Honkai: Star Rail's 5 Star Character Oversaturation Problem 

'Fear of missing out' long turned to 'Fear of pulling too soon', the way they adjust characters and stack random gimmicks on newer ones is insane. No wonder they stopped making 4 stars, signature light cones alone are way better than most 4 stars.

If HSR would just drop more 4*s like Moze who could help lower the amount of 5*s you need to pull for each new meta i feel like this game would be a lot more tolerable

Vars II one year from now: Why No One Plays Acheron.

Short answer: yes, and I think they realized it, because they might start releasing 1 per patch in the future, or so I heard

3:15 "Why is Star rail making so many units" money, the answer is money

not surprised that we have hit a wall where the game is running out of gimmicks and new releases start cannibalizing each other faster than devs can maintain a meaningful balance between new mechanics and outlook to the meta scaling

Short answer: yes Long answer: yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssss

It feels like every character is trying to outdo their predecessors. I love Blade. When leaks of his kit and animations came out, I thought he was perfect and nothing can top him. Has self-sustain, AOE, big damage(at least back in 1.2 when he was first released), but then Jingliu and DHIL came out and he was thrown under the boss. Now, even Jingliu and DHIL is somehow forgotten when Acheron and Firefly came out. And now Fei Xiao. There's even hints of Summoner Meta coming sooner or later. And it is certain Acheron and Firefly will fly out of the meta too. I love Blade and Jing Yuan. My two mains..

The problem is characters release that surpass the next wayy too fast like most characters don’t even get a time to breathe before they’re overshadowed by the next new dps or support and when they finally get buffs why use it for them when you can use it for other characters to better effect

0:57 No way, the sequel to March 7th - March 8th!

Another solution they could implement is do the F/GO route, buff/strengthen old characters by giving them interludes/strengthening quests that buff their skills/noble phantasms (ultimates) and in some rare cases passives (talents/traces). In F/GO you have a lot of day 1 characters that are still top tier to this day and, we are talking about a 9 years old game mind you... F/GO gets a lot of hate for its stingy gacha rates and garbage pity system ....However, you cannot deny how well they maintaining the balance between old characters/ low rarities characters. It shouldn't be too difficult to implement and it will make a lot of people happy that their old characters are still relevant somewhat.

Jingliu’s ult dealing 100k used to be impressive back in the day… now it’s just the baseline per skill lol

The oversaturation problem is exactly why I cannot buy into the "Genshin could never" argument. Genshin averages 1.09 new limited 5*s per patch; occasionally it has two new limited characters per patch, but it has also had no new limited characters in 1.4, 2.2, 2.8, 3.0, 3.5, 3.7, and 3.8. (As an aside, it's very interesting to me that while version 3 only had one double release and several patches without new 5*s, version 4 didn't have any patches without a new character, and both 4.1 and 4.7 had two--there were only six new limited 5*s in version 3 and eleven in version 4.) Meanwhile, HSR has had two new limited 5*s every single patch so far. The important thing is that the free jade income should be commensurate with the release schedule! If Star Rail is giving us 83% more limited 5*s to pull for per version, then it should give us 83% more free jades compared to Genshin. I pulled up some jade/primogem predictions for Genshin 5.1 (patch after anniversary can be expected to have lower than average primogems) and HSR 2.5 (a patch between main plot arcs tends to have lower than average jades) for what is hopefully a like for like comparison. The prediction for Genshin is 10140 primogems (63 pulls), and the prediction for HSR is 11530 (87) for F2Ps. HSR has a 38% increase in free currency compared to Genshin, assuming the player can complete all of the content. A 38% increase in funds does *not* adequately equip a player for an 83% increased cost. And that's not even accounting for the increased incentive to pull for 5* weapons in HSR vs. everything in Genshin being easily doable with zero limited weapons. I like that HSR is encouraging team diversification, different play styles, and strategizing to complete a variety of different content. And I think a faster 5* release schedule is reasonable, given that the game is intended to be played with a more diverse roster of characters than Genshin even for the casual players. But if they're going to keep pushing out new 5* characters, they *have* to give us more viable 4* alternatives or they have to provide us with more currency to enable the gameplay experience they are aiming for.

