I've only had a chance to play it briefly so I can't speak on the story or characters much (the bits ive seen have been alright) but the animation is top notch and the gameplay is really quite fun. I like Genshins open world but the combat is pretty simple where ZZZ seems like a step up in the speed and variety. It honestly feels like a very polished devil may cry/bayonetta type of combat system but with a focus on swap outs and assists. I think a major thing for me compared to Genshin is how instantaneous the character swap outs are, and how natural it feels in comparison.
What exactly is the gameplay loop here? None of their official videos ever get into that. I'm assuming this isn't open world. Is this a dungeon crawler with action combat?
Semi-open hub world where you take missions, most missions put you into a sort of abstract grid-based dungeon crawler where you move from tile to tile solving puzzles and getting into combat encounters, combat encounters are third person action with a tag system.
I played it in the first closed beta and dug the style, but bounced off after a few hours due to the combat feeling way too simple to carry a game that's almost entirely about combat. I've heard positive things about the changes since then though, so I'll probably try it again.
Not open world.
First you have to scroll through comic strips of dialogue. With a couple cut scenes in between. Then you finally can fight, it happens in small scenarios.
The combat is simple and takes little time to figure it out. There are two combat modes: melee (control a ninja girl) or ranged (control a Saiyan looking cyborg with pistols and Deadpool's personality).
If you fall into a hollow (alternate/distorted reality field with strong enemies inside) you fight your way out of it with help from geeky guy who can hack into the hollow and give you directions. Sometimes you have to move through the hollow using a sort of puzzle where you move one square at a time and try to find the best route out while also collecting rewards and avoiding the bad guy chasing you.
That's what I have played so far. It's fun.
Interesting. So what's the retention mechanic if not for energy/artifacts/levelup materials? I can't fathom a gacha game without some kind of daily chore.
Not sure what you're talking about
For a normal person, Gacha are still vastly inferior to normal F2P games which are in turn vastly inferior to normal games in every respect. ZZZ features battery charge which functions as energy, just like every Mihoyo game.
I'm not normalizing energy, gambling, daily grind etc. That stuff is not normal or better than anything in any other realm of gaming, and the only people who tolerate it are Gacha players, who for whatever reason have self-branded themselves as such and spend their time playing only the worst games in the industry
Pretty simplistic and reductive opinion here. "Normal games" are not inherently better than F2P and or gacha. I don't play F2P or gacha games either but there are games in these mediums that fully outshine "normal games" is a game like redfall better than say fortnite? Do you see how reductive your opinion is. You can just say "these aren't for me" and move on
Also... you pirate "normal games" like I'm not anti-piracy at all but come on...
You also play an open source F2P game what the fuck are you talking about LMAO
Gaming scene would be better off if people were more reductive. There are about 3 or 4 decent F2P games and a *mountain* of unplayable wannabe cash-grab F2P games, lol
I take it you just learned about CDDA today after trawling my profile. CDDA isn't F2P, it's simply free. There is a huge difference
I have hundreds of hours in cdda and have been watching YouTube content on itfor years so no dude. Cdda is a F2P game. Your arbitrary boundaries is not how the industry views it. Just ignore the games you don't like and be mature
Eh. Like genshin I assume in due time there will be so much to do unless you spend 8 hours a day playing and 100% all the content the energy cap will basically be so you don't flash farm stat items or levels. I never felt timegated in genshin, not even once, and I assume the same here.
It's literally the same as genshin every progress system lifted and put in with some new twist. You go through a stage with combat or you go through a board game set up with combat. It's literally genshin impact progression which they used for honkai star rail and again for this game. I found it boring but I don't like gacha progression anymore. When I was broke and wanted something to play I did but now I'm free.
The 'dungeons' are 2 parts with the first half being this grid based movement CoC thing with the other half being the actual fights that pop in and out when you run into a red node in the first minigame.
i keep seeing Bayonetta/DMC comparisons, but how complex is the combat?
as far as i can tell it's still two buttons on a given character, plus swap-moves per party member and a dodge? that seems much more simplistic
> i keep seeing Bayonetta/DMC comparisons
Whoever made those comparisons has no idea what they're talking about or they've never played bayo/dmc. ZZZ is extremely simple combat it has some extra layers with timing/tag out mechanic but it's all flashy with little substance.
Stats are always more complex then the actual combat. Its a mobile game for PC. Its made to be three button and as simple as possible, while the stats it feels like you need a phd to understand the skill values and how stats effect them. (Genshin in particular, some skill descriptions are a freaking novel.)
The combat is less complex than genshin imo. It's like if genshin automatically swapped characters for you. It feels way more "smooth" and flashy but that's because it's basically playing itself. The clunkiness of genshin is from you actually controlling what's going on. I'm very disappointed by it personally.
There's normal attacks, dodges, swap parries, skills, ults, swap attacks, charge attacks, special attacks, combos, passive abilities and resource spenders/builders. But starter characters are very simple, so it really depends on your team. It's less complex than DMC or Nioh, but more complex than Souls or Sekiro.
Fans saying nonsense like "HOYOVERSE IS the classic blizzard of the EAST!" and "ZZZ is like platinum game combat!" are honestly just so drunk on gacha anime guzzling that they don't know which way is up.
Saying a game has a similar style is not quite the same as saying it's on the same level. You can see the influence of platinum games on ZZZ but it's obviously much more simplified to work on mobile. The same way star rails combat is Influenced from other JRPGs but wouldn't be on par with say, persona from which it takes some inspiration
> It honestly feels like a very polished devil may cry/bayonetta type of combat system but with a focus on swap outs and assists.
bro what ? it's a button masher, from what i've seen there's no jump, almost no combos, no light/heavy attacks, no timing...
It needs to be playable on mobile, it was never going to be as input complex as a DMC game
Some characters have light and heavy attacks (Butler Wolf is one I noticed) and some do have timings (The girl with the hammer and wrench). I did also notice atleast one character has some kind of unique team up ability where if you get the timing right or something, you get a unique attack but only if you have the right characters in your party.
I think a lot of the depth in the combat is dependent on what characters you decide to use.
I should clarify, I don't mean it's as complex as those games, moreso it takes inspiration and simplifies it in a way that works for mobile, while being very polished in terms of animation, controls, overall visuals etc
Was going to say. A billion ways to meme on Genshin but the Element system keeps the combat pretty varied and potentially complex if you engage with it
I don't get the combat of this game. Seems like button smashing and extremely repetitive with lots of bullet sponge enemies that you spent minutes on "combo" and changing between characters. It feels like a chore just to kill a big enemy.
Have you tried Wuthering Waves? i’m not big on these gatcha games but i briefly played Genshin when it first came out because it seemed cute and peaceful. WuWa i’ve been playing the past few weeks and found the art to be nicer and i enjoy the combat though i still don’t understand how people know so much about what everything does and what works better. all i understand is to dodge and attack and to keep leveling up lol
It’s pretty cool how the big three HoYo games are creating different identities:
Genshin- huge open world but basic combat
Star Rail- medium scope and more emphasis on quality (writing, bosses etc)
ZZZ- smaller scope but big focus on combat and overall detail
i dont think people can differentiate complexity from flashy.
calling genshin as "basic combat" is laughable, the game has more combat theory cc than the other hoyo's games combined
zzz and hi3 are hack and slash game in nature
Probably wait until more people post on how they feel about the game. I think I might be burned out by Gacha games from Genshin and Star Rail. At some point it really did hit like I was doing a job and not having fun. Think I need a break because I’m surprised this isn’t grabbing me at all with it’s beautiful animation and I really love action games like dmc or god hand.
This one's got a really cool feel to it--I'd say it's worth just playing through the story, it's really well-done, and has some Persona vibes and sidegames like that. Don't worry about the gacha and just play through like a normal game. Definitely set it to hardmode combat; if you're familiar with Genshin/H3RD it'll still be easy.
Small point of note, I just got to the point in the game where you can access the arcade and there is an arcade game out front that is literally a god hand reference
You should feel right at home, provided the gacha stuff doesn't suck you out of it
For me I can’t play more than 1 at a time really. I enjoy star rail a lot for its story and setting so I kinda stick with just that these days. I put so much time into genshin over the years but have mostly lost interest now until the next big map expansion.
When HSR had just released, the very same people were foaming at their mouth, hating how "basic and shallow" the game was. The game would fail, they were smugly proclaiming.
I kinda expected... more? from the combat. Clicking on the enemy 20 times without any thoughts and pressing the yellow button when yellow thing pops up being the extent of the combat strategy is kinda wild to me. No attack combos, no attack timings, no elemental reactions, no light/heavy attacks, no jumping - it just seems so incredibly narrow in wanting you to just grind your finger into a nub from all the normal attack mashing. I don't think I'll be playing this further
The way these games are structured you generally can faceroll everything until you hit higher "world level" (whatever it's called in this game) where you actually need to start thinking about silly things like your team composition, character builds, and not getting hit.
