W and Why I (Hypocritically) Don't Mind Powercreep

#arknights

[@DrSilvergun]

Some of you might think this whole video is just an excuse to hate on Degen. Nonsense. I don't need an excuse for that.

[@burpium1767]

😂😂😂

[@hendrihendri3939]

Like a certain Intel said "May the burden remain" She might be a power monster, but she will inevitably carry our burden for future content, because they definitely gonna scale it up several notch. And she will be the Core for any of them. Or maybe people just wont pull for her out of spite. Who knows. Anyway, good luck on Degenbrecher event.

[@mrrp405]

You’re so real for this

[@luisdagamer02]

Looking forward to the Degenbrecher + 4 stars IS4 difficulty 15 stream

[@lukasdeen6226]

yea degen carry stream will be good

[@echigokurogane8612]

That Survivability creep is true. Permanent camouflage is what made Lunacub so interesting in the first place. Being able to be place anywhere on the map while almost never taking damage. What also made her interesting is that she doesn’t have the damage output that the other Deadeye snipers have so she couldn’t just shit on every enemy that came into her range. Of course the permanent camo made up for that, and it made it so her along with April unique gameplay styles where they could be deployed in areas too dangerous for other ops. A good example of this is the EX caster sheep stage in So Long Adele that a lot of people malded over. But now W alter exists and blows Lunacub and April out the water because she practically has permanent camo on top of infinity damage. Other than that we also have cases of Texas alter who for some reason also has damage reduction for one of her talents. It does get ridiculous at how well the new busted ops are good at surviving when initially one of the defining traits AK had back in the day is that enemies can take out your “towers”.

[@SilverScratch]

My main issue with releasing new power creep units is that new modules 90% of the time dont ever actually meaningfully buff older operators outside of some niche examples

[@theSato]

THIS. A feature like modules is THE chance for you to buff up weaker characters and make them competitive with all the other meta picks. That's literally the only good use of an extra system like that -- since you can't do balance patches, its your one opportunity. And what do they do? Mostly just make "bad units slightly less bad" and "OP units slightly more OP". Major missed opportunity. Justice for Haze.

[@darkomihajlovski3135]

Powercreep by itself doesn't bother me its the fact ops like Walter get every mechanic the could possibly need and then some while other 6 stars feel like there missing half their kit or are just 1 trick ponies that aren't even the best at what they do

[@NightOfTheRavens]

Exhibit A - Viviana

[@user-tj3rd5kc2d]

bro u just described powercreep

[@darkomihajlovski3135]

@@user-tj3rd5kc2d a operator having more mechanics doesn't make it power creep like swire alter is 3 clases in 1 but she not op in the slightest walter would be op with just her damage but she has turrents and camouflage while someone like vivian is only good at killing elites and isn't even that great at it

[@sunnysunday2299]

I care less about powercreep than enemies getting tougher with sht tons of gimmicks. That essentially make older operators unusable unless you are a big brain doctor which is definitely not me.

[@Isomeria450]

@@NightOfTheRavens Viviana is fine operator, it's not her fault 90% of braindead community compares her with Surtr.

[@distuck6121]

How to counter big damage? Just make the enemy able to reflect it (thorn chest))) ) 🐢👍

[@123goofyking]

The Ore Golem (not to be confused with Mudrock Colossus) was also designed specifically for that. It makes me sad that it only existed for a short while during RA and barely appeared even then. It was incredibly hilarious to see people throw their meta ops at it and annihilate themselves 😂😂

[@Khroniclas]

Those ore golems are one of the scariest enemies in the game.

[@winternoelle8286]

Thorns chest 😳

[@beefystu559]

Inb4 a boss that needs multiple damage hit to kill, like that chonky bois from Lone Trail

[@beefystu559]

@@123goofyking There was also a bug that the reflect wont damage operators deployed on high tiles you made.

[@ILoveAmiya]

Powercreep is good because in a few years we will all get to make fun of Degen for being washed

[@King_Jockey]

Wis'adel Alter power creep in 5 years

[@theSato]

@@King_Jockey game will eos by then almost certainly lol

[@Kokokbeluk]

6:54 SUSSURRO MENTIONED!

[@miirico5398]

UUUOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH

[@enrichment3797]

​@@miirico5398 no

[@theSato]

yes

[@adamvegas5951]

I’m ok with w alter but I personally find it annoying that she can hit aerial when the one limitation of the subclass is that they can’t hit aerial but that’s gone for w alter. Edit: it’s also weird that there’s two 6 star flingers and both are limited

[@DrSilvergun]

nah rosmo should be able to hit air too it's dumb that she can't

[@slonik0002]

Had a friend who suggested that Rosmontis *can* hit air, just nobody blocks the drones for her.

[@shoegix]

​@@slonik0002 HG should make drone defender operator then.

[@slonik0002]

@@shoegix To this day I still want a Giraffe Defender that does just that.

[@Vanaris.]

@@shoegix Glaucus be like: excuse me?

[@mrrp405]

CCB12 should have Red return and be able to parry operator projectiles. Very good video btw, appreciate your insight on difficulty over time and how people approach it

[@DrSilvergun]

Avengers Die Thrice?

[@mrrp405]

@@DrSilvergunI just realized that yeah w2 has camo nvm, they should just let red climb onto the high tiles like in vernal winds idfk

[@DrSilvergun]

@@mrrp405 nah fuck the stairs if w is deployed avenger pulls out a grappling hook and jumps her

[@luminary69revision2]

@@DrSilvergun nah what if he just throws his sword like patriot’s spear and it devours her for the rest of the stage

[@DrSilvergun]

@@luminary69revision2 Only if he fights with his fists until he recovers the sword

[@akety3570]

>Not that worried about W >Shitting on Degen Holy based

[@DrSilvergun]

immba be real I don't care about her skills an orange shirt with a brown suit is offensive to my eyes

[@Isomeria450]

@@DrSilvergun FINALLY, someone understands my pain!

[@oberon5657]

​@@DrSilvergunPrayge for the inevitable skin to be decent

[@YoderTan]

I’m glad you mentioned what I think is a really really damaging discourse around new 6 stars that aren’t broken and how people basically complain about them not being broken. Every video out there talking about the 6 stars you should get is ALWAYS about how strong they are, not if they’re unique to play and not if they’re fun. There needs to be a big seismic shift in how the community views new operators if they want the power creep to stop

[@DrSilvergun]

well obviously EN is a small irrelevant part of AK so the EN community's attitude towards new ops won't affect anything. My point there was more like for HG a lot of their players want the power creep so they have no incentive to avoid it.

[@theSato]

@@DrSilvergun 100% this. EN is completely irrelevant - as long as we continue to put in enough money to justify them localizing the content for us, we're just riding on the coattails of the more "important" (by contribution) regions. CN and JP blow us out of the water in terms of profit and community creations.

[@echigokurogane8612]

One last thing because I like talking. I do believe that Degen was made this way as a massive over correction from Viviana. Her lore aside which does give reasons for why her kit is the way it is, Viviana’s enemy version is an elite, so she inherently has a lot less mechanics for her compared to to Degen who is a boss and has like 5 different mechanics. Enemy Vivi was basically just a slightly beefed up normal caster, and people’s idea of her skill being so strong came from CC8. Normally her skill is wimpy and is only really a threat to ranged ops due to their lower health. I imagine that the succubus woman from Chapter 13 will also be playable someday and she will be in the same boat as Vivi because she is also an elite with very little mechanics to her name. And people will also be disappointed in her.