Gallagher is my GOAT I will never cheat on him

how do you say boothill is one of the worst version 2 character when bro literally have the highest single target dps in the game???

I feel like the problem is there realsing new chars that are WAY better then the old chars WAY TO FAST...... a year ago DHIL and jinglui wete the TOP DOGS of the meta.......now people dont consider them even top5 and have a HARD TIME clearing with them......chars should not become useless a year into the game, thats ridiculous

The real problem is that new characters alter the whole game in an unpresistant way, initially, every unit is somewhat viable but now you cannot complete a certain task unless you have a specific character with a specific buff or debuff to run alongside you main carry.

"With the influx of new characters, there's never a dull moment" Ok buddy. There's definitely never a dull moment in banner character trials for sure 😂

Short answer: Yes Long answer: Yes and it isn’t just Fomo. Imagine the kit team having to come up with two character kits every single patch. I imagine it aint just the playerbase it's probably the dev team. Which is probably why Rappa is the only 5* of 2.6 Though they could get back 2 per patch after Rappa. Just having a patch to chill does wonders for us.

Correction: It has Too Many Hot 5 Star Characters

It sucks when all the four units you want is in the same patch 🤣😭😭😭😭

I do think it's something that is becoming a bigger problem when every character is trying to out do the other This is also something that will probably hurt reruns of important story characters as why pull for the subpar character when the new, shiny and powerful character does what they do but better at the same cost

The era of updates with two new 5-star characters is temporary over, as in update 2.6, only Rappa will be new

HSR has 58 character 1.5yr from its release Genshin has 87 character 4yr from its release definitely yes, HSR release too many characters.

People used to be saying that HSR is so much more generous than Genshin when it comes to giving free pulls. Now looking at the quantity of 5-stars, and the various team comps that exert temptation on pulling those 5-stars, maybe now those people will realise that there’s actually a counterbalance to that generosity.

I can't keep spending all this time leveling a team and picking which characters I want to level, for them to be eclipsed by new characters less than 2 months later 😂

I think there are too many too quickly. I want this to be a long and healthy run. I would absolutely pay for character exclusive skins and light cones that bring existing early game characters up to speed. I would love new modes like the aetherium game or a card game. I would love more differences of kind and ways to bring fan beloved characters up to speed, while giving fanservice of them. A sluttier stronger Sampo or remixed Natasha? Yes pleasseee

My biggest complain is that characters take way too much resources (especially traces) to max out. Unless you pre-farm (which Hoyo is trying their hardest to *not* let us have time to do so) by the time you finally max out your character your latest investment is already powercrept. Thats just rude as hell

0:40 "Since 1.6" yeah I wonder what 1.6 brought... surely it wasnt the slippery slope of ruan mei foreshadowing the terrible present we have right now.

Long comment ahead. I think Star Rail balances more like a more typical mobile game, more akin to the likes of Arknights, Fire Emblem Heroes, Granblue, Fate Grand order, etc. Its like they expect you to have a ton of units at your disposal for all types of content, but the difference is those games give you currency for breathing, and while the pity and gacha systems and a person's personal opinion of respective games and their gacha systems are totally different, the bottom line of that is, Star Rail doesn't give enough currency for that type of balance. Star Rail only gives 100 per patch (on average, 2.4 was even less) for free to plays, not including Battle Pass and Express Pass, this leads to F2Ps really having to save for units if they want their favorite along with their cone, which is probably why all these units are SO incredibly capable and strong. They have to cover for a lot, they have to be generalist enough to clear a few end game modes or give generalized buffs because you only get ONE character a patch. That's why the powercreep seems off the charts. The characters have started to be balanced around being able to do at least 2 or 3, or hell, all of the endgame modes, including all 3 of the rotating endgame encounters, AND simulated universes continued updates. People think that Jiaoqiu isn't strong because all he does is buff one unit, and that stems from not being able to get enough characters per patch. Why pull him when you can get Robin or Ruan Mei or Sparkle who's buffs are so strong for even E0 Acheron to ignore her two nihility trace, AND can work with several other teams and other carries. While he's still strong, don't misunderstand me, I understand this argument, because the game simply doesn't give enough currency. I also think the game needs to stop neglecting 4 stars, make more and continue giving 4 star selectors, we haven't had one in 3 patches or so.

