The Simulated Universe is Disappointing (Honkai: Star Rail)

A discussion about the Simulated Universe in Honkai: Star Rail following the release of the Unknowable Domain and how it can be better.
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[@CaptainMeleon]

dude i was SO disappointed when i noticed that in harder difficulties, UD is dumbed down to "wait for your scepters to attack" while my characters were tickling the enemies galactic baseballer had leveling up mechanics and choosing items that matched the scepters (and also had MORE scepters for you to equip), making it essentially a vampire survivors mode. now you just pick 3 scepters that have the same category of dmg you do and tadaaaa you're done

[@0v_x0]

the variety of scepters and add-ons is abysmal too. There are basically 3 things to choose from depending on your damage type (dot fua ult etc). I get that more unlock the more you clear but it's already so boring and unrewarding that I am procrastinating even doing the bare minimum to get the jades, let alone actually caring about the higher difficulties where you may as well just run lv1 4 stars for all the characters themselves actually matter.

[@Rozemyne2314]

Only break is the opposite. My sceptors did nothing but the super break from FF was doing 86m to hoolay and 122m on 2 swarms. Prob cause of all the boundaries the sceptors set up

[@0v_x0]

@@Rozemyne2314 which forces you to play break and only break if you want your chars to feel like they do anything

[@dellaisnotaduck]

​@@0v_x0it's the same for fua too, a single feixiao skill took 30% of hoolay's HP and she attacks multiple times too with the right set up

[@discreaminant]

Imagine new players join in 5.0 and have to complete 20 different kinds of SU 🗿

[@kazuhadakaze4542]

Sweet sweet jades

[@mikeoxmaul3526]

su best part of hsr for newbies

[@noelrakman9641]

I see nothing wrong about that 🧐

[@DarkFenix2k5]

It's great for them to be honest, just by doing the easy parts you can get a huge number of jades. The difficult/boring parts though... yeah I can see those being left to rot for years to come.

[@imimori]

Ifthe fact remains where their characters are maxxed up (as a trial for every SU) then it could be amazing tbh, they'd be able to feel whats like to have the character invested in, and actuslly get to know the mechanics of the game, as well as an actual steady supply of jades.

[@jsle5376]

I completely agree, this also reminded me of why I disliked swarm disaster near the end in the hardest difficulties, it literally just became "Preservation" mode. I personally get really annoyed when I almost feel forced to complete something in a specific way because it might be the most optimal way.

[@flyingcucumber9325]

It was the first time I felt like end game modes are completely made for its version’s newest characters. DHIL and Fu Xuan paved the way

[@phunghieu7093]

okay here's a opposite standpoint. It's actually really fun to enjoy all those paths. You already used preservation so I don't need to explain. Abundance make characters extra tanky while also healing a bunch so they won't get oneshot and heal back to full after each attack. Rememberance is a cheese, freeze the enemy so they can't attack while dealing 30% max HP damage(crazy) Hunt and propagation is all about killing them before they can kill you, the hunt 3star buff was literally made for that purpose. It's true that if they get like 1-2 turns, you're doomed those are the paths that i actually have some experience with, they are all strong in their own way. Remind you that back then I beat the mode with Qingque mono quantum(hunt+propagation is crazy) so there's no reason for you to struggle when new characters are super OP. Okay so while writing this, I read other comments also struggle with the mode so I guess people are not actually into harder content, in that case just leave it.... It's not time restricted

[@shivxxr]

i was so confused when i realized that my characters meant nothing in this SU

[@Destined2BeKing]

I was like “Damn did I get the wrong buffs?” when I saw all my characters doing garbo damage with their ults😭

[@arzonong7363]

This is to help new players who REALLY do garbo damage.

[@Mijoulin]

@@arzonong7363 I agree, this is a positive thing as it evens out what people start with and gives everyone a chance by making specific choices in the run.

[@luucx7]

​@@Mijoulinit completely ruins the fun, and not all content should be doable by newer players, it's endgame for a reason

[@Mijoulin]

@@luucx7 you know how it is. Some players will be happy, others not so much. But you can still run builds, where your character will matter more and there are also all those other simulated universes that will be really difficult without the correct 5stars. :)

[@MellowGirl2000]

only reason I play any of those modes is just to unlock curios/blessing/scepters I don't already have to get jades lol

[@fl2ur]

That's completely valid 😂

[@sphong0610]

@@fl2ur ..sarcasm

[@hitoribocchers]

​@@sphong0610 none of that was sarcasm.

[@odisleftpaw5663]

I'm in a weird inbetween where I do like this new SU but I also agree with basically everything you said I just hate how inflated the enemies get at higher difficulty to the point that only 1 or 2 builds become viable and if you just don't happen to win the rng check you might as well just quit, imo it felt worse in divergent universe because the rng was just the worse it has ever been in any SU mode

[@mismismism]

100% agree. The higher difficulty SU stages feel horrible, the older ones were already frustrating because preservation felt like the only way that stopped you from getting one shot if you brought DPS characters instead of just turtling, slowly whittling their health so the run felt like it was a year long. Now with the scepters, even if you have busted characters, the damage from them is totally insignificant. The scepters do all the damage and if RNG screws you and the scepters aren't doing enough or chaining together enough, there's nothing you can do. It's so bad. I did it for the currency but I did not enjoy it.

[@Nyx309]

I mean I agree but have you seen Ratio taking a million actions and doing millions with Cleansing Module scepter? I think God Doggos made a video about it

[@mismismism]

@Nyx309 Yeah, there are some comps that can chain scepters pretty much endlessly if they get the right components, like the DoT team can make an almost infinite loop too I've seen. It's not fun to me though, it's like certain characters that get lucky with RNG can break the scepters but it doesn't really feel like you did anything. Not my favorite personally.

[@Scorpio9580]

My Firefly team did infinitely more damage than my break focused scepters though.

[@0v_x0]

I haven't even gone past the second module, I quit after doing the DoT run and realizing there are only 3 scepters to even choose from, and the entire thing is just RNG to upgrade whichever one or two you can use. I cannot really see anything that builds on that core being at all satisfying or engaging. I'd sooner spend money to help get Fugue at this point than force myself through unenjoyable content.

[@mismismism]

@@Scorpio9580 Not in the highest difficulty. The enemies literally have trillions of HP, a million damage barely puts a dent in the enemies while the scepters do ridiculous amounts, plus the limit on cycles. The highest difficulty is basically made for you to totally focus on scepters chaining together to hit like 100 times back to back.

[@aggapuffin]

Honestly, one of the biggest things I dislike about the Unknowable Domain is the "Smart Insertion" feature. Having it toggled on just means that you don't have to really _think_ about what you're doing for 90% of the run. You just pick the scepters that match your build and go from there.

[@kurobot100]

Smart is actually dumb insertion and brick runs

[@Mijoulin]

I do agree that the game has a weird focus on "dumbing" things down. I'm just glad I can at least disable the feature, but yes, different players have different things that are fun for them and maybe some players just don't want to read and understand all the components/scepters/effects.

