From what I've read from people talking about the closed beta, it used to be that everyone in Jinzhou was unfriendly and distrustful of the player character, especially Chixia. They may have overcorreted on that front.
Regarding the difficulty, one common thing genshin copies face are the lowest common denominator being really low. You end up attracting a lot of children and a lot of non gamers so making story/event content with rewards behind them difficult would alienate a large portion of the playerbase. Actual difficult content ends up being optional, like the tower and the challenge, which i genuinely find difficult (who knows how hard it'll be once character stats are near maxed)
Fair point. There are defs points where the game does put on its gamer pants. That said, I don't like being punished by having to do "baby content" to get to the fun part. I think it would be really easy to work around with adding something like a difficulty setting that gives you slightly more rewards. I would welcome any option that would make the general gameplay a bit more threatening.
I know other people have brought it up already but Genshin absolutely does not have this problem. I don't know why its clones have it, but Genshin's main strength has always been its characters. Not all are winners or get enough screentime to shine, but they're all expressly unique in every way from each other, and some are real standouts in the gaming medium in general. My personal pick for the best written character of any game ever is from Genshin Impact of all things. And I've played Planescape Torment and Disco Elysium, I'm not some gatcha shmuck. Genshin has very few "protagonist cheerleaders." There are people who are helpful by nature, people who try to use you or manipulate you, people who are pitted against you ideologically, people who flirt with you, people who try to arrest or kill you on sight, people who join up with you for purely pragmatic reasons, people who treat you no differently than anyone else, people who consider you their rival, and even people who actively dislike you and don't want to deal with you. You will end up on at least amicable terms with most of them, but it's always beleavable, earned, and rooted in story/character development. Even several of the game's main antagonists are playable, not because they need, want, or get redemption, but simply because they know you'll probably end up killing each other in the end and they think here's no use in being dramatic about it until then.
I’ve learned the hard way that my desire to see my favorite waifus fleshed out and the game’s desire to sell me new characters are inherently at odds with each other.
The combat is insane, you can swap 8 times in like 3s with input on each swap I like that the game has a skip button The infinite grind is really good, i can literally get my character to max potential in a few days and be done with it Story is not good early on, post scar the story is great, dk about the side quests, skipped all of them The endgame mode, the Abyss kind of mode is same as genshin and is shit The Holo fights are soo good, im still trying to get through difficulty 4 of all holos and its fun Illusive realm is like HSR simulated universe but kinda short Overall i like this game and will keep playing it, its fun.
I'm enjoying WuWa so far, but I'm taking it very slow and playing casually without getting too deep into echos and stuff. I enjoy the exploration, the story, the combat, and the visuals.
Wuthering Waves has combat that is actually fun and takes a little more precision and skill. Wuthering Waves is weak thematically and has a lack of identity through its music. However, I cannot think of a single gotcha game that would give me the same satisfaction in combat that WW gives me. Hate on it, but understand it is good competition with Genshin Impact that will make both titles try harder in order to keep attention.
The games story feels like a wuxia novel. I would love if every game had high grade story’s or interesting plot hooks(like the end of NIKKE chapter 1) but that is sorely lacking across the majority of gaming not just gacha games. I like the game but because it didn’t have the power of Covid like genshin did it will ether make it or flop within the next one or two major updates. Hope the game fixes its issues because it dose definitely have potential.
Fair enough. Came to see another POV, and you make sense. I do hope they get better, enjoy the combat enough to come back, does not mean it is perfect. But that is a thing of subjective opinion.
Honestly I'm enjoying WW quite a lot. Don't get me wrong, I agree with a lot of your points... but I never played PGR so the combat system seems like enough of an upgrade on Genshin to entertain me, the MSQ and a lot of the sidequests are quite fun, and I've honestly just been on the lookout for something like this while waiting for ZZZ because I didn't want to go back to Genshin but I sort of have an itch for a gacha game for some reason. First it was Summoners war (didn't spend money thank god) then it was Arknights (don't ask how much I spent there) and then Genshin (which I spent a bit on). Now it's WW and yeah, I'm having fun. A lot of my current enjoyment for WW might also be because the world is new. Genshin was great, I enjoyed my time with it, but I was overwhelmed when I realised I was spending 1-2 hours JUST on my dailies before even getting to new content and that was just too much. Now the idea of going back to that is... I don't want to say scary but it does feel overwhelming. I have multiple regions of content to catch up on if I went back, and it was already a time consuming game. Then there's the fact that the monetisation feels so bad. Like, I don't even want to pay for pulls because they're too expensive. I can get more gacha currency from just playing the game for an hour then I can spending a good chunk of money. So it means I'm probably going to just have fun with WW for a month or two, maybe come back for big content updates and not spend money. Which does suck for Kurogames. I don't want WW to die but I'm just not sufficiently enticed. Even the monthly pass is awful. A month of logging in every day for 16~ pulls? I get that I'll recieve fewer rewards as I complete the generous parts of the content but 16~ pulls? That's nothing. You're not even certain to get a 4* character with that.
