There have been quite a few posts on X bashing the CN community over the Talulah controversy. As someone who regularly follows the CN community, I’d like to share my perspective.
1. Controversies over trivial issues are nothing new in the CN community.
2. These controversies often get amplified by people who use an issue as an excuse to push their own agendas. China’s huge population also makes these voices seem much more numerous.
3. A significant portion of CN players play Arknights primarily as a game, rather than as a story. Wanting a better gameplay experience is perfectly reasonable, and their focus on operator strength has understandable reasons behind it.
4. Live-service games encourage players to pull for new, powerful characters by continually increasing enemy difficulty. Whether you like it or not, that’s an undeniable reality of the genre.
5. Talulah’s issue was never simply about how strong or weak she is. There’s a Chinese saying: “People don’t fear being poor; they fear being compared.” Compared with the previous release, Clemensha, and Frozen River from the same period, both have clear, immediately recognizable niches. This makes Talulah feel particularly underwhelming for a Limited Operator.
6. CN players spend a lot of time playing Integrated Strategies. They often use operators outside their usual 12-operator squads to change the course of a run. Naturally, they’ll be disappointed if a new operator can’t help tackle stages that are currently difficult to deal with.
7. Strength debates in the CN community attract plenty of people who try to look independent-minded by disagreeing with everyone else. They either dismiss an operator’s strength without substantive evidence or mock those who debate operator strength without offering any evidence themselves. Without solid evidence, neither side has a valid argument.
8. Repeated controversies within the CN community have created a “boy who cried wolf” effect. When the same or similar narratives keep resurfacing, people become less sensitive to them and less willing to engage. Many X users are now drawing conclusions based solely on similarities between controversies, and this effect is part of the reason why.
Personally, I don’t care whether Talulah is strong or weak, nor do I care whether she’s been treated fairly. I just find it hilarious watching foolish people act as though they’re more intelligent than everyone else.
I believe players should think for themselves and critically verify their own conclusions. If you blindly follow the opinions of “influencers,” you’ll just be led around by the nose and turned into someone else’s weapon.
Arknights CN 7.5th anniversary PV has been ratioed with over 100k comments
This is due to complaints that Talulah not being strong enough, with demands that she should be buffed
Will Talulah get a pre-release buff like the Necrass incident?