|OT| This is GachaCouncil - Playing with money
- Thread starter Li Kao
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That's earlier than expected (was thinking May) but I ain't complaining!
Also I read that April 26th is March 7th in the Chinese Lunar Calendar so I see what they did there, lol.
(March 7th is the name of the character on the appstore icon).
Also I read that April 26th is March 7th in the Chinese Lunar Calendar so I see what they did there, lol.
(March 7th is the name of the character on the appstore icon).
Counterside had a big update yesterday that reworked a lot of stuff. It's also giving away a lot of free goodies.
The best change to me is that they added a flowchart showing the timeline of each main, side and event chapter, which also lets you replay the previous limited time event stories (they even still have their event shops). No more story fomo bullshit!
This is big, because imo Counterside's story is really really good.
The best change to me is that they added a flowchart showing the timeline of each main, side and event chapter, which also lets you replay the previous limited time event stories (they even still have their event shops). No more story fomo bullshit!
This is big, because imo Counterside's story is really really good.
Another gacha opening for preregistration and a trailer (PC/Mobile).
Looks interesting. I can't think of any TPS gachas. Going by the trailer having an english dub I guess it's safe to assume they're going for a global launch as well.
Looks interesting. I can't think of any TPS gachas. Going by the trailer having an english dub I guess it's safe to assume they're going for a global launch as well.
Yeah, Star Rail is presumably gonna be April 26th (They have a livestream on March 24th, so I guess that's when the official release announcement is most likely gonna happen).
From the looks of it, it's basically gonna be turn-based Genshin with a bit more QoL and no exploration in terms of systems, so dunno if you're gonna like it since you didn't gel with Genshin iirc.
Other than that there's Higan coming out of soft-launch soon, but I myself kinda lost interest since Star Rail is so soon after and I've heard it's quite aggressively monetized and has a bad translation.
New Wuthering Waves beta gameplay
Looks a lot better than the Technical Test, so hopefully they continue to improve it at that rate.
The font is terrible though.
Some thoughts:
I'd say the environment now looks better, but it still feels a bit like "Genshin with a muted color palette". I think the environment textures look worse. They're probably not lower-quality then Genshin's, but I guess Genshin hides it better?
There are more options for traversal (wall-running, grappling hook).
A lot of the open world puzzles so far look like 1:1 Genshin copies.
I'm not really feeling the character designs.
Combat looks very fluid and given their history with PGR I expect it to end up feeling very good and be more action-y. I'm not sure how much actual depth there is gonna be though in terms of teambuilding and character interplay, so that has me still a bit apprehensive. It's not really apparent from that video so we'll have to wait for somethign showing that off (or maybe I missed a video).
The monster catching and getting an ability as an equippable skill is still the thing I'm most excited about.
Cautiously optimistic.
Looks a lot better than the Technical Test, so hopefully they continue to improve it at that rate.
The font is terrible though.
Some thoughts:
I'd say the environment now looks better, but it still feels a bit like "Genshin with a muted color palette". I think the environment textures look worse. They're probably not lower-quality then Genshin's, but I guess Genshin hides it better?
There are more options for traversal (wall-running, grappling hook).
A lot of the open world puzzles so far look like 1:1 Genshin copies.
I'm not really feeling the character designs.
Combat looks very fluid and given their history with PGR I expect it to end up feeling very good and be more action-y. I'm not sure how much actual depth there is gonna be though in terms of teambuilding and character interplay, so that has me still a bit apprehensive. It's not really apparent from that video so we'll have to wait for somethign showing that off (or maybe I missed a video).
The monster catching and getting an ability as an equippable skill is still the thing I'm most excited about.
Cautiously optimistic.
It sure looks like Genshin with those little challenges. But hey, use what works, that's how you play it safe.
The movement looks great, combat seems a bit mindless right now, but it's low level, and I assume it's with very strong characters (since the miniboss died after doing one attack, anyway), PGR was not known for being kind, but I hope they find a middle ground between the two.
Visually I really like the atmosphere, but indeed the more realistic look and the muted color palette make imperfections more visible, the rock textures in particular are a bit sad with that style.
On the other hand, it helps with legibility, since a lot of the color is either your skills or the opponent's, it has a lot less visual noise then a lot of action games like this.
Dunno about the monster echo mechanic, I could see it become annoying real fast if you have to swap often.
The movement looks great, combat seems a bit mindless right now, but it's low level, and I assume it's with very strong characters (since the miniboss died after doing one attack, anyway), PGR was not known for being kind, but I hope they find a middle ground between the two.
Visually I really like the atmosphere, but indeed the more realistic look and the muted color palette make imperfections more visible, the rock textures in particular are a bit sad with that style.
On the other hand, it helps with legibility, since a lot of the color is either your skills or the opponent's, it has a lot less visual noise then a lot of action games like this.
Dunno about the monster echo mechanic, I could see it become annoying real fast if you have to swap often.
So FF7 Ever Crisis is in closed beta right now.