at this point, some of the 5 stars should just be added to standard banner. seele is one example. used to be the top dps but nowadays are shafted because of new toy syndrome, plus standard banner lacks a quantum character(ice is shared by gepard and yanqing) so i think standard banner could use a new member

Funny, now the comments are mostly against HSR, when I pointed this ages ago people got mad and throw all kinds of excuses, I already know this would happen in the future if they're not slowing down anytime sooner. Hoyo is so manipulative, looking generous while tricking people. People keep supporting it while not seeing the bigger picture.

I hope that they chill out for a bit, I still want a lot of old characters, but it feels like if you miss out on some of the newer characters then you'll screw your account. On top of that some of them need older characters to function correctly, which creates a real catch 22.

I felt so burnt out as soon as I saw character banners. Yunli is done but I haven't even finished farming for jaioqui .Relic farming is a pain in the ass too.

In terms of resource issues exp books are the bane of my existence

Bold of you to assume I'm pulling for Meta. I pull mainly because I like the character's personality and design. Which is so damn hard because HSR has so many good characters 😭

Considering the "f2p" pull income I'd say they're definitely pumping out characters too fast, and that's with the pull income still being way ahead of the competition. Secondly I don't think that they have enough inspiration to keep pushing out "peak" designs twice per version. It's started to feel a little dull imo with some of the recent characters. Feixiao looks amazing but some of the others like Jiaoqiu and Lingsha seem a bit uninspired to me. Also, no way you mentioned Jingliu and not DHIL for DPS powercreep 😂

bro dropped "summons" mad casually lmao

The lack of energy sucks, they gave out 10 fuels but it was like a drop in the bucket since it gets extremely expensive to max out traces and levels. I still want to build other characters like Serval since she functions quite nicely as a super break unit but I havent gotten around to it since other units are much more important and wasting fuels for some experimentation is a waste

The game is too high maintenance for me and I might drop soon. I pulled Feixiao and used all my fuel and resin to make her playable, but lost my Robin 50/50 for Clara. (The resins gave me horrid substats on the pieces btw) My Clara is benched unless I want to spend weeks getting her traces, Relics, ect up and I don't think I care too. I pre-farmed Robin materials which is salt into the wound. The fact that my relics ate up all of my stamina is the most infuriating part, I am without speed boots, because the game said I cannot have them. Even the gameplay has lost its charm, maybe due to irritation, I don't know. But I actually see the gameplay as cycles now, aka I am doing the same thing over and over again until it works. I can clear it or I can't there is no in-between, there is very little thought put into the gameplan. I cannot try different comps or strategies without weeks of dedication, preparing based off leaks or hundreds of dollars and if that strategy isn't good, well sucks to suck. As I typed this, I think I'm just dropping it. The game actively wasted my time which is the worst part. The relics need a pity system and need a stamina cost reduction, you shouldn't be using 2k stamina to not get full build, you should be able to choose which item set you're grinding for instead of every relic drop being broken into a 50/50 for the wrong set entirely, let alone the wrong body part.

8:18 8:53 lingsha being a direct upgrade is _debatable_ imo. she outputs better healing and better buffs but gallagher being sp positive just makes him ridiculously flexible and easy to slot into basically any team comp. (i may be biased as a gallagher main.)

As far as I can tell, HSR and Genshin are about equal in how many pulls a f2p player can accumulate in one patch, or at least, I tend to be able to pull a 5 star about equally as often in both games (feels like for every 3-4 new limited character banners I can get one of them). Not once have I felt like Genshin punished me for not being able to get a particular character, but HSR makes me feel like that all the time. Even if a pull a character I love, like Boothill, and even if he's strong, I still always feel a few steps behind and struggle to complete all the end game content because I just don't have the resources to pull enough characters.

HSR become DPS check rather than Turn-Based game. New character just to fill out the gimmick of the combat in dat story update.

