Mobile Games, Gacha, Android/IOS games

[Val the Moofia Boss]

So that's how we have a VN story that runs for 12 years where you wiped out multiple worlds and everything you did wound up being all for nothing, just to return to a crappy one, and this is supposed to be a happy ending.

That ending is a clear set up to a 2nd game with updated graphics were ******* can spend thousands again, pulling for the same ******* characters.
I bet itl be announced next year.

Thats the only reason they are killing the cash cow. They got a fancier one on the way.

Companies are run by people who cannot be expected to always operate rationally. Big businessmen have and will continue to make stupid mistakes. WoW was Blizzard's cash cow with 12 million subscribers in 2009/2010 and yet the leadership allowed the game to be run into the ground by idiotic decisions that alienated the playerbase. "You think you do, but you don't". Blizzard had a smash hit with Overwatch, but when Bobby Kotick suggested that Jeff Kaplan strike while the iron is hot and make more dev teams to make more games, Kaplan said no and that's how the franchise languished for years and lost the momentum it had. The Pokemon leaks has exposed behind scenes power struggles, pettiness, and idiocy that has led to the abysmal state of the past decade of games in spite of it being the mainliner of a hundred billion dollar franchise. Square Enix's has been led by headless chickens after Sakaguuchi was ousted, thinks Final Fantasy fans don't want turn based games, things MMO fans don't want MMOs, and keeps throwing their money down the drain at mediocre gachas that they pull the plug on, and then the president complains that Square weren't the ones to make Genshin Impact and rake in a billion dollars per year. Disney bought Star Wars for 4 billion dollars and then began making the first movie in a trilogy with no plan for how it would end or who would direct the sequels. And so on.

Type-Moon has demonstrated complacency. Nasu kept stringing people along with a Tsukihime remake for almost two decades. Nasu kept talking about how Mahou was the first in a trilogy and he's going to make parts 2 and 3, and lo and behold 13 years later the sequels are nowhere in sight. For FGO Nasu had no self discipline getting chapters out on time, allowing the game to go several months without any update while the Chinese rigorously pushed out an update every 6 weeks. Nasu has fallen into GRRM syndrome where he made hit it big, doesn't need to really work anymore, messes around with side gigs from time to time, and has no strong artistic desire to complete the major projects he said he would that everybody anticipates. Maybe FGO will get a part 3 but I don't see any strong impetus on Nasu's part. Maybe he will just let other writers do whatever.

[Lhynn]

Maybe FGO will get a part 3 but I don't see any strong impetus on Nasu's part.

I dont see how it could not. Theyd be leaving money on the table. No sense in closing down FGO, which as I understanding was making a good amount of money, if you arent going to replace it with a new game.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Over 5 years after launch, Genshin's protagonist finally gets an alt costume, and an option to cover up his midriff.

[Valter]

an option to cover up his midriff.

Now this is gaming

[Manny V]

still gay

[DemoGraph]

Today I've tried idler (Earth Inc), and got hooked for about three hours. Number goes up, very short iteration and gratification cycles, etc. Reached 4th planet.

However, devs either aim for idiots for a target audience (including me, of course) or are idiots themselves. They've began adding casino-like milking mechanics before they've established addiction to the game proper. About a quarter of the screen is filled with invitations to ads or purchases. And since it's idler, that also restarts your progress every time you reach a new level (planet), I feel that no attachment to ingame objects could be formed. Temporary level progress (on each planet) gets reset, permanent (team) progress is too slow and mechanical (+% to income and the like) to matter.

I also feel that devs made a typical pricing mistake. The purchases aren't very democratic - $5-10 for a small boost that gets consumed in 15-30 minutes. I get that they're probably targeting "whales" (folks who are ready to spend hundreds of $ daily on whatever they play). But this way they're also breaking a general audience (that whales should feed off) too aggressively. And they don't even try to run microtransactions (a purchase few cents worth) to try and break the payment barrier for general audience.

Also, ads are turbo aggressive. They're several minutes long and force you to act (play an advertised game for a bit). They're so long, that they create an impression dissonance with the game proper, so I've actually stopped interacting with them at all.