Thanks for taking the time to write that. I'm glad you're having fun with it. Like I said, it's definitely not bad and I'm sure WW will be fine, there's defs a lot of exaggeration either way on the success or failure of the game and really it's just sunk cost fallacy vs hype train. I definitely cannot do an hour on dailies at this point in my life That's nuts haha. ah... yeah, I think with all these p2w games is that... the krill need to feel like they can win. TOF was terrible for that.
I really enjoy Wuthering Waves combat but the open world is such a detriment. Especially the echo grind. The ones you can obtain with wave plates are far too sparce that if you want to build a character in less than several months you have to grind the open world for over two hours every day which I simply can't justify doing.
omg... Yeah, I won't be doing that long term. I want to stick around for the next banner... for... personal reasons. But, after that we'll have to wait and see
Thank you for making this video, I was a little disappointed awell at the constant cuddling of the characters but as I was reading comments I heard some of the decisions were influenced by the beta players. If you look at the previous beta test Crownless got nerfed lore and combat-wise. If I remember correctly Yangyang was supposed to sustain heavy injuries from Crownless and it looked more cinematic. I really wish they implemented some of that bold writing in the current story.
Yeah.... about the gacha comment, it is not about being good or not or being the best, in the end for me the only important thing is if I am having fun. And about WuWa I am having fun going around killing Red Bosses and pushing simulation fight (that are maybe the hard content that you seek but failed to find)
never really thought about that wow-killer argument since its always looked at from the point of view of mmorpg-players but in terms of attention, marketshare and brand recognition etc its true that every game could be killed/replaced by any other game regardless of genre though if we considered genshin a wow-killer i guess that would also mean that fortnite is also a wow-killer aswell
theres a few things Gacha games need to be good (if they wanted to be good, which they dont) 1. build the GAME first. Have a GAME first mentality, THEN a gacha system. 2. Hook the player. (NOT the whale) To their credit, genshin, honkai and WW all have good hooks, just not engaging gameplay imo. 3. Make gacha cosmetic only. Gacha games could, (if they wanted to) retain so many more players if you GAVE them the characters and let them gacha for character outfits. 4. Dont blatantly advertise the gacha system. Most gacha games like to incentivize spending as soon as possible, which is why they will ALWAYS stay niche. Most people (who arent whales or have issues with money) turn that shit away immediately. My thing has always been 'if its a good game, I'll spend money on it.' Most of the time, they arent good games to begin with.
About the the respect thing, I feel like it's an excuse for a real non-issue. In wuthering waves, the protagonist lost their memory, but the other characters haven't. How they choose to act and respond to others is their way of dealing with the situation, they aren't being "weirdly respectful". Let's take the first 3 characters you meet and let me break it down how they are different and why they aren't being "overly respectful" as you seem to be focusing on. 1 - Chixia, the typical tomboy trope with a flashy and bright personality, the extent of her respect is that she shows you the ropes in some quests and teaches you basic things that you need to know as a resonator, she never gets to close or even flirty, instead she is just a bubbly bright person who tries to play the big sister whenever someone needs her. 2 - Yangyang is shy and does seem to be the one character that fits your description better. However, as you play trough the game you understand that most of what she does stems from a sense of duty. Rover (both genders) is attractive, so I understand why some people would blush a bit talking to them. I'll get back on that later tho. 3 - Bhaizi. She breaks the mold of your argument entirely. She is design-wise, the most attractive (might be subjective, but she is objectively sexier) of the first 3 characters you meet, and she also serves as a climax to the first mission, where Rover seems a bit lost looking at her. She doesn't seem to hold the same amount of "respect" the other 2 lower ranking characters hold, and instead is more focused in studying Rover. Her respect only seems to be borne over her sense of curiosity. She doesn't seem any affectionate either. So yeah, just based on those 3 first characters I would say the only one that left an experience close in any way to what you explained is Yangyang, though after spending more time with her during the story you can tell that she has a bit of a crush on Rover, or maybe it's just her shy side coming whenever she is faced with how attractive Rover is, regardless she becomes very serious whenever a threat is present, and it feels more like she treats you as a comrade in arms than some kind of worshiped superior being. The respect thing seems silly to me as someone who played dragon age and mass effect trilogies. Those games both have characters that get respected from the get go and it never felt weird or out of place. Maybe you should address as to why you feel the amount of respect Rover gets is to weird? Especially when you have so many great rpgs centered around the "chosen one" type of story such as in every Elder Scrolls game or Fallout. I feel like it's simply a none argument against the game and it's simply included as an addendum to some other actual reasons people do have genuinely to not like the game such as it being a gacha, and predatory in nature or how the echo system is a pain, or how the en voice acting is terrible, or how the story pacing is very bad or how in Yinlin's story there is a specific scene where it feels like content was cut and you just skip ahead from one encounter to the next encounter without context. There are genuine reasons to dislike the game.