For those saying this is a normal for gacha or not. Its actually not. Most other gachas either focus on a set roster and release banners of them THEN either release a new unit or a variant of a unit. And most new characters in other gachas are once every couple of months. Hoyo releases too many new characters every patch in Star Rail and not only can it be tiring on players, it can be tiring on the development process. They need to rerun more characters instead of making new ones. The 4 star to 5 star ratio is too high

9:00 I don't think that HuoHuo powercreep Luocha. Sure she heals and give and gives energy recharge, but Luacha heals so much without touching the competence points. It depends on the team you need to use. However Aventurine completely destroys Gepard.

I would personally like for them to remove the 50/50 if they are going to keep releasing characters so quickly. Maybe go to 100 pulls for a guaranteed 100% chance to get the character. I’ve lost count on how many 50/50s I’ve lost in this game and had to abandon getting the character.

whos lingsha? sparkles sister? hu tao expy? i only know my glorious king gallagher

Even if you do save for characters you want. A 10 pull every patch is complete dogwater bow with how many 5 stars theyre cranking out. The hoyo community has been gaslit into thinking a 10 pull every 6 weeks is considered generous. Other gachas reward you just for keeping their game alive almost every week. Content in Star Rail isnt hard but id be lying to myself if insaid hoyo isnt conditioning ever mode to make you suffer if you dont have the correct puzzle piece thats meta. Just wait until they make enemies immine to Acheron or Firefly or touchness immune

Me getting boss materials: Ah yes, two days. Me getting everything else: It’s been 84 years

this issue is exactly why i stopped playing star rail as of late. i uninstalled the game a few days ago after trying to get through the penacony story quest because on top of the god awful turn the story took imo, i realised that i would be stuck in an endless loop of grinding for stellar jades if i wanted to be able to play the game easily. it was a bit of a smack to the face as someone who plays genshin impact nearly every day because even though i've been f2p in that game for the last 2 years, i still have a massive amount of characters that i've fully built and feel comfortable using. i actually started a f2p alt account for genshin just to see how much fun i could have without touching the gacha and even though the game is definitely harder, it's not hard enough that i feel like quitting in the same way i did with star rail. like.... i want to enjoy star rail, i want to find the same level of fun i have whenever i boot up genshin and run through the domains in 45 seconds flat. but the investment to actually build characters in star rail is just so much higher than what genshin has and it sucked any amount of joy i had from when the game initially released. it's so hard to get myself to wait for specific characters because they may turn out to be irrelevant three patches later. it's annoying and it sucks and i wish hoyoverse would slow their roll with the game because there is just too much going on for me to enjoy it as it is.

Yes, there is a reason why we get 10 pulls for free per patch, its not because Star Rail is generous, its to balance the onslaught if 5 star that they throw at you. Unlike in, Genshin where double new 5* characters only happen at around the start of the new version, the rest of the new 5* are solo and rarely a double in later patches

Honestly this is one reason i prefer genshin over honkai. I know everyone harps on how easy genshin is, and it is easy, but it also means i can play genshin how i want: pulling for the characters i want to pull for and like rather than pulling for characters simply because it feels like i need them to beat the content of the game. Like i honestly dont care about 90% of the honkai cast, but i pulled for huohuo during her latest banner simply because i felt like i needed her for kafka. Im glad firefly is so powerful because shes the only honkai character I'd put at a rank in terms of liking as a character so i can at least brute force most content with her currently but now that means im debating on pulling for lingsha despite not caring for her or holding on for other characters mentioned in leaks that i want more and just using gallagher

Yes it has WAY TOO MANY 5* characters. It's gotten to the point I was SURPRISED that moze is a 4*. I automatically thought he was a 5*. For every 1 4* they release like 4 5*s to the point even the paid pass + daily stellar thingy doesn't guarantee you the characters you might want.

The lack of pulls for players can be an account killer, even with average luck you can barely get 1 new unit each patch. With bad luck that means 1 every other patch and falling behind even with 1 unit can be too much of a hurdle.

The fact that Rappa has been the only announced 5 star for the next version is a good sign I think

Honestly I think the biggest contributor to this is the fact they’ve constantly releasing powercreep dps/dmg supports for god knows how long instead of focusing sustains/tanks (there are only 3 preservation characters now atp bc everyone is using hunt march instead, and if you’re not hoyo needs to apologise to you). If they focus on sustains for a bit they don’t have to overload the insane dps powercreep nearly every patch, address the lack of preservation/abundance units and opt for damage consistency across dps/supports. Plus, rerun patches, im pretty sure genshin had these? (I dropped genshin so idk anymore) that can be used to diversify/improve the 4 star roster and build hype for the new releases in following patches. Just a HUGE imo here.

