Gachapwned: How gacha MMOs drown us in progression and randomness | Massively Overpowered

Comments

• hisao@ani.social ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Let me explain how Honkai Star Rail handles gearing. Every single character has six relic slots: head, hands, body, feet, planar orb, and planar ornament. These relics go from level 0 to level 15, and four of them have a randomized primary stat. They all feature four randomized secondary stats, and every three levels a random one of those secondary stats gets a bonus. Each relic also belongs to a set of relics, and characters benefit from having two or four pieces of a given relic set. That means for every character in your party, you need to get the right items at the maximum rarity, the right primary stats, the right secondary stats, and the right level-ups for those secondary stats.

  This is min-maxer mindset and I would hope randomized systems like this will prevent it but unfortunately no: even here some people think they actually need to roll every dice exactly the right way. I don’t think it’s true that this is really necessary. And no, it is not necessary to do top 10 world parses; you can just beat endgame content on modest, casual difficulty and call it a day, rather than try hard to set a record.

  source
• wirelesswire@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  So, the article is about gacha MMOs, but then doesn’t list any? Of the games it references, Honkai Star Rail isn’t a MMO, and World of Warcraft isn’t a gacha game.

  source

  • Agent_Karyo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    This is a long series article on gacha. This is the third or the fourth one.

    I can understand using a more broad definition of MMO due to changes in the market.

    source

    • Ashtear@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      There’s almost no multiplayer in Honkai Star Rail, though, much less anything approaching what an MMO does. It has asynchronous character sharing and chat. That’s literally all the player interaction there is in the core game. Every now and then there’s an event where you can go head-to-head in simple games like match 3.

      source
  • DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Can’t get on the sponsored blacklist now can they?

    source
• Coelacanth@feddit.nu ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Great article. The entangling web of endless progression systems is one piece, but one thing they failed to mention is time gating and daily quests. It’s very important for these games to force you to play a little bit every day, instead of in large chunks all at once. This helps move the game subconsciously in your brain from “a game” to “a habit/a hobby”, and that makes your purchasing decisions very different.

  source

  • DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Hook habit hobby.

    youtu.be/xNjI03CGkb4

    source

    • Coelacanth@feddit.nu ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I knew what that video was before even clicking the link. Great insight into the horrible people ruining the games industry.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
  • Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    China started drafting legislation cracking down on engagement bait daily tasks a few years ago and some games (like Genshin and other Hoyoverse titles) dropped daily check-in bonuses as a result and made more things reset weekly. I think China later backtracked (IIRC the politician pushing the laws fell out of favor?), but not being forced to log in every day made those games so much less stressful.

    I haven’t played those games in years, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that crap crept back in again.

    source

    • wccrawford@discuss.online ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      I’ve played Genshin almost since the start (took a break for a while) and it’s had daily tasks the whole time. You earn gems and other in-game rewards every day for it. There’s also an additional web-based daily checkin as well.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
• hisao@ani.social ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Even co-op in gacha games doesn’t qualify as MMO, because for that you need hundreds or thousands of players being simultaneously in the same persistent world. This is the same reason why games like Dota, League of Legends or Counter Strike aren’t considered MMO.

  source
• PapstJL4U@lemmy.world [bot] ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Diablo 1 is at fault - and Diablo 2 the first kingpin. Even without progression tabs people were grinding and hoping for the High rune.

  What’s kinda funny is thw fact buying progression (i.e. Items and runes) on thoses ‘illegal’ sites was more reasonable in price.

  The only danger the current iteration of f2p games has, is the graphical fidelity.

  In other aspects premium games are still better. We just need to teach the new generation, that there is more than f2p.

  source

  • Agent_Karyo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Diablo 1 and 2 weds totally fine. There was no trash monetiziation around them (haven’t played the remaster of D2, so can’t speak for it).

    source
• NIB@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Star Rail isnt an mmo. And while it has many “progression mechanics”, they are slowly introduced to the player. And once you understand them, you dont really need to think that much about them. It is basically an anime+idle game.

  You watch your anime episode every now and then and you afk farm daily for a couple mins(so that your characters slowly become stronger). You dont need to think loads of time to understand them but i guess it depends on what you mean by loads of times. Maybe i have played many games(mobile and conventional), so i dont have any issues with the systems.

  If you want to build a character, you can choose them and the game will highlight their ideal “gear” and “stats”, though those recommendations arent always perfect. If you want to tryhard, you can use this site

  www.prydwen.gg/star-rail/tier-list/

  And see what gear and stats are ideal for your character. Or just use your brain. Most dps like crit damage/rate, attack and speed. Most supports really love speed. Or watch a guoba video about the character you want to gear. Ultimately, if you afk grind gear, it doesnt take a giant brain to understand that the dps set, wants dps stats, or that the break set wants break damage stats.

  source