[@cheester7631]

I literally completed the whole thing with that on. I did read what the components did, but I let that feature make the builds for me lol

[@tianyouzhang4301]

The smart insertion is actually quite dumb in some instances. For example, it will insert the decision component that fixes speed and then still insert other components that increase speed. (which do nothing bc the speed is fixed.) It does that with the charging sceptres too. I usually turn it off and adjust my own components. I've cleared protocol 6., but I don't think it would have been possible with smart insertion.

[@cheester7631]

@@tianyouzhang4301 Eh, doesn't matter anymore. I already did all the challenges

[@jp-dx6829]

I didnt even managed to finish the swarm disaster yet hellpppp😭😭

[@Sakamoto_1535E3]

cheese it

[@jp-dx6829]

@Sakamoto_1535E3 the early rounds are a nightmare tbh

[@DarkFenix2k5]

I still haven't finished swarm disaster either, it's just so boring and there are few enough jades left that I just don't care.

[@IgnasV]

I'm waiting for Aventurine and then I can finish all of those lol.

[@zwe_246]

​@@Sakamoto_1535E3method?

[@milanesadearsenico]

It just feels like a temporary event than a SU expansion

[@aperson6562]

When they revealed UD in the livestream, my heart dropped when I saw the scepters system. I knew it was somehow based on the galactic baseballer event. And I knew it would fall flat. This concept worked for the event because it was a limited time event. Star rail events are quite bite sized and contained experiences, offering a unique style of gameplay but not with the same depth as other game modes. The whole scepters idea worked for the event because it wouldn’t take players more than a few hours to fully experience it. Because of this, the novelty of seeing how different weapons interacted with each other and the damage you could achieve stayed entertaining for the entire playthrough. Since the majority of the damage and work was done by the weapons and not the player, players would get bored if they played it for too long since their character investment didn’t matter and the game basically played itself. I was so disappointed hoyo decided to implement this without adjusting it as permanent endgame when it clearly lacks the depth and engagement provided by other SU expansions. It doesn’t help that the enemy hp is so insanely inflated that it guarantees your actual characters are useless. The hp also results in gameplay boiling down to watching the scepters infinitely loop for 10 minutes. This whole experience thrives on the joy of discovery(discovering scepter synergies, seeing big numbers), once that wears off(and it does very quickly)it’s just a slog, how could it ever be endgame content?

[@dreamsandhopes6802]

Galactic baseballer was alright, at least your characters had the ability to gain atk boost, insane dmg boost and broken amount of break effect based off summons and summons were more connected to each other so it wasn't a blind irrelevant pick

[@fl2ur]

Kinda crazy that they not only didn't really adjust it, they took out the leveling system. I guess it's kinda there because you can go from grey>blue>gold tier but that's not really the same as the (i think) 7 levels you had in the event version

[@NoiseRosemaker]

With galactic baseballer I find it really fun because I can combine many "scepters" together, they're unique enough from each other, and we're not pigeonholed into one winning strat because the dev accidentally designed an always-win condition. I'm talking about 2 charge 1 spd distortion vortex + field of binding + extinction program combo, which when achieved means you're guaranteed to win the run. Somehow the dev instead of removing this strat altogether and redesigning to make other strats more balanced, they just doubled down so that bosses have qingquillion hp and you win if and only if you use this strat and nothing else, especially at the highest difficulty. So every run bogs down to "did I get distortion vortex on 1st boss? did I get it from rerolling at the cat cake? no? well, time to restart" because after the 1st boss every fights become 10+ minutes auto slogfest that it's better to just go back and retry the RNG. Making the problem having only one solution in a game is the single worst design decision which makes me question the designer's qualification...

[@aperson6562]

@@NoiseRosemaker so true. Them adding the cycle limitation in an attempt to increase difficulty only stifled build variety. Why would anyone ever take more than one speed scepter when their value comes from depleting a finite resource in AV. No other sim uni ever relied on cycles for difficulty, and the berserk mechanic was only there to prevent endless stalemates. Really hoping they overhaul this mode csuse wow does it need it

[@samiral-tabatabaie164]

Oh my GOD, literally EVERYTHING you said reflects absolutely EVERYTHING I’ve come to despise abt UD’s Gamemode-and to be honest, I feel several points are rather applicable to DU as well; it feels like rather than the Equations themselves enhancing my damage, I’m fulfilling a condition that lets IT do damage, which doesn’t lend itself to an accomplishing experience. That’s not getting into how DU is FAR too RNG reliant, to a detrimental degree, especially since on higher modes, as, unlike some of the older SU Gamemodes, there’s no way to mitigate this, such as outright banning Blessings of certain paths that you KNOW would not be of any help to you. There’s also how Path Resonance in DU BARELY feels accomplishable, thanks to the exaggerated RNG.

[@DonFreecssCL]

Its insane how they really only hit a good spot with gold and gears. there was rng ofc but there was also a lot of control based on your dice you pick at the beginning, reseting blessings and getting broken builds is much much more obtainable depending on the dice you pick. its insane how they backpedaled hard where DU is basically just get lucky and only lucky. no strategy apart from trying to get a boundary equation and or ruburts curio. very unfun. and this new herta one... its just relying on scepters and honestly thats super lame cuz at this point my characters dont matter that much as 100% of the damage is from these goofy ahh effects. I hope Sim Universe takes notes from Hollow zero and what's to come there where you reduce the rng for more on the fly decisions and fast paced battles.

[@fl2ur]

Yeah the strategy aspect is definitely lacking, hopefully the next iteration goes back towards that direction.

[@hoangnguyen0721]

There is plenty of strats in DU,you cant just blindly pick any equation and just hope it works The fact that you had to resolved to using Rubert/Boundary equations just shows that you are bad than the game is hard

[@DonFreecssCL]

@hoangnguyen0721 what? I can clear DU 7 without ruburt equation fam. I know how to play the game ☠️. Even then those runs require much much more rng to get the right blessings and curios to at least get to the end. And i have to say at least getting ruburt and using it is actually fun compared to basically struggling through majority of the run till the very last floor. Simmer down and get off your high horse man Also If i dont use boundry equations and rubert... aint that me basically blocking myself off the mechanics the game gives me? You sound pretentiousness asf man. Get help

[@kringekat3551]

⁠@@hoangnguyen0721I feel that that’s a bit unfair, as someone who’s completed up to threshold 7. In order to use strats, you first have to get lucky to even start them. First with your initial equation, then the blessings you get, then your 3* equation. I’ve only been able to beat the thresholds with Boothill (i don’t have acheron/firefly/feixiao lol), and even then it all depends on how nice the game wants to be in what it gives you. Wrong equation? not enough/not right blessings? Wrong 3*? better pray you have enough cosmic fragments to reroll everything. The only true strategy i can think of is sticking to only adventure, reward, and occurrence domains (one bad encounter can end your run and combat takes forever with the hp bloat) but even then you have to first hope they appear, and secondly hope they’re not one with a battle inside, and three hope you get enough blessings/curios/fragments. DU strategy is just “choose a plan and hope the game allows you to execute it”. Hoping should not be a major part of the plan lol. meanwhile in G&G you have firstly have which dice you wanna use, are able to customize it, and can block certain paths from appearing. then you SEE all the possible domains to visit on a map, plan out a route from there, reroll dice, ETC. I think that’s the main reason no one talks about on why DU and UD feel so shitty: they took away the map and dice, and this 90% of the ACTUAL strategy in favor for quicker runs.

