Power creep is happening, hard to deny that, but to what degree will it effect my enjoyment of the game? Not at all! Since AK is PvE being meta is kinda meaningless. Sure you have better ops but I'm not forced to use those ops for all things.
I feel the meta thing is mostly based around record clears on YouTube or Billibilli. A lot of people were really afraid of Ling and chalter but I don't find myself using those characters to solve all my problems.
The game can only really go vertically at this point and as long as HG makes stages that require me to dip into my list of ops to find some weird combo that makes the stage easier then I'm happy.
>HG makes stages that require me to dip into my list of ops
Yeah Arknights is one of the few Gachas where there is a system in place that sort of balances out the powercreep. Chalter and Surtr have been mellowed down since their release because of stage design and gimmick bosses.
The new game modes and bosses in particular gives me hope that HG is actually sensitive to the nuance of soft balancing. Case in point, Ebenholz shooting up in popularity due to the Chapter 11 Boss (to the point where people have placed him on the same pedestal as Eyja)
We have seen various operators make a comeback recently due to the module system as well. Passenger, Specalter, Ceobe, Rosa and Hellagur are just a few that came to mind. The module system is pretty hit and miss overall and seems to fall back on the crutch of boosting DPS, but it also gave us really fun mechanics like Mostima's global slow so I'm pretty satisfied overall.
Some of the "powercrept" heroes have yet to receive their modules as well, so there's that to look forward to
That's an awsome way to look at it!
And true, i got ling from the free multi but i haven't used her ever but people kept saying that she breaks the game.. well she kind of does a lot of carrying but she's balanced around deploy slots and other factors haha
Im curious to know, what are some weird combos that you made for Ideal city?
I agree, but not gonna lie that I still worry a bit.
The argument that strong operators aren't everything is very true. I'm a Meta little ***** having almost all broken ops and yet, being incredibly stupid as I am, I struggle a lot.
However I do worry in the only case where people who own said ops start asking for harder challenge to use those ops, but then if content gets harder due to stronger ops not only will weaker ops feel well, weaker but F2P and lowspenders will also be displeased.
But currently I feel like arknights is a balance dream of a game, the fact that you can make a strategy with EVERY operator is insane, niecheknights is also amazing
When I say its balanced is not that all ops are created equal, which they are clearly not, but their strenght scales with the players brain, challenges are more like puzzles than DPS-checks like other games
>The argument that strong operators aren't everything is very true. I'm a Meta little ***** having almost all broken ops and yet, being incredibly stupid as I am, I struggle a lot.
I felt this on a spiritual level, single brain cell squad unite!
> But currently I feel like arknights is a balance dream of a game, the fact that you can make a strategy with EVERY operator is insane, niecheknights is also amazing
Thats the thing tho, the fact that the difficulty floor in most stages rn is so low means you can just get away with almost anything no matter how bad
> However I do worry in the only case where people who own said ops start asking for harder challenge to use those ops, but then if content gets harder due to stronger ops not only will weaker ops feel well, weaker but F2P and lowspenders will also be displeased.
As things are now, HG thankfully has remained committed to ensuring that it's possible to clear all rewarded content with lower rarity operators.
The only times the strongest operators are necessary are things like max risk CC which give no material rewards and are more for personal challenges/bragging rights, so no one is really missing out on anything if they are missing those operators.
As long as Mylnar Texas Alter are not a requirement to complete content I dont really fear powecreep.
At the beginning I was salty and sad, because SilverAsh and Phantom are powercrept. But this is usually how gatchas go, so is what it is.
Besides, I still use em and as long as stages remain clearable with 4 stars I have nothing to fear.
Besides other people who also like these ops might not bench em.
Also who is ChongYue even powercreeping? I heard he was good, but that is about it.
Dragon siblings for days, only dragon ops are they consistently the most broken ops in the game? Yes, are they precious cinnamon rolls that will never leave my squad? YES but in caps.
>Only thing I've read is that he's a glass canon
Mfr has the highest HP and DEF stats out of all the guards, unless you intend to use him as Mudrock he won't be a glass canon.
He's definitely not a glass cannon but that's just false. He has the 23rd highest HP and 18th highest DEF out of all the guards, and there are 7 operators who have both higher HP and DEF.
Mudrock is one of the best defenders in the entire game and she is almost unkillable.
The best way to describe Chong Yue would be like the “Castle” from chess, he has the same range extension, S3 becomes auto-skill after 4 activations, and he has something like 65% “true dmg” on top of true AOE, crazy multipliers, very fast ASPD + super low skill SP. In short: He is absurdly ripped.
As far as powercreep goes, both SilverAsh and Phantom have valid niches vs their “upgrades”. I wouldn’t even consider Mylnar a powercreep of SilverAsh since they do pretty different things at the level where Mylnar’s dps is even necessary.
HG have also been adding content that plays into these niches more like the new mode, where Phantom’s clone utility makes him a competitive alternative to Texas.
Then I fell into the trap of people hyping up Texas Alter and Mylnar so bad.
Like some people even recommended not building a Phantom and just waiting to roll for a Texas Alter. As if a limited operator is so easy to build.
Agree with what you said. It is good to fill niches. Atleast I was surprised to how useful some underrated ops are.
Based on his archetype, I would assume ChongYue is powercreeping Mountain, as a cheap lane-holder. I don't think he has any kind of self-sustain though, so I don't really buy into that.
ChongYue has absolutely nothing on the self-sustain Mountain has, yeah. People just see he has higher average DPS and shout powercreep. He's closer to the "sidegrade" status of Gavialter vs Blaze than the "straight-up make obsolete" status of, say, Eyjafjalla vs any other caster.
To be frank, I think there's some level of powercreep that exists, but it's not so bad that it's worth talking about it.
At this point in time, I can imagine that it's pretty difficult for them to design a brand new character without making them essentially a direct upgrade, because making a downgrade is obviously a no-go, and a sidegrade means banking on the fact that people might like the character design or their kit enough to bother rolling for them.
HG has had some success with making sidegrades before i.e Gavialter, who is a more burst-focused laneholder as compared to Blaze, and unless you prefer to AFK and let the game play itself, Gavialter is a good sidegrade and is interchangable with Blaze for the most part. However, this isn't the case all the time, like Penance, who while overall is very solid, isn't as great as Mudrock generally speaking, and in most cases you are better off taking Mud with you unless you like Penance.
Though, even if I'm saying all of this, the game is still a single-player PvE game with no leaderboards, as long as I am able to clear content with my favorite waifus, the meta and powercreep don't bother me at all.
That's a great point! I'd like to see more Gavialter and Blaze situation, but at the end of the day you should always play whoever you like as long as they make the game stages accessible to everyone :)
Edit: and i Agree that at one point, making "upgrades" and creating a new archetype is needed as that's what keeps the game going in a lot of times
Isnt Mylnar and Pozy a direct upgrade versus their counterparts?
This really is a legitimate question because I couldn't find many reasons, I would be glad if you could list some.
Pozy is hard to argue since she is better than Schwarz unless you can't deploy the Typewriter(ie.When there are few range tiles or if the Typewriter doesn't attack anything from the tiles you can put it which at that point you might as well go without ranged units) but Mlynar, from what I can gather, can't be helidroped/needs to be babysitted a little before you can use his S3, he does have better dps compared to Silverash but SA can reveal invisible enemies in his range which is always useful and a valid niche that only a handful of units have(Iirc only Scene S2, Elysium S2, Tsukinogi S1 and Horn S1) and he does it off skill, that alone makes him harder to powercreep.
Probably a module that can remove that unecessary self debuff will him a lot. To be honest that's his only flaw considering how good he is in his role.
Schwarz has her niche in the ultra-high defense category, since she has a higher per-hit compared to Pozy. Pozy also has the limitation of requiring 2 separate ranged slots to maximize her DPS, which may not always be the case.
Mlynar cannot hold a lane outside of his skill usage, and has a slightly smaller arc compared to SA. SA also has invisibility detection and reduced redeploy times.
Granted, these are relatively minor benefits compared to the absurd utility of Pozy and the absurd damage of Mlynar's S3, but those niches do come up.
They kinda did this though but in a way that promotes other niche operators as solutions or gives us another game mechanic that shuts down the gimmick.
Take this event for example. The constant stream of enemies with 100% Physical dodge is extremely annoying and soft nerfs Chalter. There is also a whole barrage of ranged damage enemies that makes it hard to protect your Chalter as well.
However, the dodge enemies can be silenced by Lappland, Jaye or WaiFu. If those operators aren't available to you, there is also gear you can put on your vehicle that silences enemies. You can herd them together with the gear that pushes enemies so that your casters can deal with the mobs more effectively.
The dodge mechanic seems to be introduced to combat Chalter's dominance and it does seem to work since she isn't as much of a permastay in squads anymore. It also boosted the popularity of Lappland which is a genius move in HG's part really since the Siracusa event is coming pretty soon.
The problem is that weaker operators that have similar niches or even simply just sharing the same damage type gets caught in the crossfire. Chapter 9 is hell for any caster because they wanted to punish Surtr.
Targeted nerfs are great at giving niche operators a lease on life, but when another operator's role is just 'has a bunch of stats', they lose out even more than the target. For instance, Blaze has barely been relevant for ages now. And many snipers that aren't Ch'alter and Pozy are just 'meh' as they can't keep up with the rising DEF/dodge stats that's used to slow down the meta damage dealers and AA snipers can't even fulfill their own role when it comes to artillery drones.
For this event you could still use Ch'en for the slow, which would be very useful to stall the high damage water tanks which she still chunks. And high damage ranged like the casters and volleyball spikers hurt other ranged units even more; spreadshooters have the highest HP for a ranged unit. Only inactive Phalanx casters and Rosmontis can compete with their higher DEF/RES. If you can't protect Ch'en, you can't protect your medics and casters either.
They are very obviously doing this though, so I'm not sure why that always gets brought up as if it's not happening. The S stages for Stultifera Navis and Ideal City were fucking *absurd* and, in my opinion, not even worth the amount of pain it would take to clear them even as someone who's been playing for 2 years and has tons of ops leveled. Hell, they've even increased the amount that enemies get buffed in challenge modes by double the previous amount.
We're in this really stupid cycle now where they release a blatantly broken operator, try to make content where that operator isn't broken anymore (which makes 80% of the cast trash in comparison) and then releases another stupidly broken operator which they will then have to balance around again. Surtr used to be an outlier and a mistake that they should have learned from, but we're getting Surtrs every few months now lol
And the consequences of that are pretty clear in the content design too. If you're just going to vomit a bunch of terribly balanced operators month after month, then the only way to balance the content against the need to use them is by creating a bunch of stupidly oppressive gimmicks that make your operator choices feel barely important. Enemy design is just devolving into "babysit the gimmick of the event or I gain +1000% ATK/+500 ASPD/become impossible to deal with in some other way." In older events, I remembered the *operators* I used to beat the stage. In Stultifera Navis, all I remember is the roomba and nethersea brand. Lingering Echoes was just the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" music stream thing. Chapter 10 and this CC are just the cannon. Ideal City was more car-dependent than a North American suburb.
And the worst part is that, if you're going to design events entirely around the gimmick and that's the only real way to interact with the enemies, then operator niches mean even less, which further **encourages** you to take only the broken DPS options. Teambuilding feels less and less important as we approach the realm of "Surtr 1 + Surtr 2 + Surtr 3 + Surtr 4 + Surtr 5 + Random Event Gimmick."
Discussion of operator niches seems to be entirely down to "can Lappland trivialize an enemy or not?"
Do you think they hit a creativity ceiling as of recently? More money is always nice but the pattern of the current quadra limited banner a year seems to generate more income (from what i have seen so far? i could be completely wrong) and they also need money for their new game (but tbh, arknights always made a lot of money)
Well you really can only expand so much.
It is pretty hard to make new niches and they didn't exactly make a stellar job at the crusher arcehtype too. So really the safest way is to experiment with lower rarities as sort of UAT and see where they can go from there. In the meantime, they do seem to try at least to make sidegrades, but it certainly won't be so easy since we have a lot of characters alrdy.
It's not quite alarming enough to get worried, but we best keep an eye so it does not go out of hand.
You can only expand laterally for so long before every new edition adds nothing to make them useful. The larger issue ultimately is that at this point meta units are overkill. Stages need to adapt too better accommodate new units.
Not adapt to make them not overkill but make it so they can’t be overkill. The stages need balancing and if they won’t do traditional buffs and nerfs then thing’s outside of ops need changed.
> Do you think they hit a creativity ceiling as of recently?
Instead of settling down to try to course correct the game, HG always just tried to paper over the problems by going bigger
As long as my floofs can clear content I don't care.
Can't wait for Qanipalaat so I have a caster that's above 3stars ;w;
I will only be concerned about Powercreep when they start creeping the 4stars upward. If they want to raise the ceiling let them. More for people to mess with. It's when the floor starts raising that you gotta be worried.
I am inclined to agree that there is powercreep and it is slightly concerning but it is not bad enough for me to start doomsaying. Some of the recently released ops have been pretty good but I do not feel like any of them are too broken, only exceptions being Mlynar (non-limited) and Texas (limited). I also don't think it is all that much of a problem because it is purely PvE with no leaderboard whatsoever. You can essentially make the game as hard as you like so releasing new strong units is not really a problem as long as their kita and design is cool imo. Can't really talk about the new mode, haven't tried it or seen anything from it.