And erm, I really like it? The ATB gameplay with multiple bars instead of one or two (which made FF7R really dull) letting you make more complex turns than just one skill at a time, the enemy ATB for big attacks that you can prepare for or manipulate like in Crisis Core... it's strangely good? And it looks really good in combat with the Remake engine.
Sure, it doesn't have the exploration of FF7 or even Crisis Core, but you can still move around and open chests in mostly 2D prerendered backgrounds (CC in PS1 mode is hilarious), and there's usually random battles between the little cut scenes and bosses, it feels like a condensed version of Crisis Core gameplay that removed all the fluff and the really grindy aspects (though of course I expect it to change a lot later on), and it doesn't feel like you're constantly slowed down.
If they can keep up the rhythm and not ground up its players, I could see it as a great mobile option, and also the only way to save a lot of dead FF7 content like First Soldier
And erm, I really like it? The ATB gameplay with multiple bars instead of one or two (which made FF7R really dull) letting you make more complex turns than just one skill at a time, the enemy ATB for big attacks that you can prepare for or manipulate like in Crisis Core... it's strangely good? And it looks really good in combat with the Remake engine.
Sure, it doesn't have the exploration of FF7 or even Crisis Core, but you can still move around and open chests in mostly 2D prerendered backgrounds (CC in PS1 mode is hilarious), and there's usually random battles between the little cut scenes and bosses, it feels like a condensed version of Crisis Core gameplay that removed all the fluff and the really grindy aspects (though of course I expect it to change a lot later on), and it doesn't feel like you're constantly slowed down.
If they can keep up the rhythm and not ground up its players, I could see it as a great mobile option, and also the only way to save a lot of dead FF7 content like First Soldier
Snowbreak: Containment Zone releases Thursday on Mobile/PC: Snowbreak: Containment Zone Official Website - A 3D, Science-Fiction RPG-Shooter
Preload already up.
TPS gacha has me intrigued and boss encounters also seem to get bullet-hellish. Can't really recall anything like that off the top of my head.
It's also a worldwide simultaneous launch with Japanese, Chinese, English voice over and many more languages for text, so that also gives off a good first impression imo. (Unless the translations and dub turn out to be crap).
OST seems great (It's Vanguard Sound)
Preload already up.
TPS gacha has me intrigued and boss encounters also seem to get bullet-hellish. Can't really recall anything like that off the top of my head.
It's also a worldwide simultaneous launch with Japanese, Chinese, English voice over and many more languages for text, so that also gives off a good first impression imo. (Unless the translations and dub turn out to be crap).
OST seems great (It's Vanguard Sound)
So I played it for an hour, it seems to be... pretty competent? The gameplay is very The Division and the like in short burst missions of a few minutes, the hit feedback is quite alright, story is... mobile post apo, I guess.
Visually it's... pretty bland, and on mobile I find it kinda hard to play. On PC it's fine though, but then it competes with some heavy hitters like Warframe...
The basic ennemies are slightly simple, though they do try to add various weakpoints even early on, the small boss fights early though, they are definitely pretty cool with dismantling enemy parts to hit weak points, then open up windows of opportunity for further damage, I could see that being pretty good later on, there is apparently a fairly important coop element against big bosses later.
As far as the gacha is concerned, it's Hoyoverse games.
Pretty much 1 for 1, in the banners, the battle pass, everything else.
But in the form of a TPS, with a dorm system like sooo many others games like this - though in this one the dorm is a bit like a hub, it's fully 3D and you can move around, see and interact with your units inside, it's not little chibi versions doing their thing.
I think it suffers quite a bit from competition on PC, while it's way more unique on mobile... but since it doesn't play super well on it... dunno, guess I'll play a bit.
Honestly I'm having quite a bit of fun with Snowbreak. No idea about mobile, but on PC it looks and runs good and also feels good to play. I also dig the character designs.
If I have one complaint it's that the co-op mode is a massive chore. Think about co-op Simulated Universe where every player brings 1 character, except the roguelike elements are even less significant and instead of having to run it twice a week to sweep the rewards you have to run it over 10 times.
Thankfully they've already announced an update to lessen that (alongside making other weeklies less demanding too and adding sweep to the farming stages).
They are pretty fast to update things, though it does make it feel a bit like it's still beta, lol. Game's obviously very budget despite its looks - probably best seen by how there's barely any voice acting.
If I have one complaint it's that the co-op mode is a massive chore. Think about co-op Simulated Universe where every player brings 1 character, except the roguelike elements are even less significant and instead of having to run it twice a week to sweep the rewards you have to run it over 10 times.
Thankfully they've already announced an update to lessen that (alongside making other weeklies less demanding too and adding sweep to the farming stages).
They are pretty fast to update things, though it does make it feel a bit like it's still beta, lol. Game's obviously very budget despite its looks - probably best seen by how there's barely any voice acting.
