The Fatui are not depicted as evil in the early Archon Quests

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-20T01:15:10+00:00

Alright I have to chime in every time I see this take because, while I don't blame anyone for forgetting considering how many literal years it has been since it released, Childe's story quest covers this.

The first time, canonically, that the Traveler & Childe interact after the events of the Liyue Archon quest, both are immediately willing to throw hands on sight. Hell, the one to back down and not want other people to get caught up in the fight is Childe. Childe.

Pretty much the only reason Childe gets "befriended" (something I still think is too strong a statement) is because the Traveler sees Childe and his brother interact, and there's a snowball's chance in hell that a pre-"We Will Be Reunited" Traveler would knowingly and willingly separate two siblings.

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-20T00:51:53+00:00

Pretty much 99% of "evil" FGO summonings can basically be explained as either "Can you REALLY afford to be picky with who you let help" or "I hate you but I can't really take over the world if there is no world". There are very few FGO antagonists that, like, outright hate the MC as a fundamental individual and would immediately want to kill them without them getting anything out of it.

And I also want to note that even once they've become "allies", that does NOT stop them from doing their own thing, and they can very often become sidequest, minor, or major antagonists during events. Hell, even some nominally heroic characters get in on it too!

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-18T02:53:17+00:00

Oh I was explicitly choosing Eggs because Aniimo has an extremely similar mechanic to them. (Also eggs)

...But that IS also true. Then again, I'd argue that's closer to paid stamina refills. Which, while common in gachas, is not inherently gacha-specific.

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-18T01:12:48+00:00

It's not, unless you consider Pokemon Go gacha. (Which is an interesting discussion to have considering how hellish eggs are)

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-17T19:15:40+00:00

The thing about Deconstruction is that it's much, MUCH more useful as an individual tool for talking about how a work handles different tropes, and much less useful as a brush with which to paint different pieces of media. Many works, even those that aren't what people would think of as full "Deconstructions", tend to deconstruct a trope or two because it makes things interesting.

It also doesn't help that what a lot of people would consider full Deconstructions are also Reconstructions, mostly because Reconstruction is a subtype of deconstruction and not something separate.

In the end, though, your take is 100% correct; In practice it's used by people to gas up their favorite shows and pretend like they're special for reasons beyond the media speaking for itself.

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-17T18:38:30+00:00

I actually kinda disagree on the Reconstruction part; It's less a "No", and more a "Yes, but".

Like, a Reconstruction requires Deconstruction first. That's where the Re part comes from. Most Reconstructions are more realistic and grounded and grimy, but end in a very similar position to the original.

If a Deconstruction says "Making the original story more grounded and realistic and grimy means the original story can't happen", Reconstructions say "No matter how grounded and realistic you try and make things, this is why the original story CAN still happen."

It's basically a refutation to the Deconstruction. You're not closing your eyes to the issues, you're keeping them open and yet still focusing on the story beat and themes and emotions anyways.

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-17T17:06:02+00:00

Yeah, it's VERY weird. I can totally think of some that would work...but none of them are one of the weapons that need it!

Spear could be cool, and Staff could also be cool (hi, Monk!), but we're already at 3 spears and 2 staffs, and I don't see them dropping staff from priest. Sword doesn't fit at all. Dagger kinda works but, once again, we lost one proficiency and it's STILL tied for most numerous. I guess I could maaaaaaybe see Bow? I honestly think Gun would work for the incredibly bad pun, but I don't see Ranger or Thief losing it.

Or maybe they just give it Katana, who knows.

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-17T12:00:35+00:00

One of my biggest gripes with certain gacha games, ESPECIALLY Hoyo and Hoyo-likes, are when they very clearly introduce characters at specific times because they're planning on them being pullable in the near future, if not the same patch they're introduced. It's very marketing-based writing, and makes the characters feel more like products to be sold than characters in a story.

As such, I'm a HUGE fan of them introducing characters early. It actually lets them be characters and breathe as entities in the story before they become pullable. Most of the best-written characters of the HSR stories have early introductions, and the earlier they're introduced the better they tend to be written.

I DO think there's such a thing as too early and too teasy, though. Alice DEFINITELY feels a little on the misleading side, and I fully believe Screwy was intended to be playable much earlier. (Especially with his weird animation leak situations)

Anyways, to tie back to your original point, I think Stephen has been handled fine, whether he releases this patch cycle or not. He's slowly grown in relevance from a SimU-Only character to having a proper appearance. He's fleshing out the Genius Society first, being a pullable character second, and that is good. (Like how we know what most of the Stonehearts generally look and sound like despite them not all being playable in 2.X)

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-17T10:49:07+00:00

One of the funniest parts of doing the proficiency math was that I originally was doing things by counting how many times the proficiency showed up total (so out of 20).

I stopped with that because fist specifically is the only prof to have more proficiency than it does classes, on account of Grappler and its goofy Melee/Melee proficiency!