[@IrrelevantOaf]

G&G is peak and DU would be close to being great if it wasn't for the stupid levels of rng and FF favoritism.

[@OverlordMango]

Gameplay-wise, it's always a slog to complete. Story-wise, it's presentation is awful. Why would you read paragraphs of tiny text? I skipped almost all of them when playing on phone.

[@DriverNeku]

"I ain't reading allat" - literally everyone

[@yuorion3056]

@@DriverNeku ill admit i do go back and read the story portions but its also much easier to understand in a video format

[@sefieezephiel9851]

I read it all out some obsessive compulsion but yeah it's pretty bad. This is a general problem with Honkai's storytelling but they try really hard to be as cryptic as humanely possibly. Take the swarm Disaster for example. A giant horde of bugs invading the universe and bringing it to the brink of destruction sounds pretty epic, right? Should make for some pretty stellar worldbuilding. But then you get to the actual lore and it's the most tedious, convoluted slog imaginable. Like how the hell do you screw up Starship Troopers? Good Lord.

[@ver6169]

real

[@dan_chen]

​@@sefieezephiel9851you know what's funny, until now I still don't even understand what the hell happened in the 2 wars in G&G, just that there were 2 wars (or was it 3), fuck me then I guess

[@Lybrel]

Your stream-of-conscious eloquently captured every thought that I was too dumb to be able to put into sentences. Great message. Arlan is still good for figuring out the best 3-man teams as he's always there in my MOC12 clears to screw with Prydwyn stats :)

[@yuorion3056]

what lc/relics do you run on your arlan? teams? crit ratio?

[@arzonong7363]

Wow, you do Arlan runs. Awesome! Keep it up.

[@Lybrel]

@@yuorion3056 HP 4 piece with even HP boots. Crit body is fine but 5000HP is safer Best team: Aventurine, AchE2ron, and Jiaoqiu. Help us Arlans reduce the number of cycles we’re behind the 200 speed Hanya mains and SuperBreak Gwen simps 😂

[@theoDSP]

SU is not a roguelike. Its a RNGFest.

[@mr.protagonist5639]

So a roguelike

[@dr.medical3686]

That's how it feels to play high level DU

[@es.sketches84]

I just don’t find it fun tbh.

[@fl2ur]

@theoDSP Definitely feels like that sometimes...

[@croper0]

so its a roguelike then

[@astellas4856]

i thought i was the only one who hates the new mod so much. the problem is not even that the characters do damage, but that this mod assumes that you will close it for the whole patch, a lot of difficulties, a lot of secrets, but this new system is not fresh enough to do it a THIRD time, these things are insanely boring to collect, every event is "press a button and get random", adventure zone is "do you have a character that will instantly destroy all vases?" boss fight is "did you get enough buffs to pass it?", Ruan Mei event and other broken events are fun and interesting gimmicks, but because you never close a new mod just for fun, and grind jades for a new character, you PRAY that you get the Ruan Mei event or other random 3* boosters. I don't like this mod with all my soul, but it's gacha and I can't save up for Acheron rerun otherwise so I'll have to play it over and over again just to get the currency

[@Sometheus]

Hi3 and Wuwa have specific abilities made for specific characters in their respective rogue like game modes, I’d love to see it In star rail too

[@fl2ur]

The Illusive Realm from wuwa was honestly one of my favorite parts, that'd be so much fun in hsr

[@strawberry_2.0]

Completely agree, simulated universe just feels draining to me and I haven’t even finished swarm disaster. Hell I’ve Been having more fun with apocalyptic shadow and Moc, I also been using Divergent universe to claim rewards from herta’s shop. it doesn’t surprise me that Divergent universe has two planar orb sets, well simulated universe don’t even have them

[@arzonong7363]

That is what it is for. SU is to help new players gain the resources. For veteran, the real fun is in end game content like MoC/PF/AS. If new players cant even clear farming content like SU, where are new players going to farm? They definitely cant farm End Game content.

[@hoangnguyen0721]

Well,making a "good" Rougelike in such short time per run isnt very easy Like you have 16 domains total to gather your resources which imo,is like not enough variants to make a lot of build variety without causing too much rng You mentioned some crazy component for specific units which is exactly what the Weighted Curios are in DU. Like there is a Curio that makes Feixiao deals blast and another that turns Seele skill/ult into FuA, there is also one that lets you play units thay wants to lose HP with shields. Its really cool And speaking of DU,imo its like either the best or the 2nd best of the Universes(the other is G&G) The equations is mostly generic (usually just do some damage) but some of those enables really fun strats like how the Borisin equation literally enables a team of just healers and it works or my favorite Aggregator wanting you to spam low cost ults And for G&G its probably the closest to a Rougelike in HSR due to your needs of controlling your resources and the dice faces bein extremely customizable and have high build variants Ideally a mix of G&G with DU would be the perfect rougelike for hsr,like the dice face for player customization and the grid planes patterns with the equation/weighted curios of DU would makes a really fun mode tbh

[@fantasticfail1796]

You hit the nail with number 1, variety. Really if you don’t get preservation builds you get one shotted on higher difficulties lol.

[@mirei9225]

This is why G&G is the best one so far. There are so much strategies, you could become millionaire using corporate dice, abuse broken curious mechanics with curio dice or the classic doble ruan mei strategy. Each dice had its own personality, making every run special on its way to play it, even the bad ones like amber barrier that sucks ass, bc it forces you play the game in a totally different way so you can use the dices power. And when the strategy that you have been thinking worked, it was so satisfying! But UD is just, pick up 3 scepters, pray for good components annd you're stuck with a sponge of hp until your scepters decide to move. No dice passive, no special effects on your characters. No way to cheese or create new strategies. Just so disappointing...

[@noice9193]

Gold and gears was my favourite simulated universe mode, I hated divergent universe and unknowable domain

[@ancientspark375]

The thing is that some of your suggestions are already in base SU. Stuff like low HP benefits (Destruction has a lot of those), or kit revamps (arguably Equations or Weighted Curios already do that). The issue is that character power and build variety are mutually exclusive because this isn't a roguelike, it's a gacha. You simply start with too much power and determination over what directions you can go simply by the fact that you have the ability to select between all the characters on your account. A big reason why so much of the power has to be in the blessings is because the game mode would simply be too volatile due to differences in account strength if they weren't. And you can't feasibly build interesting kit revamps for a lot of characters because there are simply too many characters to build interesting synergies for, unless you do arguably generic ideas. This is sort of why the most successful roguelike option in gachas (in my opinion), Arknights' mode, actually does something different and just limits character selection from the start with the Hope system. That's really what SU would have to do in order for it to be a good roguelike, before anything like blessing reworks or kit reworks would have to do. Without that, I don't think there's any hope for SU to be a mode with lasting appeal as a roguelike; as it currently stands, it's better to treat SU as a bit of a puzzle mode more than anything.