Ok, let me try and flesh it out a little more here since it's not worth a video. Just replace "weird respect" with "severe lack of personal friction" Even pokemon has this. It's simply dishonest to say that say, characters in Dragon age or Mass effect are the same, maybe you could make an argument for the poorer ones but as soon as you sit them side by side you can immediately spot the difference. One set has their own ambitions and goals and even if you don't know the detail of it they don't waste any time in trying to invest you in their journey. Comparatively, Yangyang has a story development later? Why should I care? They are intentionally flattened because they will have story arcs later or in another update or whatever, It doesn't matter what the reason is.
@@livaveragegamer I chose Mass Effect and Dragon Age specifically because most of the characters (and let's focus on companions cause they are the most comparable with Wuthering Waves playable characters) have this huge level of initial rapport with the Commander (Mass Effect) or the Warden/Champion/Inquisitor for no other reason except their titles (with a few exceptions). Personally I find this believable, and i don't think it detracts from the experience. Assuming we take respect literally. - this was my original understanding of what you meant. If how you said, we replace "weird respect" with "severe lack of personal friction" I think what you mean is those interactions we have when we choose to do something that clashes with a companion, usually this happens much later in those games. I don't think gacha games in general will ever have that capability, based on their motivations to squeeze and dime your wallet for what its worth. This also comes down to the fact they add meaningless choices (another negative point of the game). People want choices in games, but no gacha understands what people mean by choices considering their design ethos for "choices". But hey that's just my take, sorry for being super critical, anyway it was a great video.
Great video as always, sir. As someone who recently burnt out hard on Genshin after playing for 3 and a half years, I'm amused that your critique of the launch state of Wuthering Waves is basically all the reasons I've decided to drop Hoyoverse games and their way of doing things. I realized recently that I had come to actually dread playing story chapters in Genshin. As much as I genuinely like a lot of the characters, most story quests are closer to extended hangout sessions with as many cameos by other tangentially relevant characters as they can book VA time for. Sure , a few characters are always a treat and some of the scenarios are pretty fun but I've come to feel like the purpose of most narrative content is more to reinforce the player's parasocial bonds with the cast rather than pushing anything with any narrative spark. It's all very verbose, expository, revolves around sitting down for lunch far too often, and is made slightly worse by the fact that a subset of the community often gets very upset anytime a character who generates social friction is introduced. Anyway, I'll stop airing my Genshin Grievances as I feel like I'm already just venting about my own problems rather than adding anything truly relevant to the conversation. XD Just keep up the good work; your videos are great.
This game's dialogues have created a lot of controversies on Chinese social media (mainly Weibo,) mainly because of the writer's ignorance of ordinary working people's lives (one of the characters trying to introduce low calory diet to heavy labor miners) and the blatant arrogance of or even discrimination towards working people (they use 它们 (plural form pronoun, means they or them but can only be used to refer to non-human animals or objects) in the subtitles in a dialogue scene to refer to the miners.) Now a lot of the angry players believe the writer is an out-of-touch middle class female fresh graduate who's never read any real literature but only braindead Marie Sues and brainwashed by gender war mentality.
That's crazy. I double checked what you said with my wife to see if it wasn't a cantonese/mandarin mixup thing but no. There's absolutely no way you would use that word for a human beings. The more you know.
