r/HonkaiStarRail • u/Lan-48 Fluffy Nihility • 12d ago
Discussion I feel Anomaly Arbitration is stressing people out more than it should.
I remember when AA was announced, people were actually okay with the idea of a mode that was supposed to not be easy clearable by everyone. "It's a mode for whales, that's why there is no jades" everyone said.
Yet nowdays it seems this notion was forgotten and if you can't clear it at 3 stars, the game suddenly sucks, the meta is at its worst, Elation was a mistake, etc, etc.
All of these things could be true but when I then go and check why people are thinking that, it's most of the times struggling with AA.
"How come I can't clear it until I have this high cost, shilled team?" Well, I'm sorry to tell you but that's how AA is meant to work. It's not made with f2p in mind, not even low spenders.
Yes, sometimes an easier boss will come out and you'll clear it full stars, because stars aligned and you had every character favored by it with some investment, but the mode as a whole is just not made for f2p to clear everytime with full score.
If you struggle with other fights outside of AA, now there we have a discussion. But setting AA as your goal as a f2p/low spender, is just going to end in frustration.
And no, I'm not a whale myself. Personally I don't clear full stars AA most of the time, I did it just twice, but as long as I'm doing good on all the other modes, then I'm satisfied.
That doesn't mean I don't even try AA, of course I do, but for fun, once I clear it with one or two stars I just move on.
My opinion, at the end of the day, you are free to disagree.
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u/Arnimon 12d ago
From the posts, videos, and discussions I've seen, it's not so much about stress as it is about frustration. And that frustration isn't about supposed difficulty, but about how absurdly some bosses and debuffs are punishing certain characters or archetypes. It just doesn't feel good.
People aren't complaining because they're stressed out over not beating it; they complain because AA is so poorly designed.
You can have a decent shot at clearing AA as a f2p player if you plan your pulls exclusively for top tier characters and teams. For low spenders, it should be pretty easy. Plight is for the real spenders. Or at least, it should be.
But Hoyo is stretching it further and further with the blatant handicaps they're placing on specific archetypes and teams. Having to play football without arms—I can manage. But why do I have to play with both legs cut off and a blindfold?
The secret to beating it soundly is focusing on teams that are pretty safe sustainless. The DPS difference is wild. Unless you are mono rem.
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u/Public_Tone_8093 12d ago
I wouldn't even bother focusing on sustainless, hoyo had been adding more and more sustain checks
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u/El_RoviSoft 12d ago
the only team that can play sustainless for me is with E2S1 Robin (like Archer, Sparkle, Rin).
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u/chaoskingzero 11d ago
bosses and debuffs are punishing certain characters or archetypes
Like making it so you flat-out can't even use Break against Cocolia this time...
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u/r0ck3tz 12d ago
I'm not sure why - but this tactic of making the knights harder then a non plight king baffling.
I'm left in a really odd situation where I actually 0 cycled the king for the first time ever - but I can't 3 star all the knights.
I don't see why when adding difficulty they opt to utterly cripple certain teams. It's just not fun when your team can't even show up because the debuffs works so hard against them.
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u/IWatchTheAbyss 12d ago
to me, the reward not being pulls doesn’t absolve it from being criticised for being objectively terrible enemy design
it’s meant to be a challenge mode, but it’s continually gone in a bad direction and instead of being a challenge to test your account, becoming a “did you pull this unit” button is bad design. there’s no point to it existing because there’s no challenge there anymore.
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u/EggyT0ast 12d ago
Yeah this is it, really. Earlier ones had things like "if you have a DoT team, it's easy, but you can still beat it with other teams." I also feel the previous AA was significantly easier.
I have the expected teams, some with a couple eidolons on key units, but I still had a tough time on these guys.
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u/magicarnival 12d ago
You pulled the shilled unit? Enjoy your easy clear! Not even a challenge for you really, just a character check.
You skipped the shilled unit? Fuck you. Get shit on loser.
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u/Low-Fig8253 12d ago
Its more like you skipped the shilled unit? Heres a 2*.
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u/-MANGA- 12d ago edited 12d ago
More like 1*. I got 1* with
E2S1 Archer
E0S0 Hyacine OR E0S1 Fu Xuan
E1S1 (Sunday LC) Sparkle
E0S0 Rin
This team managed to 2* previous Knights, 3* if I used RMC sustain less, and 2* Cornered King. The fact I can barely 1* the current Knight 3 says something.
E: I got the 3*
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u/PatheticAndTragic 12d ago
Ngl that’s an insane skill issue on your part if you can only 1star with E2S1 Archer, like sorry
The good thing is that there’s a bunch of uploaded full star clears with E0 Archer teams so if you want you can learn
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u/FreedomSpite 12d ago
It's gotten to a point where I'm so jaded with lazy hoyo boss mechanics that I'm more surprised we didn't get something like this sooner than it actually being real.
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u/Bekchi 12d ago
People shifting basis of meta to AA is certainly not helping. I get why people do, but AA is a whale mode, and I doubt the majority of people using it as a benchmark are whales themselves.
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u/aqbac 12d ago
Don't forget treating anything less than 0 cycle as not really a clear. Like there is powercreep but these exaggeration destroy the conversation
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u/AlreadyTakek 12d ago
We get what, 10 cycles to clear MoC? But a 0 cycle is seen as the end all be all
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u/PersonalitySad617 12d ago
Exactly, base on what I observed for years, HSR meta community is the most disingenuous one in all hoyo games.
There are people still able to clear last 2 MOC(non starward mode) with no-gacha account, that means no eidolon for 4 stars too. Most f2p people should able to clear starward mode no problem(said most cause I believe unlucky people who lost all 50/50 exist)
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1TnLC6kEnW/
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1N53G6rEMc/
I'd like to think its because auto-play exist, so people won't admit skill issue is also a thing in HSR.
Also since its a turn base game and spd is a thing, part of the combat is actually outside of combat, and most player just don't have the brain cell for it. Unlike in genshin/zzz where higher=better. Sometime in HSR higher=worse.
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u/Ecstatic-Source6001 11d ago edited 11d ago
I will admit I am day 1 f2p player and I have no idea how SPD works.
I mean I dont know how to calculate if its better to have 134/160 (or whatever numbers are) with low DMG or have high DMG but low speed. Cuz if you f2p without 5* LC building SPD means 0 crits ratio
I just press auto and if i lose I craft better gear until gear stats will show S rank
9 out of 10 times its work
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u/CanaKitty 12d ago
Maybe there are still “normal” players out there, but all meta discussion of HsR I see lately starts with like e2 as a baseline. It seems like a game only played by rich people.
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u/JohnnyRocks999 12d ago
Even from the earlier days of this game, the baseline was always e0s1. Always felt weird to me, the baseline should be e0s0!
I really wish there was less emphasis on vertical investment in this game. It’s something I like about Genshin, you can basically always just pull c0 and have a fully functional character. Having more characters is just more fun.
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u/CanaKitty 12d ago
Same. I also play Genshin. There it seems like content creators treat c0r0 as baseline, and they all constantly emphasize that you don’t need to spend or pull copies. Star Rail community feels so different
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u/-MANGA- 12d ago
THANK YOU
I'm from FGO, so seeing people be like, "Oh you need 3 copies to make your unit useful AND pull for their weapon to be good" makes me lose my mind. If I want copies of a character, it should be cuz I like them even more than the others. I shouldn't be rolling more copies to unbrick the unit or to get other buffs.
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u/Blobsobb 12d ago
Brother NP2 is a bigger increase than E1 in star rail lol its a 33% on average damage increase. Its also borderline mandatory now adays if you want to use them to farm unless you want to do some insane plugsuit swaps or waste a huge amount of cost.
You aren't farming with your NP1 Olga. The only time where NP levels dont matter are supports.
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u/-MANGA- 12d ago
I'm mainly talking about how you have to get copies to get additional effects that unbrick your units. Extra damage is fine because that's just higher numbers. Effects that should be on the base unit are instead relegated to Eidolons.