There's also the fun issue with balancing. Devs spammed x2-3 effect multipliers everywhere. So the economy quickly inflates into trillion to gazillion scale. They've used literal abbreviations for scale. M for 10^6, B for 10^9, T for 10^12... and then innovated. Aa for 10^15, ab for 10^18, ac for 10^21, etc.
See where it goes? Multipliers are so aggressive, they devalue all the progress you've made only 15 minutes ago.
It's like a game for people without any memory at all. Pay! Forget! Pay! Forget!

It was an interesting experience. 20 years of WoW condensed into 4 hours.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

New leaked Sparxie animations are neat. I wonder where the critters are from and why are they following her around?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

New experimental HSR combat event has gone live.

The first fight introduces a back row of enemies that cannot be targeted by single target or blast abilities (blast in HSR is an AoE attack that hits 3 targets, 1 to either side of the main target). It can only be hit by AoE (as in the kind that the Erudition class carries that hits all 5 enemies in a row), bounce attacks, or followup attacks. If you kill backrow enemies, the front row boss gets a 2,000% incoming damage vunerability. First impressions is that this is pretty neat as in HSR the meta was leaning towards preferring blast type characters. If this winds up getting brought over to the rest of the game, then there will be a reason to raise other types of characters now. Maybe I should get Jing Yuan or Anaxa when they rerun. Currently I have Himeko (AoE and AoE followerup attack) and Welt (Bounce).










... Except Castorice's dragon that I summon every turn has a breath attack that is full AoE, and Phainon's moon drop is full AoE. Aka the two main teams I was already running. So I can kill the backrow anyway with my current teams and don't need the other classes.




The next experimental challenge wants you to use 4 healers or shielders. The enemies deal severe damage to you, but if you drop below 0 HP you don't immediately die. Every few turns an AoE goes off that will actually kill anyone off who is below 0 HP. Unfortunately, for the Nightmare fight, I only had 3 real healers and shielders. I had Fu Xuan levelled but the way she works means she can't actually heal for this fight.




Fortunately, I had Phainon who was able to bypass the fight since once he enters his Khalsana form, he kicks the other party members out of battle (so they can't die from the severe damage) and if he "dies" he doesn't actually die. He just gets kicked out of Khalsana state and wipes out the enemy on his way out.


More challenges unlock over the next few days.

I don't know guys. They made Castorice and Phainon so powerful, I don't see how the devs can engineer content that they won't trounce.

[Valter]

New leaked Sparxie animations are neat. I wonder where the critters are from and why are they following her around?

One of her attacks is a superchat donation bar battle, I ******* can't

[Lhynn]

Maybe I should get Jing Yuan or Anaxa when they rerun.

Jing Yuan is dead, unless he gets a novaflare hes just not worth it.

Also how the **** do you not have Anaxa. ****** is the goat.

He works at E0S0, he works in all content, he works as dps, as sub dps, as break, as sustain, as support. Man is, to this day, the best pull in the game outside of a E1 tribbie.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Maybe I should get Jing Yuan or Anaxa when they rerun.

Jing Yuan is dead, unless he gets a novaflare hes just not worth it.

Also how the **** do you not have Anaxa. ****** is the goat.

He works at E0S0, he works in all content, he works as dps, as sub dps, as break, as sustain, as support. Man is, to this day, the best pull in the game outside of a E1 tribbie.

My jades were real tight trying to get the Phainon team with Phainon and DHPT both at E1S1, AND the Castorice team (pulled for Blade's novaflare rerun in place of RMC or Cyrene) with both Castorice at S1 and Hyacine at E1S1. A 12 cost setup in half a year. And now to keep them relevant I need to save to get Phainon E2 and one or two Castorice eidolons when those two eventually rerun.

I was debating whether or not vertically invest in Sunday for his upcoming rerun because I don't particularly like him and maybe a more appealing replacement support might come along. I like Blade and he is getting an alt soon so I might grab that instead. And there will be this year's spectacularly animated anniversary unit and their team to consider too, given that for Anomaly Arbitration you need three teams to clear and so far I haven't managed to throw together a team with my leftovers to clear a third knight.

[Lhynn]

Phainon at E1S1

Get his E2 on the rerun, phainons E2 makes the character work.

I was debating whether or not vertically invest in Sunday for his upcoming rerun because I don't particularly like him and maybe a more appealing replacement support might come along.

Not worth it imo. His LC is more valuable than he is atm, let alone his eidolons, so pull for that if you dont have it.