[@zacharysiow5478]

i find it weirder not more AK players arrived at this conclusion back when Surtr or Chalter came out, at a certain point as long i can still clear with whatever bullshit i throw at the stage with whatever ops i want, they might as well don't exist to me

[@Mushabeans]

A good take on why ak as a tower defense makes the game more fun if the player experiment with different strategies

[@wickeddave5148]

If only they give us a restart button so i don't have to waste my time looking at the loading screen everytime i make a mistake

[@captainelite2991]

i believe there wld come a time when it will be easier to read the boss description rather than the solid block of text called s3

[@user-tj3rd5kc2d]

powercreep might not change your game experience but definitely change the whole community forever, in the bad way

[@ggok]

Yeah I saw her killing Patriot in 7-H-4 and I was like "oh ok it's just big damage boss killer operator number 177013, what's new?" Then I realized she has: -perma camouflage -summons that can take a Patriot spear -summons that she can use to perma slow enemies off skill -off skill DPS that is stronger than Rosmontis S3 (with Walter + all summons) -S3 that ignores trait debuff -S3 that is true AOE, size of the Londinium cannon mechanic Which is just absolutely batshit insane For example, Mlynar was (and is still) strong, but he does have his mechanics. He's a 0 block melee unit that doesn't attack off skill, he's designed to fight elites/bosses since he can only hit 5 on S3 & his damage will be reduced once he kills some enemies. You can't spam his S3 even if you have some SP buffs due to his trait effect etc. But Walter just ignores everything lmfao

[@muratticugaratti1571]

Mylnar is not just designed for Boss killing with that fat fucking AOE.

[@ggok]

@@muratticugaratti1571 Yeah I know, but he is also able to kill bosses while killing elites.

[@Khroniclas]

I never really mind powercreep either, tho Wisadel got a bit too strong too soon. She should have released without module, even then she'd be a meta pick.

[@KureoZen]

It's 5th year unit so it's understandable. Many game release an insane unit like her in their 1st anniv

[@Khroniclas]

@@KureoZen You're not wrong there buddy.

[@Khroniclas]

@@KureoZen You're not wrong there buddy.

[@oturan9728]

​@@KureoZen If that is true, why mumu and Hoo last year was consider like one of the worst banner? Except W and skalter I don't remember the CN limited anniversary being very strong actually.

[@qurt5101]

@@oturan9728 Mumu is at least fun to use, and she legitimately has some niches in IS or CC. Kind of a "win more" operator. Plus limiteds aren't always supposed to be good. Weedy is better than W even if W is the limited one. Dusk Saga banner is horrible from a meta standpoint. Chongyue has way less agency than Lin in a meta standpoint. This 5th anniversary could be the same way, but I guess it would be better for this breakpoint to have broken operators rather than mediocre ones.

[@juuryoushin6181]

The first issue I have with the new shiny 6*s personally is that if they turn out to be a plain delete button with one skill massively overshadowing the others, it's kind of a design failure to me. It's boring, it does not explore more strategic aspects of the game. Of course, we are far from living in a world where they are ALL like that, you can already name the ones who fall into this category very quickly. So while Logos is an extremely strong caster, you can get use out of him in different flavors thanks to the 3 skills being different. The second complain I have about 6* has more to do with people than with the operators themselves. You addressed it directly: If the new shiny operator is considered "'weak", complains are about to rise, and the same goes for the opposite. This also messes with the concept of what's a good operator since it seems like every player has a very precise definition on a certain level, you can't argue it, it's just semantics.

[@ryeven311]

My only gripe with powercreep is when an operator does the 1 basic thing (Damage, Tank, or Heal) too well that it makes that operator REALLY boring to use. Other than that, yeah I agree that it doesn't matter much in Arknights since its a PvE game.

[@altocshi]

Honestly pretty based take. I personally love having the option to either challenge myself when I feel like it, or just blast through something fast if I'm short on time or not in the mood. Picking up different niche and off-meta combos (God I love using Stainless) has vastly increased how much I enjoy the game, and I'm glad Arknights is the way it is. Just pls no more Design of Strife tyvm.

[@DrSilvergun]

I'm a bit sad DOS failed so they probably won't repeat it Having 3 progressively harder maps with various difficulty settings is a great idea for CClike events Just add more risk than dos and don't lock rewards behind clearing the highest difficulty and people will like it well enough

[@CaptinSpyke]

@@DrSilvergun They've had too many incidents of fumbling something that needed at least one more pass to iron out the formula and leaving it to rot because of fan backlash. Im not some enlightened sage, I hated RA, POO and DOS not because they were inherently unsalvageable concepts but because I wasnt having fun and the systems weren't designed well. At least POO gets a return with the new CC format and seems to be more palatable and the perma RA removes the central issue of it being time limited which amplified other problems

[@altocshi]

@@DrSilvergun Yeah, I definitely think DOS introduced some pretty neat mechanics such as the timed wave system for the side stages and the gradual difficulty increase for the boss map, but man, the execution def flopped.

[@altocshi]

@@CaptinSpyke Oh man I loved RA but the time limit really killed it for me cuz the amount of RNG needed for some of the endings just made it so tedious to grind during its limited run time. So glad they're making it permanent.

[@kencolac2860]

I also think dos has too much potential to not be recognised by the Devs. Just don't shame people for using buffs like that is very weird coming from the devs themselves.

[@Reeber]

And then damage reflection makes a big comeback and W one-shots herself.

[@psychocrysis2]

Yeah it was a notable weakness CN players pointed out when they rolled around with her in IS4. Wisadel just instantly explodes like she's been sprayed with Raid when she touches a spiked chest. I can expect more stuff in the future to have damage reflect. See: Ch 13 elite enemies that heal and get stronger when allies around them die, specifically to cuck AoE nukers like Mlynar.

[@namensklauer]

4:44 well apart from the infinity damage she also fills lunacubs niche of being permanently camouflaged. in that way she is as un-powercreep-able as nightingale, because anything that W cant handle, nobody can handle.

[@DrSilvergun]

eh eventually we will have an op that respawns on death can be deployeds on 2 diffrent tiles at once does double W's damage and has infinite duration skills

[@DetektywW11]

I think that both sides here are right. On one hand W won't affect average event because they will always implement some mechanic that weakens the enemy in some way to help people with weaker ops. On the other hand her release could lead to a higher difficulty spike in harder content. Will you be able to get the trim medal on next cc with low rarity + borrowed 6*? In IS5 they made 4* cost no hope. Is it a simple QoL feature or does the difficulty ramp up so hard that they'll become useless on floor 3 and higher? Only time will tell

[@runitsgc]

My only issue is when people mock and ridicule others for using off-meta operators. I understand one of the most common questions for the casual gacha game player is 'Is X character good?' The question is important to ask given that gacha games are predatory by nature, people make financial decisions based on the answer to said question, but I think people put way too much emphasis on the meta, and in this game specifically, 99% of content can be cleared with 3-4 star operators (with the occasional usage of a 6-star support). The meta is quite established at this point, so for the people who build someone like a Wind Chimes or Frostleaf, chances are they don't need the lecture about their weaknesses, and yet they get ridiculed for using them anyway. I'd just like to see less of that, and let people play the game the way they want.

[@DrSilvergun]

imo it's cause people feel compelled to argue why the trash op they built "isn't that bad" as if there's something wrong with building dogshit ops cause u like them

[@theSato]

@@DrSilvergun Haze is maxed because Haze is the best. I would still appreciate a Haze Alter however. And then a GG alter or Suzuran alter to follow (but they're lower importance since they're both already good.)

[@StickmanHatena]

5:22 immediately brought me back into the trenches of the ole TF2 vs OW debates from almost a decade ago. Classic example from this era was rocket jumping. Sure OW had a rocket launcher type character who was capable of upwards vertical thrust, but that was done in a single action in the touch of a button. Meanwhile, TF2 requires 3 precise button pushes, precise aim, and interacts with the engine physics in ways that creates synergistic gameplay that takes thousands of hours to master.

[@miirico5398]

Meanwhile Gundam with 3M HP: So I heard you like damage?!

[@DrSilvergun]

3.75 M without the extra daily risks 5.4 M with them U underestimate the robo

[@temtempo13]

Your videos inspired me to try running 4*-only more, or sometimes to try to run "thematic" squads for a new event (trying to limit myself to only appropriate nations/races e.g.). I'll start bringing in ringers if a mechanic or a boss is really kicking my ass, but like you said, I definitely get way more enjoyment out of actually comprehending a stage and constructing a 4* squad to manage it than just having big enough numbers. For a while, I tried Abyssal Hunters only (without having Specter2) or Aegir-only, and some stages felt like tightly-constructed puzzles even though they obviously weren't. Figuring out that Deepcolor had precisely enough summons to bait drones with the right deployment and skill timing... good times.