@@livaveragegamer Since 它们 and 他们 have the same pronunciation, so it can be explained as they didn't check the context carefully. But it doesn't matter anymore. People are already piissed
6:55 I have absolutely no issues with the main characters all being women. The more the merrier. And when the dudes appear, I'm all like, I want that dude on my roster. It's not just women that are treated well, jiyan, mortefi, the blue walter guy they all look fantastic but yeah, it's a gacha game so there's obviously gonna be much more women that men. I chose female rover, but ngl I wish we had the option to switch them at will cuz that male rover looking good af.
I've never played these types of games. Haven't tried Genshin, Honkai 3rd / Star Rail, or WW. I don't really like having things locked behind gamba. Also, as an RPG enjoyer, I like my characters to have depth, relevance to the main story, and to have overall cohesiveness. I cannot attest to these games if the characters have that, but I would be surprised. A gacha character can have a storyline that may intersect with the main antagonist or protagonist, but it would have to be thoroughly developed there after and ultimately have a concrete conclusion for me to feel justified in even introducing the character as playable. This is my personal taste anyway. If these gacha characters have the depth in introduction, character arc, and resolution as, say, Mordin Solus or Urdnot Wrex in Mass Effect series, then I perhaps I would be interested. But considering gacha games mainly just pump new characters to power creep or pump sales, it would take a lot of convincing to me that they have the same amount of development. I would imagine a lot of people play gacha just for gameplay, collection, and gamba itself. Perhaps it makes sense for companies to not concentrate so much on all character development. No hate though. It's just not my preference. The only gacha I play is Battle Cats and that's only because it's not a true gacha.
I friggen loved the mass effect games and I totally get where you're coming from. I guess that's why I have the critiques I have. It's funny because if these gacha games had that kind of depth I'd probably be more likely to spend money on them. I know I bought most of the mass effect 3 DLCs for that reason.
As someone who enjoys gachas, even I have to say that they are born severely crippled from a story and narrative perspective because the core of the content is basically the characters at the end of the day. Characters they have to sell. They can write a story that is quite good in it's principals, however they have to incorporate most of the new shiny toys they sell into the story of whatever patch version they release on. Therefore the natural flow of the story is at least somewhat slave to the many many characters we get. It bloats the cast of every arc, it forces consideration of potential interactions between that cast rather than the interactions between MC and the world/actual events happening on screen. I think that's why a games like Genshin, HSR, WuWa, ect. can have some really solid lore and passive world building, but the stories suffer from a plethora of issues like horrendous pacing, a lack of narrative consistency and just completely jarring cuts from important events because they need to make sure we spend time with whatever characters they're trying to sell in the upcoming patches. Not saying it can't be done right but gacha stories are inherently a difficult thing to tackle by the nature of how they go about making their bread.
I played 15 hours of nikke recently. it was the first gatcha I’ve played in 10 years and I couldn’t stop thinking about how awesome the game could have been if it wasn’t a gatcha. Combat difficulty grind pacing boring side activities too many characters to flesh them all out… it feels like it could have been a great vita game.
Been loving the game and I agree. I think the combat saves the game imo despite all the INTENDED issues made to make you spend. It's still way too close to genshin overall unfortunately. I'm not spending any money on this and I will not get baited by the endgame stuff that's made to make you spend, if I don't clear all the content that's fine by me.
Bro. i feel the story dump feels super dragged on in alot of games. they really need to put the lore in companion missions or side missions or something.
Interestingly, there's a controversy that the beginning of WuWa in CBT was better with the intro characters weren't kissing your arse then following MC like Queen Bee, the CBT version makes the treatment to MC were more realistic and believable, until beta testers in CN complained about it, then they complained again in the release that it's now being too patronizing
I dont follow CN but I seen people in EN complaining about the characters being mean too so it wasnt CN's fault in this case... I also got into CBT1 and missed 2 but release feels way worse than what I had played back then
As someone who has an ungodly amount of time spent in Genshin, WuWa's copied homework really grates on me. They could have made the open world aspect and (most of) their story so much more enjoyable but Genshin didn't do it that way so it has to be shit. I find myself upset at the same things across both games and that really says something.
