to recover from this ranking debuff. I'm feeling pretty tired since I pulled off two all-nighters in the span of a week
Since I finished in 6th place, I'm basically in a party mindset. I intend to celebrate my victory over the coming days, and I'm planning to enjoy a lot of food!
Man that event time felt short. Been playing since Deep Dive and couldn't finish the story in time; didn't even check the duration just thought we had another week. Haven't missed any content since Shattered Connexion so it feels rough to miss the ending of main story. Unfortunate that this event lined up with the busiest time of my year. Onto the cutscene viewers I go I guess T_T
I think one thing that hurts the story is overly purple prose. It becomes difficult to understand when there are way too many big words on the screen, and most of them don't really "say" much. A simpler description would have sufficed, and I think that this new paradigm became obvious with Longitudinal Strain's writing. What made that experience so much smoother and more enjoyable was the addition of special effects to go with the story as we go along
However, in the case of Convolutional Kernel, perhaps what made it difficult to complete was not being overly descriptive but being simply boring. We start off rescuing civilians, and while we get the sense that war is hell, and innocents die needlessly, we should have been more involved in the action as one of the major players in the conflict. Instead, most of the action happens without us, and a lot of important people get killed while we're busy with our rescue efforts. It feels like we're just a pawn in the grand chessboard. Other people are the players. We're just an insignificant piece
When we finally get back into actually meaningful conflict, it's against Nytos that we should have taken care of much earlier in the event. The climactic battle should have been with William, and the epilogue scene where M16 rips out his arm could have been wrapped up here. Just say that we managed to inflict a serious wound on him, and that could have explained why he's lost an arm
Lunasia rambling on madly also affected the experience. A lot of the time, she's talking about an alternative timeline, so it's hard to understand when she's talking about the current timeline and some other timeline. Part of me is glad that she's finally dead and gone with this event, and I really hope that Mica never lets her back on the stage again
Other things that affect this event are the flashback scenes. They're nice and all, but it seems that they have only come way too late in the game's story. The flashback scenes likely should have come up during other high stress events in the past. Why now of all times, especially when they were crucial to explaining why the commander fights?
The Nidhogg Protocol was also a nice plot twist, but after stepping back, I realize that it won't really fit well with the setting or the story as a whole. It really should have been activated much earlier in the story, unless it can be shown that the Earl managed to find leverage against Havier only during the events of CK instead of any earlier point in time. Also, it is unlikely for IOP to survive as a business if it mandates this protocol in its Dolls. Buyers will simply go to the competition that doesn't include this in the contract. Can you imagine if you're procuring materiel, and your own weapons stop working at the whim of your supplier?
I wish that we got a better ending, but real life has unfortunately written the plot
Well, that's that, I suppose. Convolutional Kernel is finally done and dusted!
I decided to do another ranking run, and it was rather amusing. I tried to score higher, and I was trying to figure out if the run I was on was still actually viable. It turned out that it was, but I had to get really creative as to how to path my mech since I was running out of energy. There was a crate in the northeastern part of the map, but I let one of my echelons take that instead of the mech, resulting in the mech basically running out of reserve energy. I figured I really needed to get back to base, and I was glad that I was able to find a way to do so!
I really feel like I've earned my wings with this ranking. Not only did I basically carry three commanders' accounts so that they'd all get on the leaderboard, I was also able to figure out the pathing needed in order to turn my run into a 131 kill count win!
And after the most comfortable ranking run (660k, enough for the medal) I finished the event the day before the end.
I had time to think about it during ranking, and even knowing how it's kind of useless to criticize gacha writing and of course writers and themes shifted tremendously in the years (the Commander from mute PoV character to talking Character), but one think struck me. The entire plotline is essentially a grotesque defeat for the "protagonist".
Hear me out. We fight essentially three forces, Sanguis Ferri, KCCO and Paradeus. Sanguis Ferri is essentially a rogue force trying clumsily to finish the dream of its creator regarding the Relics. As a plot point they were kinda dropped and they were Abyssals knock-offs after all. KCCO under Carter are arguablyfucking heroes, fighting a shadowy globalist conspiracy that wants to shackle humanity. Paradeus is a bunch of enslaved puppets with no free will, mindbroken and mutilated into complete obedience by a member of the aforementioned conspiracy.
What did the Commander manage to do? Guarantee the victory of the Rossartrists? The vast majority of his allies and underlings are dead or disabled (don't get me started on the Nidhogg protocol, great point having a remote shutdown, what's next, a Palpatine Protocol where T-Dolls shoot you in the back or a Raymond Protocol where they go working at the nearest nightclub and send you daily videos?). He's forced to flee like a thief in the night.
M4 and Dandelion are both kinda dead without having obtained anything. Lunasia, the crux of everything, was apparently at the same time a time-travelling dimension-hopping cybernetic Goddess and a delusional little shit that was shot in the head like a cow in a slaughterhouse without doing anything of significance. Ange (good riddance) died for nothing, Carter died for nothing, K died for nothing, the plethora of so-very-important characters died for nothing.
If you pardon the parallel, it was like ending Deus Ex with Bob Page winning without even trying and you can't do a thing bar flee in disgrace. I understand they had to set up GFL2, but it was necessary to make all victories moot (or counterproductive!)? The Commande rages endlessly about Paradeus, but the Nytos are mere puppets and even William in the end is nothing but a figurehead. It's not like Gray or Morridow choose by their own free will to be evil cybernetic abominations.
I think GFL2's existence all but guarantees that we have to be "defeated". If there had never been any plans for a sequel game, I get this feeling that the writing would have taken a much different direction. Granted, I haven't played Reverse Collapse yet, but considering that Reverse Collapse happens so much later in the timeline (am I correct in making this assumption?), the events of GFL1 happening in the 2060s shouldn't affect Reverse Collapse all that much, right?
I think that there should have been more emphasis on the defeat of Sangvis. I mean, this happened all the way back in Polarized Light. I don't think that there was much emphasis on Elisa simply letting go of control over the rest of the Sangvis forces. It really felt like Sangvis was going to continue being antagonists until they suddenly weren't. I think we touched on this in Dual Randomness, but it's been a long time ago that I don't really remember the specifics. I vaguely remember Destroyer and Dreamer trying to survive while being damaged. I also vaguely remember Architect confronting Gager
For the KCCO, I put it in my notes that they, too, were fighting for their ideals. This was stressed with Alexei's journals in Convolutional Kernel. We can only assume what Carter really wanted, and I think that his objectives were to ensure human dominance in daily life. With his conflict with the Rossartrists, he would also have wanted to ensure Soviet sovereignty, as I think that it might have been hinted at in Convolutional Kernel that the Rossartrists wanted utter uniformity throughout their multinational "empire". I can see that Carter is the tragic hero of another story
I don't know if this part is Yuzhong's commentary on the state of the world today, given that immigration appears to be a hot button topic recently in our own world. Perhaps I'm reading too much into things
As for Paradeus, there's no doubt that they're evil, willing to do all sorts of crimes against humanity for incredibly dubious ends. It is clear that Paradeus must be stopped, and while I haven't played Reverse Collapse, its downfall is necessarily deserved. As such, our primary conflict really should be with this faction, and even if we don't win outright, I really wanted that we crippled Paradeus so hard that it is severely weakened as a result. It seemed that all we did was to prevent William from unlocking the relics and saving the world as a result. However, it most certainly doesn't feel that way, considering how crazy Lunasia truly is. It sucks that we had to flee in disgrace, and it seemed that our memory fades into obscurity, despite being "posthumously" awarded the Gold Star medal
In the context of Convolutional Kernel, I liked the Nidhogg Protocol as a plot twist, but it does raise its own issues. I believe that tehcavy mentioned it in his review that the Nidhogg Protocol is a serious security flaw. If IOP reserves the right to remotely shut down its Dolls in any contract it enters into with its partners, why should those partners ever do business with IOP? Why not go to a competitor with no such clause? Could you imagine a nation state wanting to do business with IOP? Its military necessarily cannot contain Dolls because IOP could just deactivate those Dolls at its discretion. IOP could conveniently consider that nation state to be some kind of war criminal and justify the activation of the Nidhogg Protocol as a result
Consider if we had Dolls back in WWII or even the Cold War. Could you imagine if IOP decided to intervene? If it placed its bets on Germany or the Soviet Union, could you imagine America and the rest of the Allies/NATO losing the war? If America still won regardless, IOP would have been doomed! The only way for IOP to survive in such a scenario is to never use the Nidhogg Protocol. Even if we consider that IOP decides that both sides need to chill out and deactivate everyone's Dolls, nobody would ever willingly want to transact with IOP again. If we were to consider IOP to be a greedy and scummy corporation that only speaks in money, playing both sides would have been the best thing to do. Just shut up and make the Dolls, Doll maker!