[@StellaTheBoymoder]

The biggest problem for me is when a unit that I actually really like releases in a really unbalanced state, for example I would be really disappointed if the units from the Dungeon Meshi collab are on the same power level as Walter, 'cause I really like that anime and would love to play the game using the characters and not have them brute force everything.

[@FelisImpurrator]

Finally, a man of sufficient culture to make the Handler Walter joke. Hey, isn't Civilight kind of like waifu Ayre, since she's basically made of a magic rock

[@DrSilvergun]

I don't think eterna is a magic cocaine ghost that compels us to kill tho L for arknights

[@FelisImpurrator]

@@DrSilvergun well the name refers to the crown thing, so she's kinda like that?

[@noname-tw4mm]

good video. about that using silverash segment, when i was going through the game at first i thought it was too easy so i didnt have any e2 and tried to minimalize having e1 ops on my team. i still watched guides and many clears but didnt really use any ops from that clear, so i guess its a different level of challenge. (later was too burnout so i started to spam chenalter) now i just dont feel any real difficulty so im moving towards a niche, so i feel like complaining about powercreep is just the preference of the player. also i was thinking about "the highest level of competition" in arknights where only meta 6stars strife, but so far content like cc or is was still kinda clearable for any players, at least for all the cases i remember

[@slonik0002]

I think the only time it really matters is if you’re pushing for high end stuff like DoS or high risk CC, I think that’s the only time where HG’s difficulty starts to scale with the recent releases (obviously, you need a challenge). Issue is, if you *don’t* want to use the shiny new powercreep, it’s getting harder and harder. Back at launch it wasn’t too bad to still go fairly high with alternative choices beyond meta, but now as lower rarities are coming out about the same as before (or worse), the gap between them widens. I remember it first occurring with CC#4 after Surtr where everyone suddenly has a lot more RES, but it’s a lot harder for those who aren’t Surtr to deal with that. Now with stuff like Pyrolysis it’s “deploy Ines and use Virtuosa S3 and Ifrit S2” vs… Totter? What else can 4*s even do against beefy invisible drones? Surely Verdant and Lutonada will help deal with that in this new age of powercreep. If you just don’t like Ines overall, have fun trying to deal with the drones while pushing high. Although I do wonder how you reach a new limit as time goes on. More damage, sure, but what else. Maybe Waltah tier powercreep as a frd? Pack up the best utility in the game for no deployment limit? Guess we’ll find out in a year or so.

[@Kkakasih12]

you mentioning a bunch of ak content creator that i watch felt weird lmao. I always thought yall lives in different dimensions or something

[@ChuongDang185]

I exist on the opposite end of the spectrum in regards to what's boring and what isn't in Arknights. Watching SilverAsh or W destroy absolutely everything is far more intertesting and fun than any low rarity clear could ever be. Don't get me wrong I appreciate what you do. It's just that I find little joy in challenging myself in a gacha game. In normal video games I love a good challenge and do understand that struggling makes the victory all the sweeter. But that's what I want from normal games, gacha is an entirely different ballpark and I want here is to see my favourite characters like W effortlessly annihilate the opposition. Still, despite the dissagement this was still a good video and far more nuanced take on powercreep than a lot of people have said. Keep up the good work.

[@DrSilvergun]

It's because AK isn't a gacha game to me I only seriously roll for 4* which are easy to get and come once in a blue moon so I can always 100% get them, even though i don't bother farming properly It's a weird ass puzzle game that I love playing. For me using imba chars in ak is like pressing the hint button in a puzzle. On the other hand I enjoy stomping everything in stuff like Synthetik or Doom Eternal

[@ChuongDang185]

Yeah that makes sense to me, since you're a 4 star guy the gacha element basically doesn't exist for you. And I do agree that Arknights basically is a werid puzzle game and solving these puzzles can be fun. But because I do treat Arknights like a gacha (because I love the characters. I would not bother to be playing AK if it didn't have characters I loved), I guess I have much lower tolerance for failure here than I would in a normal video game. I've played all three Dark Souls games and Bloodborne so I'm definitly not opposed to challenging myself. Regardless, it's clear some people like solving puzzles while others like choping down puzzles with a sword. Hopefully we can all still get along despite that.

[@Luxo-tm9mp]

Depending of course If a strategy takes like 10min for a lower star to defeat tanky enemies of course is boring as hell but when they make synergys and good strategy the stuff got interesting and doesnt go long

[@Dustfired]

I think what bothers me the most about powercreep is that it invalidates most 5 stars. For some reason HG has been releasing absolutely terrible 5 stars as of late. Newer 5 stars aren't even powercreeping the old 5 stars. 5 stars are evolving but backwards.

[@rezafahlevi9659]

*5 Stars are evolving but backwards* Bro, Leto, Odda, Fang Alter, Medic Amiya, Doc, Iana, Warmy, and Grain Buds will have a words for you

[@l0kk016]

​@@rezafahlevi9659 yea there's a few good ones, but you can't deny that most are pretty trash... Not only that but the also cost a lot to build, so you can't even upgrade and bring them "for the lols"... It's like they are only there to do programming tests for mechanics hypergryph wants to use on the next 6 stars

[@rezafahlevi9659]

@@l0kk016 Oh that one I didn't deny it, I'm just saying that the recent 5* ops are mostly solid Heck, Coldshot went from very bad to solid thanks to her new module

[@myonwontstfu]

Powercreep isnt born equal. I don't mind Irene being added when Chen exists because both were still usable, Chen had unique niche and Irene has her downsides in places where Chen doesn't. Emphasis on downsides - downsides make need to work around them with other squad members, to play smarter and in the end it's more interesting. And then I mind degen as they plain removed all of the major downsides of other 2 and also gave her some power trippy shit on top. Boring. Overly flexible unit design is boring. Like, sure, the game is pve but it's still very much susceptible to being boring. One can say that I can just not play boring units if I don't like them so much and yes! I can. But here's another argument: imagine majority of new characters released being boring and you know about that 6 effin months in advance. How much will to keep playing, gathering pulls will you have, knowing that majority of oncoming banners you will skip and that there's potentially nothing in next foreseeable 6 months that interests you?

[@Brazio20]

what scared me the most isn't the powercreep itself, it's the gimmick that will appear just to keep those who have the boring units on their toes, which translate to more suffering for new/unlucky players than they have to.

[@myonwontstfu]

@@Brazio20 Yeah, that happens. HG tends to make stages in a way that makes their latest additions extra shiny and sometimes that just means you have to fuck yourself if you want to play d15 is4 ed3

[@lolcallolcal]

Great video, overall I agree with stuff you're talking about here. Yeah somehow alot new ops contain big survivability (degen with immunity + tremble on s3, big range for ray, zuo being zuo, no comments about shu and camo for walter). Tbh my bigger problem is how it is 5th anniversary and my personal expectations were pretty high for new limited and we got whatever walter is. 5th anni overall felt kinda not impressive tho so thats maybe a factor too

[@pathalenvivaldi7811]

I liked Vivianna generally, just felt was disappointed she, like a Warcraft kobold, had no candle. Ah, and her S2 was too much of a copy of Astesia's but stronger - make it more unique! :D I am worried difficulty will spike to accommodate powercreeps and make older units irrelevant, or it won't and the new, broken things won't be fun to use if I happen to get them, because they'd make it too easy. I'm somewhat hoping for the latter because I have semi-found a cure for the issue - keep their skill levels at level 1 - makes Texas and Yato almost balanced. Almost. :D W's getting that treatment as well if I happen to get her. :D

[@VilArknights]