And there will be this year's spectacularly animated anniversary unit and their team to consider too

Gonna be elation and probably wont work anywhere else. Since they seem to be aiming for a full Elation team Im skipping.

Anomaly Arbitration you need three teams to clear and so far I haven't managed to throw together a team with my leftovers to clear a third knight.

Barely managed to complete it today for the second time.
Remembrance team - Herta, Anaxa 3b and fu xuan - Archer, DHPT, sunday and Ruan Mei.

I am considering getting sparkle since shes getting a novaflare and shell probably be top tier now, since it solves all her issues, plus I need her for Archer.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Not worth it imo. His LC is more valuable than he is atm, let alone his eidolons, so pull for that if you dont have it.

From HSRleaks, 4.X content will have 80% elemental resistances. So it seems that you will really need res penetration and defense shred if you want to just use a few teams for all content instead of having many characters (and therefore teams) for different situations. Sunday E1 gives Phainon an additional 40% def shred.

Gonna be elation and probably wont work anywhere else. Since they seem to be aiming for a full Elation team Im skipping.

Yeah, the two new elation units revealed so far don't seem to be very cool, so if the anniversary unit is also elation and doesn't look cool then I'll be skipping it. Angelic winged super sayian who drops moons, and scythe wielder who has a reality marble that looks like a fantasy moon and summons a dragon are cool. I was hoping that the Edo Star flagship character would be a cyber samurai or something. But with 3.X they released Aglaea as the first character of the new class and she turned out to not be apart of Castorice's team, so maybe the 4.X anniversary unit might be Elation but Sparxie and Yao Guang won't be in that team either.

[rusty_shackleford]

My jades were real tight trying to get the Phainon team with Phainon and DHPT both at E1S1, AND the Castorice team (pulled for Blade's novaflare rerun in place of RMC or Cyrene) with both Castorice at S1 and Hyacine at E1S1.

This is English?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

My jades were real tight trying to get the Phainon team with Phainon and DHPT both at E1S1, AND the Castorice team (pulled for Blade's novaflare rerun in place of RMC or Cyrene) with both Castorice at S1 and Hyacine at E1S1.

This is English?

DHPT = Dan Heng • Permansor Terrae. An alternate release of one of the main characters, Dan Heng, as a shielder and buffer. That full name is a handful so people just abbreviate it to DHPT.

E1S1 = 1st Eidolon and Light Cone at first Superimposition. It's the vertical investment system of HSR. E1 is what you get for pulling a duplicate of a character, unlocking an additional mechanic for that character. The first two eidolons are usually designed to give significant power upgrades to entice you to spend to get them. Light cones are their "weapons" which give them an additional effect tailored for that character. Unlike eidolons, you don't get more mechanics for pulling dupes of a Light Cone, so people usually just pull one LC and then move on to pulling for Eidolons. So E1S1 and E2S1 are common goals for a character you really like and want to build a team around.

Novaflare = revamp of a character. For some odd reason, Mihoyo is extremely averse to revamping old characters that have not aged well with new game mechanics or HP inflation. A few months ago, the Stellaron Hunters (antagonist/rival group, includes Blade) were the first in the game to get reworks, advertised as Novaflare.

RMC = Remembrance Main Character. Each time the MC visits a world, they unlock a new class called a Path. The patch the MC unlocked for visiting the 3.X world of Amphoreus was the new Remembrance pet class.

[Lhynn]

From HSRleaks, 4.X content will have 80% elemental resistances. So it seems that you will really need res penetration and defense shred if you want to just use a few teams for all content instead of having many characters (and therefore teams) for different situations. Sunday E1 gives Phainon an additional 40% def shred.

Sunday alone wont make much of a difference. I have heard the rumors of the 80% elemental resistance though, and the only way to punch through it will be with Elation. The first support in the patch will make everyone be able to do elation damage, so I am considering pulling for her, but shes so dogshit in every other sense.

[rusty_shackleford]

And how much money have you guys spent on this?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Some neat Mihoyo machinimas:

[Val the Moofia Boss]

A little under 6 hours until Endfield launches. I wonder if their servers will crash.

[Valter]

A little under 6 hours until Endfield launches. I wonder if their servers will crash.

It's up early

[Val the Moofia Boss]

For the nth time, we have a Chinese gacha game that begins with the player character running into some waifu who then spouts some vague melodramatic stuff about destiny and crap before he is let loose into the new world.