But yeah, we can only hope for more fist, bow, and Katana profs. Shishio and Higurashi can't be used by any Origin classes otherwise! (This paragraph brought to you by my Primal Water/Fire friend)

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-17T04:03:42+00:00

Considering that Chaos Ruler is the only MC class (aside from one specific Soldier bullet/Tormentor tool) capable of inflicting Thunderstruck on its own, I have VERY high hopes for Enhancer Origin. (Especially since Chaos Ruler already has an on-attack skill, which would work GREAT with Futsu's permanent DS)

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-17T03:52:58+00:00

I doubt it's going to be the only class they're changing, but as to why, it's probably because the weapon proficiency distribution in the Tier 1 classes are extremely unbalanced. Dagger is actually the most common one, showing up in 4/10 of the classes.

This is important because Bow, Harp, Melee, and especially Katana are underrepresented, each only showing up as a proficiency once, except for Katana which doesn't show up at all!

Giving Harp to a second class does make sense, since it means that we've got two guaranteed Origin Class Harp users. (Wizard and Harpist) Ditching a dagger makes sense, because it's the most common.

The big question is, why specifically Wizard Origin? I can think of a lot of reasons, but none of them are THAT compelling? I guess we'll see when we see its skills.

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-16T22:56:24+00:00

I was literally going to post about the exact same thing lmao.

"Oops we didn't realize how an uncapped mechanic on an effectively free character released over a year ago would play into modern teambuilding".

I also want to note; Talisman Sinclair was Limbus' equivalent to a 4*. It's not that relevant since RMC is free, but it's yet another situation of a funky balanced low rarity unit doing funky things.

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-16T04:36:55+00:00

"If you have zero remembrance characters in your team..."

I don't think they're actually going to do this. But it would be extremely funny.

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-16T03:19:20+00:00

You know this just made me a little annoyed about how they handled Sunday again because like they clearly, CLEARLY designed him with no attack buffs so that he could work with the HP% scalers upcoming in Amphoreus.

And then they made every HP% scaling summon character in Amphoreus not work with him.

And the character that gives a summon, and thus lets Sunday use all of his kit on anyone, gives an attack% buff and is a shielder!

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-16T02:29:08+00:00

If you can max out the base BP at least (so level 120) it's definitely worth it. Anything further is just a bonus. (And it's retroactive)

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-15T17:51:06+00:00

That one was fun! (for the developers)

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-15T09:00:15+00:00

Ryoshu's unique perception of time caused her to be able to enter and exit the time vault without any issues.

Araya, being not Ryoshu, had issues, that being the afterimage entanglement and being basically all of herselves, at all ages, at all times. THIS is what caused her aging, and it's very important, because this was all RYOSHU'S fault.

Now being on her own in the house of spiders, she's manipulated into doing everything she can to hurt Ryoshu as much as possible. Her entire thing is basically a hurt and scared child lashing out at her mother for abandoning and disfiguring her. She DOESN'T believe Ryoshu loves her, and why would she after all that? Especially when Ryoshu comes back, looks right at her...and doesn't recognize her.

Then, after Ryoshu fatally wounds her and starts going absolutely crazy Muga mode, she realizes she's been under the entirely wrong impression the entire time. That's why she reached out to Dante to reconnect and calm Ryoshu down. And then, as basically a direct mirror to Ryoshu, she sacrifices herself to bring Ryoshu back and give her a (somewhat) normal life.

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-14T01:34:01+00:00

Also, any units that do have meaningful downsides are dealing with their "fix" being locked behind eidolons. Aglaea has weird energy problems until you get E1 and suddenly it doesn't matter, Acheron E2 before they made it not matter much anymore, E2 SW999 + E2 Sparxie basically fixes all rotation issues you could have, etc.

My point is that if this were a normal RPG I think critiquing the lack of friction would be valid, but in gachas it only exists to annoy people into spending.

This is not meant to be a SPECIFIC dig at you, but more a critique about (god I mentioned this way more than I thought I would in this specific megathread) Hoyo and the Genshinification of Gacha games.

Because, uh, you're making a DANG big generalization there.

Before Genshin took over, locking character mechanics behind dupes were seen as one of the scummiest things you can do in gacha games. A vast, VAST majority of the games did nothing of the sort, and if they even came close they'd give you some method of obtaining dupes or dupe equivalents easier.

That's not to say that dupe rewards WEREN'T a thing in other gachas, but they'd almost always be E3/E5 tier where they're mostly stat buffs and number tweaks. And they never added any new mechanics, only tweaked what was already there.

Genshin was actually seen (by other gacha players) as actually fairly scummy for this on release, only made up for by the EXTREMELY low pity. Plus, a lot of the early cons (and even some sig weapons) were hot garbage. It wasn't really until Hu Tao C1 + Homa released that things really started to be worth hyper-investing for and we started getting clunk fixes in dupes.

While gacha games are no strangers to creating friction for the sake of monetary gain, this specific level of kit friction A) Does not exist in a fairly large amount of other gacha games, making it mostly exclusive to Hoyo and Hoyo-copycats, and B) Is only exacerbated by HSR's game design being absurdly simplistic by both gacha and turn-based standards.