We agree! But it’s also frustrating sometimes when you see an op like Degen who feels broken for a reason that’s kinda bullshit. Auto recovery on s3 shouldn’t be there why is it there yadda yadda everyone knows this. It’s easy to not mind power creep, but what’s more annoying is when the powercreep is really common. Within the span of grinning valley, train ride, and ch14 we got Ray, Degen, and Wis’adel, all who arguably fit in the same mold of “does damage and only does damage so will inevitably get powercrept when the next big damage goober rolls into town” (Degen probably will age the best thanks to tremble and Ray does have bind but they’re notable because they deal dumb damage). In this case it’s notable cause it feels like we’re getting a lot more Mlynars than what we’d usually get, even if that’s not necessarily true. The thing that bugs us (we’re plural so we use plural first person before anyone gets confused) more is like… Design creep? Wis’adel doesn’t really need to be a flinger, flinger was clearly designed with Rosmontis as its only member, and as a result Wis’adel (and to a lesser extent Greyy disappointing) feel really out of place. Wis’adel can even hit air with s3, it’s all so absurd and feels like the design constraints of operators have been kinda getting ignored. This is more apparent as somepeople who make a lotta OCs but for example: Degen s3 is an easy example to make because it’s so baffling, but everyone gets that so let’s use Wis’adel hitting air. Flingers are distinct in that they don’t hit air, and that’s pretty important. It puts them in a limiting role where they have strong aoe but it’s only impactful against a smaller range of units, and whilst it’s not necessarily a huge limitation it’s a limitation nonetheless. This is a legitimately cool design constraint and it’s something you can do a lot with. So then, why make her hit air? The concept of a flinger who can hit air is actually really cool if you lean into it, but for Wis’adel it’s just a footnote. The logical question after that is why make Wis’adel a flinger then? She could just be an artilleryman or even a deadeye (the precedent is there) but she’s a flinger presumably just because the slot was open. Obviously, powercreep is inevitable. HG has an incredibly tight schedule for the most part and the fact that this game hasn’t collapsed in on itself is something that’s commonly overlooked. Simple operators are cool, but it’s important to remember simple operators do simple things. Santalla is really cool because she has a lot of intricacies under the hood but in the end she’s really just a simple operator. In this case, Wis’adel being bullshit might be more a time constraint if anything. Simple operators are easy to implement, and even if Wis’adel is complex in theory in practice she does a simple thing: big aoe damage. Operator design is hard, there are so many ways someone can be bullshit even if the numbers look fine, and in practice too many people focus on things like dps which really isn’t as important as total damage or time to kill but people focus on it anw. Operators are weird. Arknights is weird. Broken operators won’t stop us from playing Arknights, and arguably they shouldn’t stop you either. But also it is important to recognize when something is too much just to understand why it can be problematic and further your understanding of the game. Yeah.

[@DrSilvergun]

Your point at the end is something I fully agree with it, and have even talked about on stream. How DPS is not as important as how much damage bring to a stage with their skillsets and restrictions. Way I see it you can roughly translate anything an operator does into "damage value" Slowing enemies so they stay in range longer adds damage value but isn't damage.

[@frosted-flaky]

i think they were trying to make greyy alter the next indigo, since his talent is supposed to take advantage flingers' high hitcount. something about his kit does kind of feel off and a 5 star being super reliant on his module feels worse than a 4 star in the same situation... maybe it's his range, his kit really doesn't take advantage of it in any way and S2 having normal targeting priority is kind of at odds with the idea of using a wide range character to stall. i don't like shirayuki for the same reason...

[@thatoneguyfromoverthere5879]

My gripe with W alter is mainly that it feels like HG didn't put any effort into balancing her. She has no weaknesses, and that really gives the vibe that HG didn't bother to take the time to actually refine the operator, or genuinely thought she was balanced, or that she deserves special treatment due to being an anniversary/limited unit. In any case, in my opinion, any of these reasons is not a proper excuse for making such a out of wack operator, and I'm worried that the game's quality might decrease in other areas if HG is okay with repeating what they've done with W alter, but in other areas of the game.

[@mastermavrick]

Makes sense, I mean being a generalist I play/build whoever. And usually only bring plenty "broken" units when A I am frustrated with x stage, B in no mode to think//time constraint. Same way I use guides, and yea I mean DoS was the only event that was like screw the player use/have x power to do it. With a few S stages before that felt like it. In the end with Operators, its who are your comfort picks to bring as a baseline then/add change to what you need. But yea some powercreep will/has come eventually, lore/mechanics/VA's attached to a Operator only goes so far.

[@cupcake5478]

:O Silvergun origin story. I agree wholeheartedly. Wisadel is probably just the new Silverash/Surtr/Mlynar that lets whales keep playing casually, and lets KyostinV keep making low-rarity squad clears, while giving the rest of us gradually more difficult content. Time will tell of course, but HG's earned my trust. I remember the boss that made me a believer. The Endspeaker. During the era of "just-Surtr-it", they created a boss that you couldn't just Surtr, but could still be reasonably beaten with the help of the event gimmick, and gave a chance for crowd control operators like Rosa(PocaRosa) to shine. The guide videos at the time instead recommended Gnosis. Who even remembers that Gnosis exists? My conspiracy theory is that Logos was designed specifically to counter both Talulah and the chapter 10 reborn slugs for people struggling against those mechanics. As for Degenbrecher, did CN also cause a scene during Viviana's release? Maybe Degen was an over-correction for the last boss-turned playable op?

[@DrSilvergun]

I don't reall follow cn but I don't see a reason why they wouldn't people are pretty samey everywhere

[@bikerhomi]

Damn I'm not the only one to hate Degen just because she doesn't give a fuck about her archetype and has auto recovery SPECIFICALLY on s3, which is the only skill you would've used realistically anyways, so it's not like making it offensive like s1 and s2 would outshine it, but lmao she's so stupid. Honestly, Degen and Ray are the ops I hate the most from design standpoint, since instead of playing around with archetype she's in, like Lin does, they just say "fuck it, I'm now auto recovery, and my rabbit friend just reloads full mag before shooting", I really couldn't care less about them dealing morbillion damage in process, because it's not like there's not enough operators dealing exactly that, but just removing archetype weaknesses instead of playing around with them is stupid

[@Pomho1812]

I mean your point about Degen ignoring her own archetype stands for Walter since she can hit aerial enemies with S3 😅

[@bikerhomi]

@@Pomho1812 I almost totally forgot about it 💀

[@Pomho1812]

@@bikerhomi happens to the best of us. Still think the ops that started ignoring their own archetype started with Texas2 her skill refresh on kill just kinda defeat the purpose of the fast redeploy archetype by making her having a way longer (and impactful) field time than the others

[@metathpr4h290]

First of all, gigabased Harry Discord pfp, god I love Disco Elysium. I can definitely agree with the topic of just having fun with your own challenge, I myself started playing a lot of 4-5* only due to that (and to build and use a lot of my lower rarity waifus, Poncirus ftw). But at the same time I still use a lot the 6-stars, either for when the hard stages kick my ass for too long and I need the easy way, or for modes that are just super difficult in first place, like high level IS where I don't know how to even play without Reed 2 start (lmao), so powerful 6-stars are still my main pull focus so I can tackle that stuff as well. My reception to Walter was... not positive, that's for sure, same shit as Degenerate who you already malded at enough in this video (based), the absurd damage they make combined with how safe they are is simply infuriating, did they really need to give Walter camouflage? REALLY? Isn't her huge range, stuns, tanky deployables that can act as bait, solid damage off skill and comical when on skill enough? aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I'm so tired of seeing friends posting the new silly solo clear of a hard stage by that asshole. Girl feels like Ling, but you can actually bring the whole team alongside her. Also my genuine question is like... how the fuck are they selling another sniper after Walter? Seriously, she already has everything, are they giving every next sniper a million bazillion damage and a way to be immortal???? I knew plenty people interested in best girl absolute massive cutie Ray that will just skip her because between funny trapmaster who is actually a sniper Ela and Walter why even bother, they are better than her and she has not even reached global yet... smh, those two wish they were as cute as Ray, gl powercreeping that 🐰 While it's true that the difficulty of stages has been not that much increased (or even fluctuates a lot, So Long Adele kicked my ass to infinity but Herbst felt very manageable for example) I'm still really damn worried about potential eventual difficulty increase really just killing my low rarity niche because I'm not skilled enough, POO(P) and DoS already gave me a taste of what "either bring the meta shit or be Silvergun I guess" might look like in a year or two if they simply decide it's the time to make shit harder, and boy it's not gonna be fun. Well, end of my salty rant, I'm at this point where I love the story of the game and I can't wait to see where it goes but I'm starting to get really worried about the future of it when it comes to difficulty and powercreep, I 100000% understand your point of view and I loved watching your video, but... yeah, you're Dr. Silvergun, if that future I fear comes, while the average fairly knolwedgeable player will be choking to death with their niche you will still be trying and succeeding to make a clear of H20-4 with 7 four stars lmfao. 🐰

