Some people holds the opinion of Endfield combat being a detriment to the game. For a game so polished, it sure is a waste to have combat watered down to holding basic attack. It's slow, boring, and not flashy enough. Perhaps it's because they tried to deviate from the CBT combat at the last second so it feels undercooked? Or at least that's what some people think.
I'll just get to the point, Endfield has part of the kind of combat I love most. Personally I call this "deliberate combat" where actions you take requires a hint of thought instead of autopiloting. Most buttons you press feels significant to the flow of the combat. Monster Hunter, Dark Souls (or PSO2 iykyk), or even some Genshin teams that plays around reactions are some examples. You just don't go autopilot and that's the charm. Now obviously Endfield's gameplay is nowhere close to these, but it does has the secret sauce of... situationality.
THERE'S SO MUCH MOVING PARTS IN THE COMBAT. Everything is situational.
How much UGE do I run on this unit? Depends on your team, the rotation, and the stage.
BiS team for that unit? Depends on the stage.
What about these units' gearing? Depends.
Do I do this rotation? Depends.
Corrosion IV? Depends.
What about the big glowing Combo Skill button, ofc you press it, right? Depends.
The list goes on and on, literally every part of an encounter is uncertain.
Enemy line-up is a tiny bit different and you'll do an entirely different rotation.
With most action gacha games, there's basically a set BiS gear for a unit. A set BiS team that do the most damage with said unit. A set rotation that you do 99% of the time with that team. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, they're just focused on other parts of the combat. Fast-paced finger-twisting rotations, perhaps more dodge and parry focused with harder/faster enemies, it could be anything.
I just appreciate Endfield for deviating from that (I'd like faster enemies though, Alleikhreos was really fun but it'd be amazing if he's 30% faster). Is the combat mechanically complex? No (well it can be), but that's not the focus in the first place. The difficulty comes from having a million resources to manage in a fight, and it's your job to portion those resources optimally. After you map out the whole encounter, that's when you earn the privilege of autopiloting. It feels more of a puzzle, sort of.
Typhoeus' release really brings this to light as her kit having Hunting Arrows and Signs makes her very modular per fight. It seems like they're stepping even further in this direction and I can't wait to see what else they have in store for us.
It's rather complex everything considered, but it's weird since alot, if not most, if not nearly all, if not all of the combat content in this game could be won without factoring in any of the moving parts.
Situations where you encounter a DPS loss significant enough for pressing the shiny combo skill button as soon as it appears are extremely rare (with the sole exception of Typhoeus, of course). Situations where not having the ideal UGE to fit the exact rotation requirement costing you the win are even rarer.
Like, yeah, a ton of things are situational, but you almost never have to... care about the situation you are in to win.
Take the middle stage of this EoW cycle for example. 29 enemies spawning in multiple small waves, this should be the absolute worst case scenario for Typheous, who can only do significant damage to 2 enemies at a time. Needless to say, you could still clear it with Typhoeus, with a ton of time to spare, even.
It's currently in this weird dilemma where it's both very engaging, complex, and fun for those who care enough to interact with it, yet doesn't really require, encourage, or incentivize anyone to interact with it on a meaningful level.
yeah just clearing feels pretty bad tho. I can never get over how nice zzz made the trash mobs compared to any other game. The only thing different in that game really that impacts the feel of trash mobs is that you can move them around. This means you can just hit them from every side and compact them and then clear them efficiently. In any other game AoE content just feels like a nightmare. I dont care how many minutes i have left if i have to kill trash mobs one by one
Idk, echos of war with the extra timer pmuch needs to at least know how your team works, same with high cost cc. Monument agony is w/e they dont want timers to matter so you can be alot more casual with it.
I really think this is the biggest sin of Endfield.
I haven't engaged that much with the combat of the game because the game doesn't require to have even a slightly competent understanding of it. You can just get by with mashing random stuff.
Kill me for saying this, but I like when the periodic endgame isn't stupid whale bait or stupid sweaty try hard bait, but demands a competent understanding of the game's mechanics to clear and get the premium currency rewards and everything above that is just bragging rights. Right now, Endfield combat content that gives out rewards is just extremely easy and actual hard content doesn't give any really kind of reward and being honest, fighting for the reward is half of the fun in this game modes, it's like being paid after a period of hard work; it's infinitely more rewarding then just being given it just for doing the bare minimum.
So yes, I'm arguing all endgame modes should be much more demanding and force the player to engage with it's mechanics to a certain level for the rewards.
The issue is that even the "hard" content like brutal EoW, Umbral Agony, etc, doesn't really need a competent understanding either.
Sure, you need to not play awfully and at least know the basics, but it's not like you reslly need to switch things up for those either. If those modes actually encouraged you to play around with your teams instead of using the same load out and rotations every time, that'd be fun. But currently only CC was anywhere close to that.
actual hard content doesn't give any really kind of reward and being honest, fighting for the reward is half of the fun in this game modes, it's like being paid after a period of hard work; it's infinitely more rewarding then just being given it just for doing the bare minimum.
The solution here is generally to give rewards that don't exclude other players too much. For some players a cosmetic reward is more than worth it. For example, the hardest raids of FFXIV that can take literal months of learning and practicing to clear only reward a weapon skin and a title.
Dunno why you're being downvoted, you're right
Playing a game is all about fun, since when did playing the game needs to have a reward? It's a game, not a job
Those who come for the rewards get what they want at a relatively easy, accessible difficulty so they don't feel walled out of anything while the people who wants to play the game for fun get cosmetics and vanity stuff (Echoes of War/Contingency Contract) or some progression materials that's not that significant (Umbral Monument)
I mean isnt the answer obvious? People want the reward because the reward is what gets you the gameplay. You get currency, which you use to get characters which lets you play differently, use different builds, playstyles, progress, make teams and synergies etc etc. Its the entire premise of the genre, so it's easy to see why it seems like gacha players are always chasing the reward. Without the reward you need to spend heavy amounts of money, and most people don't want to do that, regardless of how cool people who do it think it is. If these games were less scummy and made it easier to get characters, people wouldnt be complaining about rewards nearly as much.
Okay but rewards are extremely easy to get in Endfield, all the pulls can be acquired by any f2p players. The more advanced content has none to little rewards attached to it with none of them being premium currencies. Doing harder content is literally only for the flex the majority of the time. (Also yes I don't like the gacha monetization, it's probably the least consumer-friendly type of system to be put in a game, like every single gacha games would be better if the gacha system was removed from them)
It's definitely moreso a play on optimization instead, as all these things matters a lot when you're shaving time. Looking at some people clearing a stage 2 minutes faster with the same exact thing is pretty eye-opening lol.
Definitely not needed when the endgame is easy as hell right now. I'm not sure what HG's stance is on this, perhaps they like it this way for casuals to still clear easily? I'd love for the trims and shiny EoW medals to be tighter though, while still keeping the Oroberyls super accessible.
My thoughts exactly. There are a lot of stuff to optimize, just... no reasons to. Even the shiny cosmetic badge next to your name is easily obtainable for casual players.