Hoyoverse are so clever in Marketing that people feels loved in HSR while are being squeezed XD

Honestly I feel as long as end game mode could be cleared with older characters without much hassle. Releasing characters at this pace isn't an issue. Unless your issue is wanting to collect them all

Look I am ok with grinding, but my relic luck is in the gutter and while I am more focused to farm the charaters I just want a guaranted way to get somewhat decent relics. Just put a cap until you can make your wished relic. That's all I need

luckily I don't like any of the newer characters... oh wait that's bad too

Just look at the HP of the MOC 1.0 bosses and their reintoductions in the 2.X updates. Gepards HP has more than doubled in MOC from his first into to now. Now look at your 1.0 DPS Unit of Seele. Her peak damage from 1.0 till now has not doubled in power, even with the new supports. She can still clear comfortably because she used to be overtuned at launch which gave her some staying power but she went from easily 0 cycling and 1 shotting to just average clearing now and often struggle to one shot mobs like she used to. This is just going to get worse, if this rate continues then the enemies HP in 3.0 will go up again by a 50 to 100% and she will keep struggling more and more to clear especially if they are going to reduce the turn limit again like they already had. And its more than just that, at launch enemies Break bars where also smaller overall, ruan Mei's introduction made the common trash mobs go from 1 basic to break to 2 unless you have Ruan Mei then its one like it was before she joined. Its just not filling me with a lot of confidence in any of this unit, they are clearly following the HI3rd direction of powercreep where older characters will become completely obsolete.

As someone who doesnt play that much, it is one of the reasons I just dropped the game I played day one and at first played daily, but the pace at which the game goes forward is just way too fast, I couldnt keep up and dropped it... thats a shame :/

Also if you don’t like a character and it turns out that character is meta-defining it really makes you not want to play the game. (I’ve had this happen to me twice)

I agree with your point that star Rail is releasing too many characters. I can barely keep up as a free to play, and when the internet tells me every version that there is a new must-pull unit it stresses and annoys me.

"But right now, you can fall behind quickly if you decide to like, take a break for a couple patches." As someone who stopped playing around Topaz's banner and came back for firefly, I very much agree. Edit: correction, I stopped playing during Jingliu's banner

What is insane to me is that there is a place called the Sunday Mains subreddit where people are literally skipping 90% of characters since Penacony just for a guy who hasn't even had a leaked path yet. Sad part is that I am one of them (have gotten only 2 2.0 units and do not plan on going anyone else)

They should make another skill button for all characters because that would allow them to look back at older units and make them better so they can stay relevant in meta. Also, it will allow for more depth to the game, like a units second skill may cost 2 sp instead of 1 or cost no sp. Im saying this because it would make them slow down on releasing new units and help units like asta maybe go from niche to submeta at least. Idk if u said this already, but it would really help them make a better game overall with a change like that. Vars please make a video about your ideas to expand on HSR's 1d gameplay and also paths they could introduce just dedicated to that. LOVE YOUR VIDS

Honestly Fu Xuan and Aventurine completely have outshined a whole path of Abundance & only Lingsha now matters just because of her ability to be useful in super break

I would like to see them implement an "support slot" for characters like ,you put 2-3 characters in the back providing different buffs,for example Jing Yuan giving extra 15% FUA dmg for 2 turns once he does his support attack. That way you could use those characters for "support"

People also need to be ok with not getting every new character possible. Pick which styles suit you and your favorite characters the most, and incrementally build upon them. The game CAN get harder to incentivise spending money on new characters, but Hoyo would also be shooting themselves in the foot if they outright make any majorly popular character outright useless. You see how many people love Jing Yuan? Imagine if Hoyo made it impossible for you to clear endgame content (not 0 cycle) with him. Their attachment to characters is a relative insurance policy for the players. People shit on Blade, Vars especially it feels nearly every third video, but he can be used in MOC and PF pretty well, and more than well enough to still get maximum rewards for these game modes. They may or may not stop this admittedly rather break neck pace, but you also have the power to control yourself. Skip a patch or two, take the time to decide on if you really want that character and if it will help your account. You're not only setting yourself up for disappointment if you keep demanding to successfully pull every character without spending, but you're also then purposefully blinding yourself to the darker and more predatory nature of this game's genre.