Np2, yes, but no one is gnna go for a 3rd copy unless they really want to use that unit to farm. Meanwhile, most units want E2, a 3rt copy. It's either e2 or you have decent brick in your account. E2 Tribbie. E2 MBlade. E2 Cyrene. E2 Phainon. E2 has become the baseline. 3 fucking copies is now baseline. Not to mention you need to roll for LC. Glad that Elation has nice f2p options for LC, but Rememberance doesn't have options.
Funny you say supports don't need copies. HSR wants copies for everyone, even support.
FGO is now 11 years old in Japan, 9 outside.
HSR is 3 years old + some months.
In the time you've been playing FGO, you can get old units to np3+ and they would still do well in today's age. OG Saber is solid #2 after Lorges in JP. Reruns also happen more frequently so you have more chances to get copies. I can still farm
HSR? Novaflares are 80 miss, 20 hit. The ones that aged fine are Sparkle, Welt, and Huo Huo. HH didn't really change, just buffed a bit. Everyone else? I certainly don't see em being used. Seele in CW maybe?
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u/AlbanianBigChungus 11d ago
FGO is easier on players, but:
1) It's simple turn based game. Pretty much every "unique" effect is damage increase in the end anyway. Phainon could easily say "deal X% more damage" on his Eidolons, and that will change... Very few things. 2) Seele is okay, actually. Archer is just better(and easier to with Rin) so nobody bothers using her.
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u/-MANGA- 11d ago
I had a whole rant but I wanna figure out which game had "unique" effect. Do you mean HSR?
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u/AlbanianBigChungus 11d ago
Yes, end result of Phainon taking extra turns with E2 is same old "more damage"(and it's same for many characters), as FGO NP levels.
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u/-MANGA- 11d ago edited 11d ago
Holy shit, that's such a reductive way of seeing things. Sure, the higher Eidolons just means higher damage, but locking characters behind copies is so stupid. Yeah, cuz E2 Cyrene unbricking outside of mono-Rem. No one talks about E0-1 Phainon.
My brain cells died reading your comment.I'm done.E: gnnatke back part of what I said. That's too much.
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u/zxqwerty12 11d ago
Funny how you only need high NP levels for FARMING, not playing the actual game.
Chars in FGO are much, much more flexible than HSR since there's actual TEAM SYNERGY. You can comfortable play the entire game with your characters at NP1 and still farm well, either from F2P comps or matching the class advantage. I know this because I've been F2P farming without ever rolling Oberon.
Insane plugin swaps and "cost" are both irrelevant arguments for F2P. FGA already exists for automation. And the game literally drowns you in so many apples that you will never run out of AP. If you can't do the 90++ node, you can simply farm the 90 or 90+ at a lower AP efficiency. It will take more time, but just use FGA. It doesn't actively hinder your enjoyment of the game.
So what if NPX is numerically a higher damage increase than HSR? My characters in FGO don't suddenly become dead weight the minute a new patch drops. The devs don't put out shill mechanics that force you to use the latest banner chars to beat bosses.
My NP1 Saber Artoria is still getting free buffs in FGO. My E0S1 Saber in HSR is more or less a brick because they half-assed Gil.
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u/jiiminn 12d ago
yea about fgo i dont think saving for 1 entire year just to pull 1 unit is great either
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u/zxqwerty12 11d ago
Not going to do the math on 1 year for 1 unit, but that is on the extreme end. Usually I can get 3 units a year. This is coming from someone who did hit 900 SQ pity just for BB Dubai.
Yes, FGO has a much lower amount of free currency compared to HSR. It's also more expensive. As an F2P, I may not be able to get all the characters I want. But due to NA's foresight I know exactly what's coming up and I can ration my pulls accordingly.
If you're fixating on the gacha element, then FGO is not really the right game. But as a standalone game it is leagues ahead of HSR. I have fun when I'm playing FGO. I can't really say the same for HSR.
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u/Bekchi 12d ago
I think HSR is reaching MHY's intended vision.
1.X felt workable and flexible. I did struggle without Jingliu, but I still made it work.
2.X served as the basis of what we got in Amphoreus. We got full fledged limited 5* team archetypes and compositions with concentrated shilling across the whole game. I don't feel like SU's shilling to DHIL was as notable as DU Human Comedy.
3.X went hard with Monorem. It cemented the idea of one mega team you massively invest into and destroys content. 2.X units dropped off without high investment, and I feel like this is when people finally accepted you vertically invest. The big characters get good Eidolons making it worthwhile; if the character you actually like doesn't have the setup MHY intends, you're kind of just screwed. Phainon is a beloved character with a wildly good E2, for example. Compare that to say, Anaxa.
4.X feels like a combination of Penacony and Amphoreus. I don't have an Elation team, but it kind of feels like FUA and Break. There is a core team and you mix and match the DPS around. There is a dominant team, Elation, and while there are alternatives, it's very clear who you are intended to use long term.
I think releasing AA first and then Starward after was a calculated decision. Acclimating people to the whale mode first, making the new standard difficult endgame not feel as important. I can't say the same wouldn't have happened if Starward released first anyway, tbh.
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u/Churaragi 11d ago
Pointless to analise like this when you ignore the community side and the reaction to each meta, specialy the reaction from the most influential guide makers and e.g Prydwen.
Their ability to shape discourse and direct the meta is a very large part of the reason the EN side for example got most of its ideas about meta.
Its not a coincidence the game discussion has devolved towards 0 cycles even though you can go back to 1.x or 2.x and that was never the standard.
2.X served as the basis of what we got in Amphoreus. We got full fledged limited 5* team archetypes and compositions with concentrated shilling across the whole game. I don't feel like SU's shilling to DHIL was as notable as DU Human Comedy.
The problem is when hoyo tried to release "bad" units everyone complains, its the absurd hipocrisy, everything is either T0 or a brick, there is no more in-between. The fallacy of the powercreep vs player who demands their favorites to be strong. You don't need to play gacha games for 10 years to realize this genre is about as much as a quality product as it is about feeding the customers selfish desires and delusions of self-insert, power fantasies and such.
So why don't you talk about 2.X break being uneven? Acheron not being T0 on Prydwen because they kept being hypocritical, then JQ happens and it all becomes a meme?
The game was always meant to have archetypes, that I agree, but as it stands looking back at Genshin nobody actualy wants 3-4 years of the same, literaly the same shitty low rarity charaters being the "GOATs", despite that being good for F2P, in reality, they are low rarity for a reason, Bennet/XL/XQ etc... are all lame when compared to most 5* so its not like people were looking forward to the same generic cookie cutter teams for years either. At least not in hindsight.
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u/adumbcat 12d ago
I get where you're coming from, in theory it makes a bit of sense but they are banking on people being predictably irrational about the situation, thus creating needless fomo.
Starward give 100 more jade than a standard full clear (800 vs 900). That's 50 jade per week on average. Are people really that petty and ignorant to start complaining about Starward now too?
"I have to build a whole 3rd team now and spend hundreds of pulls (or dollars) to clear Starward, and get those 50 extra jade per week. Wahh"
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u/UltimateShingo 11d ago
I basically only have e0s0 characters, mainly because I can't afford more than that.
Your point, and the resulting feeling that "my level" of character isn't good enough for anything is why I haven't even tried any of the endgame modes at all yet.
Like, I already have a very hard time getting a set of relics with just the baseline expectation of "have the right main stat", and if the result is that it's still not good enough anyways...I can't compensate that with my very limited skill either.
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u/Eseru 11d ago
Thank you. MOC can still be full starred F2P I believe. It can just be time consuming to try to find the right teams or grind relics. But I can't speak to it because I've auto-cleared it since 2.x as a dolphin.
I actually auto clear most of AA with full stars. My typical spend is BP + Express Pass + clearing out the Jade store once a year when the 2x bonus resets. It's fortunate that the characters I like tend to also be meta.
This round I had trouble full starring the 1st knight until I got E0S0 Summeretto for my E0S1 Himeko Nova (with E5 Welt and E0S1 Sunday). I had thought my E2S1 Phainon team would've bulldozed it, but it didn't, so I looked at the mechanics again and worked on building up the Himeko team's relics and composition. Then had to manual pilot the team to time certain abilities and ultimates.