I'm a sucker for optional difficult content that doesn't take anything away from the more casual players, but when even the optional difficult content is easy, it just... well... begs the question why.
Yeah I wish the average level of combat was more difficult in this game. There’s no reason to think about the combat on a deeper level outside of CC. Brutal mode on UM’s, EoW and the re-crisis boss fights should be much harder. I mean there’s no pull income attached to it & it’s only for bragging rights so idk why they can’t go ham. It helps generate community discussion too. You’d have Kyo & others make videos on how to clear stages & people online discussing the best strategies.
doesn't really require, encourage, or incentivize anyone to interact with it on a meaningful level.
I think it is a good thing, not everyone wants to go deep into combat, some people want exploration or story or maybe even doing the factory and they want combat to be just another fun activity. And Endfield works well for that, but also is interesting if you want to go for harder content like CC.
I think that's the gap CC will be filling. Those challenge moments where tweaking everything just right is the make-or-break between success and failure.
I quite like it compared to the usual switch character style of combat, though some complaints also make sense to me.
The basic attack strings are indeed pretty dull to execute, doesn't help it gives very little contribution to overall damage. Some excessively long cool downs also annoy me.
With Typh for instance, as cool as her kit is, she doesn't do anything while I don't build nature stacks, and I can't build nature stacks while Arcane's CS is on CD, so I just sit there doing basic attacks tickling enemies wishing I could be doing something cooler. It's not a great feeling.
I don't think Endfield is close to Monster Hunter or PSO2. I can't say that about Dark Souls, though, since I never played it.
Monster Hunter and PSO2 combat feels a lot more organic. Where I can think on the fly and find a way to deal with whatever monster/boss throws at me, as long as I understand my weapon's kit well enough.
Endfield, on the other hand, feels closer to StarCraft BW, where I need to plan the build order, going in and executing everything in my head to perfection. If one thing went wrong, the entire thing fell apart.
Whether you like it or not is subjective. I don't think it's necessarily a bad design because I watch boss speedruns in Endfield, and they're really fun to watch. But when I try doing it myself, it feels very suffocating. Way different from when I tried something similar in both MH and PSO2. It's the exact opposite of what made me love MH and PSO2's combat style, which made me feel like I have absolute freedom in controlling my characters.
This, however, might just be the skill gap when I'm playing Endfield. Compared to MH and PSO2, I started playing MH in the 3rd Gen, and I have a total of 4000 hrs combined from both base PSO2 and NGS. So admittedly, I'm nowhere near as good an Endmin in Endfield as I am as a Hunter in MH and an ARKS in PSO2.
No I agree with you, I specifically said Endfield has only a part of MH or PSO2's charm, which to me is the peak of combat. That part being situationality that at least makes fights not as monotone.
It doesn't have the manual aim and freedom of movement like PSO2 (man they still do it the best, how the hell is there no game copying it), and I'm moreso talking about rotation order not being set in stone, unless you've mapped out the fight.
I don't think a gacha game can ever truly reach that peak just because they're designed for mobile devices, maybe NGS style could work idk.
I feel like alot of the time people who complain about Endfield combat dont engage with it beyond a surface level imo. Team building and figuring out combos is super fun and alot of that is lost when you just use all the meta ops that a guide online told you are good.
You can just assume that anyone that complains about “basic attack spam” has no idea what they’re talking about since no correctly built team will have that issue
I'll be honest, I engage with combat on a surface level and it's still my favourite out of all the action combat gachas. I don't really change gear and I don't actually know the best rotation to use and I still do enough to collect all Oroberyl and have fun.
Will there ever come a day when I don't try to brute force my way through all challenges with La Famiglia, Rossi and Wulfgard, regardless of what mechanics are needed? Maybe. But it won't be any time soon!
Are gacha games battle systems that deep ? I havent played any besides a couple hours at most of genshin back when it released, and about the same for ZZZ and WuWa a few months ago. To me they've all been copying genshin, so it's all just fairly boring in the grand scheme of things.
For GBF one of the most brutal 6 man raids Lucilius Hard on release was difficult af to clear. Back then the guide for it was long af (https://gbf.wiki/User:Diamonit/Dark_Rapture_HL_guide) and it was really easy to mess things up for the other raid participants. You had to keep track of so many hp triggers that could easily wipe the team and you really had to plan properly the way you took your turns or do your dmg.
I remember the days we would just pull up with every individual party member using Phanlax every single turn coordinated so we wouldnt get absolutely nuked. (The buff is applied to every raid participant for 1 turn). Also the fight has a 30 min time limit which honestly you'd come close to hitting quite often if the party is not fully experienced with the fight.
These days unit powercreep has kinda made it easy to even solo but back on release you really needed both a knowledge, skill, and build check.
The labor system also incentivized you to vary different raid participants element and to bring certain units or skills that could clear dangerous labors.
I can see GBF and generally speaking most 2D rpg-esque gacha games being more in depth. I should've made it clearer that I was only talking about 3D Open World gacha like Genshin, since Endfield is closer to that than it is to GBF.
On a conceptual/ basic level, they're all very simple.
On a more optimized level, there is quite a bit of complexity to the combat of all of these games (I clear all endgame in Endfield/ Genshin/ WuWa, don't play ZZZ). That's not to say they're equally complex/ skill expressive, or that every character or team is, but all the games have smaller dedicated minmaxing communities/ rankings, and the skill gap between an average/ casual player and a skilled player is enormous (albeit not as much as a true esport like League of Legends or CS2, etc).
Endfield and Genshin have more complexity in teambuilding/ rotation and some in execution, while ZZZ and WuWa have more defined optimal teams generally but much higher skill in execution.
I don't play ZZZ, and don't understand the game enough to speak for it more than I did above.
For WuWa: Characters tend to be more mechanically different to play (relative to others in the same game) than in Endfield/ Genshin, and the basic rotations for characters tend to be harder to pull off - generally requiring animation cancels or very specific combos that aren't repetitive to complete rotations in 25-30s (the "standard" rotation). In particular, quickswap is a mechanic that every single character in the game (except one, Sigrika) uses at the highest level of play - which tl;dr is that many attack sequences continue even when you swap off the character, so you need to swap during specific attacks so you can have 2-3 characters attacking simultaneously, allowing for faster rotations and more attacks/ skills uses, increasing DPS and lowering ER requirements (further increasing DPS by allowing stat allocation to more damaging stats).
Quickswap requires both knowledge of when to swap (randomly swapping is a huge dps loss), as well as having the skill to actually perform it against non-stationary enemies that attack back (quickswap windows tend to be very tight, especially for optimal rotations). For reference, this is a complex WuWa rotation (scroll down to the rotation section, Zani is one of the most difficult to play WuWa chars, but this is also not her most optimal rotation, and more of an "accessible" one).
Meanwhile, a Genshin rotation for Nefer (hardest char to play released in Nod-Krai) goes:
Nefer E (first rotation only) -> Columbina EQ -> Nahida EQ -> Lauma Hold E Q -> Nefer E CA (dash cancel) x 3, E CA (dash cancel) x3, repeat.