The FOMO in this game is way too real compared to Genshin. It does make you grateful they released more fine/average/mediocre 5* character in Genshin that makes it easier to save up and choose the character you like that also could perform well. HSR need to pull the brake and readjust their units release schedule to avoid overcrowd, powercreep, and possibly more controversy because of this problem down the line.

never forgiving firefly for powercreeping my fav before he was even RELEASED… i still love using him & he clears the best out all my characters but it’s annoying how ppl think he’s not all that good just cause of her

2:28 ya ngl this is copium........go try CLEARING ApoC shadow without ruan mei Go TRY clearing MoC without acheron yunli firefly fexiao robin and IPC followupteam TRY using a 1.0 seele team (bronya seele tingyun sustain) and see it flop so hard

Bro these new characters make old characters stronger I don't get this complaint. You all said topaz sucked when she came out (power creep huh) and she gets better every patch

I love your Honkai and Genshin videos. I mainly play Genshin but have been enjoying HSR earlier this year too. I stopped playing HSR because despite saving and only going for characters I really wanted, I couldn't keep up as a free to play player. It takes forever to build characters and I got really unlucky on my Ruan Mei pulls and couldn't get her. I can't spend on multiple hoyo games at the same time and Genshin just offers a more varied and well-rounded experience. Really hope HSR puts the brakes on new characters or makes the f2p life easier. I'd love to keep playing but it's just not fun these days

I never thought about a game having loads of characters as a disadvantage (depending on how the devs approach the new additions). I would rather have 100 characters with thousands of possible teamcomps, which is only possible when new characters don't directly powercreep other units, just diff playstyles. We have 3 FUA based hunt 5 stars, but each one of them has a different use, but even tho they are very different, Feixiao is still (unfortunately) a powercreep to Ratio. Topaz focuses on quantity over quality (while still having great damage) and a supporting role through buffs/debufss which will keep her relevant no matter what Ratio focuses on quality over quantity, having at most 3 semi-consecutive FUAs (1 skill, 2 ult) Meanwhile, Feixiao mostly makes use of the frequency of FUAs to charge her ult (like Aventurine) while also benefiting from her nuke being a FUA. There was no reason to give Ratio alright multipliers and Feixiao broken multipliers other than forcing the players to get the newest, most powerful unit that is a straight upgrade

Gameplay wise it's a decided yes. But it is also impacting the Story by now it feels like. They just don't have enough time to set the characters they release up in a way that feels natural. Argenti and Boothill are both examples of characters that still make me ask why they were released when they did

I think a huge mistake that Hoyo makes, is not creating characters to fit the game since the beginning, majority of the times the chars that release with the game lack a lot of things and they try to correct by launching more characters instead of nerfing or buffing characters, this is a pattern from HI and if they don't change this, the game might become oversaturated with strong unit after strong unit, until the paths don't have a recognizable function and elements doesn't matter.

Gallagher got powercrept on within the same version he got released like -.- Hoyo makes so many five star equivalents of four stars just looking at element and type alone: March 7 hunt and dr ratio, Gallagher and lingsha, Dan heng and feixiao, black swan and sampo, etc. I found at least three more but it’s like your roster needs to be way more fleshed out and at least 7 of the 5 star characters share the same things as seven four stars. Also, there isn’t a 4star preservation girlie except for March 7 so they also become inaccessible in types.

My one problem with Star Rail is that there is barely any 4 star characters to balance things out.

Yeah, this is exactly why I treat this game as a waifu collection simulator. The gameplay is nowhere near fun enough to justify the effort put into it. I'm quitting the game the moment I'm done building Kafka, which should be later this week.