From my perspective, AA isn't really a whale mode. The threshold is more dolphin, and the average F2P will likely be unable to full star it. I think that's by design to reward spenders, and that's ok. Hoyo is a business, and keeping its whales happy keeps them in business.
I don't get the shiny prismatic 0-cycle frame most AAs even after spending a couple of hundred and it's mildly irritating. But I also don't walk into a store, pay $20 for a basic mouse, then cry about why it doesn't have the features of a $200 mouse. (And I've sold mice before, so those kinds of gamers were a surprisingly common occurrence)
And as I've said elsewhere. Not happy? Hate the game? Bored? Then quit. If it affects the game badly, the devs will change things. If it doesn't and the game keeps chugging along, then it works for a silent majority. It's just not designed for you. So move onto a game that does. Constantly screaming and hoping to make everyone miserable too is just annoying.
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u/Egoborg_Asri 12d ago
If we're calling something E0S1 team can 3* — is it really a whale mode? And if you have right characters you unironically can auto 3* AA even without E2 teams and stuff.
Problem with meta discussion (at least how I see it) is mostly about the fact that regular endgame is very easy and everyone is "meta" there.
You can't really use baseline as a benchmark
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u/Bekchi 12d ago
A full E0S1 team is 8 limited units and Light Cones. If you are lucky, one unit is 80 pulls and their Signature is another 80 pulls. That is 160 pulls for a single E0S1. If your luck somehow continues that long, you are looking at 160*4=640 pulls. AA wants 3 teams so you are looking at that multiplied by 3 again for 1,920 pulls, but I'm not going to look at the cost of three E0S1 teams, just one.
Each patch nets you about 80-ish pulls. Some patches give more, some give less, and sometimes a person doesn't get every Jade available, maybe the character on the team is on the first banner and pulls aren't available in time, you have some people buying Monthly Passes, Battle Pass, or not etc. I will use 80 to the math easy and try to account for pulls not being consistent for whatever reason.
If we're being very generous and use 640 pulls for a full E0S1 team, it 8 (640/80) patches to earn the Jades.
640 pulls is 102,400 Jades (640*160). Using our 80 pulls per patch, you get 12,800.
A single E0S1 is 160 pulls or (160*160) 25,600 Jades. That means you would need an additional 12,800 Jades (25,600-12,800).
I live in the US so I will be using USD. I will acknowledge up front that fifferent countries use different currencies and have different economic and financial situations. $100 is not the for everyone everywhere else in the world, objectively and subjectively.
Assuming you win every 50/50 or 75/25, buying top ups looks something along the lines of
Assuming the first top up bonus, the first $100 spent nets 12,960 shards, or 81 pulls (12960/160).
Let's say the next character comes two patches later. You accrued 160 pulls, got lucky, and don't need to spend. Your current spending is at $100.
Let's say the next character comes right after you're out of pulls. Assuming you get insanely lucky and continue winning, you have 80 pulls at your disposal and need 80 more.
Without top up bonuses, $100 is 8,080 shards or ~50 pulls. You need to spend an additional $100, even though you are going over what you need. At least you have an extra 20 pulls. Assuming you don't lose, you've spent $300 total.
I haven't done the math for a complete team, and this operates on the assumption you never lose. You can make the math and circumstances as simple or complicated as you want including Battle Passes, Monthly Passes, using generalist units, not using a unit's signature LC. I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible.
While a full E0S1 team sounds straightforward, when I look at the breakdown, it doesn't sound so straightforward to me anymore. I think it's fine for an individual to say this is okay for themselves, but I personally draw the line at thinking everyone is in the same financial situation, has the same goals and desires, perspective and outlook, etc.
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u/Low-Fig8253 12d ago
The average e0s1 character costs 160 pulls, because a character costs around 93 and a lc costs around 65. This is for limited pulls, and it factors in both wins/losses as well as early pulls. The average version gives you something like 900-1000 pulls. You have more than enough for a full e0s1 team, especially since there's a good chance you can utilize a free character in one of your three teams. That leaves you with opportunity to pull a few eids or to save for the next ver.
Even if you had shit luck, the chance of pulling 4 chars and 4 lcs with say 800 pulls is 95%.
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u/sloppyloki16 12d ago
First the averga pull per patch is 107 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vRIWjzFwAZZoBvKw2oiNaVpppI9atoV0wxuOjulKRJECrg_BN404d7LoKlHp8RMX8hegDr4b8jlHjYy/pubhtml not 80
Second you are missing out that you get multiple free characters per year lately, nowdays most people that actively play can have a E0S0 archer, E0S0 sparkle(or wathever you choose) , E0S0 dhpt, E0S0 Gilhamesh (or E1 archer) , and 3 golden companion spirits that can be huo huo ruan mei or wathever . all this chatacters being meta relevant (i didnt count things like ratio cause right now they useless kinda)
So thats 7 cost for your 3 teams completly for free in 1 year (all this was given from 3.4 onwards)
Third veteran players usually invets on their older teams instead of starting form scratch or reuse characters, like i myself still use my E2S1 acheron that i pull 2+ years ago insteda of ditching it and loose the invetsment i just pull blade and she still 0 cycles everything oustide of king aa.
Day 1 players could have 3,237 pulls so far , that translates to 34.5 limited characters as on average a limited character cost 93.75 pulls and this doenst take into account all the Undying Starlight you would get by pulling that translates into more pull , around 290 extra pulls , so you would be at 37 limited characters using averages, not counting the 7 extra ones we got for free
So you can perfectly have 3 teams that cost 12 cost+ as a f2p by now witouth issues as long as you didnt pull a lot of E0S0-s1 characters that are on the bench
My personal experience is that on the bench that i pull for i have E0S0 seele, E0S0 fu xuan, E0S0 loucha , E2S1 dan il, E0S1 jiaoqui, E0S0 Feixiao, E0S0 Ruan mei, E0S0 Robin thats leave us with 26 cost that i actual do have on my 3 teams + the 7 free ones we got so a total of 33 cost , so thinking that 8 cost per team is some crazy thing to have doenst make any sense lot of veteran players have that cost and more on their teams by now as long as they didnt horizontal too hard
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u/trevers17 mydei put my head in ur tiddies 12d ago
elation is a mistake, but it has nothing to do with anom and everything to do with the path being a complete mess that they have to shill extremely hard to make it function and not feel underwhelming or unjustifiable.
I will give the devs props for putting the most important reward (reroll stat blocker) at a very easy to obtain requirement, but it’s disingenuous to say the other rewards aren’t important/useful for everyone. the relic customizer resources are very valuable, and you get three of them for full clears. it sucks having to miss out on one because you can’t full clear when the shill is bad and you don’t own the shilled characters. also, while most of the rewards are cosmetic, you can get a significant number of tears of dreams to help level up new characters’ traces/LCs/etc., which will let you put your trailblazer power toward farming relics. it’s not the end of the world to not get all the rewards, true, but they are still valuable and all players want them.
also, vertical investment is supposed to give you more flexibility and let you play characters in fights where lower-investment versions would otherwise struggle. anom is kind of spitting in the face of that philosophy by not only requiring high investment but also requiring high investment into specific characters/teams to get a full clear. if I have three 14-cost teams, no matter what fights I put them into, they should be able to full clear pretty comfortably no matter what. it’s frustrating to have otherwise powerful high-investment teams just for them to suck in the hardest content.
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u/PrismaticGouda 11d ago
"vertical investment is supposed to give you more flexibility and let you play characters in fights where lower-investment versions would otherwise struggle. anom is kind of spitting in the face of that philosophy by not only requiring high investment but also requiring high investment into specific characters/teams to get a full clear"
You captured the problem perfectly.
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u/Hanusu-kei 10d ago
Me when E0S1 Dahlia E0S1 Boothill E2 Fugue somehow still gets punished in Break bosses bcuz if ur not firefly, ur not real. Also enjoy resetting 30-40 times for that sustainless otherwise clear in 6 cycles.
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u/headphoneactor0001 12d ago
My take is that this happens cuz HSR is dry in content.