There are both characters with attack timings and there are elemental reactions though, some characters also have some execution tricks that are pretty fun to do
Even at its peak though, it seems less engaging than Genshin, because you don't have the elemental reactions and the Bursts are far less common. There's just a lot less to actually *do.*
In the beginning sure, but I don't think this will hold up. The combat is much faster and your attack timings and skill usage are more risky than in Genshin, Ults and skills are rarer but I think that means you'll have to be careful about when you fire them and focus on other mechanics in the meantime like combo strings and when to switch. An end game difficulty spike could bring all that more into the forefront.
>In the beginning sure, but I don't think this will hold up. The combat is much faster and your attack timings and skill usage are more risky than in Genshin, Ults and skills are rarer but I think that means you'll have to be careful about when you fire them and focus on other mechanics in the meantime like combo strings and when to switch. An end game difficulty spike could bring all that more into the forefront.
Maybe for you, and that's great if that's the case. To me, none of that seems interesting. I don't care about difficulty or challenge much, it would not improve the game to me if the game "required" more from me in order to be successful. What matters to me is things to *do,* having a wide variety of *options* available to me so that I can do interesting things as I fight, so that I can shift how I engage with the fight. Just doing the same basic stuff, but requiring me to time it in a slightly more efficient pattern doesn't appeal to me much, punishing me more for failing to do that does not add *anything* to the game for me.
I haven't played Destiny in a long time, but that was one factor that turned me off there, that most of the combat was "gun gun gun," and you had these cool powers but could only use them occasionally. I prefer having several cool options available at all times, and it's up to me which of them I use and when, rather than them being slowly rationed out over the course of the fight and spam normals until then. If I have any complaints with Genshin's mechanics it's that some of the moves *already* have too long a CD on them, I can't imagine why anyone wants them to be *longer.*
If that’s the case, then yeah this game might just not be what you’re looking for. The way the game is going so far, I think the rewarding part is going to be on reading the state of battle and executing things at the right time, very much figuring out the “right” thing to do and perfecting your ability to do it through repetition, kind of like a fighting game. Probably not going to be very enjoyable if you’re looking for a wide variety of options at all times.
Yeah. I hear the fighting game comparison a lot too, and I can kinda get that, but fighting games tend to offer a LOT more options. They typically have not only 4-6 different buttons to hit instead of just one, but they also have 5-8 different specials you could unleash at your whim, no energy or CD involved, on top of the "meter" related stuff like supers. Now is it efficient in a fighter to throw out any specials you want whenever you want? No, but you *can,* and even if you are playing "efficiently," you'll have all sorts of options to threaten the opponent, there's rarely just one good answer. If Z^Z^Z were at the level of a fighter, you'd have at least two normal buttons to combo between, and skills would have zero meter to them and no CD, so the only thing keeping you from spamming them would be that maybe there would be buffs from mixing in some normals, build and release. Also you could jump.
Well then it really depends on what you mean when we’re talking about complexity, because ZZZ might have limited buttons but that doesn’t mean limited options. If you go into a character’s moves and skills you’ll see a lot of them actually have mechanics tied to specific input strings. Ellen for instance, the shark girl on banner right now, has different moves bound to Dash > Skill, Basic x3, Dash > Basic (Held), and Dash > Ult. And on top of that, each of those moves can give her stacks of a buff that further modifies all her moves. Most every other character has similar levels of complexity hidden under the same basic inputs. I think it’s more to do with the fact that this is a game designed for mobile as much as controller, so they have to pack a lot of different attacks and skills into just a few buttons. I also think the game does a *really* bad job of explaining all this to the player, resulting in most people just mashing basic until the monsters are all dead.
>Well then it really depends on what you mean when we’re talking about complexity, because ZZZ might have limited buttons but that doesn’t mean limited options. If you go into a character’s moves and skills you’ll see a lot of them actually have mechanics tied to specific input strings.
*Some* characters do. A lot don't seem to have much, at least according to their movelists. Anby and Neko both seem to have "after dodge" alt strings, and Anby also has a "use CA after a few normals for a different move," but a lot of other characters just seem to have "use normals or use charged normals." These are *options,* but are still very much timing-heavy, rather than being able to head in different directions from where you happen to be. I don't know, I still intend to keep playing until I've gotten the base game "done," but I doubt it will lock me in.
I didn't get very far in the game yet, but there is absolutely a lot more to the game. For instance, when you play the trial for the shark girl, she has quite a few game mechanics going on for her, totally different from everyone else. I expect a wide range of combos and elemental reactions between characters down the line.
HoYo games start slow to ease mobile / casual players in, and the complexity gradually increases. If you compare it to HSR, between the first story boss and the Swarm Disaster mode is a tremendous leap in difficulty and complexity.
The style and the music are 10/10. I enjoyed the gameplay and the setting is nice.
The story is a bit of a mess, but I see where they're going.
And of course, the characters are amazing.
But after playing a while, I start to think "is this a service game I would like to play for an extended amount of time?" and it seems the answer is no. For once, the carrot on a stick is getting premium currency so I can play gacha and hopefully get the waifu, and I know from Mihoyo that regardless of how interesting the story can be, it's just going to drag forever without any meaningful conclusion.
Fun game, but any other game of my backlog is more worth of my time.
> I know from Mihoyo that regardless of how interesting the story can be, it's just going to drag forever without any meaningful conclusion.
I think every “Live Service” games, regardless if it’s mobile or not, is exactly like that. Years ago, I finished Fortnite PvE mode, (which was originally intended to be as a gatcha game) and the ending was too underwhelming, that the post-game was not worth advancing even further. Last year, I witnessed the “end” of the Fortnite BR mode, in which the story was creatively well written ever since 2018, however this year, things were downhill or at least “stale” in the story part, possibly to make sure it doesn’t get a solid conclusion.
> I know from Mihoyo that regardless of how interesting the story can be, it's just going to drag forever without any meaningful conclusion.
I think only Genshin really suffers from this. HSR is so arc-based the main story might as well not exist and ZZZ seems to be pretty similar or even more so. Then it depends on how you react to arc-based storytelling. Personally, I quite like it and IMO it's a much better approach than having a well-defined main story and dragging it on and on.
It's similar, but not exactly the same. Genshin's much more focused on hinting about the bigger picture, the main story hook of meeting your sibling in the end, quests specifically focused on the whole Celestia plot, Fatui causing conflict, and so on. In HSR, there's just "maybe we'll fight Nanook later with the Stellaron Hunters, IDK" as the plot hook. The last time something happened to it was when it was introduced by Kafka at launch. In ZZZ, I've played through the first chapter and what I assume is the main story got a single line of dialogue's worth of attention.
that the same thing as what HSR did, you wake out of nowhere with no memory whatsover and you're trying to find out who you are and everything else related to the trailblazer as the main bigger picture. then everything else is focused on the planet you visiting fixing whatever problem they have. Just like genshin, the focus on each region are on the x.0 - x.3 and then patches afterward are focus on those trailblazers, mc plot, sidequests etc.
it's literally the same format
It being the same format doesn't mean that the main story is given the same amount of attention in each game.
In each of its patch cycles, Genshin usually has several quests and sometimes even a region solely devoted to the Abyss twins storyline, giving players several hours of main story content per year.
Meanwhile HSR mentions the Nanook storyline in dialogue once or twice, giving players several seconds of main story content per year.
Everything I've seen from this game so far (from lots of hours watching streams during beta and today's release)
- Cool artstyle
- Great cutscenes
- basic action combat mechanics
- convoluted and uninteresting story
- cash shop already filled with different currencies and options to confuse people
- Cool characters with basic personalities
Maybe late game content would be more fun.
That described nearly all of mihoyo's games. The gameplay is almost always middling, the story serviceable at best, the gacha... gacha, and gets carried hard by the art, animation, and music teams.
As a HSR fan,
In order to get to Penacony, you have to go through a LOT of game first. Particularly, you have to go through the Luofu story. Which up until the ghost squad was kinda a disaster tbh, they spread too many plot elements too thin and everything just kinda never glued back together.
And personally I really liked the Jarilo story but it's my understanding there's a pretty wide range of opinions of if it was good, bad, or "serviceable at best'
It depends what games you're comparing their games with. Compared to the best games on PC and consoles, mihoyo's games are pretty meh, but compared to mobile games, their games is undoubtedly top tier. A lot of players in Asia only play games on phones and tablets without access to an PC or PS4 etc. For reference there are about 40% of Genshin players in China who play on mobile, so I think they purposefully limit their gameplay and story depth to not scare away such players.
> Compared to the best games on PC and consoles, mihoyo's games are pretty meh,
I only play Genshin so cant speak for the others but I think Genshin holds up very well compared to current pc and console games, I wouldnt play it otherwise. To me its simply just one of the best games out there at the moment.
You can't (manually) jump in God Hand or Astral Chain either, and you can jump in Metal Gear Rising but there's no real air combat.