I did warm up to it after a while, especially thanks to the bosses and the harder modes you unlock later on where the honestly really good gunplay can shine.Honestly I'm having quite a bit of fun with Snowbreak. No idea about mobile, but on PC it looks and runs good and also feels good to play. I also dig the character designs.
If I have one complaint it's that the co-op mode is a massive chore. Think about co-op Simulated Universe where every player brings 1 character, except the roguelike elements are even less significant and instead of having to run it twice a week to sweep the rewards you have to run it over 10 times.
Thankfully they've already announced an update to lessen that (alongside making other weeklies less demanding too and adding sweep to the farming stages).
They are pretty fast to update things, though it does make it feel a bit like it's still beta, lol. Game's obviously very budget despite its looks - probably best seen by how there's barely any voice acting.
I quite like it, so that's nice? It is a bit on the grindy side like you said, the gigalink is fun coop, but good grief doing it 15 times a week... but indeed, they are lighting fast to fix things and improve things that people don't like, so I could see the game grow over time like Blue Archive if they keep at it.
Also the gacha is a lot less oppressive than I expected, it's Hoyoverse rates, but with weeklies to get around 1100+ "primogems" on top of the dailies, you can farm dupes for all characters including 5* to full power even if it takes a looong time, and there's a bunch of free pulls spread all over the repeatable activities.
The first two 5* being available for "free" so early is good too.
On the other hand, getting weapons is a huge PITA, you do get some free ones and some weapon pulls, but I don't think there's any crafting, that's going to make some characters really annoying with how their reliance on their damage type.
Only real blemish for me, beside being a bit cheap and farming ressources not being engaging and very stamina intensive later on.
Plus I got all the cool looking characters I wanted, I love Nita, Mauxir and Fritia.
Yeah, I'm using 3* weapons on 5* Yao and Lyfe. On the bright side, I'm... doing just fine with them? I did compare the Frost 3* SMG with the Electric 4* SMG you get by default and the 3* is actually competitive, if not better (lesser base ATK, but has a Frost DMG% passive which makes the bullet damage almost equal (just slightly below the 4* weapon) while making her Skill and Ultimate quite a bit stronger). 4* Frost would probably be just outright better though, but alas.
The shop has a new 4* weapon every day/refresh, but 300k is a pretty big ask for now.
Curious how their events are gonna be structured and what the rewards will be, but for now I'm happy for a while, especially once they reduce the grind.
We'll see what happens later on when Fontaine drops, lol
The shop has a new 4* weapon every day/refresh, but 300k is a pretty big ask for now.
Curious how their events are gonna be structured and what the rewards will be, but for now I'm happy for a while, especially once they reduce the grind.
We'll see what happens later on when Fontaine drops, lol
Yes, the 3* weapons are weirdly competitive early, the +elemental damage makes them almost always better than an unfitting 4*... but you can't push them to the same level as the 4* it seems.
The shop weapons are crazy expensive I feel like, way more than other games using the same model, it's not like you farm a lot of money...
I wonder how the game loop will work in general, and what they'll do with the dorm system, I like the little Tetris puzzles and sharing unneeded pieces with your friend list, that's actually pretty cute.
The shop weapons are crazy expensive I feel like, way more than other games using the same model, it's not like you farm a lot of money...
I wonder how the game loop will work in general, and what they'll do with the dorm system, I like the little Tetris puzzles and sharing unneeded pieces with your friend list, that's actually pretty cute.
I mean, that's a way to test all the characters I was missing I guess.I assume I'm just strangely lucky, and that getting all the 4* and not a single dupe is not weighted in your favor...
Also, you can get extra tickets for levelling chars like in Genshin, it's the little icon in the bottom right of the Neurotics page. Talk about well hidden.
Congrats! I'm still missing a few, but I already have more than enough characters to play around with for a while.
I do like how different a lot of these kits feel.
Chenxing summons turrets and stuff, Mauxir rips the "soul" out of an enemy which creates a new shooting target that bypasses armor, 5* Yao is headshot sniper who can enhance these shots in various ways, Cherno summons something on her Ult, 5* Lyfe is a skill monster, 4* Lyfe has a permanent drone accompanying you that auto-attacks, etc etc.
I tried their version of the Abyss yesterday, and if I'm understanding it correctly, I vastly prefer it over how Genshin/Star Rail handle it.
So, after you do 4 stages of the permanent Abyss, you unlock the one that resets. When you enter it, you first have to pick the difficulty which is given in level ranges and can't be changed for the cycle.
Difficulty doesn't change the amount of premium currency you get, so even starting out with unbuilt teams and everything you can go in on "Easy" and feel good completing a lot of it if not all and get all the premium currency. Instead it looks like difficulty only changes how much currency you get for the associated shop, but Easy still seems to give enough to let you buy a bunch and the things in there don't seem hugely gamechanging either (but maybe I'm wrong).
First impression is very positive in any case.
I do like how different a lot of these kits feel.
