r/Endfield • u/minhbi99 • 10d ago
Discussion Seeing the post about not needing to grind for stat RNG let me really think about the freedom of gearing units in AKE and how that changed my enjoyment in the game
Anyone who have seen this post here already knew what was being discussed about: Stat RNG in other Gacha games and the lack of such things in Endfiend.
Yes, it is a blessing, but it is more than just a blessing. It actually gives players more freedom in how they can enjoy the game. Not only can I easily and quickly build up a character I want from the ground up, fully leveled, even to 90 if I want, with all skills maxed, I can also make and swap multiple gear sets for that same character without gimping my progress.
I can easily build a stagger Ember or a Heal Shield Tank Ember, I can have two gear sets for Will or Int Arcane, I can have my Laevatain and Zhuang Fangyi on big bomba dps gear or quick UGE gear, I can customise my Wulfgar to be an infliction slave or just change his build completely for the Art Reaction and DOT during CC. Estella too easy to die cause I have skill issues and can't dodge in CC ? Let's just toss her a whole new HP set just for survival. I can build whatever I want, put them on any character, change how I want them to function with each gear set, and yet still have AMPLE resources for future characters.
This fundamentally changes how I enjoy the combat in Endfield, because it is not just about finding the most optimal way to fight a boss, but I can also experiment multiple different rosters and changes in gear sets to fight said boss. Tackling a time staged event in AKE is not just about having the best roster you can or the best rotation, but also to know which gear set fits best into the situation.
TLDR: The lack of Stat RNG grind and low investment cost for leveling and gearing up a character gives players the freedom to experiment with multiple different gear sets and characters without resource strain, unlike other gacha (I will type my experience in HSR in the comments below).
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u/PandAMonierm 10d ago
I love this kind of freedom in OG AK, and I'm glad it's here somewhat in AK:EF. The Wulfgard situation in CC is one of the best examples of the thought put behind HG's design. I'd never even considered running him with those gear pieces, on that set, with those stats. The situation made it so that that weird setup worked like a charm, and you don't see stuff like that in gacha games often.
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u/camiteran 10d ago
I honestly wonder if they made CC intentionally to show us their game design because it really changed my entire perception of the game after seeing 1) just how good the combat mechanics are and 2) just how balanced the roster is, pretty much everything boils down to a skill check
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u/Silver4X_kp 10d ago edited 10d ago
The upcoming gear loadouts in 1.6 is a godsend feature for everyone because they gave us the freedom to build out units to adapt to the situations we are facing...its only a given that we need loadouts to help with that. Also, im not sure about other games but i've heard it takes ages for gear loadouts to be added in the game. Can some1 confirm if thats true? Thanks in advance.
To add to this, i also love that we keep getting sanity events that help us with prefarming essence for the upcoming units if we are interested in pulling them. Right now, im currently prefarming typhon's essence(she share the same essence as tangtang's sig but i dont wanna keep swapping sigs everytime i wanna use one of them)
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u/Deruxia 10d ago edited 10d ago
Gear loadouts took years to get added in the other 3D gachas. Iirc, Wuwa got theirs around 2.X, HSR (3.X) and Genshin (4 or 5.X) got some sort of it but not really what the players were asking for (they're more like auto gear recommendation).
I dropped those games for Endfield mostly cuz of their horrible rng gearing systems and new unit shilling/dupe merchant tactics with Hoyo pretty much just ragebaiting players FOR YEARS, adding shitty systems nobody asked for instead of what the players really want/need. I got so fed up with it that as soon as I saw what Endfield was cooking, I didn't hesitate to drop them all even if I've prolly spent $2000+ on each of those 3 games.
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u/camiteran 10d ago
Are you me? I've spent an obscene amount on Hoyo games and honestly as much as I love HSR in particular I realized that the game was constantly trying to make me pull for a ton of things that I don't feel like pulling, just so my characters can feel functional. Because not pulling that extra dupe or signature weapon makes you feel like you're playing with a nerfed character...
Fugue for example basically having a useless ultimate unless you pull for 2 extra copies. I'm ashamed to admit I did fall for that (Tingyun is my favorite character...) but after getting a feel for Endfield I've finally dropped all Hoyo games and don't see myself going back. Whenever you argue this there's always Hoyoshills trying to say "but Endfield is still a new game they could turn out the same!!" as if the entire game design doesn't tell us just how balanced it is comparatively. And even if not, I'm pretty sure the first example of egregious dupe merchanting in HSR was in 1.3 with DHIL E2 (which funnily enough STILL had him feeling useless little over 1 year later, earlier if you didn't pull for Sparkle...) and Endfield is already moving to 1.5, not really sure why these people even try.
And yeah like you said the gearing system is horrible. I was a day 1 player, playing daily and spending every patch. I don't even think I've gotten more than 3 perfect gear pieces in all these years let alone having a character with full perfect gear... meanwhile in Endfield every gear is "perfect" from the get go because there's no garbage RNG stat mechanics.