As someone who plays Genshin, but doesn't play WuWa. I do hope WuWa would encourage competition and make Genshin better. I don't play WuWa due to me not wanting to add more Gacha games in my plate. PGR interested me and this was back when I'm already playing Genshin but found the gameplay too fast for me lol. It reminds me of Ninja Gaiden and then Bayonetta which is nauseating to play. It's lore is also nauseating for me lol. Not saying it's a bad game though as i played the first game only, still had fun with it though. Anyway, by the time I get a PS5 I'll definitely play Stellar Blade and i hope Shift Up makes a crossover with Nikke which is my 2nd Gacha game. I played it early last year while for Genshin i played it since launch though the download speeds is slow due to my country having one of the worst internet speeds. Anyway this has gone long enough! I first saw your content about fanservice and glad the algorithm recommended you. I also watched the Gamergate videos and they're fantastic!
Thanks boss, the intro song is - Tea Time - Ofshane, It's in the youtube audio library, Wuwa main city was after that one. Nikke music tends to feature quite a bit in my videos
Would be interesting to see you try Genshin now, specially if you don't mind having a mascot character as a partner, I feel like the banter in Genshin is a lot more fun and natural, definitely a much more casual game, even if the lore can get pretty dark. XD
My 2 gacha slots are full. So I got no opinion on Wuthering Waves. Nikke Bunny Girls are making our community go feral! The Battle Cats just keeps on chugging along. A 9 year old gacha.
My sister played Battle Cats but then moved on with it. Also yes I'm a Genshin, Nikke and HSR player. Genshin alone is enough for me but i decided to add two more Gacha games. Genshin is actually my first Gacha game. I'll just watch from the sidelines with WuWa especially the "plot" = waifus and the actual plot XD
I understand your frustrations about your companions being glorified asskissers for the sake of the power fantasy, and I also understand where you're coming from when you make the assumption that this all stems from Genshin. However, I'd like to inform you that Genshin does not have this problem, at least not nearly to the same extent. The characters in GI are very well developed and don't come to befriend the MC (aka the Traveler) without good reason. Everyone has their own agenda. In fact many, if not most, come to be skeptical of the Traveler until they've proven themself worthy of trust. I think you'd enjoy Genshin for the most part. If nothing else, I'd love to hear your opinions on it.
@@greatmacaron5779 What? Yes they did. Not every single character of course, some are more well informed than others. And it's not like most civilians are aware of other nations' events in full detail
oddly enough according to Eroticwalrus (yes that's this guy's channel name lol), he asked average people in Shanghai (which is most of the biggest gacha games' developer headquarters are centered at) and they tend to know more about MOBAs akin to Mobile Legends than fullblown gachas akin to Genshin Impact
Yeah, that's my experience too. There's a tonne of mobile mobas and mmos there. One mobile moba even had a festival the last time I was there for their opening. You're far more likely to see that kind of thing on billboards too. It might be because their marketing is more targeted at Japan and US for gacha. Those are the highest spenders per download.
You said everything about the game that I wanted to say but didn't because I dont like the sound of my voice enough to be a content creator. From the story to characters to gameplay and how much better PGR is (Even at launch) is insane to me. It's like they took one step forward, then two steps back... WuWa should feel like Gen 2 PGR characters, but instead it doesn't even feel like Gen 1... and you didn't even mention the MUSIC bro... Why the hell did they make all the tracks in house? WuWa feels like not just alternate genshin, but budget PGR... Yet it made almost as much in 7 days as PGR has made in a year and I hate that people are flocking to WuWa instead of PGR when it's been highly talked about for over a year now and Wuthering Waves is drowning in bad publicity... If I had to rate WuWa, it's a 6/10 when it should have been a 9/10. I dont think I'll play it long and just stick to PGR and Snowbreak. fulltime after another month or so. I'll see where the game goes for patch 1.1 and maybe 1.2 but if there isnt major overhauls to at least the writing then I'll be logging out
I want to hear you go off on a game for being bad. No compliment sandwiches, no isolating your opinion, no limiting critique only to what and when bothers you. Just find a game that deserves it and let loose. I'd argue most of the milquetoast 'pay to enjoy' model games you spend half your arguments defending are the ones we should be beating with a flamethrower, so mostly I'm just curious what it takes to earn your ire. I'll wait patiently.
OOF! Tall order. It's difficult for me because I tend not to play bad games long enough to get that mad but ok. Next video. I want to see if I can do this.
The Genshin yapping problem is the real killer for this game for me. I don't know if I'l end up playing it anymore after i've explored the world a bunch. Nikke has honestly spoiled these Hoyo-type verbose affairs. I think even something great like FF14 has the boring 80% of the time, interesting 20% of the time, but atleast in that game the interesting bits are really good.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't quite get what gacha games are or why this game is a gacha game. I thought Genshin Impact is a MMORPG... Probably I am getting too old. After reading the wikipedia on gacha, I still don't quite get it... But if a great Australian RUclipsr was to make a video about gacha games, explaining what the core elements are or even diving into the history, I would definetly watch and appreciate it.