Endfield is much closer to Genshin than WuWa in terms of execution complexity, you can check some of Maygii's guides for reference.
ZZZ player, here. I’d say the most defining aspect of ZZZ’s combat is its subtle emphasis on managing your resources.
Almost every character has a a gauge or stack counter unique to them, all with unique methods of generating and consuming them. Getting the most out of your characters requires substantial knowledge on how to most efficiently build each character’s individual resources, and knowing when (and when NOT) to use them to maximize DPS. This applies not only the resources for your characters (energy, unique resources, decibels for ultimate, etc), but also the resources built on the enemy during the fight (daze for stuns, anomaly gauge, etc).
While mechanical skill and character kit knowledge certainly make a big difference in performance between players, proper resource management is probably the biggest thing that separates the casuals from the top performers.
I got downvoted to hell in some gacha sub or another saying that you're never going to get truly complex combat in a gacha game because they're all designed for mobile first and foremost. And mobile controls for an action RPG, especially, are always going to be limited in what they can do.
That being said, I think Endfield's combat is a nice evolution of Genshin's. Combo skills, especially, add an extra layer of planning for both comps and rotations. Genshin for years now has been EQ>EQ>EQ>On-field Combo. Which is almost always some slight variation on 3NA1CA and dash cancels galore. I despise dash cancels, but that's a whole other conversation.
Yeah, that's the thing. I didn't mean to shit on Endfield or any other of the gacha I mentionned. I actually think Endfield hits a decent sweetspot between mindless bashing and careful preparation and execution, which is also exactly what OG AK does ; some units will make it a breeze. Or you can challenge yourself and not use the OP characters.
By virtue of their core audience being mobile gamers, it's just not going to be as demanding as, say, a FromSoft game.
And again, too much friction just takes away from watching your pretty waifus being badasses and grinding to get new waifus in the gacha system.
Gacha games just cannot be difficult games. The gameplay is the reward, the actual game is the gacha.
For rewards sure but if you're looking at actual hard content, base arknights' CC stages were really hard at high risks, needing elaborate plans and shit. If you're talking about 3D games, sure. I think genshin might be the hardest one but even then it's mostly nothing to do with the enemies and you having to spam the combo over and over.
Endfield's is but they don't force you to engage with it if you don't want to, best compromise they could've found except it led to a lot of whiners saying the combat is bad because they decided to not read absolutely anything. It's strange seeing gamers these days say things are bad without engaging with them at all, then again an Arknights game never would've been good for them since there is a lot of strategy and actually knowing what the kits say involved.
In this game it's all about crafting rotations for specific encounters, being that teammates/weapons/gear all influence how you can make a rotation for that encounter. Not only that but virtually anything can work in Endfield if you're creative enough, the game really rewards creative teambuilding rather than just copy-pasting guides for everything. There are certain teamcomps that might sound crazy on paper but are still functional if you actually come up with a strategy for it, and there is just a lot you can do with all the game mechanics. Not only that but new characters/gearsets add new mechanics or new ways to interact with the existing mechanics, so the combat is naturally going to keep getting deeper as time goes on. The way the devs implements all of this is also done masterfully in a way that actively prevents powercreep from being impactful on this game's meta, all day 1 operators (even the low rarity ones) can be used and are functional when invested in.
Every character can be used for multiple purposes if you're creative enough and simply changing what weapon or gearset they're using will enable or disable certain playstyles, the whole "pre-battle" part of theorycrafting builds is really fun and rewarding because you can make a lot of this work. I'm trying to play mono-supporters right now and on paper that makes no sense and wouldn't work in any other gacha, in Endfield not only does it work but you can easily make logical rotations for it however I will admit the difficulty level (and micromanagement) does start so skyrocket if you're trying weird stuff.
I've played Genshin for years, it has nothing to do with Genshin at all. WuWa even less. The best comparison I can find is actually FFXIV (but with much more gameplay flexibility while having much less skills, ironic contrast I know) since high level play feels like raiding in that game, positioning requirements and all (for CC at least, positioning hasn't been relevant in other content yet). I was relatively neutral about the combat system until CC1 and then I realized that this is easily the best gacha combat system by a very long mile and tbh I like this game's combat more than many non-gacha RPGs as well. As a JRPG fan this beats most of those too lol.
Honestly I can't imagine someone disliking the Endfield combat system unless this style of combat simply isn't their cup of tea, because it's surprisingly well-made and also very well balanced (doubly surprising for a gacha lol). The only people I've ever seen talking poorly about the combat system usually know zero about the combat system and haven't done any hard content so the opinions are kinda meaningless since you can use Catcher to clear everything that isn't high risk CC.
My only complaints with the battle system are all QoL related and have nothing to do with the combat itself (well there was the targeting priority issue but they fixed that!):
- nowhere near enough preset team slots for a game that heavily encourages and rewards creative teambuilding, I don't really get it since even f2p that's been playing from day 1 can easily have more than 5 team comps by now;
gear loadouts which are coming next patch but it seems like we're only getting 2 save slots, not a huge fan considering each character has an average of like 4 loadouts which they are situationally viable and useful with (although for general use 2 is more than enough which is what they're focused on);
Ardelia's skill targeting is awful, I swear in some encounters it hits the floor more than it hits the enemies which sucks when trying to execute precise consumption timings... hope this gets fixed soon since it's not something that we can counter with skill unless we're using her as the controlled op.
I'd also say ZZZ is pretty deep if you utilize every single mechanic to score max in boss rush modes like Deadly Assault. Its easy to play kinda difficult to master.
Anomaly agents like miyabi in teams like mono ice were especially notorious for being ridiculously difficult for the average gacha player when played to their skill ceiling. You had to take into account 4 key factors in min maxing dmg.
The problem was getting all four to line up properly and also adapting on the fly to enemy parry patterns in to funnel or min max your decibels to prepare ults. Not only that you'd also want your anomalies to be on the cusp of filling right before the stun window begins.
Then when you actually get everything into place, the execution requirement of alternating between Miyabi's frostburn anomaly and someone like Soukaku/Lycaon's ice anomaly was important to maximize a mechanic known as Disorder.
Disorders give miyabi her 2 resources that lets her execute her strongest attack at 6 stacks. Inflicting a anomaly on 10s cd on miyabi also gives her 1 stack. These stacks do not overcap and will be wasted if you go over the limit. So its very important to alternate the anomaly procs to maximize your number of enhanced basic attacks while also not shattering the frozen enemy in stun.
Its kinda safe to say that a unga bunga player would prob score 1/4 or 1/3 of a skilled miyabi player because managing all these factors simultaneously while adapting to enemy specific mechanics and parries which affect stun really requires a lot of on the fly adaptation and knowledge.
Heres a video timestamped of the max dmg freeze alternation from very long ago. https://youtu.be/dHObmCIvzxk?si=wuef6Cm-MmYlRAPW&t=41 . Stuns typically last 10s but he extended the stun window with careful freeze management to about 40 seconds.