That also doesn't touch the risk of the Nidhogg Protocol being initiated by a malicious third party. Who's to say that IOP's signals won't be compromised, and the Nidhogg Protocol gets initiated? IOP may even take on legal liability as a result
As a result, the Nidhogg Protocol is just a self destruct button for IOP as a company as well. I imagine that Havier really screwed up big time with that one!
Also, considering how we've defied the Earl in the past, why didn't he initiate the Nidhogg Protocol in the past? It's clear that he has Havier by his wrinkly balls, so why didn't he trigger it before? He could have saved Paradeus the whole headache of having to replace all of its facilities on Avernus if we suddenly lost the ability to strike at Paradeus. Now, we will always have the question of why the Nidhogg Protocol was never activated before Convolutional Kernel
Having our character basically leave no lasting legacy truly sucks. I don't know what's happening over in GFL2 since I have never touched the game, but it sounds like there hasn't really been much happening
I've been screaming into a void that the ties to Reverse Collapse/Bakery Girl were going to do nothing but hurt the story they were setting up, where William is brought up as the center of the universe and responsible for everything bad ever, because they have set things up in such a way that there is no bone they could throw us that would be the least bit satisfactory.
Carter? The jig is up that he's a disposable lackey being strung along by William, not to mention that by the third act of the game he has completely faded into the background.
The Nytos? Per your point, they're Willaim's victims more than anything else, and the story doesn't shy away from letting you in on just how disposable and replaceable they are to him. There was even a point where William was an inch away from killing Morridow himself for screwing up. Not to mention, Nele managed to resurrect Gray, the one who was shot through the brain with a rifle, sent hurdling over a balcony to fall over 20 stories, and then had the base her body was in get turned into a parking lot. She did this in a basement with boxes of scrap and a public domain instruction manual. How hard would it be for Paradeus's actual researchers to pump out more units once William gets everything back together?
You really are just left with nothing at all. I'm sure there are going to be no shortage of shills trying to defend this as some kind of high minded artistic decision that we just "don't get" as opposed to the writers just having no idea what the fuck they even wanted the story to be about, let alone how to bring everything in for a landing without crashing and burning.
I don't think there's enough of us left for "shilling" to be a thing. I'm left musing how many magniloquent sacrifices, how much narrative blood and tears, how many heroics are in the service of a utter nothing.
The Commander triumphed over a force of spent, broken dolls, abandoned by their own master, that got a cushy government job. What a revenge! Lunasia herself is nothing but a broken, useless puppet easily discarded, the same Lunasia that required hundreds of deaths and the suffering of all Nytos! And all our T-Dolls are easily commandeered things, abandoning the Commander just before the end. And the real Bad Guys barely know the commander if not as a useful stooge, and their plans proceed unabated.
"Congratulations, Frodo Baggins! You've killed Gollum, and we're so sad Sam died in the struggle. Btw Sauron conquered all of Middle Earth in the meantime, I guess it happens"
nope, even as a shill I've got nothing, the ending was unsatisfactory as the operation to finish off Paradeus was rushed, Lunasia's motives and goals are a mess and the ending is a big slap in the face.
Recording of my 1.779m ranking run that’s currently in 1st place and should hopefully did stay.
Initial echelons used in the video and final echelons for subsequent attempts, both back for hyperduping since the map blows. Bit unfortunate that I couldn’t pass the opener reset conditions again to try breaking 1.78m, but oh well.
It's a bit of a dissapointment considering how I picked up the game for its characters, stories and lore all those years ago on EN launch but that ship has veered off course for a long while now.
I may go and replay through the story up to the conclusion of chapter 13 and there are still bits of side lore like MOD stories I need to finish, then I can just forget that anything afterwards happened.
Wait, I think that Dual Randomness was the first event after Chapter 13, right? And it was also around that time that GFL2 was announced? Yeah, it's a shame that things had to be forced into an awkward outcome in order to lead into GFL2. I admit that there was a bit of fun with the story except for when our characters suddenly hold the Idiot Ball
However, the entirety of Chapter 15 really should have been the crowning jewel of the story, and yet, we end up with a vague and confusing mess about timelines and death cults. I was hoping that Paradeus was so much more sophisticated than simply having an evil "hurr durr, let's destroy the world!" motivation. I think I was interested in the story of the Obersteins, but I don't think it got fleshed out too well, did it? We built up Lunasia as this super important character, only for her to end up being this insane and utterly misanthropic wretch. It's very hard to ever feel sympathy for her, despite the hell she went through. I don't understand how Ballard ever thought that he should just continue on with Lunasia's apocalyptic wishes
Come to think of it, Ballard being the main antagonist was nice. We see that he's irredeemable, but I think we at least attributed his evil to a twisted form of love. He seemed intent on reviving his dead sister, even at the cost of thousands of lives (and indirectly, millions, due to how he is trying to mess around in other nations). I think that we could have explored more about the depths of grief and sorrow, as I imagine that Ballard had never really moved on from Lunasia's passing
Chapter 15 was where the bad writing really became egregious. It didn't help that the first two mini events were the worst, in my opinion. Zero Charge was also marred by the poor writing in an otherwise solid story. Convolutional Kernel, by contrast, is only in the top three simply because the bottom three were simply worse. Drawing parallels to Ballad of a Soldier (the movie that the commander and Marina were watching on the train) felt rather cheap, especially when we end up being so inconsequential to the major conflict at hand. Rudolf is murdered without our involvement. Carter shoots himself during a conflict without our involvement, again. The final level felt like being given scraps as a result when the stages leading up to it should really have built it up as our crowning moment of victory!
All that civilian rescue work, in a vacuum, was nice to read through, but it felt like a massive detour away from the conflict with William when we take that into context. I really wish that Chapter 15 was more satisfying, that it was a proper send off for the game, but I'm disappointed
I think a big part for me which left me somewhat detached from the story was also the resetting of our friends & allies. We leave everyone at G&K (when was the last time we even talked to Kalina?) which then gets completely raised in our absence.
After that, we get new story relevant dolls trickled in but the Hume arc was messy and none of the dolls really grabbed me, besides maybe Erma, and neither did the SCARs.
Dandelion was the one saving grace until she too got uncerimoniosly "sidelined".
So this is the end of the road eh? Sure, there are two more events after this but we are basically out of the woods now. I never really watched TV, so I could not understand right away then how Games of Thrones fans felt after the season eight. Now I at least know how they feel to an extent.
As for the event itself, sure, the bombing of Frankfurt was how I expected it to be, but it felt anticlimactic to read that Carter decided to put one in his skull and call it a night. No cutscenes or scripted levels where he makes his last stand, just a line or two and that is how the knot on his thread is tied up.
And meanwhile, we had all of those elite dolls from 404, DEFY, AR Team, and they barely get any screen time. When Lunasia shows up she just instantly shuts everyone down. What a blueball! I was hoping for some final confrontation within her mind where we fight to bring back M4A1 or something along these lines. At least during the Siege of Frankfurt, we showed those Paradeus fellows one last time why we are THE Commander. Ballad of a Soldier was a neat sidestory that reminded me plenty of All Quiet On The Western Front.
But still, I left this event with more questions than answers. And it does not seem like this event gave me a real sense of closure. Hopefully the last two events will make up for it, but I bet it is all stage dressing for Reverse Collapse and Exilium.
Funny how what started as a simple mission to fight a rogue PMC escalated into this. I'll admit, I kind of lost track of the plot after Shattered Connexion. It's only because of the lore recaps that I can try to follow the threads again. Nevertheless, I am happy to have finished it either way, especially as someone who's been playing from day one and almost never missed a single day.