[@DrSilvergun]

Worth pointing out that circumstances exist where Ray is better than W Shockingly the game has (1) single target dps op that can compete with the best AOE Dps op

[@hartoramasenju4012]

I don't mind powercreep if it's only at one aspect, it only became problematic if some unit have too much on their kit. W alter is prime example of this. She have crazy dph with really great survivability (camo + bait summon). I don't take "unique" as excuse to let this happen, ranged dps unit with that kind of damage shouldn't have this much survivability, either just camo or just summon, not both

[@ploinefost9468]

My hate towards this based on fact that we already have limited 6* of same archetype who worse in every way and can be counted as one of most useless 6* after this

[@annatheerisian7878]

One of my favorite things about the variety of playstyles is that I can still make my own fun by using mostly 6-star units, but insisting on featuring my favorites. Like, in the IS rerun right now, I used Pramanix to debuff the boss. Shamare is right there and would have been quite a bit more effective with her attack debuff, but I like the priestess and love to use her whenever I need a bit more damage.

[@yuujin8194]

As someone who usually doesn't hate on new 6* ops being "underpowered" and I overall share your opinion on powercreep in ArknightsI do have to defend my right to shit on Viviana, as she's the only 6* op who I legitimately think HG completely fumbled. Actually overall that's not quite true, because honestly Viviana is 80% fine, they really just messed up her skills. First, because I mainly play AFKnights, we'll talk about skill 1 - at sl7 it's an auto charge, auto trigger, 4sp cost attack which deals 2 hits for 170% dmg each and it can overcharge to temporarily increase her attack range and grant one additional hit to the skill activation. For skill lvl 7, that's actually fairly decent as far as afk skill go, but what's really important is m3 because low cost auto trigger afk skills historically improve the most by mastery. M3 of her skill is exactly the same as sl7 except each hit now deals 200% dmg instead of 170%. That's it. That's the only fucking change. The damage increase is quite low, but that's normal for multi-hit skills, the main issue is that lack of sp cost reduction. At 3/6 sp cost the skill would've been a fun tech option that would allow her to have very unique positioning on some maps while still having ok uptime on the increased attack range, but without it the skill is almost unusable and the mastery is worthless. Compare this to Surtr s1, the other arts guard afk skill which is attack charging auto trigger and drops from 3 sp cost to 2 at mastery 3, it also gains 70% dmg increase on a single hit and has the unique effect of immediately recharging if it kills an enemy which further boosts it's uptime - an worthwhile afk skill that actually gives you a reason to use Surtr for something other than s3. (Mousse S1 is also afk but it's more of a utility skill with it's atk debuff so comparing it here isn't as helpful). On to s2. I don't have much to say about this one, the effect is fine but I don't feel it differentiates itself enough from Astesia s2 both give +1 block and allow them to attack enemies equal to block count, both give slight attack and defense increases with Viviana giving less attack and more defense but compensating with a chance to attack twice and steal 40 aspd. The main difference is cycle time, Viviana has a slightly higher sp cost and more than double the skill duration as Astesia. I've found this isn't necessarily better though, just different. Astesia usually cycles better with enemy waves but the shorter duration can prove problematic if she can't kill enemies fast enough while Viviana will certianly have enough time to kill the enemies she blocks but may not be able to time her skills with enemy waves. Frankly, I think this skill is probably the best designed of the bunch and probably doesn't need any touch up. S3 however has a major issue imo. Mainly, the skill is clearly intended to lean into her enemy/bossing oriented design but I think the choices they made with how the secondary activation work undercuts that significantly. First off the skill is mainly survival oriented until the second activation, sure she gets a decent atk% buff but her attack interval increases and the 3x multihit is locked behind the second activation so her first skill gives her a lot of def and res but little damage which means she can't helidrop elites or bosses - this is odd given that most maps that have both will have them on different pathing from each other so your basically forced to pick which ones Viviana will handle from the start. It's odd but not the end of the world, but what I do think they really screwed up was giving the skill a 10second duration increase on second activation onward. Once again this fucks up her cycling. If the skill remained 15 seconds per activation but she now had her full damage she would have great short cycling for dealing with individual elites as they arrive, but now she'll have trouble getting the skill back up in time for the next elite wave. As for bosses the duration increase, while it will help her fight it, is still likely too short to last the full duration of fighting the boss, especially if there's multiple phases. So to me the slight benefit to bossing is significantly outweighed by the detriment to handling elites. Personally I think the skill would be significantly better if they either A) removed the secondary activation requirement, keep the base skill duration but give all the other effects from the second activation from the get-go instead. Or B) all the other skills with second activation effects become infinite duration instead of getting a mild duration increase (except the og second activation skill, eyja s1, but that was a launch skill and by far eyja's worst skill so we'll ignore it). Giving Viviana s3 infinite duration would remove cycling issues vs elite and enable her to have full uptime when bossing. It would significantly improve the skill and as we've already covered how her current afk option is total garbage, this would fix that too. And honestly, this skill still wouldn't be broken with infinite duration although the sp cost may need some re-balancing with an infinite second activation in mind. So, to sum it up. Viviana is an OK operator but her skills are shit and I will continue to hate them until the day I die. #JusticeForViviana

[@DrSilvergun]

ofc u can piss on viviana all u want I was just talking from HG's pov there, they simply have no reason not to powercreep because a lot of people want powercreep.

[@yuujin8194]

@@DrSilvergun yeah I completely agree. My views on powercreep almost match yours completely so I didn't have anything really to say on that. But I felt like I seeded to defend my opinion of Viviana a little because you showed her on screen when you were talking about the people who complain about 6★ not being broken enough lol

[@voices0000]

My concern with powercreep is mostly 3*s getting crowded out. ILA's 5* guard clears are cool, but it's just not the same.

[@soosboons4444]

I wonder how soon we will get an Operator that can deal over 10k damage per hit that is literally unkillable lol. I definitely agree with the survivability creep, especially on roles that you don’t generally expect them to imo (well not while dealing arkillion damage at least).

[@CobaltSthenia]

I like broken 6-stars because I like D15 Integrated Strategies but I'm also really stupid, so broken 6-stars make it playable for me. But yeah every new broken 6-star comes with a new wave of repetitive doomposting that shows our community has a collective memory of maybe 3 weeks. I'll also say that the game has a very steep curve for people who aren't good at strategy, and a broken 6-star or two can ease the ramp-up that might otherwise be frustrating and cause less talented players to quit. It took me months before I could come up with strategies on my own (not having any real experience with other strategy games) that weren't brute-force or guide copies, and if all I'd had to work with in the beginning were 4-stars I think my progress would've been too slow to want to keep playing since being reminded that I'm stupid when I'm trying to have fun isn't a good time. Obviously someone like Eyja still serves that role, and if new 6-stars didn't trend ever stronger the banners wouldn't sell. Half the game's problems are those of any F2P live-service game (predatory FOMO, tedious daily grind + limited daily sanity, bad balance around P2W meta with obviously less effort put into operators not meant to sell well) and the other half are the terrible QoL. Like you could write a dissertation on QoL changes that would make the game better. And what QoL we do get is always too little too late. Powercreep doesn't make the game less fun since you have the option to not use the shiny new 6-star and can still clear 99% of content without issue, but there's a lot of lazy design driven by big red numbers-Wiš'adel with her summons and Młynar with his taunt would be interesting operators if they had meaningful trade-offs instead of doing 100k damage in 30s (actually more in less, lmao) with competitive cycling. Meaningful decision-making is what makes compelling gameplay, and if there are no trade-offs, that reduces a lot of the decision-making to how much thinking and suffering are you in the mood for.

