Gacha Games Community ✿| OMT |✿ Waifus, Husbandos, 50/50s and Jiggle Wiggle too ଘ( ๑‾̀◡‾́)੭"

Which gacha games are you playing?

  • Girls Frontline 2

  • Zenless Zone Zero

  • Wuthering Waves

  • Goddess of Victory: Nikke

  • Genshin Impact

  • Honkai: Star Rail

  • Honkai Impact 3rd

  • Blue Archive

  • Heaven Burns Red

  • Azur Lane

  • Limbus Company

  • Path to Nowhere

  • Brown Dust 2

  • Arknights

  • Punishing: Gray Raven

  • Reverse: 1999

  • Guardian Tales


Results are only viewable after voting.
Mayar Mayar You were right about Uglyea, my man! I'm currently playing through the new event, and she fucking wrecks everything. And yeah, although I don't have her BiS support Sunday like in this trial team, I'll be keeping an eye out for her when her banner reruns. Depending on what pulls I'll have saved up I might try to get her.
Stop writing all this nonsense here, I'm a stupid, clueless old man with senile dementia - don't ruin my image!
Grampa Simpson Grandpa GIF by MOODMAN
 
Stop writing all this nonsense here, I'm a stupid, clueless old man with senile dementia - don't ruin my image!
Grampa Simpson Grandpa GIF by MOODMAN
You were right and I was wrong. I'll admit that, although I'm still not a big fan of her design. :messenger_grinning_sweat: I'll have to keep an eye for Sunday too, cuz he's an OP buffer for a bunch of top tier DPS units.
 
You were right and I was wrong. I'll admit that, although I'm still not a big fan of her design. :messenger_grinning_sweat: I'll have to keep an eye for Sunday too, cuz he's an OP buffer for a bunch of top tier DPS units.
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P.S - There is one last trophy left in Infinite Nikki and the goal of collecting all platinums in all Gacha games on PS5 will be achieved.
Except for the TOF - I can't bring myself to play it :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
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Really enjoying the vibes of Penacony, so here's my Herta chilling with a black hole in the backdrop. Def my favorite location so far, although Jarilo-VI is a close second I'd say.

Also, I have so much more left to do here in Penacony that I don't know when I'll get to Amphoreus. It's probably going to take me a month to complete all the quests and activities I want to do here, as well as clear some of the other side quests and companion quests from previous locations. But tbh, I'm ok with that since I'm no rush to go through the game's content (can access all the events anyway through the early access thingy).

 
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I've been playing HSR on PC and mobile since version 3.3 dropped earlier this week, and today I wanted to chill and make some main story progression on the big telly, so I turned on my PS5 Pro and saw that I needed to do an 80GB update (basically redownload the whole game). Hoyo, the fuck is this!?

qvpWWPb.jpeg
 
I've been playing HSR on PC and mobile since version 3.3 dropped earlier this week, and today I wanted to chill and make some main story progression on the big telly, so I turned on my PS5 Pro and saw that I needed to do an 80GB update (basically redownload the whole game). Hoyo, the fuck is this!?

qvpWWPb.jpeg
First of all, I see Expedition 33 - Respect
They have never been able to make patches, and very often force players to download games again. Forgive me, but the fact that this game takes up 80GB, with such a low level of detail, PS2-era models and textures from there, raises huge questions. It's the size of two Warframes, actually (Those who have played it know how massive the game is). :messenger_grinning:
 
First of all, I see Expedition 33 - Respect
Thanks, man! 💜
They have never been able to make patches, and very often force players to download games again. Forgive me, but the fact that this game takes up 80GB, with such a low level of detail, PS2-era models and textures from there, raises huge questions. It's the size of two Warframes, actually (Those who have played it know how massive the game is). :messenger_grinning:
I just checked on my PC, and the install size there is 60GB, so I don't understand why it's 110GB on PS5. Surely the assets and their quality are the same between PC and PS5? They really need to do something about the install size on PS5 and how their patching works so you don't have to redownload basically the whole game with each major update.

That said, I personally think that the character models are more than fine for a technically mobile first game (they're higher quality than Genshin's, but def not as good as in ZZZ).
 
Thanks, man! 💜

I just checked on my PC, and the install size there is 60GB, so I don't understand why it's 110GB on PS5. Surely the assets and their quality are the same between PC and PS5? They really need to do something about the install size on PS5 and how their patching works so you don't have to redownload basically the whole game with each major update.
It shows me that it requires 114gb when i try to install it on PC so its probably size required for patching/unpacking and it possibly ends up smaller once its intalled.

Ive started playing it exclusively through cloud because of the updates.
 
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It shows me that it requires 114gb when i try to install it on PC so its probably size required for patching/unpacking and it possibly ends up smaller once its intalled.

Ive started playing it exclusively through cloud because of the updates.
Nah. It's 108.9GB after it finished updating on PS5. You need about 200GB of space on PS5 when updating HSR (110GB for the game and 80GB for the update), so I guess you might as well uninstall and reinstall if you're low on space.

ZZZ and Genshin also take up more space on PS5 than on PC, but not double the space like HSR does.

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Nah. It's 108.9GB after it finished updating on PS5. You need about 200GB of space on PS5 when updating HSR (110GB for the game and 80GB for the update), so I guess you might as well uninstall and reinstall if you're low on space.

ZZZ and Genshin also take up more space on PS5 than on PC, but not double the space like HSR does.
UL1xw11.jpeg
Interesting, i know the mobile versions lets you delete some unused files, but i dont think the PC one lets us do that, or perhaps its automatic to some degree.
Might be worth checking out if the PS5 version come with all the voice packs by default, not sure if you can delete them there like on PC, but worth trying.

