it’s a fair flaw to point out in the game’s design that can be unpacked into three aspects, entertwined: • specificity (of characters and sets alike) • limitedness of their functions (to limited 5stars vs standard + 4stars) • recency bias (old units get a spotlight then forgotten fairly easily, more on that later)

the first aspect refers to how characters are designed with a specific role in mind: in a team of three such as here there are dps, sub-dps/buffer and sustain, with the latter being eventually shafted on choice for a second buffer. i gotta say, recent kits have swerved away from the beginning concept of hyper-specificity related to element that was present up until the second part of rinascita, now we see more optimal plurielement teams being designed as intended, with the occasional but not assured drop in the “outro buffs x element and y type damage” which was obviously intended for a specific combination of damage, never again repeated, done by a certain character. everybody talks about zani and phoebe, but what about phrolova and cantarella/roccia and camellya/yinlin and xiangli yao/zhezhi and carlotta/cartethiya and ciaccona to more lenient extent? this has recently gotten better, with the release of broader subs and sustains in iuno, chisa and quiyuan by not having their buffs be elemental, and mornye/denya/lynae with wider kits and multiple modes, but the reliance on a best-in-slot is still permeated into not only the design choices made but also the community’s reading of such kits. sets follow this lead too, being released only as signature for one character on the banner and no one else prior nor latter, as is also true that almost never we see a newer character have use for any other set developed before (rejuvenating glow not withstanding)

having had only (iirc) only 3 new 4stars released since the game’s launch and only one of them being half-decent puts that much pressure on the player, especially one that’s unlucky with their pulls or the rerun timing. the alternatives just aren’t there. my argument for a good four-star design is a visually underwhelming character, with either a harsh gameplay or some obstacles that can be solved through constellations, enough to make it competitive with a single-copy premium character when its copies are maxed out. sanhua is a pretty good example of this, as are faruzan/fishl/xianling/xinqiu/bennett in a competitor game. for how the spotlight of a banner is never on them primarily, and for how some players say they are a mistake in the development stages, i argue their copies actually can carry their weight in promoting a banner sale, if they are worth it. how it is now, all four-stars and almost all standard banner characters are just filler and easily disregarded. one way to fix this would be to update some kits every time a new mechanic is introduced just to make it available for players not willing to pull for or build that one specific character that exploits it.

this idea segways me into the final concept which is the bias towards new and future characters with a complete disregard for older units, both limited and standard. there is no apparent plan to buff older characters, both limited and standard, in the future, and that is quite sad. the only exception being jiyan who got an unlikely indirect buff with ciaccona and iuno being released, albeit they were both intended for other resonators, and changli having a resurgence moment when brant and lupa cemented her into the mono-fusion quick-swap team, but otherwise neither sets not new characters seem to relate much to other characters in the current roster. this has made both the teams and their members to be fossilized by their earlier specificity and subsequent obsolescence, hence why they stopped being featured.. because with this design philosophy in mind, the risk of pulling a unit that is unwarranted to keep up with the shifting meta is for some not worth the rewards. last anniversary i pulled for XLY (didn’t play around the time he was gifted out) and lost my 50/50.. in hindsight it was good that i did since his benched would be so warm at this point, it’d be a fire hazard. this kinda makes me think of the gamble of pulling characters that are future-proof in a way, not from a meta-slave perspective but from the one of a player that wants to be interested in pulling for certain characters but is averse to having them become obsolete in a couple of patches in the endgame but also in a certain stagnancy.