Chenxing summons turrets and stuff, Mauxir rips the "soul" out of an enemy which creates a new shooting target that bypasses armor, 5* Yao is headshot sniper who can enhance these shots in various ways, Cherno summons something on her Ult, 5* Lyfe is a skill monster, 4* Lyfe has a permanent drone accompanying you that auto-attacks, etc etc.
I tried their version of the Abyss yesterday, and if I'm understanding it correctly, I vastly prefer it over how Genshin/Star Rail handle it.
So, after you do 4 stages of the permanent Abyss, you unlock the one that resets. When you enter it, you first have to pick the difficulty which is given in level ranges and can't be changed for the cycle.
Difficulty doesn't change the amount of premium currency you get, so even starting out with unbuilt teams and everything you can go in on "Easy" and feel good completing a lot of it if not all and get all the premium currency. Instead it looks like difficulty only changes how much currency you get for the associated shop, but Easy still seems to give enough to let you buy a bunch and the things in there don't seem hugely gamechanging either (but maybe I'm wrong).
First impression is very positive in any case.
I do like what they've done with the classes, some are super unique and interesting. Some less so, Yao Winter Solstice might be strong, she's also pretty damn basic and boring before her first manifestation... and even then, eh. The Mariam units sound a lot more interesting.
I kinda like they they have a bunch of endgame activities but that they also ask less of you than usual, and that you don't compete with others, thanks Genshin for that change in recent gachas!
The Underground Purge is very Abyss-like, but I think it works a lot better here since they are not an arena but actual levels with more theming than usual, like having traps all over that hit ennemies, or having a shooting range for a sniper duel.
Plus you "only" need 60 out of 72 stars for full Digicash rewards in the weekly. In the shop, the most useful is definitely the 5* logistics, but you can get some with the normal grind.
More interesting, there is "Revision applications" there, and it lets you reroll the substats on logistics, no idea if only one or all three, though.
Neural Simulation is much more similar to other gachas, it's pretty much exactly like PGR, a simple boss rush with buffs and debuffs. Definitely not too hard to reach all the weekly objectives after a while here either, and it "only" contains Manifestation mats, and at the rate of 1x per 5* per week, it's probably not super duper needed. Good for 4* though, since the normal rate to get theirs is slow as hell with the 5* competition.
Tactic evaluation I'm not too sure why they put it in the same mode, since it doesn't reset as far as I know? Plus it's a real slog that one.
I kinda like they they have a bunch of endgame activities but that they also ask less of you than usual, and that you don't compete with others, thanks Genshin for that change in recent gachas!
The Underground Purge is very Abyss-like, but I think it works a lot better here since they are not an arena but actual levels with more theming than usual, like having traps all over that hit ennemies, or having a shooting range for a sniper duel.
Plus you "only" need 60 out of 72 stars for full Digicash rewards in the weekly. In the shop, the most useful is definitely the 5* logistics, but you can get some with the normal grind.
More interesting, there is "Revision applications" there, and it lets you reroll the substats on logistics, no idea if only one or all three, though.
Neural Simulation is much more similar to other gachas, it's pretty much exactly like PGR, a simple boss rush with buffs and debuffs. Definitely not too hard to reach all the weekly objectives after a while here either, and it "only" contains Manifestation mats, and at the rate of 1x per 5* per week, it's probably not super duper needed. Good for 4* though, since the normal rate to get theirs is slow as hell with the 5* competition.
Tactic evaluation I'm not too sure why they put it in the same mode, since it doesn't reset as far as I know? Plus it's a real slog that one.
So they updated Snowbreak, and they added a new event where you chain three bosses in coop together... and it's the best part of the game, served in small chunks, and it's actually the most fun I've had in a mobile game in a long time
Who knew that doubling down on the good stuff would make the game fun? Crazy I know. I'm pretty sad that we never really get things like this in other gachas, it's either crazy competition or really solo based.
But they also updated the game to be less of a grind in general, and they buffed a lot of characters, less than a week after release? It's almost as if the devs are working on their game!
It's pretty refreshing to not have to wait for months for other characters to maybe change the meta.
Who knew that doubling down on the good stuff would make the game fun? Crazy I know. I'm pretty sad that we never really get things like this in other gachas, it's either crazy competition or really solo based.
But they also updated the game to be less of a grind in general, and they buffed a lot of characters, less than a week after release? It's almost as if the devs are working on their game!
It's pretty refreshing to not have to wait for months for other characters to maybe change the meta.
Felt a bit down on Snowbreak the last few days, but finally sat down and did chapter 8 yesterday and damn, the boss fight was fantastic. Made me remember how enjoyable the game can be, lol.
It looks like Monday will have the first big update/event?
CN Trailer has a lot more info. New enemies, new boss, 5 star Chengxing, new 4 star character, new outfits, Chenxing and Mauxir (or was the new 4 star?) get rooms in the base, a mode/minigame where play the MC and solve puzzles?
Looks really good actually. Curious how the rewards are gonna be.
It looks like Monday will have the first big update/event?