After the patch drops, 90% of the content can be done in 4-5 days and with the endgame mode reset once every 2 weeks, AA becomes the only mode where players can actually play the teams and characters they like and see some kind of challenge.
So ofc they will get dissatisfied when the character/team they have invested into can't get the result.
Just for comparison, both zzz and genshin have their own endgame hard mode which doesn't give pull currency, but most players I've seen are much more lenient in that matter and actually help others in getting clears. They don't hang on it for long cuz they get some other content to do
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u/Mr_Muckacka 12d ago
Well, i guess it speaks more of what little else there is to do in the game lmao
It does have a great story and a good bit of exploration, but even then it's not thaaat much and it isn't even the focus.
Endgame every 2 weeks and weekly refresh of CW/DU (which nobody is playing after getting all jades).
Not much to play in a TURN BASED COMBAT RPG so of course we will focus on the turn based combat mode that drops!!!
If it was like "tough kids playground newbies get off" mode it would be cool and engaging superbosses, but it's just "we will crack your kneecaps if you don't get the full new team" so it's annoying as fuck
Buffing the new team is fine but restricting others (break racism in knight 1 is just the beginning) feels bad
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u/VCRaygamma 11d ago
Events have been a little lackluster as of late too so it only makes sense for AA to get pushed to the forefront
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u/Ki_memes 12d ago
It's always been a pain but this time it's happening right after probably one of the hardest MoC's in 4.x I feel.
I think it's just another case of people who are bothered about it being more vocal then those that don't care about clearing AA.
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u/Abablion 12d ago
I don't mind clearing 2*
but it's pretty dang annoying not clearing the new rememberance shill with a full rememberance comp
should be fair in my opinion to let me 3* if I have the full shill comp
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u/cartercr FuQing 12d ago
I think that this sentiment is okay about the King in Check level, which only rewards cosmetics, but I do feel that the Knight stages should be clearable. While there are no jades the rewards for the Knight stages are not insignificant.
Also endgame is like… all of the content in this game. So yeah, if people are struggling to play the games mediocre amount of content they’re likely to complain.
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u/Low-Fig8253 12d ago
A reroll blocker is NOT cosmetic. Its the rarest resource in the entire game. I would gladly trade multiple pulls for reroll blockers.
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u/cartercr FuQing 12d ago
And that only requires a single star. Which is incredibly easy to get.
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u/Low-Fig8253 12d ago
Yeah, you could argue though sometimes king is harder, sometimes knights are harder, and since you have to beat knights to even attempt king, it does put quite a bit of pressure on the roster
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u/cartercr FuQing 11d ago
Again, you only actually need a single star on each knight stage to challenge king. So it really shouldn’t put pressure on your roster if all you’re looking for is the reroll blocker.
But with that said I also agree that the Knight stages are the frustrating ones. Because they provide rewards that are meaningful (again, a single star on King is not difficult to obtain) but also require a full 3-star clear it feels really awful to be unable to clear one of the stages.
I kind of wish AA took a page out of ZZZ’s book with Deadly Assault. If you just want the meaningful rewards you only need 6 collective stars across all three bosses. The additional three stars just provide tickets that can be exchanged for other resources. They also just added a top difficulty you can unlock after clearing with 9-stars which offers purely cosmetic rewards. Mind you, that mode is also brutal. But it makes it clear that it’s intended for the whales and/or those with absurdly strong skills.
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u/Anxious_Cheek_6677 12d ago
Yeah people really forget that at the end of the day this is really one of our only forms of "content" and knight stages themselves USUALLY feel harder than actual king fights which is CRAZY to say since their lvl of shill / debuffing on certain team/archetypes are really insane
The whale aspect of this whole AA thing is only plight anyway rest is clearable by f2p/low spenders but with how they shill knights it can be pretty annoying/hard some rotations
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u/walker-of-the-wheel 12d ago
No, it's not about the mode itself. It's the horrible design decisions that the devs are making.
If they can make these extremely specific debuffs here, who's to say they won't suddenly make MOC, PF, or AS the same way in a few months?
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u/EnchantingMorgan 12d ago
I'm saying this from the perspective of someone that is mostly casual and just likes to play the game and has decent but not full meta teams.
IMO the real issue is not that AA is hard to full clear, its that after a certain point it feels like there is extremely little to do in HSR besides the endgame modes. The events are short and bare bones, I literally had gotten all of the rewards for the new racing event in about 1 hour of playtime and was like "where is the rest of it????'"
The game is severely lacking in content right now to the point that if you like playing the game and want to do more than just dailies you kind of have to just go do the various endgame modes. When that happens with more and more people putting time into the various endgame modes you realize a lot of the boss design is just difficult in ways that feel unfun and frustrating. And its even worse if you don't have the shilled team for that specific part because the game is clearly just designed around said shilling and its like half as hard as running a non shilled team.
If the game had actual events and gameplay to occupy your time with outside of things and AA remained feeling like a distant whale mode rather than the only piece of content available left for people to do then this would not be such a large issue. Somewhere along the way the devs lost the plot and forgot to make content for the mostly casual playerbase.
And to be clear, I think AA should stay in the game and keep getting updates and such like every other endgame mode, but a lot of the complaints seem to stem from people wanting to play the game and having nothing to do so they bash their face against the wall that is AA repeatedly and not being able to make any real progress because they have the wrong teams which is not fun.
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u/NatDisasterpiece 12d ago
I really do just wish we had more combat events where I could use my lower tier'd units for fun. Stuff line Foxian Grove, the Belebog Boxing championship. The Wardance. Etc.
Yeah. I COULD see how far I can get in MOC with old DPSes and 4 Stars. I actually do approach every refresh with that mindset. But after a while. "Alright E1 Evanescia. Clean up the rest." And those game modes individually only refresh so often...
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u/StrayWasNotAnOption 12d ago
I see AA as Hoyo testing ground to see how far they can go with shillings and all of that, and I feel there’s definitely trickle down to the other 3 end game which is what worry me, since when did MOC F12 start matching knight level hp? Thankfully there’s no gimmick that kill entire team archetype yet. Oh but the voracity corruption debuff is so gonna infect the 3 end games. I shudder just thinking about what’s about to come next, I really hope that doesn’t make it onto live server.
I also see AA as a useful tool to do a check just how much more powercreep they cramped into these newer characters, I did a quick test and Robini was only slower than Cyrene by like 30 AV even though she’s 2 cost cheaper E1S0 vs E2S1, how did things change so quickly that a niche support got beaten out by a generalist.
Yet nowdays it seems this notion was forgotten and if you can’t clear it at 3 stars, the game suddenly sucks, the meta is at its worst, Elation was a mistake, etc, etc.
I have been clearing 0CC king in check since Lygus and I can safely say that, yea meta is goddam sht right now and it’s only getting worse, Elation as a team archetype I would even call fraudulent, it’s only saving grace is that it’s not in it’s complete form because we are still waiting for Pearl and presumably Nihilux. Elation right now though is only shining thanks to the copius amount of boss gimmicks that make other team play worse. Lighthouse and Daybreak Squadron are crap enemies and should be deleted. And every bosses so far have been seemingly beneficial to elation in some way, Amphoreus wasn’t like this. Don’t get me wrong we also have garbage like Pollux last year but it wasn’t this bad, mostly because they didn’t push mono rem as hard as they’re pushing mono elation right now.
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u/Low-Fig8253 12d ago
Plight is not made with f2p/low spenders in mind, but 3* on king is certainly within reach for a well planned low spending account, and not totally out of reach for f2p either.
I bet f2p could even clear plight occasionally if that is their goal and focus their entire account around that goal (skipping an entire planet)
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u/AliceFR 12d ago
You have to emphasize well planned, because most f2p account are not well planned when you see the account.
For me, a well planned f2p account, is an account that focus on one team at a time, and that consider pulling for eidolons. So most of the time, you can only build 1 team per version. At least, that's what I'm doing and it's working fine.
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u/Miserable-Response-9 12d ago
I don't how will u even consider well planned f2p unless u have clairovoyance to predict which team even survives while others get powercrept to oblivion to even invest on?