[@anefariousgoose]

The only reason i cared about the UD mode was A. Free jades B. Polka Kakamond near the end sure i finished the story but i aint toucging it again

[@YindigoYangMonk]

A little suggestion: Pass your voice audio through a "deEsser" to reduce high pitch noises from the sibilance. You already speak calmly and the background music is also relaxing. Just a small treatment to your mic audio or post-recording would do the trick. 👌

[@fl2ur]

Hey, thanks for the suggestion. The sibilants are already somewhat controlled, but I can look into reducing them a bit more to make it more comfortable to listen to.

[@terrycornelius4]

Funny thing is, Honkai Impact 3rd, one of their older games, actually has a roguelike mode that's almost exactly as you described how a roguelike should be. (Direct buffs to characters, complete kit revamps for older units, etc) so they really don't have an excuse.

[@arzonong7363]

Bro ... this is a turn base game. Please keep rogue like game play to real time action game (which I suck at). Let me enjoy turn base game where I can slowly take my time and think on what to do.

[@terrycornelius4]

@arzonong7363 Okay??? Roguelike turn-based RPG doesn't make you go any faster or even take away the thinking part of the game tho???

[@terrycornelius4]

@arzonong7363 if anything a well executed rogue-liketurn-based RPG would (and should) make you take things even slower and think more because the characters' kits would have been altered.

[@arzonong7363]

@terrycornelius4 wait, it is turn base. Than that's awesome. I am just pissed that they added real time action events like 1) penacony theme park: Hamster fast and furious. I couldn't clear many stages so jade's couldn't collect. 2) Hanu shooting event. Also stuck at stage 9. Lucky this Rappa music event was lenient. Even though I did so horribly but managed to get all the reward. Hope they keep real time games for games like Genshin and keep turn base games to HSR.

[@arzonong7363]

@terrycornelius4 as long it is turn base , it's fine. I suck at real time games so I didn't like the rogue like story quest of DHIL and the mini event in Alchemy commission where one of the criteria was not getting too many ambush. I keep failing because I got ambushed by the invisible assassins.

[@fey8752]

just wanted to say i love your videos man, your super calming voice just pairs well with any topic you rant about and it feels easy to understand

[@fl2ur]

Thank you so much!

[@JustaNormalDoge]

At least the hunt blessings and play style in DU and SU actually seems fun

[@dumbitchstella]

For me the whole blessing system should be axed completely, you get so many of them and they do so much that at the end of a run 99% of your damage and survivability comes from those blessings rather than your characters. Instead they should focus on what other rogue-likes do and have items (curios in HSR) as the main factor of what makes each run different, the commom itens could still be just stat-ups, but they should be more creative with the rarer ones; they could give us a item that give us a trash summon on battle, or one that spawns trotters in the battle constantly that gives special effects when killed, or one that gives every enemy the shared health bar effect, cool stuff like that that makes the game play different in any way. Also we need consumable active items, they would work great in SU.

[@fl2ur]

These are all good points. I honestly wouldn't hate if simu was shelved temporarily to do a real revamp of it. It almost feels like they're limited by how the gamemode was originally designed and don't want to stray too far away from that.

[@warden3968]

I think what you said is really true exept for one small build: using follow up sceptre, certain blessings buff the character by a whole lot and in fact the buff we’re so strong that the sceptre felt weak. I was doing 80 mil with fei skill then another 80 mil with follow up and then 100 mil with the ultimate. The 20 mil damage from the sceptre were unnecessary in these run

[@fl2ur]

Yeah, the followup build is basically the only exception compared to the other 3 damage types from UD. But that kinda goes into what I said in the video, if you have to do one specific thing to get your characters to deal damage, that's not a whole lot of variety. It's similar to preservation from SD.

[@amayouyou8306]

it's just mostly the newest SU mode, he the older ones i feel fine honestly at least with older SU mix and matching makes more sense since it's possible to do, and the fact that you are constantly on the verge of one shot one kill so protection is important, i finished con 10 gold and gears with DoT team and some other blessings on the side, defensive blessings like preservation etc. IS important, but no ones telling you that strictly using preservation path is the only way to go In DU, you get four archetypes, that at the end of the day doesn't feel any different anyway for the simple fact that it's not for your characters, but for the scepters, to top it all off this mode is the first mode that doesn't feel like threatening to your characters at all, in previous SU, both offense AND defense is absolutely crucial, in this? what does it matter, scepters are gonna be the one doing most of the job anyway

[@Ronttt]

Just to add to the golden rule thing- there's this component (I believe for follow-up attacks) that gives a MASSIVE buffs to the ally with the highest crut damage. It feels great, I see Feixiao do 23 million per skill and follow-up, and the scepter also does great damage. I feel that this is the reason I only like the follow-up mode

[@Wyqkrn]

Deadass the only mode I like is FUA, every other path is like 1% as much fun and 0.1% as much damage

[@dellaisnotaduck]

That's why i used fua in my break, ultimate and dot alignments too to get those jades heh.

[@lucianof9080]

My main problem with this new mofe is exactly that. It's not my characters who sre doing the damage. It's the scepters with status that I have no control over due to rng.

[@AevyCh]

DU has been updated quite frequently, and it has improved a lot. There are more options for you to choose from (previously you just leave & reset until you get the right Equation). The Remembrance Route is also finally playable after they nerfed it to the ground compared to SU. Simulated Universe DLC on the other hand feels like a one off thing that you do for the reward (or a testing ground for new stuffs like Propagation & Erudition). The Scepters on the other hand feels like a permanent version of the Galactic Baseballer event for those who missed out on it.

[@Dreoni_]

I like Divergent Universe because I have firefly. But I agree that this new Simulated Universe has missed the mark completely. If the bosses had way less HP and the Scepters were tuned down and had more interaction with the characters it would be another story...

[@blackmark2899]

To be fair, most games have this issue. The first time you play it, you don't know what to expect and you kind of fumble through and for the most part it's fun. Repeated playthroughs are less so because you have the experience carry over. Unless every playthrough is vastly different, this outcome isn't a matter of if but a matter of when. The problem is that I think we as players are expecting too much of it.

[@fl2ur]

I get where you're coming from, but idk if "expecting too much" is a bad thing. Like I mentioned in the video, the simulated universe is the only truly repeatable content we have, so I feel it should have more variety than it currently does.

[@TOTGodofWar]

@@fl2ur Which SU DLC is working on addressing that. The variety that is added may not be your cup of tea, but it is still variety.

[@luiss428]

​@@TOTGodofWar this aint it chief. player agency is almost 90% removed

[@TOTGodofWar]

@@luiss428 Depends on what playstyle you went with. I am on a server discord with somebody who ended up with a build that allowed their characters to do a fairly high amount of FuA damage.

[@meestorpheesh]

completely agree. i was surprised when i saw just how boring su:ud was. i saw someone do a high-difficulty run (which i enjoy watching for the other modes), and i was just bored the whole time, su:ud completely takes out the fun parts of su, making builds to make your characters do tons of damage, not this random other thing.