Still, these games taking up more space than AC shadows is ridiculous, i hope they move away from Unity engine in the future.
 
T4keD0wN T4keD0wN Yeah, it's pretty wild that's bigger in size than AC Shadows. Unfortunately I can't delete any languages for HSR, although for some titles you can by using the manage content option on the game's icon on the dashboard.


Anyways, I decided to YOLO on The Herta's LC since she's my favorite character in HSR alongside Acheron. Lost the 75/25 to Bronya's LC (I must admit that it's quite a pretty PNG), and ultimately got it after a total of 134 pulls. Those were basically all my F2P funds, so I guess this means bye bye to Cipher. Going into save mode for my man Phainon for the remainder of this patch.

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One thing I think HSR does better than the other hoyo gachas is having all the past major events as permanent content. I was bummed out that I missed a shitton of great events in Genshin, but in HSR you can play them all at your own pace since they're permanent additions. I've finished about 4 of them already, and I just started the Ghost Event from Xianzhou Luofu (not my pic).

JWonp1O.png
 
Well isn't ZZZ has 4 (or 5?) of them permanent major ones? I think there only one missing and it's the Vault with the treasure you need to find at the end there with Nicole & Co.
 
Well isn't ZZZ has 4 (or 5?) of them permanent major ones? I think there only one missing and it's the Vault with the treasure you need to find at the end there with Nicole & Co.
Yeah, ZZZ has some permanent events as well, but I was mostly talking about Genshin, where if you missed any of the big events like I did, you're kind of screwed. In HSR, there are over 20 permanent events, and the Ghost Event I mentioned isn't even listed here:


When is the FSN supposed to come, 3.4?
Yep. The Fate collab comes in 3.4
 
Lmao, Phainon is straight up powercreep in every single way. Even powercreeping Acheron's technique that instantly kills an enemy with no battle.



I'm ALL in on Phainon.

Let him powercreep the shit out of everyone

btw. what's the shiftup drama? I don't play Nikke but I see a lot of sodium
 
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I'm ALL in on Phainon.

Let him powercreep the shit out of everyone
I don't think it's good for the state of the game, but I won't be the guy that poopoos people that like him. Looks like Hyselins is a full on powercreep support built for him that requires her LC + an Eidolon or something too. Basically the game will be Phainon game in 2 patches.

I'm planning on dropping the game wholesale after Amphorious main story is over, so I don't care one way or the other.
btw. what's the shiftup drama? I don't play Nikke but I see a lot of sodium
They recently opened CN server. Upon doing so, the game (of course) had to be censored, but they included a built-in decensored file (something Global has been asking for, for a while, when they do stupid minor inconsistent censorship probably driven by google play or something). In addition, they gave CN server a huge amount of QoL updates (mold pity to 100%, No cooldown/cost for Synchro device, Auto-tower, less than 1/10th the average loading times, character buffs for bad characters that GLB doesn't get, better shops with better stuff for sale, easier to level up and break the 160 wall, + more I'm forgetting)

They have a few disadvantages though; the story is heavily neutered due to CN guidelines, all of the dark skinned characters have been omitted, some random other characters also omitted (Crow because she's anti-government, etc).

Then the director puts out a dev note saying some stupid shit like "We think that even though the servers have differences, they will enrich each other" which pissed off everyone even more. Like "yea bro, I'm really enriched by having no pity on stuff like pilgrim molds that mostly give you R characters."
 
Good thing I dropped Nikke some time ago, but that whole situation with the CN release looks like a mess. Shift-Up should take responsibility and bring all those QoL features to Global, JP and KR.
 
Good thing I dropped Nikke some time ago, but that whole situation with the CN release looks like a mess. Shift-Up should take responsibility and bring all those QoL features to Global, JP and KR.
JP is the problem in this scenario. Other regions were hitting social media and demanding better, but JP (again) was saying "wow what a great game, can't wait to see more", bootlicking and ignoring any of the problems.

It's really sad to see what JP has become when gacha companies try to fuck everybody over. They're good and thoroughly buck broken.
 
I don't think it's good for the state of the game, but I won't be the guy that poopoos people that like him. Looks like Hyselins is a full on powercreep support built for him that requires her LC + an Eidolon or something too. Basically the game will be Phainon game in 2 patches.

I'm planning on dropping the game wholesale after Amphorious main story is over, so I don't care one way or the other.

They recently opened CN server. Upon doing so, the game (of course) had to be censored, but they included a built-in decensored file (something Global has been asking for, for a while, when they do stupid minor inconsistent censorship probably driven by google play or something). In addition, they gave CN server a huge amount of QoL updates (mold pity to 100%, No cooldown/cost for Synchro device, Auto-tower, less than 1/10th the average loading times, character buffs for bad characters that GLB doesn't get, better shops with better stuff for sale, easier to level up and break the 160 wall, + more I'm forgetting)

They have a few disadvantages though; the story is heavily neutered due to CN guidelines, all of the dark skinned characters have been omitted, some random other characters also omitted (Crow because she's anti-government, etc).

Then the director puts out a dev note saying some stupid shit like "We think that even though the servers have differences, they will enrich each other" which pissed off everyone even more. Like "yea bro, I'm really enriched by having no pity on stuff like pilgrim molds that mostly give you R characters."

Honestly at this point the powercreep has been so rampant they need to buff older character so they can even keep up, let alone compete. It's just a state of affairs and I doubt it'll change - they even gave up on releasing fucking 4 stars.