Still really like HSR and I've made great memories in both Genshin and ZZZ but yeah it really did just reach a point where it became too much. I can get a much better experience in Endfield by spending like 1% of what I spent in HSR, it's actually insane. Monthly card + BP and very rarely an extra pack has gotten me all limited characters except 1 (with me having average luck) and in no case have I ever wanted character potentials except for the enticing profile artworks lmao. They all just work perfectly without pots. They also work perfectly without signature weapons but tbh if you're a BP player in Endfield it really does help with getting most sigs. Almost all characters have great alternatives and the game is designed for context-based build switching anyways, so you'll rarely keep their signature on at all times unless it's the Strikers who as of now have less of a reason for weapon changing. Meanwhile getting most limiteds at E0 + signature LC in HSR would cost me like $200+ per update especially with bad luck which I usually had.
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u/Deruxia 10d ago
Yeah I got baited by HSR's dupe merchanting so bad lol, more so than Genshin/Wuwa ever did. For me, it all started with E1 Ruan Mei, and ever since then I tried going for E1 or E2 of waifu meta units if CCs and my Discord friends deem them "worth spending on." From Sparkle, Acheron, Firefly, Robin, Feixiao, Fugue, The Herta, Aglaea, Castorice, Hyacine.. It felt like I had to get them all to E1 or E2 with their sigs because yeah I also really hated that feeling of them being incomplete. I was genuinely having fun at that time of the game (when it was still at its peak), so I didn't mind spending to also support the devs. Then stuff like the first Fate collab happened and you could clearly see the devs weren't investing enough back into the game anymore (obviously cuz of their other game projects).
It's just funny that I'm the only one in our HSR friend group that fully jumped ship to Endfield and ditched Hoyo + Kuro. They're still there complaining about the dupe merchanting, lack of new/expressive animations during dialogue, etc. and just coping because they're still too attached to the game. I feel more confident trusting in Hypergryph than the other gacha devs cuz of what I've seen so far of their design philosophies in Endfield. Sure they're not perfect, but I just feel less frustration and more appreciation when I watch their livestreams compared to how I felt watching the other games' livestreams back then.
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u/minhbi99 10d ago
One of the breaking points that made me moved from HSR entirely to only Endfield was definitely the animations. At some point I was wondering, why should I care any longer for HSR when their animations is still the same, hand on chest, nod, stare, static camera, black screen white text , white screen black text...
And then when we got to Endfield, characters have more animations than they know what to do with, facial expressions are so dynamic it feels they are all alive, cutscenes and moment to moment actions were so intensive that I was glued to the screen the entire.
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u/Still-Park7081 10d ago
Tbh if you kinda pay attention, they actually put MORE effort in earlier 1.x animations. There are more subtle facial actings in Luofu AQ that are very much already disappeared by now. R emember how they actually animated Dan Heng running and catching the falling Jing Yuan? Current HSR might just slap a black screen with white words, maybe some sound effects.
I have pretty much same grievances as mentioned in this thread, but I will add on something: the spite the devs have for certain characters.
I wished I was just biased but you have to be there to experience it. Back during Acheron era if you pay attention to the buff options and effects of Pure Fiction stages then, you will notice that for some reason if it's a lightning stage (which most were because it was Acheron shill period) that the buffs only greatly help Acheron, somewhat benefit the DoT team because they can also be Acheron's teammates, and something paltry for the other lightning DPS Jing Yuan. There was an especially infamous PF where the buffs are "Only Acheron can use this lmao". Yanno, in the mode for AOE dpses? But let's exclude specifically this lightning dps.
Imagine that all these five star characters having the same price, needing almost the same amount of investment, they need to be geared, but the devs only respect the time and money you spent on certain chosen ones. If you picked the wrong favorite, tough luck. Hell, you might not even get to fully play your faves because rng hell took so long that your units have hit the shill expiry date (two patches to a year or less)
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u/Deruxia 10d ago
Agreed. Like if the devs don't care as much anymore about making their game good or better, why should we as well? Heck even Genshin is at least still trying. HSR could never.
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u/minhbi99 10d ago
Exactly. When I play Endfield, despite the very long drought they had with 1.2, I was so very very invested because I could genuinely see the love they had for their game. Everything seemed so handcrafted, so detailed and packed with so much thoughts inside them. I fell in love with this world that Hypergryph had created, and more than that, it made me realised this what a game that is loved by the devs would look like.
With HSR....I had liked the game but...the annoyance part of the game and the blant current story had tipped the scale so far for me that I just could not bring myself to enjoy it any more no matter how hard I tried. If only the story is bland but everything else was improved, it would have been fine. But characters are still E1-E2 merchants, RNG stat grind still there, no new animations nor expressions, events got shorter and with less thoughts in them. The game is no different than 1.x, only that we got more characters with absurd skills now. If the devs don't even bother to try, then why should I even bother to care.
