The Problem With Wuthering Waves' Team Building

Wuthering Waves is about to enter Version 2 and with that, I wanted to look over how the game felt throughout Version 1, mostly in terms of gameplay. Today we'll be discussing an issue I find with WuWa's team building and my hopes for how it can be addressed in Version 2.

~Editor (Shimbius)~

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#WutheringWaves #Wuwa #Rinascita

[VarsII]

To be perfectly clear before anyone accuses me of saying "buhhh buhhh Genshin > WuWa" I am not. The point of this video is to offer my thoughts on how Wuwa could potentially improve its gameplay to be more appealing to just a hardcore, mechanics/action focused audience. I very much enjoy its combat and would have zero issues with it from a mechanical standpoint. But I also think that there's merit to expanding more on the character, team and system side of things.

[Etherwinter]

This video is a whole lot of contradictions. At the beginning you say that different gachas approach teambuilding in different ways. Some have a focus on it, some don't. But you have an issue with WuWa despite it approaching teambuilding differently.

You also say early on that players are rewarded when they delve into the mechanics associated with switching between party members. But later in the video you say horizontal investment (ie building a team) isn't rewarding. And that vertical investment isn't really a thing in those other games you reference, but that's a straight up misconception. In all those games you showed, since your DPS does the most damage, it's the one you want to focus on building first.

Yet you also say you need 3 DPS, Backup/Sub and healers. If the team building is non-existent and there's little-to-no synergy between characters, why do you need 3 of each?

Sanhua's only purpose is to grant Camellya a basic attack bonus? That's why she's part of Camellya's team. She synergizes with Camellya. That's team building. Yes, you can solo, but you yield more using a synergized team for harder content.

You also say that WuWa has no core mechanics (Forte and Concerto) or battle mechanics (parrying/dodging, vibration strength etc) to build a team around. And that is true because that's not what the game is going for. No type matchups? Some enemies resist or nullify certain elements, like Heron who resists havoc. It's not a dealbreaker, but it's something to consider if you want to be effective against certain enemies especially in tower. Having a party member that boosts a specific element (or a specific type of attack) for the DPS can mean the difference between a 2 star clear and a 3 star clear. You even said that you need to put characters together to buff the main character. That's TEAM BUILDING. That's how they ALL work in ALL the gachas you referenced. The DPS gets the most buffs to do the biggest damage. In Genshin it's your on-field driver, in HSR and WuWa it's your main damage-dealer(s).

Also it's not lost on me that you're heavily comparing it to HSR, which is a turn-based, stat-focused game where having a heavily synergized team using some of the latest units is paramount. And then when it comes to elements, you're comparing it to Genshin. Why does there need to BE mono-elemental teams? You can also build them if you want (with a lack of characters to do so. WuWa is like what, 7 months old?)

Also if I had a dime for everyone who poses elemental reactions I'd be rich. It's NOT that type of game. Genshin's core gameplay mechanic revolves around elemental reactions to the point where a character's worth is how well they contribute to a given reaction via their skill or their ult. This makes it so that certain characters only work in certain teams, buffing specific elements or specific characters. Like Faruzan is only good at supporting anemo teams in Genshin. Primarily Scaramouche. She's useless outside of it. Meanwhile, Sanhua can work with ANYONE who uses basic attack damage. Lumi and Zhezhi can work with ANYONE who uses skill damage. If you start bringing elemental reactions into it, that makes teambuilding MORE RESTRICTIVE. Requiring you to pull a bigger variety of characters to build teams, depleting the F2P-friendliness of it (as you STATED because all you need is a couple DPS, subdps and healers without paying attention to element). It's an AWFUL idea.

[Aswero]

"Genshins Character Diversity"~ has multiple characters that press E and swap of
"Wuwa lack of character diversity"~ every single character plays differently from each other

Tf?

[arikadogenya]

"sanhua is basically there to make outro skill for camellya"

yeah.. just like ruan mei, xilonen and any other support units. They are there to support the DPS. I don't expect ruan mei to out DPS my hypercarry or tank any dmg.

What is this stupid take? Licking mihoyo shoes doesn't make them notice you more.

[Zedrinbot]

Wuwa's characters feel like quality over quantity tbh. That said, the synergies between characters tend to be a bit more subtle but they *are* there still. Intro/outro skills are really the defining aspect of how synergies work, as well as more subtle things like concerto regen and grouping ability.
Even the worst character in Wuwa still is very useful in certain comps. It's something I like about the outro skills, they give every character something akin to a support buff.

[soragami]

I actually like that Wuwa is more focused on individual Player skill rather than character requirements. I'll still roll for characters if I like their playstyle, but I like that I'm not being forced to roll for pure meta by the fact the game lets you compensate with player skill to an extent. Like for your example with Genshin, I could care less about Kazuha, but I rolled for him because he was meta, I don't care about him, but I leveled his skills, farmed artifacts for him, ect. But never did I once actually like him, I rolled for him purely so my Keqing aggravate team did better. In Wuwa, I know from some leaks some few characters might be quite valuable, but one of those characters I'm not interested in, and the other I'm still iffy on, but Wuwa atleast lets you compensate with player skill to an extent, if I choose to skip them. I dunno, I guess I'm a player that says I roll for characters I like, gameplay or storywise, if I like them I roll for them, meta be damned. I don't really care about having alot, just having the ones I like. Thats how I did it when I played FGO a long time ago, thats how I like playing Wuwa, characters I like are the ones I roll.