[rusty_shackleford]

For the nth time, we have a Chinese gacha game that begins with the player character running into some waifu who then spouts some vague melodramatic stuff about destiny and crap before he is let loose into the new world.

Chinese just make the same media over and over, you always disagree react anytime I point this out but it's true

[Finarfin]

Thank God I escaped the fangs of gacha ( though now I am in the fangs of Warcraft) where winds meet is great though, it got even better since my best friend gifted me the costume I kept eying.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Okay, they got me, I burst out laughing

► Show Spoiler

[A Chinese opium den]

Okay, they got me, I burst out laughing

► Show Spoiler

It can't be this easy...

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Heads up, there appears to have been a disaster with their paypal coding. If you bought with paypal then random people can see your password and start billing stuff to you.

[LemonDemonGirl]

Yeah Paypal ******* sucks, don't use it.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Arknights Endfield

The game is a mixed bag. First, with the positives:

As usual for an Asian RPG, the UI and menus are bloody fantastic. Characters are presented as the star of the show, and there are unique animations when transitioning back and forth between the different menus. It doesn't just play the same animation.

For the pull animation, calling reinforcements from the space stations is cool, but the actual character intros are unremarkable compared to WuWa's.

Well so far it feels a little more fantastical than the other futuristic sci fi themed 3D Chinese gacha RPG WuWa. Here there is a big gas giant in the background. Given the first Arknights game, I am guessing Endfield will probably stick with the theme rather than immediately ditching it like WuWa did.




Aesthetically, the game overall looks good but is lacking in some regards. The skybox is just a static photorealistic texture of the sky. There are no moving or deforming clouds like in Genshin or Trails, though you can see shadows of clouds moving across the ground and dimming the environment like in Valyria Chronicles/Genshin. The combat animations thus far do not feel as special or as impactful as in Granblue Fantasy Relink, though I only have access to a few characters so far.

It is nice being able to press LB + Y/B/A or press RB to command other party members to use an ability or an ultimate, and then the camera pans to what that character is doing, like in a traditional party JRPG but this time with action combat.

=======

Now with the things I liked out of the way: I spent 3 or 4 hours slogging through a very slow paced, unengaging intro arc. You wake up, your "assistant" Perlica praises you as "Kamine", stuff is blowing up, you wake up again in a hospital bed on the station in orbit, Perlica tells you how you have been asleep for 10 years and you are the legendary savior architect of this colonized world. Crisis happening on the surface, you drop down. Fight some rando monsters. "Kamine, are you hurt?" Lots of talking but not much substance or emotion. We fight random bandits. "KAMINE ARE YOU OKAY?" We finally get to the factorio base building stuff, but it is very on rails for half an hour and you don't have the resources or blueprints to really do what you want. More talking... "Kam-" goodness gracious woman I am not going to fall over dead, okay? I am a soldier and civilization is apparently being ravaged on the surface. Let me do my job. And then I decided I was done with Endfield for the night and put the game down.

► Screenshots

So far, combat is not very engaging combat to Granblue Fantasy Relink. In that game, each character had several different combos, and also 4 of 8 or 10 different abilities you could equip and use in combat. But Endfield so far seems to only have one ability per character, just like in Genshin. You have more buttons to push thanks to being able to hold LB + X/Y/A/B to command the other party members to use their ability, but it's still not that much depth. And the actual combat does not feel/look as good as Relink combats, like charging up Siegfried's or Vaseraga's heavy attacks. As far as I can tell, Endfield does not have charged up heavy attacks, which Genshin did have.

Music has been unmemorable.

I tried out the English dub for a minute (it was meh as usual), and then switched to Japanese voices.

So far it does not seem like you can climb up rock faces like you can in Genshin and WuWa. You also can't jump high either, so you have to take the long around navigating obstacles.

I might try more later, maybe at least beat the first region so I can participate in events and stockpile currency to get Lifeng and Pogranichnik down the road. The biweekly Samsung Galaxy app store discount coupons make the battle pass almost free so there is hardly any reason not to get it, though with the current situation it seems like I should hold off for a while and see how tight their security winds up being.

[Manny V]

stop giving money to ****** for their **** weebslop games

[rusty_shackleford]

@Val the Moofia Boss

have you tried Where Winds Meet?