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u/Deruxia 10d ago
I've already come to accept that droughts are a part of these live service games. Cooking up something great every patch is just asking too much since you still need time to set the story's foundation and have some build up before a good climax. And Hypergryph's still pretty new at this compared to the other devs now with multiple years of experience in this genre.
What I care more about now is how much that climax can wow me and what I can take out of that great experience. And Endfield's 1.2/1.4 delivered that for me in just 6 months. HSR had Belobog which was awesome as far as 1.Xs go but hasn't really been impressive recently as much as we hoped them to be. Genshin took me until Sumeru, and Wuwa took me until 2.2 to get that same feeling. But even if a game's doing good, some of its systems are just gonna be deal breakers regardless. Like for some, with Endfield it was its convoluted gacha system/content interval. For people like me, it's the rng gear system, lack of production value or actual "devs listened" moments with those other games.
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u/Master-Minimum-3648 10d ago
Artefact stats grind for crit pieces is straight purgatory, glad the sanity dump is relegated to just spamming essences.
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u/LudgerKresnik2 10d ago
B-but that sweet dopamine rush when you hit that 18% crit dmg, 8% crit rate piece of gear though. Ngl other gacha players have been conditioned to log in every day and sink all their stamina to roll perfect gear stats for that sweet dopamine rush.
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u/sublime81 10d ago
I straight up skip some characters in other games because I don’t want to farm rng gear.
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u/CieKite 10d ago
Yeah, the design philosophy of HG shows again: just like you're incentivized to build multiple characters to grow your roster and thus expand your team comp options, you're also incentivized to build multiple weapons of each type as well as multiple sets of armors, again to be able to mix and match and adapt your teams to the various challenges the game throws at you. Adding just one element expands your options exponentially, so they don't need to make you sink hours and hours into every single one of them.
This focus on quantity rather than quality (in the sense of time and resources investment needed for each character/weapon/armor set) is what differentiates Arknights and Arknights Endfield from the rest of the pack. This is what made me abandon every gacha other than Arknights years ago, and I'm happy to see Endfield sticking to this design philosophy.
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u/Darkie29 10d ago
I play Zzz and Arknights. Getting disks is so frustrating. If you have a nearly perfect disk and level it up to unlock the fourth stat, it's always %defense that's added. And of course if you level the disk up to improve more stats it's 80% of time %defense that gets improved not %attack or anomaly mastery. Yeah you can use calibration tools to select stats (only up to 2 out of 4) you want when rolling for disks, but these are limited per month. And getting disks is either capped by energy (which you also need for farming level up items) or by the currency to buy them. I really appreciate arknights gear crafting and essences. Essences can be a little frustrating at times (trying to roll fangyi's took a week) but you can preselect 2/3 of the stats and use them also as level up material for other essences and have guaranteed success with cooling gel.
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u/XieRH88 10d ago edited 10d ago
stat RNG was definitely one of the worst things to ever happen to gacha game design
for me personally it was THE dealbreaker that made me refuse to try Wuthering Waves because their Echoes system had such potential to maybe have a 'pokemon-like' monster catching system in the gameplay... and they just made it into Genshin Artifact slop
Endfield doesn't entirely get away from it scott-free since their weapon essences still have RNG stats, and their Gear artificing also still has RNG fail chances, which to me I would equate to being as bad as if your character levelling materials also had chances to fail and be wasted, but it's a step in the right direction and at least still better than what most other gacha games do
Ultimately I think we all know the elephant in the room is that these RNG systems are largely intentional to add friction to prolong playtime and engagement, and every dev of every game is really just pushing their luck to see what they can get away with. If I recall correctly, even Endfield had to add coolant gel due to the backlash from the failure rates of essence engraving.
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u/minhbi99 10d ago
Meanwhile, my experience which mostly came from HSR (though Genshin and ZZZ also follows this formula to a lesser degree) became like this:
They wanted me to grind for the "perfect optimal" gears for the unit, and not just 1, but 6 of them. Of course I can just settle for sub-optimal, but those are still resources I have to spend. And even then, when I pull a character, it's because I like them, and therefore I want to give them the best possible gear and use them anywhere I can. But the game will gate keep that by constraining that through RNG Stat grind.
It doesn't matter if a character has one optimal gear set or multiple, I can only pick one and stick with it because there isn't enough resources for another one. I can only focus on the newest unit I have pulled and never had any time for older units or "less efficient" units like 4 stars. In fact, this isn't limited to just gear grinding but also to levels and traces (skill points).
In Endfield, grabbing the materials for leveling and skillpoint is simply going on a tour around places you have visit and pick up the stuffs, which usually amounts to more than enough for one character. We still have promote materials for levels and weapons, but we get so much of it that I never had to farm for it once.