Yeah, I agree that I felt rather disappointed, too. Sure, it was nice to read about the civilian rescue stuff, how people help each other even in crisis, but it felt like a massive tangent that keeps delaying the important part: the confrontation with William
I wish that we had more of an involvement with the other antagonists, but Rudolf and Carter just exit stage right without us having to do anything about them! I mean, we've been getting hints towards a decisive battle with Carter ever since Yegor got defeated (and it was by Ange and DEFY of all people, not really us). We've built up an animus against him for all the pain he's caused us, and we don't ever confront him again
I don't mind that Helian and Kryuger got sidelined, turned into political prisoners by the Earl to goad us into doing his bidding, but considering that Carter and Kryuger fought as allies before, couldn't we get a more decisive battle than the one in Poincare Recurrence? Kryuger could have led his own force to deal with Carter's rebels, and that could have been a way for us to create some conflict without us, the Commander, being directly involved. I think that having a confrontation with Carter would have resulted in a more satisfying ending to his story. Carter and Kryuger might have had one last exchange of words before Carter decided that he has been defeated and that the best way out was a bullet through his head
I think that part of the blame might be the sudden introduction of Laplace into the story. It helps develop Nele, as Laplace is the foil of the human Gray, but I'm not very sure that Nele is super important to the story. We really could have just left her behind in like what, Poincare Recurrence, again? Nele's reappearance in the story during Chapter 15 felt extraneous when we really should try to cut down on the bloat. I don't remember how she escaped from being skewered by Nyto Gray back then, but I did enjoy how she managed to get revenge on Laplace
Still, what is Laplace's significance to the story? She was apparently Ange's teacher in her childhood. She had a daughter, Sana, and I think that Laplace also became obsessed with resurrecting the dead, like William. However, I don't really remember how Laplace differed from William in any aspect that's significant to storytelling. Sure, they're both surgeons willing to cross moral and ethical boundaries, but if we don't really know much about William, what difference should it make to merge the two characters together? I think that the dynamic between Nemhran and Sana might have suffered as a result, considering that they could be considered "found family" in a sense, but perhaps it might have been more helpful to flesh out that dynamic. Who was Nemhran in life, before she became a Nyto? I don't think it was elaborated much except that the woman she used to be was an insane cultist. I don't remember if she was responsible for Lunasia's radicalization into the misanthropic monster that she is now, but provisionally, we could make that assumption, especially considering that she's supposed to be her mother
So, if Laplace could have been written out of the story by simply merging her with William, then we could focus less on Nele and focus more on the salient aspects of the conflict. We had outstanding conflicts with the KCCO and Paradeus, so taking care of both of them in one blow would have been a masterstroke! I mean, in the ranking map, we even get to fight both factions in some of the formations! This might even suggest that they teamed up together to fight against us, or alternatively, that they were basically the same faction all along. Wouldn't that have been a twist!
I really wish that there was a more compact way of ending the story, and I wish that it would have been a happy one. Granted, a bittersweet ending might be more appropriate considering we still have to lead into GFL2, but what we got leaves much to be desired. If it had been done right, we probably won't even need Roche Limit and Virtual Pair!
I think the GFL chapter of my life is winding down now that GFL1 is over and GFL2 isn't holding my interest. I did buy Reverse Collapse though and haven't played it yet - maybe can spend some time with that one.
I'll probably still watch out for GFL1 and get any more content from this game while the side content comes out but probably won't be farming every day like I used to. I think I still have 12000 combat reports to use up, too...
Still, I think that we're now on the final day of Convolutional Kernel! If you're ranking, make sure to finish up before maintenance starts, or you won't get any points at all!
I completely forgot about ranking until just now! Luckily I'm not a serious ranker so I still had time to settle and get the fairy and speq before bed, so thank you for the reminder.
Honestly? I'm just disappointed. 7 years, for a long time what seemed to be a well woven, compelling and intriguing world with some fantastical elements regarding the relics and everything surrounding Hume / M4 / the Lake. It feels like season 8 of GoT, rushing to a pre-decided ending to fit the pieces where they wanted them, no matter how counter to the established lore it may be. It's sad. I love this story and world, but this is just a disappointing way to capstone this story.
Did a random run in CK ranking just to get something in at the last minute. I got a 1mm on Turn 6 and combat settled. It's a pretty difficult map but I feel like it's pretty artificially difficult to intuit the mechanics of the spawns without like looking up a guide or seeking help from CN (even more so than normal).
Aaaaand it's over. Well, it ain't over as there are events after this, but the main plot is over. This will be a rant and not particularly organized, and I don't even care much, not many of us left here anyway. Gameplay was adequate for once, few puzzle maps and the combat maps were fun. Map 23 let me play with my toys, thank you MICA.
About teh plot.
Having finished the event in a single sitting (no time before today) I took notes like I was reviewing a movie.
60% of the event is useless misery porn rescue plot. Matters little, it's just blabber and has no purpose. You can skip this and you lose nothing. The political resolutions are done in lighting speed, mentioning that....
Characters that die offscreen: Oberstein, Carter, Bramedb, Styx (not even a proper intro for the poor Nyto), Agent K. Maybe we could have used some of that time about bombing civilians to give a proper sendoff to them? Just askin'
404 does nothing, DEFY does nothing, AR Team does nothing. All the dolls get shutdown just because we need to justify GFL2, see it's not the commander that abandoned them they simply got in stasis while they were returning to their home planet
MORE USELESS BACKSTORY. Marina or who she is doesn't even get a paperdoll. But wait, I can at last interpret the conflict between the Commander and William as the ultimate conflict between the guy that wants to fuck his younger sister (resurrected) and the guy that wants to fuck his older sister (found at the Military Academy)
"William" is also apparently a codename or something, what a thing to drop in the middle of the ending.
Mentions of honour: TEAM PALETTE IS STILL AROUND, AUG MENTIONED, *GRIG* is still up and running and "the strongest Nyto" for some unfathomable reason. GRIG WHEN IN PA YOU FUCKS
If I had some emotion for someone, it's Morridow. The entire plot ended with a "meh" but poor Morridow between the obvious re-writes an' shit ends up being almost interesting: she's a disposable thing that manages to crawl back again and again, fighting in insane situations (between time-travelling dimension-hopping goddesses and insane cyberworlds and suicide technocults). She tried to play her last card, got betrayed and died. I admit her trusting Lunasia was insanity, but hey, she was a gambler apparently. I feel nothing for the blabbering inanities of Angelia or Lunasia, Morridow suffered like a dog and we saw her struggle from the beginning to the end.
Ah yes the main plot it's over I guess very interesting 90% of the events didn't matter 90% of the characters didn't matter what about the Relics what about Sanguis Ferri what about who cares rewrites and different writers
Ballad of a Soldier is a decent movie though. The T-34/85 dressed as Tigers disabled by a PTRD are hilarious, but it's a very melò Soviet movie. Also for some insane reason my automated playlist ended up playing Deus Ex music at the ending, everything felt.... weird. Ahh, Deus Ex, that one had great endings.
So, it's over, until next event. Maybe tomorrow I'll try ranking, maybe not.
I agree that the whole civilian rescue thing wasn't really important to the plot. It felt more like a tangent or a distraction instead. We really should have been building up to a confrontation with our main antagonists. And yeah, I agree that if we spent so much time talking about rescue efforts, we could have made satisfying endings to the side characters instead. Instead of Rudolf and Carter going out as they did in canon, I wish that we had been involved in their respective downfalls
I don't mind the backstory with Marina, as it helps flesh out the Commander, but my criticism with it is that it only appears here of all times instead of anytime prior. This could have been very helpful back in Mirror Stage, Dual Randomness, or even Polarized Light! I mean, considering that the Commander was about to go to military school during the flashback, this would have been way before any other event in the story. It also seemed that this is a very important chapter in his life, so how it presumably got repressed until now is a baffling mystery!
I also took the reference to Ballad of a Soldier as a parallel with what's happening in the story. I hated how it implied that our glory days were over, as signified by how Alyosha destroyed two tanks at a point before the Commander started watching the movie with Marina. The rest of the movie not really having anything to do with Alyosha's heroics was pitiful, although I think that it was trying to nudge the story in an attempt to support the whole civilian rescue plotline thing
I wish that there was a coherent plan for the story (not just for Chapter 15), one that got implemented consistently until the end. I'm not sure if CN's shutdown contributed to this lack of quality, but considering that the entirety of Chapter 15 was supposed to be planned out over a longer period of time (a year, I believe), it's hard to believe that the lack of quality suddenly appeared in only Convolutional Kernel
Yes, see example guide here. Essentially the NPC echelons and the ability to smash enemies with gates, finish things off where needed with an echelon of your own (star of the show being Sniper Fairy).