[@kurobot100]

I do agree but scepters makes this mode f2p friendly

[@lobster714]

Fully agreed

[@ZableThyTable]

imo, it just feels so brain dead it makes me just play on auto on bosses instead of handling the tough fight with strategy, i just wair for my septers to come on and trigger each other or wait till the enrage to kick in hard enough that i get wiped out

[@ahmadashraf3219]

Interesting opinion. I totally agree with your gold rules, however, the build craft wasn't that bad. I managed to do 7 builds that work, and one of them I hyper carry my Dr. Ratio doing 500 million with his basic attack. In my channel, I have a show of a run in Conundrum level 6. I love the new SU, however, I agree it feels very short and boring unlike Gold and Gear. I feel Hoyo has been lazy with their end-game content. Love the fact that you pointed out for Hoyo to make the game better, thanks for the great video

[@Yozunha]

launching a run of SU in 1.0 and seeing my character dealing 100k dmg was peak SU for me, since then i just do it for rewards and lore. I hope they do a new SU with more blessing that let you do cool stuff like crit on DoT or single target followup becoming AoE

[@stresscloset8570]

I actually really liked it. I don't like spending too much time making builds. The fact that i need to think of a follow up team that makes the most follow up attacks, or the the team that can break enemies more frequently, without having to have a perfect build, is kinda fun for me.

[@magictrick24]

There are compartments that buff the living hell out of your characters. Still kinda tedious though...

[@Ui_Raizen]

Honestly my favorite one has been divergent universe to me every play through I do feels different and it was really fun and automatically leveling up characters you haven’t built allowed me to try them out and maybe I want to build them in the future

[@Just_SxZ]

Characters activate scepters, scepters do they thing, that's all. I don't know what you were expecting. Glad it is quite short.

[@ThuyNguyen-nh6hi]

Let be real, Some Events with Bullshit story & Full Fan-service are more Fun than SU, they should at least update their previous Events & turn it into a official End-game instead You complete SU Not because SU feel "Fun" It's because SU definitely waste A LOT of your time more than any side quest, looting map or any new events can sum up in 1 version, so cuz of that SU is the only content left in this game that you can do after finishing all those new contents (New contents that just takes less than a day or two) SU isn't feel "Fun" anymore if you forced yourself to play multiple times with the same set up & Retry Shitty RNG just to get all the rewards (Mostly 99% completed SU to get all rewards) DU just make it becomes people chores right now with those LV rewards system

[@TOTGodofWar]

There's people that enjoy SU like myself. May want to be more cautious of how "you" is used.

[@NotAlejoZen]

I'm the kind of player who despises the use of "auto combat" because I want to actually experience what I'm doing, plus my anxiety demands I have some level of control over what's happening. Despite hating Swarm Disaster, I managed to clear all of it using Nihility paths because that's my favorite playstyle. But with Unknowable Domain, each level I go up, is like the game is telling me "Yeah, just turn on auto combat and go do something else, your characters won't be doing anything at all lol". And even worse, the RNG elements of DU I hate so much are here as well.

[@ThreadedThought]

I think you're being too strict on the unknowable domain think of it as a puzzle. How can you team craft the ultimate engine for the scepters to destroy the field. Furthermore its more f2p friendly because the heros who just follow basic team comps probably can perform similarly to the 5 stars. I also doubt that this will be the future of SU of anything its an experiment that probably won't be continued but provides variety for people grinding the SU. Sure if you like the tactile feeling of the characters doing insane damage then you probably won't like it but this is a scenic detour not the future.

[@fl2ur]

That's a completely fair take. I know my thoughts on this won't resonate with everyone because there's some people that really enjoy this kind of gameplay. I can see how the pre-planning and strategy aspects can be fun, it's just not so much for me because our characters aren't a huge part of it. To be clear, I don't really think I *hate* this gamemode or something like that, I just don't like that our characters are less important and that it's going to be our new repeatable content until the next SU is released.

[@alokimainxd4184]

I wish you had brought up honkai impact 3rds elysium realm they have exact blessings tailored for certain characters and they make the old and new characters feel fun and invigorating to play, would have been a good argument to have in there.

[@dotalbo8279]

An iteration of the mode that would be SO SIMPLE yet SO FUN would just be making a version where the paths are the 7 elements in the game. Make a mode where the elements matter more than they do now, kinda like in genshin. Maybe allow them to react with each other like in genshin idk, do something with elements.

[@arriettyplaysgames]

The only thing i like about UD is the fua scepters and its buffs, it buffs your FuA characters so they can also "shine" not just the scepters. My Jade did like millions of damage with one basic attack i had her speedrun UD in all difficulties

[@idkwhatimdoing4321]

I enjoy simulated universe expansions in general and i liked this one as well, however I do think that the satisfaction UD brings for me lies more in leveling up my scepters and creating a "loop" of scepter attacks, more than my characters doing much damage. but this satisfaction from planning it out could be very difficult for beginning players that don't know how to do it yet

[@eff-fume]

The one compliment I can give SU is that it isn't ER from Hi3. ER is also a floor based roguelike where you choose buffs to enhance one particular playstyle of the current character. It is very rng based and unfortunately expects already max investment in the character. Initially it was fun to explore because it was very story heavy, but once that was done the weekly runs became emptier and emptier and in comparison to SU the devs have sadly done HARDLY IF ANY improvements both to refresh the gp or QoL wise. You always have to choose the exact same or similar buffs for your character anyway or you can't beat it. All they did was make runs easier for newly gained characters that you haven't build or have gear of at all, which was a gift of the heavens - and more recently - added a lite version where u can skip half the floors if you beat it on the same difficulty prior week. They added this after this mode being a thing for 2 years! At least SU has expansions. They do also get less and less interesting but at least they tried something. I fully agree. As an abundance enjoyer, surviving older SU expansions is a pain in the ass. Personally i don't wanna spend hours on rng for blessings so I can run my healer properly and not die, but SU is heavily preservation favored so if you don't wanna run that you can go home! It also doesn't help that SU doesn't actually provide any actual gameplay? Get good rng, have the most busted units (favorably) and survive the 30000 spd 1B+ dmg of the enemies!!! Tactics barely exist. I thought DU was a G&G lite, so I was actually okay with it. G&G was alright, but especially SD I have a lot of issues with, I did not like having to jump SO MANY FLOORS and tiles every time, and it took me hours to get shit rng and get shot at the boss anyway. Just way too time consuming imo. The newest unknowable domain may be the most boring iteration yet, but I am confident that I can beat it (without even having to use my characters, wow /s) I will also add I was never fun of the limited event with the specter system, I thought it was lazy garbage, so I think it is hilarious they made it permanent. Please just let us do anything else. I think SU needs a rework, I am tired of jumping floors... I think UD does one thing right, which is runs are generally very fast and you still need to choose the correct spectors for you playstyle. I can run abundance without worrying. I can play MY TEAM without worrying. Sure they don't do damage, but at least these parts are how it should be.

[@noboundariesburnhws]

I loved OG SU and also early swarm and gold and gears. But the higher the difficulty, the more it depends completely on RNG and gimmick builds

[@24hrpanic]

Galactic Baseballer event was fun. Unknowable Domain, not so much.