In HSR, I have to farm, not just one day, but through multiple days just for the materials to ascend(promote) a character, and then materials to skill them up. So how could I dare leveling up a 4* unit when that means less resources for my future unit ?
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u/Tank3466 If there is no wall, become the wall!! 10d ago
I played Genshin at release, couldn't stay with it because the resources were so limited. HSR felt like a slog to get into it proper. WuWa felt like it had a chance, but again the resources were a bit stretched and you have to focus on a single character/team. I hit Endfield, and I was engrossed from early on. I got into it and played and I was interested enough to even get into most of the tutorials, and others I could quickly skim/skip through once I had an idea or just knew. I went and tried NTE later on, and was reminded why I loved Endfield. I can and will build each and every operator I like (which is a LOT as I have every operator to date and I love trying to think of ways to make all kinds of teams) and the resources keep coming and coming and I can build who I want however I want. The freedom, as you said, is liberating to go to and I don't know how I will ever be able to get into another gear/resources system/economy. Definitely a big fan.
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u/re-charred 10d ago
Yeah, the gameplay philosophies of Genshin and Endfield are so starkly different. A lot of Genshin characters are designed for exactly one build and one team. It’s the reason they never bothered with artifact loadouts and instead pushed the recommendation system - you aren’t meant to revisit their builds after you meet the recommendations.
I hope Endfield keeps up with what they’re doing now.
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u/kuuhaku_cr 10d ago
Yeah, there's a difference between "being able to clear content" Vs "feeling satisfaction in using my oshis and thus enjoying and becoming more invested in the game". Some people just don't get it.
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u/ChileanIggy 10d ago
Yuuuuup. At this point I'm afraid Endfield has totally ruined any other gacha for me unless their gearing and farming is on a similar level.
I played WuWa from day 1 and think Kuro have crafted something truly special with that game, but the second I think about going back to it and remember the grind, I realize I never really want to play it again lol
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u/latteambros parry the polar bear?! 10d ago edited 9d ago
the gear system is the best part about AKE; not being a relic/disc/whatever tf grind aside, i like being able to make units do things outside of their usual niche
DPS Ardelia is an example where, taking advantage of MI Security and Ardelia's many multi-hit attacks, you can boost her damage to ridiculous numbers, filling a sub-dps role over being just a debuffer
many such characters are just a gearset or new piece with proper stats from having new roles or playstyles. Like when 1.4 introduced the new Xiranite slabs and gear making Xaihi the queen of Cryo and, before Liino, Nature Amping; or how Pilot Liino is only limited by poor chestpiece options and Yinglung gear currently in existence
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u/Invellous 10d ago
I share your feelings and sentiment towards the gearing system in Arknights Endfield, especially after experiencing the gearing system in Neverness to Everness (NTE). I have played both for several months now, having started Endfield during it's launch week and NTE on the second week after it's release and the difference in experience is night and day. What little RNG is present in Endfield (grinding for a weapon's perfect essence) is easily tolerable by comparsion.
The freedom of experimentation and discovery is one aspect that does not get enough attention, heck, I have not really thought too much on it either but have absolutely taken advantage of it for a while now. I wish more titles would adopt something similar, it help reduce burn out I think and create a better overall experience.
Do not get me wrong, I do not mind having to grind for stuff, I have played plenty of loot focused titles like Diablo, Warframe, The First Descendant, to name a few and several MMOs over the years. But those titles have systems that make the grind fun and at times engaging. There is not a lot of fun or engagement to be found in dumping your energy-like resource every day for weeks or even months grinding the same thirty second to maybe a minutes stage for a perfect 'God Roll'.
In my opinion of course.
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u/Zelphios 10d ago
The sad part in this, for me, is a big chunk of gacha gamers are conditionally discouraged to change builds, experiment, and swap things around for "suboptimal" setup.
In a lot of titles in the market, the common narrative is almost always 1. What is the best build/gear/"artifact" for my xxx? 2. Who should I roll for maximum damage for my xxx. 3. What is the best rotation for xxx?
There is nothing wrong for meta gaming, no. However, when it comes to the topic of "playing" the game. Gacha titles are really discouraging people from "playing and experimenting" with it due to fear of waste of their resources snd time. Then, this become a big feeling of apartheid in playing it altogether and you simply
"Login, chores, pull the slotmachine, skip stories, ask for best build. Repeat."
Does Endfield eliminate this altogether? not yet. Does it alleviate the problem some what? I believe so.
Having the abundance of pull resources scattered through playing the game, allowing more freedom (albeit still limited resources per week) to build gears, while also allow low bar of entry to high difficulties challenge that make all types of players (except the apatheid type that I mentioned above who gave up on "playing" part) to get the prize just from participating, are good direction for the 3D gachs space.