[Real-Quarlie]

I mean, a lot of this is good though?

The most common teams are Dual DPS teams, in which you can practically team up ANY 2 quickswap DPS characters (plus, any healer or team support)

And while sure, this isn't gonna result in complex team building, in a game like this, especially in gacha, this is a good thing, as that means you aren't forced to pull or play characters you don't want to.

If you wanna play Encore with Xiangli Yao, you can do that. Encore with Changli? Calcharo with Changli? Calcharo with Xiangli Yao? Xiangli Yao with Changli? Xiangli Yao with Jinhsi (given your 3rd slot is somebody like verina/Yuanwu for the coordinated attacks)? All of those are possible and still in the high damage output, due to the main cause of damage being the character attacks with quickswap, rather than synergies.

I do prefer this over how teambuilding with more synergies is like. Such as Elemental reactions in Genshin. They can feel a bit restrictive at times, such as Hu Tao basically being forced to needing Xingqiu or Yelan to make her do good damage.

The incentive for using new characters comes by actually liking the character or wanting to try out their kit in any team you want, rather than just being a requirement for your other characters to work.

[q-perten]

PGR teams feels so restrictive, because every time we get a new character we already know who will be replaced. I like flexibility of WuWa.

[gordonfoo]

Wuwa is more of a rotation team build. You can literally make most characters work together as long you learn their rotation.

[darkdudeify]

Tbh I really hope they put off what you're asking for for a long time. I don't want "perfect" supports. I don't want a situation where a character is basically irrelevant without a specific support, or conversely where the character is too strong with their specific support to the point where there's gonna be people, usually content creators, that are complaining the content is "too easy", basically leaving behind anyone who didn't pull for specific characters. I don't want a situation like Wanderer, where he's basically completely irrelevant and near incompetent without C6 Faruzan. I don't want a situation where Firefly is basically completely useless without Ruan Mei. Any situation like that is something I'd rather avoid at all costs, for as long as possible

[gar-vgns]

7:44 how is making the game less gacha a bad thing?

[maevethefox]

I'mma be real, my favourite thing about WuWa is that I don't feel required to pull characters I don't like just to make teams function.

Especially with the Mavuika leaks in mind, hyper limited team option characters just irks me.

[danielw.]

To be 100% frank, i do not want WuWa to be a team building game. I HATE feeling like a HAVE to put X unit on the same team as Y unit or both are utter dog water. & once they start making the game more heavily team focused, they are gonna balance the game around being team focused. Which means goodbye to solo clears & flexible team building.

Like you said, every gacha out there is heavily team focused, so let WuWa be the one non team focused gacha out there for people like me who enjoy this type of freedom.

It feels nice pulling a new character purely bc i like them & not bc they have such critically high synergy with my fav character that i feel like i'm being punished for not pulling them.

[juansebastianbuitragodiaz]

This is unfortunate... it complains because Wuthering Waves doesn't aggressively restrict your progress within the game and allows you to play with whatever you want.

[whodistoodis]

I've not played WuWa yet, and this video made me download it. Since, from my perspective, almost everything about this is what I've always wanted to see in a gatcha game. A game that doesn't punish you for not having access to a huge selection of characters, one that lets you focus in on the ones that provide you the most satisfying gameplay on a personal level. While more depth from a team-building perspective does sound nice, its a fine line to balance against what I'm hearing here, where I don't won't get punished like I do in say, Genshin, for not having Furina since I find her playstyle and especially personality very unenjoyable. I enjoy character collection as much as the next (I wouldn't play as many gatcha games as I do otherwise), but there is a point where investment overcomes enjoyability at higher levels when you are demanded to have characters that are new and constantly pushing the meta.

[ronron_gaming]

many genshills hates wuwa because they thought in was a rip off, now every genshill hates wuwa for not copying genshin
like wtf do you expect from different game?

[jacktheripper]

Kuro always values individual gameplay rather than "put X with Y and Z".

There are synergies, but not "requirements".

[thepeanutter]

But this a good thing. Locking characters to mechanical niches just causes fomo because you need to get your hand on specific enablers to make a type of team function. (EG: Kafka for DOT teams in HSR)

Also team building does exist. Intro and outro skills are a vehicle for optimisation. You even say yourself how Sanhua is a support for Camellya due to buffing the normal attack damage of the next character. It's virtually the same as having an elemental reaction take place in Genshin except the characters require a longer field time. Even if they add more characters with normal attack buffing outro skills, the requirement to have characters active longer on field makes their difference in gameplay more of a personal preference than Genshin where quick swapping is the name of the game.

[PinutsGames]

Oh boy, is he too far brainwashed by Hoyo? He thinks having to pull for more characters (for more "complex" "teambuilding"), or having "restrictive gameplay modes that is ideally cleared by certain characters/teams" is good. In what world is that good? In a world when you are the CEO of the gacha? In a world where the said gacha was developed as a full game with all characters already unlocked? In a world where all players gets refunded for their iAP?