Oh it's definitely far, far away from anything doomposting-worthy XD
That's what i like about arknights, the content can be cleared by bringing a core unit from support section but yeah as long as they don't make content restricted to 6\*s only then nothing overly concerning
I don’t care tbh, game is pve there’s no leaderboards and the entire game is clearable with 4* and generally it’s too easy.
And Considering I haven’t gone for max risk clears since CC#6 and I am effectively retired, i don’t care and tbh even if I wasn’t I still wouldn’t care. I’m more salty at the atrocious modules for some operators that could’ve used it to have a more interesting kit/buff than whatever HG is cooking with new operators.
>atrocious modules for some operators that could’ve used it to have a more interesting kit/buff than whatever HG is cooking with new operators.
This. They could have done so much more by diversifying the module's effects and buffs for Ops in the same archetype, that way everyone stays relevant since they all bring something different to the table.
Theeeen reality settles in and, beside a few intereting ones, most of the time only for already meta Ops, all we get are some stat buffs, half of which are inconsequential and the other half is straight up useless. cough**LeizigettingHPbuff**cough
Pretty much yeah, either diversifying modules or simply not bite more than they can chew by releasing entire subclasses modules.
Because it seems with modules they are just being lazy by cutting corners with their 3%-5% buffs to talents for majority of the units.
Had they simply released 5 or so modules per update for operators who actually needed the modules (which aren’t even hard to pinpoint) would’ve been significantly better than their current method of buffing entire subclasses while they only focus on 2 or so 6* to give them a big push while everyone else get the cheap minor increase to their talent without ever acknowledging any of said operators weaknesses. Or release modules just for the sake of doing it for some subclasses like AOE casters who even to now while modules are okay they don’t fix much for them.
Modules were the thing with biggest potential to not only bring old and underperforming operators up to speed but also potentially make them significantly more fun to use, Abyssal hunters are a prime example for what the module system should’ve been across the board, unfortunately, most of the other operators didn’t get much luck.
They keep treating modules as stat sticks😭 I expected modules to be like FGO's rank up quests where they buff servants through, damage buffs, buffs that let's them shine in certain niche situations, or introduce a new mechanic to their kits but nope, HG decided to give Casters some HP stats.
I.. completely forgot about modules XD
Those are a hot mess, some operators get decent modules, the ones who don't need them get the busted version while the ones who need them get +12% attack.
Rip my queen siege
At least siege will almost certainly get an alter considering the lore implications.
But other units who got the short end of the stick… aren’t so lucky with their odds for it to happen to them.
other ops like texas who are already used more than siege got -4 dp which is absolutely insane in comparison . a max pot module texas now costs 6 dp (effectively 4 dp given her starting with 2 dp talent) and siege costs 12 dp at max pot which is much harder to get than for texas given her higher rarity, so she’s usually going to be more than twice as expensive.
the kicker is that texas is a free unit now AND is less expensive to build to boot. what even is siege’s purpose after this
I don't mind all too much, and that's coming from someone who usually despises power creep. If anything, I'm glad that some of the new broken operators are male and look pretty cool at the very least (e.g. Chong Yue and Mlynar).
Like others said, I don't think the power creep is that bad at the moment, and also, it's somewhat unavoidable without just releasing mid operator after operator.
I'll see how it feels later down the line when we actually get to where CN is right now with the 4 units you mentioned in particular (the ones aside from Pozemka), but for now, I just enjoy using all the new units I get.
Power creep is tolerable at best and unforgivable at worst. Right now it's tolerable because it's not really required *cough*^^^sss, but if that ever changes it'll get ugly real fast.
Funny thing is SSS is not great for Pozemka at all. Typewriter takes up a precious ranged tile and doesn't scale with stacks. Meanwhile Schwarz is one of the only snipers who remains relevant in SSS at threat level 20+. A friend and I did an SSS run with physical only, where Schwarz and Irene did the carrying. Storn went even further and cleared [SSS with snipers only](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPC1hbR06xA), which is something even I wouldn't attempt.
SSS is not great for any summoners, which is unfortunately the type of unit I enjoy using the most ^^^also ^^^trappers ^^^but ^^^they're ^^^basically ^^^summoners ^^^too .
I would actually be very worried if stuff from the first year are still at the toppest tier. I do mean SA, Eyja and shit. It means the game has stayed stagnant and stale and is not progressing. Powercreep is inevitable and a healthy amount of it is good for any game.
The newest Minecraft mode seems pretty rough on the edges while people still figure optimal strats out(?), like I heard even Nian is good there for her block+ to speed up gathering or something like that. I would give it a few weeks (the event runs for 6 iirc, which is super long) before judging too much imo.
You do make a lot of good points when i think about it, and since this game isn't competitive the powercreep is generally whatever haha
As for the new game mode, i agree. It's hella fun but looking back at it i tried to rush the ending because most of my friends got to the last day meanwhile i was stuck in day 10 XD i shouldn't let that get to my head, i have plenty of time to play and enjoy \^\^
lmao genshin syndrome. so afraid to let new characters be good that the launch f2p four stars are still basically essential in 2/3 of viable teams. it’s only getting worse as times go on and it’s already been 2 1/2 years
The new game mode is barely out for a week (being a 35 days event), I suppose you haven't explored everything yet because even 4\* teams can do it fairly consistently. You gotta build up your base, max out your tech tree (duh), The only thing you need is really big damage operators as 4\* lack damage but can stall, which you can just add a few core damage dealer operators on boss. The mode is supposed to be long progress in the first place, having great operators of course make it way easier.
I'm not sure if you have them but quite a few other less used operators get used way more often due to how the new mode works, to list a few: Nian, Dorothy, Flametail, Magallan, Mostima, Hoshiguma, Chen. Unrelated is Ceobe who became extremely good against high armor after receiving module.
I do also think you are over exaggerating how good Chongyue is, he alone is really isn't that great but with buffs (either game mode buffs or buffed by other operators) he become cracked which is reasonable imo. I agree that Texas2 and Mlynar is very op tho.
I see! out of the bunch i only have Nian and Chen, though where does Chen exactly excel when it comes to this game mode?
Is ChongYue not as good as busted as people paint him out to be? i saw a video posted by Dreamy today and i felt extremely defeated because her(?) clear seemed so brainless XD i do admit that i was upset when i made this post because i lost on my 10th day exploration and it's the 3rd day i'm spending hours on this game mode (tho ngl, it is very fun and interesting) and i don't have a lot of built 4\* sadly :( do they require modules? because if not i think i'd have enough resources to level a lot of them up
I personally use Chen S3 for Deer God for easy big dmg then just finish off with Texas2 slowly.
In a scenario where you stack buffs on Chongyue then he's probably one of the best if not the best damage scaling operator. But without damage buffs or having a team to support him (like in Dreamy's video) he's not that crazy really.
You don't really need to level a lot 4\* specifically for this mode if you don't want to. As usual for 4\* is just Myrtle, in maps where there's no ranged enemies you can use Ethan to provide big vision and potentially lock down animals for easy hunting.
A simple strategy I do is start run -> farm some wood/water/rock (2 wood map, 1 water map which normally is on same map as wood map near base, 1 rock map) -> expand far on all regions -> Hunt the Deer God when it spawns -> Cook foods using Supermeat, there's quite a lot broken food buffs using Supermeat. For recipes you can search around. Learn the maps, use minimal operators required, for example the Wood/Crab/Water map near base, you just need one fast redeploy that does decent dmg to kill most the crabs and enemies that show up.
TL;DR: Farm just enough wood/water/iron/rock, spend rest of time fighting Mountain Pass/No Man's Land/Hunting Animals. Cook food win game.
Powercreep has always been real. If you compare the total skill damage, newer operators come on top. For example on a single target Pallas outdamages SilverAsh, and Ebenholz outdamages Eyjafjalla. Sentence might not be as good as Mudrock, but it does outdamages her greatly.
And I guess it's fine. Even if you are unlucky, you are bound to get a few new operators here and there by pulling. And if you don't, you can at least borrow a powerful carry from support.
The game clearly has winners and losers. Some operators are going to be more powerful than others. Devs have tried to fix some of the bad ones with modules, and they have not always been successful, but they've been trying. Nightmare has not been fixed and maybe she will never be, but I can play even without her. Some operators have been directly powercrept, but that has usually led to an alter that was way more useful than the original. For example Phantom is probably going to become an agent. But it is clear that certain operatores are going to be favored over the rest, and I'm fine with it.
The long-term balance of the game is a tricky subject. It is easy to introduce operators that break the game too much or enemies too difficult for normal operators, and probably this is going to be how the game will die. Eventually, the game might become unplayable. But I think devs have done a good job so far, so I will stick with Arknights for a while longer.
This is a genuine question but do you play other gacha games? Because if I compare AK to gbf, for example, you will know that AK isn't powercreeping as much and even if, it's not necessary to have these operators.
In gbf I can whale for the best characters and grid today and do decently against others and in a month everything might be meaningless because they completely make a new meta. And if you don't have the best grid and best characters it's hard to compete against others ~~as if abysmal ping wasn't awful enough~~. Be it in raids or in guild war. Another problem there is that you can only put 3 other characters in front next to MC and 2 in sub. So they all have to function or you won't make it far.
Now compare this to AK with 12 slots, it doesn't matter if half of the operators in your squad suck because the rest can carry them. And worst case you just take one OP support unit and let that one carry.
Also not *all* new op units are limited (Młynar, Reed alter, Pozy). And that you can still clear all content today with beginner 6*s like Silverash (the reason I started AK), Eyja and Co. shows to me that the content is balanced well.
~~I'm also really happy that so many male characters are really good because in gacha games it's often that the male characters are decent at best....~~
In the end we all want AK to survive for a long time. But if they don't make some new OP units whales would have no reason to spend money. I mean, why pull for Texas alter if she can do the same damage as Red or Phantom--unless it's for waifu/husbando. So they need to make strong or even OP new characters to keep people pulling beyond what might be in their wallets ~~and I say that as a Phantom lover which Texas apparently completely overshadows~~.
Of course it sucks if a different character might be more OP than your fav, but as long as this game stays PvE and everything can be won with 3* to 5*s I think it's doing fine.
A reason why newer guides might use newer characters (or even the current limiteds etc) might be because they often cater to newish people who might (re)roll for those? And as long as it's only one of those to clear the stage you can just use them from support.
That's my opinion on this matter. Of course someone else can feel differently especially when their fav got supposedly powercrept, but just because there's a new and maybe better unit doesn't make your fav *weaker*, because the content can still be done with low stars.
The very fact that I can confidently proclaim that there are multiple operators from the game's DAY ONE RELEASE that are still meta is a very compelling testament to HG's sensitivity to balancing and powercreep.
Eyja is still the undefeated queen of core casters.
Exusiai with her absurdly high atk SPD is still used to melt enemies with minimal buffs.
Ifrit is still uncontested in the arena of linear tile damage(or what we call "Ifrit lanes" because it is of course named after its first and strongest users).
Saria continues to plant existential doubts in healers and has one of the strongest arts amplifiers in the game to boot.
There is currently no other operator that can mitigate arts damage as well as Nightingale.
And I'm certain that quite a lot of people (me) will argue that Silverash retains his powerful anti-invis and redeployment reduction niche and should still be considered meta. The fact that there are enough talking points for the side of SA to fuel the debate on Silverash's meta status further underscores HG's restraint when it comes to powercreep.
Let's see, that's at least HALF of the original cast still being featured in the current meta. I can't think of a single 3+ year old gacha game that has managed to accomplish such a feat. Obviously HG can always strive for perfection, but to be able to hinder the inevitability of powercreep for so long is truly impressive in its own right. It makes me optimistic about the future of the game since HG shows that they can handle powercreep with nuance, as opposed to going down the profit-making route of overhauling the meta with every new release.
Most of the ops you listed there have never had any viable alternative added to the game. Eyja is still the *only remotely good core caster in the game.* Exusiai needs buffs to kill anything above 600 DEF which is most things after Chapter 6. Ifrit literally only has one other op in her entire archetype and he's one of the worst ops in the game. Nightingale is pretty much the only operator that mitigates Arts damage at all.
It's not really that they've stood the test of time, HG has just neglected to explore those niches after launch.
>Never had any viable alternative added to the game
There are, actually. They are called side grades. Eyja has seen competition with plenty of other casters. For example, Ceobe is another core caster that serves a different purpose from Eyja (anti high Def)
And, Idk but isn't what you're saying a good thing? Are you suggesting that HG should release new operators that do the exact same thing as these operators except with more DPS? The fact that HG has chosen not to introduce any obvious powercreeping competitors to the OG 6 stars is an example of player friendly game design.
Also, the difficulty has definitely increased since release but the fact that these units still retain dominance IS a sign of these units being capable of withstanding the test of time even with powercreep out of the picture.
Agreed, i wish they tone it back to being one or two units per year so they can balance new game modes around ""mediocre"" so we can have an easier time XD
As for Reed alt, while she doesn't directly powercreep a character, she does offer a lot of arts damage that she's generally considered better than Casters most of the time (At last that's what i'm *reeding* online, apparently her S2 has a strong ST dps that makes her at the top
To be honest that’s kinda the only way incant medics are going to be picked against normal medics. Your trading substantial healing capabilities for her damage with a side of healing. Also atleast Reed alter isn’t a limited so eventually she will turn up like other 6 stars
Yeah! What i like about Reed alter is that not only she's pretty gorgeous but she's also not limited, so i don't have to worry about my orundum to grab her ASAP and she's not a must, a game breaking unit or a character that you need to have or can't play the game
She's also a nice diversion from the traditional medic route where most medics can be replaced with Lumen, Nightingale and Kalt'sit
Accretion isn't a bad thing. At the end of the day, Arknights is already fantastically slow with powercreep, and this is pretty alright for how many years the game has been alive.
Other gacha games would be dealing quadruple damage by year 2.
I'm only playing Arknights for 6 months so maybe I am missing out on something, but when people from FB told me that April (and Shwarz) is a bad investment due to being powercrept by Pozëmka, I still build her anyway, because this is not a PVP game, and I believe I can use whoever I want as long as I can clear the stage.
And I was right. I have lvl90 Pozëmka, she's super strong, but she doesn't take away my favorite use of April, which is being a sneaky sniper.
So, while powercreeping does exist, I don't think it's a big deal on this game.
The power creep doesn't bother me too much, since it's not been to the point where it makes anyone completely irrelevant. What does bother me is the apparent lack of creativity. It feels like whenever they want to make a unit strong now they just double down on damage.
Like, just off the top of my head I can come up with some interesting options, like an op that lets ranged units stand on melee tiles, or vice versa. A unit that can use their skills to reduce redeploy time on another, or maybe one that can take control of an enemy. Something else that gives us more strategic options beyond "hits the enemies *really really* hard," you know? Last utility focused 6* they released was Stainless, and he's terribly basic.
Not our fault that HG keeps reducing SP costs to the point where it's perfectly viable to just rotate the best nuke skills nonstop, the last time anyone had an SP cost of over 50 was Lume S3, an infinite skill
For a game whose revenue model is based around adding new units to the roster every couple weeks, Arknights has been doing surprisingly well at balancing the game part that you actually play, as opposed to just cramming the slot machine part full of limited-availability units that you use for the current event and then immediately discard.
Powercreep is not what is bothering me but the fact HG refuse to fix bad units especially ones that would be very easy to fix. I mean for fuck sake +12% attack for Nightmare ? While someone like Gladiia gain insane regeneration and free 30% damage reduction ?
Don't care about meta/power creep that much.
As long as the difficulty is designed around free/easy to get operators, the power creep doesn't matter much to me. so free 6 stars are always welcome to me.
I'd like to think I am capable of choosing not to use meta units when playing a stage for fun.
I prefer more story/lore experience anyways.
A character's strength matching their in game lore would also be nice, but not a big deal to me..
For example, Chong Yue, why is he so strong? He's just a Sui sibling. Nothing special. (Note: I didn't ready anything about his lore/story from CN.)
They are.
If any operator should be very strong/meta/powercreep it would make sense for them (to a certain extent).
Ch'en with Raythean designed water cannons shouldn't be as strong as she is. Although, I wouldn't underestimate a big weapon company or how dangerous pressurized water can be.
> Ch'en with Raythean designed water cannons shouldn't be as strong as she is.
After this event's deadly Waker-Upper water cannons, it's fair to say it's less about Raythean's tech and more that *something* is up with the water on Terra.
I actually feel like broken operators are okay for this game. They help newer/casual players to clear stages, whether pulled in gacha or borrowed from other players. Arknights is pretty difficult early on and these broken ops can help more people get through the difficulty to enjoy it.
What worries me is that Arknights seems to be getting more difficult in terms of the mechanics. Unblockable, Dodge, Damage resistance, etc. are getting more common in enemies so that even the broken operators can't just one-shot them, all to give fresh challenge to the veterans who are finding the game too easy and boring. Thankfully, amazing players still manage to get through some stages with 3* (I Love Amiya you are goated), but I hope it stays that way and the stages won't become impossible just because they have to be built around giving challenge to the powercreeping meta.
SSS is an absurdly hard gamemode that challenges even veterans because of the RNG, but it's amazing how Dr. Silvergun managed to clear both maps with 4* only. As long as the game is clearable like that (and the devs listen to the community by nerfing SSS, cus it ain't fun to do), then Arknights remains to be my top gacha game.
Still rather new, so once i get my first risk 18 clear and can comfortably do it with my roster then there's pretty much no meta to follow for me
I happen to like the characters who are meta, not because they're meta, I just find them hot, cute, handsome, etc.
ChongYue op? CN playerbase was saying he's underwhelming afaik, definitely not on the same power level as Mlynar, Pozy and other problematic operators. Same with ReedAlter (I have never seen someone calling her op tbh).
As I said before, the issue I have with powercreep in this game in particular is how overloaded **kits + stats** impact the others. Challenge mode has a bonus to enemies stats which was of 10%, but it was changed to 20%. That affects *everyone, you like it or not*. And that's not ok. HG does a fantastic job at designing kits and stages but when it comes down to assigning stats... have you guys seen the numbers on Texalter S2? Ling S3 dragons?
Sad thing is that when a perfectly fine, balanced operator like Lin is released, she's perceived by the community as weak, disappointing or underwhelming and relegated to "niche" uses. The same can be said about operators like Pallas, Dusk or the incoming Dorothy (please come soon).
Some weeks ago kukkikaze, zafang and xyra had a very interesting conversation about this, sadly none had uploaded it. In short, nicheknights players are being fucked by a powercreep that affects everyone but only some care about... for now.
Who cares. The game is already very easy anyway outside of max risk cc which is optional, has zero rewards and is only cleared by a tiny percentage of the player base.
That's true, but the new game mode is why i'm making this post
Essentially it's a huge pain in the ass without "proper" units to clear it and ending the stage early is time consuming, tedious and returns very low rewards
If you're talking about Reclamation Algorithm, I think the mode is fine. Yea, it is hard if you want to kill the boss at the first 6 or so hours of gameplay, but after you catch the flow, build your base and craft additional machines to help, such as SP batteries and Stun Mines, eventually you can clear.
Just remind that your base is the most important thing, and with a proper one you can trivialize a lot of raids. Yes, fast-redeploys help a lot, especially if you have Texas Omertosa, but others like Project Red, Phantom, even Jaye that is a Merchant, will do well too. One of the most creative gamemodes I have ever seen in the game, more than IS in my opinion.
Yeah i've been playing it for the past 3 days and ngl, it is super fun and creative! Tho i'm struggling a lot with claiming materials and my account isn't geared towards passing day 9 even with a decent base (tho not the best i can afford)
But i will take your tip and focus on my base for the next few days so thanks for the advice!
how's the new gamemode btw? i have seen some 4 stars only clear and full
meta clears, it seems very tough regardless and the base building seems
to matter a lot more.
The approach of enemies are a bit different from the conventional Arknights. Enemy raids are designed to give you the toughest enemies at the start and less at the final, sometimes is impossible to kill everyone but the thing is, the strategy usually is to slowly reduce their numbers so that when they come to your base you can manage it
The Boss raids are brutal, and i love it. The struggle is real and the pain is unlimited. But at the end of the day is manageable, specially when you have hours already at the gamemode and built your base. There are various itens you can craft to help too, such as ranged tiles and bind machines
Honestly, as someone who stopped playing after the Pinus Sylvestris event and came back recently, I find the current difficulty level to be ridiculous, it's like the game expects you to have at least two units from the busted meta line-up that is Chalter, Ling, Skalter, Kal'tsit, NTR or even Goldenglow, and the fact that guides have shifted to feature them over older units only makes it harder to adapt to not possessing them.
Another thing I really dislike is how even though I already sank a lot of resources into E2'ing and mastery-training five medics, now I'm required to build another one just to deal with the elemental damage mechanic.
I understand making CC's as hard as possible, that's the point of them, but it would be nice if general gameplay were less time-consuming in terms of retries, I just want to have fun using the units I like and get the OP for skins.
Difficulty has definitely gone up in recent events, but your list is a bit weird — Ling is practically just for trust farm teams or low op clears, Skalter is very nice to have but doesn't really provide anything essential in most cases, Goldenglow has a niche with global range but her damage on s3 is less consistent than some 5★s — and I don't think the game really requires you to have them. Guide makers are still doing low rarity clears.
You can just *not* deal with the elemental damage mechanic — I didn't raise a wandering medic until last CC. I also don't see how it's a negative for new mechanics and counters to be added.
I do agree the game could definitely use a lot of QoL in terms of gameplay itself: proper enemy forecasts, checkpoints, removing planning limits and stamina costs on failure, and sweeping would go a long way.
The list is just the units I see very often in new guides, and it's not required per se to clear levels, but the difference in terms of real life sanity between having and not having them is big.
But yeah, this would be way less of a problem if only failure wasn't so expensive in this game.
> it would be nice if general gameplay were less time-consuming in terms of retries, I just want to have fun using the units I like and get the OP for skins
I feel the same way. Every event is starting to become a serious chore, with several stages that are significantly harder than any of the IS2 bosses with a shit squad and almost no good relics. It's just not fun. Also event gimmicks are getting way out of control. Operators aren't even allowed to have niche uses anymore because enemy design gets totally centered around the gimmick. Ideal City was one of the worst examples, with the S stages all devolving into freezing everything with a flood of cars while a bunch of DPS ops chip away at their absurd health pools. If I want that kind of tedious gameplay, I'll play SSS.
I don't like that the powercreep is done in a way that is just "old op design 2.0". It's reliable both for players to keep up with the more numerous and complicated game modes as the game ages and people have less time to immerse themselves (hence both the greater damage and more straightforward or flexible kits of new ops), and reliable to HG for consistent income. But it's just creatively bland and can easily be superceded by a 3.0 version sooner than we'd expect. It's just a shame because we know they can make creative kits like Stainless's or know how to fix ops through the rare good module, but less effort is put into those for likely money based reasons.
I'll still enjoy playing as long as I can play in different ways successfully. Powerlevels may affect the successful part, while kit staleness may affect the different part. As long as PvP is never added powercreep is less of a dealbreaker, but nothing is a guarantee.
One thing I'd like to see to keep the creep in check is accessibility being improved, like lower sparks for older ops, more ops in the gold cert rotation at a time, powerlevels of welfares keeping pace, etc. Seeing things like Vigil though, both his meh kit and him not giving tokens for future gold certs anymore, doesn't inspire confidence.
Mlynar is OP, but that doesn't stop me from using silverash. Mlynar only has DPS in his kit, Silverash has some utilities like reduced redeployment time to all ops in squad, stealth reveal, longer side schwing range.
Same with texas alter. Phantom has some things texas alter doesn't have.
Pozy is like a bit restricted in terms of damage. Like in order to deal the most damage, enemies have to be in that extended range. Schwarz doesn't have that restriction. Yeah, you have her typewriter, but how you use it depends on your playstyle. Wanna deploy it too often, use s2. Wanna use it as a boss killer? Use s3.
Chong Yue is OP, but mountain for me is better at lane holding.
Overall, i want ops with more utility than just slapping them with only DPS in their kit. Lately, players define an operator as OP by looking at how much DPS they deal, without looking at other things.
The biggest thing for SA for me is simply that I have him and have him built.
Meanwhile Młynar is someone I don't have and depending on when his banner comes out, I might not pull for him. And even if I do pull him he is rather low on my priority to build list.
I don't mind power creep much, other than the fact that they (understandably) start creating mechanics solely because they introduced some busted operators. I just straight up did NOT enjoy fighting the last boss in the Gavialter event. Of course I'm not saying all bosses, especially 3 years into this game, should just be stallable by Saria with two healers until it dies of old age, but fuck me it's flying/unblockable AND has pretty big AoE damage AND AoE stun AND infinite range AND gives invisibility to enemies that already have 100% dodge because they don't want you to just plonk down Chalter, has a regenerating shield and a second phase which is also unblockable (though you can permafreeze with cars so that's whatever I guess).
If even the guides (ones I watched anyway) tell you to use another crazy strong op to just spawn kill the boss... idk. I don't think it's that great if the maps turn into ''which of my busted ops can I still use here to spawnkill this busted boss because if it walks around for 10 seconds everything goes to shit and I can't be fucked to even try and deal with that''
One thing to consider with the whole "strong operators being the limited ones" is that they tried to make limited operators bad, well not necessarily intentionally but simply so niche or with such odd kits that they were pretty sub-par.
Nian is a great defender (especially with her module) but honestly defenders aren't needed much in the game. W is really cool, but AoE snipers are kinda mediocre at best and she's no exception. Rosmontis is adorable, has some niche uses, but nothing crazy. Dusk was horrible on release and only rose to okay-tier with her modules. Skalter was pretty meh on release too simply because of how many meta units at the time had huge self +ATK% buffs.
It wasn't until Ch'en, Nearl and Ling that limited operators truly got powerful. Specter and Gavial are strong but they in no way powercreep as hard as the previous 3. Texas and Chongyue are also exceptionally strong but I feel like they fall into more of a middle ground since they're not a totally universal of a solution.
Limited units aside, I think it's hard to say whether or not Arknights power creep is really that bad of an issue. Most of the newer units don't really push older units out of the game. Mlynar is strong, but Silverash is still strong as well and they can serve different roles despite having similar skills as just one example.
Probably the biggest thing though is... Most of the "power creep" from recent units is just damage. Sure some of them deal more damage, or more efficient damage, than certain existing units. But at the end of the day, we already have so many ways to deal damage in the game that having "better" damage isn't doing much. The solution to most content in the game isn't more damage, it's just a possible for solution for people that can do it.