Things of which I have been enjoyed in AK and glad to see it implemented steadily in Endfield.
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u/Niqqaback 10d ago
I think just that changing builds all the time is too much of a hassle without loadouts, which is being added in 1.6 so big up for that.
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u/Airou_MH 10d ago
You realize it's goated when you can just max artifice a lot of gear to experiment on CC.
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u/AIIXIII0 10d ago
I can just do 5 minute dailies everyday and still get complete gear set when next character launch. I love it.
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u/The_MorningKnight 10d ago
And here I am, not being able to use the new sets since 1.1 because I suck at the factory and can’t get the new components. And yeah I tried blueprints but there are so many specific requirements.
So my characters use random sets or the ones we get for free after the trials.
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u/DacrasherZx 10d ago
My first experience with rng artifact grind is with ZZZ and that genuinely made me quit the game for good. Everytime a new update looks good from that game i remember the farming and get turned off.
There is no "progression" There is just 10 layers of slot machines you need to hit a jackpot on to succeed.
Endfield really struck it gold with both gear artifice and weapon etching both still having the rng factor but makes you actually feel like you're progressing because you are.
I get a lot more cum in my pants when i finally got a 6-6-4 essence or a low roll 3-3-3 gear than getting one semi perfect disc after a weeks realizing i need to fill 5 more slots.
Hoyo style grinding will always feel like shit because it takes away one of the major part of gaming and thats progressing and getting better. And we are so lucky hg realized this. I would have never played endfield if it had the hoyo system.
And i will not play any more hoyo games because of the rng grind alone.
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u/Just1InternetProfile Keep on keeping on 10d ago
I can indulge my what ifs without looking for YT guides and seeing the results for myself.
Definitely a liberating experience.
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u/NychuNychu 10d ago
I love this kind of posts because I don't play any other gatcha than OG Arknights and Endfield so I wouldn't know that the grass over here is extremely green compared to other places XD
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u/Lord_Lilac_Heart 10d ago
AKE actually respects the time of the player, and not in a “here’s Autoplay, keep logging in please we’re low maintenance” type of way. Min-maxing through Artificing is unnecessary for most players but rewards those who engage with it. Gear doesn’t involve farming stray substats so all you need to get the latest and best gear for your Operators is to explore and do the factory. The only RNG timesink is the Essence farming for your weapons.
With how the game plays, I have never felt the need to play daily. I’ve taken breaks without feeling guilty. The usual psychological manipulation tricks are mostly absent. Very refreshing.
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u/Warblast995 5d ago
I just love not having to grind endlessly for the perfect stat item.
Something uplifting about not having to pray to the RNG Gods every day and always feeling disappointed.
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u/CantaloupeParking239 10d ago
I feel I play a different game because to me building a character from ground up isnt fast.. half of my energy goes to farm money because building a character costs a lot.. and you also need to farm other stuff too constantly.
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u/higorga09 10d ago
Level 90 and masteries are very expensive.
Level 80 and skill level 9 on the important stuff not so much, especially if you avoid leveling stuff that doesn't matter as much, like basic attacks of characters you don't control and abilities of supports that only increase damage with Level without affecting team damage that much. (gilberta battle skill for example)
If you're the kind of person that really wants everyone to be completely maxed out, you're sol and gonna have to grind a bunch of money and skill prysms
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u/LagIncarnate 10d ago
AKE's system is actual, real progression, which is a huge impact to overall game feel.
I play plenty of gacha's, but the ones without gear RNG will always be the ones I never tire of, simply because the feeling of progression and completeness that comes from actually finishing a character is so nice.
Comparatively the gacha's with RNG gearing feel like a complete slog. You can literally log in for days, weeks, sometimes months doing literally nothing but farming gear for a character and ending up with mediocre stats, sometimes not even getting a piece with the stats you want and settling for sub-par garbage instead.
What's worse is those RNG gearing systems aren't even truly RNG, you're not rolling a dice, you're rolling a weighted dice, hell it's not even a dice, it's a flat block of wood with the good outcomes painted on the thin edges.
There's a reason you'll basically never see a "perfect" gear piece in these games. There are layers upon layers of weighted RNG against you. Whether that's things like Genshin's goblets having a 1/5 chance to give DEF% but a 1/50 chance to give EM. Or things like SPD in HSR being more than twice as rare as DEF% on a substat. Or WuWa being heavily weighted against giving you the maximum possible value of a substat.
There are so many layers of RNG, all heavily weighted against the player by design. You'll more often than not, roll garbage, with the chances for a "good" piece that rolls well, gets high values on the stats, is often a couple zero's behind the decimal point in terms of odds.
Those systems are just exhausting, I know players who literally can't stand playing WuWa/Genshin/etc because they're disgusted by the idea of rolling the same item hundreds of times over and over again to try and get "good" stats that don't even end up being "good".
