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Genshin Impact's Update 1.2 Proves Why It's Popular in Spite of Gacha and Performance Hiccups | MMOR
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Genshin Impact's Update 1.2 Proves Why It's Popular in Spite of Gacha and Performance Hiccups | MMORPG.com
Genshin Impact has become somewhat of a phenomenon as it's gained popularity outside of China, and has risen in reputation with Western audiences as a premiere Action-Adventure RPG. Prior to playing the game, as an outside observer, it was easy to call out substantial grievances in the direction and style of the game. As a player approaching the max Adventure Rank of 50, delving into the new story content from the latest update The Chalk Prince and the Dragon, Genshin Impact proves, once again,
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no it's not
if it's predatory, it's bad by design
good games don't prey and abuse people in the sake of profit
But I could be one of those people that spends thousands on trying to roll all the best of everything. The monetization system for characters and special weapons sucks. The game is fun though and as long as you play enough you can get a decent amount of characters to build a strong roster.
This applies to pretty much every mobile game. All of them are predatory and designed to squeeze money out of players, but if you enjoy it with or without spending who cares? A lot of really talented designers are working on mobile titles these days and games like genshin show that. Some of the collector-battler games (swgoh, MSF, etc) have deeper character building than most modern non-mobile RPG games sadly.
Yeah right, I'll call bullshit right now.
Here's an excerpt from a NPR reviewer who is a bit more honest in her dealings with this game. (She admittedly spent $40 and got squat)
"It's worth playing Genshin Impact, but you need to know right off the bat it's difficult to resist spending real money, and the Resin timer is frustrating, particularly later in the game or when you want to fight bosses. But there's still a ridiculous amount of content for a free game, and that makes it worth it — if you can make it through without spending any money."
https://www.npr.org/2020/11/26/938942548/genshin-impact-is-free-to-play-fun-if-you-can-resist-opening-your-wallet
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
I played up to adventure rank 40+ without spending anything. I did run 2 accounts to double my chances and I always took advantage of free primos/etc to have free chances at the gacha system.
Still, aside from the team combos and combat combos you can get from a diverse team structure, the game is terribly repetitive and one dimensional. All of the fun is in the characters and it was only a matter of time before I started spending to get the team make up I desired. It was at that point I quit, coming to the realization that no amount of hard work or time invested could give me my desired goals. Even dumping money into the game wasn't a guarantee of that success.
Still, the game was enjoyable for a while. I guess there was an argument to be made about F2P and how I just got probably 100+ hours of entertainment for free. The sad conclusion is that F2P is not a sustainable endgame for people with realistic priorities. I suppose if you are more flexible with your expectations from Genshin Impact, you could still be playing as F2P and continue with the fun adventure. I just can't see past the carrot on the stick as I adventure through the world.
When I started playing Genshin Impact on the insistence of a friend, my initial impression was good, but not great. I really wanted a particular character that I came to learn was quite rare. I would have had to spend quite a bit of money to earn him, or get extremely lucky.
I did spend some money on Gacha to get him, but unfortunately, I never did.
Then I learned that players were rerolling accounts until their initial free rolls yielded the character they wanted, and I ended up doing just that, eventually earning the character I wanted after about 12 accounts. (He's the character featured in the Hero image)
After about 200 or so dollars on Gacha, I started a fresh account and earned what I wanted through a loophole. At that time, on my fresh account, with my new character, I decided I wasn't going to pay for Primogems in bulk anymore for that predatory Gacha System.
But that didn't stop me from spending money. They have a Battle Pass that yields a lot of materials, and a daily gem allocation which I believe are both worth the cost - roughly 15 dollars a month for both.
I've opted to pay for that and be done with spending money on bulk Primogems. It also doesn't hurt that Google's Opinion Rewards app pays in Play Store credits that you can use to buy the monthly subscription and Battle Pass in Genshin, so in that way I've never paid full price for either.
The Welkin Moon is 3,000 gems, spread over 30 days, for $5. The same amount of gems straight up is overly expensive. A single 10 roll (1600 gems) is $25-30 - which is just objectively not worth it. Moreover, because your first gem purchase is doubled in value, the incentive is to buy the biggest package the first time, and that isn't something I see as worthwhile. So basically, I'm in a situation in which a small and controlled spend is worth it, but impulse spending is just not an appealing prospect.
Now, how has that translated into my game experience? Basically, I made it to roughly AR 43 without a single 5 star character, in large part due to having rolled 5 star weapons twice to my displeasure, but also due to saving most of my gems for Zhong Li for months. The result is that my team "should have been" substantially underpowered - except that it was just fine, and I did not significantly struggle with any content.
Now I'm AR50 and sitting on 3 5 star characters - Zhong Li (who was released criminally underpowered and is getting buffed, thank fuck), Albedo (who is a ton of fun), and Keqing. I'm still enjoying myself, and the game was far more content dense than I would have expected when I tried it on a whim.