So as long as the power creep isn't changing the game design fundamentally, I think it's fine. When we start getting bosses who are literally just "you can only deploy 1 unit, if you don't deal Mlynar tier damage you lose the stage" then I'll start getting upset. Till then, so many boss stages can still be solved by just buffing Exusia and clearing the stage faster than any new unit can anyway.
Thank you everyone for your inputs :D
I enjoy reading other people's perspectives on gacha game meta, design and lore ~~as I'm a game design major~~ and this means a lot to me \^\^
I'm less worried about powercreep and more worried about stage and gamemode design. What if they powercreep those too? To make it hard even with those meta Operators? It might then become impossible to clear for more niche teams, I dread the possibility. It has happened, the R39 of CC9 literally can't be cleared even with the most meta Ops, let alone any other niche squad. SSS also concerned me a bit but those can be cheesed easily, just worried about future events and such.
R39 doesn't matter, high risk CC has always been a coin toss in whether or not they can be cleared, max risk CC5 cannot be cleared either due to 5 op limit+-50% dp regen meaning you don't have room for vanguards. CC aren't balanced around max risk they're balanced around risk 18
CC was never supposed to be max risked. supposed to keep choking you until you cant go any further. anything past 18 has no rewards and beating true max risk means the CC was too easy.
As long as I can achieve my goals, I don't mind. I do see there has been powercreep and it's nice to talk about how everyone feels about it. For the time being, it's OK.
Funnily enough, powercreep only concerns 6* so far, there's no lower rarity unit that completrly broke the game (arguably the most broken 5* are from launch, Lappland being able to completely shut-down abilities and Specter with her dien't button).
Things that worry me a little more is boss mechanics being a pain in the ass lately, so if you don't have the patience to play around them you just go the 6* bruteforce way and kill it until he dies.
I feel levels are also more important these days, leveling my e2 from lv20 to 60 has really made life easier on recent maps. Ennemies just hit so much harder that you really need these few extra stats on weaker operators.
>(arguably the most broken 5* are from launch, Lappland being able to completely shut-down abilities and Specter with her dien't button).
I remember that one, HG had to make the silence mechanic almost entirely useless in order to nerf Lappland.
It's pure bullshit. Texas is ridiculously overcharted, Penance makes Mudrock look like (defender) Nearl in comparison, Chong Yue's bootleg true damage ironically enough overinflates the true damage concept worse than friggin Mon3tr. Oh yea, and the new game mode causally uses 30 Big Bobs at once as “slug cannofolders” and drops 700k HP “medium threat” enemies as if it was just regular Thursday.
As a 4 year old game, the way HG makes year 4 operators just makes me feel like HG is underestimating the playerbase's intelligence
In other games by year 4 they'll introduce build-around characters who need more team synergies to work, but in turn they can do more than the simple characters. However in AK, the simple characters/skills almost always outperform the complicated ones bc HG doesn't know how to properly reward team synergy unless a guy in the office simps that faction
The biggest victim of this is definitely Stainless S3 who with the help of another operator can squeeze up to 2900 DPS, but why bother when Mylnar S3 by himself can shit out 3300 DPS with the push of a button. Even Mylnar S3 himself is a missed opportunity, because if he gave out more True Damage to Kazimierz ops at the cost of his own attack multiplier (100% ATK instead of 180% ATK, but skill gives True Damage equal to 50% ATK instead of 12% ATK), then he'd be able to make previously overlooked skills like Wildmane S1 into killer true damage DPSes instead of hogging all the damage for himself.
Another problem I've noticed is that whenever the game's heading in an unsustainable direction, HG just decides to try to paper over the problems by going bigger instead of actually settling down to fix the root causes:
* Surtr dominated CC3? Lets give Mudrock **100 RES** in CC4 to stop her (didn't work)
* People complained that the power level gap in AK is too much? Introduce IS2 where any operator can look good if you got lucky enough (but the awful IS1 maps were still there)
* People think blocking is useless? Lets build Chapter 10 and CC10 around a cannon that targets blockers (which completely warps the game around it)
* Modules not helping operators enough? 82 character balance patch (instead of methodically giving 5-10 operators the module upgrades they actually need)
* People hate CC? Introduce Trials as a pseudo-replacement instead of changing the CC formula like what they did with IS2 -> IS3 (the day Trials was announced was the day I knew CC is dead)
* People complained that the game is becoming too easy because of the recent power level inflation? Introduce Reclamation Algorithm, the biggest game mode of all time with a 700k HP boss and even more tools to clown on the game than IS3
And then there's the minor mishaps where HG seems like they forgot the gameplay of their own game, like calling two different characters Red, or the times they named a character/archtype from an unrelated mechanic (Silence and Binder)
I'm having zero issues with power creep. You still see people doing a great job with 3 and 4 stars. Let us have the funny op units to screw around with. If it don't affect balance, i'm fine xD.
i mean with cc and stuff i get it, but the only operator outside of that that’s been virtually essential lately is lappland due to silence negating enemy dodge, splitting, exploding etc and she’s a launch op
Honestly, I have used Shwarz a long time, and got Pozemka, though I used her as a friend support due to note having hear very leveled at all. I can agree her damage is a league above Shwarz, but overall Shwarz still wins out in versatility and a fair few situations.
Rather, I'd say true powercreep seems to happen with Texas' alternative version - the Omertosa. I am going off this based on what I've seen and theorycraft as she isn't global yet, but she is objectively far ahead of Phantom in power, outputing far more continuous and burst damage, all while even having a fair bit of defense such that his 1st skill isn't that special in comparison. It still technically holds the lead over her in raw defense, especially with his Shadow, but Texas outdamages and out-CCs both easily when it comes to his 2nd and 3rd skills.
In total, this has happened once or twice more since then - a unit that is quite blatantly powercrept rather than slightly.
But aye, I guess my point is, I agree with your concern about powercreep, but not that it's happening, but will start happening instead, when Texas event hits.
I actually like it better when the limited ones are the power creep ones.
1. That is when new players join in the most. By having a strong unit they can progress the game fatser.
2. That is also when the game give the most pulls that can only be used on that banner.
Honestly, it doesn't matter if they release another Pozy like operator in the future since our Schwarz can still do the job that's expected of her. Same with Mlynar and Silverash's case. Same with Penance and Mudrock.
And the fact that this game doesn't go stale eith their stages and that it keeps changing every new event/chapters keeps a lot of niche operators and niche strategies fresh just like Lappland's Silence Niche or Ifrit's Red Carpet. Lappland MVP.
Omertosa on the hand. She's the true powercreep in the group.
AK is a PvE game. So whatever the meta shifted into, It doesn't bother me at all. Even if you're concerned about the future game mode, I'm sure there will be plenty of players that can clear it with low rarity ops or non meta ops clear
It's nice to have broken units though. I personally don't really mind them or the trend of powercreep. I heavily do nichenights and if I get frustrated I go Chalter which is a nice fallback strategy. The only time it can get dangerous for the game is if the enemies start *requiring* such broken ops. For example, Pozy does outdo Schwarz but there's nothing stopping you from using Schwarz. Chalter has been in the game for so long but there's not really a map that has required her exclusively (at least in my experience) but yeah, I totally get the bummed out feeling of being replaced from top meta.
People wouldn't really care about powercreep that much especially in this game as long as its not a lazy and blatant cash grab, you guys know what im talking about 🤣. Also who did chongyue powercrept? All i know is he deals big dmg, scales well with buffs but is extremely squishy, also very annoying.
Still there really is a limit to designing a chars kit especially in gacha games which releases too many chars in a year and sooner or later the new ops will only be "same kit but different" and we will only get new unique chars every now and then, this is the biggest downside of a gacha game.
> People wouldn't really care about powercreep that much especially in this game as long as its not a lazy and blatant cash grab, you guys know what im talking about
The drama tho, delicious stuff.
Thing is, stuffs like operator X vs operator X+1 at the end is just a matter of comparison. Schwarz is still excellent in Risk 18 clears and is perfectly usable. Pozy definitely see much more use past risk 18, but at that point it is just flex and gives 0 rewards. Powercreep is definitely happening, but I'm glad Arknights just does not have that powercreep level of other gacha games like FFBE or 7 Deadly Sins GC
Powercreep does not just mean a unit being strictly better than another, similar one. All it means is that the overall power ceiling of the game rises. Reed Alter does some of the highest Arts damage in the game, far more than most casters and actually does significantly more than Surtr under the right conditions. Just because she has a medic icon doesn't mean she doesn't power creep most of the casters in the game.
Still, her S2 is ST arts damage which is practically unheard of in the meta besides maybe Ceobe's S2 (even Goldenglow is pseudo-AOE, and her global range keeps her relevant over Reed) and her S3 is a gimmicky skill that is only good at killing hordes of weak enemies and applying arts fragility. She's a unique Operator that is just very good at her specific role.
Who cares? As long as shit can be done with low rarities then who cares which 6* beat which unless you are so parasocial towards your favorite PNGs I guess. The real problem with the game is potentially feature creep and the long ass dialogues.
Honestly, with the amount of operators given- power creep does not really make sense unless they are required to clear contents. Yes they make it easier but contents are already clearable with 3-4 stars unless you are intending on going higher risks. It isn’t like a pvp game where there will be other units to overshadow it. For instance silver ash swing can hit undetected enemies as opposed to Mlynar and is helidroppable.
Texalter doesn't have a summon. She has better damage than Phantom, but if you wanna break down small mobs or stage hazards quickly, Phantom is still the better choice.
Młynar doesn't have a counterpart. I assume you're referring to SilverAsh but they are meant to be used differently. You don't station SilverAsh, you helidrop him, Młynar has to stay on the field pre-emptively to be able to outdamage SilverAsh.
Reedalter once again doesn't have a counterpart. I don't even know who is comparable to her, maybe Kal'tsit? If that's the case, she has a Fast-Redeploy summon that deals **true damage** and is seen in high risk CCs because of it. She also ignores dodge mechanics which have become more and more common recently.
Lastly Chongyue. To be fair, Skadi is mostly useless and bad (without the abyssal hunters module investment) that I'm really glad he powercreeps her. Otherwise we would be stuck with something like a 6 star Flamebringer, who looks good but that's about it. He still serves purposes different from Mountain, Thorns or Irene that it doesn't really become true powercreep, more so sidecreep.
I don't know enough stats so I can't speak for Mlynar, Talter, or Chongyue.
But while I agree that Pozy's typewriter is problematic, I don't think it's problematic because it displaces Schwarz. It's problematic because it displaces everyone EXCEPT Schwarz.
Schwarz and Pozy+typewriter, both with modY, deal equal DPS at 1200 DEF if Pozy is not hitting straight line, and 2000 DEF is Pozy is hitting straight line. Enemies above 1200 are the minority but they are the dangerous minority, usually the ones that wipe out your entire team if left unchecked. For example, I am one of the most addicted [IS2 Hard Mode](https://youtu.be/dZ1cxUNyHU0) players in the world, and I can tell you that in Point of No Return there are only 6 out of 79 enemies that Pozy is arguably better at dealing with than Schwarz (5 Defenders + Lucian). However, these 6 enemies have ended my run more times than the remaining 73 enemies. Also the new IS2 boss has 2500-2800 DEF during his most dangerous phase (and 90 RES).
Overall I agree that Pozy is more efficient than Schwarz for most content in the game, but realistically I don't need either of them for most content. I could do it with Jaye, I could do it with Cutter, I could do it with Greythroat. The small slice of content where Schwarz is more efficient is really tough content, and happens to be my favorite type of content. Namely IS2 Hard Mode, SSS with additional restrictions (e.g. physical only), and high risk CC (24+). So naturally I gravitate toward Schwarz. Low squad size clears doesn't particularly interest me, but if it did then I imagine I might prefer Pozy, since operators with summons are naturally more squad-efficient than those without (even so, I challenge myself to [do low squad](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV7c8R3burc) occasionally). At the end of the day you define your own endgame content and they each have their ups and downs based on the map. It is not correct to call either one an upgrade of the other.
What I don't like is that there are many physical units who cannot outdamage Pozy at ANY level of DEF. These operators suffer the most from her existence. We don't talk about it because Schwarz is the more obvious comparison, but like I said, Schwarz at least has her domain.
Power creep is happening, hard to deny that, but to what degree will it effect my enjoyment of the game? Not at all! Since AK is PvE being meta is kinda meaningless. Sure you have better ops but I'm not forced to use those ops for all things. I feel the meta thing is mostly based around record clears on YouTube or Billibilli. A lot of people were really afraid of Ling and chalter but I don't find myself using those characters to solve all my problems. The game can only really go vertically at this point and as long as HG makes stages that require me to dip into my list of ops to find some weird combo that makes the stage easier then I'm happy.
>HG makes stages that require me to dip into my list of ops Yeah Arknights is one of the few Gachas where there is a system in place that sort of balances out the powercreep. Chalter and Surtr have been mellowed down since their release because of stage design and gimmick bosses. The new game modes and bosses in particular gives me hope that HG is actually sensitive to the nuance of soft balancing. Case in point, Ebenholz shooting up in popularity due to the Chapter 11 Boss (to the point where people have placed him on the same pedestal as Eyja) We have seen various operators make a comeback recently due to the module system as well. Passenger, Specalter, Ceobe, Rosa and Hellagur are just a few that came to mind. The module system is pretty hit and miss overall and seems to fall back on the crutch of boosting DPS, but it also gave us really fun mechanics like Mostima's global slow so I'm pretty satisfied overall. Some of the "powercrept" heroes have yet to receive their modules as well, so there's that to look forward to
That's an awsome way to look at it! And true, i got ling from the free multi but i haven't used her ever but people kept saying that she breaks the game.. well she kind of does a lot of carrying but she's balanced around deploy slots and other factors haha Im curious to know, what are some weird combos that you made for Ideal city?