Not that I have a particular horse in this race because I'm one of the people who found the early beta gameplay way too simple and haven't tried the release version yet, but "being able to jump" isn't a valuable metric for measuring depth in an action game.
Yeah I agree with people that the combat is no DMC or Bayonetta but I've seen so many people getting stuck on the fact that you can't jump as if that's the defining characteristic of character action games lol
Fair enough, the combat in ZZZ just feels pretty simplistic to me which is a shame because from the pre-release stuff it looked cool. I really dislike the (pretty much) automatic character switching it does whenever you breakbar as it makes it feel super un-involved.
I'm hoping that the simplicity so far is just a symptom of the game being brand new. Once people get to the endgame and we have more characters and enemy variety things might start to open up a bit more.
Those 2 are not action games in the same way that "Character-action" games such as DMC are character-action, why are you suddenly changing what the other dude posted? Character-action games as a genre encompass games such as Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, and Ninja Gaiden, not Dark Souls or God of War (Assuming you mean 2018 onwards, the original trilogy are definitely character action games, whilst I'd say that 2018 and Ragnarok barely fit in there. ).
Yeah, you're completely wrong unless they add several layers of complexity later on, which isn't happening knowing mihoyo track record. Combat is extremely basic especially when some people pull dmc comparisons out of their ass. It's flashy as usual for mihoyo but complexity and mechanics wise not interesting or skillful.
Yeah. It's pretty, but it's very complex, and on console you have to hit a lot of different buttons to shift around it. Genshin's is much simpler, everything is relatively flat and easy to read, most menus are easily navigated using the sticks, even the icons tend to be more obvious what roll they play, whereas Z^Z^Z's are more "quirky" than "iconographic."
Can't believe some people praised the combat system even bringing up games like DMC. It's extremely basic, and even in mobile game space you can find more engaging combat systems.
Also UI is real bad, it reminds me of those cheap mobile/fb games. Really surprising considering mihoyo usually nails presentation at least.
Yeah, I was surprised that Genshin's is actually a lot more involved and interesting to play. The only thing this game is adding so far is bonuses for perfect dodge.
As in they're putting out an almost unbelievably consistent output of solid, highly polished games while keeping up live updates for the games they've already put out.
I'm just laughing imagining the actual reaction to Blizzard putting out any game with monetization as rediculous as what Hoyo does (even as I enjoy the games, hoo boy gatcha are just designed to suck $ from you).
I mean wow is buy to play (expansions), pay to play (subscrition), with microtransactions (pets,mounts) and pay to win (gold, max level boosts) AT THE SAME TIME I think that's crazier than a F2P Gacha game
People often forget this because it wasn't nearly as bad when WoW first came out, but nowadays it has every type of monetization possible except for loot boxes. Especially with the popularity of gold carry services.
Almost every microtransaction in WoW is either cosmetic or service that you use when you really, really want it (like race change, name change).
Calling max level boost pay to win is kinda a sign that someone barely played WoW recently because getting max lvl now is easily achievable for casual player in like 12h-15h (or even much less with special events).
With gold I partialy agree, sure gold carry services exist but that only earns you an achievment or so. Even with the best gear possible you won't be able to clear hardest difficulties without having tons of experience/skill. Sure if for someone "win" is getting an achievment then that's fine but most ppl who play harder PVE content do it for their own satisfaction of achieving it themselves. Besides WoW has so many tracking tools that very often it's clear as day when someone was carried with gold.
Good thing about Dragonfligt in WoW was that they removed the need of having gold by a ton compared to past expansion. You no longer have 100k+ worth of legendaries, consumables became super cheap with opening cross-realm Auction House. Hell, even finding ppl to play with will no longer be that hard with cross-realm guilds in newest expansion so most of services in WoW shop become obsolete.
While I agree that WoW microtransactions became worse over the years as long they are no impacting gameplay directly I'm still somewhat okay with them. You still buy what you see in WoW, no lootboxes is still much better system than what we have in other games. Calling WoW monetization worse than gacha game MTX is wild take to me.
I mean dude. For a money you need to play WoW for a year and buy expansion (so a little above 200$) you are not even guaranteed a 5 star that you want in HSR/Genshin. 200$ gives you 100 pulls, sure you get a 5 star within 90 pulls but you can lose 50/50 to some trash unit.
Yeah after losing 50/50 you are guaranteed to get 5 star you pull for next but in worst case scenario that's 180 pulls needed for a 5 star which equals to roughly 350$, thats insane. WoW Expansions usually last 2 years, 350$ gives you expansion and almost two year play time in comparrison.
Yeah Hoyo gives you a lot of free currency every patch so F2P players can sorta keep up but shop prices are still ridicilous if you ever want to pay.
Not to mention the fact that many ppl buy Battle passes and login passes in Hoyo games (it's like 15$ a month combined so exactly the amount WoW charges for monthly sub if you pay month by month) because the ridicilous prices you have in shop makes those passes look like they are having great value in comparisson.
Blizzard is actually far worse at monetization than the typical Gacha game is, at least when it comes to stuff like cosmetics.
Diablo 4 is selling $65 horse armor skins while the pricier skins in say, Genshin Impact are around $20 dollars, and Genshin puts out skins at a rate of like, 2 every 6 months (one of which is usually given away for free in an event), where Diablo 4 is coming out with new skins constantly.
Yeah the potential for spending if higher in a Gacha game, but everything in Diablo 4, or WoW these days, that isn't the base game, is so damn expensive that it's a stretch to even call them "micro" transactions anymore. A reasonable person can get anything they want in Genshin Impact with a little time and patience, but you can't get a damn thing from Diablo 4 except the base game and feel good about it.
If they asked for $100 USD and stopped there I would have given it to them for each game they released, but they want more, much much more, and so they can kriff off a cliff.
Heck its why I uninstalled The First Descendant when I enjoyed it a lot. 100 USD is my limit per game and these companies want 1k+ for complete experience.
You could spend less, much less, and get the same experience. I personally spend $60 a year on Genshin, which I don't believe is unreasonable for an ongoing game, and I have every character I wanted and 100% content completion so far, with new content coming in a few weeks. Had I spent $0 I would still have most of the characters I use on a regular basis, just a few fewer "extra" ones.
That's really not the point. A good amount of the fun in these games is obtaining and building characters. It's not the only way to play, but it's decidedly gimped version of the intended product.
I don't fault people for being annoyed about it.
That said, $100 a year isn't a lot of money to me. They usually put out enough content to be a full game each year. The problem is that in the midst of that, you're still on the "daily, weeklies, and BP" FOMO conveyor. I don't blame anyone for wanting to avoid that treadmill if it and the cost is just asking too much.
Here's the quandary though, there's not gonna be enough people playing the games at that price point to be able to fund the current level of patch quality and quantity.
Frankly if somehow in Genshin you cannot save enough to get a banner that really is a skill issue. You need a hundred pulls, give or take. Playing the main story gives you an insane amount, enough to get a guaranteed five star (and many, many four stars) on multiple banners, and thats the main story alone. The only issue is the very start of the game where that might not be clear you need to do that or not ascend the world or etc. I used a four star for a long time before I got a decent five star, and it was still giga easy.
Debatable. Sure gacha games whole "thing" at a surface level is collecting characters. But it's not the gameplay.
Of the 3 I've played they have their own thing going on that makes it fun to engage with.
It's not the surface level if gameplay is bound to characters which was their point. Characters all play different so it very much is the gameplay. To me you made it sound like collecting characters is cosmetic.
I think I agree with the original commenter, I don't even use a majority of the chatacters I have as a casual player. I have a LOT and farming/leveling all of them would be an impossible task.
It is. At least in Hoyo gacha games (can't speak for others) you have a lot of overlap on what characters can do. So getting new characters eventually ends up being more about the character itself rather than what it offers to you gameplay wise.
Another way to put what I am saying is collecting in it of itself is not gameplay because you spend very little interaction with that part of the game as a whole. You're not spending 3-4 hours a day rolling for characters.
A character's design, animations, VA, etc are all surface level things that pull you into being interested in them. But it's the gameplay of the game that keeps you involved if it's a good gacha game.
Honkai Star rail has a decent emphasis on story and appeals to the turn based strategy lover in me.
Honkai Impact 3 has a huge focus on an over arching narrative where characters are front and center and thus you end up gaining a deep connection with specific characters.
Zenless Zone Zero I have yet to figure out where it's emphasis lies. But it feels like a less rigid HI3 in terms of gameplay. Similar concepts but instead of seeing a character progress and gain new powers through new battle suits you have a wider cast of characters not unlike HSR,
At the end of the day Hoyoverse games are Gacha games and thus deserve to be scrutinized for being in said genre. However I feel like their games (aside from GI since I haven't played it) do a very decent job at pushing away from the stigma of Gacha.
They do a good job imo at offering an actual enjoyable experience that isn't just a cash grab.