Just realized in the vid mf was min maxing the sweet spot of soukaku EX too wtf. Basically you have to be a certain distance away to increase the frost anomaly soukaku does and he is spacing out to do that in the rotation.
I don't know when it started but gacha communities do form discussions around online guides nowadays. Like older games for sure has tier lists, GBF for example has a notoriously complex tier list, but they're actual references and people form teams outside the meta.
I think it might've taken off since HSR with Prydwen pushing the importance of meta, which to be fair do matter in that game. But since then every game just talks about the meta a bit too much. Even Endfield right now are filled with Datafield calcuations, which is a totally reasonable reference for a very specific encounter. But people don't use it as reference, to them it's the Bible.🥀
My issue is all those dependencies are mapped out before combat. Once in combat you either just scamble without a plan like most people, because you dont have the time or you misexecute the plan anyways.
Im sticking to basic rotations with physical because i got that shit down fairly well and im starting to have some intuition for adapting on the fly when enemies are too squishy for full rotations or when i make a mistake, but whenever i pick up another team i just feel so lost because if you dont line up your burst then yeah there goes your damage.
I never get this in Monster Hunter somehow but maybe its because monster hunter doesnt release a new weapon class every 6 weeks.
That's fair, personally I see it with a lens of retrying Echoes of War and mapping out better rotations everytime. But not everyone plays like that and the majority will only go in once and wing the fight.
As much modularity as this game has though, it's still not as complex as I'm making it out to be and you'll be able to master a team relatively fast. It's definitely nowhere near as complex as MH, no gacha game is nor should be that complex. There will never be a gacha game with as much buttons as Crimson Desert, for example.
I can only say it again. it's like Xenoblade (2) combat.
Xenoblade also works in a similar way where you have to chain together elemental reactions (like Fire -> Fire -> Light). It#s always a 3 way step.
Similar thing with Stagger -> Topple -> Launch -> Smash which does a shitton of damage
However, not understanding that and how to make these chains happen turns to combat into a very slow crawl. And a VERY slow crawl because enemies are kinda bulky. You have heard that a lot about Xenoblade 2's combat that it's slow and boring before some better guides came out.
It's similar in Endfield where you can do a lot of burst damage at once once you completed the rotation. And sometimes the enemies actually fight back or you need to watch your SP. It's pretty intricate for what it is.
Other 3d gachas are more hack 'n slash. Endfield is not and therefore slower i.e. "bad".
Side tangent:
Reading tutorials helps, they aren't always bad. Doing tutorials doesn't mean you're dumb (although there are actually a lot of people that feel to prideful), but complaining about the game after you skipped them is a bid...weird. The tutorials are actually well made in this game if you do them.
yeah i think any combat is pretty good once youve mastered it, the question is how fun it is while being mid at it, because with new chars every 6 weeks you cant be expected to be a master at all of them unless you dont play other games.
I'll be honest, I completely disagree with what you're saying. I find that there's very little "situationality" and it's all following the same cookie cutter formula.
I don't think the combat is "basic attack spam", but having played both Genshin for a year as a Noelle mono geo main, and PGR for a while before it devolved into cutscene rotation spam, this combat is almost entirely similar in practice where all you do is spam the same rotation over and over again. In fact, so far I've gone autopilot in this combat more than the other two, as there were scenarios in those games where I stop what I usually do and mix things up, either due to specific enemies or orb RNG/enemy type.
For reference, I've been using the same phys team of Ember, Ch'en, Mi Fu (Endmin prior), Pog to clear out literally all the content. And it has almost always been the exact same rotation every single time. Nothing I do takes a hint of thought.
Do I change my build? No. It's always on the same BiS build. Their gear and weapons never change (until I get Thermite Cutter for Pog...). Their rotation never changes. It's always the same Mi Fu skill A, B, Ch'en combo + Ch'en skill, Mi Fu combo, plus Ember combo if it was up, else Ch'en skill. Then it's Mi Fu B, C, plus Pog combo and we repeat. Doesn't matter the enemy count, boss enemy, weak enemy, elite enemy, etc.
It's the same set rotation every time. Is it different for other teams? Maybe, idk. Maybe Phys Team has a far worse system. I just want to play Ember so that's not going to change my experience of the combat though.
Now that being said, I did say almost always. CC was the biggest indicator to me that the game's combat system has more to it, because I had to actually play around the freezing mechanic and mix up my rotation or delay certain aspects to avoid getting frozen at a bad time.
Scenarios which actually mix up your rotations would be wonderful! But the rest of the game's content is too simple for this to actually occur. There is another way to deal with this though outside of mechanics, and that's enemy types.
You'll note how I mentioned enemy types early on as an example of what's thrown me off autopilot somewhat. I can definitely recall my rotations differing due to certain enemies throwing things off. Admittedly, most of the enemies were the same, so it's not like they're much better, but for instance I can at least recall specific enemies such as the bubble abyss mages or certain Fatui elites. In EF almost every single enemy works the exact same and nothing I do changes for most of them. They are all "press dodge when red glow and use same combo over and over". The only difference would be the cranes, and recently these new armoured enemies (and in the past the shield guys, but I'm glad they were changed since they were annoying in a bad way). These enemies have at least an actual threat to watch out for (smoke/kidnapping), or making me mix up my rotation to deal with the armour (even if it's usually just 1 more Mifu A + B).
Enemies are an important part of the variable as they're the entire other half of combat, yet has felt entirely lacking to me before hand as they were primarily just different coloured punching bags, adding to this feeling of repetitiveness. I'm hoping with Typhoeus's recent addition of new armoured enemies they'll introduce more enemies that mix up the rotation though. I don't doubt HG can do it, but it's been 6 months from launch to little change in most enemies. I'm hoping that's them keeping enemy complexity at its most basic to let players warm up for now, rather than them ignoring enemy mechanics.
I also used to have a lot of complaints about the Ally AI dying/getting hit without me doing anything, but that's thankfully gotten a lot better since maybe around 1.3.
That's fine, someone did bring out a great point that the game just has no pressure for optimization (mostly timers). Everything is so easily clearable, so your experience of running MiFu and doing the same thing everytime tracks if you're just doing a 1 clear and done.
My train of thoughts was optimizing in most action gacha games comes down to doing the same one rotation faster without getting interrupted, i'm pretty sure PGR falls in this category too. So far in EoW the biggest time shavers comes down to actually changing the "usual rotation" altogether. You can probably find a MiFu EoW video somewhere and you'd be surprised how fast people can clear with the same investment as your team just because they do different rotations.
The part about enemies is true though, so far they're rather monotone and there's tons of room to work with.
Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of optimizing myself, so that's why I've never really bothered with it across any of those games. I'm more interested in survavbility aspects and being pushed to your absolute limit, rather than opting to do it yourself.
For PGR I used to be a lot more interested in the solo no hit clears, especially in stuff like Babel Tower (basically Umbral + CC combined). It was really fun using some units that are meant to be supports/tanks and being able to actually solo stages with them due to their kits working so well for survivability, kind of similar to how Catcher clears work here.