I'm getting Phainon (most likely E2S1), gonna have some fun with him and if they next planet is another PIECE OF SHIT SLOGATHON AND WORD DIARRHEA like Amphoreus, I'm dropping too, not forever but for a year or so - gotta make way for some upcoming gacha and it looks like H:SR is drawing the short straw.

@Nikke - damn that is disgusting. I don't like feeling like a second class citizen, so if any of the gachas I play would pull a shit maneuver like that I'd be immediately out since it clearly shows company has no respect for the time/money put into their product by a significant portion of people.
 
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Isn't like the leading cause of the buffs the fact that the reruns of older characters have been underperforming?

Otherwise, why buff them if they're happy with what they're making?

There is a reason why the recent anniversary has been so in your fucking face with making money - probably the most blatant attempt since Hoyo released Genshin.
 
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Isn't like the leading cause of the buffs the fact that the reruns of older characters have been underperforming?
Otherwise, why buff them if they're happy with what they're making?
Considering the past experience of their previous games. Even if they are buffed. They still won't be able to compete with the meta, but it creates a pleasant picture for the players "Look, we heard you", although ultimately it doesn't change the situation in the game. Reruns are not what you make money on, a very large percentage of players do not move beyond E0, and those who want to move on have already pulled everything out on the first banner. That's why reruns show significantly worse indicators than release banners. The main driver is new characters.
There is a reason why the recent anniversary has been so in your fucking face with making money - probably the most blatant attempt since Hoyo released Genshin.
first time GIF

First time playing miHoYo games, huh? Let's wait for 4.0, when everything will be the same again and all tcharacters that are now including Phainon will start to lose their relevance. They will also raise the percentage of HP and DEF of opponents by 20% in all game modes as usual, so that you will really feel that DPS is not enough (They love to do this in all their games, little by little in each patch, so that it's not so obvious). :messenger_grinning:
 
Isn't like the leading cause of the buffs the fact that the reruns of older characters have been underperforming?

Otherwise, why buff them if they're happy with what they're making?

There is a reason why the recent anniversary has been so in your fucking face with making money - probably the most blatant attempt since Hoyo released Genshin.
I think it's a combination of Genshin not drawing in as many new players + veteran players and casuals already have teams that they're happy with and can clear their preferred "tier" of content with. Outside of Zhongli, HoYo hasn't ever directly buffed any character in Genshin. They just release new weapons/artifacts/supporting characters that indirectly buff older ones. Not my favorite way of handling it tbh. Anniversary was a sneaky move putting both hotly anticipated character banners on at the same time, and holding half of the anniversary rewards until it ended. Even then, it's not as bad as HSR's "spending event" nonsense, designed only to push FOMO to the maximum and to make you feel bad if you didn't shell out $100 or more.

I think Genshin's holding on to a trump card in that the level 100 uncap is already in the data leaks, and when they eventually do pop that cork, they'll likely give everyone new Ascension Passives that address shortcomings of bad characters. But they probably won't do that as long as Genshin remains top 5 in revenue nearly every month, even after 5 years.

I really see HSR getting themselves into trouble. The community largely pushed back at constant vertical powercreep, which caused them to announce the individual character buffs (we'll see Kafka/Blade/Jingliu/SW next patch). It killed the desire for anybody to vertically invest in characters (Eidolons and LCs) because 4-5 patches later they'll not only be powercrept, but mechanics crept and irrelevant in the current meta. Look at everyone talking about Firefly teams last year being OP, now almost nobody uses her in the endgame modes because of mechanics and due to the fact she's blast/break instead of just massive damage AoE or their new beloved HP meta. I think their revenue last month was a smokescreen because of the nefarious spending stuff and double bonus reset in the shops. When you look at the pull data, Castorice (the darling of 3.X) was less than half of Firefly's actual pull count on all the trackers, not to mention Acheron who is still #1 by far.

I also don't like that HSR has virtually no skill expression at all. You either roll the meta characters for the meta teams or you cope for the patch. All of the "skill" is in endlessly farming RNG relics and then building your team. Once that's done, you can literally hit auto in all content since you play the game the same way, making the same decisions, over and over and over. That's why Auto mode is so good in HSR to begin with. But I'm getting a bit off topic here. Still, that and the endless pontificating and philosophical writing that I don't care about seems to be their new standard. I already did that for like 5 years with HI3, I am not doing it again with HSR.

The Nikke stuff has no excuse frankly. But as long as JP keeps financially supporting the game, it doesn't matter what the rest of us think.
 
I'm still new to HSR, even though I've put over 200 hours into it already, but they do pull a lot of FOMO bs... It's kind of the only gacha that has "forced" me to spend outside of BP and monthly sub. I'm also a sucker for cosmetics like profile pictures, animated profiles, etc., so that doesn't help either...

Still, I think it's my favorite gacha at the moment since I really enjoy the characters and their chemistry with each other, the locations, the story, the music (my fav from all hoyo games), and the gameplay too (the turn based combat is simple yet very satisfying). Other than the monetization, this gacha speaks to me the most, possibly even more than WuWa due to all those factors combined.

I know there are legitimate reasons to dislike its current trajectory due to all the things that have been mentioned about old units being left behind, shifting meta, HP inflation, etc., and some people also have issues with the writing as well, and that's perfectly fine.

I actually think I'm going to start an OT for the game soon since I feel like there are other people here on GAF who enjoy playing HSR as much as I do but don't have a place to discuss it, and this general thread in the communities section is not visible enough. Maybe it's also a bit unfair as I've been posting a lot about HSR here, but I literally don't have any other place on this forum where to post...
 
Considering the past experience of their previous games. Even if they are buffed. They still won't be able to compete with the meta, but it creates a pleasant picture for the players "Look, we heard you", although ultimately it doesn't change the situation in the game. Reruns are not what you make money on, a very large percentage of players do not move beyond E0, and those who want to move on have already pulled everything out on the first banner. That's why reruns show significantly worse indicators than release banners. The main driver is new characters.

first time GIF

First time playing miHoYo games, huh? Let's wait for 4.0, when everything will be the same again and all tcharacters that are now including Phainon will start to lose their relevance. They will also raise the percentage of HP and DEF of opponents by 20% in all game modes as usual, so that you will really feel that DPS is not enough (They love to do this in all their games, little by little in each patch, so that it's not so obvious). :messenger_grinning:
Obviously reruns don't contribute to the majority of the war chest, but it IS an important part of it.

I've been playing Genshin since day 1 and I've yet to see the level of complete fucking disregard for your player's wallet like with the recent H:SR anni - a game that's been running for a shorter period of time.

And no, I don't buy the "Look, we heard you" showboating as the reason for buffs, you don't commit this many resources and going as far as redoing some kits just to be like "tee hee we hear you dude" - they'd just do another round of QOLs that barely move the needle and pat themselves on the back if that were the case, plus I'm guessing Genshin oldies would be getting buffed as well.

I was also pretty particular with my words, I never said they would compete with current characters, just that they could barely keep up - if the currently planned buffs stay in place.

I think it's a combination of Genshin not drawing in as many new players + veteran players and casuals already have teams that they're happy with and can clear their preferred "tier" of content with. Outside of Zhongli, HoYo hasn't ever directly buffed any character in Genshin. They just release new weapons/artifacts/supporting characters that indirectly buff older ones. Not my favorite way of handling it tbh. Anniversary was a sneaky move putting both hotly anticipated character banners on at the same time, and holding half of the anniversary rewards until it ended. Even then, it's not as bad as HSR's "spending event" nonsense, designed only to push FOMO to the maximum and to make you feel bad if you didn't shell out $100 or more.

I think Genshin's holding on to a trump card in that the level 100 uncap is already in the data leaks, and when they eventually do pop that cork, they'll likely give everyone new Ascension Passives that address shortcomings of bad characters. But they probably won't do that as long as Genshin remains top 5 in revenue nearly every month, even after 5 years.

I really see HSR getting themselves into trouble. The community largely pushed back at constant vertical powercreep, which caused them to announce the individual character buffs (we'll see Kafka/Blade/Jingliu/SW next patch). It killed the desire for anybody to vertically invest in characters (Eidolons and LCs) because 4-5 patches later they'll not only be powercrept, but mechanics crept and irrelevant in the current meta. Look at everyone talking about Firefly teams last year being OP, now almost nobody uses her in the endgame modes because of mechanics and due to the fact she's blast/break instead of just massive damage AoE or their new beloved HP meta. I think their revenue last month was a smokescreen because of the nefarious spending stuff and double bonus reset in the shops. When you look at the pull data, Castorice (the darling of 3.X) was less than half of Firefly's actual pull count on all the trackers, not to mention Acheron who is still #1 by far.

I also don't like that HSR has virtually no skill expression at all. You either roll the meta characters for the meta teams or you cope for the patch. All of the "skill" is in endlessly farming RNG relics and then building your team. Once that's done, you can literally hit auto in all content since you play the game the same way, making the same decisions, over and over and over. That's why Auto mode is so good in HSR to begin with. But I'm getting a bit off topic here. Still, that and the endless pontificating and philosophical writing that I don't care about seems to be their new standard. I already did that for like 5 years with HI3, I am not doing it again with HSR.

The Nikke stuff has no excuse frankly. But as long as JP keeps financially supporting the game, it doesn't matter what the rest of us think.

Yuuuuuuup.

Bruh I fucking also hate that recent trend in H:SR of making a path mechanic and then tailoring entire fucking end-game around it. Shit started with break teams and it just been getting worse and worse (FUA teams -> Erudition teams -> Remembrance teams and so on).

I actually think I'm going to start an OT for the game soon since I feel like there are other people here on GAF who enjoy playing HSR as much as I do but don't have a place to discuss it, and this general thread in the communities section is not visible enough. Maybe it's also a bit unfair as I've been posting a lot about HSR here, but I literally don't have any other place on this forum where to post...

Nah imo it's good to shoot the shit here, gacha space on GAF doesn't seem to densely populated anyway and I have a feeling H:SR ain't big enough here for an OT - just a gut feeling tho, if you make the OT we shall see. :D
 
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I'm still new to HSR, even though I've put over 200 hours into it already, but they do pull a lot of FOMO bs... It's kind of the only gacha that has "forced" me to spend outside of BP and monthly sub. I'm also a sucker for cosmetics like profile pictures, animated profiles, etc., so that doesn't help either...
I think some of this is not as visible to you precisely because you are a new player. For those around since the start, this pattern is all too familiar and getting grating.

That's why I mentioned "Phainon game" in 2 patches, because EVERY mode will be Physical weakness, with fast attacking enemies (or enemies with follow-up attacks, etc) that is perfectly countered by Phainon, his kit, and his mechanics. Those people that don't pull Phainon will struggle with Yunli/Clara teams and some no-lifer on reddit will post a clear of the latest endgame modes and say "see you don't need Phainon". Thing is, 99% of the playerbase won't be dedicated or autistic enough to build Yunli and all the supports she will need to an acceptable level to do any of that, when you can just roll Phainon, slap a LC on him and hit Auto for similiar results.

You don't mind it yet because of new car smell, but you will, eventually.
 
I actually think I'm going to start an OT for the game soon since I feel like there are other people here on GAF who enjoy playing HSR as much as I do but don't have a place to discuss it, and this general thread in the communities section is not visible enough. Maybe it's also a bit unfair as I've been posting a lot about HSR here, but I literally don't have any other place on this forum where to post...
If you do this I will leave Neogaf. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
There are not many players here who play Gacha games and believe us it doesn't matter in which topic you ask or write about HSR. I definitely won't write to you - "that this is not a topic for this game, so don't dare write here." :messenger_tears_of_joy::messenger_heart:
At one time I also wanted to make a topic for Infinity Nikki, but then I realized that there was no particular point in it.
 
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Nah imo it's good to shoot the shit here, gacha space on GAF doesn't seem to densely populated anyway and I have a feeling H:SR ain't big enough here for an OT - just a gut feeling tho, if you make the OT we shall see. :D
Well, the WuWa OT that was made by Nankatsu Nankatsu was basically just him and Pejo, with the occasional visit from PonyStation4, talking about the game for about 3-4 months. Then I picked up the game in late Nov of last year, and with version 2.0, it was picked up by other GAFers, and the OT became very lively.

For HSR, I already know that a bunch of people who don't frequent this gacha thread or the other gacha OTs, like Doom85, Mr. Moose, and ShaiKhulud1989, might be interested in discussing the game in a dedicated OT.

I think some of this is not as visible to you precisely because you are a new player. For those around since the start, this pattern is all too familiar and getting grating.

That's why I mentioned "Phainon game" in 2 patches, because EVERY mode will be Physical weakness, with fast attacking enemies (or enemies with follow-up attacks, etc) that is perfectly countered by Phainon, his kit, and his mechanics. Those people that don't pull Phainon will struggle with Yunli/Clara teams and some no-lifer on reddit will post a clear of the latest endgame modes and say "see you don't need Phainon". Thing is, 99% of the playerbase won't be dedicated or autistic enough to build Yunli and all the supports she will need to an acceptable level to do any of that, when you can just roll Phainon, slap a LC on him and hit Auto for similiar results.

You don't mind it yet because of new car smell, but you will, eventually.
Like I said, I get the frustrations, and I did acknowledge this in the post you partially quoted.

I know there are legitimate reasons to dislike its current trajectory due to all the things that have been mentioned about old units being left behind, shifting meta, HP inflation, etc., and some people also have issues with the writing as well, and that's perfectly fine.

Look, I understand that I'm in the honeymoon phase right now, so I don't have the full picture of how the endgame has evolved from day one until now. However, what you say is not something that will really change my mind about how I feel about the game, since it's neither the first nor the last gacha that's taken this path with shifting metas to make the new premium unit(s) must-pulls. It's never been important to me that I'm not able to clear all endgame content. Heck, I don't even do it right now in WuWa with ToA and WiWa, even though I have plenty of meta units and their sig weapons.

The endgame is just one small part of the overall package in a gacha, which to me is overshadowed by characters, world building, art direction, story, writing, music, and ofc good gameplay.
If you do this I will leave Neogaf. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
There are not many players here who play Gacha games and believe us it doesn't matter in which topic you ask or write about HSR. I definitely won't write to you - "that this is not a topic for this game, so don't dare write here." :messenger_tears_of_joy::messenger_heart:
At one time I also wanted to make a topic for Infinity Nikki, but then I realized that there was no particular point in it.
I've actually seen a couple of Infinity Nikki players posting in random threads, so maybe there's interest in Nikki here on GAF as well. :P

But yeah, maybe you're right. I'll have to think some more about it before deciding whether or not to create an OT for HSR.
 
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Like I said, I get the frustrations, and I did acknowledge this in the post you partially quoted.
Sorry if I came off as gruff or whatever, that wasn't the case. I was just expanding on my previous post as far as my issues with Star Rail. There is some frustration on my part with the game, because I like a lot of the things it does, but the core monetization and several aspects of the story, characters, and powercreep really disappointed me, because I know it can be done better.
Look, I understand that I'm in the honeymoon phase right now, so I don't have the full picture of how the endgame has evolved from day one until now. However, what you say is not something that will really change my mind about how I feel about the game, since it's neither the first nor the last gacha that's taken this path with shifting metas to make the new premium unit(s) must-pulls. It's never been important to me that I'm not able to clear all endgame content. Heck, I don't even do it right now in WuWa with ToA and WiWa, even though I have plenty of meta units and their sig weapons.

The endgame is just one small part of the overall package in a gacha, which to me is overshadowed by characters, world building, art direction, story, writing, music, and ofc good gameplay.
I'll be the first to admit, I play too many gachas to be "endgame competitive" in some or even most of them. I just literally don't have the time or desire to waste playtime farming perfect gear or whatever, so I do one run in each game/mode with my best available and settle with what I get. It compounds for me because I like leveling/building nearly the whole roster for "Flexibility" when in reality I never use 75% of them anyways. It's a personality flaw. I'm actively going against the devs intended course of "now focus on these 4 characters for this patch, then toss them in the bin in a few months and work on these new ones". The end result is that I have a ton of half built characters that are useless everywhere lol. But I'm fine with that because as you said, endgame is just one small part of the whole package.