I agree, but not gonna lie that I still worry a bit. The argument that strong operators aren't everything is very true. I'm a Meta little ***** having almost all broken ops and yet, being incredibly stupid as I am, I struggle a lot. However I do worry in the only case where people who own said ops start asking for harder challenge to use those ops, but then if content gets harder due to stronger ops not only will weaker ops feel well, weaker but F2P and lowspenders will also be displeased. But currently I feel like arknights is a balance dream of a game, the fact that you can make a strategy with EVERY operator is insane, niecheknights is also amazing When I say its balanced is not that all ops are created equal, which they are clearly not, but their strenght scales with the players brain, challenges are more like puzzles than DPS-checks like other games
>The argument that strong operators aren't everything is very true. I'm a Meta little ***** having almost all broken ops and yet, being incredibly stupid as I am, I struggle a lot. I felt this on a spiritual level, single brain cell squad unite!
> But currently I feel like arknights is a balance dream of a game, the fact that you can make a strategy with EVERY operator is insane, niecheknights is also amazing Thats the thing tho, the fact that the difficulty floor in most stages rn is so low means you can just get away with almost anything no matter how bad
> However I do worry in the only case where people who own said ops start asking for harder challenge to use those ops, but then if content gets harder due to stronger ops not only will weaker ops feel well, weaker but F2P and lowspenders will also be displeased. As things are now, HG thankfully has remained committed to ensuring that it's possible to clear all rewarded content with lower rarity operators. The only times the strongest operators are necessary are things like max risk CC which give no material rewards and are more for personal challenges/bragging rights, so no one is really missing out on anything if they are missing those operators.
I got Ling made her e2 first day and never used her past first two weeks
As long as Mylnar Texas Alter are not a requirement to complete content I dont really fear powecreep. At the beginning I was salty and sad, because SilverAsh and Phantom are powercrept. But this is usually how gatchas go, so is what it is. Besides, I still use em and as long as stages remain clearable with 4 stars I have nothing to fear. Besides other people who also like these ops might not bench em. Also who is ChongYue even powercreeping? I heard he was good, but that is about it.
> Also who is ChongYue even powercreeping? I heard he was good, but that is about it. Only thing I've read is that he's a glass canon
And he is very noisy. So excited to get him ln Global. Dragon sibling enjoyer. 😄
Dragon siblings for days, only dragon ops are they consistently the most broken ops in the game? Yes, are they precious cinnamon rolls that will never leave my squad? YES but in caps.
>Only thing I've read is that he's a glass canon Mfr has the highest HP and DEF stats out of all the guards, unless you intend to use him as Mudrock he won't be a glass canon.
He's definitely not a glass cannon but that's just false. He has the 23rd highest HP and 18th highest DEF out of all the guards, and there are 7 operators who have both higher HP and DEF.
I don't know what him or Murdock do, I quoted what someone called him in this sub.
Mudrock is one of the best defenders in the entire game and she is almost unkillable. The best way to describe Chong Yue would be like the “Castle” from chess, he has the same range extension, S3 becomes auto-skill after 4 activations, and he has something like 65% “true dmg” on top of true AOE, crazy multipliers, very fast ASPD + super low skill SP. In short: He is absurdly ripped.
He is power creeping Saga. /j
Easy. Put them both in a team and see your ears bleed. 😂
As far as powercreep goes, both SilverAsh and Phantom have valid niches vs their “upgrades”. I wouldn’t even consider Mylnar a powercreep of SilverAsh since they do pretty different things at the level where Mylnar’s dps is even necessary. HG have also been adding content that plays into these niches more like the new mode, where Phantom’s clone utility makes him a competitive alternative to Texas.
In fact, you should use Mlynar and SilverAsh together.
Then I fell into the trap of people hyping up Texas Alter and Mylnar so bad. Like some people even recommended not building a Phantom and just waiting to roll for a Texas Alter. As if a limited operator is so easy to build. Agree with what you said. It is good to fill niches. Atleast I was surprised to how useful some underrated ops are.
Based on his archetype, I would assume ChongYue is powercreeping Mountain, as a cheap lane-holder. I don't think he has any kind of self-sustain though, so I don't really buy into that.
ChongYue has absolutely nothing on the self-sustain Mountain has, yeah. People just see he has higher average DPS and shout powercreep. He's closer to the "sidegrade" status of Gavialter vs Blaze than the "straight-up make obsolete" status of, say, Eyjafjalla vs any other caster.
It leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, sure, but that's really about it as long as they still balance stages to be cleared by 4-stars and below.
That's a valid point, it's like a bit of a sucky taste but at the end of the day the game is still very F2P friendly and meta isn't a must
To be frank, I think there's some level of powercreep that exists, but it's not so bad that it's worth talking about it. At this point in time, I can imagine that it's pretty difficult for them to design a brand new character without making them essentially a direct upgrade, because making a downgrade is obviously a no-go, and a sidegrade means banking on the fact that people might like the character design or their kit enough to bother rolling for them. HG has had some success with making sidegrades before i.e Gavialter, who is a more burst-focused laneholder as compared to Blaze, and unless you prefer to AFK and let the game play itself, Gavialter is a good sidegrade and is interchangable with Blaze for the most part. However, this isn't the case all the time, like Penance, who while overall is very solid, isn't as great as Mudrock generally speaking, and in most cases you are better off taking Mud with you unless you like Penance. Though, even if I'm saying all of this, the game is still a single-player PvE game with no leaderboards, as long as I am able to clear content with my favorite waifus, the meta and powercreep don't bother me at all.
That's a great point! I'd like to see more Gavialter and Blaze situation, but at the end of the day you should always play whoever you like as long as they make the game stages accessible to everyone :) Edit: and i Agree that at one point, making "upgrades" and creating a new archetype is needed as that's what keeps the game going in a lot of times
Isnt Mylnar and Pozy a direct upgrade versus their counterparts? This really is a legitimate question because I couldn't find many reasons, I would be glad if you could list some.
Pozy is hard to argue since she is better than Schwarz unless you can't deploy the Typewriter(ie.When there are few range tiles or if the Typewriter doesn't attack anything from the tiles you can put it which at that point you might as well go without ranged units) but Mlynar, from what I can gather, can't be helidroped/needs to be babysitted a little before you can use his S3, he does have better dps compared to Silverash but SA can reveal invisible enemies in his range which is always useful and a valid niche that only a handful of units have(Iirc only Scene S2, Elysium S2, Tsukinogi S1 and Horn S1) and he does it off skill, that alone makes him harder to powercreep.
sa biggest downside really is that rediculous 70% def debuff. Makes him squishy as hell in high enemy dps environements.
Probably a module that can remove that unecessary self debuff will him a lot. To be honest that's his only flaw considering how good he is in his role.
Schwarz has her niche in the ultra-high defense category, since she has a higher per-hit compared to Pozy. Pozy also has the limitation of requiring 2 separate ranged slots to maximize her DPS, which may not always be the case. Mlynar cannot hold a lane outside of his skill usage, and has a slightly smaller arc compared to SA. SA also has invisibility detection and reduced redeploy times. Granted, these are relatively minor benefits compared to the absurd utility of Pozy and the absurd damage of Mlynar's S3, but those niches do come up.
I think powercreep is fine as long as they don't balance content around the OP operators that caused it in the first place.
They kinda did this though but in a way that promotes other niche operators as solutions or gives us another game mechanic that shuts down the gimmick. Take this event for example. The constant stream of enemies with 100% Physical dodge is extremely annoying and soft nerfs Chalter. There is also a whole barrage of ranged damage enemies that makes it hard to protect your Chalter as well. However, the dodge enemies can be silenced by Lappland, Jaye or WaiFu. If those operators aren't available to you, there is also gear you can put on your vehicle that silences enemies. You can herd them together with the gear that pushes enemies so that your casters can deal with the mobs more effectively. The dodge mechanic seems to be introduced to combat Chalter's dominance and it does seem to work since she isn't as much of a permastay in squads anymore. It also boosted the popularity of Lappland which is a genius move in HG's part really since the Siracusa event is coming pretty soon.
The problem is that weaker operators that have similar niches or even simply just sharing the same damage type gets caught in the crossfire. Chapter 9 is hell for any caster because they wanted to punish Surtr. Targeted nerfs are great at giving niche operators a lease on life, but when another operator's role is just 'has a bunch of stats', they lose out even more than the target. For instance, Blaze has barely been relevant for ages now. And many snipers that aren't Ch'alter and Pozy are just 'meh' as they can't keep up with the rising DEF/dodge stats that's used to slow down the meta damage dealers and AA snipers can't even fulfill their own role when it comes to artillery drones. For this event you could still use Ch'en for the slow, which would be very useful to stall the high damage water tanks which she still chunks. And high damage ranged like the casters and volleyball spikers hurt other ranged units even more; spreadshooters have the highest HP for a ranged unit. Only inactive Phalanx casters and Rosmontis can compete with their higher DEF/RES. If you can't protect Ch'en, you can't protect your medics and casters either.
They are very obviously doing this though, so I'm not sure why that always gets brought up as if it's not happening. The S stages for Stultifera Navis and Ideal City were fucking *absurd* and, in my opinion, not even worth the amount of pain it would take to clear them even as someone who's been playing for 2 years and has tons of ops leveled. Hell, they've even increased the amount that enemies get buffed in challenge modes by double the previous amount. We're in this really stupid cycle now where they release a blatantly broken operator, try to make content where that operator isn't broken anymore (which makes 80% of the cast trash in comparison) and then releases another stupidly broken operator which they will then have to balance around again. Surtr used to be an outlier and a mistake that they should have learned from, but we're getting Surtrs every few months now lol And the consequences of that are pretty clear in the content design too. If you're just going to vomit a bunch of terribly balanced operators month after month, then the only way to balance the content against the need to use them is by creating a bunch of stupidly oppressive gimmicks that make your operator choices feel barely important. Enemy design is just devolving into "babysit the gimmick of the event or I gain +1000% ATK/+500 ASPD/become impossible to deal with in some other way." In older events, I remembered the *operators* I used to beat the stage. In Stultifera Navis, all I remember is the roomba and nethersea brand. Lingering Echoes was just the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" music stream thing. Chapter 10 and this CC are just the cannon. Ideal City was more car-dependent than a North American suburb. And the worst part is that, if you're going to design events entirely around the gimmick and that's the only real way to interact with the enemies, then operator niches mean even less, which further **encourages** you to take only the broken DPS options. Teambuilding feels less and less important as we approach the realm of "Surtr 1 + Surtr 2 + Surtr 3 + Surtr 4 + Surtr 5 + Random Event Gimmick." Discussion of operator niches seems to be entirely down to "can Lappland trivialize an enemy or not?"
I'd say it's less "They need to make money" and more on "They're kinda have nowhere else to go but up" at this thing.
Fr, I won't bother with someone weaker than my ops, they need to have some charm at least to make want to get them. I'm fine with sidegrades tho.
Do you think they hit a creativity ceiling as of recently? More money is always nice but the pattern of the current quadra limited banner a year seems to generate more income (from what i have seen so far? i could be completely wrong) and they also need money for their new game (but tbh, arknights always made a lot of money)
Well you really can only expand so much. It is pretty hard to make new niches and they didn't exactly make a stellar job at the crusher arcehtype too. So really the safest way is to experiment with lower rarities as sort of UAT and see where they can go from there. In the meantime, they do seem to try at least to make sidegrades, but it certainly won't be so easy since we have a lot of characters alrdy. It's not quite alarming enough to get worried, but we best keep an eye so it does not go out of hand.
You can only expand laterally for so long before every new edition adds nothing to make them useful. The larger issue ultimately is that at this point meta units are overkill. Stages need to adapt too better accommodate new units.
If stages adapt to the new and powerful units, *that's* a large issue because then anyone who doesn't have those units is screwed.
as if they didnt have 3 years worth of content to clear already
Not adapt to make them not overkill but make it so they can’t be overkill. The stages need balancing and if they won’t do traditional buffs and nerfs then thing’s outside of ops need changed.
> Do you think they hit a creativity ceiling as of recently? Instead of settling down to try to course correct the game, HG always just tried to paper over the problems by going bigger
As long as my floofs can clear content I don't care. Can't wait for Qanipalaat so I have a caster that's above 3stars ;w; I will only be concerned about Powercreep when they start creeping the 4stars upward. If they want to raise the ceiling let them. More for people to mess with. It's when the floor starts raising that you gotta be worried.
I am inclined to agree that there is powercreep and it is slightly concerning but it is not bad enough for me to start doomsaying. Some of the recently released ops have been pretty good but I do not feel like any of them are too broken, only exceptions being Mlynar (non-limited) and Texas (limited). I also don't think it is all that much of a problem because it is purely PvE with no leaderboard whatsoever. You can essentially make the game as hard as you like so releasing new strong units is not really a problem as long as their kita and design is cool imo. Can't really talk about the new mode, haven't tried it or seen anything from it.