CN Trailer has a lot more info. New enemies, new boss, 5 star Chengxing, new 4 star character, new outfits, Chenxing and Mauxir (or was the new 4 star?) get rooms in the base, a mode/minigame where play the MC and solve puzzles?
Looks really good actually. Curious how the rewards are gonna be.
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Seems like a meaty patch, I wonder if it's chapter 11 though? I don't think many people will have the rank to reach that in the next 5 days... glad to see different environments though.
There are some supposed leaks for the kits of the two new characters, and... we'll see how it goes.
That lantern festival skin for Lyfe Wild Hunt is crazy good, and it comes with new effects too, probably a paid skin.
Also I think that one of the images on the Chinese website is the event rewards (since it does not have the 5* Chenxing, or the weapon, or the Lyfe skin), as it shows the usual Digicash, mats, a logisitics set, but more importantly it has a copy of the new character (Siris it seems) on it with manifestation shards and the 4* Chenxing skin, so maybe all of that is included?
And a 10 tickets login in reward is shown, that one doesn't leave us wondering.
If so, that's actually a very, very generous model, now to see how much Digicash we actually get from it (though like I said at launch, we always get way more than Hoyoverse games with the weeklies).
There are some supposed leaks for the kits of the two new characters, and... we'll see how it goes.
That lantern festival skin for Lyfe Wild Hunt is crazy good, and it comes with new effects too, probably a paid skin.
Also I think that one of the images on the Chinese website is the event rewards (since it does not have the 5* Chenxing, or the weapon, or the Lyfe skin), as it shows the usual Digicash, mats, a logisitics set, but more importantly it has a copy of the new character (Siris it seems) on it with manifestation shards and the 4* Chenxing skin, so maybe all of that is included?
And a 10 tickets login in reward is shown, that one doesn't leave us wondering.
If so, that's actually a very, very generous model, now to see how much Digicash we actually get from it (though like I said at launch, we always get way more than Hoyoverse games with the weeklies).
I saw an image with the rewards on reddit and it does seem like both the 4* outfit for Chenxing and the new character will be event rewards. Exciting.
Yeah, I also wonder where they are going to include that. I'm only 55 right now, so probably not even reaching 60 for the chapter 9 requirement before it starts, so a chapter 11 would be weird imo. We'll see.
Thinking more about what I'm gonna farm and I think I'll just go all in on credits for a while, to buy some 4 star weapons from the shop. 3* weapons are pretty potent, by the start requiring the orange weapon material for the 60/70 ascension and given that one seems fairly limited as it can't be farmed and is just from events and Abyss shop, I'm not willing to spend that on 3* weapons.
Also, since it looks like the standard weapon banner ticket income in the game is close to 0 and even then there are 35 such weapons in it... I don't expect to ever get 4* weapons from the gacha, so farming credits and buying them it will be.
That does look a weapon selector box from the event rewards though, so I'll probably wait until Monday before committing
Yeah, I also wonder where they are going to include that. I'm only 55 right now, so probably not even reaching 60 for the chapter 9 requirement before it starts, so a chapter 11 would be weird imo. We'll see.
Thinking more about what I'm gonna farm and I think I'll just go all in on credits for a while, to buy some 4 star weapons from the shop. 3* weapons are pretty potent, by the start requiring the orange weapon material for the 60/70 ascension and given that one seems fairly limited as it can't be farmed and is just from events and Abyss shop, I'm not willing to spend that on 3* weapons.
Also, since it looks like the standard weapon banner ticket income in the game is close to 0 and even then there are 35 such weapons in it... I don't expect to ever get 4* weapons from the gacha, so farming credits and buying them it will be.
That does look a weapon selector box from the event rewards though, so I'll probably wait until Monday before committing
I also focused a lot on money, I bought Strawberry Shortcake for my Fritia, and those support weapons... they are definitely worth the 300k. Waiting for Aye Aye Captain for Kaguya now, maybe the pistol for Enya if I build her later too.
Less convinced about some of those DPS ones, some of the recommendation in the character menu I also have my doubts about. There's a good amount of luck involved with the meager weapon tickets... I got some good ones like the dedicated Duckling (... those names are quite something) for Chenxing, but I don't have pistols or shotguns worth a damn, so you definitely need to buy some if you're not a whale.
We'll see how it goes with the patch, the weapon box doesn't look like the two we have, so maybe it has a different selection? A new weapon every event would help too.
Less convinced about some of those DPS ones, some of the recommendation in the character menu I also have my doubts about. There's a good amount of luck involved with the meager weapon tickets... I got some good ones like the dedicated Duckling (... those names are quite something) for Chenxing, but I don't have pistols or shotguns worth a damn, so you definitely need to buy some if you're not a whale.
We'll see how it goes with the patch, the weapon box doesn't look like the two we have, so maybe it has a different selection? A new weapon every event would help too.
First thoughts on the Snowbreak event:
Overall I quite like what's there, but not sure it will be able to fill 6 whole weeks. (Maybe one of the locked modes for week 2 and 3 is meatier than expected though) I suppose we might get other small events like the Co-op Boss event? We'll see.