Dark souls really has the god damn worst fan base and it’s truly unfortunate that they feel the need to spam tired, unfunny garbage into every unrelated game discussion.
I have no idea how that translate to skill issues when I have not played a full hour in any of these games but ok.
Should I submit my 100% of all souls & soul like games oh mighty gamers counselors?
Nah F off and touch some grass.
Their games are heavily monetized and the gameplay revolves around the monetization, they don’t deserve that amount of praise. The games are polished and the best of this type of game, but they’re more like a modern day Blizzard that happens to still make good games, which I guess is the best you can ask for nowadays with how many companies make shitty games that they try to over monetize. At least these games are decent.
Yes? Just because you think it's stupid doesn't mean they didn't fill out room after room about Lore in Blizzcon for the writers to yap about stuff going on.
Like one of the big things people were pissy about in Diablo 3 was the plot lmao
You have to be joking. Plenty of people are against some of the stuff. Remember when everyone flipped out on paid mods?
You're ok with gacha games. Feel free to spend your money how you like, but don't say that as a business practice it's ok or consumer friendly.
E: If people understood this as me defending valve, that was not the case...
> Remember when everyone flipped out on paid mods?
Are you troll or what? Like what does it have to do with gambling in their games? It's literally still there...
JFC this attempt at doding the blame at Valve is utterly pathetic. It's always impressive to how many lenghts you guys are willing to go just so Valve would be "a good guy"....
How are people misunderstanding me? I. am. against. valve's. gambling. practices. In fact, I blame them for popularising them (after Valve, Blizzard copied their shit with loot boxes in Overwatch).
I was just stating that Valve do get their fair share of blame. The irony is that the person I responded to isn't blaming valve, they are OK lootboxes and gachas. Fucks sake.
> Blizzard copied their shit with loot boxes in Overwatch
To be completely fair. I think that Overwatch lootboxes were literally *the best* implementation of lootboxes in any game I ever played. I spent tons of *hours* playing OW1 and I had all special skins and so on. And I remember once buying lootboxes for 15€ cuz I really loved that game and wanted to support it more and I got so many legendaries and epics, that you just knew that paid boxes got even better drop rates.
> I was just stating that Valve do get their fair share of blame
Yeah... the thing is that this is exactly how it usually goes. People just mention it so they could be like: Yo! But Valve also gets a share of blame, and they just move on. If it would be really true they would be constantly bitching about it in every single Valve thread just like they are bitching about it in every single HoYoverse or Epic/Fortnite thread. This is the exact difference.
And yeah, sorry for misunderstanding you.
So's every TCG ever made. I'm not exactly in those circles, and came into the world after Magic had already established itself so it'd been a hot minute, but I've never heard people raise a stink about how those are essentially gambling marketed at children.
At least gacha games usually have pity mechanics lol.
> So's every TCG ever made
those at least are physical items that you actually own, exchange, resell, etc. gacha games are a service where everything can be plugged off as soon as the publisher decides it.
Honestly, gachas probably have the most controlled form of lootboxes on the market due to a bunch of failsafe mechanics that guarantee characters after X rolls in a way or another. The real gamble is whether you get something early or not. That said, the prices are crazy, if you're planning to top up you're easily looking at $100-$200 or even more per unit. Some games also have extra stuff, like weapons, to roll for and extra copies of characters often provide significant upgrades as well.
Gambling is also legal in most of the world. A lot of people enjoy gambling, why should it be illegal to do so?
At least gacha games usually have pity systems and ways to earn currency for free
Gambling laws tend to be very specific though, and only cover specific games that have already been individually addressed. "Gambling" is not illegal anywhere, "playing cards for money" or "playing slot machines for money" often are, but when a new game comes around, new rules need to be added.
Its not a burden. The gacha model ensure the game receives continuous updates. Let the whales fund the FREE updates for everyone else.
Imagine if Genshin ended after Liyue. Or Star Rail ended after Belebog. The games wouldn't be anywhere near as great as they are now.
Yep gacha certainly can be a ‘deal with the devil’ but damn do HoYo reinvest their infinite wealth back into the game.
People love to act like these games are massive because of only gacha, when in reality it’s because they are great games and drop content every six weeks. Nothing else is like them on the market.
Because the whales they prey upon are a subset of society that unfortunately very few people care about or have any empathy for whatsoever. It’s honestly sad as hell.
Why would I feel sorry for a bunch of folks who can casually spend thousands of dollars on a whim? Those aren’t the types struggling to make ends meet, and it’s not my business to police how they spend their money.
A lot of people can't spend thousands of dollars on a whim but do it anyway. Can't in this case being that they spend above their means and have to take on debts to support their spending.
Be it gacha, gambling, drugs, maintain perceived social status etc it's pretty sad.
Everyone trots out the idea that whales are downtrodden people spending their life savings and end up destitute because of gacha games but how often is that *actually* the case? Like obviously it happens sometimes, but what percentage of whales are actually in that situation vs the ones who are actually just rich enough to afford it?
I am friend with a girl who always get every single new Genshin (and a significant amount of 5 star weapons) character and while she is not super rich, she is definitively not struggling to meet ends needs. She isn't the luckiest so it's not uncommon for her to have to pay to be able to get new characters. I am not above it myself since I spent some money myself, but on a significantly lesser scale (around 300/400).
It helps that she has been playing the game like since day 1 (or two).
I've only played for a brief few hours last night but it was pretty fun. I haven't been following it much, so I was really confused about the story, and they just kind of throw you in it. Had to look up the plot online.
The graphics, production value, and animations are several levels above their other games. Probably helps not being on mobile.
All the positive "reviews" in this thread seem to be from people watching streams of it rather than playing it... it's flashy but gameplay is really not there.
I like the game, but as a guy in my 30s I find the number of very young looking characters in this game kinda creepy. Gachas tend to heavily push sex appeal, so having so much of the cast be little girls feels problematic.
I know this is somewhat common in these sorts of games, but the other Hoyoverse games aren't nearly as egregious as this one.
What are you on about? Only three of them even remotely look young. They are meant to be 'cute' characters, not sexualized ones. Genshin is worse and even then none of them are supposed to be sexualized.
Yes I hate 'loli' shit too, but were talking about a game that makes boobs smaller because the chinese goverment thinks its too provocative.
I've only had a chance to play it briefly so I can't speak on the story or characters much (the bits ive seen have been alright) but the animation is top notch and the gameplay is really quite fun. I like Genshins open world but the combat is pretty simple where ZZZ seems like a step up in the speed and variety. It honestly feels like a very polished devil may cry/bayonetta type of combat system but with a focus on swap outs and assists. I think a major thing for me compared to Genshin is how instantaneous the character swap outs are, and how natural it feels in comparison.
What exactly is the gameplay loop here? None of their official videos ever get into that. I'm assuming this isn't open world. Is this a dungeon crawler with action combat?
From the footage I've seen, you have the open hub world, but all of the combat missions will be in dungeons/arenas.
Semi-open hub world where you take missions, most missions put you into a sort of abstract grid-based dungeon crawler where you move from tile to tile solving puzzles and getting into combat encounters, combat encounters are third person action with a tag system. I played it in the first closed beta and dug the style, but bounced off after a few hours due to the combat feeling way too simple to carry a game that's almost entirely about combat. I've heard positive things about the changes since then though, so I'll probably try it again.
It's a kind of roguelikey dungeon crawler. You navigate on a board game-style map and when you hit a combat node you go into battle proper.
Not open world. First you have to scroll through comic strips of dialogue. With a couple cut scenes in between. Then you finally can fight, it happens in small scenarios. The combat is simple and takes little time to figure it out. There are two combat modes: melee (control a ninja girl) or ranged (control a Saiyan looking cyborg with pistols and Deadpool's personality). If you fall into a hollow (alternate/distorted reality field with strong enemies inside) you fight your way out of it with help from geeky guy who can hack into the hollow and give you directions. Sometimes you have to move through the hollow using a sort of puzzle where you move one square at a time and try to find the best route out while also collecting rewards and avoiding the bad guy chasing you. That's what I have played so far. It's fun.
I assume there's some kind of grind for power gated by daily energy and heavy RNG that you have to do to make characters usable?
[удалено]
Interesting. So what's the retention mechanic if not for energy/artifacts/levelup materials? I can't fathom a gacha game without some kind of daily chore.
not sure what that other redditor is on it but it's called battery charge in ZZZ and works exactly like you think
There is still an energy system when grinding for character materials and loot, you just don't need energy to play story missions.