Haha, I'm sure Skill up will think about it. I'll give you the short version. gacha = "got ya" As in the aim is to catch you in a gambling loop. gacha games can be any type of game in any format where you gamble to get (usually) characters or weapons. Gambling attempts are tied to a web of ingame currencies that almost always link to a real money cash shop. They are almost always free to play and pay to win.
@@livaveragegamer Gotcha. Thank you kindly. I still don't understand how Wuthering Waves or Genshin Impact, makes one gamble. Do you gamble for new companions or weapons? I'm sorry... I probably missed something in the video.
@@walterwhite8031 no worries, you gamble for both. When I say companions. You are a single playable character but you play as a party of three characters total and you can play as any character on your roster so you don't neccesarily need to play as your "main character" The best characters and weapons are only available through gambling. Your gameplay objective is to farm currency to gamble for the best characters. They then layer that with a specific weapon that will make that character better and then they layer all of that again with multiple copies of said characters and weapons can be consumed to enhance their stats. To add urgency they only make the best characters and weapons also only available for limited time events. Basically if you were to ever take these games seriously you would end up spending a tonne of money to max out any one character and you need to do at least 3 and by the time you do the developers will probably bring out a new character does the same thing but better and so on and so forth.
Wait the have gacha shops? I thought it was all lego bootlegs and transformers likes This also why Battle cats is the best gacha, gameplay 2 minutes in, independence 10 minutes after
Depends where you go, but the big shopping centres tend to have an official lego shop (These are amazing) Some sort of plushie/ultraman centred toyshop mixed with school accesories and then shops that are dedicated to gacha collectables. If you go to the market areas though you'll defs see a lot what you're talking about.
@@livaveragegamer i am too busy grinding Honkai Impact 3rd and Azur Lane, where i actually care for the story is HI3, the elysian realm story is in my humble opinion, peak fiction. at least definitely in gacha games. you should try it out. but, that is part of the Part 1 story, there is part 2, which i haven't been playing, and story is kinda slow until around chapter 9.
Apparently in the original story you weren't the special one ane and you were shunned and treated as a other the chinese community didnt like that and they changed it to we are the special one
Gacha games were inherently bad is you talking about them in comparison to those good old day purchase for all you will get game,most notable the PS2 too PS3 era
Hey Bosses, thanks for watching! Let me know how your journey in Wuthering Waves is going. Hope you're all having a better time than me haha.
From what I've read from people talking about the closed beta, it used to be that everyone in Jinzhou was unfriendly and distrustful of the player character, especially Chixia. They may have overcorreted on that front.
Regarding the difficulty, one common thing genshin copies face are the lowest common denominator being really low. You end up attracting a lot of children and a lot of non gamers so making story/event content with rewards behind them difficult would alienate a large portion of the playerbase. Actual difficult content ends up being optional, like the tower and the challenge, which i genuinely find difficult (who knows how hard it'll be once character stats are near maxed)
Fair point. There are defs points where the game does put on its gamer pants. That said, I don't like being punished by having to do "baby content" to get to the fun part. I think it would be really easy to work around with adding something like a difficulty setting that gives you slightly more rewards. I would welcome any option that would make the general gameplay a bit more threatening.
Make a baby mode just for them, and a harder mode with more rewards for non-babies
I know other people have brought it up already but Genshin absolutely does not have this problem. I don't know why its clones have it, but Genshin's main strength has always been its characters. Not all are winners or get enough screentime to shine, but they're all expressly unique in every way from each other, and some are real standouts in the gaming medium in general. My personal pick for the best written character of any game ever is from Genshin Impact of all things. And I've played Planescape Torment and Disco Elysium, I'm not some gatcha shmuck.
Genshin has very few "protagonist cheerleaders." There are people who are helpful by nature, people who try to use you or manipulate you, people who are pitted against you ideologically, people who flirt with you, people who try to arrest or kill you on sight, people who join up with you for purely pragmatic reasons, people who treat you no differently than anyone else, people who consider you their rival, and even people who actively dislike you and don't want to deal with you. You will end up on at least amicable terms with most of them, but it's always beleavable, earned, and rooted in story/character development. Even several of the game's main antagonists are playable, not because they need, want, or get redemption, but simply because they know you'll probably end up killing each other in the end and they think here's no use in being dramatic about it until then.