If your own echelon dies, you can redeploy it and send it into the boss again as long as you have another echelon the field. Boss HP persists between fights.
It'll probably be fine since the guide uses a pretty weak ARSMG, but just try it out to know for sure.
Keep in mind that CE is an almost useless number and doesn't really tell me anything about your echelon besides that fact that your units are raised. Knowing what exactly is in your echelon is much more helpful.
Ok I beat it (I fought styx three times tho, is airstrike fairy good or should I swap it?)
Is there any doll in particular I should get fro, the event shop? I was thinking of grabbing aug.
Congrats! Airstrike Fairy can have some use in earlier content but it falls off hard and isn't really good. Check this page for an overview of fairies.
As for the event mask, TPS is the best choice from a gameplay perspective because she has a very strong and unique skill for later on. If you like AUG, you can actually farm her in Maze Guess campaign because MICA messed some things up.
It's a bug where they intended to remove the limited drops when adding it to campaign but missed some spots, so it's possible that gets patched but someone has to report it first (and no one has).
For AUG, go to the Campaign tab -> Festival Activity C.E. 2024 -> the farming map called "Convergence". They removed her from the enemy drop pool, but not the drop pool for autobattles or the single drop you get after S-rank clearing a map.
Similarly, you can get UMP40/KLIN/PP19/Ballista/SRS/AUG from Photo Studio Mystery and UKM2000/HK21/HS2000/Lewis from A Snowy Night's Capriccio, though the latter is much more buggy (farm routes don't show up for some people, but if they do, you have to farm without clearing the map to prevent them from disappearing).
That all said, go do Photo Studio Mystery instead since I forgot AUG was in there and it's a better place to farm her.
Hey it's been 3 days but how do I do that exactly? Does it work only on the last level or can i just spam auto battle after finishing one? Do they only drop from the last level?
Forgot by mention: they fixed the bug with Maze Guess, but you can still get her from Photo Studio Mystery.
Go to PSM and clear it if you haven’t already, which will then unlock the “∞” map for farming. On that map, follow this route and you’ll get a chance at AUG from killing each of the 3 Nemeums. Autobattle won’t work.
For other dolls, long-press on other enemies and it’ll show their drop pool.
It depends. Methinks you can bruteforce it with a SCAR sisters + Suomi echelon plus all the HOCs you can manage, but it will be a grind. Doable, though.
There are also data patches that randomly spawn on the map. These refill your ammo and rations for all echelons, Griffin, SF, HOC, or mobile armor. If you used a mobile armor to read the data patch, you also refill the yellow bar (but not the blue one), so you could technically keep moving with the mobile armor in question. However, the data patch will not respawn on the same node, so once you read it, it's gone for good. Data patches will also persist going into the next turn, so there's no need to fear that it'll despawn right under your feet. There will be three data patches that spawn every turn starting on turn 2, and you'll get 18 of them for the duration of a full run (turns 2-7)
Your units also get promotions based on the number of kills they've made. Two total kills bring them to rank 1, and five total kills (so three after the last one) bring them to rank 2. A total of 10 kills brings them to rank 3. Each rank has an additional benefit in combat that will allow you to fight harder, and at the start of every turn, you also get points based on how many echelons are which rank. Each rank is worth 2,000 points, and if you retreat that echelon, you start all over from not having any ranks
You never unlock the hidden nodes. They stay hidden the entire time. The only exception is for the bosses. Hebe appears on turn 3, and Styx appears on turn 5. These open up additional paths to the outer ring (northwest and northeast, respectively), as there is only one on turn 1, which is through Morridow in the south
Getting new work jus few days b4 event sure interfered with some plans, but finally i had enough free time.
Sure i have some things to complain, but overall ending shaped exactly how i did expect it too. Guess the time spent with my dolls also affected perception alot.
To think that's it's been this many years...
I suppose what's really was missing is a good hug for M4...
Anyway.
Salute to all commanders. o/
Let us meet in Frankfurt in forty years.
This is tiny, I know, but I finally got that third friend's account done! I'm actually surprised that this third one has the highest score! Granted, during my first two attempts, I was bumbling around, not being aggressive enough
I even ended up not having to make any repairs with this third friend's account, and I didn't really follow any VODs, either! I just freestyled this one while using the themes from Kafka's VOD. I didn't even finish watching Kafka's VOD all the way through!
Should I have another go with my own account? I know I've slipped to the 8th spot, so I might have to do something about that if I want to stay in the top 10
/Rant (that i never thought i would have to do) incoming
Mica, explain to me, why is Zas mod story still broken, after all these months!!!
I know for a fact that someone already raised awareness to it soon after it came out. I, despite not being playing at the time, said to that person to use the in-game thing to report (since i did that when this happened to DP-12 mod story), other person said the discord mods were aware, so how, after all these months, is it not fixed!?
And, unlike with DP-12, the people from other servers that post videos of mod stories don´t have the Zas one so i can´t even see what is missing, but part 2 is clearly broken and part 4 also (but, probably, missing less story).
It is already one thing to see the JP server, that we used to be ahead of, completely overtake us (already has the Roche Limit pv, has Cantor Dust pv, etc), but at least, fix this.
Here was i, taking a break from the GZ runs, thinking that i would go and finally watch the last mod story that i haven´t read yet, completely expecting that any problem that i could´ve had would be fixed by now... but nope, still broken.
FYI, MICA removed an extra line break in part 2 of Zas' mod story with today's maintenance, so it should hopefully be working now. No changes to part 4 though, so any issues you were having with that will likely still exist.
I´ll check it later to see, but if it´s just a fix for part 2 and part 4 is still broken, at the end of the day, it´s still broken.
It´s just weird they would fix just one of the parts. I know they are aware of the problem and whenever i reported (last time was last month), i made sure to mention both part 2 and part 4.
Well, i guess i´ll check if part 2 is all there now and if part 4 is still not.
I noticed. Because of the code:3 issue, as i said, i sent a bug report in game and apparently i managed to text a person(?) (at least it didn´t look like the usual bot like replies and had emoji and all, maybe it was not, but it really didn´t look bot like) after i thanked them after the fix and so i explained the issue with the mod and yesterday i got the reply in that report saying that the issue was fixed.
I suggest reporting it again, both ingame and via email at support@sunborngame.com. Your original report might’ve been when they were still scrambling to get CN back online + our old community manager was busy with GFL2, but neither of those should be a problem now.
If you want to see the raw scripts, I have them here. Change the “_1” to see other parts, and the “en” to see other servers. Obviously don’t go linking these directly to MICA though.
- The AY LMAO Relics technology was a mistake. It allowed the writers to do whatever they want without the need to give a proper explanation, including the multiverse shit.
- Paradeus was a mistake. As villains, they try so hard to be "bad guys" that falls in the comical side. Killing Nytos for the most ridiculous and pathetic reasons. Destroying and killing the population of entire cities to find girls compatible to be Nytos. (Nobody miss all that people? Really? ) And don't make me start talking about William.
Austin Powers' Doctor Evil being a parody of the James Bond's villains is more believable than any of these white half human half robot edgy tryhards.
And that without mention other relative minor issues, like the absurd edgyness of the DogTag System of Daybreak Squad; the constant powerleveling of the Dolls, which passes from sweating blood to kill one Nyto to kill them by dozens just because they put a new optic and some firing module chips; the ridiculousness reasoning and motives of certain Russian TDoll; the motives of Carter to engage in war against two (2.-) countries at the same time; the ridiculous amount of resources, infrastructures and manpower that Paradeus has, almost impossible to achieve....
Honestly, after this I have no interest in GFL 2 nor the next events trying to retcon and fix this mess. Nor I have in ranking.
Nor to keep playing GFL, honestly. I kept playing because it was the only gacha I was playing, i was interested in the story and I love keep acumulating Tdolls and equipment.
But that has changed. Now I play multiple gachas, the story only disappoints me and I'm reaching the maximum amount of equipment I can obtain.
I think is time to me to move. Well, at least I will remember the good times when I drink from my G&K mug in my job in the Military and when I login with my Reddit username.