[@KraizenFaraway]

I do agree. The buffs don't feel that much special aside from doing millions of damage and locked in to specific archetype. Though, My problems is not just Unknowable Domain but SU as whole. SU could have been so much better if they improved upon that one mode instead of constantly adding different new modes pretending its different. They haven't really changed or buffed unpopular build paths accordingly but instead keep adding new ones. UD even removed the blessings altogether. As for your build variety argument, Let's be honest. Most People will still eventually follow the same META builds. This kind of game modes is designed to be punishing the deeper you go. I think a solution would be ironically Genshin Imaginary Theater Reset Run where if you got unlucky you can go back to earlier floors without starting over. Though, it would remove the challenge of negative curios since you can avoid this situation altogether.

[@EnjoyGengar]

This universe is rerun of an event we had in past with weapons upgrade. But i see what you mean when you go higher dif your character indeed do noting at all.

[@Livie2_1]

Creating Scepters To Powercreep Charas 😭☝️

[@threebucks1678]

I like the fact that it essentially makes every character viable, event power crept ones because their kits activate damage dealing items. I don't like the fact that your characters do no damage and the items all feel the same.

[@TheodoreNoises]

Thats why I like DU more, it really fulfills the power fantasy and you can truly use everyone to clear if you got the right equations, while they may be hard to expand, the more game knowledge you have the better advantage you can take of them, the worst part is that some final bosses just hard counter some main 3* star equations, but I would take that any day over just auto clearing with scepters.

[@realKluki]

I think so would be more fun if I was high health enemies not high dmg, then a cycle like form as memory of chaos. This would make it to where you need to pick blessing accordingly, and you can hit those sweet sweet millions. As well I think there should be a locking system, where every time you do a path (or character) you can’t redo (or re pick) it until all of them gets lock.

[@FeixiaoWaiter]

the thing about recent SU (and a lot of new content really) is that you can clearly see the devs have decided to streamline those modes with the new characters coming out. it’s become an area where they are massively promoting using the new stuff/archetype they’re putting out, whether you like it or not. what can you really expect from a GACHA game afterall, if not to promote as much of the gacha down to every nook and cranny within the game itself, and it shows

[@ultimateblazes8938]

I never saw the livestream, I just saw the images that people were throwing around and thought "oh cool, new simulated universe mode dropped, I guess i'll look at it when the update drops without knowing anything else," and Im glad I did to get a genuine experience for it. I haven't fully completed it (mostly getting the rest of the rewards) and I thought it was alright at the start, but my excitement quickly dropped to the floor as I progressed more and more. I started seeing more flaws and immediately started to see why people hated the galactic baseballer event. I never really minded the event but after now seeing that its now a permanent game mode, I can see why people dont like it. your characters are barely doing any damage, the scepters are just given to you and they do way more damage than your characters will ever do despite the buffs, and the HP inflation is ridiculous. It really does feel like a slog when going through the event, hell I even went to past SU game modes and had a much better time with those because it still feels like an rougelike. with UD, it doesn't and it really shows.

[@OPPunk]

I feel like the problem with the simulated universe gamemodes are that alot of the blessings or power ups are very specific, like with some only being able to work with follow up attackers or others that will only work with for break teams. This just makes it obvious on which is clearly better when playing with certain teams, making the other power ups completely unusable. I think they should stop making these path specific powerups and instead make them more generalised so that all characters can utilise them to some extent. Some blessings are already like that by just giving simple attack, speed or crit buffs which is something that almost all characters can benefit from, but they can definitely add much more than just that to spice up the gameplay like with the suggestions you brought up later on the video.

[@fl2ur]

That's actually a good idea, if you think of other roguelikes none of the items/powerups you get are locked like they are in hsr with paths. If everyone could get value out of every blessing then that leaves room for them to be more creative with it instead of being limited by paths.

[@Esmeyippie]

Bro has NEVER stepped foot into Elysian Realm in HI3 because it literally addresses all these issues😭

[@yuorion3056]

I used to be an SU main especially around GnG time I had a lot of fun trying out all the combinations and stuff, but I do think ways to change up how your characters work would be great to add some variety There was a roblox game I played that did that, the base characters could get upgrades with each wave, giving them new skills and stuff which completely changed how they play by the end I think there could also be some more RNG factor with what domains you end up getting to enter, the map system from GnG was cool Maybe create some randomly generated environments, tailored with aesthetics that could fit the current expansion

[@TOTGodofWar]

I don't mind the Sceptors doing most of the work this go around (for certain play styles that is). We did get a past baseballer event that was used as a basis and far as I know a good number of people liked it. 2. Game mode still provides a Power Fantasy by dishing out big numbers...it's just done differently here. 3. Far as player Agency..hnmm I still play the game mode manually, often restarting if I can tell the damage isn't really there. Sure I am spamming ultimates a lot more due to the gamemode, but I am okay with it. Swarm Disaster and Gold & Golds got more in common with each other. If the game is going to survive combat wise on the long haul it will have to mix things up to keep some people engaged. It is what it is.

[@chrisbryant2867]

I have played this mode a few times and doing mad damage not sure what u talking about but ran thru this mode with 4 stars only and doing mad damage and glad about this mode.. I like it ❤!! It's helps f2p players and new players is what it's marketing.. for people who don't have a lot of characters

[@truegodofdestruction]

I always found SU boring af, which made it hard for me to build my units cuz I didn't want to take 15/20 minutes to farm orbs and get jackshit. But then they finally made it faster which made it a little bit better to build my units but doesn't mean I want to farm SU still

[@danielgomez-om9zd]

I literally waited 50 minutes to finish a combat

[@maxwellfolina8358]

I honestly feel like the options just aren’t there. If there were enough dif blessings you couldn’t bet on always getting the ones you want, and then ur run would be up to fate and what you can make of it

[@fl2ur]

@maxwellfolina8358 That would definitely help - getting one new path(or no paths now that the blessings have been replaced) per new mode of simu never felt like it was enough. These kinda updates should be used to iterate on what simu started as, kinda like a big patch that updates old stuff and adds new things. They should be similar to what we've already got but different enough to feel fresh. Instead, I guess we got scepters. Yay?

[@legallydeaf]

its the scepters world and we're all just living in it

[@АленаАлексеева-э7н]

The only things I liked about the new SU mode are the lore and jades you get for completing it. Other than that it was so dissapointing. As a lot of people have said already, the characters barely deal any damage, everything comes down to your scepters. Playing SU already feels repetitive as it is and now you are forced to do nothing during the battles, simply watching your scepters do the damage for you. I almost died of boredom completing this SU mode.

[@sphong0610]

While I agree with alot of this, I'll play devils advocate for a bit: 1. Sceptors are OP so that newer and F2P players can enjoy the new mode as soon as possible. Hoyo has always had an anti-gate keeping attitude. I heard that it's partially due to regulations in China. But whatever the reason, Hoyo has been this way and that is why a lot of the rewards for end game content are only good up to a point and then the highest levels of difficulty actually only give minimal rewards. Hoyo, "Okay, as long as you built a good team(that's the basic line), you can reap the rewards." A good way that they could work around the OP sceptors is to actually weaken them in the harder modes rather than strengthening the bosses. (Which is what they kinda tried with past simulations: making it harder to get good buffs, etc.) 2. Your idea about making under used characters fun is interesting. (I was watching a video about why nobody uses Argenti and thought that he would be good in the new summon/servant meta if he actually summoned the weapons like he does as a boss.) However, Hoyo would have to do it for every single character and balance these new abilities as well. Some might even need new animations. That might be too much work for a single mode. The more generic buffs work for multiple characters and enhance the "team building by archetype" strategy. I think another aspect that they kinda unintentionally revealed is that they have 4 specific archetypes for dps: Fua, Dot, break, and ult. So mono-quantum or even hypercarry aren't being acknowledged. 3. I completely agree that character/team building is the main appeal for players of HSR which is why the sceptors don't feel like fun. But I gotta say that the past simulations didn't have this problem. I remember being a new player without many characters built and having trouble clearing high levels of simulation but then learning to build ER Gepard's insane shielding strat. That was fun, but then with stronger characters that were built right, I was able to beat each path and get the highest level of difficulty without a "fixed" strat.