- It has more voice acting than the main story, lol. That's good, but also a bit sad...
- I've played a bunch of the story stages and so far I'm finding it pretty good. Some wonky english here and there though, unfortunately.
- Story stages seem to exclusively use Trial characters, so you don't need to worry about being undergeared or unprepared.
- I'd say both visually and musically the stages are better than the main story chapters I've played. Looks and sounds very good.
- Disappointed that the free outfit is for 5* Chenxing and not 4* Chenxing, which is a bummer cause I don't think I'll go for her after all so the outfit is gonna be useless
- Shop rewards seem pretty nice overall though I haven't done the math on how easily it will be clearable (it's not the Hoyoverse event shop system, but the typical gacha one with special currency farming stages that cost stamina).
- What I thought was a Weapon selector box turned out to be a weapon attachment instead. Still, it's something.
Overall I quite like what's there, but not sure it will be able to fill 6 whole weeks. (Maybe one of the locked modes for week 2 and 3 is meatier than expected though) I suppose we might get other small events like the Co-op Boss event? We'll see.
It's hilarious that there's voice acting in an event and not the main game... but I'll blame budget and suppose they'll add that later.
Story ain't bad, plus new environment, and the Profile sections tell us a bit about what's going on with the other factions. Also, it's pretty chonky, much longer than a chapter, and even the missions themselves are longer.
Haven't counted how many tokens you need to clear the shop, but I think there's nearly a thousand just from the one time bonuses and this week's activities... definitely not enough, but there's more activities coming, and you get 5 tokens daily just for login, and more weekly in the wave attack mode so I don't think it's a good idea to spend presence in the farmable stage, you don't get account XP there! Maybe an omission? Or it's just here to complete things if you really need to. The unlimited silverbucks are not even remotely stamina efficient compared to the normal stage anyway.
I like Siris, maybe I'll use her as shotgun user for a team.
Chenxing I dunno. She's pretty fun, but I'd like to see the numbers. Though she can also be played as a DPS support, so that counts for something...
Story ain't bad, plus new environment, and the Profile sections tell us a bit about what's going on with the other factions. Also, it's pretty chonky, much longer than a chapter, and even the missions themselves are longer.
Haven't counted how many tokens you need to clear the shop, but I think there's nearly a thousand just from the one time bonuses and this week's activities... definitely not enough, but there's more activities coming, and you get 5 tokens daily just for login, and more weekly in the wave attack mode so I don't think it's a good idea to spend presence in the farmable stage, you don't get account XP there! Maybe an omission? Or it's just here to complete things if you really need to. The unlimited silverbucks are not even remotely stamina efficient compared to the normal stage anyway.
I like Siris, maybe I'll use her as shotgun user for a team.
Chenxing I dunno. She's pretty fun, but I'd like to see the numbers. Though she can also be played as a DPS support, so that counts for something...
You need like 5k tokens to buy out the shop, though I suppose far less if you just want the non-farmable stuff. Though buying them from the shop seems overall more Presence-efficient than normal farming - but you'll have to make sure not to farm too much I guess.
Also the farming stage does give you account XP, it's just not showing (probably a visual bug).
Yeah the XP is just a small UI bug, that's reassuring.
I don't think emptying the store is too bad, but the unlimited stuff is super inefficient. Guess you gotta do that for the Chenxing logistics... that just adds to me being mixed about her, her damage being backloaded on her ult that can miss easily, ehh...
Guess it's saving time, not like I need to roll for Wild Hunt next banner either...
Definitely, farming to buy out the limited store is good, the unlimited store is a waste.
I don't think I'll go for her either, her Skill and Support Skill seem really good, but that's about it. Given her design doesn't do that much for me and how pulls are overall still quite scarce, it's skippedy skip time. I still have plenty of chars to work on but I do hope there's a character I like after the Wild Hunt banner.
Side note: their trials are worse then Genshin's, lol. Like, there's literally no way to even test her Support Skill. It's baffling.
Played with Siris in Snowbreak this week.
I really, really like her, I think there's a bit of a consensus about how good she is. Excellent support with her deployable shield (especially for snipers!), but also a very good shotgun DPS with a hefty amount of survivability.
So I went and rolled on the banner and... I didn't get Chenxing. But I got a ton of Siris dupes, the +50% rate doesn't mess around, I only got one other char in 40 rolls... that sure is different from Hoyoverse games.
Now she's Manifestation 3, so her shield scales with 50% of her max HP, that's crazy.
In other news Tower of Fantasy is now on PS5 and apparently quite buggy.
And FF7 Ever Crisis will be released September 7th... but no PC client...
I really, really like her, I think there's a bit of a consensus about how good she is. Excellent support with her deployable shield (especially for snipers!), but also a very good shotgun DPS with a hefty amount of survivability.