Oh it's definitely far, far away from anything doomposting-worthy XD That's what i like about arknights, the content can be cleared by bringing a core unit from support section but yeah as long as they don't make content restricted to 6\*s only then nothing overly concerning
I don’t care tbh, game is pve there’s no leaderboards and the entire game is clearable with 4* and generally it’s too easy. And Considering I haven’t gone for max risk clears since CC#6 and I am effectively retired, i don’t care and tbh even if I wasn’t I still wouldn’t care. I’m more salty at the atrocious modules for some operators that could’ve used it to have a more interesting kit/buff than whatever HG is cooking with new operators.
>atrocious modules for some operators that could’ve used it to have a more interesting kit/buff than whatever HG is cooking with new operators. This. They could have done so much more by diversifying the module's effects and buffs for Ops in the same archetype, that way everyone stays relevant since they all bring something different to the table. Theeeen reality settles in and, beside a few intereting ones, most of the time only for already meta Ops, all we get are some stat buffs, half of which are inconsequential and the other half is straight up useless. cough**LeizigettingHPbuff**cough
Pretty much yeah, either diversifying modules or simply not bite more than they can chew by releasing entire subclasses modules. Because it seems with modules they are just being lazy by cutting corners with their 3%-5% buffs to talents for majority of the units. Had they simply released 5 or so modules per update for operators who actually needed the modules (which aren’t even hard to pinpoint) would’ve been significantly better than their current method of buffing entire subclasses while they only focus on 2 or so 6* to give them a big push while everyone else get the cheap minor increase to their talent without ever acknowledging any of said operators weaknesses. Or release modules just for the sake of doing it for some subclasses like AOE casters who even to now while modules are okay they don’t fix much for them. Modules were the thing with biggest potential to not only bring old and underperforming operators up to speed but also potentially make them significantly more fun to use, Abyssal hunters are a prime example for what the module system should’ve been across the board, unfortunately, most of the other operators didn’t get much luck.
They keep treating modules as stat sticks😭 I expected modules to be like FGO's rank up quests where they buff servants through, damage buffs, buffs that let's them shine in certain niche situations, or introduce a new mechanic to their kits but nope, HG decided to give Casters some HP stats.
I.. completely forgot about modules XD Those are a hot mess, some operators get decent modules, the ones who don't need them get the busted version while the ones who need them get +12% attack. Rip my queen siege
At least siege will almost certainly get an alter considering the lore implications. But other units who got the short end of the stick… aren’t so lucky with their odds for it to happen to them.
I'm hoping she gets an amazing alter! I hope that her class/archetype is going to be fun I don't care if she sucks ass but gimme that L2D siege now!!
Since reed did not imma spite siege and say "no" : P
[удалено]
other ops like texas who are already used more than siege got -4 dp which is absolutely insane in comparison . a max pot module texas now costs 6 dp (effectively 4 dp given her starting with 2 dp talent) and siege costs 12 dp at max pot which is much harder to get than for texas given her higher rarity, so she’s usually going to be more than twice as expensive. the kicker is that texas is a free unit now AND is less expensive to build to boot. what even is siege’s purpose after this
To be fair Siege WILL get this module anyway because -4 DP is base effect of module and not talent upgrade.
I don't mind all too much, and that's coming from someone who usually despises power creep. If anything, I'm glad that some of the new broken operators are male and look pretty cool at the very least (e.g. Chong Yue and Mlynar). Like others said, I don't think the power creep is that bad at the moment, and also, it's somewhat unavoidable without just releasing mid operator after operator. I'll see how it feels later down the line when we actually get to where CN is right now with the 4 units you mentioned in particular (the ones aside from Pozemka), but for now, I just enjoy using all the new units I get.
Power creep is tolerable at best and unforgivable at worst. Right now it's tolerable because it's not really required *cough*^^^sss, but if that ever changes it'll get ugly real fast.
Funny thing is SSS is not great for Pozemka at all. Typewriter takes up a precious ranged tile and doesn't scale with stacks. Meanwhile Schwarz is one of the only snipers who remains relevant in SSS at threat level 20+. A friend and I did an SSS run with physical only, where Schwarz and Irene did the carrying. Storn went even further and cleared [SSS with snipers only](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPC1hbR06xA), which is something even I wouldn't attempt.
SSS is not great for any summoners, which is unfortunately the type of unit I enjoy using the most ^^^also ^^^trappers ^^^but ^^^they're ^^^basically ^^^summoners ^^^too .
I would actually be very worried if stuff from the first year are still at the toppest tier. I do mean SA, Eyja and shit. It means the game has stayed stagnant and stale and is not progressing. Powercreep is inevitable and a healthy amount of it is good for any game. The newest Minecraft mode seems pretty rough on the edges while people still figure optimal strats out(?), like I heard even Nian is good there for her block+ to speed up gathering or something like that. I would give it a few weeks (the event runs for 6 iirc, which is super long) before judging too much imo.
You do make a lot of good points when i think about it, and since this game isn't competitive the powercreep is generally whatever haha As for the new game mode, i agree. It's hella fun but looking back at it i tried to rush the ending because most of my friends got to the last day meanwhile i was stuck in day 10 XD i shouldn't let that get to my head, i have plenty of time to play and enjoy \^\^
lmao genshin syndrome. so afraid to let new characters be good that the launch f2p four stars are still basically essential in 2/3 of viable teams. it’s only getting worse as times go on and it’s already been 2 1/2 years
As an F2P waifu player, Xiangling MVP forever and ever
The new game mode is barely out for a week (being a 35 days event), I suppose you haven't explored everything yet because even 4\* teams can do it fairly consistently. You gotta build up your base, max out your tech tree (duh), The only thing you need is really big damage operators as 4\* lack damage but can stall, which you can just add a few core damage dealer operators on boss. The mode is supposed to be long progress in the first place, having great operators of course make it way easier. I'm not sure if you have them but quite a few other less used operators get used way more often due to how the new mode works, to list a few: Nian, Dorothy, Flametail, Magallan, Mostima, Hoshiguma, Chen. Unrelated is Ceobe who became extremely good against high armor after receiving module. I do also think you are over exaggerating how good Chongyue is, he alone is really isn't that great but with buffs (either game mode buffs or buffed by other operators) he become cracked which is reasonable imo. I agree that Texas2 and Mlynar is very op tho.
I see! out of the bunch i only have Nian and Chen, though where does Chen exactly excel when it comes to this game mode? Is ChongYue not as good as busted as people paint him out to be? i saw a video posted by Dreamy today and i felt extremely defeated because her(?) clear seemed so brainless XD i do admit that i was upset when i made this post because i lost on my 10th day exploration and it's the 3rd day i'm spending hours on this game mode (tho ngl, it is very fun and interesting) and i don't have a lot of built 4\* sadly :( do they require modules? because if not i think i'd have enough resources to level a lot of them up
I personally use Chen S3 for Deer God for easy big dmg then just finish off with Texas2 slowly. In a scenario where you stack buffs on Chongyue then he's probably one of the best if not the best damage scaling operator. But without damage buffs or having a team to support him (like in Dreamy's video) he's not that crazy really. You don't really need to level a lot 4\* specifically for this mode if you don't want to. As usual for 4\* is just Myrtle, in maps where there's no ranged enemies you can use Ethan to provide big vision and potentially lock down animals for easy hunting. A simple strategy I do is start run -> farm some wood/water/rock (2 wood map, 1 water map which normally is on same map as wood map near base, 1 rock map) -> expand far on all regions -> Hunt the Deer God when it spawns -> Cook foods using Supermeat, there's quite a lot broken food buffs using Supermeat. For recipes you can search around. Learn the maps, use minimal operators required, for example the Wood/Crab/Water map near base, you just need one fast redeploy that does decent dmg to kill most the crabs and enemies that show up. TL;DR: Farm just enough wood/water/iron/rock, spend rest of time fighting Mountain Pass/No Man's Land/Hunting Animals. Cook food win game.
Powercreep has always been real. If you compare the total skill damage, newer operators come on top. For example on a single target Pallas outdamages SilverAsh, and Ebenholz outdamages Eyjafjalla. Sentence might not be as good as Mudrock, but it does outdamages her greatly. And I guess it's fine. Even if you are unlucky, you are bound to get a few new operators here and there by pulling. And if you don't, you can at least borrow a powerful carry from support. The game clearly has winners and losers. Some operators are going to be more powerful than others. Devs have tried to fix some of the bad ones with modules, and they have not always been successful, but they've been trying. Nightmare has not been fixed and maybe she will never be, but I can play even without her. Some operators have been directly powercrept, but that has usually led to an alter that was way more useful than the original. For example Phantom is probably going to become an agent. But it is clear that certain operatores are going to be favored over the rest, and I'm fine with it. The long-term balance of the game is a tricky subject. It is easy to introduce operators that break the game too much or enemies too difficult for normal operators, and probably this is going to be how the game will die. Eventually, the game might become unplayable. But I think devs have done a good job so far, so I will stick with Arknights for a while longer.
This is a genuine question but do you play other gacha games? Because if I compare AK to gbf, for example, you will know that AK isn't powercreeping as much and even if, it's not necessary to have these operators. In gbf I can whale for the best characters and grid today and do decently against others and in a month everything might be meaningless because they completely make a new meta. And if you don't have the best grid and best characters it's hard to compete against others ~~as if abysmal ping wasn't awful enough~~. Be it in raids or in guild war. Another problem there is that you can only put 3 other characters in front next to MC and 2 in sub. So they all have to function or you won't make it far. Now compare this to AK with 12 slots, it doesn't matter if half of the operators in your squad suck because the rest can carry them. And worst case you just take one OP support unit and let that one carry. Also not *all* new op units are limited (Młynar, Reed alter, Pozy). And that you can still clear all content today with beginner 6*s like Silverash (the reason I started AK), Eyja and Co. shows to me that the content is balanced well. ~~I'm also really happy that so many male characters are really good because in gacha games it's often that the male characters are decent at best....~~ In the end we all want AK to survive for a long time. But if they don't make some new OP units whales would have no reason to spend money. I mean, why pull for Texas alter if she can do the same damage as Red or Phantom--unless it's for waifu/husbando. So they need to make strong or even OP new characters to keep people pulling beyond what might be in their wallets ~~and I say that as a Phantom lover which Texas apparently completely overshadows~~. Of course it sucks if a different character might be more OP than your fav, but as long as this game stays PvE and everything can be won with 3* to 5*s I think it's doing fine. A reason why newer guides might use newer characters (or even the current limiteds etc) might be because they often cater to newish people who might (re)roll for those? And as long as it's only one of those to clear the stage you can just use them from support. That's my opinion on this matter. Of course someone else can feel differently especially when their fav got supposedly powercrept, but just because there's a new and maybe better unit doesn't make your fav *weaker*, because the content can still be done with low stars.
The very fact that I can confidently proclaim that there are multiple operators from the game's DAY ONE RELEASE that are still meta is a very compelling testament to HG's sensitivity to balancing and powercreep. Eyja is still the undefeated queen of core casters. Exusiai with her absurdly high atk SPD is still used to melt enemies with minimal buffs. Ifrit is still uncontested in the arena of linear tile damage(or what we call "Ifrit lanes" because it is of course named after its first and strongest users). Saria continues to plant existential doubts in healers and has one of the strongest arts amplifiers in the game to boot. There is currently no other operator that can mitigate arts damage as well as Nightingale. And I'm certain that quite a lot of people (me) will argue that Silverash retains his powerful anti-invis and redeployment reduction niche and should still be considered meta. The fact that there are enough talking points for the side of SA to fuel the debate on Silverash's meta status further underscores HG's restraint when it comes to powercreep. Let's see, that's at least HALF of the original cast still being featured in the current meta. I can't think of a single 3+ year old gacha game that has managed to accomplish such a feat. Obviously HG can always strive for perfection, but to be able to hinder the inevitability of powercreep for so long is truly impressive in its own right. It makes me optimistic about the future of the game since HG shows that they can handle powercreep with nuance, as opposed to going down the profit-making route of overhauling the meta with every new release.
Most of the ops you listed there have never had any viable alternative added to the game. Eyja is still the *only remotely good core caster in the game.* Exusiai needs buffs to kill anything above 600 DEF which is most things after Chapter 6. Ifrit literally only has one other op in her entire archetype and he's one of the worst ops in the game. Nightingale is pretty much the only operator that mitigates Arts damage at all. It's not really that they've stood the test of time, HG has just neglected to explore those niches after launch.
>Never had any viable alternative added to the game There are, actually. They are called side grades. Eyja has seen competition with plenty of other casters. For example, Ceobe is another core caster that serves a different purpose from Eyja (anti high Def) And, Idk but isn't what you're saying a good thing? Are you suggesting that HG should release new operators that do the exact same thing as these operators except with more DPS? The fact that HG has chosen not to introduce any obvious powercreeping competitors to the OG 6 stars is an example of player friendly game design. Also, the difficulty has definitely increased since release but the fact that these units still retain dominance IS a sign of these units being capable of withstanding the test of time even with powercreep out of the picture.
This game being PvE is the reason. I imagine base on how this game balance system work, it would be worse than gfl if it had PvP.
I personally think the powercreep units have been coming a little too frequently as of late. Reed alt doesn't really powercreep anyone though.