The major point I like about wuwa is the minimal powercreep, if there even is any at all, and the no BS "Create the problem, sell the solution" that Genshin/HSR have (At least none, until the damn Pincer event showed up, but at least it's still currently just an event).

Dude literally said shit like "conflicts with what a gacha game is about: A bunch of characters for a bunch of different scenarios". And that is more preferable to him than wuwa's "pick any character and you can clear with gears and skill"

I have probably never seen someone so far brainwashed and so detached from what is supposed to be actually "good" for consumers. For god's sake, you literally said it is a gacha game. You ARE aware you are playing a gacha game. And you willingly jump straight into the predatory hole, wanting as many character for as many situations you can think of. You think gacha characters grow on in-game trees like sunsettia? Those things are designed to predatory and makes you want to pull for them, and they are RNG gated.

(6:50/7:35) Also, the heck did he mean by "battle mechanics/gimmicks"? A "problem" created by the HSR devs specially designed to make you want to pull on their latest character that counters that created gimmick?? Like PF to pull for Erudition? AS to pull for break efficient characters? "Death" boss/Dino elite so you pull for DoT characters? Exo toughness to pull for break characters? The MoC with Banana boss so you pull for Rappa? HP inflation and Powercreep? The fact that later version characters likely to be way stronger?

That is what I call "no depth". HSR's gameplay is 90% ownership of characters and good relics, and maybe 10% "strategy", potentially even less. Even if you know the "best strategy" to beat the "created problem", that using Feixiao/Robin/Aventurine/Topaz, with appropriate speed tunes, is the best team for a certain stage in MoC, whatever the F is the use of that if you don't own the characters and relics? Such strategies only works in "complete" games that includes all characters, NOT gachas.

(6:50) And Genshin? Their elemental reaction system is so flawed that pretty much the best teams are either Vape, or Mono/Non-reaction-based damage hypercarry. Mono/Non-reaction-based damage hypercarry basically means having elements is pointless. Vape means only hydro/pyro reactions matter the most. The game might as well change all characters to Hydro/Pyro at this point. Many other elemental reactions have no much use outside of activating certain character's abilities, or activate Artifact bonuses (Like etc).

Sure there are other reactions that are so much weaker that can work, with way lower ceiling like transformative reaction (bloom/hyperbloom/overload), but how many of those you wanna throw out to compete with 1M vapes? Enough blooms to wipe your entire team? There was also this new enemy that has shields that is kinda only efficiently breakable by Natlan characters? (Sorry if not true, but I thought I fought something like that. But if it's true, then it's an even worse look for the game. I remembered something regarding the Ousia/Pneuma mechanics in Fontaine mentioned by Devs, that it will not provide way too significant of an advantage in combat. Looks like they may have decided to change?) But I mean, if you want to play an underperforming team, nobody is stopping you from playing Aalto/Danjin/Lingyang team in wuwa, right?


Team building in games is a valid point. But when you introduce it into GACHAS, it is a different story. And if you like it? Congrats, you've just been promoted to an "ideal customer" for such predatory gacha games. What would be worse is that such players/CC is so blinded by it, thinks of it as the ultimate truth, then spreads and encourages the idea is great to other parties. Oh wait, this was kinda mentioned in the video.

(7:26) Also, NOT 3 DPS, 3 Supports, 3 Healers. Assuming you need support and healer, all you need is 2 DPS, 2 Support, 2 Healers, AND the MC (as the free DPS) to clear early ToA stages. You don't need a full team to reliably go through floor 2/3. In fact, if you got the free XLY from 1.2, chose Verina/Jianxin from the free standards, you basically just need at most 1 other DPS (Camellya can be good since Sanhua is free from login) and Healer (SK). Even lesser if you can play Encore/Sanhua, and XLY/Jianxin.

2 limited characters for a comfortable endgame clear (Of course, people cleared with 4 stars but I will not go there and keep it reasonable). This is something that should be celebrated for being consumer-friendly. NOT celebrating the release of an OP character that can replace team members, and then not realizing you are celebrating POWERCREEP.

Another point: Team building is NOT ALWAYS positive, even when considered in a non-gacha setting. Overly compatible characters will "force" you to play "Character A" with "Character B", and if you really love the gameplay of "A", but HATE the gameplay of "B", it's going to end up as a worse-than-it-should experience.

Man, just commenting on 1min of his takes is already exhausting. I'll stop here.

And that's why I said some people are just too far gone, with companies like Hoyo way too deep in their throats, they close their eyes and enjoy it, blinded by every other things.


And yea, I get it powercreep will appear sooner or later in Wuwa, although I would like to be proven wrong. But as of current, I still think there is not much noticeable difference, other than new DPS with more compatible supports.

[NeoArisat]

I disagree with making WuWa tunnel in on the niche, restrictive gameplay that Genshin has evolved into. I feel like I can pull for the character I like without having to worry that they are meta because the game is more focus on player skill rather than a character check like in other games like HSR. There's a lot of freedom of expression that you can do in WuWa's combat.