Occasionally I get rewarded like in the Imaginarium mode in Genshin, and even outside of that, I get a hit of dopamine when I make some funky ass anti-meta team work somewhere. That's just how I play these games, so don't take my opinion as fact or anything, just mentioning what I consider to be issues with the game.
 
Sorry if I came off as gruff or whatever, that wasn't the case. I was just expanding on my previous post as far as my issues with Star Rail. There is some frustration on my part with the game, because I like a lot of the things it does, but the core monetization and several aspects of the story, characters, and powercreep really disappointed me, because I know it can be done better.

I'll be the first to admit, I play too many gachas to be "endgame competitive" in some or even most of them. I just literally don't have the time or desire to waste playtime farming perfect gear or whatever, so I do one run in each game/mode with my best available and settle with what I get. It compounds for me because I like leveling/building nearly the whole roster for "Flexibility" when in reality I never use 75% of them anyways. It's a personality flaw. I'm actively going against the devs intended course of "now focus on these 4 characters for this patch, then toss them in the bin in a few months and work on these new ones". The end result is that I have a ton of half built characters that are useless everywhere lol. But I'm fine with that because as you said, endgame is just one small part of the whole package.

Occasionally I get rewarded like in the Imaginarium mode in Genshin, and even outside of that, I get a hit of dopamine when I make some funky ass anti-meta team work somewhere. That's just how I play these games, so don't take my opinion as fact or anything, just mentioning what I consider to be issues with the game.
It's all good, my man. I understand where you're coming from, as I've seen similar sentiments expressed by others playing the game. Maybe if they start to lose players like some of the other gachas do, they'll have to rethink their stance on how they monetize and balance the game. Personally, I think HSR serves as a strong template for what a live service JRPG can achieve, and I hope some of the major JP publishers like Square Enix and Bandai Namco are taking a hard look at this. More competition in the market could make the HSR team to take the complaints from players seriously. However, I doubt these JP publishers have the drive or even the know-how to establish proper dev pipelines needed to sustain such ambitious live service JRPGs over the long term.

Anyways, I also find myself playing quite a few gachas at the moment, although I recently decided to drop one of them (Heaven Burns Red) because it was becoming a tad too much. I want to avoid getting too caught up in the gacha cycle, as I've seen how it can consume time and sometimes a lot of money if you don't have enough self-control (see this recent post from the gacha gaming subreddit). I made it a point to stick to my monthly budget for games (I'm a bit of a nerd about it, and I track all my entertainment expenses in an excel file I keep on my google drive :messenger_grinning_sweat:).

 
I've been playing HSR since day one, and it is still probably my favourite gacha game out currently. My only issues really are with the writing/translation.
I've never really understood the complaints about powercreep or whatever in a non-competitive game. The story content is pretty easy, and you don't really need the newest characters to do end game stuff. I literally don't roll for dudes, regardless of how good they are, because I am only here for the waifus and I still do the end game stuff. Yeah maybe you can do it faster or with less thinking involved but does that really matter? This is only content you are doing once in a while. You'd probably spend more time and energy trying to build out every new character. And the stuff you do have to farm you can basically just throw any party you want together and click auto. I'm fairly certain you could clear all the end game content with only 4 star characters if you really wanted to.
I'm a casual player I guess, but it also feels like a game for casual players.
 
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NTE visual improvements comparison trailer:


Even after all these upgrades, the game literally has the same problem as ZZZ and WuWa - characters look flat and not affected by anything in the world like lighting, shadows (self, local, light sources), there's no proper AO and GI that affects characters too. It looks like characters are on top of the game's visuals and not part of them and the game's world.



I just don't get why devs keep ignoring characters and everything related to them even when the game has RTGI. Local shadows and RTGI alone can dramatically improve presentation and blend characters into the game's world.
 
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How to save a friend from gacha game addiction

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P.S - Almost no way, a person either has common sense inside, understanding that sometimes you just need to stop, and most importantly a complete understanding of how this system works and what problems it can create. If a person cannot control himself, this gives rise to a lot of problems, and in 95% of cases, as with gambling, here without outside intervention it is no longer possible to stop it (China is doing everything it can to limit games as much as possible, regularly issuing laws that tighten the conditions, and even this does not stop people).
 
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P.S - Almost no way, a person either has common sense inside, understanding that sometimes you just need to stop, and most importantly a complete understanding of how this system works and what problems it can create. If a person cannot control himself, this gives rise to a lot of problems, and in 95% of cases, as with gambling, here without outside intervention it is no longer possible to stop it (China is doing everything it can to limit games as much as possible, regularly issuing laws that tighten the conditions, and even this does not stop people).
Yeah, these types of stories are a bit concerning. The pull some of these gacha husbandos and waifus have on people can be a bit too much... I personally would never overspend my gaming budget, especially to get eidolons or constellations, even if the character in question is one of my favorites in the game (e.g. Acheron and The Herta). If I want their eidolons that badly I will start saving with that in mind just like I did with Shorekeeper in WuWa.

Edit: I kinda feel being called out with The Herta mention there at the end of this skit. :messenger_grinning_sweat:

 
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btw. H:SR looks like doodoo water for the amount of money they're making - literally 0 effort in making the game look more impressive on a technical level.
 