So I went and rolled on the banner and... I didn't get Chenxing. But I got a ton of Siris dupes, the +50% rate doesn't mess around, I only got one other char in 40 rolls... that sure is different from Hoyoverse games.
Now she's Manifestation 3, so her shield scales with 50% of her max HP, that's crazy.
In other news Tower of Fantasy is now on PS5 and apparently quite buggy.
And FF7 Ever Crisis will be released September 7th... but no PC client...
Looks like they are adding a 4* Electro Assault Rifle to the event shop. Quite happy with the rewards overall, though I still prefer the Hoyoverse approach to event shop where you get enough currency to buy out the shop just with the event minigames instead of having a farming stage. I know it's probably gonna be fine, but it feels like I have to postpone the actual character building I wanna do in favor of just grinding event currency. At least you can sweep though.
Also did Chapter 9 and it was quite alright. Some interesting questions being raised, so I'm curious where things are going. The moment-to-moment writing is nothing to write home about though.
In other news, here's a revenue post from a supposedly reputable person in the industry for all CN gachas (this includes console and PC revenue as well, though of course it's still estimations at the end of the day).
Hoyo is just absurdly massive.
Seeing Genshin doing 200 million in a month with abso-fucking-lutely nothing going on banner-wise is just wild.
I'm curious how the next months are gonna look like and especially what Star Rail's "average" is gonna end up be. It's fallen off quite hard, but that's not really surprising since launch and honeymoney period are more or less over. But August has Kafka, so that will be interesting. (Personally I think they bungled their launch by following 1.0 up with a "dead" filler patch and the big structural issues the Xianzhou narrative keeps having).
Also did Chapter 9 and it was quite alright. Some interesting questions being raised, so I'm curious where things are going. The moment-to-moment writing is nothing to write home about though.
In other news, here's a revenue post from a supposedly reputable person in the industry for all CN gachas (this includes console and PC revenue as well, though of course it's still estimations at the end of the day).
Hoyo is just absurdly massive.
Seeing Genshin doing 200 million in a month with abso-fucking-lutely nothing going on banner-wise is just wild.
I'm curious how the next months are gonna look like and especially what Star Rail's "average" is gonna end up be. It's fallen off quite hard, but that's not really surprising since launch and honeymoney period are more or less over. But August has Kafka, so that will be interesting. (Personally I think they bungled their launch by following 1.0 up with a "dead" filler patch and the big structural issues the Xianzhou narrative keeps having).
That revenue in China is crazy. Genshin making so much in a dead ass month...
Snowbreak didn't do too bad for 10 days. Plus they don't have a publisher to share with. I wonder how it'll go this month, with more reasons to spend money with an actually popular character and a Lyfe outfit.
That new weapon is pretty crazy, and obviously you can buy dupes for tokens. It's absolutely hideous though. Pink and green for Chenxing? Really?
Snowbreak didn't do too bad for 10 days. Plus they don't have a publisher to share with. I wonder how it'll go this month, with more reasons to spend money with an actually popular character and a Lyfe outfit.
That new weapon is pretty crazy, and obviously you can buy dupes for tokens. It's absolutely hideous though. Pink and green for Chenxing? Really?
It's word-wide revenue, just for Chinese games (since this is what that particular focuses on/has the sources to make decent estimates).
And yeah, agreed on Snowbreak. Good start and yes, the weapon is ugly
Will be picking it up though, since I don't have an Electric Assault Rifle and it's "free".
New Zenless trailer
That... wasn't much, lol.
Some new areas in the Hub-city, some sort of hangout stuff with playable characters, an arcade with a bunch of minigames and there's some sort of "Perfect Assist" system in combat (which I guess is some sort of timing based parry/block/dodge mechanic)?
No dates for anything. It still looks cool though.
That... wasn't much, lol.
Some new areas in the Hub-city, some sort of hangout stuff with playable characters, an arcade with a bunch of minigames and there's some sort of "Perfect Assist" system in combat (which I guess is some sort of timing based parry/block/dodge mechanic)?
No dates for anything. It still looks cool though.
I've been playing Octopath Champions of the Continent.
Pretty fair as these sorts of games go. Easy to amass quite a lot of currency and fet top tier units as long as you're strategic in your pulls and are saving for the meta units. Helps that global is ~1 year behind JP which means we know the most broken units coming up. Though they have shown willingness to buff bad units (slightly) and are definitely not going in order.
Happy to answer questions or talk about it more if folks are interested.
Pretty fair as these sorts of games go. Easy to amass quite a lot of currency and fet top tier units as long as you're strategic in your pulls and are saving for the meta units. Helps that global is ~1 year behind JP which means we know the most broken units coming up. Though they have shown willingness to buff bad units (slightly) and are definitely not going in order.
Happy to answer questions or talk about it more if folks are interested.
so Hoyoverse has shown a trailer for Honkai 3rd 2nd part...
That game hasn't looked too consistent in quite a while, but it's nice and pretty bump in visuals.
Yet another completely different team, characters and everything though. I don't really like how it's multiple games duct taped together.