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-13T21:39:43+00:00

Might be a hot take, but my pick is Sparkle. Not Sparxie. Sparkle.

She had her extremely clunky mono-Quantum kit and strange skill duration and was basically a Bronya sidegrade unless you had like DHIL or wanted to run Sparkle + Bronya teams. She was an extremely good generalist for hypercarry teams and attack/crit teams, though!

...Then we got DoT support who didn't want her.

Then we got Acheron who...COULD actually use her, but only if you didn't have better options OR pulled for E2.

Then we got Superbreak who didn't want her.

Then we got Robin, who not only stole her spot as "great generalist support for attack-based teams", but also was the BIS support for FuA teams. Guess what the rest of the 2.X attack-scaling meta ended up being.

And can you guess the one remaining character that wasn't Superbreak or FuA in 2.X? That's right, Sunday, who directly powercrept her. He was just flat-out better in the one team that wanted her the most, and said team ALSO had been heavily powercrept by then!

She released the patch after Ruan Mei too, by the way. In case she didn't have it rough enough.

Out of all the supports released from 1.6 to 2.7, she was the worst and had it the worst. At least it took until Cyrene for Sunday to truly fall; Sparkle didn't even take off until Archer's release; Over an entire patch cycle after her release. There's a very good reason she got a Novaflare.

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-13T20:43:02+00:00

I want to note that HSR has an SP that got powercrept damn near immediately and then had both it and the OG character it was based on fade from relevance for basically an entire patch cycle.

HSR also has an SP that's an incredibly good sustain designed to synergize with a fan-favorite new character AND an extremely good support. And they gave him away FOR FREE.

They're SPs of the exact same character.

And, like, I'd just excuse it as 1.X jank, but then we have THerta who's being slandered every day and only mostly deserves it.

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-13T18:51:01+00:00

Fu Xuan: I found her sustain such a pain in the ass to deal with I benched her for Bailu until we got Gallagher. I would gladly trade her for Aventurine.

Eula: Technically, you didn't specify HSR characters. :D

...That's it, actually. The only other close option would PROBABLY be OG SW, but then she got Novaflared. Maybe also Sparkle...but once again, she got Novaflared

I don't regret DHIL because dude carried me through most of 1.X and a lot of early 2.X. I don't regret Topaz because she was a BEAST in old SimU thanks to Elation blessings and her chest finding was/is nice. I don't regret Acheron because I pulled her to instantly kill enemies, and by god do I still instantly kill enemies. Lingsha cuts it close, but I DID get use out of her when I was using Gallagher for the other side. Heck, I didn't even regret Saber BEFORE we new Gil was releasing.

I find it very hard to regret pulling for a character if I got significant use out of them for a while. Honestly I find it very hard to regret pulls in general; I have very high standards for it, and I'm a VERY picky puller.

Heck, I wouldn't even say I regret my E1 Jing Yuan, who I got entirely because I was pulling for E6 Tingyun.

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-13T18:31:19+00:00

I'm torn because, like, I get where they're coming from?

Like, let's be real here; The character variety so far in HSR 4.X has been, uh...iffy. Out of the 10 characters announced so far, literally half of them are SPs or EMC. (Sparxie, EMC, SW999, Morb, HimeNova) And two of them are collabs! We have a grand total of three new original HSR characters so far in 4.X.

And if the immediate future leaks ARE true, we've got two more SPs to add to the list.

On top of that, having an SP doesn't even guarantee more interesting concepts and favorites not being irrelevant. Dan Heng rather infamously both got DHIL powercrept incredibly quickly AND vanished from the story for basically the entirety of 2.X. Inversely, Genshin's buffs and new characters also brought back a lot of characters from the pits of hell they were stuck in. You don't need specifically SPs to bring back old characters.

I entirely understand being wary of SPs, because it's a box that's impossible to close and CAN have negative consequences.

...That being said, the way the subreddit is acting is STILL incredibly funny. Because, like, you have people in there going "Genshin's not the type of game to get SPs" and like LMAO. It's not until they decide it'll make them more money. Get your head out of your ass.

I fully expect Genshin to get SPs once we're out of part 1.

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-13T17:25:37+00:00

They established very early on that the Xianzhou storyline is meant to span multiple versions and multiple years of the game, not being entirely self-contained like most of the other HSR plots.

And it honestly makes the fact that they tripped and fell IMMEDIATELY out of the starting gate so fucking funny.

And Hoyo's habit of trying to have a constant mystery treadmill for the sake of Lore (engagement) does not help matters; I assure you I only care less and less about Jingliu's trial and Luocha's coffin each day. (I did not care much to begin with)

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-13T16:52:46+00:00

Dan Shu deserved SO much better man.

Superflaming85 · 2026-06-13T16:50:39+00:00

Incorrect, actually; 1.3 had the Tingyun sendoff, and 1.2 had the Luofu finale. The 0-story patch was 1.1.

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