Yeah, these types of stories are a bit concerning. The pull some of these gacha husbandos and waifus have on people can be a bit too much... I personally would never overspend my gaming budget, especially to get eidolons or constellations, even if the character in question is one of my favorites in the game (e.g. Acheron and The Herta). If I want their eidolons that badly I will start saving with that in mind just like I did with Shorekeeper in WuWa.
The question of human psychology is generally very complex and individual for each person. Although, as it seems to me, there is also a problem of parents. My son plays Gacha games, and yes, it is impossible to avoid or block it, since it is already everywhere and everyone at school plays them. My wife and I had a conversation with him about the fact that he can play them, but we will not give him money for purchases + no gifts for these games on holidays (gift codes, etc.). Only regular games (He wanted Astrobot, we bought him), and actually one of the reasons why I began to stop spending money in these games. This is to show him by my example that yes, you can play them FTP and set an example for him and morally support him.

P.S - Although he is still offended that I left HSR. I helped him with builds. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
btw. H:SR looks like doodoo water for the amount of money they're making - literally 0 effort in making the game look more impressive on a technical level.
Majority of the players and also the revenue are coming from mobile so I don't think they'd want to rock the boat just to satisfy the desires of a minority of PC or console players who want better graphics.

By the way, the character models in HSR have a higher poly count than those in Genshin. 🧠

GameAvg. Character Poly Count
Genshin Impact20,000 – 40,000 tris
Honkai: Star Rail40,000 – 70,000+ tris
 
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By the way, the character models in HSR have a higher poly count than those in Genshin. 🧠
They still look very mediocre by today's standards (I won't even compare it to Infinity Nikki - it wouldn't be fair at all, after all Unreal 5 - there are probably more polygons in one pair of socks than in the entire HSR model :messenger_tears_of_joy: ), but the fact that they are still sitting on Unity will not lead them to anything good, their games are already starting to show their age. And at the end of this year, the beginning of the next, new projects will start coming out, and against their graphics, their games will look very weak visually.
 
They still look very mediocre by today's standards (I won't even compare it to Infinity Nikki - it wouldn't be fair at all, after all Unreal 5 - there are probably more polygons in one pair of socks than in the entire HSR model :messenger_tears_of_joy: ), but the fact that they are still sitting on Unity will not lead them to anything good, their games are already starting to show their age. And at the end of this year, the beginning of the next, new projects will start coming out, and against their graphics, their games will look very weak visually.
Well, yes, but Infinity Nikki doesn't look great on mobile, which is why most of its player base is on console and PC. I don't see HSR switching to a different engine, but perhaps they'll consider it if they develop HSR 2?

Btw, Star Rail runs very well on mobile. it's snappy and mostly stays locked at 60 fps on my Galaxy S23, plus it looks more than decent to my eyes. :P

s8gluuzc655e1.jpeg
 
Well, yes, but Infinity Nikki doesn't look great on mobile, which is why most of its player base is on console and PC. I don't see HSR switching to a different engine, but perhaps they'll consider it if they develop HSR 2?
Btw, Star Rail runs very well on mobile. it's snappy and mostly stays locked at 60 fps on my Galaxy S23, plus it looks more than decent to my eyes. :P
Infinity Nikki is a unique case, it is a game with a very strong focus on the outfits and the character model. That is, I understand that they deliberately chose Unreal 5 in order to maximize the visuals, but the game is currently too technologically ahead of everything that is available on the mobile phone market to give the same picture as on a PC or PS5. Therefore, they can only hope that phones will gradually reduce this gap. It was their choice, they made it themselves. Now, the trend is slowly gaining momentum that the difference between PC + Console version and Mobile version is starting to really catch the eye. Mobile phones are no longer keeping up with the development of the graphics market in games.

A little higher, there was a video from NTE with a graphics update, well, with almost 95% probability I can say that the game will look like this only on PC and PS5, it will definitely not look like this on phones. Or take the same Silver Palace demo, again the game will look like this on PC and PS5, there are no phones on the market that can handle it.
 
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Infinity Nikki is a unique case, it is a game with a very strong focus on the outfits and the character model. That is, I understand that they deliberately chose Unreal 5 in order to maximize the visuals, but the game is currently too technologically ahead of everything that is available on the mobile phone market to give the same picture as on a PC or PS5. Therefore, they can only hope that phones will gradually reduce this gap. It was their choice, they made it themselves. Now, the trend is slowly gaining momentum that the difference between PC + Console version and Mobile version is starting to really catch the eye. Mobile phones are no longer keeping up with the development of the graphics market in games.

A little higher, there was a video from NTE with a graphics update, well, with almost 95% probability I can say that the game will look like this only on PC and PS5, it will definitely not look like this on phones. Or take the same Silver Palace demo, again the game will look like this on PC and PS5, there are no phones on the market that can handle it.
Yeah, I guess they didn't have much of a choice, because like you said, this game series focuses a lot on the fashion aspect, so all the assets need to be high quality. They kinda threw the mobile version under the bus to focus on the PC and console versions though.

On a side note, Epic said that UE 5.5 brings a lot of optimizations for mobile, and some of the newer gachas will hopefully release with this version. I'm very curious to see how these UE 5.5 gachas will run on mobile. Will it be the same fiasco that happened with Nikki at release, or will things be better?

 
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Yeah, I guess they didn't have much of a choice, because like you said, this game series focuses a lot on the fashion aspect, so all the assets need to be high quality. They kinda threw the mobile version under the bus to focus on the PC and console versions though.

On a side note, Epic said that UE 5.5 brings a lot of optimizations for mobile, and some of the newer gachas will hopefully release with this version. I'm very curious to see how these UE 5.5 gachas will run on mobile. Will it be the same fiasco that happened with Nikki at release, or will things be better?