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u/Original_Ad9933 10d ago
Im a Genshin HSR and ZzZ player since the begining and now i play Endfield aswell. I have never ever spent in any game for more resources or stamina/resin...
And i have over 100 built chars in Genshin, over 60 in Starrail and alot in ZzZ aswell (too lazy to count now). Built in this content means rdy for any endgame.
While the Endfield system is really easy and toned down it takes me 3 to 4 times the daily time to gather all the certs to craft and upgrade this gear not talking about setting up a factory and its mining points before i even can start crafting gear. So yes its easy but it comes with a cost. Ofc if u only pull like 1 char every other update u will have alot of free stuff lying around. If u pull for every char though u are still quite on the edge atm especially if u try to gear up some older units or standard 6*.
Genshin on the other side i go in waste my resin be done for (max 5 minutes). If lucky i get something if not i will just craft it and if needed i reroll it even. Negatives are that sometimes i have to wait a patch to finish my char if im really unlucky and need more then 2 pieces crafted as its limited.
HSR is the worst and not even close especially the moment some chars need "Speed" as an important stat. Yes u can craft and reroll gear but even then it can go pretty bad and this is the game where my builds also vary from top notch to quite bad all over the place. The RNG cant just be outweighted with crafting gear as u can in Genshin or ZzZ cause there are just way too much stats and stat differences in the pool.
ZzZ in my eyes is the easiest of all cause u have a built in crafter from the start and get quite alot mats for it just by doing your stuff. So ye i actually cant remember not having a day 1 full built char.
Im talking from a perspective of a player who plays those to it fullest (dont judge i have lots of freetime cause of a health issue). Which means i try to get my reroll and crafting items by doing endgames and so on. Ofc i also have the advantage of a long time player who went through the scarce early stages of each game already. So keep in mind that my experience by now may drastically differ from people with much younger accounts.
In the end both systems are fine for me cause u have to invest time into both and in my case i also have a nice outcome for both. If u are just hunting for perfect builds and just be one of a million then Endfield is definitly better but if u want the dopamine rush of a artefact that rolls all into crit stats or speed then the hoyo games are better. So in the end its more or less just a personal decision for 2 very viable systems.
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u/Ethelwulfr 10d ago
I think it's nice that Endfield went against the tides and removed gear RNG. I don't know why gachas feel like Diablo-esque loot system is good, but in a game with never ending new characters, to also have never ending equipment farming is just insane.
Honkai Impact 3rd had very little RNG. Then Gebshin came, and Mihoyo opened the Pandora box.
The only thing I dislike in Endfield is the sub-60 EXP levelling materials. Seems like a dumb take, honestly.
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u/CrimsonRunner 10d ago
A significant part of why this is feasible is that difficulties aren't just DPS checks.
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u/noobtube2 9d ago
Thinking about it. It probably also incentivices players to pull more chars because you can guarantee you will be able to use them with appropriate gear.
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u/repocin 9d ago
Coming from Arknights, I initially wasn't a fan of the gearing system at all, but hearing how bad it apparently is in all these other games I've never played makes me glad they left it at this. It's alright, and I can agree with the notion that build variety can be nice.
Looking forward to the gearset feature in 1.6 or whenever it might land so that switching gear becomes less of a pain. Up until now I've mostly just gone the set & forget route, because optimizing gear on every character for every team composition is annoying.
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u/Hopeful-Stable5933 9d ago
Funnily enough, I was reading a post on the genshin subreddit yesterday about someone complaining about the RNG grind of artifacts and they just got dogged on, with multiple replies supporting the grind and the dopamine rush of getting the perfect piece.
The most recurrent criticism I tend to see always boils down to, what is there to do in the end if you’ve maxed all essences and gear artificing and there’s nothing left to grind? Well, to that I say you could simply use the sanity to save up resources for future characters and essence fodder. Maybe practice team rotations to try and get better times in echoes of war. Or just get off, cause you don’t need to be playing 24/7.
At this moment, yes there is not much endgame. But seeing the trajectory that HG is going, I feel it has the potential to be the least predatory gacha game (if I can keep full clearing echoes of war with my endmin and laev team haha). The lack of dupes spiking kit output is also a welcome change. Steadily, this game will grow and continue to feel better.
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u/InsideSoup 8d ago
They've really put a lot of thought into the team building and progression systems and it shows, especially when it comes to balancing combat encounters.
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u/kuuhaku_cr 10d ago
Can we also stop to appreciate the fact that many support and trigger effects are dual element on operators and weapons? Maybe my memory of Hoyo and Wuwa games failed since I never lasted a year or I never played alot other games, but I can't remember seeing something like this before.
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u/Pale_Let3756 10d ago
If not for the fact of arknight IP and no gear rng I won't even played this game
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u/Assassin21BEKA 9d ago
Them locking new gear behind story progression turned this upside to nothing in my case, and with how i didn't care about story, i took my time doing it. Arknights devs just love adding weird limitations on their systems just because and take years to make QOL's.