[@leestefan2999]

I agree on this current SU flavor. Just keep pumping up your WMD high enough and watch it go off and finish everything for you. This is one mode where your characters aren't the lead actors... lol. But I think there are only so many things such a turn based RPG game can add in terms of creative gameplay. The innovative Ult to interrupt turns was something that started my exploration of this game in 1.5. SU, MOC, AS, PF were like breathes of fresh air at that time, didn't know turned based could feel so good with these modes. Then DU came, I thought DU was a sign that creativity was saturating. SU and DU are all about putting enemies on super soldier serum and make players build up their own steroid combos to overcome the challenge. I can't really blame them because I do think the decades old turn based concept has reached the threshold in creativity. When I was a kid, D&D, Heroes of Might & Magic, Chrono Trigger, Front Mission, Final Fantasy were all innovative turn based powerhouses in their time. Subsequently, RTS and ARPG took over the space and some titles blended turned based with ARPG like Neverwinter Night. I can't remember the last turned based I played before HSR, if NWN is considered, then that was probably my final experience before I moved on fully to ARPG and RTS. It's really tough to be coming out with fresh ideas to avoid more repetition of the same old when today's consumers appetite for fresh innovative gameplay is huge and they want fresh changes to keep coming and coming fast. Unfortunately, turn based isn't an emerging genre. It's pretty saturated imo.

[@fl2ur]

Hey, I just wanna say I agree with most of this, but I also have to say I think as consumers we should be expecting more variety. Saturation doesn't mean there's no creativity - Take the illusive realm from wuthering waves for example, I feel that was a new take on a gacha roguelike(sort of like simu) that heavily focused on characters enough to make it feel different. Kinda unrelated, also want to say that Chrono Trigger is one of my favorite games. It's always nice to see it mentioned 🙏

[@adorafromephiria1890]

That's all happend because so many players yelling that this game is too hard. So developer's give as a easy mode. Blame community. That's all because of community. Community too lazy to build they characters.

[@theballadeer9504]

Well I didn't do that much runs in it but i noticed that you can use the scepters to buff your character's damage like I used dr ratio in the mode and he really was the carry in the mode not the scepters each fua he was doing was around 8- to 18m. But these buffs can't be obtained until the scepters kick in, it still is kinda disappointing that you really need them to move forward in each run.

[@HioriDummy]

Your scepters are your main source of damage, the only job of your characters are just to enable that. I'm kinda half and half about it, its funny to see absurd numbers go beyond, but its much more satisfying if your "actual" characters do that kind of damage. Maybe they created this new variation of SU just to not get repetitive to previous SU. Or maybe this is just a test ground for 3.0 META changes hmm. What I'm hoping for next SU is some kind of characters kit alteration or modification or build your own characters with already existing kit.

[@Eclin]

rougelike is indeed rng-fest mode, that’s the fun part, but the new simulated universe mode really miss the mark on why it’s fun.

[@dan2800]

this thing is get to last boss proc scepter and then leave the game running for like 30 mins while it slowly dies

[@davidrequena6482]

i understand what you mean, i tried to get the achievement of 25 battles with battle extrapolation dice in gold and gears, and in the end I only used rememberance, as it was the best for quick playthroughs. at the begining i used DOT and follow ups, as i liked those better, but due to the overwhelming number of times i tried, i just went for the easy choice. I think this update was pretty weak too, not only cause of the new su, but the new enemies are kind of meh. like the new minions are just old ones with a mechanic of the tv´s that has been toned down. Before, you had to be careful with the tv to get maximum energy recharge, as hitting it too many times or breaking its resistance would make you lose the energy it gives. now, hit once, and forget about it, and the have up to 60 resistance, which is insane for a minion. They did this so rappa could prosper, as her skill hits all enemies, so not being able to choose which ones to hit could have brought her down if there was a chance of backfiring by hitting a tv to drain your energy. Like i understand when this happens to a boss, as having a heavy enemy counter most of your characters but some few is normal, like something towards dead, who is centered to dot, and other playstyles will struggle a bit. but having a whole enemy archetype cattered to one character instead of a mechanic or a team composition is to dull if you dont have said character. i feel like that at least. Sorry, i know its unrelated to your video, but it annoys me how poorly it was thought out.

[@NoobieRookie]

It's fine for me as long as I see big numbers. I completed all of them.

[@iNovak-HSR]

I can agree more with you. SU is very boring for me, I only do the weekly DU for the rewards. Swarm Disaster and Gold and Gears are too long for my liking and I sometimes feel I can't beat it without Aventurine. Now in the new SU, I was excited, but got bored quickly when I saw my characters doing almost no damage and Scepters doing everything.

[@benny7th]

the U.D. feels much more f2p friendly, but at the same time, TOO f2p friendly to the point the characters you use literally don't matter

[@Shirker12]

Boring is the best way to describe it, honestly. Sorry I'm late to the video, I've been absorbed in Metaphor: ReFantazio.

[@fl2ur]

Glad you made it in the end o7 Hope you're enjoying metaphor, I've only heard good things!

[@kevinm7927]

I enjoy all of the Sim U modes besides DU. DU was just complete random slop and you had almost no control in how good you perform. The new one is a lot better tho as you have more options in how to build scepters and especially building strats around different category of scepters (Like mixing DoT and Ult or DoT and Break) is really fun. Its super refreshing having basically entirely new blessings instead of the ones from regular Sim U. It still peaked with G&G tho and I wish we got a G&G expansion that supports newer playstyles like Break.