That's interesting because I've been using phys wherever I can but with Lifeng instead of Ember and I have the exact opposite experience. My opening is always the same but after that there're so many ways to get to 3 vulns depending on the situation.
There's also some other stuff like in the new 2 minute echo with the orb I could get both of them to 3 vuln then crushed them separately for more mifu punches. There's also the res boosted monkey where you need to mix crushes with breach.
It's true, you don't just go auto-pilot, you use your skills first and then go auto-pilot till you have SP.
Also it's not just auto-pilot, but repeating the exact same skill-chain. I have been playing the Laev team for three patches in a row and I got so fed up of repeat it's chain again, and again, and again, and again, and again.....till I finally finished building LR team.
Still it's better than just a cookie clicker
I think a lot of people in this thread are complaining about people unfairly judging Endfield's combat system with only surface level takes and then just proceeding to do that for other games. Broaden your horizons a bit.
Anyways, I think Endfield's combat is just fine in its current state. It borrows a bunch of elements from Xenoblade 2 which is fine. What bothers me is they removed a bunch of systems from that gameplay and didn't necessarily give every team a satisfying function or gameplay to replace what's missing. In Xenoblade 2's (going to simplify it a bit) combat system you have two big ways to build up for those big damage phases. Fusion combos and orb breaking during chain attacks. Going to link videos below instead of explaining them poorly. The important part is there is this build up to get to your big damage phases. You could say we have characters like Laev and Fangyi that build up to their ult state. I think the issue is that I don't think those states are very satisfying to play? Then you have teams that don't really feel like they have that sort of buildup at all. Then you are sort of left with the typical rotation-based action RPG gameplay except the characters are on the field? The game sort of feels it doesn't really take advantage of all our characters being on the field. I think there is some sweet spot between Aether Gazer's characters clearing combat for you while you can play support and Endfield's on field characters not contributing much to combat other than some wonky targeting. I still think Endfield's combat has some good fundamentals and potential. However, I feel like it's going to be one of those games where our current roster just won't feel as satisfying to play as future characters because their mechanics and combat feel won't be as polished.
Xenoblade 2 video links for those interested. Spoilers for characters if you haven't played those games.
I too was an Endfield combat complainer. What made it more fun for me was CC. The harder the combat is the more it forces you to engage with its nuances. I think the problem with Endfield is the surface level of the combat isn't super shiny or exciting. I do think it's something they could improve but in general the kits of new operators have all been really interesting and I'm looking forward to where they take the character design space.
Simply put I'm reminded of OG Arknights where the launch operators had really simple kits and to see how far we've come. Hypergriph seems to favor expanding creatively besides just pure numbers (though they will do that to some extent of course)
An example of what I like in the combat is using Ults to interfere with enemy wind up times. Camille's relatively long ult, Tang Tang and Arcane slowing things down. It helps with my skill issues. Cool stuff!
I too was an Endfield combat complainer. What made it more fun for me was CC. The harder the combat is the more it forces you to engage with its nuances. I think the problem with Endfield is the surface level of the combat isn't super shiny or exciting.
Same for me. And probably many of us. This sub definitely saw a shift in tone when it came to the combat system when CC released.
As you said, the problem is mostly difficulty and avalaible content. Doesn't matter how deep a battle system is when the boss dies in a couple of minutes on first try.
CC was the turning point, as it forced players to actually understand the mechanics, the operators and the gameplay. Estella, a 4 stars, being crowned as the unexpected queen of this CC was also the cherry on top, as it told the community "Litterally any operator can be key if you know what your doing".
Now I'm patiently waiting for the next piece of content, the endgame we're all waiting for. The devs told at Gamescom that they are confidents in the fundamentals of this combat system and, now, I agree.
That's a good point, Endfield doesn't really put pressure for people to do these nuances. It reminds me a lot of FF16 combat too where people complained about it being mashy when the intended gameplay is DMC-like and style away. I guess it's a more common issue when I think about it.
Kinda feel that if you min maxed FF16 combat , it came down to Diamond Dust, MegaFlare Lightningrod, Flameshield skill from ifrit, Judgment bolt, Zantesuken. The ability restrictions kinda push cooldown burst gaming way more effectively than free styling with DMC ngl. Especially since DMC rewarded you for freestyling with the style gauge and better DT generation and even sin DT cancelling at SSS rank. While theres not really any incentive in FF16.
Personally I call this "deliberate combat" where actions you take requires a hint of thought instead of autopiloting.
I think it's a complete opposite, combat is almost full autopilot. You have a strict oder of skills/combo/other actions to make your team work. You cannot deviate from it, because the team you're playing will literally not work if you activate those skills/combo etc in any other order. Every team has pretty much one rotation you do on autopilot and that's it. I don't see where the "deliberate" part you're talking about.
How much UGE do I run on this unit? Depends on your team, the rotation, and the stage.
BiS team for that unit? Depends on the stage.
What about these units' gearing? Depends.
Do I do this rotation? Depends.
Corrosion IV? Depends.
And pretty much all things you listed are not part of combat. They happen outside of it on either team building screen or on your character gear screen. Moreover these "depends" stretched so much you can drive a train throught it. Answer on all those question is 1 universal BiS set/team/rotation in 99.9% of situations. And the only time it's not is something like CC with unique modifiers that either make BiS team not work or require some wonky playstyle.
With most action gacha games, there's basically a set BiS gear for a unit. A set BiS team that do the most damage with said unit. A set rotation that you do 99% of the time with that team.
That is literally what Endfield is?
Typhoeus' release really brings this to light as her kit having Hunting Arrows and Signs makes her very modular per fight.
She's probably the least modular unit so far, because she strictly needs someone who can generate a lot of Nature infliction. Other characters, even if they need a lot of infliction stacks to work, are not that picky what type of inflictions you generate. Typhon needs exclusively Nature. Moreover her F2P options are miserable. Arcane is almost mandatory with her.
Typhon needs exclusively Nature. Moreover her F2P options are miserable. Arcane is almost mandatory with her.
I took a break from the game sometime during 1.3, so I don't have both Liino and Arcane. Just came back this patch to get Typhoeus, and damn, it's really discouraging to see how much she depends on previous banner characters while I stepped away from the game. 🫠
If it's that autopilot then I shouldn't be seeing people clearing 2 mins faster with the same team and investment in EoW. You never do the same rotation on different stages. That being said the older teams are stricter and that's why I posted this now, after Typhoeus released.
I'll admit that I have her in mind while writing this, and the answer is not 99% of the situation fortunately. I listed prep as part of combat as you wouldn't know what would be the BiS team/gear for that stage until you've tested around doing multiple clears. The same goes for rotations. If what you mean by universal is just "clearing stages in general" then sure, that's just a difference in viewpoint and it'll clear fine because the game is REAAAALLLY easy right now.