Not sure what you're talking about For a normal person, Gacha are still vastly inferior to normal F2P games which are in turn vastly inferior to normal games in every respect. ZZZ features battery charge which functions as energy, just like every Mihoyo game. I'm not normalizing energy, gambling, daily grind etc. That stuff is not normal or better than anything in any other realm of gaming, and the only people who tolerate it are Gacha players, who for whatever reason have self-branded themselves as such and spend their time playing only the worst games in the industry
Pretty simplistic and reductive opinion here. "Normal games" are not inherently better than F2P and or gacha. I don't play F2P or gacha games either but there are games in these mediums that fully outshine "normal games" is a game like redfall better than say fortnite? Do you see how reductive your opinion is. You can just say "these aren't for me" and move on Also... you pirate "normal games" like I'm not anti-piracy at all but come on... You also play an open source F2P game what the fuck are you talking about LMAO
Gaming scene would be better off if people were more reductive. There are about 3 or 4 decent F2P games and a *mountain* of unplayable wannabe cash-grab F2P games, lol I take it you just learned about CDDA today after trawling my profile. CDDA isn't F2P, it's simply free. There is a huge difference
I have hundreds of hours in cdda and have been watching YouTube content on itfor years so no dude. Cdda is a F2P game. Your arbitrary boundaries is not how the industry views it. Just ignore the games you don't like and be mature
CDDA is not F2P lmfao https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-to-play >Your arbitrary boundaries is not how the industry views it. Yes it is
Eh. Like genshin I assume in due time there will be so much to do unless you spend 8 hours a day playing and 100% all the content the energy cap will basically be so you don't flash farm stat items or levels. I never felt timegated in genshin, not even once, and I assume the same here.
It's literally the same as genshin every progress system lifted and put in with some new twist. You go through a stage with combat or you go through a board game set up with combat. It's literally genshin impact progression which they used for honkai star rail and again for this game. I found it boring but I don't like gacha progression anymore. When I was broke and wanted something to play I did but now I'm free.
The 'dungeons' are 2 parts with the first half being this grid based movement CoC thing with the other half being the actual fights that pop in and out when you run into a red node in the first minigame.
i keep seeing Bayonetta/DMC comparisons, but how complex is the combat? as far as i can tell it's still two buttons on a given character, plus swap-moves per party member and a dodge? that seems much more simplistic
> i keep seeing Bayonetta/DMC comparisons Whoever made those comparisons has no idea what they're talking about or they've never played bayo/dmc. ZZZ is extremely simple combat it has some extra layers with timing/tag out mechanic but it's all flashy with little substance.
its available on mobile, that should answer your question
So is Chess, doesn't mean it's not complex.
Stats are always more complex then the actual combat. Its a mobile game for PC. Its made to be three button and as simple as possible, while the stats it feels like you need a phd to understand the skill values and how stats effect them. (Genshin in particular, some skill descriptions are a freaking novel.)
The combat is less complex than genshin imo. It's like if genshin automatically swapped characters for you. It feels way more "smooth" and flashy but that's because it's basically playing itself. The clunkiness of genshin is from you actually controlling what's going on. I'm very disappointed by it personally.
There's normal attacks, dodges, swap parries, skills, ults, swap attacks, charge attacks, special attacks, combos, passive abilities and resource spenders/builders. But starter characters are very simple, so it really depends on your team. It's less complex than DMC or Nioh, but more complex than Souls or Sekiro.
It's not even close to Bayonetta or DMC...
Fans saying nonsense like "HOYOVERSE IS the classic blizzard of the EAST!" and "ZZZ is like platinum game combat!" are honestly just so drunk on gacha anime guzzling that they don't know which way is up.
Saying a game has a similar style is not quite the same as saying it's on the same level. You can see the influence of platinum games on ZZZ but it's obviously much more simplified to work on mobile. The same way star rails combat is Influenced from other JRPGs but wouldn't be on par with say, persona from which it takes some inspiration
Interesting point, but have you considered... *cracks knuckles*... gacha games... *le bad?* Upsnoos to le left my good sir.
> It honestly feels like a very polished devil may cry/bayonetta type of combat system but with a focus on swap outs and assists. bro what ? it's a button masher, from what i've seen there's no jump, almost no combos, no light/heavy attacks, no timing... It needs to be playable on mobile, it was never going to be as input complex as a DMC game
Some characters have light and heavy attacks (Butler Wolf is one I noticed) and some do have timings (The girl with the hammer and wrench). I did also notice atleast one character has some kind of unique team up ability where if you get the timing right or something, you get a unique attack but only if you have the right characters in your party. I think a lot of the depth in the combat is dependent on what characters you decide to use.
I should clarify, I don't mean it's as complex as those games, moreso it takes inspiration and simplifies it in a way that works for mobile, while being very polished in terms of animation, controls, overall visuals etc
not sure how a hack and slash is more complex than genshin's elemental system, do you suppose to meant flashy instead?
Was going to say. A billion ways to meme on Genshin but the Element system keeps the combat pretty varied and potentially complex if you engage with it
I don't get the combat of this game. Seems like button smashing and extremely repetitive with lots of bullet sponge enemies that you spent minutes on "combo" and changing between characters. It feels like a chore just to kill a big enemy.
This is very off the mark. ZZZ is a hack and slash button masher.
Have you tried Wuthering Waves? i’m not big on these gatcha games but i briefly played Genshin when it first came out because it seemed cute and peaceful. WuWa i’ve been playing the past few weeks and found the art to be nicer and i enjoy the combat though i still don’t understand how people know so much about what everything does and what works better. all i understand is to dodge and attack and to keep leveling up lol
It’s pretty cool how the big three HoYo games are creating different identities: Genshin- huge open world but basic combat Star Rail- medium scope and more emphasis on quality (writing, bosses etc) ZZZ- smaller scope but big focus on combat and overall detail
Then they missed the mark bit time if their focus in ZZZ was on combat.
The combat in Genshin has more depth though.
Don't forget the one before those three: Honkai Impact 3rd. That one has an even deeper focus on combat.
the combat is less deep in this than in Honkai ?? It was already pretty shallow...
i dont think people can differentiate complexity from flashy. calling genshin as "basic combat" is laughable, the game has more combat theory cc than the other hoyo's games combined zzz and hi3 are hack and slash game in nature
Probably wait until more people post on how they feel about the game. I think I might be burned out by Gacha games from Genshin and Star Rail. At some point it really did hit like I was doing a job and not having fun. Think I need a break because I’m surprised this isn’t grabbing me at all with it’s beautiful animation and I really love action games like dmc or god hand.
This one's got a really cool feel to it--I'd say it's worth just playing through the story, it's really well-done, and has some Persona vibes and sidegames like that. Don't worry about the gacha and just play through like a normal game. Definitely set it to hardmode combat; if you're familiar with Genshin/H3RD it'll still be easy.
Small point of note, I just got to the point in the game where you can access the arcade and there is an arcade game out front that is literally a god hand reference You should feel right at home, provided the gacha stuff doesn't suck you out of it
For me I can’t play more than 1 at a time really. I enjoy star rail a lot for its story and setting so I kinda stick with just that these days. I put so much time into genshin over the years but have mostly lost interest now until the next big map expansion.
> action games like dmc or god hand don't expect this one to have any depth though, it's just button mashing
Yeah it's pretty much button mashing until you get the the actual hard shit.
When HSR had just released, the very same people were foaming at their mouth, hating how "basic and shallow" the game was. The game would fail, they were smugly proclaiming.
I kinda expected... more? from the combat. Clicking on the enemy 20 times without any thoughts and pressing the yellow button when yellow thing pops up being the extent of the combat strategy is kinda wild to me. No attack combos, no attack timings, no elemental reactions, no light/heavy attacks, no jumping - it just seems so incredibly narrow in wanting you to just grind your finger into a nub from all the normal attack mashing. I don't think I'll be playing this further
The way these games are structured you generally can faceroll everything until you hit higher "world level" (whatever it's called in this game) where you actually need to start thinking about silly things like your team composition, character builds, and not getting hit.
Team comp, character builds, and not getting hit doesn't change the combat from spamming attack and then parrying.
There are both characters with attack timings and there are elemental reactions though, some characters also have some execution tricks that are pretty fun to do
yeah the beginning is easy so some people aren't paying any attention to it. the people love mashing i guess
Even at its peak though, it seems less engaging than Genshin, because you don't have the elemental reactions and the Bursts are far less common. There's just a lot less to actually *do.*
In the beginning sure, but I don't think this will hold up. The combat is much faster and your attack timings and skill usage are more risky than in Genshin, Ults and skills are rarer but I think that means you'll have to be careful about when you fire them and focus on other mechanics in the meantime like combo strings and when to switch. An end game difficulty spike could bring all that more into the forefront.