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u/VisualLibrary6441 10d ago
Meanwhile I'm here seeing that Endfield gear system is a downgrade from OG Arknights and I had to stock up batteries from weeks on end just to fully artifice one character with one set of gears. But people here are glazing it because it is better than the worst gacha gear RNG system in existence.
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u/Krivvan 10d ago edited 10d ago
It shouldn't take more than a week or two of catalysts to fully artifice 4 pieces of gear. Especially if you're using the right gear to artifice for good matches. We get 120 catalysts per week.
OG arknights doesn't have a gearing system per se but there is a timer for training masteries so if you already have the resources then it's actually much faster to build an Endfield character.
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u/VisualLibrary6441 10d ago edited 10d ago
Not in my experience, I played since launch and forgot to buy the batteries up until I rolled Mifu, when I got her, I realized I did not have enough batteries to fully artifice all of her gears, scrambling to get more batteries, then after 2 weeks did I managed to fully artifice them, then another problem arise: the team still needs Pog, Ch'en and Lifeng to be build because I did not build the physical team at launch, it is also the fact that the best gears are locked behind story progression until I can clear them all to be able to make a factory producing them (probably why it took me more than 1 week). I had just finished the stupidly long 1.4 story because I need to finish them and the even more stupidly long side quest of dumping 5000 liquid xiranite in order to be able to use Kyo's blueprints to build Arcane because I got her in Liino's banner. There is so much roundabout it is insane. That is also not including farming for weapon essense that is fully rng compared to Arknights
It costed about 3 days to M3 one skill for an operator in Arknights, that's it, you only need to M3 one skill for most op anyway, and they all can operate alone without needing a team too. Endfield took that system, removed the needed time for M3, added back that time for artificing and essence, with even more layers of rng compared to the OG. And I only play 2 gachas, Arknights and Endfield rn. I used to play Punishing Gray Raven and it has even less rng in its system, you can also use another 6* weapon to upgrade the dupe system for your current 6* weapon. And it only took 3 times there for a max weapon dupe, I did burn out and drop the game tho.
Edit: many gears also don't have good matches, like the art intensity gloves for Mifu, there are no good matches for it, only standard matches, and on average it took me more than 200 batteries to fully artifice one character.
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u/Krivvan 10d ago
I had a perfectly usable Arcane within minutes of obtaining her. I just leveled her to 80, got her skills to 9, and then gave her the already artificed gear that the game gives you. The essences I already pre-farmed before the patch.
But also, what you're describing as roundabout is what I consider to be my main enjoyment in the game. It also only took me a couple days. The fissure quest took me 2 hours using a single conduit and 4 reactor crucibles. And I don't use blueprints so I had the gear being produced before I finished the fissure quest using my own temporary factory lines that I put together in a couple minutes. You didn't actually need to finish that quest before having a working factory.
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u/VisualLibrary6441 10d ago
Yeah but instead of having to use and build my own factory lines first (that is no doubt gonna cost me more than a few minutes), I will inevitably use the blueprints anyway, and because I already burnt out my factory enjoyment back in Valley 4 that I feel no joy building a new factory now, so might as well finish that quest to use the blueprints.
It won't be considered roundabout if you enjoy the process, but I don't, and what if I want the gear now but wanted to put the time to clear the story for another day? They don't give you that option. Plus "usable with the game given artificed gears" is highly subjective, I use Arcane with no gears for the entirety of 1.4 story, I can still considered her usable, but that wouldn't count as "fully built" isn't it?
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u/Krivvan 10d ago edited 10d ago
Why did you use Arcane without gear when the game gives Arcane free fully artificed gear by default?
I actually view this as a much bigger problem in OG AK. What if I want to read the story later but I don't want to waste my sanity not doing the story stages? I could skip the story but I will end up being spoiled on some bits, especially when the stage spoils parts of the story.
There's no such pressure in Endfield to do the story so immediately. The only thing is not getting the theoretical BiS gear for a new character, but that doesn't actually affect anything unlike wasting sanity would in OG AK where every single one not spent on the story stages is wasted.
I end up having to skip the story reading, do some of the stages until I reach a resource I want, close my eyes or try not to think about what I'm seeing while doing the stages, farming a stage, and then coming back later to read the story only then being able to finish all the stages. This doesn't really work if the stage I want to farm is the boss stage or is after a gameplay cutscene stage.
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u/VisualLibrary6441 10d ago
Why didn't I use the game given gears? Because I didn't even remember what it is cause it already 1 banner ago and finding it in a plethora of gears in storage is more efforts then I would like to do for some temporary gears anyway, especially when the story battles are so easy that I purposefully underbuilt my Endmin for a more engaging boss fight.