It's not even so much a problem with optimization. By the way, Infiniti Nikki added a 60 FPS mode for the top models. The problem here is that graphics of the games have flown very far ahead. And phones are very limited by the capabilities of the graphics chip + power supply (This is generally a disaster, we are stuck on polymer batteries, we have zero progress). And what we see now is that they are already sacrificing battery life in order to supply more voltage to the graphics. At the same time, Switch 2 has a noticeably lower operating time than original Switch. Everything is very complicated here, we get an increasingly beautiful picture in gacha games, and mobile devices simply not able to give it out, or your phone will work for 15-20 minutes until it is completely discharged.

P.S - I really want to see how Silver Palace will look on Phones, something tells me that it won't be very good considering that their PC lagged in the demo (Although it's clear that this is an early demo, but still).
 
It's not even so much a problem with optimization. By the way, Infiniti Nikki added a 60 FPS mode for the top models. The problem here is that graphics of the games have flown very far ahead. And phones are very limited by the capabilities of the graphics chip + power supply (This is generally a disaster, we are stuck on polymer batteries, we have zero progress). And what we see now is that they are already sacrificing battery life in order to supply more voltage to the graphics. At the same time, Switch 2 has a noticeably lower operating time than original Switch. Everything is very complicated here, we get an increasingly beautiful picture in gacha games, and mobile devices simply not able to give it out, or your phone will work for 15-20 minutes until it is completely discharged.

P.S - I really want to see how Silver Palace will look on Phones, something tells me that it won't be very good considering that their PC lagged in the demo (Although it's clear that this is an early demo, but still).

The new Snapdragon 8 Elite SoC, which is used in most 2025 flagship phones, is very capable on the GPU side (and the CPU side as well), so I think these devices will handle UE5 games decently. However, a common issue with these phones is that they can't sustain the load, and they start to throttle after 15 - 20 minutes of playing demanding games.

The Switch 2, on the other hand, doesn't have this problem thanks to its active cooling, which allows it to maintain a baseline perf at all times. I'm curious how well it performs in portable mode though, since there aren't many tests available for that (most of the available preview tests focus on docked mode). Even if the specs on paper (specifically in portable mode) are weaker than those of 2025 flagship phones, the consistent perf could make a big difference here.

I really hope gacha devs consider bringing their titles to the Switch 2. HSR, for example, would likely do very well on the platform especially considering:
  • How popular the game is in Japan.
  • How the Switch 2 is expected to be a massive hit there and should become the default console in the country.
 
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I'm fairly certain you could clear all the end game content with only 4 star characters if you really wanted to.
I dont think its possible to clear the final stage of current Apocalyptic Shadow with any combination of 4 stars or any combination of E6 limited 5 stars from 1.0 for that matter. The bogus "impressive clear" showcases that people do always use 1 outdated character with 3 best 5 star supports like Robin, Sunday and Tribbie, usually with multiple eidolons.

After the latest reset i cant currently 3 star on one side with big Herta + Anaxa + Aven + Tribbie/Robin and thats with all limited light cones and amazing relics (well at least on 3 characters). This is by far the strongest Apocalyptic Shadow team that has been in this game since launch because Anaxa is basically a cheat code for the whole mode, his banner has just ended a few days ago and hes already obsolete today because of insane HP inflation.

ive tried to use E6 Gallagher instead of Lingsha on the second side yesterday because people have glazed him up as the best healer for Castorice in 3.2, instead of finishing easily like i did with Lingsha the whole team has ended up dead because ive used what is supposedly the best 4 star character.

The game is good in many aspecs, but if gacha games had a champion of problematic endgame and powercreep, HSR would be it. Luckily this is only relevant when it comes to the last stage.
 
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Anyways, I also find myself playing quite a few gachas at the moment, although I recently decided to drop one of them (Heaven Burns Red) because it was becoming a tad too much. I want to avoid getting too caught up in the gacha cycle, as I've seen how it can consume time and sometimes a lot of money if you don't have enough self-control (see this recent post from the gacha gaming subreddit). I made it a point to stick to my monthly budget for games (I'm a bit of a nerd about it, and I track all my entertainment expenses in an excel file I keep on my google drive :messenger_grinning_sweat:).


Boy you have that right, you have to be mindful and careful with gachas. Though, for as much of a bad rap as the new HoYo model of gacha gets, at least there aren't any rage pull sessions that go into the hundreds of dollars like in the old 1.0 gachas like FGO/Granblue. I'll never forget the story of that Grubble guy that paid into the thousands of dollars in JP for the monkey girl and never got a single copy. The outrage from that is why the game even has the "spark" pity system to begin with.

HoYo model doesn't give you anything early often, but pity is fairly attainable as F2P with some planning and completely under control if you do subscriptions/BP. Now you want more than just a copy of the character, you'll still likely pay, but the pity will keep you from hulking out and waking up hundreds of dollars poorer all at once.

A few months ago when we had the GAF thread for something like "how much money is your steam account worth", I did the math, and since I started playing gachas, my spending has gone way down on gaming as a whole. Probably helps that most modern AAA games are trash and I'm not buying those.
 
New Star Rail - like Korean gacha just launched the global version today. I'm not expecting too much from it, but I'm going to give it a download and try it out. It obviously has less budget than a HoYo game, and the studio seems like they aren't sticking the landing on the launch, so it is what it is.




Oh so it looks like it's a "soft launch", not the full launch which happens on June 18. Basically this is like a post-beta where they're still appying fixes to the game, but your account won't wipe after the game launches like a beta typically would.
 
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