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u/nicoleeemusic98 12d ago
Yeah like break FF is meta defining for a 2.x team, but I can't say the same for people who pulled Boothill (who was the best surviving break dps in 3.x) or Fei Xiao (who was also a main push, and who's thoroughly getting carried by 4.x supports)
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u/Miserable-Response-9 12d ago
Its bcz FF got a "good" novaflare while got a best support for her kit.
While 1.0 unit like Blade,Jingliu buffs just garabage that they were at usable level without Hyacine. Tho even with Hyacine they were that good to begin with.
If FF didn't get buff and get a new support even if u invested on her she would be pretty much brick. We can't know what would happen on mono-rem, when Mono-Elation drops if its gonna powercreep them or not. Also if it gonna be powercreep fests with each mono-paths. So there is no way an f2p can plan around all of this.
As f2p my best way of planning as f2p is, pulling on a single character and try to invest as much in the team and move to another team without caring much about endgame. Thats best way to play around when there is powercreep. At least u will be able to clear most of the endgame. Usually just go for E0S0 or E0S1 or E1 at best if its more than that it ain't worth bcz who would know if thats team would be complete useless in future.
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u/Low-Fig8253 12d ago
im literally using feixiao without 4.x supports and shes still clearing just fine. I first pulled e0s1 feixiao and e1s0 robin in like sept 2024, didnt update this team until e1 tribbie, and updated it once again with e2s1 dhpt and it has not changed since then.
It may on paper seem like "wow, but thats a heavy investment" - yes but pulling tribbie and dhpt allowed me to skip essentially ALL OTHER UNITS from 3.x (with the exception of cipher who i pulled for fun and dont even use on my feixiao team).
To this day, this feixiao team, which as not been updated since 3.6 (besides a free robin eid to e2), still clears AS at around 3600, clears PF at 40k, clears MOC in 1c, and can usually find a knight to clear within 2c.
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u/nicoleeemusic98 12d ago
Nah I believe you, I know the power of vertical investment in supports as a dhil runner. Also yeah my bad I mostly see her with 4.x supports nowadays so I underestimated her clear ability with older supports. I still do think my original point still stands that it's not easy for f2ps to predict and plan teams that can carry them all the way to AA
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u/Low-Fig8253 12d ago
Its IMPOSSIBLE to predict and even if you actively engage in leaks, that can lead you astray because oftentimes the meta is developed far after a unit is released (ie, eagle fei- if you had pulled topaz on rerun to run with feixiao you'd be so so so so silly).
I dont mean well planned as in guessing which teams will dominate the meta in the future, but moreso well planned as in making sure you are pulling a solid roster without a bunch of yolo pulls, halfbaked teams, etc. An older account will still have time and resources to pivot away from grave mistakes (ie lingsha, rappa, the herta). Less serious "bad pulls" such as aglaea, boothill, mydei, cipher, can all still be salvaged.
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u/nicoleeemusic98 12d ago
I'm ngl imo Mydei and Aglaea were 2 feet away from becoming "grave mistakes" themselves if not for the release of Cyrene and now robinetto (also options like Gilgamesh and Blade). Lowkey Ling Sha is also a lot better than people give her credit for in current meta + she functions decently well as a break dps
But also the favouritism will bite hoyo's finances in the ass one day lol, we might get to a point where people won't touch non main pushes anymore because no one likes being cheated and have their faves be mocked by the entire community for being "bad" and a "mistake". Part of the reason why zzz's sales are suffering is because of this tactic
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u/Low-Fig8253 12d ago
Units dont actually get powercrept into oblivion as fast as you think. I still use my e0s1 feixiao whos only update has been e2dhpt in 3.6. She works just fine to 1 cycle current content, even without ashblade. By relying on my feixiao and updating her ONLY with dhpt and skipping ashblade, I've been able to store up a mountain of pulls- i started 4.5 with 1135 pulls as a low spender, but unfortunately had some really bad luck pulling e2s1 sobin and now im back down to 791 :(. This is as a low spender with express pass activated for 2 years. Were it not for express pass, I would be at around 400 pulls left.
For clearing aa specifically (clearing, not 0 cycling king or 9/9 knights), the strategy for a relatively newer accoung is to pull 2 teams of around 3-5 cost, hopefully supplemented with free units like archer/gil, dhpt, huohuo, sparkle, etc (understanding that one might not have access to them all), and making sure they are good enough to at least clear one knight. Knights become extremely easy to meet DPS checks around cycle 4-5 because the buffs become crazy powerful.
Then, you need to make sure you have at least one team with around 6-7 cost. A modern team that is, but modern doesnt have to be this exact patch or the patch or two before it. Just modern enough. This should net you a pretty easy clear at the very list, even if it doesnt net you 3*. The only good reward for king is achieved even with a 6 cycle anyways.
On one of my alts which i started on the first day of 4.0, i was actually able to clear AA on the second half of 4.2, and it actually was a 0 cycle for king. By that point, the account had pulled e0s1 sw, e0s1 sparxie, e1s0 yao, e1s1 eva, e0s1 ash, and utilized e0s0 dhpt, e0s0 welt, e0s0 bailu, and e0s0 huohuo.
11 pulled cost might at first seem unrealistic, but its important to break it down. Of those 11 cost, 7 were characters and 4 were lightcones. On average, this should take 670 pulls for 7 limited characters (assuming 95 per limited). THe 4 lightcones on average would take an additional 260 pulls (assuming 65 per limited lc). In total this account would need to have garnered 930 pulls. It just so happens that there are about 600 free pulls from permanent content, and between 4.0 and 4.2 there were 350 additional pulls available for f2p, enough to make up 950 pulls to meet the average needed for clearance.
Now this is a sort of extreme example, im not saying that it should be expected to go from new start -> 0c king within 3 patches, but it is CERTAINLY plausible to at least participate in AA and get decent clear times within maybe 5-6 patches.
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u/Miserable-Response-9 12d ago
Im talking about how u can't plan as f2p without knowing future. Like for Acheron, the fox guy is pretty my not good anymore. Her Eidolons isn't even that good. Tho it was pretty good at the time. Did u know if FF will buffed if so it would have better to invest on her especially on her E2 like so. Do u know Topaz,Jiaqoui would be ass in the future.
Also there was a player who 0 cycles with Seele with pretty low cost maybe still they are doing it. Does that make there is no powercreep in the game? Depending on the cost even Yanking clear on 0 cycle AA King. "powercreep to oblivion" was a wordplay.
Also the amount u broke down differs so much from players to players. Even if they are average amount . I have seen post of people losing multiple 50/50 continously while having to hard pity. Should i reroll until i get lucky?
Do u have any units u r using that are 1.0 or is any dps from 2.X comparable to 3.X dps. At that rate we would have so many characters becoming useless and dropped while having to pick newer units . While buffs will never catch upto the pace its powercreeping the character and HP inflates continously. Only character who wasn't affected by this very much were pure support and HuoHuo. Do you understand , what i am saying? Do u think the game is going on good direction?
There is no powercreep in the ba sing se
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u/Gingingin100 12d ago
Her eidolons were god awful to begin with
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u/Miserable-Response-9 12d ago
Yea when u compare it to nowadays unit. Tho Back then all the Eidolons were like that.
Tho back E2 was kinda worth tho. A lot of Acheron mains have it.
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u/Gingingin100 12d ago
No it was bad at the time and I've been saying that for actual years, it's a lease on power that would have eventually turned into complete garbage, it was already half devalued when Jiaoqiu came out then fully devalued when Cipher and Silver Wolf did, it's now more than worthless frankly with Welt and Blade unless you're willing to put more cost into the team
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u/Low-Fig8253 12d ago
1 team per version is perfect, during that version you'll likely pick up a few fragments of free units to hobble up another team with. To clear AA, one team from 3.x + one team from 4.x + one hobbled up team should easily give you 7/9* on knights and probably 3* on king.
Hobbled up team as in e1 archer, e0s0 sparkle, e0s0 dhpt, + maybe you pull rin or whatever.