I’ve learned the hard way that my desire to see my favorite waifus fleshed out and the game’s desire to sell me new characters are inherently at odds with each other.
Btw the "weird amount of respect" thing is something the CN players asked for very loudly for.
The combat is insane, you can swap 8 times in like 3s with input on each swap
I like that the game has a skip button
The infinite grind is really good, i can literally get my character to max potential in a few days and be done with it
Story is not good early on, post scar the story is great, dk about the side quests, skipped all of them
The endgame mode, the Abyss kind of mode is same as genshin and is shit
The Holo fights are soo good, im still trying to get through difficulty 4 of all holos and its fun
Illusive realm is like HSR simulated universe but kinda short
Overall i like this game and will keep playing it, its fun.
I'm enjoying WuWa so far, but I'm taking it very slow and playing casually without getting too deep into echos and stuff. I enjoy the exploration, the story, the combat, and the visuals.
"I don't play genshin impact." proceeds to make an entire video that brings up genshin impact constantly as hypothetical origins to wuwas problems.
Wuthering Waves has combat that is actually fun and takes a little more precision and skill.
Wuthering Waves is weak thematically and has a lack of identity through its music.
However, I cannot think of a single gotcha game that would give me the same satisfaction in combat that WW gives me. Hate on it, but understand it is good competition with Genshin Impact that will make both titles try harder in order to keep attention.
The games story feels like a wuxia novel. I would love if every game had high grade story’s or interesting plot hooks(like the end of NIKKE chapter 1) but that is sorely lacking across the majority of gaming not just gacha games. I like the game but because it didn’t have the power of Covid like genshin did it will ether make it or flop within the next one or two major updates. Hope the game fixes its issues because it dose definitely have potential.
East asians are natural gamblers lol
Fair enough. Came to see another POV, and you make sense. I do hope they get better, enjoy the combat enough to come back, does not mean it is perfect. But that is a thing of subjective opinion.
Honestly I'm enjoying WW quite a lot. Don't get me wrong, I agree with a lot of your points... but I never played PGR so the combat system seems like enough of an upgrade on Genshin to entertain me, the MSQ and a lot of the sidequests are quite fun, and I've honestly just been on the lookout for something like this while waiting for ZZZ because I didn't want to go back to Genshin but I sort of have an itch for a gacha game for some reason. First it was Summoners war (didn't spend money thank god) then it was Arknights (don't ask how much I spent there) and then Genshin (which I spent a bit on). Now it's WW and yeah, I'm having fun.
A lot of my current enjoyment for WW might also be because the world is new. Genshin was great, I enjoyed my time with it, but I was overwhelmed when I realised I was spending 1-2 hours JUST on my dailies before even getting to new content and that was just too much. Now the idea of going back to that is... I don't want to say scary but it does feel overwhelming. I have multiple regions of content to catch up on if I went back, and it was already a time consuming game.
Then there's the fact that the monetisation feels so bad. Like, I don't even want to pay for pulls because they're too expensive. I can get more gacha currency from just playing the game for an hour then I can spending a good chunk of money. So it means I'm probably going to just have fun with WW for a month or two, maybe come back for big content updates and not spend money.
Which does suck for Kurogames. I don't want WW to die but I'm just not sufficiently enticed. Even the monthly pass is awful. A month of logging in every day for 16~ pulls? I get that I'll recieve fewer rewards as I complete the generous parts of the content but 16~ pulls? That's nothing. You're not even certain to get a 4* character with that.
Thanks for taking the time to write that. I'm glad you're having fun with it. Like I said, it's definitely not bad and I'm sure WW will be fine, there's defs a lot of exaggeration either way on the success or failure of the game and really it's just sunk cost fallacy vs hype train. I definitely cannot do an hour on dailies at this point in my life That's nuts haha. ah... yeah, I think with all these p2w games is that... the krill need to feel like they can win. TOF was terrible for that.