[@aizeroth8858]

What are the QoL changes that you want to see?

[@CobaltSthenia]

​@@aizeroth8858 A lot better in-game information, like exact numbers on enemy stats, attack patterns, etc., an easy visualization of enemy range, a display of enemy spawn times and movement patterns, a timer during stages, better visual indicators on boss specials. You should be able to pause, tap on an enemy, and see their remaining HP, range (and whom they can target), cooldown on any attacks, and remaining duration of statuses. Likewise more exact information about operators' stats and abilities, and stuff like barrier amount being displayed alongside HP (Penance's max barrier is so big that eyeballing it has a large margin of error), and a visual cue for when an enemy enters skill range for a skill that needs an enemy to activate while you have the operator selected (or better yet a button to tell the skill to activate the first frame it can). For Integrated Strategies there should be an in-game calculator telling you how all of your relics scale, including damage amplifiers. For non-combat QoL, I'd be happy with automatic base management where you can set a rotation that runs itself indefinitely or until someone unexpectedly runs out of morale and shows you calculations of expected resource gain and morale loss. Also, stable autos/skip tickets for normal stages, robust progress saving (I've lost multiple IS runs to bad internet, and while I'm not saying allow save-scumming the game should save the progress offline and resync it when your internet is back), and less RNG for farms and especially for chip farms.

[@Mehieddin7]

"bad balance around p2w meta" How the hell can you p2w in ak How is the daily tedious, it takes less than 2 minutes

[@coralreef6298]

Mlynar is balanced, he's not a helidrop, you gotta wait for his skill to ramp up, arguably the most broken thing about him to me is the forced taunt, that shits a lifesaver for my casters

[@user-tj3rd5kc2d]

@@Mehieddin7 oh ofcourse spending all of your stamina for stages auto farm only takes 2 minutes per day

[@juicyjuustar121]

I just hope they dont start designing the game around the powercreep units, I have characters i enjoy using and I dont want them to become useless

[@NearoC]

My thoughts as someone who's apparently just a skill issue is that even as my account gets stronger (but without things like Eyja Typhon and Mlynar) the stages have started to pass me by in terms of effort even with 6 stars. I know your existence validates the viability of not using the strongest 6 stars, or any, but I feel like the ease isn't always what it seems in terms of actual player skill. Pinchout was awful, DoS as mentioned was awful, I personally hated Dolly as well, and Lone Trail was also fairly hard for S stages. And it's like, maybe the stages being scaled up 'slower than the 6 star power' is less true when you're a bit bad? I feel like some of those newer crutches can go a long way in easing difficulty more than it may seem to someone actually good at the game, and that's my biggest issue with powercreep. I'll admit the recent Zwillingsturme event was actually quite easy across the board, but with some exceptions, stages can arguably be pretty tough for some players these days and I feel like balance factoring player brains matters as much as balance for someone good, even if obviously you can't ideally cater to everyone, keeping power level from rising as much would help. I don't want to have to either stay on the cutting edge of pulling for power, or use guides, just to make a stage not take 60 attempts with my best units sometimes. Obviously though, yeah, I get why it happens like you said someone will be upset for too weak or too strong, but Arknights until a few years ago was the best gacha I'd played for balancing, usually making ops that were good but didn't invalidate past ones, so it just feels disappointing for them to do that less and less, even if it is harder to carve out niches that are on the level and not too strong the more units there are. I'd personally much rather have units that are on the low side like Viviana than things like W, if perfect balance can't be achieved, but it's less profitable. All in all, I hope you're right and that the difficulty progression won't be too quick following behind units, I used to ignore or actively avoid meta for pulling but I will be getting her just to feel like I'm not sinking under now, even if I'll only bring her into the squad when things are 10+ attempts deep. I don't want most stages to feel like that's a necessary tool, and from my perspective it's a realer risk than for someone just better at TDs.

[@eigengrau7698]

Totally agree. I pull her (and her original) just because waifu reason You can bring full squad meta and still struggling if you don't really use your brain. And that's what i like about arknights

[@pixel1325]

watching this video made me realize my gradual exit from arknights was because at the earlier phase of the game, I was making do with what I have, strategizing and reading enemy files, but now with a full six-star squad, I got lazy honestly and just do morbillion damage, or lane hold without thinking

[@fischwell]

what i dont like with new op ops is i'm afraid they'll make them as the new standard difficulty for new stages. imagine you cant get a new free skin from an event because you only have eyja but no logos.

[@dukeee19844]

mann I remember returning to 6-5 challenge mode after gaining some experience with the game and managing to clear it on my own, using my own preferred operators without any sort of outside help. I think that was the moment that really sold me on playing Arknights without relying on meta or KZbin guides, peak gaming fr anyways I'm happy that Walter is way too strong so I won't be interested in rolling on that banner, instead I can save all my pulls for the real hype in Lutonda 🥰🥰🥰

[@anonymoususer7780]

Idc about her doing one billion damage when her skill is up because that's par the course for 6*, but I'm still really annoyed that when her skill is off she becomes the best laneholder in the game because of how comically OP her summons are. She essentially has zero down time all things considered and I find that extremely cringeworthy from a design standpoint.

[@DrSilvergun]

oh same but i'm a hipster I see everyone whining about W but nobody whining about degen Therefore I will keep whining about degen

[@tyladron8836]

There are lots of 6*'s I like using who I feel like don't break the game mechanics nearly as much. i never really use Surtr, Silverash, or the other super meta units unless there is a game mechanic that I just really hate. I feel like 6*'s like Nian don't break the game nearly as much. Also certain lower rarity operators that I just love, like Blue Poison and Gravel, are probably always going to be in my squad no matter what. They're my favorites after all. I use Mlynar solely to make Gravel do more damage LOL.

[@kappapride720]

The thing is, I like 6 star characters and would like to use them without trivialising the game. My Mlynar is level 1 E0 and I almost never use Chalter. It's kind of annoying if I can't use my favorite characters in the game because they take the strategy part out of it. If they make Eunectes Alter who wins the map after you deploy her, it won't make using her more fun than og Eunectes.

[@lukrio99990]

Honestly if Arknights ever added PVP for some reason, I feel like that would well and truly kill the game. The only thing that felt powercreep-like is having to deal with elemental damage, but honeyberry is free so it's not too big of a deal. Silverash for sure is outdone by mylnar, but I don't have him so I don't care. I don't really like how boring Walter is, but I'm probably not going to use her so it doesn't matter lol I only care about Logos cause he's cool

[@TheVigilo]

you're so right for this

[@NikkiTheViolist]

after DPS powercreep and survivability powercreep what we need next is "ability to change class mid-battle" to powercreep Amiya's ability to change class outside of battle i mean imagine the new 6-star that can literally be every single class in one battle or something i dunno this idea is just really stupid don't take it seriously

[@simplythecat4068]

The problem with powercreep in singleplayer but still live service games like gachas is that you *do* still have a "player" on the other side metagaming against you, and its the Devs themselves. You mention Design of Strife as an outlier endgame content thats not supposed to be friendly to newbies, but it doesn't mean that it having a completely backwards gimmick design is completely justified. DOS S-3 is basically unbeatable unless you use the exact same full team setup of all the top meta operators like Mlynar, Surtr, Suzuran and others, or if you use buffs that the event provides you. But here's the issue - you can't get all the rewards if you use even a single buff :) leading to mandatory metaslaving. This is what powercreep leads to - instead of treating strong operators like fun outliers that you can cheese the stages with, Devs take them as a BASELINE powerlevel for endgame content, making them mandatory to use for full content clears. General enemy stat bloat instead of adding any actual thought out mechanics leads to endless dps race that forces players to metaslave in order to keep up with the rising difficulty of the game, even despite it not being competitive in any way.