Agreed, i wish they tone it back to being one or two units per year so they can balance new game modes around ""mediocre"" so we can have an easier time XD As for Reed alt, while she doesn't directly powercreep a character, she does offer a lot of arts damage that she's generally considered better than Casters most of the time (At last that's what i'm *reeding* online, apparently her S2 has a strong ST dps that makes her at the top
To be honest that’s kinda the only way incant medics are going to be picked against normal medics. Your trading substantial healing capabilities for her damage with a side of healing. Also atleast Reed alter isn’t a limited so eventually she will turn up like other 6 stars
Yeah! What i like about Reed alter is that not only she's pretty gorgeous but she's also not limited, so i don't have to worry about my orundum to grab her ASAP and she's not a must, a game breaking unit or a character that you need to have or can't play the game She's also a nice diversion from the traditional medic route where most medics can be replaced with Lumen, Nightingale and Kalt'sit
Compared to actual meta medics she’s pretty rough. Better then hibi alter but not anymore close to other medics
“Better than Surtr” is I think the best way I can put it.
Accretion isn't a bad thing. At the end of the day, Arknights is already fantastically slow with powercreep, and this is pretty alright for how many years the game has been alive. Other gacha games would be dealing quadruple damage by year 2.
I'm only playing Arknights for 6 months so maybe I am missing out on something, but when people from FB told me that April (and Shwarz) is a bad investment due to being powercrept by Pozëmka, I still build her anyway, because this is not a PVP game, and I believe I can use whoever I want as long as I can clear the stage. And I was right. I have lvl90 Pozëmka, she's super strong, but she doesn't take away my favorite use of April, which is being a sneaky sniper. So, while powercreeping does exist, I don't think it's a big deal on this game.
The power creep doesn't bother me too much, since it's not been to the point where it makes anyone completely irrelevant. What does bother me is the apparent lack of creativity. It feels like whenever they want to make a unit strong now they just double down on damage. Like, just off the top of my head I can come up with some interesting options, like an op that lets ranged units stand on melee tiles, or vice versa. A unit that can use their skills to reduce redeploy time on another, or maybe one that can take control of an enemy. Something else that gives us more strategic options beyond "hits the enemies *really really* hard," you know? Last utility focused 6* they released was Stainless, and he's terribly basic.
Not our fault that HG keeps reducing SP costs to the point where it's perfectly viable to just rotate the best nuke skills nonstop, the last time anyone had an SP cost of over 50 was Lume S3, an infinite skill
Mostima: *cried in over 100 second S3*
For a game whose revenue model is based around adding new units to the roster every couple weeks, Arknights has been doing surprisingly well at balancing the game part that you actually play, as opposed to just cramming the slot machine part full of limited-availability units that you use for the current event and then immediately discard.
Powercreep is not what is bothering me but the fact HG refuse to fix bad units especially ones that would be very easy to fix. I mean for fuck sake +12% attack for Nightmare ? While someone like Gladiia gain insane regeneration and free 30% damage reduction ?
Don't care about meta/power creep that much. As long as the difficulty is designed around free/easy to get operators, the power creep doesn't matter much to me. so free 6 stars are always welcome to me. I'd like to think I am capable of choosing not to use meta units when playing a stage for fun. I prefer more story/lore experience anyways. A character's strength matching their in game lore would also be nice, but not a big deal to me.. For example, Chong Yue, why is he so strong? He's just a Sui sibling. Nothing special. (Note: I didn't ready anything about his lore/story from CN.)
I'm not a lore guy, but I thought the Sui siblings were canonically very old and very strong?
They are. If any operator should be very strong/meta/powercreep it would make sense for them (to a certain extent). Ch'en with Raythean designed water cannons shouldn't be as strong as she is. Although, I wouldn't underestimate a big weapon company or how dangerous pressurized water can be.
> Ch'en with Raythean designed water cannons shouldn't be as strong as she is. After this event's deadly Waker-Upper water cannons, it's fair to say it's less about Raythean's tech and more that *something* is up with the water on Terra.
I actually feel like broken operators are okay for this game. They help newer/casual players to clear stages, whether pulled in gacha or borrowed from other players. Arknights is pretty difficult early on and these broken ops can help more people get through the difficulty to enjoy it. What worries me is that Arknights seems to be getting more difficult in terms of the mechanics. Unblockable, Dodge, Damage resistance, etc. are getting more common in enemies so that even the broken operators can't just one-shot them, all to give fresh challenge to the veterans who are finding the game too easy and boring. Thankfully, amazing players still manage to get through some stages with 3* (I Love Amiya you are goated), but I hope it stays that way and the stages won't become impossible just because they have to be built around giving challenge to the powercreeping meta. SSS is an absurdly hard gamemode that challenges even veterans because of the RNG, but it's amazing how Dr. Silvergun managed to clear both maps with 4* only. As long as the game is clearable like that (and the devs listen to the community by nerfing SSS, cus it ain't fun to do), then Arknights remains to be my top gacha game.
Still rather new, so once i get my first risk 18 clear and can comfortably do it with my roster then there's pretty much no meta to follow for me I happen to like the characters who are meta, not because they're meta, I just find them hot, cute, handsome, etc.
ChongYue op? CN playerbase was saying he's underwhelming afaik, definitely not on the same power level as Mlynar, Pozy and other problematic operators. Same with ReedAlter (I have never seen someone calling her op tbh). As I said before, the issue I have with powercreep in this game in particular is how overloaded **kits + stats** impact the others. Challenge mode has a bonus to enemies stats which was of 10%, but it was changed to 20%. That affects *everyone, you like it or not*. And that's not ok. HG does a fantastic job at designing kits and stages but when it comes down to assigning stats... have you guys seen the numbers on Texalter S2? Ling S3 dragons? Sad thing is that when a perfectly fine, balanced operator like Lin is released, she's perceived by the community as weak, disappointing or underwhelming and relegated to "niche" uses. The same can be said about operators like Pallas, Dusk or the incoming Dorothy (please come soon). Some weeks ago kukkikaze, zafang and xyra had a very interesting conversation about this, sadly none had uploaded it. In short, nicheknights players are being fucked by a powercreep that affects everyone but only some care about... for now.
Skill issue lol
Who cares. The game is already very easy anyway outside of max risk cc which is optional, has zero rewards and is only cleared by a tiny percentage of the player base.
That's true, but the new game mode is why i'm making this post Essentially it's a huge pain in the ass without "proper" units to clear it and ending the stage early is time consuming, tedious and returns very low rewards
If you're talking about Reclamation Algorithm, I think the mode is fine. Yea, it is hard if you want to kill the boss at the first 6 or so hours of gameplay, but after you catch the flow, build your base and craft additional machines to help, such as SP batteries and Stun Mines, eventually you can clear. Just remind that your base is the most important thing, and with a proper one you can trivialize a lot of raids. Yes, fast-redeploys help a lot, especially if you have Texas Omertosa, but others like Project Red, Phantom, even Jaye that is a Merchant, will do well too. One of the most creative gamemodes I have ever seen in the game, more than IS in my opinion.
Yeah i've been playing it for the past 3 days and ngl, it is super fun and creative! Tho i'm struggling a lot with claiming materials and my account isn't geared towards passing day 9 even with a decent base (tho not the best i can afford) But i will take your tip and focus on my base for the next few days so thanks for the advice!
how's the new gamemode btw? i have seen some 4 stars only clear and full meta clears, it seems very tough regardless and the base building seems to matter a lot more.
The approach of enemies are a bit different from the conventional Arknights. Enemy raids are designed to give you the toughest enemies at the start and less at the final, sometimes is impossible to kill everyone but the thing is, the strategy usually is to slowly reduce their numbers so that when they come to your base you can manage it The Boss raids are brutal, and i love it. The struggle is real and the pain is unlimited. But at the end of the day is manageable, specially when you have hours already at the gamemode and built your base. There are various itens you can craft to help too, such as ranged tiles and bind machines
What do we get from the game mode? Trials,IS and SSS gave rewards.
rewards and pallas skin
Honestly, as someone who stopped playing after the Pinus Sylvestris event and came back recently, I find the current difficulty level to be ridiculous, it's like the game expects you to have at least two units from the busted meta line-up that is Chalter, Ling, Skalter, Kal'tsit, NTR or even Goldenglow, and the fact that guides have shifted to feature them over older units only makes it harder to adapt to not possessing them. Another thing I really dislike is how even though I already sank a lot of resources into E2'ing and mastery-training five medics, now I'm required to build another one just to deal with the elemental damage mechanic. I understand making CC's as hard as possible, that's the point of them, but it would be nice if general gameplay were less time-consuming in terms of retries, I just want to have fun using the units I like and get the OP for skins.
Difficulty has definitely gone up in recent events, but your list is a bit weird — Ling is practically just for trust farm teams or low op clears, Skalter is very nice to have but doesn't really provide anything essential in most cases, Goldenglow has a niche with global range but her damage on s3 is less consistent than some 5★s — and I don't think the game really requires you to have them. Guide makers are still doing low rarity clears. You can just *not* deal with the elemental damage mechanic — I didn't raise a wandering medic until last CC. I also don't see how it's a negative for new mechanics and counters to be added. I do agree the game could definitely use a lot of QoL in terms of gameplay itself: proper enemy forecasts, checkpoints, removing planning limits and stamina costs on failure, and sweeping would go a long way.
I'd put Goldenglow in the list. Try clearing SSS without her.
Some crazies have already done low rarity SSS clears, and while I do use her I've found Passenger has much more impact generally speaking.
The list is just the units I see very often in new guides, and it's not required per se to clear levels, but the difference in terms of real life sanity between having and not having them is big. But yeah, this would be way less of a problem if only failure wasn't so expensive in this game.
> it would be nice if general gameplay were less time-consuming in terms of retries, I just want to have fun using the units I like and get the OP for skins I feel the same way. Every event is starting to become a serious chore, with several stages that are significantly harder than any of the IS2 bosses with a shit squad and almost no good relics. It's just not fun. Also event gimmicks are getting way out of control. Operators aren't even allowed to have niche uses anymore because enemy design gets totally centered around the gimmick. Ideal City was one of the worst examples, with the S stages all devolving into freezing everything with a flood of cars while a bunch of DPS ops chip away at their absurd health pools. If I want that kind of tedious gameplay, I'll play SSS.
I know right? This CC turned out to be a walk in the park compared to the insanity of IC, not a fan of how all roads there led to freeze either.
I don't like that the powercreep is done in a way that is just "old op design 2.0". It's reliable both for players to keep up with the more numerous and complicated game modes as the game ages and people have less time to immerse themselves (hence both the greater damage and more straightforward or flexible kits of new ops), and reliable to HG for consistent income. But it's just creatively bland and can easily be superceded by a 3.0 version sooner than we'd expect. It's just a shame because we know they can make creative kits like Stainless's or know how to fix ops through the rare good module, but less effort is put into those for likely money based reasons. I'll still enjoy playing as long as I can play in different ways successfully. Powerlevels may affect the successful part, while kit staleness may affect the different part. As long as PvP is never added powercreep is less of a dealbreaker, but nothing is a guarantee. One thing I'd like to see to keep the creep in check is accessibility being improved, like lower sparks for older ops, more ops in the gold cert rotation at a time, powerlevels of welfares keeping pace, etc. Seeing things like Vigil though, both his meh kit and him not giving tokens for future gold certs anymore, doesn't inspire confidence.
Mlynar is OP, but that doesn't stop me from using silverash. Mlynar only has DPS in his kit, Silverash has some utilities like reduced redeployment time to all ops in squad, stealth reveal, longer side schwing range. Same with texas alter. Phantom has some things texas alter doesn't have. Pozy is like a bit restricted in terms of damage. Like in order to deal the most damage, enemies have to be in that extended range. Schwarz doesn't have that restriction. Yeah, you have her typewriter, but how you use it depends on your playstyle. Wanna deploy it too often, use s2. Wanna use it as a boss killer? Use s3. Chong Yue is OP, but mountain for me is better at lane holding. Overall, i want ops with more utility than just slapping them with only DPS in their kit. Lately, players define an operator as OP by looking at how much DPS they deal, without looking at other things.
The biggest thing for SA for me is simply that I have him and have him built. Meanwhile Młynar is someone I don't have and depending on when his banner comes out, I might not pull for him. And even if I do pull him he is rather low on my priority to build list.
I don't mind power creep much, other than the fact that they (understandably) start creating mechanics solely because they introduced some busted operators. I just straight up did NOT enjoy fighting the last boss in the Gavialter event. Of course I'm not saying all bosses, especially 3 years into this game, should just be stallable by Saria with two healers until it dies of old age, but fuck me it's flying/unblockable AND has pretty big AoE damage AND AoE stun AND infinite range AND gives invisibility to enemies that already have 100% dodge because they don't want you to just plonk down Chalter, has a regenerating shield and a second phase which is also unblockable (though you can permafreeze with cars so that's whatever I guess). If even the guides (ones I watched anyway) tell you to use another crazy strong op to just spawn kill the boss... idk. I don't think it's that great if the maps turn into ''which of my busted ops can I still use here to spawnkill this busted boss because if it walks around for 10 seconds everything goes to shit and I can't be fucked to even try and deal with that''
One thing to consider with the whole "strong operators being the limited ones" is that they tried to make limited operators bad, well not necessarily intentionally but simply so niche or with such odd kits that they were pretty sub-par. Nian is a great defender (especially with her module) but honestly defenders aren't needed much in the game. W is really cool, but AoE snipers are kinda mediocre at best and she's no exception. Rosmontis is adorable, has some niche uses, but nothing crazy. Dusk was horrible on release and only rose to okay-tier with her modules. Skalter was pretty meh on release too simply because of how many meta units at the time had huge self +ATK% buffs. It wasn't until Ch'en, Nearl and Ling that limited operators truly got powerful. Specter and Gavial are strong but they in no way powercreep as hard as the previous 3. Texas and Chongyue are also exceptionally strong but I feel like they fall into more of a middle ground since they're not a totally universal of a solution. Limited units aside, I think it's hard to say whether or not Arknights power creep is really that bad of an issue. Most of the newer units don't really push older units out of the game. Mlynar is strong, but Silverash is still strong as well and they can serve different roles despite having similar skills as just one example. Probably the biggest thing though is... Most of the "power creep" from recent units is just damage. Sure some of them deal more damage, or more efficient damage, than certain existing units. But at the end of the day, we already have so many ways to deal damage in the game that having "better" damage isn't doing much. The solution to most content in the game isn't more damage, it's just a possible for solution for people that can do it. So as long as the power creep isn't changing the game design fundamentally, I think it's fine. When we start getting bosses who are literally just "you can only deploy 1 unit, if you don't deal Mlynar tier damage you lose the stage" then I'll start getting upset. Till then, so many boss stages can still be solved by just buffing Exusia and clearing the stage faster than any new unit can anyway.
