【Arknights】Integrated Strategies Mode Exposed: Is the Floor 1 Recruitment Pool Locked?

The new Integrated Strategies mode in Arknights, 'Sami Expansion', has drawn significant attention. While the introduction of difficulty scaling, Sanity (called 'Lumen' here), and a dice system added layers of strategy, a recent whistleblower post on NGA has stirred up trouble. The user claims that the shop at the end of the first floor is 'hard-coded': no matter what, it only offers recruitment tickets for Casters, Medics, and Vanguards. Some players have reported this happening for 8 consecutive runs.

This has caused quite a stir in the community. At higher difficulties, increased enemy resistance makes Casters largely non-viable, and the options for Medics and Vanguards are limited. Players are frustrated, viewing this not just as a progression blocker, but as a deliberate attempt to 'clutter the deck' with useless cards, effectively punishing the player. While the rumor that this correlates to the main gacha banner probabilities has been debunked, the suspicion regarding the spawn rates of certain rare encounters remains a point of contention, especially when compared against statistical data.

Community sentiment is divided. Some players have performed their own tests and confirmed the phenomenon, labeling it a poor design choice that ruins the experience. Others are more cautious, warning against 'jumping to conclusions' without a more rigorous mathematical analysis. One user summarized it well: it’s like if the first floor of the Abyss in Genshin Impact were permanently locked to a Defense-increasing buff—it's a hidden, negative constraint that limits player choice and undermines the core 'randomness' that defines the Roguelike genre.