[@simplythecat4068]

Also Walter's main issue generally is that she basically just takes Rosmontis'(another limited operator in the same limited drop pool BTW) ENTIRE kit (AOE arts damage, rng stuns, summons) and then just does all of it better without adding anything new. Or, well, she can hit aerial enemies too now(which was one of the Flinger Snipers main drawbacks), which just makes the powercreep worse. She just kills the child without bringing anything new to the table.

[@DrSilvergun]

Right and Since we know what the events are in the next 6 months we can see that they didn't follow DOS with a bunch of other DOS like events. Me calling DOS an outlier doesn't mean it's justified. It means it was a bad event that nobody was happy with it and devs aren't looking to repeat.

[@fer0x453]

this is exact reason why after a few gacha expirience before AK I decided to play in waifu mod + some really useful characters (now I'm thinking about only defender squad in the future)

[@PAX-East]

Absolutely agree with 4:53 Anytime a new character isn't [previous 6* but better] people complain. Look at Qiubai; "Not Thorns, useless." Attitude. I don't care about power creep, I just don't pull for Ops I don't like from an art, story, and gameplay (interesting strategies and synergies, not big number) perspective. I just get annoyed at "OMG, MUST GET OPERATOR!!!! BROKEN DAMAGE!!!" Type of content.

[@LaurencioAmaedus]

This video will stand the test of time and the core tenants within define why Arknights is a masterpiece that nearly anyone can experience and enjoy.

[@govinlock8568]

I don't mind broken operators, but I hated when the broken ones are limited. It feels like a cashgrab because without luck and resources, someone can't enjoy the content. Reflected from Maria Nearl event, the high end content (e.g. EX, S and CC) would cater to the strongest operator available, which made the game less fair. I even avoided to use limited operator unless the stages need it, and those factors are the reasons why I don't care to play CC and IS seriously.

[@aizeroth8858]

How is IS related here?

[@Sergazz]

You have Mlynar, that's enough.

[@rhael42]

it feels like a cash grab because it IS a cash grab.

[@Symphonic74]

Being single player I don’t think the issue with powercreep in this game is rly about the individual characters being too strong, but rather that the characters aren’t fun *and* make other characters also not fun. If you want to play the game as intended and use the stage mechanics and your brain at all you have to play a niche, or else it’s just Surtr+Chalter+Degen+Walter go brrr and now everything’s dead. But then if your niche is really specific, you never end up with new characters (Musicknights has 1 new character coming in the next 6 months and it’s another supporter which is completely unnecessary), and if your niche is too broad you end up having the broken characters in it anyways that invalidate the whole point of using the niche in the first place. The other issue I have with supremely broken characters like Walter is that they’re indicative of the game going down a bad path design wise. For a strategy game, there’s not a lot of strategy involved with deploying Walter and then sitting there for 5 minutes. Having these characters exist at all sets a bad precedent for new characters, which must be stronger otherwise most people won’t pull, and makes me anxious that they’ll be even more braindead. Like honestly at this point, how do you even get stronger than Walter? She does infinity damage, can’t die, has summons, hits ground and air, isn’t crazy expensive to deploy, etc etc. It feels like what’ll come next to powercreep Walter is going to be a 0DP infinite dps global attack range immortal robot, and then what’ll powercreep that will be just a 0DP box that just ends the level with three stars right there.

[@ReCrystX]

As someone who loves playing high end stuff (CC, CCB, etc.), having possibly one of the core character for dps that isn't immediately dogshit with all the reduction being locked behind a limited character as a free to play sucks so much. I guess there is friend support.

[@kael070]

i'll call them Woh and Wohdael, and no one can stop me i may have a decentish rooster rn compared to when i started playing and having to look guides but my dumb ass will always find difficulty where there wasn't really much to begin with, mostly by bringing weird roosters *proceeds to bring mudrock to stages with tight dp starts and arts damage*

[@polardon3161]

Well, my chen alter, been on shelf scince about mounth after her release, used to do r18 on dawnseeker, cuz i was lazy. And i kanda want W, maybe as a e0 lvl1 to complete the roach collection, maybe as a nuclear option for statspocalypse that may or may not happen.

[@CAMPer2610]

fully agree, thats how a lot of people enjoy games a lot longer, its a game, you play it, so do it however you enjoy it more

[@TheSecret234]

Seeing people argue about the new 6 stars meanwhile I'm hyped for Fangalt and Healer Amiya. 4 years ago when I was new I started to feel like the game was becoming too easy around the time I had about 6 E2'd six stars. That's when I switched to 5 stars only. 5 stars to me provide a good balance between doing cool things and still being balanced (Though if you use the meta 5 stars only they're op) and I try to use the newer ones as much as possible to experiment with them.

[@aoifox]

I think some player may want to try 4star 5star operator. But the Sanity cost on CM is the worst thing in this game. Using OP 6star can save a lot of Sanity

[@dindapriska]

If you want to try a new 4 or 5 stars, do it in the normal/event story stages first, see what they can do there. If you're confident (or just curious), then bring them to CM with practice mode.

[@NightOfTheRavens]

I just like doomposting and complaining about getting and using the units i hate because i can't hold myself from using a resource available to me while also hating that resource so very much. I hate you Ch'alter, i hate you Omertosa, i hate you Blue dragon woman. But i have all of them, so why wouldn't i use them? Where's the fun in holding back? I like theme clears, i like class clears. I want to do defenderknights, but my resources are finite, i can't hold myself back from spending them on Eyjalter or something else I've accidentally got from a banner. Each time i don't want an overpowered limited OP and pull on the banner for another operator instead i get the overpowered one. I'm sure it will be the same with Wis'adel. I can see it so clearly right now... Here i am, pulling for Logos, my first 10 pull, it's the 6 * bag, there's one 6*, it's Wis'adel, FFFFFFFFU-

[@melchizedekpsj]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

[@melikered1103]

Yes powercreep matters and should absolutely be kept in check, because believe it or not, there comes a point even in a PVE game, where the power inflation can get so bad that it WILL start ruining the game. That's the truth whether you like it or not.

[@aizeroth8858]

But we are nowhere near that threshold I don't see why we need to start worrying about it now unless I am missing something. Yes Wisadel is the best operator in the game on release, but so was Chen Alter, so was Mlynar, so was Texas Alter, so was Yato Alter. And here we are, the game still very much alive and kicking doing better than ever. People trying to predict which new op operator is gonna break the camel's back is a pretty pointless and honestly kinda pathetic discussion.

[@ThaDude]

​@@aizeroth8858Powercreep is ok. But not everybody is lucky to get the strong 6 stars they need or want. Which is why the lower rarities should also be stronger than the older lower rarities. Aside from the welfares, a lot of lower rarity operators are either underwhelming or have plain bad mechanics and gimmicks. Most of the useful lower rarities are older ones because they are still unique and have good mechanics that compensate for being a lower rarity.

[@melikered1103]

​@@aizeroth8858 Nope, by the time it reaches the threshold it already would be way too late. This kind of thing happens exponentially all the time. You can normalize it all you want, but I won't.

[@jkorok6357]

​@@melikered1103you missed his point that it will never reach that point. Silvergun explained it in the video. No matter how much bullshit you think the new operator is, the design of the stages never changed. They aren't trying to change how the difficulty plays. So powercreep is useless. W is the best operator in the game, yes but that title itself doesn't mean much because that tittle is useless.

[@penguindrummer252]

This is a point addressed in the video.