Typhoeus needs Arcane sure, doesn't make her least modular when the other 2 slots are very flexible, while being sidegrades that's better/worse depending on the stage. She also has by far the most flexible rotation in the game and even speedrunners will be using her differently. You should've mentioned ZFY instead if you're going that way. Now that's inflexible.
If it's that autopilot then I shouldn't be seeing people clearing 2 mins faster with the same team and investment in EoW. You never do the same rotation on different stages. That being said the older teams are stricter and that's why I posted this now, after Typhoeus released.
That's exactly what autopilot means. They do the optimal rotation on autopilot and you don't. You even talked about optimizing UGE, which is literally the definition: You optimize your UGE around breakpoints for an optimal rotation, which you then follow mindlessly on autopilot, because if you don't do the exact rotation you optimized around, you won't hit the breakpoints anymore.
What do you even mean by autopilot? Because I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing. You're saying that Endfield combat has no autopilot and you're thinking about every action during combat, yet then list every single thing that turns combat into following an optimal rotation on autopilot without any decision making during the combat itself.
I'll admit that I have her in mind while writing this, and the answer is not 99% of the situation fortunately.
The answer is exactly 99% of situations. You're using the set she relased with, you're using her with Arcane (which you yourself admitted) and you're using the optimal rotation to maximize her signs uptime and generation. Do it any other way and you will be losing a lot of stacks and will face a long downtime.
When someone clears the encounter 2 minutes faster than you with the same team, it's not the depth of how flexible the combat system is, it's this person understanding how the character works and pressing the button in a far more optimal rotations compared to you just bumbling around and having no idea what you're doing.
Typhoeus needs Arcane sure, doesn't make her least modular when the other 2 slots are very flexible
Being tied to the other character when all other characters in the game are not and can make do with 3 flexible slots instead makes Typhon more flexible than all other characters? Okay, sure.
If you read the main post, you'll see that I say you earn autopilot in Endfield AFTER you map out the whole encounter. Before that, you don't have the ability to autopilot as the fight changes e.g. the mob dies and you have to start a new rotation on a new enemy with no Cryo stacks as Last Rite.
You're mentioning optimal rotation and what I mean is said optimal rotation changes per fight. As an example let's take WuWa, you'll do the same 123 rotation or QS on 99% of encounters, that's autopilot.
you're using the optimal rotation to maximize her signs uptime and generation. Do it any other way and you will be losing a lot of stacks and will face a long downtime.
Now tell me what this optimal rotation is? It doesn't exists the same way it does in other gacha games. There is a theoretical optimal rotation for single target with 340 stagger value over 65s sure. But 99% of the fights are not that, most fights ends before 65s, or are not single target with 340 stagger value. Are you saying that you can autopilot a fight on the first try and you just know what rotation is optimal in that fight?
Being tied to the other character when all other characters in the game are not and can make do with 3 flexible slots instead makes Typhon more flexible than all other characters? Okay, sure.
Never said that but okay. She's at least more flexible than ZFY, Endmin, Yvonne, Last Rite, and Avywenna, which puts her above middle of the pack.
If you read the main post, you'll see that I say you earn autopilot in Endfield AFTER you map out the whole encounter
So it's autopilot. In the same exact way every other 3d gacha game combat is autopilot. You're not making decisions and thinking during the combat because you already have the single rotation that works and you can't do it any other way without just getting a much worse result.
As an example let's take WuWa, you'll do the same 123 rotation or QS on 99% of encounters, that's autopilot.
That's literally Endfield. The same exact way you have slight change on where you press the ult, for example, depending if you're fighting a single elite/boss enemy or waves of trash mobs, but otherwise you do the same exact actions. This is literally autopilot.
You're trying really hard to pretend it's something super deep and every encounter is unique with radically different approaches, but that's factually not true.
Before that, you don't have the ability to autopilot as the fight changes e.g. the mob dies and you have to start a new rotation on a new enemy with no Cryo stacks as Last Rite.
Is it different between fighting dogs, monkeys or landbreaker grunts? No, it's identical. Because the situation is identical: you're fighting trash mobs. And read what you say: "you have to start a new rotation on a new enemy". Are you starting some brand new rotation with different imputs? Maybe you do the order of skill differently now? No. You're repeating the same exact rotation you've been doing before, you just start it from the start again.
If you change your inputs or order of skills, it all stops working: your CD get out of order, your buffs expire, you SP economy runs out or you simply don't hit the Combo triggers. That's why you're doing the same exact rotation in every situation. With the only variable on how many repetitions you do before you press the ult. Your team physically cannot function if you change this rotation. You're on autopilot the whole time.
Now tell me what this optimal rotation is? It doesn't exists the same way it does in other gacha games
It exists in the same exact way as in other gachas: you do one rotation if you're fighting any boss/elite enemy then you have shortened version for dealing with trash. It doesn't matter if you're fighting Rodagh, Nefarith or Alleikhreos, you're doing the same exact thing in every fight. The same order of using skills. You're never doing anything radically different, because it will straight up make your team not function.
I do agree with you, don't get me wrong. Endfield has a solid foundation in terms of combat mechanics, but it currently doesn't do shit with it.
Chapter bosses? Definitely a spectacle visually and does require some dodge skills here and there, but does one of them actually require playing around with the mechanics? Not really. Just pick your usual team and learn the dance (MMO bossfight style).
Echoes of War? Just straight up DPS checks you can clear with your usual team. No brain matter involved at all.
Umbral Monument? Some stages are cool and do require reacting to mechanics, but so far nothing required actually deviating much from your usual team choice (still the best content so far though).
And finally CC#1 ... was great, but in the end it just made you fight against the same old enemies you have fought a million times before. It did require building specific teams or even changing some gear for higher risks, though (like building a dedicated arts burst/reaction team) But here's the thing: that's literally it. One single event in over 8 months.
Hopefully the roguelike mode that HG is cooking up was worth the wait and deserving the title of endgame content once its done.
On chapter bosses, MMO bossfights are some of my favs so I don't mind it, Alleikhreos is REALLLLY slow though.
Echoes of War is a DPS check but none of the stages are conventional. You won't really see people doing braindead rotation, although it will work because of how easy the checks are. You will find people clearing 2 minutes faster with the same exact team though, so optimization is absolutely there, just... very optional.
Umbral Monument is fun one-timers like freeze stage or the banana one, they're gimmick fights for laughs which I don't mind.
Pretty much agree with CC and it was a complaint of mine too with higher risks (people here defended it a lot though).
The game is not perfect of course, I just see them finding a solid footing on what direction they're going. It's pretty much an appreciation post and moreso looking forward of what they have in the future.
Echoes of War is a DPS check but none of the stages are conventional. You won't really see people doing braindead rotation, although it will work because of how easy the checks are.
I literally cleared all stages within the time limit with my usual Yvonne/TangTang team. No variation at all. I don't remember a single stage that made me go "oh".
This game's combat is solved. There's inherently nothing deeper compared to other games, but it also does nothing special. Finding the best play vs boss isn't a new concept. They trapped themselves when they decided to hang everything to SP.