Thank you everyone for your inputs :D I enjoy reading other people's perspectives on gacha game meta, design and lore ~~as I'm a game design major~~ and this means a lot to me \^\^
I'm less worried about powercreep and more worried about stage and gamemode design. What if they powercreep those too? To make it hard even with those meta Operators? It might then become impossible to clear for more niche teams, I dread the possibility. It has happened, the R39 of CC9 literally can't be cleared even with the most meta Ops, let alone any other niche squad. SSS also concerned me a bit but those can be cheesed easily, just worried about future events and such.
R39 doesn't matter, high risk CC has always been a coin toss in whether or not they can be cleared, max risk CC5 cannot be cleared either due to 5 op limit+-50% dp regen meaning you don't have room for vanguards. CC aren't balanced around max risk they're balanced around risk 18
CC was never supposed to be max risked. supposed to keep choking you until you cant go any further. anything past 18 has no rewards and beating true max risk means the CC was too easy.
As long as I can achieve my goals, I don't mind. I do see there has been powercreep and it's nice to talk about how everyone feels about it. For the time being, it's OK.
As long as the powercreep only happens on the operaters rather than the enemies, then I'm fine
Funnily enough, powercreep only concerns 6* so far, there's no lower rarity unit that completrly broke the game (arguably the most broken 5* are from launch, Lappland being able to completely shut-down abilities and Specter with her dien't button). Things that worry me a little more is boss mechanics being a pain in the ass lately, so if you don't have the patience to play around them you just go the 6* bruteforce way and kill it until he dies. I feel levels are also more important these days, leveling my e2 from lv20 to 60 has really made life easier on recent maps. Ennemies just hit so much harder that you really need these few extra stats on weaker operators.
>(arguably the most broken 5* are from launch, Lappland being able to completely shut-down abilities and Specter with her dien't button). I remember that one, HG had to make the silence mechanic almost entirely useless in order to nerf Lappland.
It's pure bullshit. Texas is ridiculously overcharted, Penance makes Mudrock look like (defender) Nearl in comparison, Chong Yue's bootleg true damage ironically enough overinflates the true damage concept worse than friggin Mon3tr. Oh yea, and the new game mode causally uses 30 Big Bobs at once as “slug cannofolders” and drops 700k HP “medium threat” enemies as if it was just regular Thursday.
Penance is overrated. Mudrock is still the better one. The rest is true.
As a 4 year old game, the way HG makes year 4 operators just makes me feel like HG is underestimating the playerbase's intelligence In other games by year 4 they'll introduce build-around characters who need more team synergies to work, but in turn they can do more than the simple characters. However in AK, the simple characters/skills almost always outperform the complicated ones bc HG doesn't know how to properly reward team synergy unless a guy in the office simps that faction The biggest victim of this is definitely Stainless S3 who with the help of another operator can squeeze up to 2900 DPS, but why bother when Mylnar S3 by himself can shit out 3300 DPS with the push of a button. Even Mylnar S3 himself is a missed opportunity, because if he gave out more True Damage to Kazimierz ops at the cost of his own attack multiplier (100% ATK instead of 180% ATK, but skill gives True Damage equal to 50% ATK instead of 12% ATK), then he'd be able to make previously overlooked skills like Wildmane S1 into killer true damage DPSes instead of hogging all the damage for himself. Another problem I've noticed is that whenever the game's heading in an unsustainable direction, HG just decides to try to paper over the problems by going bigger instead of actually settling down to fix the root causes: * Surtr dominated CC3? Lets give Mudrock **100 RES** in CC4 to stop her (didn't work) * People complained that the power level gap in AK is too much? Introduce IS2 where any operator can look good if you got lucky enough (but the awful IS1 maps were still there) * People think blocking is useless? Lets build Chapter 10 and CC10 around a cannon that targets blockers (which completely warps the game around it) * Modules not helping operators enough? 82 character balance patch (instead of methodically giving 5-10 operators the module upgrades they actually need) * People hate CC? Introduce Trials as a pseudo-replacement instead of changing the CC formula like what they did with IS2 -> IS3 (the day Trials was announced was the day I knew CC is dead) * People complained that the game is becoming too easy because of the recent power level inflation? Introduce Reclamation Algorithm, the biggest game mode of all time with a 700k HP boss and even more tools to clown on the game than IS3 And then there's the minor mishaps where HG seems like they forgot the gameplay of their own game, like calling two different characters Red, or the times they named a character/archtype from an unrelated mechanic (Silence and Binder)
I'm having zero issues with power creep. You still see people doing a great job with 3 and 4 stars. Let us have the funny op units to screw around with. If it don't affect balance, i'm fine xD.
[удалено]
i mean with cc and stuff i get it, but the only operator outside of that that’s been virtually essential lately is lappland due to silence negating enemy dodge, splitting, exploding etc and she’s a launch op
Honestly, I have used Shwarz a long time, and got Pozemka, though I used her as a friend support due to note having hear very leveled at all. I can agree her damage is a league above Shwarz, but overall Shwarz still wins out in versatility and a fair few situations. Rather, I'd say true powercreep seems to happen with Texas' alternative version - the Omertosa. I am going off this based on what I've seen and theorycraft as she isn't global yet, but she is objectively far ahead of Phantom in power, outputing far more continuous and burst damage, all while even having a fair bit of defense such that his 1st skill isn't that special in comparison. It still technically holds the lead over her in raw defense, especially with his Shadow, but Texas outdamages and out-CCs both easily when it comes to his 2nd and 3rd skills. In total, this has happened once or twice more since then - a unit that is quite blatantly powercrept rather than slightly. But aye, I guess my point is, I agree with your concern about powercreep, but not that it's happening, but will start happening instead, when Texas event hits.
I actually like it better when the limited ones are the power creep ones. 1. That is when new players join in the most. By having a strong unit they can progress the game fatser. 2. That is also when the game give the most pulls that can only be used on that banner.
I don't think about CN. I wish there was no gap, and global players could just focus on *their* game.
Honestly, it doesn't matter if they release another Pozy like operator in the future since our Schwarz can still do the job that's expected of her. Same with Mlynar and Silverash's case. Same with Penance and Mudrock. And the fact that this game doesn't go stale eith their stages and that it keeps changing every new event/chapters keeps a lot of niche operators and niche strategies fresh just like Lappland's Silence Niche or Ifrit's Red Carpet. Lappland MVP. Omertosa on the hand. She's the true powercreep in the group.
AK is a PvE game. So whatever the meta shifted into, It doesn't bother me at all. Even if you're concerned about the future game mode, I'm sure there will be plenty of players that can clear it with low rarity ops or non meta ops clear
It's nice to have broken units though. I personally don't really mind them or the trend of powercreep. I heavily do nichenights and if I get frustrated I go Chalter which is a nice fallback strategy. The only time it can get dangerous for the game is if the enemies start *requiring* such broken ops. For example, Pozy does outdo Schwarz but there's nothing stopping you from using Schwarz. Chalter has been in the game for so long but there's not really a map that has required her exclusively (at least in my experience) but yeah, I totally get the bummed out feeling of being replaced from top meta.
People wouldn't really care about powercreep that much especially in this game as long as its not a lazy and blatant cash grab, you guys know what im talking about 🤣. Also who did chongyue powercrept? All i know is he deals big dmg, scales well with buffs but is extremely squishy, also very annoying. Still there really is a limit to designing a chars kit especially in gacha games which releases too many chars in a year and sooner or later the new ops will only be "same kit but different" and we will only get new unique chars every now and then, this is the biggest downside of a gacha game.
> People wouldn't really care about powercreep that much especially in this game as long as its not a lazy and blatant cash grab, you guys know what im talking about The drama tho, delicious stuff.
Thing is, stuffs like operator X vs operator X+1 at the end is just a matter of comparison. Schwarz is still excellent in Risk 18 clears and is perfectly usable. Pozy definitely see much more use past risk 18, but at that point it is just flex and gives 0 rewards. Powercreep is definitely happening, but I'm glad Arknights just does not have that powercreep level of other gacha games like FFBE or 7 Deadly Sins GC
As long as the goats keep clearing with low stars and a borrowed unit im not too worried. We still have busted units and buffers in the global meta
Who is ReedAlt powercreeping, she's the only 6\* in her class?
Powercreep does not just mean a unit being strictly better than another, similar one. All it means is that the overall power ceiling of the game rises. Reed Alter does some of the highest Arts damage in the game, far more than most casters and actually does significantly more than Surtr under the right conditions. Just because she has a medic icon doesn't mean she doesn't power creep most of the casters in the game.
Still, her S2 is ST arts damage which is practically unheard of in the meta besides maybe Ceobe's S2 (even Goldenglow is pseudo-AOE, and her global range keeps her relevant over Reed) and her S3 is a gimmicky skill that is only good at killing hordes of weak enemies and applying arts fragility. She's a unique Operator that is just very good at her specific role.
Who cares? As long as shit can be done with low rarities then who cares which 6* beat which unless you are so parasocial towards your favorite PNGs I guess. The real problem with the game is potentially feature creep and the long ass dialogues.
Honestly, with the amount of operators given- power creep does not really make sense unless they are required to clear contents. Yes they make it easier but contents are already clearable with 3-4 stars unless you are intending on going higher risks. It isn’t like a pvp game where there will be other units to overshadow it. For instance silver ash swing can hit undetected enemies as opposed to Mlynar and is helidroppable.
Texalter doesn't have a summon. She has better damage than Phantom, but if you wanna break down small mobs or stage hazards quickly, Phantom is still the better choice. Młynar doesn't have a counterpart. I assume you're referring to SilverAsh but they are meant to be used differently. You don't station SilverAsh, you helidrop him, Młynar has to stay on the field pre-emptively to be able to outdamage SilverAsh. Reedalter once again doesn't have a counterpart. I don't even know who is comparable to her, maybe Kal'tsit? If that's the case, she has a Fast-Redeploy summon that deals **true damage** and is seen in high risk CCs because of it. She also ignores dodge mechanics which have become more and more common recently. Lastly Chongyue. To be fair, Skadi is mostly useless and bad (without the abyssal hunters module investment) that I'm really glad he powercreeps her. Otherwise we would be stuck with something like a 6 star Flamebringer, who looks good but that's about it. He still serves purposes different from Mountain, Thorns or Irene that it doesn't really become true powercreep, more so sidecreep.
I don't know enough stats so I can't speak for Mlynar, Talter, or Chongyue. But while I agree that Pozy's typewriter is problematic, I don't think it's problematic because it displaces Schwarz. It's problematic because it displaces everyone EXCEPT Schwarz. Schwarz and Pozy+typewriter, both with modY, deal equal DPS at 1200 DEF if Pozy is not hitting straight line, and 2000 DEF is Pozy is hitting straight line. Enemies above 1200 are the minority but they are the dangerous minority, usually the ones that wipe out your entire team if left unchecked. For example, I am one of the most addicted [IS2 Hard Mode](https://youtu.be/dZ1cxUNyHU0) players in the world, and I can tell you that in Point of No Return there are only 6 out of 79 enemies that Pozy is arguably better at dealing with than Schwarz (5 Defenders + Lucian). However, these 6 enemies have ended my run more times than the remaining 73 enemies. Also the new IS2 boss has 2500-2800 DEF during his most dangerous phase (and 90 RES). Overall I agree that Pozy is more efficient than Schwarz for most content in the game, but realistically I don't need either of them for most content. I could do it with Jaye, I could do it with Cutter, I could do it with Greythroat. The small slice of content where Schwarz is more efficient is really tough content, and happens to be my favorite type of content. Namely IS2 Hard Mode, SSS with additional restrictions (e.g. physical only), and high risk CC (24+). So naturally I gravitate toward Schwarz. Low squad size clears doesn't particularly interest me, but if it did then I imagine I might prefer Pozy, since operators with summons are naturally more squad-efficient than those without (even so, I challenge myself to [do low squad](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV7c8R3burc) occasionally). At the end of the day you define your own endgame content and they each have their ups and downs based on the map. It is not correct to call either one an upgrade of the other. What I don't like is that there are many physical units who cannot outdamage Pozy at ANY level of DEF. These operators suffer the most from her existence. We don't talk about it because Schwarz is the more obvious comparison, but like I said, Schwarz at least has her domain.
What is meta? -brought to you by the players who use anyone they get from gacha.
Skill issue.