[@AngelOnerom]

Have you completed Conundrum LVL 6? Making your characters deal more DMG than the scepters is not only possible but ideal in these; the game even tells you as much when you're booting up Unknowable Domain: "Characters' final DMG increases along with the plane", so the most meta builds are those you get by carefully reading the components and putting together a synergistic build composed primarily of "Boundaries" (buffs for your characters that the scepters will trigger). You can get your characters dealing upwards of 10Mill+ every single turn (on the low end) or deleting entire enemy bars with a single attack (depending on your builds). So, yeah; I disagree with this particular pet peeve of yours. You do absolutely make some great points, and I do agree that the game mode is poorly executed (if not outright conceived). I did have much more overall enjoyment with previous "DLCs" like Swarm Disaster or Gold & Gears. The main criticism I would give to UD is how Spongey the enemies are; it becomes a mind-numbing task to play this mode in anything other than auto. Boss battles in Swarm Disaster & GG were much more dynamic and either you or the enemy would get wiped up quick. The most positive aspect I see for this game mode is the RNG; it's easy to manipulate the game to steer your builds the way you want them to go... this is something Divergent Universe itself (to lesser extent both G&G and SD, too) could learn - a mode that is pretty much just reset until you get the "Weighted Curio" + Blessings you need. Overall, I would say: Gold & Gears ≥ Swarm Disaster > Unknowable Domain > Divergent Universe

[@Hasan-Firas]

What I hate the most about UD's power coming from scepters is that the only viable easy way to cheese it is through using FUA scepters. I like FUA, I have all FUA characters, but I don't like it when none of them deal even 5% of the boss's total HP. I always liked SU/DU, although there are some aspects that I don't like, but UD is the first one I've come to dislike, I can't use any of my Break, Ult or DoT characters as their scepters are just plain weak af compared to FUA, and it feels like decision components are the only effective things yo power up scepters, especially if you get the ones that increase amplification by upto 480%, and even with them, all other alignments are still far weaker than a normal FUA run without using any useful decision components. Components should've never existed, blessings are much more effective for damage and survivability. The fact that there are only 5 or 6 components for survivability, with all of them are for healing, makes preservation/abundance characters just 💩. So, to summarise UD in the most basic gameplay: just bring whatever makes you survive and activates scepters, or just bring sustain characters and use speed scepters, that's everything you need to know about UD

[@ladyhdwastaken]

I don’t fully agree with this. While yeah the scepters were kind of meh to me (as a hardcore simulated universe enjoyer) the thing I figured out was “how do I make these scepters go off as often as possible” and also that 4pc eagle and err ropes are a blessing 😂 since our characters stats didn’t matter. I had a tank Kafka and Swan and 4pc guard Clara run. It’s not great, I prefer the other simu content, but at least they experimented with something

[@thehotwindblowing]

Agree that Scepter Universe got old really fast. I think they made some good efforts to force diversity in runs as a "true roguelike" in the DU by introducing Weighted Curios/highly impactful Curios that change how you play a run. However I think it was unpopular bc DU suffered heavily from lack of playstyle variety. I'm a big Firefly fan but even I can tell it was catered a little too much towards her. Not to mention that a lot of the Weighted Curious just made already good playstyles even better (all the Break ones), while not really being able to revive archetypes that otherwise have no support (mono Quantum curio lul).

[@fl2ur]

Would've definitely been a lot better if the weighted curios were more diverse

[@NoiseRosemaker]

DU ironically has more variety than the newest SU mode. Break is still the best, but FuA is also a monster if you have modern FuA units (Feixiao, Yunli, March with quick-moving dps, etc.). Preservation is always good. Remembrance is getting a resurgence. Propagation is still fine if you have DHIL. Only DoT is gutted but that's because the boundary equation isn't active and half of nihility blessing is buffing break instead of DoT. In UD, the meta is already fixed at the highest difficulty: get distortion vortex and extinction program. If you can't get those two early, it's faster to just restart the run and gamble again. We're really forced to win bosses with bajillion hp in only 2 cycles so that the only surefire win is to not let anyone get turn at all, letting the scepters infinitely loop. That or your character (usually break or FuA) has to deal bajillion damage themselves, usually via getting the exact correct 3-star components. Basically, there's no variety, you either get the strat and win, or don't.

[@loonastrawberry]

I was so happy when i finally finished previous SU mods, especially these freaking bugs. And I have to do all of this crap again... 😭

[@zp24th]

Dont care, free jades Jokes aside yeah i pretty much agree, i expected a challenging D.U

[@jonathandejesusrodriguezbr8230]

I think that they simulater universe have always been about freedom and play what u want, no matter if they aren't doing most of the DMG, or if they are meta of no, the fun comes about being able to choose what characters you like and feel that they are just as valuable as u think they're

[@fl2ur]

On paper that's true, but I feel that just isn't how it actually plays out when you get to higher difficulties

[@tino5212]

I agree, the bosses were being tickled. It felt really lazy and repetitive for me.

[@ahmedlag4909]

Definition of insanity : Simulated Universe

[@ambergaleroar2476]

Unknowable Domain feels like Divergent Universe+ without really improving anything and Divergent Universe like it's name diverges a lot from normal SU. I like Swarm and Gold and Gears because they kept the original SU gameplay and innovated upon it, can it be better? yes. But I definitely had fun in Swarm and Gold and Gears, the same cant be said for DU and Unknowable Domain. 10:55 that is just Destruction in normal SU also SU does give relevance to units that need help, especially Blade who is really good in multiple paths, Jing Liu who is a great unit for destruction, Arlan can also be used on Destruction. I think you are thinking too much about DU and Unknowable domain and generalising it as SU in general As someone who did Conundrum 12 and Swarm D5 with all paths, I do feel like there is build variety in Swarm and Gold and Gears since you definitely can go full offense with Hunt or Elation and go sustainless or 1 sustain while other paths usually want 2 sustains at higher difficulties. Destruction, Preservation and Abundance are your tank paths, Remembrance is the dissociation path. Erudition and Nihility do need some help on the sustain side however. Quake, Aftertaste, Dewdrop, Spore (after getting certain buffs) all also scale off your character stats so thats why you still want to have a high crit character on Preservation for example SU is what kept me playing the game, I really hope they release better ones in the future.

[@redx670]

Unknowable Domain is such a disappointing DLC for the Simulated Universe since it feels like the only characters that can truly deal large enough damage to make a noticeable dent to a mob's HP are Superbreak characters and relying on Scepters sucks since the RNG dependent blessings became more RNG since not only you need to get the best possible specters but also the best possible components.

[@GodofGoblins]

Something i will note, is the way you are using scepters isnt the only way. On connondrum 4 i had a feixiao follow up build where the scepters made her go over and over again, and she did bulk of the damage. Felt amazing. Her ult wasnt doing nearly as much as her skill or follow up, which was hilarious. Looping the scepters over and over is optimal, i know. But i think people went to that too fast and assume thats the only way to play. It isnt. I even had a super break run where my damage wasnt far off from the scepter damage. Connondrum 2 i believe. I agree with plenty of your criticisms though, just saying that isnt as one dimensional as you may think.

[@fl2ur]

There are definitely *some* builds that you can run where your characters are doing a lot, but it feels like those builds are very few and far between. But even in those runs, your scepters are still doing a ton. I also can't overstate how much easier it is to get a scepter build online that will do the same amount/more as that kind of FuA build. Just feels frustrating.

[@GodofGoblins]

@@fl2ur yeah thats very fair. I would argue that looking up optimal online builds applies to all the modes and a lot of games in general though. idk, for me it was fun to figure that stuff out on my own, which led to multiple broken builds to beat the content. If I had googled just the one optimal build and ran it everytime, of course id get bored. Hell, I beat a run with 3 spd scepters even though apparently most recommend 2 breaks and a speed. but it is what it is. I agree the modes can be improved. I personally didnt mind the scepters doing work on certain runs since thats the pay off for planning how to build them. but again, i didnt google the optimal builds. I think thats kinda the point. but ive seen a lot of people express they want more utility with there characters and thats very fair.