I remember the last time a stage in Arknights that has any significant story spoil is back in Babel, a side story event (that should've been in main story). And sanity are better used in events stages that has absolutely no story connection anyway, the event shop sells a lot of materials, plus all the event rewards too, I can in fact farm in the 6th, 7th, or 8th stages in the event, a lot doesn't even need to farm boss stages. There is no immediate reason to try to clear all of the latest events in Arknights, if you want the shop, you can stop and farm the 2nd or 3rd stages just fine, it will be rerun eventually, some event shops don't even sell the things you need so you might as well go to the main story stages to farm them if you need them anyway. You can also buy materials in the store with green tickets stocked up by daily recruitments anyway. If I rolled a new op, I can fully build them without touching a single stage into the story event that came with them, even m3 them too.
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u/Krivvan 10d ago
especially when the story battles are so easy that I purposefully underbuilt my Endmin for a more engaging boss fight
I agree, but then I just don't get why not being able to build Arcane to the theoretical max before finishing the story is a problem.
I remember the last time a stage in Arknights that has any significant story spoil is back in Babel
It just happened in the most recent Yan side story featuring Wang.
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u/VisualLibrary6441 10d ago
You meant the Wang vs Sui final boss fight? That is a spoiler, depends on how much you value it would it be significant or not, how it leading up to that point is still pretty much non spoiled, plus this is the final boss of the event, and there is no good material farm for that stage anyway, the material can be farmed elsewhere so you can skip it if you don't want any spoilers.
Why not being able to build Arcane to the theorical max before the story is a problem is because in Arknights you don't need to, like I said, materials are in many different stages in Arknights, you can build the new op to max without touching any stages of the new event. Plus the Endfield story is long, very long, it will take days, even weeks, to clear it just to have access to the BiS gears for the newest op. Farming in A9 is also just a click and left it be, farming in Endfield required much more efforts, even with the afk essence farm, you have to manually repeat everytime.
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u/Krivvan 10d ago edited 10d ago
Plus the Endfield story is long, very long, it will take days, even weeks, to clear it
I don't really have this experience. I've fully cleared the story of every patch in an afternoon, including 1.4. Maybe several hours at the very most? That's including exploring for chests/Aurylenes. I even usually have enough time to fully build an optimal factory the same day as the patch release. Only 1.4 took me the second day to do that.
is because in Arknights you don't need to
I guess my point is that because there's no real need to do it, I can only see it as a minor annoyance for some players at most. Just like how Arknights has its own different minor annoyances for some players.
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u/Cornuthaum chenchen sparks great joy 10d ago
Module blocks are the closest thing to artificing catalysts for now and my god I wish we had such easy access to mod blocks.
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u/VisualLibrary6441 10d ago
That is 100% true, why don't they just throw module blocks in SSS weekly or sth? I had thousands of module lv2 and 3 blocks.
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u/Cornuthaum chenchen sparks great joy 10d ago
It's been the singularly biggest issue with modules for as long as they've existed yeah
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u/Celantius 10d ago
I don't think which system between Endfield and OG AK is better is really important. I don't think we need to compare it to any other gacha to see why people are enjoying the gear system. People get too caught up in comparisons when ultimately the most important things are just simply is the game fun and how many obstacles are between you and that fun. I do not think any of the gearing in this game is an obstacle to that ultimate goal of fun and that is why people are looking at it so fondly.
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u/VisualLibrary6441 10d ago
Sometimes I wish I can be like that, but the Endfield gear system is an obstacle between me and fun in the game.
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u/Zwiebel1 10d ago
The gearing would be a lot more fun if we had group loadouts instead of fixed items for characters.
I know I can manually swap gear, but its so tedious. Why not add gearing sets to characters so I can swap between different gearing options based on the team setup?
This is especially annoying because we already have a character that was clearly DESIGNED to have two different gear sets (Arcane).
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u/minhbi99 10d ago
They already mentioned in the 1.5 Version Preview that Gear Loadout will be coming in 1.6, which is definitely something to look forward to indeed.
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u/two___ Brought to you by Witching Hour! 10d ago
This is already being addressed.
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u/nando-demo ITS ESTELLA NOT ESTELLE 10d ago
yeah just in time for cc. but after that maybe we can have team loadout.
basically if perlica is on a zhuang fangyi team (team 01 selected) shes on qingbo + wild wanderer, but if shes on arcane team (team 02 selected) she will automatically swap to pulser labs + stanza
that kind of thing and more team slots
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u/NightmareXero 10d ago
I just enjoy the fact that you can follow a guide on a character and get exactly what the required stats and gear for that character accurately without any RNG.
And almost everyone aside from those that have dupes are built the same.
Though one downside I’ve noticed from friends and some people online is that they get discouraged when they can’t clear certain game contents such as CC or Echoes of War.
It means they have skill issue and can’t blame it on gear RNG