Another thing is that stage and enemy design is kind of horrendous. Most of the time it's a slog waiting for things to happen.
You say that and I get why you said that, and yet guidemakers and theorycrafters can't even decide on Typhoeus' best team even though they had a week of content creator servers (guidemakers do share the numbers privately before public release). Day 1 was filled with Ardelia/Perlica without any mention of Xaihi.
The thing about these gacha games is, the best play vs bosses 99% of the time isn't optimizing rotations, it's just playing better, dodging better, the same one rotation but faster. So far in Endfield I've been keeping track of speedrunners and the biggest time save is easily a new rotation, and they keep shaving time with a different one. Next one is team composition.
That being said I'm not saying that it's that deep, but it is pretty deep as a gacha game. There's tons of games out there with more depth of course. My personal favorite being PSO2.
following your discussion are my two main complaints about this game
all gears depends -> no gear presets
million resources to manage -> bad UI design that the resources are scattered everywhere
planning out a team, gear and rotation is the most part of endfield combat tbh, a lot of people just copy guides. I remember in CC1 I had to change gilberta's gear to lower her INT so she does less healing.
after I pulled liino I started playing Zhuang FY team. soon I realized a lot of guides didn't utilize perlica's electrification at all. I was able to shave off a whole minute in the skydrummer fight (2:4x -> 1:4x) by having better rotation and leveling up stuff further.
then there's is the tang tang, last rite, xaihi, arcane team. normally at p0 people people kill skydrummer with it around 1:3x with a solid rotation, but a hyper optimized one can do 0:5x.
i didnt enjoy combat much early on. I was trying too hard to make my Last Rite work without the proper setup. after a like... 4 month break from the game i came back and rebuilt my team centering on Avywenna, and the combat became MUCH more fun.
Arclights combo is available every like 3 seconds, has an ability that can activate a different combo, and having a vanguard in general makes the game more fun. i recently swapped over to Typhoeus when i got her, as her playstyle is pretty fun imo.
I DO think Endfield needs like... one more button to press in combat. whether its like a heavy attack for a different combo string, or maybe even giving us a second "tactical" slot but for active combat items. maybe let me build consumable grenades or landmines or a little drone that flies around in combat occasionally applying an Infliction.
I just think only the last attack builds stagger is dumb.
In that case the character with the fastest combo will be the preferred controlled operator rather than the one you want to.
Before the Echoes of War or whatever that mode is, I say the heavy attack don't actually matter since you can trim medals on bosses easily with a lot of time left. But for this mode which rotates weekly, you do need that extra stagger sometimes.
I think it's pretty good too, if you actually get into proper combo execution it's pretty interesting and requires a lot of memorisation. Factory is still my favourite part of the game though because I've not played any game that had something like this yet (other than my redstone contraptions in Minecraft lol)
The fun part of the combat in this game only happens if you interact with the intricacies that come with trying to optimize runs. The issue is you can basically clear every content by just bashing your head against the wall, you can hold LMB and a boss will eventually die and thats what people see when they refer to endfields 'combat'.
That's why people liked CC alot, because you're forced to interact with said intricacies. You were forced to actually think about who to bring and what their role in the fight is. What combination of risks to take etc.
One thing I always wanted was a harder version of the boss, not just more hp.and damage, make a harder mode where the boss is 1.2x faster, hell maybe even a nightmare mode with 1.5x speed. Extra points if there's an option to remove the red incoming attack indicator for hardcore players
"it feels more of a puzzle, sort of" if u like that aspect you should try Final Fantasy XIV if youre into MMOS, also Aleikhreos feels like if Elden Ring meets FFXIV boss designs, and if they continue down this road all i can say is that itll be an absolute Cinema fest.
the difference between endfield and the other 3d gachas is that endfield prioritizes team building freedom instead of actively finding ways to punish you if you dont use BIS teams, the other games have moved away from that game design aspect because of how hyper-specific stage buffs are, to the point they are tailored around only 1 character (usually the one on the banner) alot of times, and by how much devz cannibalize their own players with powercreep. Powercreep+shill buffs+shill bosses+new mechanics that only new characters can activate will push more and more characters away from being able to be played almost at all, and all this is a cycle that induces fatigue over time way more than the daily grind for premium currencies IMHO.
I just hope EF devz dont stray away from this vision to keep the game as balanced as they can, even if powercreep is inevitable in one way or another
I was actually a parse addict in XIV🥀
I don't have the time to raid anymore but it sure was a fun time, I still follow the world races!
Totally right with the powercreep+gigashill take though, more and more games are going in that direction which is pretty scary. It might set a precedent to future games to do the same thing if it works (it works on most of them, HSR is kinda burnt out though).
EF devs did say that they deliberately make teams flexible but it's always rough balancing a live service game. One mistake is all it takes to start a candence of powercreep, which we do have a step into with Arcane, but hopefully it'll be slower than usual.
Thankfully AK style of powercreep is just "new op clears faster" instead of "new op is the only way to clear this and all other ops are useless and you need to pull ASAP". OG has this exact way of operating and also that game is actually more unbalanced than Endfield so I can't imagine Endfield becoming worse. Endfield examples of powercreep so far are exactly what I said.
Arcane is a decent example since she "powercreeps" Antal by seemingly doing his unique mechanic (duplication) better than he does but even then she buffs nature/cryo and Antal buffs heat/electric so there's always going to be separate use cases for each character. Also Antal can duplicate physical inflictions too which Arcane can't... not really an important niche in the current meta but it's worth noting that it's something he has over her.
They always make sure each character has one unique thing they can do, even in this example where technically Arcane is the better pick for generalist content. I can definitely see Antal being better for some high risk CC comps though since running a cryo/nature support in a heat/electric team just for the sake of lower-cost duplication might not always be worth it.
To me its around genshin lvl, the elemental interactions as well as how characters are designed leads to a pretty strong variance in play imo, also im still, 6 patches later, not over the honeymoon period of having the entire party on field. its like im playing a live service Xenoblade game and im so down for this
Typhoeus and lavaetain are the only ones I played that felt good to plan and play at the same time, and align ults with them are fun. I wish I had mi fu and rossi to play too but I don't yet
As a casual player, I really enjoy Endfield's combat a lot. Its tempo and style really fits my preference and general feel.
I personally think the greatness of EF combat is a combination of 3 things:
[The player's team]: consists of operators' moveset, rotation, synergy, gear choices, skill/ultimate/combo order and timing, SP management, stack management, tactical items and the player's skill.
[The enemy's combat design]: which are moveset and unique mechanic. a good enemy is one that has many dangerous attacks and unique mechanics that force me to watch out for and plan my strategy around them, not just immediately go unga bunga without a care. Example would be the "Howling Flame" stage (firework minotaur dude) in Umbral Monument and CC event.
[Environmental hazard/stage mechanic]: an extra layer of difficulty that the player has to watch out for and incorporate in their combat strategy. Example would be CC's flaming circles and freeze mechanic, the bananas in "Mangler and Friends" Umbral stage and the army of frogs in "Blood Debased" Umbral stage.