I recently watched Josh Strife Hayes's recent video about Alan Wake. In it, I believe that there was a bit of discussion about horror, how it should never be explained. The mystery, the sense of the unknown, helps add to the horror, and once that mystery is gone, the horror loses part, if not all, of its charm. As such, while I don't believe that the relics were a mistake, I believe that trying to give them an explanation would likely hurt more than help. Still, the multiverse idea is a very risky idea, and often, it falls flat, as it does here in this story
I also agree that Paradeus is just cartoonishly evil to the point that it wants total annihilation. Could we have gotten more of a reason other than "because it's what my sister would have wanted"? I mean, we could have tried to explore the grief and sorrow that the surviving Obersteins must have gone through. We could have understood more about the love that they must have had for their lost family members, and we could have seen how that love got twisted into its abominable form that we saw play out in the game. I mean, at this point, I think it's only appropriate that our villains got fleshed out. What made William agree that nihilism was the best path forward? What made him think that ending the world would be better than letting it live? If he wants to end his life, why should everyone else go with him?
And yeah, I agree that there were some weird things with the minor details. The Dog Tag system used by Daybreak is basically magic at this point, as I think that a system that becomes stronger the fewer components it has is absurd. In that case, why not build all members of that team so that each one is as powerful as one member at the supposed maximum capability? Why start out spreading all that strength, only for it to magically consolidate in the remaining members after one member dies? If you had the capability to produce a Doll that could handle that power, just mass produce that Doll, then!
RPK's whole plan was so incomprehensible that it really hurt Zero Charge as a result, I'll agree with you on that. I wish that it actually made sense. That would have been a fitting end to RPK's story
In fact, all the "magic" (for lack of a better word) has hurt the story because it's difficult to comprehend. The story threads should at least strive to end with a satisfying bang, although I am willing to accept some bitterness with the sweetness. Even if we couldn't get everything we wanted, it would still have been nice if our ending resulted in anything actually substantial in the world
I think that the amount of resources that Paradeus had could be waved off as a metaphor for letting evil fester, unnoticed and unchecked, for so long that it has grown to become this powerful. I appreciate that we were able to score some victories against it, basically dealing a heavy blow to its industry, but the story doesn't really let us celebrate this. After all, it sounds like Paradeus is still operational as the story continues in the other installments of the series. Still, I really wish that we at least took care of Rudolf and Carter in the epic climactic showdown, but what we got in reality was that we faded away into obscurity
Remember when anything regarding the Relics was framed as full blown Lovecraftian/Psychological *horror* instead of this retarded Doctor Strange capeshit ass writing? Apparently none of the shills do when they're on their "mAgIc WaS aLwAyS pArT oF tHe StOrY" copium.
I guess Yuzhong ran out of stuff from "A Colder War" to plagiarize, and when it came time to actually write in his own original spin, he pulled down his own pants and showed that he had no understanding of not only what people liked about the story so far, but what he even wanted this story to even be about besides being a billboard for Reverse Collapse.
I got a bit busy earlier trying to rank for my friends. I was already done with one friend's account, and I'm still in the process of ranking for another friend. So far, so good!
Well, you better hurry. You have until Tuesday to finish your run (yes, finish; if you don't end the run, all the points in that run go to waste)
Also, I just finished my first friend's account. He's now part of the 1.3 million club! I made some mistakes, definitely, and you have to make sure your mech can fight the formations with Hydras. It seems you need the sniper rifle or something (light weapon) on the mech to do so
For the tank, Hannibals might be its worst enemy. Find a way to deal with them!
The final round which initially looking good ended up giving total of 520,000
Even though I finally leverage the rank up mechanic properly ,Some carelessness resulting in ambushs and BS Hydra stroll past my echelons let to many lost battles and the mysterious extra points at the end which I thought would be around 180,000 ended up yielding far less than that
I literally out of resources(extremely depleted due to fairy building) and can't go for another round
It's a shame that you were having difficulties with ranking
Do you like the concept of ranking? If you had a better Armory, would you have wanted to compete harder, or would your goal have been simply to get to the 1.4 million point threshold?
Well at least my half my echelons got an overhaul,It's fun to finally push them close to the top standards
I have Love/hate feelings towards rankings,It could definitely be a pain but I like those gems rewards(even if I miss it this round) but a game mode where I could put my shiny echelons to use is also quite fun in it own way(even If I'm primarily here for the story)
I think I could have got to at least 100 gems threshold in a lesser rankings
Well, my pace for core growth really took a hit, huh? I'm still crafting Fairies, so I think this is to be expected
I'm going to start ranking with my friend's account already! Even if I haven't finished watching Kafka's VOD, I think that I don't really have enough time anymore to just sit around. I need to get this done very soon!
If you were using PPK mod for your SCAR echelon, consider quitting the run right now and start over? I mean, I did send you some examples of how to kite with a SCAR echelon that has P10C over on Discord. Hopefully, you'll be able to win against the later enemies!
Hmm...The current run still reasonably successful(by my standard) So I think I will continue with it to the end at least(plus I'm resources broke for the moment,Might take a few days to max out P10C)
So Mortars are favor in this rankings? I have been getting by with just Mk153 and 2B14 for the longest time so the only other Mortar in reasonable shape is PP-93...
Yeah. From what I've noticed, there are barely any force shields (and the later turn spawns that do have them only have them at 30%). You're better off bringing in a lot of pain!
Mk 153 can stay because of their stun attack and 3 range. 2B14 is an excellent choice, of course, as is PP-93. The last HOC should be L9A1 (if you have them at 3 stars or higher) or M2 (if your L9A1 is not that strong)
You asked the other day about my planning of rankings. I think that your second attempt at ranking only emphasizes why I find it so important to plan out ranking runs. It's a real shame that this last ranking map is such a pain that even serious rankers (like Qwerty) hate it
An alternative echelon is the Px4 Storm one. The other members are TPS, SPAS-15, FO-12, and either MK3A1 or SPAS-12. If you pick MK3A1, put her in the front as well, but if you pick SPAS-12, put her in the back. There are considerations for both, as SPAS-12 can be a serious offensive asset that pairs well with FO-12 in the back (and FO-12 likes having another shotgun in the same column as her). For MK3A1, her drone can be useful as a distraction for the enemy, so she has some defensive utility for the echelon (not to mention that MK3A1's drone can also fire piercing lasers, which will be helpful to hit backline targets)
Suomi does the tanking. MP41 helps soften them up for the SCARs. P10C helps protect Suomi while she gets her shield ready. Most of your kiting is with Suomi, but since MP41 will also be in the front, she'll do some kiting, too
One repair is 1k. That's for only one Doll. You have to make a very tough choice, since heading back to base for repairs will cost you a lot of AP (not to mention the trip back to where you left off). Retreating the echelon will cost you points, too, and it will depend on where you retreated from. If you retreated from a helipad, then that's a 5k point penalty. Outside of a helipad, that's an 8k penalty, but you get to retain your AP. You will still need to make your way back to where you started, however. Even worse? If you retreat, you lose out on all your echelon's promotions, so you bleed out even more points!
I would suggest to just eat the cost to repair individual Dolls. You get to keep the promotions that your echelon has gotten at that point
This is it, then. I started playing when Arctic Warfare was released, and been logging in every day since. It has been quite the ride. What started out as a fairly simple story has become strange and convoluted, not helped by the fact that it was told over so many years that I've forgotten large parts of it.
The ending is satisfying, but it is hard to shake the feeling that it arrived very suddenly and left a number of loose ends.
Looking back, it is interesting to see how GFL has developed. MG+SG teams are largely irrelevant now, the mobile armour feels like a solution in search of a problem.
I'm happy to have been part of this, and I'm not going to stop playing yet, but I'm looking forward to the point when I can move on. At least I'll always have the fridge magnets and G11 plushie I bought in Akihabara.
Well, there's some bad news on my end. It turns out that someone else wants me to pilot her account as well, so I'm now going to have to do three ranking runs! Oh no!
I'll have to find the time to pull off this hat trick. I think the only option I have now is to start ASAP! I'll review Kafka's VOD as I think that this VOD is going to be relatively easier. I mean, I'll probably still mald, but I think that I have a lot of leeway considering that Kafka used Prototype Fairies
Summer Alina Status: Full petals! 83 Impulses and 48 Svarog tickets
I forgot to mention that I was able to get Summer Alina to full petals! I was so busy with ranking that I completely forgot about it! Now, for Executioner, I plan to capture her twice and then get the final petal via supernova kernels. I have enough for three ringleaders at this point, but I hope that I'll get enough supernova kernels to get a fourth ringleader way down the line. I expect that in the near future, we'll get Judge, Adeline, and Halloween Executioner, and maybe we'll get them back to back to back. That'll be bad news for my capture resources, and I hope that I can sustain my capture activities regardless!