[@Man-of-segs]

I dont mind W doing infinite dmg, but why tf did they allow her to ignore her own archtype trait? If she doesnt have that trait then just make her a deadeye sniper that does aoe dmg instead

[@salesberuang4448]

Everyone told me "If you don't like wisadel, just don't use her", i don't care about her. But i worried about is HG always making broken OPS since Degen and the next next operators but they not making stages with more high difficulity. This is make all stage become meaningless. I hope they making stage with high difficulity same as DOS in every event.

[@DrSilvergun]

0% chance tho i wouldn't mind it myself xd Ok so now I've seen 3 people that are worried HG won't properly powerscale the stages

[@Kkakasih12]

I dont know if i trust someone who wants more DOS, even more wants DOS on every event 🤣

[@CaptinSpyke]

All im saying is this level 60 s3m3 mlynar needs more places to use him that are properly scaled to his powerlevel, give me a better designed DOS without elites tougher than the boss and I'd actually play it.

[@kushalmazumder6953]

I do not think they can powerscale the stages without making them nearly unclearable for weaker units.

[@jo-ri-oh8950]

Usually I don't care about powercreep and discussions like that. I'm not the type of person that will doom posting about a broken character in a gacha game and less in Arknights. But Degen... Degen... Nothing will stop me from hating her entire game design choices. I hate it. And I am happy to see that I'm not the only one that will hate on on her on every occasion 😊

[@vinn2880]

I feel like nothing in this game is an achievement so i really don't mind the powercreep

[@einhasad7]

4:53 This type of complaint happens in every game and the reason that it happens is because the average or casual players (however you want to call it) can only see power in two days: damage and defense. I agree with you on the Logos thing. His mechanic is cool and he could be relevant for some specific thing later, but the vast majority of the playerbase doesn't see operators and their mechanics as a toolbox like what you are doing here. They just see it as damage, which is why, at launch, people thought SA was broken, then Chalter and now W. People will parrot other players that say that those characters are broken and they will doompost about every character that doesn't immediately have some big burst, because they fail to see those other mechanics as power, which is sad to see. Also, about 6:50 ish (the part where you mentioned your 4 stars getting too strong and you deciding to make low op runs ), I want to say that some people find that to be more challenging but I also feel like many low op runs are a lot more boring and less creative. When you minimize the amount of actions it takes to clear an stage, it just doesn't feel like you are using a bunch of tools, and when you do low op runs, you end up needing solutions that are more and more specific, because often times only one specific operator can do the thing that you need to do. I can't speak for your specific niche, but at least that is how it goes for me a lot of times. I feel like the most fun I ever have in this game happens when I'm struggling to clear something with a full team. I can nerf myself in levels, rarity or even ban specific operators but I can't have fun doing low op runs.

[@DrSilvergun]

1st part - Yeah it is a bit weird to me because I absolutely see and judge everything in terms of damage But you can translate everything into damage An op that doesn't need healing is a deploy slot that can be dedicated to more damage An op that has cc keeps enemies in range for longer so they take more damage Logos s3 removing fireballs can create a damage window where none existed before hand. etc. 2nd part this topic is extremely nuanced and it goes both ways Sometimes removing an op would involve doing a lot more actions (even in the individual run) than the previous record sometimes it simplifies and trivializes something. I've definetly had both. Thing is I only low op stages where I think that is interesting in the first place. If I can take one look at it and conclude that it's DC + 1 random operator I won't bother playing it. So while Low op Isn't interesting on every stage, nobody says I have to do it on every single stage to the utmost limit.

[@misbahul9044]

5* run is fun, not that OP but also not that dogshit until you play high diff IS and managing those dry hope also idc about the gamedesign but degen is wife material, he got some bigass horn, cant you see it ? she is in for my horn collection, eyja still no 1 tho

[@shlflfe-cedprqul1891]

idk to me its like if HG actually just designed goofier 6 stars with funny mechanics I would play 6 stars more. They have three entire skill slots and all of them are just damage like what. Come on, they can do better than that. Which is why im excited to hear about wtf Ulpian doing with a Kafka tile

[@galeria_m]

ill pull her but use her S2 cus I dont have a 6 star AoE Sniper. i will buy fiammetta from the shop soon but cmon, fiammetta was never really a normal aoe sniper was she? i wont use Wisadel s3 for the same reason im skipping degenbrecher. But this time, I actually need wisadel for sniper collecting so.. and as i said, i do need an aoe fun unit to play. Her S2 fills that role very well. Imagine having Virtuosa S2 active on Wisadel s2. and yes, i have virtuosa s2m3 but no mastery on her s3

[@BlazingSun01]

arknights is very customizable in difficulty you can make the game a bit more challenging if you simply do not use overpowered meta units. im still having fun bc i treat the meta units like mlynar and texalter and yato alter as big red press in emergencies buttons and just carry on using lin and penance for funny aak shenanigans

[@DrmChsr0]

Look, I get that people are concerned about the damn game but... It's a bit late for that when HG is doing the usual overcorrecting for broken Operators (Trauma Stages in DoS, giving everyone 70+ Res, Immunity to statuses, fuck the Golden Age, may it never return again if it keeps giving us 80% dodge enemies)... And then there's the whole "Genshin wins the earnings competition once and forever". How is HG supposed to extract that amount month after month? Can we go back to the things that really matter, like why Rosmontis should not be peeing on the Doctor?

[@amalanparty]

I like W the alter because she's pretty. A shame she's gonna go in the pile of operators I think are too OP and leave at e0 lvl 1 with the rest of them for eternity.

[@baduser103]

I think the worst thing playing with 6 stars has done to my mind is make me overreact to goofy enemy pathing and make it seem worse than it actually is. like in IS-EX-6 theres a car that does a bunch of loops at the beginning and is really easy to deal with, but i think BIG ENEMY NEED TO DELETE which hampers the rest of the map by overexerting units at the start.

[@yuomovaeh3028]

Powercreep itself is fine but theres a big difference making a +10-20% better unit compared making +40-100% better unit. Too high powercreep is just lame and serves no real purpose besides being bad or lazy game design.

[@s07195]

You Siracusans are built different

[@maryhassellpetty670]

Honestly I find the newer 6 stars boring. I only pull for the ones I find pretty or ones that have a cool kit that isn’t bloated. Like Eben. But since the game devs like money and people complain about and don’t pull for just bad characters. It’s kinda getting hard to find interesting 6 stars. Idk might start doing challenge runs or something after I finish farming 1-7 for the pulls.

[@BillyONeal]

I normally like salty Silvergun videos but I appreciate this bright and reasonable spot/take. Thanks for providing lots of thoughts that counter doomposting

[@frantz816]

Okay but Caper vid when???

[@byeguyssry]

I feel like saying "Oh just don't play her" is a lousy excuse for why powercreep isn't bad... because what if I like W Alter and want to play with her? There's no cost to making W Alter just slightly less strong, so why not? Or make her take slightly more brain to play so I can pretend that I am good at the game when I abuse her

[@DrSilvergun]

I reckon u can control her stenght urself Leveling masteries what skills you use etc.

[@byeguyssry]

@@DrSilvergun You could... but I always try to get my favorite operators levelled. Plus, it feels bad to deliberately play worse

[@Luxo-tm9mp]

The power creep it is a problem because every time its going farther than what we use to think what power creep was Silverash>Surt>Typhon>shitty alter

[@DrSilvergun]

typhon doesn't powercreep shit :D

[@Luxo-tm9mp]

@@DrSilvergun really? I thought she was well now that I think it maybe its true

[@kou988]

If possible, I want to use Wishadel to achieve the highest level of CC#5 (32)...

[@Ender_Wiggin03]

Lot of the time I follow AFK videos, and most of them still use release ops, so as long as I'm not forced to use Powercreep to clear content, I won't complain.

[@AelenAltria]

I play the 6-stars because I spend too many hours reading the story to have any hours left to solve puzzles the "complicated" way. So I like just a little bit of challenge, but one that doesn’t take hours. That said, Degenbrecher hype. Nah, who cares about her damage, she looks like an awesome character and I haven't waited for anyone this hard since Kal'tsit.