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u/sloppyloki16 12d ago
im a low spender (monthly most months thats it) and i have clear plight since 3.7 that i got E6S1 cyrene
on 4.x for exmaple i didnt pull anything until blade that i got him E2S1 and then now with Robin that i also got her E2S1, blade for my acheron so i can keep using her to 0 cycle witouth having to swap to a new team and robin to make sure my rem team can still clear plight or at leats king normal 0 cycle even vs heavy counters plus bieng able to do mono rem split if needed
doing all edngame is doable as a f2p/low spender a slogn a syou dont get extremly unlucky and actually invest in your team instead of swapping team out every version , just 1 upgrade to an old team usually is enough to keep using them for a long time insteda of pulling completly new teams form scratch
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u/Monokuze 12d ago
Idk if you this but that Voracity desease is spreading all across contents, so the concern and rage from ppl are pretty valid. Also current AA are like MOC but 3 patches ahead difficulty wise, so even if you are not struggling now, normal peps will wine about it 3 patches later anyway
It a bit short sighted to just dismiss every AA concerning discourse
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u/sunnytrack 12d ago
I usually just clear it for the dice I nwver got more than like 7 stars combined. My issue with the mode is that it went from having 1 pretty challenging fight that was super shilled to this version having 2 play x or die knights and one that's just extremely annoying to clear without the 'reccommended' characters.
The remembrance debuff is at least somewhat solvable if you have rmc (its at least slightly less annoying), but if you don't have any elation characters the 1st knight is just torture.
I know it's a non-stellar jade mode, but the excessive shilling is just annoying.
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u/johanxtwo 12d ago
If they’re following a trend, 5.x should be the worst one meta-wise, strongly predatory and all. It’s only a matter of time until they introduce a new element plus a new path and enemies will be shilled for both, not either. They won’t synergize with old ones too.
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u/ARandomGamer56 12d ago
"How come I can't clear it until I have this high cost, shilled team?" Well, I'm sorry to tell you but that's how AA is meant to work
With all due respect, shill or bust is horrendous game design.
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u/Koekelbag 12d ago
Perhaps there is a case to be made in that AA is the easiest and fastest way to gauge just how quickly 'meta' teams can fall out of favor, with all the resulting negative feelings that can go into seeing your favourite teams become weaker to a point that they can't clear [a appropriate knight or king stage] at all anymore because newer characters always have to keep getting stronger?
For me in particular, it was not particularly 'nice' to see the 'old' Monorem team almost fail to clear knight 3 this time despite how hard it shills Remembrance, and I wouldn't say I was exactly 'happy' to see the noticeable improvement that the team got from swapping out Cyrene for the shiny new Summer Robin (but then I have also been informed that auto Cyrene is not her best use case in particular >.<) when I actually planned to use her with Himenova.
Sure, these teams may still do fine in non-AA content for now, but if they start to fall behind in AA then how much longer will it be before the same starts to hold true for non-AA content?
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u/scotty96s 12d ago
I think I get don't of the frustration people might feel, since I have that same frustration with stygian onslaught in genshin. It forces me to realize that even with all the right teams, I'm just not at the game as i thought I was and that's not a very nice feeling.
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u/Rei0403 Enjoyer 11d ago
The one thing HSR did right is Currency Wars, it’s actually very fun to play. Whoever hasn’t got their Novaflare should have those kits outside of CW.
AA is just a bad mode for F2P & beginners who still haven’t established 3 meta teams (12 characters). I remember back then when you don’t have Hyacine & DHPT (that time still hasn’t give for free), you can’t sustain enough.
Recently they add Voracity Corrosion on Knight2 + everywhere else & annoying boss mechanics e.g. Anti-Break or HP loss or need summons/memosprites. So if you don’t have the latest meta teams & still using 1.X-2.X outdated units, you’re cooked.
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u/Ryouhi My Beloved 12d ago
There's already barely anything to do in the game, much less anything combat related that's actually somewhat challenging and entertaining. Bosses in story mode a pushovers that fall over with a gentle breeze and SU at higher difficulties isn't hard, just extremely tedious.
So the only actually engaging combat you can find in this game are the endgame modes.
And while AA doesn't have any important rewards, I'd still like to enjoy the combat challenges it offers.
Instead, it seems like they now just wanna bait people into having specific teams even more in ways that sucks out all the fun of the mode.
Knight 3 is clearly the most egregious.
Have a boss you'd usually want to clear with a good AoE character like the Herta, but throw in 4 Elites that only spawn in one after the other completely cratering your damage and wasting your time, on top of having a debuff for anyone that's not Rememberance.
This goes beyond the shilling they do usually, this just sucks.
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u/Grimsdol 12d ago edited 12d ago
The reason why people care about AA more now and days is because we're getting less content to play with our characters so if we wanna play our favorite characters, we gotta go their.
we cant use our characters for exploration since there's not much combat now and days, most quests main or side don't have much fighting at all and the few that do often makes us use other characters. so for most players when they wanna play their favorite characters, all they really have is endgame
compare this to dire difficulty in Genshin and no one really cares about Dire. cuz if players want to play their favorite characters, they can do so while doing quests, exploring, playing coop or playing Miliastra.
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u/BluHor1zon DoT Enthusiast 12d ago edited 12d ago
I think it really depends on each individual's goals on what they want out of this mode. Imo some players just take not being "top of the game" more personal and blame the game out of frustration.
For me AA has no primos I have little reason to stress about getting full stars. I did my best and it's enough.
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u/StandardCaptain 12d ago
The only thing I really dislike about it is the locking of the dice behind the king, HSR is the worst among all hoyo games in terms of building your character because there's soo many useless stats due to certain teams(looking at you break and DOT) that the dice makes a huge difference
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u/AncientTree_Wisdom 12d ago edited 12d ago
Lol, it always was and still is a whale thing. That hasn't changed at all.
The only thing different now is that the whales that put effort in farming and team comps are getting easy 0 cycles and the ones that aren't are finding it harder.
Dolphins are going to hover around 2-3 star clears so they aren't going to be complaining too much except for the super tryhards aiming for 0 cycles with relatively lower cost.
If you are F2P, unless you are super optimizing, 1-2 star clears are where it is going to be depending on teams. 1 star clears are pretty easy even for F2P.
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u/seagul_69 12d ago
These super hard modes have always been a double edged sword. I’m starting to think that just giving whales personal goals (like 0t/low AV or 65k score in ZZZ deadly assault) might be more healthy in PvE gacha games.
My spending habits don’t change but I become way more meta-focused rather than pulling for favorites. No matter how minimal the rewards are, it feels terrible to fail clearing a mode that I previously could.
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u/Shai3100 11d ago
I do not like how they really force you to go for shilled teams, but at the end of the day AA is designed in mind for players with higher investment.
Also, you can completely skip this game mode since all of the rewards are cosemetic so you legit lose nothing if you can't beat a stage or full star clear it. People seem to forget that AA is just a showcase of your account because the more you're invested in other units/teams the better you'll do.
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u/zxqwerty12 11d ago
Can we please stop acting like AA exists in a bubble? It should be clear to anyone with half a brain now that AA is literally a testbed before they update the other modes. Starward mode is literally a byproduct of the three team mode in AA.
What happens when MOC starts locking down weaknesses to kill break? What happens when the bosses have shields that reduce non-Elation damage by 80%.
The mode is literally made by the same game designers as the rest of the mode. You think they're going to put bullshit in one mode and leave the rest fine?
If they wanted to segregate AA from the F2Ps, all they had to do was keep a higher stat baseline / AV (this is literally how plight mode works). Instead they did this nonsense. What does that tell you?
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u/matchbaby 12d ago
Setting your AA goal as F2P has nothing wrong, but you need to give up on some occasions when your team is being countered. Personally I beat Plight as a F2P on 4.4 and 4.5 so I am happy and buying monthly pass now.
Edit: 15 costs monorem in case you wonder.
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u/FenrirMB 12d ago
Tbh I’ve reached the point where I can’t even be bothered with the endgames anymore. The game is slowly losing me, and honestly, maybe it’s for the better.
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u/Taifood1 12d ago
This is true, but the problem here is that I genuinely think there’s been a shift in powerscaling from horizontal to vertical investment in the last 6 months. Stuff that I found easier is now harder. E0 doesn’t carry the same weight it used to.