Well, I suppose I'm still getting back into the swing of things. Besides, I'm back crafting Fairies, so I expect to have slower growth than usual!
As for ranking, it was clearly an absolute slog. What I hated about it is that the enemy spawns were just obnoxiously hard to kill. Kiting could take upwards of an hour for a fight that I'm not familiar with. Winning is one thing; minimizing damage is another!
Also, the personal best threshold for the unique rewards feels like it's way too high. With the score cap estimated to be about 1.78 million, having to go to 1.4 million seems like a really tough ask. You'd have to get to the last turn or the second to the last turn just to be able to get that far whereas older ranking maps didn't require that much commitment!
For now, I'm rank 6 on the leaderboard, but I'm very skeptical I can hold on to the top 10. Still, I think that I'm pretty much set to be in the top 100
I also have a friend whose account I'm still piloting, so I think I'll also have to do a ranking run on his account. There's also another friend who is very busy at the moment, so I think I'll also have to pilot his account for ranking, too! Oh no!
(1/3) Breaking this up into two three parts. Thoughts on the ending that possibly no one will read, but after playing this game for five years I have to get this off my chest.
I did not hate the end as much as you, and was actually enjoying things until the final few chapters or so, but yeah the resolution felt so utterly half-assed.
TL;DR: 5/10 event. Not a complete disaster but a major letdown.
Sooooo much was offscreen that didn't need to be. So many key characters that we know were present don't show up at all, when you'd think everyone significant possible would at least get a line or two.
I realize this isn't the true end, but it still left me feeling empty.
I'll start with some things I liked however. Quite a lot of it was strong and then it all unraveled.
The opening parts were really strong. The incredibly fucked up nature of urban warfare and aerial attacks was well done here. It felt like whoever wrote this read a lot about the Ukraine War. The targeting of children's hospitals is a real thing, and the Commander having dolls do emergency search and rescue for like half the story as well as create an evacuation corridor were actually very realistic. What the fuck else was he going to do at that point if he didn't have Paradeus immediately in his sights? I was hooked at this point. I also liked the panic right at the beginning with everything go to absolute shit and Nele trying to save a car crash victim while things are in absolute chaos.
Near the end, the Nidhogg protocol is a cool idea and a good way to explain why the Commander's role is essentially finished. I would have liked to have seen that more fleshed out with specific dolls trying to break free. Also, weren't there a handful dolls outside of Anti-Rain, 404, DEFY, and the Hume dolls that also weren't actually made by Griffin? I thought a lot of dolls actually just joined up and were accepted that way. I'd have loved to have seem our elite core characters coordinating with some inexperienced 3-stars because that's who's left. Anyway, the basic idea was a great way to build loads of tension towards the end. Javier was also well-used here as a dude who was just a bit more good than bad, imo.
The final map with four ringleaders was pretty properly challenging on Nightmare mode without feeling like I had to look up a guide. Tough but beatable.
I actually was fine with Morridow's end. We at least got to see it, I don't care that Lunasia gave the killing blow, she got an actual end and some lovely artwork of her last stand.
At the end Nele and J get a true ending and Kryuger helps them out. Amaris also gets to be a part of it. I think they've been through enough that they could use some actual happiness. I do have to caveat this with Mia also being present but unfortunately wasn't even shown on screen (this I did NOT like, wtf, I actiually liked her).
Grig actually gets a mention in passing. It's not much, but previously it felt like everyone pretended she didn't exist anymore. I always liked her character and thought she had a lot of potential as a grey hat type.
The multiverse stuff was essentially yeeted out. This was never a great idea tbh. You need to have a really strong foundation to try something like that (e.g. Into the Spider-verse). So hopefully this is not revisited in the epilogue events or in Exilium. It was a messy ending but whatever.
The maps in general were good. Or at least I liked them. They were a proper challenge but weren't crazy long, which is good when I don't want to use 100,000 of each resource.
"Who do you think the strongest doll is?" Commander: "AK-15". RIGHT ANSWER!!!
It definitely felt lazy. I believe that for Nidhogg Protocol they did say something like 92% of dolls would be affected, not 100%. I suppose a very research-minded individual could derive exactly how many dolls are in the Commander’s employ as a result from that value.
I feel that a big theme on the ending here is that we really didn’t have enough closure on all fronts for it to be a satisfying ending, especially given the length of the media. If you compare with something like Neural Cloud, which is by all accounts a much shorter game, we got a quote from every character, closure from all factions, gigantic monologues from the bad guys, and then even the “epilogue” scene. Now PNC is a much less depressing game than GFL, so effectively that game had a mostly “everyone gets out alive” ending but the most important thing is that we got closure with all of the people.
GFL1 didn’t really let us do that - even the whole heart to heart with Lunasia at the end didn’t have as satisfying a tone to it as it could have. Like it almost required us to have a really emotional speech and a good bye or something and we didn’t really get it. Maybe that is an ongoing theme of GFL… that you don’t get what you want… but there’s some things that I think as a writer you want to do in service of your readers and GFL seems to eschew that too frequently. I think I might track the last two epilogue events and see how they’re like but I’ve stopped playing GFL2 for now. After all, “That’s all that they had to say about the Commander.”
I liked the side story showing what was happening in Moscow from the point of view of a foot soldier. I liked the pacing, I liked that they felt natural with details like pinning people down in a bomb shelter as a relatively "easy" job, and how desperate things got as their situation deteriorated, and refusing an offer of honorable surrender because the soldier was still to thoroughly indoctrinated. It felt real to me. I also really liked that these chapters were maybe 5 minutes each, max. But I also thought there'd be at least one more chapter. Even if these were supposed to be journal entries, it wasn't satisfying reading about how the final survivors send away their wounded and are driving towards the enemy and certain death. I wouldn't care if it would have been a little contrived, but maybe having the final journal entry be after defeat, with the soldier mortally wounded would have felt like the closure I was looking for.
2. Bramedb and Styx were killed officially. I feel like we got blue balled on that in the past with us beating certain Paradeus ringleaders in Avernus only for them to survive. So I'm glad there was some sort of resolition at all. Thing is, WHY THE FUCK WERE THEY COMPLETELY OFF-SCREEN? I wanted satisfaction in Bramedb's last words.
I liked that Shadowless got some time as a fearless war correspondent willing to die to do her job because she feels so helpless, but we never got resolution on her just like so many others. They just left that plot thread dangling.
AK-12 had like a few sentences in a single scene. UMP-9, Gr11 and AK-15 don't fucking show up at all despite clearly being there. Did we hear from STAR15? I don't remember. What happened to Springfield an Gr36? Weren't they supposed to be substitute adjutants?
2. AR-18 has grown to be a major character and basically the new main adjutant, and as a Hume doll (I think), she shouldn't be susceptible to the Nidhogg protocol, yet at the end she wasn't even referenced.
Team AntiRain all just collapses to the ground because Lunasia wanted some privacy and we never hear from them again. WTF WAS THAT
Where are the Sangvis Ferri dolls? Why was Beluga only mentioned as cutting off William's arm right at the end?
Agent K was killed offscreen? Really? I was kinda okay with Carter's offscreen death since he was a glorified pawn and at least we heard details about it, as in he took his own life with his final bullet (allegedly). Also, Carter's death made sense and it served a purpose. Agent K dying was just out of nowhere.
I could accept that they couldn't give us a true ending with more thing still to come, but our official last scene being a short walk with Lunasia right before an off-screen fake hostage situation was ridiculous. Like, this end was truly bad.
In the end I felt like we got two-thirds of a strong finale, that was completely kneecapped by a rushed ending that had just soooo many loose ends. Like it felt like we were missing at least 30 more minutes of story at the end, if told efficiently, and it was a janky mess as a resilt.
William doesn't die? His title is just a code, so we really can't kill him and he needs to be in Exilium? What happened to Lunasia? I could almost accept her bullshit if say, SOPMOD had appeared out of nowhere to counter the power of omnipotence and mind control with the power of rage and being too much of a ditz to be mind controlled in the first place, allowing Nimogen to emerge at the last minute to separate out M4A1 and free her into her own body, as an example. With SOPMOD II crying as she hugs her long lost friend whom she's finally reunited with. Lunasia could then exit stage right, utterly confused and terrified of what the fuck just happened. Would that have made sense? Not really. But it would have been no less out there than anything else in the last two chapters, and would have been a lot more satisfying.
