The curse of events with daily farming stages struck again (I have dropped every gacha using that or a similar system I've ever tried and all gachas I still play have a more casual "play at your own pace whenever you want and you get everything" approach to events).
Yeah I don't think I like this either. I was not able to buy everything from the event shop because I didn't remember to use up those daily tokens which they gave out and limited to holding 6 in your inventory. The event that started today has the exact same system. It also means that you need to do the event as early as possible so that you can unlock the hard mode to even use those tokens to get stuff. In these games I personally prefer to do the story content first and then events when I feel like doing them. Still can, obviously, and miss out on some rewards, but I don't like this system.
Serious answer (tough the event stuff and other "older" mobile game design things factored into things as well):
Mix of a bunch of things. More gacha luck and/or someone I actually like on a banner in sight could have helped, but probably would have just postponed stuff. Ultimately I unfortunately just don't vibe with the gameplay enough, so I can't really justify "going through the motions" with all the weeklies, event stages and all that. There is auto, but if I use with alt-tabbing there's just not enough autside of combat to keep me engaged (i.e Star Rail has auto too, but that game has a world to explore, with quests and chests and secrets and tons of minigames).
I've also found myself asking "why do I still play this" for a while, which is usually a red flag and sign I should abandon ship immediately. I convinced myself to keep playing for a while longer despite that, but that really only prolonged the inevitable.
I do like the world and story (although the main story was just "fine" for the most part, the event story was excellent), but honestly that's not enough to keep me going daily. It's not impossible I jump back in every couple months to catch up though, or end up reading it with a Cutscene interpreter like the first game if something like that appears for this game as well, but too early to tell at the moment.
I actually like that the game has an auto battle system because a lot of the combat interludes feel like filler to me. Many instances of "Oh the ELIDs have arrived outside, let's go and deal with them before we continue this serious and important conversation". In the beginning I thought they deliberately made the game easy so as to not push away players who were still trying it out/learning the systems but now I kind of hope the main story remains easy throughout. I'm happy to take manual control for harder levels like boss fights or levels with complex goals but I do appreciate the auto battle system a lot.
But yeah, I think the hook for the game really is the story. You have to really like that to continue wanting to play the game. I think the setting is really good and the event story showed that they can write really compelling stories in it but, as I've mentioned earlier, I don't think the main campaign is going at the pace I'd prefer it to. For example, today's update added one new chapter to the main story which will be about 30 minutes of story and 45 minutes of total content. I don't have a problem with them only adding one chapter since the updates will come every 20 days but I do want stuff to actually happen in the story they deliver. Will have to see how it unfolds.
Beyond the story the daily stuff only exists to get more currency to pull more characters and I'm really glad that it takes less than a minute to complete everything.
I also play a lot of these games already, so it's getting harder to justify committing to a new one, especially when I only really like some parts. I still play and like all the big 3 Hoyo games and Infinity Nikki released 2 days after this one (which I honestly vastly enjoy more and want to keep playing), so this one just didn't make the cut in the end.
Yeah I can understand this feeling. Having to log in every day for a live service can feel like a chore even if the actual gameplay is easy and it doesn't take long to do the dailies. Having to do it for multiple games really takes a toll on you. I stopped playing all 3 mihoyo games at the start of November after continuously logging in for a year and a half. It's not like I dislike the games or anything... it's just that I needed to take a break. I was starting to fall behind on all the story content and all the events and I was constantly worried that I was running out of time to do stuff. Not a good feeling to have. I do have some intention of going back to them eventually but it starts to feel very difficult the further behind you are so I'll have to see if I'm able to pick up the threads.
But now that the launch is over the real grind starts, and I mean the cores and limit break cylinder's grind. It's going to take a while to get a newly obtained doll to perform on par as the already build team
Would you mind explaining this and some things to me... What exactly is going to make the leveling up grind hard? Is it those purple things that you use to unlock those neural helix keys which seem to be very limited? Do weapon attachments and calibration matter a lot if, like me, you're only really there for the story content and don't care that much for the harder, endgame stuff like the challenge modes in events and the harder weekly things?
I'm still kind of confused by some stuff happening. I got Makiatto today after 67 pulls and got her 4-star sniper rifle as well. Leveled her and the weapon up and I unlocked all of the possible neural helix upgrades but her combat effectiveness stat is somehow lower than everyone else in my current team (even though all the upgrades match). She's a good 1000 points behind Suomi but I did get an extra copy of her so that makes sense. Is there any trick to getting combat effectiveness up and again, does it matter for the story stuff?
Also they started the new platoon system. Are you guys going to create one or is there any platoon we should all join? I'm not 100% sure if it's particularly relevant to do it at all.
Cacher this is your dept.
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