This is my take as well. If you look at the actual rates, which is published clearly, its hard to see anyone but whales that would be tempted to spend the ludicrous amount of money to obtain 5 stars.
For example, pulling on the general banner is insanely bad because it has a mixed 5 star pool of characters and weapons plus you're not guaranteed any kind of duplicate protection. You have a 0.6% chance to pull any 5 stars and a soft pity that builds up at 75th pull to a hard pity at 90th pull for a 5 star. Say you want to impulse buy gems for a 5 star, the most you can top up in one go I believe is $100 which gives you 6480 primo gem. Double that with the first time x2 top up bonus and you are still short of the 14400 needed for a single hard pity. Again thats with the first time top up, the next time $100 won't even be enough to reach the soft pity if starting from scratch - pity resets as soon as you hit a 5 star. You can easily spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on this banner and it will still NOT guarantee giving you that 5 star you want.
Character specific banners are only a bit better. Here atleast you are guaranteed to get the banner promoted character if your previous 5 star pulled from that banner was not the promoted character, otherwise its a 50% chance. That means at worst you will need 180 pulls (two hard pity) to guarantee the promoted 5 star - thats 160*180 = 28800 primo gems. Still hundreds of dollars but hey atleast you can guarantee getting the banner 5 star, if you wanted it.
More realistically people maybe tempted to spend money to reach pity faster when they're close, but the cost of buying gems straight up for any amount is still really steep.
Now I get that people can still easily fall into the temptation of wanting that specific character and just impulse buying gems to make it happen, game is still predatory ain't arguing that. But please check the rates, calculate the cost and keep that in mind beforehand. I, for one, am glad that genshin's rate is soooo bad that I have always defeated my impulses when I ask myself "yea but do I want to drop $100+ for x?"
This is exactly what players said about F2P, that revenue model has hardly led MMORPG's to new heights, in fact it is a major factor in the decline of quality in the genre as a whole.
Subscription is not predatory, they are designed with a lot of content, that's not grind. You now play GI ergo you say any old tosh to support it, sorry Aeander but there it is.
I don't like paying upfront for the promise of content. Content that they may or may not deliver that month or even that quarter.
I don't like how said content that you paid for is usually still double-dipped behind an expansion paywall.
I don't like any model that gives an unequal value based on how much free time you have to allot to it (also, hello battle passes).
And now they don't even protect you from the microtransactions you're so scared of. Thanks, Blizzard.
I do remember you questioning the financial model before, that's why I have been surprised at this turn around. Where I differ from you in what you last said is I see nothing wrong with paying for content upfront or games giving you more for spending more time in them. Obviously if the content is poor there are questions, otherwise no issue. Overall I had a hard time working out how you expect gaming companies to make money. For me subscription, paid new content and cosmetics are fine, so the right sort of microtransactions are welcomed.
That doesn't mean that I will not play, or even necessarily spend on games that deviate from that, because ultimately one likes what they like. But it does mean that such is what I would encourage in the industry. It's the difference between praising a business model as part of what makes a game great and playing a game despite its business model.
At least they have the decency to not pedo-pander (yet) unlike so many other Asian games. They're all dressed really conservatively and kept in character for people who like cute things. Which is more than I can say for TERA, for example.
The game, without spending any money, is fun except for the whining Pimon which I liked initially. It is a hard game to explain. . an MMO light with interesting characters, nice looking art but very simple to play and enjoy. . ..without offering anything outstanding.
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
Yep I got Tartaglia 1c he's a really solid unit but skipped Zhong and skipping Albedo as a result. Shame cause Zhong sounds like he'll be insane after the buffs but skipping banners is just part of it now with only Welkin. I want La Signora and Rosaria the most, so saving for them ...not sure why though
I think it would be awesome too. Something that mimics the thrill of pulling a 5* unit, but without opening the wallet for microtransactions (just a box price upfront pls). Sadly, that's too consumer friendly and their math nerds have already ran the numbers and fleecing people works better.
I agree! I like the surprise mechanic but would rather it be just part of the game. . . although some people would complain that they paid the same and didn't get character x
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
Of course what's reasonable for me won't be for others so I understand the challenge of finding the right balance.
In FO76 they recently offered a cosmetic BOS bundle for cash money only, $39.99, making it unavailable to buy in the Atom store.
I felt it set a bad precedent so I eschewed buying the bundle but don't you know, two of my friends immediately bought it with one doing so after buying $49.99 in Atoms mistakenly believing they could be used to purchase the BOS bundle.
Yeah, I told them they were both idiots (my exact words, you can understand why I have few friends) for doing so as it will only encourage more of this behavior from Bethesda in the future, but they just shrugged as they don't care to try and find gaming hills to die vs me who hasn't met a futile battle I wasn't ready to crusade for.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon