Talking about games monetization, Blue Protocol released last week in Japan, the gacha is so incredibly awful, even more so than usual gachas.
While the gachas for male costumes, female costumes and mounts are all separated, the chances of players getting the advertised items (costumes/mounts) are abysmal, 0.2% for each costume set (1.2% for any costume set), or 0.4% for each mount (1.2% for any mount).
Plus, other than the low rates, the gacha is also expensive, without counting limited time discounts, 11 pulls cost around 4000 yen or so?
And there's no pitty system other than being able to exchange gacha items for points and then use those points to trade for one of the gacha items, but seems like the exchange rates are so bad that a player would have to do multiple sets of 11 pulls anyway to be able to buy a costume set (though I don't know exactly what are the exchange rates).
While I haven't really followed Lost Ark, seems like Amazon did positive changes to the global version's monetization when compared to the original version? If so, I won't mind the Blue Protocol global delay if they make the monetization more tolerable, since the game does seem rather fun other than the greedy monetization.
Damn, that sounds kinda bad, but I'm curious about the crafting, didn't really follow - is it the usual cash shop item to avoid breaking your gear in Blue Protocol?
The cosmetic gacha sounds bad enough, but it's the rest that worries me.
And yes, Lost Ark is way better in its western version. Which doesn't mean much, because the original is horrendously P2W, and here it's... still extremely P2W actually, but I guess you have to spend less and it's not as RNG based I suppose.
Horrible, horrible monetization nonetheless. Unlike New World from the same publisher.
Is Genshin really that different from what you describe regarding Destiny? I never played the latter, but the incentive structure in Genshin was very much designed around "grind dungeon/mission/etc every day for months for the +1 item lvl", at least when you look at it from an abstract perspective.
That's ultimately why I stopped playing it (and refuse to start anything that even remotely smells of GaaS at this point). Even though the core gameplay was enjoyable and the exploration and main missions were fun, the game was too "good" at trying to make you feel like you are missing out on something if you don't follow the daily/weekly/monthly/seasonal content grind.
Genshin is pretty much "gear free" in that three years in, there has never been any sort of power progression in that aspect, it's still 5 artifacts and a weapon on each character, the first are still lvl20max (and that can be reached in about two days of play - though you probably don't want to invest that much effort so early on), the latter still lvl90 - and all of them can be freely switched around on other characters.
In the same way, characters still go to lvl90 like they did day one.
The game really doesn't rely on item level or endless progression of that kind (though it will be very much be a thing during the main "adventure" as account level is important to unlock new activities and later quest content, though what it asks is to... well, play the content and explore)... however, it definitely dips its toes in Diablo-like progression of getting the perfect items with the perfect sub stats, which can literally take years, or forever really. Getting your first characters to their maximum is clearly laid out but takes quite a bit of time then it goes real fast for the others, getting the perfect gear pieces for that 0.2% crit damage instead of 14def on your fire damage gear set? That's the real endgame nightmare.
The daily systems and time limited events (and the forgettable battle pass) are 100% the GaaS FOMO though.
Not that you ever need them to get "stronger" even if is a shortcut early on, but that you need them to get the shiny new characters, and admittedly, that's a big part of the appeal for most. On the other hand, it's a rare case of a gacha that is not wrecked by powercreep, it's not because a character is new that it's better (quite the opposite for a lot of them since early balance was pretty whack and they never nerfed anything).
Around August they will release the new country of Fontaine based on France and England, it won't come with any new maximum level or more powerful gear but instead it will be more open world to explore and fight in (which should be accessible right away for any new player, though they won't be able to do the story there until they've done the rest), and over the course of the next year will add at least as much content.
It's like having a new The Witcher 3 every year, and all the expansions after that before the next completely free of charge or any monetization of any sort.
And also it's a super casual gacha that never forces PvP or competition, not even leaderboards, so it's a lot less stressful in a way, I suppose? But it desperately needs a way to replay old story events.