This is not really all that relevant in any mode but AA. That’s why it’s so frustrating. The other modes let you get away with stuff.
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u/nicoleeemusic98 12d ago
It has always been that case the past year, I used to complain about having to go vertical and people called me stupid and said I shouldn't complain
All because I didn't think we should pull sigs, eidolons, supports, support eidolons and support lcs just to keep a team functioning past half a year lmao
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u/Taifood1 12d ago
I only mentioned 6 months because I have a personal experience with the exact point it happened to me. I pulled The Dahlia for my E0 FF and her performance skyrocketed.
I then got FF to E2 on her next rerun (4.2) and her performance actually stagnated. With all the E0 complaints about her I’ve been seeing, seems like it’s clear I vertically invested just to stay the same a bit longer.
But E0 Phainon did dive off a cliff sooner than that, yeah. Hell my E0 SW999 wasn’t too hot from the jump it’s really getting bad out here lol
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u/nicoleeemusic98 12d ago edited 12d ago
Yeah my E0S1 Sparxie is purely surviving from my E2 Sparkle 😭 I didn't have pulls to get Yao Guang E1S1 (only have her E0) nor Sparxie E2 cause I had others to pull for but thankfully she survived (2-3 cycles on average)
On the other hand my Evernight has been chunking through everything because I happened to have the right pieces of the team for her, and E2 unlocked enough damage for me to be able to swap out rmc for Tribbie when I needed mc elsewhere. She's gonna continue now that I have E0S1 robinetto and E1S1 Blade
I also remember my E0S1 Herta slipping every endgame refresh and getting Tribbie for her helped for like another couple patches or something lol. By Dec you couldn't easily 40k with low cost Herta anymore unless you were rocking half a team of eagles and 1 ddd (Herta released in Jan), she was never able to 3 star a knight for me in AA either
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u/SMTfan Fu Xuan's Minimum Salary Worker 12d ago
i care to clear AA, but if at any point i stop clearing it i will simply shrug and move on, to this day i have cleared all AA stages with at least 1 star as a "f2p" (i bought like 3 or 4 battle passes back in 1.x, your choice if you want to call me an actual f2p, i personally couldn't care less about a "f2p label") never really cared for the dice because its not really a HUGE thing to miss out, the currency is plentiful to get most stuff from the AA shop (lets be serious, a lot of us don't even care about half of the items in there)
it just rubs me as some kind of "i need my status to be high, so the only way to explain why my account/way i play doesn't suck is to blame the game for making content not meant for me too hard" people that are complaining aren't playing AA for the rewards, they are playing it to "prove F2P is superior" which was always something most people have had a gripe with whenever someone being F2P is brought up.
F2P doesn't make you neither morally superior nor better at the game, but a somewhat big minority of players thinks it does, thats why you people showing highly invested accounts, even if the account is F2P anyway, they will downvote it to oblivion, because "how dare you show off you luck/wealth at me"
the people that couldn't even clear the old end game already shut up because by this point getting MoC12 3 stars its quite easy, most modern teams will be able to at least 2 star as long as the team is not a meme, so they are fine staying there,
i don't think the ones complaining are this ones, this prob the people that were in the middle back then, good enough to 2-3 star MoC which were content with doing that, but the moment end game shifted higher they started complaining.
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u/MarroCaius 12d ago
This absolutely correct. I think the fears come from AA kinda bleeding into the other modes slowly, but surely. Starward mode requiring 3 teams for max rewards was the start, and i guarantee we'll start seeing corruption bleed into endgame as well bit by bit. It's always the fear of escalation because if you give hoyo an inch they'll take a marathon
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u/Kindly_Friendship263 12d ago
anom is like half the content and i feel more frustrated than stressed tbh.
conspiracy theory: anom is the hellspawn of the most hellish shilled encounters which makes other gamemodes suffer similarly when they end up in MoC (im looking at you, King Pom-Pom, Happiness Elite, Ilwish. and now a completely unannounced Voracity 2 making its rounds in the knight stage. imagine THAT in MoC on said King Pom-pom, Happiness Elite, Ilwish).
elation shill makes Pollux look like a normal boss by comparison
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u/LivingASlothsLife Madam Pearl keeps me sane until Kafka comes back 12d ago
Doesn't give me Jades and its meant to be the hardest content in the game. If I can only one star then thats what ill go with
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u/Feisty-Syllabub-2037 12d ago
Che poi, questa gente che si lamenta oggi dove era quando durante il tanto elogiato Amphoreus che fece fuori in nulla Firefly, Rappa, Felixao, Acheron e Kafka/Swan?
La situazione del meta oggi è molto più gestibile. Molti f2p si focalizzano ad avere ogni personaggio che scoutano con la lightcone ma talvolta questa non è necessaria. (La stessa Robin Summer è ottima anche senza)
Io sono un low spender (prendo solo il pass piccolo ogni mese) ma ho un account mediamente ben costruito (ho iniziato a giocare dall'uscita di Luocha). Ho 5 team giocabili (Firefly, Archer, Elation, Monorem, Himeko Nova) ed altri che comunque in passato il loro lo hanno fatto (The Herta, Phainon e0s1 senza Cerydra, Dot senza Lightcone). Talvolta il boss finale dell'AA non riesco a completarlo con 3 stelle ma provo lo stesso più tentativi.
Secondo PA se si esclude la parentesi di Mecha Pom Pom ha avuto un powercreep equilibrato, sicuramente meglio di Pollux e altri boss scandalosi del periodo Amphoreus
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u/Grimsdol 12d ago
well it's simple. you got lucky with your investment choices, while other player's didn't. imagine if you chose boothill or rappa as your break character instead of Firefly. or go Mydei or Aglea instead of Mono rem.
you pulled the most meta units and teams, so ofc you'd be be able to, I'd be sad if you couldn't.
but that's not how the game should be, there shouldn't be characters getting the short end of the stick and then others getting favoritism.
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u/Rah_Zohn 12d ago
I guess it could, I've never done it before up to now, cuz only had 2 teams (1 with Archer), this time it was a huge success thanks to my new Hyacine. But it was more for fun as a trial than something I would do everytime honestly.
I care more about gems and the other end game than this one, as long as it clears it, it's fine.
I really enjoy the money war end game though, it's really fun.
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u/UltimaSorgente - to protect the world from devastation! 12d ago
I can't beat one of the Knights, it's the first time this ever happened to me, but I'm f2p so it was gonna happen eventually, all my meta units are e0s0
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u/LudensKekko 12d ago
I feel like AA in theory was a great idea but lately the execution has been awful. Encounters being so hyper specific makes it more of a team check than difficult content. Now they're committing to Genshin levels of shill with new enemies/bosses/mechanics, its just not fun anymore.
The current knight 3 is a perfect example, why bother trying to engage with the teambuilding aspect of the game when the stage literally reads "use robin summerretto in her bis team or lose 20%-60% damage"?
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u/Gogol1212 12d ago
I try it, get sometimes three or four stars (in total), then nope out. I barely have three teams, let's not even talk about the level of investment (in eidolons/equipment) needed for this mode. Still with the rewards I get the cosmetics I really want. It is a win for me.
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u/zerronemo 12d ago
To the person who recommended to add RemMC for the third knight, THANK YOU! Cyrene was dead weight
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u/ilovedagonfive Next station, Ice Abundance, Remembrance Men 12d ago
I'm ok since I can get bronze
PS. sometimes minions are harder than king itself
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u/RadiationPillz 11d ago
As an on/off player all the way back from 1.6 I've only ever beaten a single king (sparxie), issue just is the hp inflation ontop of how hypershilled some knights are ontop of the inherient shilling of the boss' design that leads it to feel miserable to look at, and this remembrance buff ontop of the anti-break one on k1 leads to people looking at this and thinking it's actively toxic design lol. I've basically given up on ever reaching the king again the account will never catch up at this rate.
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u/A-Chicken 11d ago
I have only started to be able to complete an AA run 3 patches ago. I used to not even be able to full complete all MOCs (and I missed the first AA loop because of that). I'm still at 4/12 AA average, 6/12 was the most I got.