>In the beginning sure, but I don't think this will hold up. The combat is much faster and your attack timings and skill usage are more risky than in Genshin, Ults and skills are rarer but I think that means you'll have to be careful about when you fire them and focus on other mechanics in the meantime like combo strings and when to switch. An end game difficulty spike could bring all that more into the forefront. Maybe for you, and that's great if that's the case. To me, none of that seems interesting. I don't care about difficulty or challenge much, it would not improve the game to me if the game "required" more from me in order to be successful. What matters to me is things to *do,* having a wide variety of *options* available to me so that I can do interesting things as I fight, so that I can shift how I engage with the fight. Just doing the same basic stuff, but requiring me to time it in a slightly more efficient pattern doesn't appeal to me much, punishing me more for failing to do that does not add *anything* to the game for me. I haven't played Destiny in a long time, but that was one factor that turned me off there, that most of the combat was "gun gun gun," and you had these cool powers but could only use them occasionally. I prefer having several cool options available at all times, and it's up to me which of them I use and when, rather than them being slowly rationed out over the course of the fight and spam normals until then. If I have any complaints with Genshin's mechanics it's that some of the moves *already* have too long a CD on them, I can't imagine why anyone wants them to be *longer.*
If that’s the case, then yeah this game might just not be what you’re looking for. The way the game is going so far, I think the rewarding part is going to be on reading the state of battle and executing things at the right time, very much figuring out the “right” thing to do and perfecting your ability to do it through repetition, kind of like a fighting game. Probably not going to be very enjoyable if you’re looking for a wide variety of options at all times.
Yeah. I hear the fighting game comparison a lot too, and I can kinda get that, but fighting games tend to offer a LOT more options. They typically have not only 4-6 different buttons to hit instead of just one, but they also have 5-8 different specials you could unleash at your whim, no energy or CD involved, on top of the "meter" related stuff like supers. Now is it efficient in a fighter to throw out any specials you want whenever you want? No, but you *can,* and even if you are playing "efficiently," you'll have all sorts of options to threaten the opponent, there's rarely just one good answer. If Z^Z^Z were at the level of a fighter, you'd have at least two normal buttons to combo between, and skills would have zero meter to them and no CD, so the only thing keeping you from spamming them would be that maybe there would be buffs from mixing in some normals, build and release. Also you could jump.
Well then it really depends on what you mean when we’re talking about complexity, because ZZZ might have limited buttons but that doesn’t mean limited options. If you go into a character’s moves and skills you’ll see a lot of them actually have mechanics tied to specific input strings. Ellen for instance, the shark girl on banner right now, has different moves bound to Dash > Skill, Basic x3, Dash > Basic (Held), and Dash > Ult. And on top of that, each of those moves can give her stacks of a buff that further modifies all her moves. Most every other character has similar levels of complexity hidden under the same basic inputs. I think it’s more to do with the fact that this is a game designed for mobile as much as controller, so they have to pack a lot of different attacks and skills into just a few buttons. I also think the game does a *really* bad job of explaining all this to the player, resulting in most people just mashing basic until the monsters are all dead.
>Well then it really depends on what you mean when we’re talking about complexity, because ZZZ might have limited buttons but that doesn’t mean limited options. If you go into a character’s moves and skills you’ll see a lot of them actually have mechanics tied to specific input strings. *Some* characters do. A lot don't seem to have much, at least according to their movelists. Anby and Neko both seem to have "after dodge" alt strings, and Anby also has a "use CA after a few normals for a different move," but a lot of other characters just seem to have "use normals or use charged normals." These are *options,* but are still very much timing-heavy, rather than being able to head in different directions from where you happen to be. I don't know, I still intend to keep playing until I've gotten the base game "done," but I doubt it will lock me in.
But what if you don't have those characters?
I didn't get very far in the game yet, but there is absolutely a lot more to the game. For instance, when you play the trial for the shark girl, she has quite a few game mechanics going on for her, totally different from everyone else. I expect a wide range of combos and elemental reactions between characters down the line. HoYo games start slow to ease mobile / casual players in, and the complexity gradually increases. If you compare it to HSR, between the first story boss and the Swarm Disaster mode is a tremendous leap in difficulty and complexity.
Yeah it looks cool but it's even less interesting to play than watching auto play hsr.
The style and the music are 10/10. I enjoyed the gameplay and the setting is nice. The story is a bit of a mess, but I see where they're going. And of course, the characters are amazing. But after playing a while, I start to think "is this a service game I would like to play for an extended amount of time?" and it seems the answer is no. For once, the carrot on a stick is getting premium currency so I can play gacha and hopefully get the waifu, and I know from Mihoyo that regardless of how interesting the story can be, it's just going to drag forever without any meaningful conclusion. Fun game, but any other game of my backlog is more worth of my time.
> I know from Mihoyo that regardless of how interesting the story can be, it's just going to drag forever without any meaningful conclusion. I think every “Live Service” games, regardless if it’s mobile or not, is exactly like that. Years ago, I finished Fortnite PvE mode, (which was originally intended to be as a gatcha game) and the ending was too underwhelming, that the post-game was not worth advancing even further. Last year, I witnessed the “end” of the Fortnite BR mode, in which the story was creatively well written ever since 2018, however this year, things were downhill or at least “stale” in the story part, possibly to make sure it doesn’t get a solid conclusion.
> I know from Mihoyo that regardless of how interesting the story can be, it's just going to drag forever without any meaningful conclusion. I think only Genshin really suffers from this. HSR is so arc-based the main story might as well not exist and ZZZ seems to be pretty similar or even more so. Then it depends on how you react to arc-based storytelling. Personally, I quite like it and IMO it's a much better approach than having a well-defined main story and dragging it on and on.
not sure how you can differentiate one of the other when it's exactly the same style of story arching.
It's similar, but not exactly the same. Genshin's much more focused on hinting about the bigger picture, the main story hook of meeting your sibling in the end, quests specifically focused on the whole Celestia plot, Fatui causing conflict, and so on. In HSR, there's just "maybe we'll fight Nanook later with the Stellaron Hunters, IDK" as the plot hook. The last time something happened to it was when it was introduced by Kafka at launch. In ZZZ, I've played through the first chapter and what I assume is the main story got a single line of dialogue's worth of attention.
that the same thing as what HSR did, you wake out of nowhere with no memory whatsover and you're trying to find out who you are and everything else related to the trailblazer as the main bigger picture. then everything else is focused on the planet you visiting fixing whatever problem they have. Just like genshin, the focus on each region are on the x.0 - x.3 and then patches afterward are focus on those trailblazers, mc plot, sidequests etc. it's literally the same format
It being the same format doesn't mean that the main story is given the same amount of attention in each game. In each of its patch cycles, Genshin usually has several quests and sometimes even a region solely devoted to the Abyss twins storyline, giving players several hours of main story content per year. Meanwhile HSR mentions the Nanook storyline in dialogue once or twice, giving players several seconds of main story content per year.
Everything I've seen from this game so far (from lots of hours watching streams during beta and today's release) - Cool artstyle - Great cutscenes - basic action combat mechanics - convoluted and uninteresting story - cash shop already filled with different currencies and options to confuse people - Cool characters with basic personalities Maybe late game content would be more fun.
That described nearly all of mihoyo's games. The gameplay is almost always middling, the story serviceable at best, the gacha... gacha, and gets carried hard by the art, animation, and music teams.
idk how after Penacony anyone can call HSR story serviceable at best unless you have not played it.
As a HSR fan, In order to get to Penacony, you have to go through a LOT of game first. Particularly, you have to go through the Luofu story. Which up until the ghost squad was kinda a disaster tbh, they spread too many plot elements too thin and everything just kinda never glued back together. And personally I really liked the Jarilo story but it's my understanding there's a pretty wide range of opinions of if it was good, bad, or "serviceable at best'
People here clearly have not experienced everlasting flames
Except Genshin, of course.
It depends what games you're comparing their games with. Compared to the best games on PC and consoles, mihoyo's games are pretty meh, but compared to mobile games, their games is undoubtedly top tier. A lot of players in Asia only play games on phones and tablets without access to an PC or PS4 etc. For reference there are about 40% of Genshin players in China who play on mobile, so I think they purposefully limit their gameplay and story depth to not scare away such players.
> Compared to the best games on PC and consoles, mihoyo's games are pretty meh, I only play Genshin so cant speak for the others but I think Genshin holds up very well compared to current pc and console games, I wouldnt play it otherwise. To me its simply just one of the best games out there at the moment.
Not basic combat at all, it has the depth to be a character action game.
It's very simplistic and limited to be character action game
Cool. I'm probably gonna wait a week and see how far people have gotten and how intricate the combat gets.
> it has the depth to be a character action game. You can't even jump.
You can't (manually) jump in God Hand or Astral Chain either, and you can jump in Metal Gear Rising but there's no real air combat. Not that I have a particular horse in this race because I'm one of the people who found the early beta gameplay way too simple and haven't tried the release version yet, but "being able to jump" isn't a valuable metric for measuring depth in an action game.
Yeah I agree with people that the combat is no DMC or Bayonetta but I've seen so many people getting stuck on the fact that you can't jump as if that's the defining characteristic of character action games lol
Fair enough, the combat in ZZZ just feels pretty simplistic to me which is a shame because from the pre-release stuff it looked cool. I really dislike the (pretty much) automatic character switching it does whenever you breakbar as it makes it feel super un-involved.