They’re gonna have to start adding 2 new 4 stars per new “limited” 5 character banner

This, in turn, is my main reason why I left this game. Unlike in Genshin, it felt as if I am pulling for units, not because I like em, but because I either have them or it's a bust for the only form of contet the game has, besides the story, which in of itself lost me ever since the 2.2 quest, I still can't understand how people glazed it so much, but I digress. Add in the overwhelmingly repetitive gameplay and the biggest offender to all of this PF, which made my Jingliu and Qingque feel like trash after months of building in the abysmal relic system. Sorry, but if the only way for me to feel that I am progressing here is if I have the newest stuff all the time, then I would rather not, thank you very much.

my biggest issue right now is reruns of units that work well together in the same phase on the same patch ruan mei rerun with firefly debut. robin rerun with feixiao debut. kafka 2nd rerun with black swan 1st rerun

Lol, the problem for me it not pull a character but to built them up. I just decide to built FUA team so i pull Robin and Feixiao and Moze and now i have a hole 3 character to built up (it to difficult man, just pull them today and finish with there lv and i completely broke, hoyo need to give us more resources in the future)

At least 2.6 only has Rappa, though I would've liked it if we got a 4 star in that patch too... Hell, gives us a new 4 star in every other patch that has a type combo we don't have yet for 4 stars (Ex, we don't have a Wind Destruction 4 star, Wind erudition, wind Harmony 4 star, wind Preservation, etc)

I think hsr should be more open to directly buffing some of the weaker units if they just can't keep up anymore. While I don't think any units fit that criteria yet, it's only a matter of time until they do with the rising difficulty of the game

It was like this even since 1.6 version. I can’t believe for open world Herta as a free four star dps was not enough to deal with a world boss in a plot moment (ipc teamleader) because she hadn’t a proper FU set for herself so I had to pull for Jingliu just to pass this story moment & get to the event rewards 🥲 This is when I understood HSR leaves you no choice but to pull in many scenarios. In Genshin I can get away with ignoring abyss to some extent and go for biases while in HSR it feels a bit of a challenge. My account for example has no Acheron, no Firefly, my Dr Ratio is collecting dust just because I still didn’t manage to finish building Jing Yuan - he got a new banana set for him, like, I just finished a Jade ornament set for him a week ago just to get that banana set that’s even better… At least we know who is Xiao of this game lol. Not to mention there might be at any moment a harmony character who boosts summons and they would need to be built from zero too

Yes and I quit the because of it. Genshin has its issues but the fact that HSR has been out for less then 2 years and has almost reached the same roster size as genshin is insane to me. And yes I know other games also release a lot of characters but they at least release characters that are made to be subpar.

I feel like a 5* coming out to replace a 4* or standard isn't exactly power creep, just what should be there while the standard and 4* is just filler. In terms of actual power creep we have FF and Boothill, Huo Huo and Luocha, and Feixiao and Ratio (And Ratio was free so meh). Replacing essentially the bottom of the barrel or baseline option that...wasn't exactly an option but the only real thing while we wait for the actual unit in the case of Gallagher and Lingsha is the standard. We weren't talking about Luocha power creeping Bailu a patch or 2 in, or Seele replacing Yanqing from jump, they were what we expected to be there, so it's weird that suddenly counts as a thing now when they've been doing this from the start if this is how we define it. The standards and 4*s were SUPPOSED to get replaced, and even then, pretty much everyone but Yanqing is still serviceable. When we get Aventurine 2.0 for FUA THEN that's power creep.

As a gacha player for a while (former FGO, current GBF, Arknights, occasional R1999, on-off Twisted Wonderland, a variety of others), I absolutely predicted this since I see how often they release new characters vs rerun old ones in earlier patches, as well as these characters being LIMITED instead of joining the permanent pool (example: Arknights). There will come a point where we might see 3 reruns per phase or else we risk longer and longer wait between units.

People on HSR subreddit will always deny the powercreep accusations lol. I quit as soon as as my Jing Yuan got powercrept by.. I forgot who but it was pretty quick.