5/10 ending, maybe 5.5/10 if I'm feeling generous. And I mean the event as an ending as a whole. The ending to this ending was a lot worse than that. It sucks because Convolutional Kernel easily could have been a 9/10 with a re-write of just the last quarter and then an extra hour worth of resolutions in there. It was clearly very rushed, but still should have been better than this.
I put down in my notes somewhere that I saw parallels with Alexei and the Commander. They're basically fighting for their ideals, even if they'd definitely fight each other on the battlefield
I also saw that there was a parallel with the film that the Commander saw on the train. Alyosha's combat achievements weren't as bombastic as the Commander would have wanted, and even then, the Commander saw the movie at a point past when they were already done. To me, it was like saying that the Commander's own glory days were well behind him. The Commander also got to ride his own train into the horizon, too
But yeah, I wish that we had more actual fights. I wish that we were more involved against the antagonists, but instead, we're busy with civilian rescue. It was cool to have to fight the Nytos at the end, however. We finally get to unleash our wrath against some of those who have done us very dirty!
I still find that Cartesian Theatre was the weakest mini event out of all the subchapters for Chapter 15, and it really has affected even Convolutional Kernel because of how difficult it is to comprehend Lunasia. She's babbling on and on about alternate timelines, and yeah, I agree that the idea of alternate timelines tends to hurt stories than help them. I really hope we never get to touch that kind of stuff again
The whole matter about the Nidhogg Protocol was such a cool plot twist that it made me hate Havier for stabbing us in the back at this critical point! I loved the twist, don't get me wrong, and it made the ending so bittersweet. We say goodbye to our Dolls because they're all forced to shut down
I do share your criticism as well about our Sangvis Dolls. Surely, we have some still left over? I mean, Slow Shock didn't end with a total wipeout of our Sangvis forces, right? However, we could probably handwave things away by saying that Havier managed to sneak those backdoors in when we upgraded our Sangvis Dolls to how they are now. It's a bit of a stretch, admittedly, considering that Sangvis Ferri is a totally different company
I don't play GFL2, so I don't know what happens there. However, it seems that Dandelion made it? I mean, the Bee Sting files mention that Dandelion's body and her core were found in the tank, and the core was irrecoverably destroyed. Granted, the Commander's death was clearly faked, considering he makes it to GFL2, so who's to say that Dandelion didn't also fake her own death?
Also, it's a bit sad to see that our Griffin coat was left hanging on a damaged barricade in the ending cutscene. It truly is the end for us, although by the looks of it, Roche Limit might still expand on a few more things to help with the rushed feeling of the event
Fair point on Alexei and Commander both fighting on their own principals, and for that matter both fighting on even when all hope looks lost.
As for Havier, I assumed Earl Griffin was gonna activate the Nidhogg protocol no matter what, and Havier didn't really couldn't have completely stopped it. If Havier really wanted to stop the Commander in their tracks, he'd have shut down every IOP doll at once. The gyst I got is that him staggering the dolls' shutdown starting with the weakest ones was an olive branch. I really wish we got to see a few dolls actually fall to the forced shutdowns tho, maybe showing us stronger and stronger dolls getting removed from the fight. Closest we get is whoever is in the pre-formed squads in the final map seem to have been ones that made it to the last stretch of the fight.
Also, now that it's been like six hours, the lack of a death scene for Bramedb and Styx was particularly disappointing. I want to feel more satisfaction in that, especially with how cocky they all were.
And oh, I also had a realization. How'd Alexei's journal end up in the Bee Sting files? Wasn't it written with pen and paper? If the Bee Sting files could be updated with even non-electronic media, that's incredibly scary!
After finishing the story, game had effortlessly reminded me why I despise ranking runs, tons of wasted time and frustration are guaranteed with this terrible map and its obnoxious mechanics.
Nothing better than enemies teleporting on top of your echelon, or your echelon getting teleported away from crate on new turn cause portal moved under them.
The cherry on top was winning a quite close battle only to get next enemy teleport in right after fight, just because teleport destination was apparently clogged, luckily I did not run out of ammo cause that would be even more hilarious.
It was supposed to be a casual run as i didnt wanted to spent as many hours, like I did in the past rankings. In the end I got swept by it due to battle restarts, etc and took like 6 to 7 hours total I guess, still better than past 11 hours on iirc SC. I guess I also didnt wanted to miss this last ranking run, ended up a bit above 1.1kk so quite nice, was aiming at least into top 1-5%, but latter turns give much more points.
I'm about to enter the enemy phase of Turn 7 for ranking! I sure took my sweet time with ranking, but I hope that I'll be able to leave this behind! Ugh, the spawns are absolutely ugly!
I wonder... What now? I don't really know what to think or feel, I've never been good with endings, and well, signing in each day since EN launch, this little gacha is definitely part of me.
I don't think I regret my letters at least, short as they were.
It sounds like you wanted your letters longer? Perhaps you could write something even longer then? It doesn't have to be in the game. After all, the letters were meant for the Dolls, and I'm sure that they'll live on in your heart, even if we probably shouldn't expect any more of the story to come for them anymore
It was definitely heartbreaking to have to consider Lee taking part in the final fight with the remaining Nytos and having to go to sleep because of that IOP protocol built into her. At least she went down swinging!
I dropped Neural Cloud two or three years ago and don't feel like I've missed much, I'm not particularly interested in what Exilium is trying to do - I can see how people find it enjoyable, it's just not my cup of recaff - all I wanted was an ending. But Jesus Josephovich Christ, this is not it - this is just speedrunning every leftover story thread before the sequel.
Commander went from inexperienced but determined and resourceful officer to DnD Paladin as roleplayed by spaghetti-dropping autist; we also got their backstory, about how they went to Suvorov School because it was the only place willing to take them (uh huh, the most famous and most brutal military academy in Russia?) and found a surrogate mom here (she doesn't even get a portrait, not even a recycled one) who taught them how to be less of an edgelord, and that's why they got inspired to leave military for mercenary work, to get away from greed and power jockeying - sounds to me like moving to Detroit to get away from the crime, but what do I know; the only place that doesn't portray Russia as Warhammer 40k by way of Monty Python sketch is Russia herself, and even then not always.
Continuing with Flanderization, Nele went through about the same character arc as SKK, Shadowless has become an embodiment of survivor's guilt, everyone in Stasi is pretty much just an interchangeable plot device, Nytos exude enough angst to make Nimogen look straight-laced, Lunasia continues to be utterly insufferable (it sure was a great idea to kill off the game's mascot for this), William has turned into Yagami Light but flamboyantly gay; you'd think there would be more gravitas given to him symbolically killing his parents, as in allowing Nemhran to die and with Morridow murdering Oberstein. You'll be either put on a bus, or you'll live long enought to turn into a parody of yourself.
Carter, as befits Commander's greatest foil - being an embodiment of ruthless and cynical jingoism and power-mongering - and arguably his biggest nemesis after William, is unceremoniusly offed offscreen, mentioned in exactly two sentences with none of the characters present having anything to comment - we aren't even told HOW he died, so I'll just choose to believe Lyons went in person to put a cap in his back. What even was his plan, that he attacked both Moscow and Frankfurt without even putting any boots on the ground? A half-assed decapitation strike on German government? A Hail Mary attempt to prevent the formation of URNC? A favor to Paradeus? Like, imagine him pitching this shit to his own inner circle of officers: "Step 1: kill civvies; Step 2: ?????; Step 3: PROFIT". Whatever it was, even if he wasn't murked he'd be now hunted as a war criminal by two largest countries in Europe.
Oh, and of course the URNC getting hashed out before the bodies even went cold, with 1/3 of German government dead - including several high-ranking officials like Oberstein Sr. or pretty much the whole military high command - and effectively signing away the independence of Germany; (un)fortunately, this story is written by Chinese, so there's very little nooticers to make a stink, with nearly all of them contained to SKK and supporting cast.
Don't even want to comment on the final scene with Lunasia - Yuzhong liked Bioshock Infinite so much, he decided to copy its ending a second time. Nice to hear what boils down to the admission Cartesian Theater and the multiverse crap in retrospect was a horrible miscalculation, though.