Also, I still play Snowbreak, and it just reached 1.2
And for now the content is definitely pretty good, with an open world area coming very soon.
Gameplay is still fun, I like how the new char is more melee focused, but I greatly dislike the way they do their events in parts... time gating the release order is not uncommon, but they also end the various parts before the other ones, so by the end of the event you only have a single thing going on and all the others have been closed for weeks, that makes zero sense.
It's a good thing that the game is very casual friendly in how long it takes to play, a couple hours every week for everything "important" when you want, while the dailies are not even that, it's just clicking a few times in the UI to buy/upgrade, you don't need to "play" the game and it's done in less than a minute.
Much better than "short" dailies where you still have to wait for the game to autobattle its way through stuff.
That game hasn't looked too consistent in quite a while, but it's nice and pretty bump in visuals.
Yet another completely different team, characters and everything though. I don't really like how it's multiple games duct taped together.
Also, I still play Snowbreak, and it just reached 1.2
And for now the content is definitely pretty good, with an open world area coming very soon.
Gameplay is still fun, I like how the new char is more melee focused, but I greatly dislike the way they do their events in parts... time gating the release order is not uncommon, but they also end the various parts before the other ones, so by the end of the event you only have a single thing going on and all the others have been closed for weeks, that makes zero sense.
It's a good thing that the game is very casual friendly in how long it takes to play, a couple hours every week for everything "important" when you want, while the dailies are not even that, it's just clicking a few times in the UI to buy/upgrade, you don't need to "play" the game and it's done in less than a minute.
Much better than "short" dailies where you still have to wait for the game to autobattle its way through stuff.
Honkai 3rd Part 2 looks completely different for sure. That game is definitely a mess of tons of modes and systems duct-taped together at this point, but I can appreciate them doing a big cut and continuing with something different instead of extending the original story with the original characters forever and ever.
Will be curious how this will work for them as a "new starting point" in terms of player attraction and retention.
Dropped Snowbreak somewhere in the middle of the 1.1 event. I enjoyed the story, but I just cannot deal with their event format, sorry. Seriously, if you already copy stuff from Hoyo just go all the way and copy their event format too. Please... (Didn't help that I also really didn't like the "Labyrinth" part of the event, and other than that there was nothing on the horizon for weeks).
But I'm also not really liking the direction the character designs are going, so I'm not sure I'd bother even if they changed their events...
Will be curious how this will work for them as a "new starting point" in terms of player attraction and retention.
Dropped Snowbreak somewhere in the middle of the 1.1 event. I enjoyed the story, but I just cannot deal with their event format, sorry. Seriously, if you already copy stuff from Hoyo just go all the way and copy their event format too. Please... (Didn't help that I also really didn't like the "Labyrinth" part of the event, and other than that there was nothing on the horizon for weeks).
But I'm also not really liking the direction the character designs are going, so I'm not sure I'd bother even if they changed their events...
Yeah their event format makes no sense, they timegate it the wrong way around. It's too bad because the new content is miles better, even the current multiplayer mode being a protect the flag in a urban, vertical environment is sooo much better than simple rooms to clear.
As far as design goes... that's a gacha alright. It's an odd mix of some really dumb designs at times, and sexier optional outfits... that end up less revealing but also completely off, the dresses are so dissonant in that gameworld.
And it seems like the upcoming content... is a beach episode somehow, with Mauxir as main character. And she doesn't wear a bikini, so her summer outfit feels less horny than her existing mummy costume... so many strange decisions.
As far as design goes... that's a gacha alright. It's an odd mix of some really dumb designs at times, and sexier optional outfits... that end up less revealing but also completely off, the dresses are so dissonant in that gameworld.
And it seems like the upcoming content... is a beach episode somehow, with Mauxir as main character. And she doesn't wear a bikini, so her summer outfit feels less horny than her existing mummy costume... so many strange decisions.
Honkai Impact is interesting in that you can already play through the entire story without bothering at all with the gacha. And I don't mean that in a "you can just kinda get by with the free characters and whatever you pull" way, no you literally aren't even using gacha characters in the story outside of a few early chapters that are more or less tutorial - you use pre-defined trial characters all the way through.
Even so the UI and new player experience for "Part 1" are a god damn nightmare, so I'm curious how drastic those changes are gonna be. At the very least I expect "Part 2" to be a completely separate starting poin" with Part 1 being a separate, optional campaign.
I really like the art in Reverse 1999, and the turn based gameplay being more of a card based system with extra hand manipulation mechanics is really cool and a bit different. They have a weird Dorfromantik-like system also?
But on the other hand, that doesn't seem like a game I'd like on the long term, even with a good story... like any mobile game really, if the story is the focus point, why bother with all the daily busywork when there's a million other games doing without.
But on the other hand, that doesn't seem like a game I'd like on the long term, even with a good story... like any mobile game really, if the story is the focus point, why bother with all the daily busywork when there's a million other games doing without.