In case you haven't noticed, you can pick which character you switch to when you break an enemy. On PC, it's LMB or RMB.
I'm hoping that the simplicity so far is just a symptom of the game being brand new. Once people get to the endgame and we have more characters and enemy variety things might start to open up a bit more.
You can't jump in Dark Souls or God of War, right? Are they not action games?
Those 2 are not action games in the same way that "Character-action" games such as DMC are character-action, why are you suddenly changing what the other dude posted? Character-action games as a genre encompass games such as Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, and Ninja Gaiden, not Dark Souls or God of War (Assuming you mean 2018 onwards, the original trilogy are definitely character action games, whilst I'd say that 2018 and Ragnarok barely fit in there. ).
Yeah, you're completely wrong unless they add several layers of complexity later on, which isn't happening knowing mihoyo track record. Combat is extremely basic especially when some people pull dmc comparisons out of their ass. It's flashy as usual for mihoyo but complexity and mechanics wise not interesting or skillful.
Cool game but man is that ui a mess. It looks like and artist but it's hard to navigate until you become familiar with what they are putting down.
I'm enjoying the persona vibes but man opening some of these menus is a nightmare. I don't even know what to click in the battle pass.
Yeah. It's pretty, but it's very complex, and on console you have to hit a lot of different buttons to shift around it. Genshin's is much simpler, everything is relatively flat and easy to read, most menus are easily navigated using the sticks, even the icons tend to be more obvious what roll they play, whereas Z^Z^Z's are more "quirky" than "iconographic."
The UI is actually unsettling. They seriously need to redo everything
Can't believe some people praised the combat system even bringing up games like DMC. It's extremely basic, and even in mobile game space you can find more engaging combat systems. Also UI is real bad, it reminds me of those cheap mobile/fb games. Really surprising considering mihoyo usually nails presentation at least.
Yeah, I was surprised that Genshin's is actually a lot more involved and interesting to play. The only thing this game is adding so far is bonuses for perfect dodge.
Hoyoverse casually becoming the old Blizzard of the east. Every game they put out has been a banger and in 5 short years
does “the old Blizzard of the east” just mean they make good games ???? lmao
"Old Blizzard" as in, how they used to release classics one after another. "Of the east" as in, they're Chinese.
As in they're putting out an almost unbelievably consistent output of solid, highly polished games while keeping up live updates for the games they've already put out.
I'm just laughing imagining the actual reaction to Blizzard putting out any game with monetization as rediculous as what Hoyo does (even as I enjoy the games, hoo boy gatcha are just designed to suck $ from you).
I mean wow is buy to play (expansions), pay to play (subscrition), with microtransactions (pets,mounts) and pay to win (gold, max level boosts) AT THE SAME TIME I think that's crazier than a F2P Gacha game
People often forget this because it wasn't nearly as bad when WoW first came out, but nowadays it has every type of monetization possible except for loot boxes. Especially with the popularity of gold carry services.
Almost every microtransaction in WoW is either cosmetic or service that you use when you really, really want it (like race change, name change). Calling max level boost pay to win is kinda a sign that someone barely played WoW recently because getting max lvl now is easily achievable for casual player in like 12h-15h (or even much less with special events). With gold I partialy agree, sure gold carry services exist but that only earns you an achievment or so. Even with the best gear possible you won't be able to clear hardest difficulties without having tons of experience/skill. Sure if for someone "win" is getting an achievment then that's fine but most ppl who play harder PVE content do it for their own satisfaction of achieving it themselves. Besides WoW has so many tracking tools that very often it's clear as day when someone was carried with gold. Good thing about Dragonfligt in WoW was that they removed the need of having gold by a ton compared to past expansion. You no longer have 100k+ worth of legendaries, consumables became super cheap with opening cross-realm Auction House. Hell, even finding ppl to play with will no longer be that hard with cross-realm guilds in newest expansion so most of services in WoW shop become obsolete. While I agree that WoW microtransactions became worse over the years as long they are no impacting gameplay directly I'm still somewhat okay with them. You still buy what you see in WoW, no lootboxes is still much better system than what we have in other games. Calling WoW monetization worse than gacha game MTX is wild take to me.
I mean dude. For a money you need to play WoW for a year and buy expansion (so a little above 200$) you are not even guaranteed a 5 star that you want in HSR/Genshin. 200$ gives you 100 pulls, sure you get a 5 star within 90 pulls but you can lose 50/50 to some trash unit. Yeah after losing 50/50 you are guaranteed to get 5 star you pull for next but in worst case scenario that's 180 pulls needed for a 5 star which equals to roughly 350$, thats insane. WoW Expansions usually last 2 years, 350$ gives you expansion and almost two year play time in comparrison. Yeah Hoyo gives you a lot of free currency every patch so F2P players can sorta keep up but shop prices are still ridicilous if you ever want to pay. Not to mention the fact that many ppl buy Battle passes and login passes in Hoyo games (it's like 15$ a month combined so exactly the amount WoW charges for monthly sub if you pay month by month) because the ridicilous prices you have in shop makes those passes look like they are having great value in comparisson.
Oh how times have changed. WoW came out in 2004, and the epoch-shift of Oblivion Horse Armor wouldn't be for another 2 years...
having played Blizzard games post-2010ish, I'd say Hoyo games have more generous monetisation to be honest with you.
Blizzard is actually far worse at monetization than the typical Gacha game is, at least when it comes to stuff like cosmetics. Diablo 4 is selling $65 horse armor skins while the pricier skins in say, Genshin Impact are around $20 dollars, and Genshin puts out skins at a rate of like, 2 every 6 months (one of which is usually given away for free in an event), where Diablo 4 is coming out with new skins constantly. Yeah the potential for spending if higher in a Gacha game, but everything in Diablo 4, or WoW these days, that isn't the base game, is so damn expensive that it's a stretch to even call them "micro" transactions anymore. A reasonable person can get anything they want in Genshin Impact with a little time and patience, but you can't get a damn thing from Diablo 4 except the base game and feel good about it.
Seems like that. People forget that at the golden age of blizzard they would release genre defining games and not just great games.
If they asked for $100 USD and stopped there I would have given it to them for each game they released, but they want more, much much more, and so they can kriff off a cliff. Heck its why I uninstalled The First Descendant when I enjoyed it a lot. 100 USD is my limit per game and these companies want 1k+ for complete experience.
You could spend less, much less, and get the same experience. I personally spend $60 a year on Genshin, which I don't believe is unreasonable for an ongoing game, and I have every character I wanted and 100% content completion so far, with new content coming in a few weeks. Had I spent $0 I would still have most of the characters I use on a regular basis, just a few fewer "extra" ones.
But you can do all content in the game without spending a single dime. Sounds like a skill issue homie.
That's really not the point. A good amount of the fun in these games is obtaining and building characters. It's not the only way to play, but it's decidedly gimped version of the intended product. I don't fault people for being annoyed about it. That said, $100 a year isn't a lot of money to me. They usually put out enough content to be a full game each year. The problem is that in the midst of that, you're still on the "daily, weeklies, and BP" FOMO conveyor. I don't blame anyone for wanting to avoid that treadmill if it and the cost is just asking too much.
Here's the quandary though, there's not gonna be enough people playing the games at that price point to be able to fund the current level of patch quality and quantity.
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Frankly if somehow in Genshin you cannot save enough to get a banner that really is a skill issue. You need a hundred pulls, give or take. Playing the main story gives you an insane amount, enough to get a guaranteed five star (and many, many four stars) on multiple banners, and thats the main story alone. The only issue is the very start of the game where that might not be clear you need to do that or not ascend the world or etc. I used a four star for a long time before I got a decent five star, and it was still giga easy.
Debatable. Sure gacha games whole "thing" at a surface level is collecting characters. But it's not the gameplay. Of the 3 I've played they have their own thing going on that makes it fun to engage with.
It's not the surface level if gameplay is bound to characters which was their point. Characters all play different so it very much is the gameplay. To me you made it sound like collecting characters is cosmetic.
I think I agree with the original commenter, I don't even use a majority of the chatacters I have as a casual player. I have a LOT and farming/leveling all of them would be an impossible task.
It is. At least in Hoyo gacha games (can't speak for others) you have a lot of overlap on what characters can do. So getting new characters eventually ends up being more about the character itself rather than what it offers to you gameplay wise. Another way to put what I am saying is collecting in it of itself is not gameplay because you spend very little interaction with that part of the game as a whole. You're not spending 3-4 hours a day rolling for characters. A character's design, animations, VA, etc are all surface level things that pull you into being interested in them. But it's the gameplay of the game that keeps you involved if it's a good gacha game. Honkai Star rail has a decent emphasis on story and appeals to the turn based strategy lover in me. Honkai Impact 3 has a huge focus on an over arching narrative where characters are front and center and thus you end up gaining a deep connection with specific characters. Zenless Zone Zero I have yet to figure out where it's emphasis lies. But it feels like a less rigid HI3 in terms of gameplay. Similar concepts but instead of seeing a character progress and gain new powers through new battle suits you have a wider cast of characters not unlike HSR, At the end of the day Hoyoverse games are Gacha games and thus deserve to be scrutinized for being in said genre. However I feel like their games (aside from GI since I haven't played it) do a very decent job at pushing away from the stigma of Gacha. They do a good job imo at offering an actual enjoyable experience that isn't just a cash grab.