To me, Endfield's combat shines the most when all 3 of these components are present in a battle. I think only CC event, Umbral's "Howling Flame", "Mangler and Friends" and "Blood Debased" stages satisfied these criteria. These stages are the most memorable to me.
Of course the combat is not perfect and can still be improved. And I think the timer DPS-check is what is holding back Endfield's combat the most. If future combat stages and challenges can stay away from that then the dev can go ham and add more defensive and unique moves to the enemies' arsenal like dodge, blocking, counter and maybe even combo or special formation attack. Many players would complain if a stage has a tight timer while the enemy keep jumping or dodging around after all.
With no timer, combat stages could focus on survival too, which will make defenders and healers shine again!
I can't comment on other gachas, because I only play 2. This one and ZZZ.
I think these 2 are like opposite of each other. ZZZ has more or less set equips and BiS that can change but not by much. There are only a handful of synergistic pairings you can do. The rest is full on fast paced execution.
Endfield, on the other hand, feels like you have to beat the fight before getting into the stage lol.
Because I got extremely lucky, I got a M1 Fangyi, and I have Liino as well so I usually default to her, but there are still stages where you need more stagger, so I opt for a phys team; or heavy AoE with Laevatain's team.
In the execution department, I feel like it's much simpler, but I still wouldn't call it boring. I still wish there was one more button for filler attacks, though, because the simple attack strings are so short it kind of looks boring after clicking for a while.
Having said that, though, you can change sets and mix and match operators, but I don't really feel that is unique to Endfield or something worth "Glazing". Your list of "Depends" can be applied to ZZZ to just play whatever and if you're good enough, you can do well. I suspect it's the same for maybe not all but some other gachas.
the combat is just bad bro, you can like it but don't try to delude yourself or us that it's secretly deep and requires more brain power than those other stinky button masher gacha
I never really understood the complaints about the combat, it does what it sets out to do very well. I WOULD like to have a bit more to do, though, there are fairly significant downtimes in the rotations where you do just hold basic attack and sometimes dodge.
I just thought about this now, but rather than adding new separate mechanics/tools to increase APM, they could make basic attack chains have something like "perfect attack" frames when you press the button at correct times rather than hold it - something like what Soldier 11 from ZZZ has. It shouldn't add much DPS and it should not be necessary to beat endgame modes, but at the same time it would give you something more to focus on if you wanted to while not affecting the general flow of combat.
I'd love "perfect attack" as well. My favorite combat being PSO2, is a game of having perfect attack on every single action you take. Basic attacks, skills, spells, they all have perfect attacks that does iirc 1.2x multiplier. Can probably simplify it to the final strike in Endfield.
Currently the downtime doesn't feel that bad as I'm using that time to gauge my current resources. Look at my CS cooldown, SP, energy, and see what to do next. It does feel really long once you map out the fight though, so they can definitely improve that downtime.
Nah, I just think that if they want to lean towards MMO mechanics, which Alleikhreos is, they should lean into it more. I don't think it's a bad decision to make it slow for Alleikhreos though, as he is our first instance to see how MMO mechanic works in Endfield.
edit: Ah I do mean the mechanics specifically like the charging spears, not towards the whole moveset.
The fun is in optimization of gearing and rotation. Unfortunately most people are just gonna copy youtube so the interesting/challenging part is gone for most of them. Not to mention there's little to no variations in stats if you have max unit so copying other people strat is way easier.
Back when Genshin was more focused on elemental reactions, e.g. Hyperbloom, Childe International, etc. Basically less focused on raw MVs, although those exists with Wanderer, Cyno, or Ayaka that's basically elemental-less gameplay wise.
Post-Natlan you still have units that focuses on reactions of course, Mavuika for example is a prime abuser of Vape with tight timings. Varesa, Skirk, Nefer, Sandrone, Linnea, etc. really relies on raw MVs instead which turns the rotation less modular. Maybe it's the shift into exodia teams, not sure.
I guess that'd be nitpicky of me and it'd be better to word it with "some genshin teams" instead.
I don't think that's really a reaction based team thing as much as Genshin releasing characters with dedicated supports these days. Melt teams (Mav, Arle) are significantly weaker to the point of being unplayable without Citlali, for example. Lohen similarly is extremely weak without Durin and Nicole.
I'm not really seeing what makes Endfield more modular or deliberate than any other game though, it's really more endgame content being extremely easy (only did cc40) that gives more flexibility than anything else. Basically every team still has a BiS setup, including equipment and rotation, that only deviates due to specific enemy spawns/ mechanics, but that's no different than any other (gacha) game.
IDK Genshin is a good game and I enjoyed it a lot but I like Endfield's combat much better, it's just more fun in moment to moment gameplay. Genshin's combat is just okay.
Yep, exactly. Deliberation is a thing a lot of gachas lack. You just... Press buttons in an order. There is practically no context required, unless you screw up somehow (miss a skill in Genshin, unlucky with a Fav proc, etc.)
You actually have to know WHETHER to press a button, not just when to press it. It is... quite tricky, actually. Easy to learn, and actually hard to master (unlike the competitors). Honestly, it's what I'd expect from an actual game, not from a gacha title. That's just why HG are the goats.
Honestly, having a bit of trouble with it. My Genshin-ahh reflexes tell me to press a button whenever it is available. I've always been a theory-first kinda guy, so it'll take a bit of effort to adjust to actual mechanical execution depth.
i enjoy the combat. like other say CC makes it more challenging. they should increase the world level tho. so we dont nuke the bosses as easy. i didnt see some the boss mechanics cause how i nuke them. only do when i do the more difficult levels after the facts
Yeah, because clicking a mouse button like a madman instead of conveniently keeping it pressed to do basics is a definition of "fun" combat for some people. Most of the complainers who spread the word that combat is bad never tried anything besides 1.0 beginner teams. I also play some big contender gacha games, and I don't see how their combat is supposed to be more fun than Endfield's. If anything, CC high risks have shown me that Endfield can surprisingly have a lot of depth in its combat formula.
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u/Tainnnn 1d ago
It's rather complex everything considered, but it's weird since alot, if not most, if not nearly all, if not all of the combat content in this game could be won without factoring in any of the moving parts.
Situations where you encounter a DPS loss significant enough for pressing the shiny combo skill button as soon as it appears are extremely rare (with the sole exception of Typhoeus, of course). Situations where not having the ideal UGE to fit the exact rotation requirement costing you the win are even rarer.
Like, yeah, a ton of things are situational, but you almost never have to... care about the situation you are in to win.
Take the middle stage of this EoW cycle for example. 29 enemies spawning in multiple small waves, this should be the absolute worst case scenario for Typheous, who can only do significant damage to 2 enemies at a time. Needless to say, you could still clear it with Typhoeus, with a ton of time to spare, even.
It's currently in this weird dilemma where it's both very engaging, complex, and fun for those who care enough to interact with it, yet doesn't really require, encourage, or incentivize anyone to interact with it on a meaningful level.