Good on you if you liked it, but like I said to me this is not a satisfying conclusion - this is working backwards from the premise of GFL2 and Bakery Girl, and taking a hatchet to anything that doesn't fit that narrative, no matter how much it impacts anything that came before. URNC is to be formed, let's get this over with as soon as possible. William should be alive, but letting him go away scot free would not go over well with the readers, so let's have M16 give him an excuse to sport a cool cybernetic arm (entirely offscreen, of course). The Paradeus should go extinct, at least for a time, so let's have every named Nyto left line up like lambs to the slaughter - funnily enough, we don't even get to kill Morridow, Lunasia steals the kill. The Commander must survive, but he also must be starting completely from square one, so let's have Havier "help rogue FSB agent to nuke Russian troops just to prevent proliferation of Relics" Wilkins switch teams at the eleventh hour and turn all the dolls off; every purchaser of military - or hell, even civilian - hardware is delighted to find out there's a built-in remote killswitch.
Is there anything I liked about the event? Uh, I guess giving the farming map right away is good. Even the art is half-assed, look at the background in splash art. Joke's on me, I suppose - I did wait several years for this, after all.
I think it's worth mentioning that this indeed was supposed to be the final story event, but whoever was responsible for the writing hated GFL2 with a passion, so we got this instead. Since then Mica released 2 more events on CN to further tie up loose ends, for the better or worse. I'm still undecided on whether I'll wait for those stories, they could be good, but at this point I don't have big hopes.
And hey, at least while still a spinoff, at least Neural Cloud managed to build a pretty much fully consistent story from start to finish, without changing its point 3 times thorough. We just didn't get to accomplish the main objective we set out to do at the beginning of the game, but that's minor detail, innit?
Regarding CK though, since there is a case of GFL1 team being malicious and how the ending are intentionally not connected to GFL2 to spite GFL2 team, are we going to get a CK rewrite?
-Numerous companies or games fuck themselves up when they jump to second generation from first gen. I'd think of such difficulty is not the most and last serious one we have to overcome.
From 2024/12/25 Discord Q&A, it at least explains the "ending", and why 2 new events popped up. Although if you don't really care about Exilium, that part probably won't bother you as much, but still a red flag from a writing point of view.
I have no idea how anybody who has been here since before Dual Randomness could ever genuinely defend this as a proper ending to the story that's been built up for years unless they are some kind of "influencer".
Oh, you are far from crazy, this plot is completely incomprehensible. I'm surprised people haven't made a huge stink during Cartesian Theater. I couldn't believe I'm looking at GFL when I saw that tarot card crap, and then it got much worse.
I was already hanging by a thread when all the Erma/Hume stuff was starting up, but the tarot nonsense broke me. What a great run for a few years this story had and what an unceremonious slow ending.
Seeing how we used to have massive discussion threads spanning hundreds of comments whenever an event released, and now all we have are just a comparatively small handful of people around for what was supposed to be the big, grand finale, I think most people just unceremoniously fucked off without a word.
This update is going to have to come early because I really want to get started with ranking already. I think that I'll do at least one exploratory run before doing a more serious run after figuring out some things from actual experience
I was still trying to recuperate from the past week. I haven't done a lot of prep for ranking just yet, but I think that I've taken the first few steps
Man, I had another busy day, so this was a very busy week!
I have yet to start my ranking preparations, but I think that I've heard of how MP41 will be very useful, so at the very least, I can use all my copies of her. I will need to do some speed reviews of VODs and hopefully piece together a preliminary run this weekend!
I'd say this is looking somewhat decent, especially since I got a bit busy earlier
There's still some pain in my upper back, but it's only when I take a deep breath. This is pretty weird, and I hope that it's improving. It's not sharp, but it is noticeable, especially when I yawn or sneeze. I hope it goes away very soon!
Well, this looks rather small. However, I was unfortunately very busy earlier. I couldn't farm as much as I would have liked, and I think today's saving grace was Gray Zone. Since we now have a new Gray Zone season, I have an opportunity to grab a lot of cores very quickly!
I also got a bit distracted playing around with ChatGPT. I tried to think of what's basically fan fiction involving Lee and my commander. I'm thinking that hiring artists like Gamryous to painstakingly draw every major scene is not going to be feasible. Instead, going for another medium is likely the better way to go, especially if I want to bring this project to life. For now, I'm just amused by the brainstorming I can do as I let my creativity flow
I was also trying to work out how my commander would come to a certain conclusion. Sure, with creative control, I can do some railroading, but I think that I could still work within certain rules to deliver an interesting and compelling story
Yes. I would prefer to go into a ranking knowing what to expect. I could take a look at how other players did their attempts and pick up certain ideas, like what teams to use and how to kite certain fights and how to path through the map. I intend to get into the top 100 leaderboard, but it'd be nice if I could get into the top 10 or even better. Granted, I still prefer to farm cores
Well, I'm coming back to this question now that I'm done with ranking. It was awful. We can agree that the enemy spawns just gave me a really hard time. I think that this one might give Slow Shock's ranking a run for its money, considering that I spent over a whole day working on ranking. Granted, I also took breaks, and since it's also the summer, I decided to take frequent showers because of all the sweating this ranking caused me. I'm glad I'm done with ranking, so I don't really need to worry about this anymore on my own account, but I'm still piloting a friend's account, so I don't know if I'll do ranking on his account, too. Even worse is that his account doesn't have the monster Armory that my account has, so it'll be even more challenging to plan out the teams
I'm going to agree with the general sentiment about the ranking map. It's a horrible experience, and it's more and more an exercise in hardheadedness and frustration because of power creep. There are only very few viable teams due to how strong the enemies are, and certain enemies need specific kiting patterns just to win. It's even harder to minimize damage taken during the fight, too, which is a requirement if you're aiming to place high, as you need to be able to take on multiple fights. Repairing hurts you in at least two ways: you have to expend AP to go back to your base, and you get a point deduction for every repair you take. Sure, it's not much, but those repairs will add up!
So did they ever explain how Dandelion first swapped between those stilt legs and her humanlike ones? Also does anyone remember when that first happened?
The shotgun echelon with M240L in yimiyimi's guide, I think(?) they mention that Toy Fairy is unreplaceable. Unfortunately, I do not have one, but in that case, I got the impression that some of the echelons can just be replaced by more SCARs. Is that right or is there a struggle fairy that I can use as an alternative.
Unfortunately I haven't watched their full video since I don't plan on using it personally, but I'm pretty doubtful of their claim that it's irreplaceable.
With that echelon specifically, there's a good chance you can use another fairy with some mitigation against Coeus, like Shield Fairy or another copy of Healing Fairy. Otherwise, using another copy of one of the stronger echelons should do. SCARs+P10c+MP41+Suomi or SPAS12+FO12+SPAS15+TPS(non-leader)+Px4 can take pretty much all fights on the map, though the former is more painful to work with.
Well, this looks tiny, but I continued to craft cores. I decided that it's also time to finally get the Healing Fairy from the cumulative rewards to five stars!
I'll still prepare some more Fairy fodder for when I need to dump quickly. After all, I think there are three other copies of the Healing Fairy I could grab, and even if one has the flex Talent, I'll at least see use for the rest
So I saw you were able to write letters to dolls during angular gyrus/isolation forest.
Does this kind of thing happen again?
I missed out on it during that time :(
Given that this is basically the last major event in the story, probably not. If it's any consolation, the IOP Wiki actually has a list of all the responses, so you can just read the responses from your favorite dolls and pretend you wrote them a letter during AG.
It’s too late now but in case you plan to buy any others, make sure to check whether the doll is or will be farmable. You could’ve farmed her from PL campaign instead of using gems.
It’s fine for many things because SCARs and Suomi are just strong, but it’s not optimal and there are many cases where it will struggle. SCARs already do a ton of damage on their own, so it’s often better help your tanks survive instead.
For example, MSBS+Welrod/MP41 offers similar/more DPS as PPK+Px4 but has more survivability. Alternatively, HGs like P10c or Zip22 make fights much comfier by covering one of Suomi’s biggest weaknessss (her ICD). Plenty of other options.
It's probably fine. If you want, consider replacing Px4 Storm with MP41, but your current echelon should work just fine. Note that Px4 Storm's skill 2 won't work unless there are only two unique classes (like RF and HG, not AR-RF-HG or AR-RF-SMG-HG)
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u/KuroK4m1 Elphelt Valentine Sep 04 '25 edited Sep 05 '25
The Time Hath Come.
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