I agree with the take that there's too many characters being released, but not that power creep isn't the problem itself if there was no power creep, then players could simply get the characters they like, with no pressure of getting the latest greatest one to keep up no matter how many they release characters have more merits than simply being stronger, they can still have character traits, visuals and horizontal diversity to make them stand out

I feel like there is one aspect that people underappreciate: Not pulling everyone In genshin I often had the issue until recently that I just didn't like a lot of characters so a lot of niches were going unfilled, I personally would like a lot of characters that are just.. Sidegrades to each other so you can pick and choose your favourites, this ain't a competetive game, every character I have in both games I would pull because I like them, andd sure, I got some of the OP ones, but they aren't all I have and keep using. Even with the amount of characters released in HSR I dont really have 2 good enough sustains that I would wanna use cuz they haven't been made yet

It's the reason I quit lol. Just couldn't keep up. I started in Februrary I think and played regularly until June. Got caught up with the story (except final Sunday boss still stuck). But I just got overwhelmed with all the characters constantly coming out and was playing the other hoyo games too so dropped it. I still think the story was awesome and loved playing. I'll probably come back one day we'll see.

Winning a 50\50 feels super important even as a light spender, like one 50\50 on characters like Robin\Sparkle\Aventurine can change your whole gameplay experience. Missing on a character you want in hsr feels much worse then in Genshin because they are much more important yet by the time they rerun you don't know if you still want them. Honestly I hope 2.6 is only Rappa, I know they can cook some stuff like Sunday or Tingyun which I will be 100% pulling but I want some time to save cause man, who wants to enter the 3.0 cycle with 0 jades smh.

I was going to try out HSR bc I heard its different from Genshin team, I have some fav chars by just looking at pics and it sucks knowing they are "trash" rn. Also, knowing their powercreep is very often makes me not wanna touch it... Idw to spend money on gacha games now. If the powercreep is like in a year or something, thats completely understandable tho.

for me personally there are 2 real problems: 1) because there are a lot of characters i want (not every one, but still 1 per patch or per 2 patches, not including reruns which i would like to get too) that i, as a day-1 player, almost can't look back on my older characters and make their builds at least fine. for example, my bronya uses full wind set with abyssmal substats and has 124 spd. my seele has 78/150 + spd boots for some reason, etc. because i want new characters i really like (like feixiao and maybe lingsha), i can't really stop farming new sets and go back to farm a CD body for my E3S1 jingliu with more than 0 good substats, or any good pieces for bronya. if i want to make new characters work, i have to spend energy on them. maybe with 1 5-star a patch it will change to better, but i'm 100% sure that with 3.0 there will be 2 5-stars again. 2) there is not enough end-game content like SU. yes, now they added 7-th and 8-th protocols but the thing is that these game modes (swarm, gold and gears, expanded universe) are not greatly replayable. yes, they take their time but i would really like to see a gamemode that would be more replayable (i didn't think much about the variants so they aren't here). about powercreep i can just say that if they will make new characters more powerful along with providing buffs for older ones (i assume mostly through supports) i will be good with that. even though somebody could say that "but a new support will definitely work better with a new character man", i can answer - yes, but does it matter for someone who has the older one? no.

Rule #1 in gacha games : Understand that you will never have every single unit in the game. Accept it. Rule #2 : if you can clear all the content with your older units, you don't need the newer units. Rule #3 : Pull because you like the characters, don't tier whore in an easy singleplayer game minmaxing all the fun out of it. Rule #4 : don't be mentally weak. People have such a hard time differentiating wants from needs, its actually funny. Do you need firefly? No. what you need is to actually finish building your damn characters. I refuse to believe that even the most incompetent players cant full clear every single piece of content out right now on hsr. Just what are you people struggling with exactly??

The other thing is that HSR is much more generous with pulls than Genshin. When HSR came out, it made me want to play GI again, and happily, they were going to rerun my favorite character, Eula. So i farmed wishes as much as i could and only got like 15 pulls before her banner ended. I would use a map to find all the treasure chests in an area and end up with like 90 gems after seriously 3 hours. So i did the main story since i had so much to catch up on, but the story is super long and barely gives you any rewards either. I think my daily gems and my welcome back gems were more than all the gems i got trying to farm them manually. And as someone who doesn't have a lot of time to play games, it really sucked the fun out of the experience. Meanwhile, in HSR, i am absolutely stacking up jades and premium pull tickets whenever i skip a banner.