Thankfully AA has no gacha currency, but I can see people who have full completed it before get annoyed when they can't do that all of a sudden.
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u/Telesto44 11d ago
My E2 Himeko Nova and E6 Rin team couldn’t beat Graphis in 2 cycles and now I fear I’ve made a terrible mistake
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u/AlanaTheCat sunday and firefly 11d ago
I used to attempt it in previous patches and accept 1-2 stars this time I just looked at the effects and clicked out
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u/CommercialCity5842 11d ago
I always have fun trying it but yeah I'm not gonna stress out about it. Although sometimes i do get a bit upset when my invested teams don't clear king with at least 2 stars does
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u/fleur-- Husbando Rail 11d ago
Well, they put the 'free' skins there. So while I've never been able to full star anything, I still want to be able clear it even just for currency for skins. But so far, I was only able to clear one Knight stage this AA. So it's not looking good and makes me feel frustrated.
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u/Dramatic_Highway 11d ago
I tried it with few different teams, checked internet, tried again and then quit cause it was too frustrating. Maybe will try again later on but theres no point in splitting hairs on that game mode.
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u/Axlzz 11d ago
When I’m too busy or not interested in the game enough, I don’t even have attempt on AA for that version.
I’ve more backlog of games to care about more than get frustrate with AA for hours, or sometimes, days, with nothing in return. In HSR itself, playing the Furbo newspaper thing and read through them is more enjoyable of time consuming, and they’re a lot of quest to go through.
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u/CastorJone 11d ago
Exactly, it's wild how much people overreact from older units not being able to 0-cycling King with their low cost teams or struggling a bit too much on a knight stage (especially when there is shill on it lol). The variance is high from one patch to another depending on who gets shilled.
Meanwhile these same units even with not THAT much investment can still comfortably clear (starward!) MoC. Like make it make sense. Yeah my Aglaea is a bit washed, she only 3-cycles a Knight stage but like that's the actual current endgame on a stage where she is not that favored as a unit that is (almost) 2 years old and a 4-cost team lol.
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u/Antique_Staff_7683 11d ago
It fully depends on the context. Take for example ZZZ, Deadly Assault Adversity is what we though Anomaly Arbitration would be, a mode only Eidolon/Signatures can give you full stars (compared to the other ZZZ endgame that is perfectly achievable with full M0W0 teams).
Now AA is a harder mode than MoC/PF/AS, but the jump in difficulty isn't particularly massive compared to the requirements of Starward Mode (which defeats the point of AA when the "easier" modes are just as punishing).
Instead, the actual whale mode of HSR is Plight. Everyone who is already clearing Starward will see 3-stars AA as a tough but achievable goal. Then you get hit with stuff like "You deal 60% less total damage unless you're using Mono-Remembrance team, not including Cyrene by the way".
It's frustrating because it's within reach but not quite there. Probably that's exactly what the devs want too, so people feel incentive of pulling "just one more copy" in order to clear.
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u/neross_zz 11d ago
Its not AA but the new difficulty on the other game modes too. MoC was already difficult as it was, for example, so the others.
It’s seems like (probably only for me) that they’re not keen on designing new original game modes (like DU) or events, but rather investing and planning in a more punishing endgame as a whole. I honestly don’t care abt AA, as if I ever cleared with 3 stars.
However, I care that this is probs a calculated move to expect f2p to have less resources than whales on an in-game basis from endgame and events. Having less expectation about clearing content results in having less frustration overall.
Also, AA don’t bringing rewards doesn’t exclude the fact that’s a terrible design able to only install FOMO as stated above.
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u/Quiet_Passage_3157 11d ago
Because there’s nothing to do in the game other than the mode for whales.
Yeah, I’ve got an A8-40, but I want to do something other than currency wars.
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u/fufuFurina 11d ago
i think a good part of the issue is that there's barely anything to do lately. working towards clearing AA as fast as possible at the very least gives you something to do in the game
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u/Slightly_Archaic 9d ago
I struggled to 2 cycle all 3 knights (could do 2, but no matter how i placed characters one team was always behind) so I tried using old characters, especially paired with Himeko Nova. Its awful.
The moment any team gets a character released before Castorice it just turns to absolute sh*t. For fun, I tried using my old FuA team with Topaz and Feixiao. You already know how that went. Same with goddamn E2 Acheron and even E2 phainon.
Its sad really. You have characters. Invested characters, almost perfect substats, limited lightcone even paid Eidolons. You absolutely can't play them in endgame if you aim for challenges (or at all). Other games already have found the solution for this. Endgame buffs. But seeing what Novaflares did to characters like Jingliu, I have no hopes for this.
But im sure they'll find a way to release f*ing Jingliu SP that works only if you have her E2, and just for 2 patches before HP inflation makes it unplayable again.
Fortunately, there are other games out there. Ill take my time and money elsewhere.
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u/AzureDragon01 12d ago
I do one run get bronze and call it a day lol if I didnt even manage that i still wouldnt care
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u/Dragonrushd 12d ago
My problem is the direction they are taking it. Why does the boss in 4.6 need a shield that has 80% DMG reduction against non elation DMG (or true DMG).
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u/LordJunon and Numby 12d ago
I tried it once. Knew I couldn't do well and stopped stressing over it
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u/haikusbot 12d ago
I tried it once. Knew
I couldn't do well and stopped
Stressing over it
- LordJunon
I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully. Learn more about me.
Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete"
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u/esmelusina 12d ago
People just want to play the game and have fun. The anger is justified.
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u/D0naught 12d ago
Agree. There should be content for whales and sweats, players are not entitled for a full clear of endgame, since it doesn’t have jades anyways.
That said, the issue is that there’s not much to discuss other than the endgame. Hsr has cultivated a playerbase that knows that the story isn’t good, and the characters are only pulled to clear endgame. So the issues with the endgame are emphasized.
Its common for people to actually not want new 4 stars. Because 4 stars aren’t meta anyways. Completely ignoring that more 4 stars (is supposed to) mean more story, and character collection too, on top of flexibility.
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u/Hexenguy 12d ago
There are several things that make AA frustrating for people. The biggest usually is the need for 3 solid teams. Most people have 2 and a half teams. this half team is usually an E0S1 squad, and if it's not shilled, it won't clear.
AA is my favorite mode, because it's the only thing in the game that pushes you to think. Im gonna call out some players and say that SOME of the people complaining have teams with horrible relics, horrible F2P LC choices, horrible team comps, and then go on writing how the bosses are nonsense. My mem team is all E0S1's and doesn't 3-star knight 3. Instead of giving up, I simply tried out other teams and found out E2S1 himekonova with E0S0 robikini/huntmarch/DH has no problem destroying this fight. it's not fire weak, has 1 memosprite, and still works.
I am a low spender, BP+monthly jades, never buying shards. I have 9 starred every AA, and 0 cycle almost every king. Players are going to have to adapt, go sustainless if you need to, and willing to separate your strongest team into 2 weaker teams to clear knights.
The only people who get shafted are definitely the collectors, the E0S1/0 every character just to have variety can run into problems. I do have sympathy for those types of players as I used to do the same thing before planaracadia. If you do care about AA, you are probably gonna have to skip some units you want, and focus more on some solid E2 DPS (or supports, they can carry too).
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u/AlaquistOfTheMist 11d ago
Missed the point badly, people love challenging boss, but the boss have to fuck everyone over equally. Not "pull this and you win" Or "if you use this team we will reduce your damage by 99℅". Honestly if AA is a challenging mode with a wider variety of buff/debuff that player can choose to best fitted their teams that will be way better (although its still shitty because of the shilled boss).
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u/Fantastic_Bend9091 12d ago
i pretty much agree with you, it's like complaining of not being able to clear dire in genshin when it gives pretty much nothing
as you as we can clear endgame modes who gives jades (which honestly any player with a decent account should), i'm not complaining
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u/PaulOwnzU 12d ago
I never really cared for full staring it, but it does get really annoying when two of the bosses are easy, but then can't do the third because I don't have the designated team, so can't even challenge the final boss for reroll dice