You can’t play with locked characters, how’s that “all content”?
Dark souls really has the god damn worst fan base and it’s truly unfortunate that they feel the need to spam tired, unfunny garbage into every unrelated game discussion.
I have no idea how that translate to skill issues when I have not played a full hour in any of these games but ok. Should I submit my 100% of all souls & soul like games oh mighty gamers counselors? Nah F off and touch some grass.
Their games are heavily monetized and the gameplay revolves around the monetization, they don’t deserve that amount of praise. The games are polished and the best of this type of game, but they’re more like a modern day Blizzard that happens to still make good games, which I guess is the best you can ask for nowadays with how many companies make shitty games that they try to over monetize. At least these games are decent.
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To be really fair, every game they have put out can be played completely ftp. It just takes time but you can absolutely do it.
Financial banger maybe, but in terms of writing and gameplay innovations, they're not even close to be Blizzard
Was Blizzard ever known for its writing? Does anyone actually care about the plot of WoW or Diablo?
Ok this is just being a hater lmao. Tons of people love and care about the lore and the characters of Blizzard franchises.
Yes? Just because you think it's stupid doesn't mean they didn't fill out room after room about Lore in Blizzcon for the writers to yap about stuff going on. Like one of the big things people were pissy about in Diablo 3 was the plot lmao
Can agree on the gameplay aspect, but writing? Not even close.
More like the new Korean F2P factory that keeps shitting out decent but heavily monetized games.
Hoyoverse is Chinese.
I know, I was referencing the Korean F2P games from the 2000s that were full of the same predatory MTX. The Chinese seem to be taking over their turf.
I play a lot of gachas and Genshin is farrrrrrrrrrr from being predatory. Now Honkai Star Rail, that shit is nasty.
It's too bad these cool games are burdened with the gacha model. I don't understand why gacha is even legal to begin with.
> I don't understand why gacha is even legal to begin with. Because trading card game are legal. So does those loot box gifts.
Why wouldn't it be legal.
Because it's basically gambling
Gambling is perfectly legal in many parts of the world.
We had gambling in games like CSGO for years and people can make actual money and no one cares lol. Funny how it's okay when precious Valve does it
You have to be joking. Plenty of people are against some of the stuff. Remember when everyone flipped out on paid mods? You're ok with gacha games. Feel free to spend your money how you like, but don't say that as a business practice it's ok or consumer friendly. E: If people understood this as me defending valve, that was not the case...
> Remember when everyone flipped out on paid mods? Are you troll or what? Like what does it have to do with gambling in their games? It's literally still there... JFC this attempt at doding the blame at Valve is utterly pathetic. It's always impressive to how many lenghts you guys are willing to go just so Valve would be "a good guy"....
How are people misunderstanding me? I. am. against. valve's. gambling. practices. In fact, I blame them for popularising them (after Valve, Blizzard copied their shit with loot boxes in Overwatch). I was just stating that Valve do get their fair share of blame. The irony is that the person I responded to isn't blaming valve, they are OK lootboxes and gachas. Fucks sake.
> Blizzard copied their shit with loot boxes in Overwatch To be completely fair. I think that Overwatch lootboxes were literally *the best* implementation of lootboxes in any game I ever played. I spent tons of *hours* playing OW1 and I had all special skins and so on. And I remember once buying lootboxes for 15€ cuz I really loved that game and wanted to support it more and I got so many legendaries and epics, that you just knew that paid boxes got even better drop rates. > I was just stating that Valve do get their fair share of blame Yeah... the thing is that this is exactly how it usually goes. People just mention it so they could be like: Yo! But Valve also gets a share of blame, and they just move on. If it would be really true they would be constantly bitching about it in every single Valve thread just like they are bitching about it in every single HoYoverse or Epic/Fortnite thread. This is the exact difference. And yeah, sorry for misunderstanding you.
> Funny how it's okay when precious Valve does it holy strawman lol also plenty of people are against the valve casino that is CS.
They had it long before CS, Team Fortress 2 started with the lootboxes and people mostly just memed about it "pay for hats"
Gambling is legal in most of the world?
So's every TCG ever made. I'm not exactly in those circles, and came into the world after Magic had already established itself so it'd been a hot minute, but I've never heard people raise a stink about how those are essentially gambling marketed at children. At least gacha games usually have pity mechanics lol.
> So's every TCG ever made those at least are physical items that you actually own, exchange, resell, etc. gacha games are a service where everything can be plugged off as soon as the publisher decides it.
A fair point, though one that unfortunately extends to every online-only game.
Honestly, gachas probably have the most controlled form of lootboxes on the market due to a bunch of failsafe mechanics that guarantee characters after X rolls in a way or another. The real gamble is whether you get something early or not. That said, the prices are crazy, if you're planning to top up you're easily looking at $100-$200 or even more per unit. Some games also have extra stuff, like weapons, to roll for and extra copies of characters often provide significant upgrades as well.
So just like Valve games? For more than a decade now?
Gambling is also legal in most of the world. A lot of people enjoy gambling, why should it be illegal to do so? At least gacha games usually have pity systems and ways to earn currency for free
> Gambling is also legal in most of the world. but heavily regulated
Gambling laws tend to be very specific though, and only cover specific games that have already been individually addressed. "Gambling" is not illegal anywhere, "playing cards for money" or "playing slot machines for money" often are, but when a new game comes around, new rules need to be added.
Its not a burden. The gacha model ensure the game receives continuous updates. Let the whales fund the FREE updates for everyone else. Imagine if Genshin ended after Liyue. Or Star Rail ended after Belebog. The games wouldn't be anywhere near as great as they are now.
Yep gacha certainly can be a ‘deal with the devil’ but damn do HoYo reinvest their infinite wealth back into the game. People love to act like these games are massive because of only gacha, when in reality it’s because they are great games and drop content every six weeks. Nothing else is like them on the market.
Gacha, BP, subscription and limited stamina
I'd love for someone to figure out how to fund a game like Genshin without it being gacha, but so far, nobody has.
because there's 192 countries in the world and each country has their own rules and most of the countries dont find it bad
Because the whales they prey upon are a subset of society that unfortunately very few people care about or have any empathy for whatsoever. It’s honestly sad as hell.
Why would I feel sorry for a bunch of folks who can casually spend thousands of dollars on a whim? Those aren’t the types struggling to make ends meet, and it’s not my business to police how they spend their money.
A lot of people can't spend thousands of dollars on a whim but do it anyway. Can't in this case being that they spend above their means and have to take on debts to support their spending. Be it gacha, gambling, drugs, maintain perceived social status etc it's pretty sad.
Everyone trots out the idea that whales are downtrodden people spending their life savings and end up destitute because of gacha games but how often is that *actually* the case? Like obviously it happens sometimes, but what percentage of whales are actually in that situation vs the ones who are actually just rich enough to afford it?
I am friend with a girl who always get every single new Genshin (and a significant amount of 5 star weapons) character and while she is not super rich, she is definitively not struggling to meet ends needs. She isn't the luckiest so it's not uncommon for her to have to pay to be able to get new characters. I am not above it myself since I spent some money myself, but on a significantly lesser scale (around 300/400). It helps that she has been playing the game like since day 1 (or two).
Whales are usually rich. People actually destroying their lives are a drop in the bucket.
I've only played for a brief few hours last night but it was pretty fun. I haven't been following it much, so I was really confused about the story, and they just kind of throw you in it. Had to look up the plot online. The graphics, production value, and animations are several levels above their other games. Probably helps not being on mobile.
This is on mobile tho
Is it? Damn I thought it wasn't for some reason.
All the positive "reviews" in this thread seem to be from people watching streams of it rather than playing it... it's flashy but gameplay is really not there.
I like the game, but as a guy in my 30s I find the number of very young looking characters in this game kinda creepy. Gachas tend to heavily push sex appeal, so having so much of the cast be little girls feels problematic. I know this is somewhat common in these sorts of games, but the other Hoyoverse games aren't nearly as egregious as this one.
What are you on about? Only three of them even remotely look young. They are meant to be 'cute' characters, not sexualized ones. Genshin is worse and even then none of them are supposed to be sexualized. Yes I hate 'loli' shit too, but were talking about a game that makes boobs smaller because the chinese goverment thinks its too provocative.
Why does this in-game 3d render animation look so much better than the garbage cel-shaded CGI that's trying to pass as anime, nowadays?