I really enjoy Wuthering Waves combat but the open world is such a detriment. Especially the echo grind. The ones you can obtain with wave plates are far too sparce that if you want to build a character in less than several months you have to grind the open world for over two hours every day which I simply can't justify doing.
omg... Yeah, I won't be doing that long term. I want to stick around for the next banner... for... personal reasons. But, after that we'll have to wait and see
Thank you for making this video, I was a little disappointed awell at the constant cuddling of the characters but as I was reading comments I heard some of the decisions were influenced by the beta players. If you look at the previous beta test Crownless got nerfed lore and combat-wise. If I remember correctly Yangyang was supposed to sustain heavy injuries from Crownless and it looked more cinematic. I really wish they implemented some of that bold writing in the current story.
Yeah.... about the gacha comment, it is not about being good or not or being the best, in the end for me the only important thing is if I am having fun.
And about WuWa I am having fun going around killing Red Bosses and pushing simulation fight (that are maybe the hard content that you seek but failed to find)
never really thought about that wow-killer argument since its always looked at from the point of view of mmorpg-players
but in terms of attention, marketshare and brand recognition etc its true that every game could be killed/replaced by any other game regardless of genre
though if we considered genshin a wow-killer i guess that would also mean that fortnite is also a wow-killer aswell
I make the link from mmos to gachas because they have a strong overlap in player profile but you could be right.
theres a few things Gacha games need to be good (if they wanted to be good, which they dont) 1. build the GAME first. Have a GAME first mentality, THEN a gacha system. 2. Hook the player. (NOT the whale) To their credit, genshin, honkai and WW all have good hooks, just not engaging gameplay imo. 3. Make gacha cosmetic only. Gacha games could, (if they wanted to) retain so many more players if you GAVE them the characters and let them gacha for character outfits. 4. Dont blatantly advertise the gacha system. Most gacha games like to incentivize spending as soon as possible, which is why they will ALWAYS stay niche. Most people (who arent whales or have issues with money) turn that shit away immediately. My thing has always been 'if its a good game, I'll spend money on it.' Most of the time, they arent good games to begin with.
About the the respect thing, I feel like it's an excuse for a real non-issue. In wuthering waves, the protagonist lost their memory, but the other characters haven't. How they choose to act and respond to others is their way of dealing with the situation, they aren't being "weirdly respectful". Let's take the first 3 characters you meet and let me break it down how they are different and why they aren't being "overly respectful" as you seem to be focusing on.
1 - Chixia, the typical tomboy trope with a flashy and bright personality, the extent of her respect is that she shows you the ropes in some quests and teaches you basic things that you need to know as a resonator, she never gets to close or even flirty, instead she is just a bubbly bright person who tries to play the big sister whenever someone needs her.
2 - Yangyang is shy and does seem to be the one character that fits your description better. However, as you play trough the game you understand that most of what she does stems from a sense of duty. Rover (both genders) is attractive, so I understand why some people would blush a bit talking to them. I'll get back on that later tho.
3 - Bhaizi. She breaks the mold of your argument entirely. She is design-wise, the most attractive (might be subjective, but she is objectively sexier) of the first 3 characters you meet, and she also serves as a climax to the first mission, where Rover seems a bit lost looking at her. She doesn't seem to hold the same amount of "respect" the other 2 lower ranking characters hold, and instead is more focused in studying Rover. Her respect only seems to be borne over her sense of curiosity. She doesn't seem any affectionate either.
So yeah, just based on those 3 first characters I would say the only one that left an experience close in any way to what you explained is Yangyang, though after spending more time with her during the story you can tell that she has a bit of a crush on Rover, or maybe it's just her shy side coming whenever she is faced with how attractive Rover is, regardless she becomes very serious whenever a threat is present, and it feels more like she treats you as a comrade in arms than some kind of worshiped superior being.
The respect thing seems silly to me as someone who played dragon age and mass effect trilogies. Those games both have characters that get respected from the get go and it never felt weird or out of place. Maybe you should address as to why you feel the amount of respect Rover gets is to weird? Especially when you have so many great rpgs centered around the "chosen one" type of story such as in every Elder Scrolls game or Fallout. I feel like it's simply a none argument against the game and it's simply included as an addendum to some other actual reasons people do have genuinely to not like the game such as it being a gacha, and predatory in nature or how the echo system is a pain, or how the en voice acting is terrible, or how the story pacing is very bad or how in Yinlin's story there is a specific scene where it feels like content was cut and you just skip ahead from one encounter to the next encounter without context. There are genuine reasons to dislike the game.
Ok, let me try and flesh it out a little more here since it's not worth a video.
Just replace "weird respect" with "severe lack of personal friction" Even pokemon has this. It's simply dishonest to say that say, characters in Dragon age or Mass effect are the same, maybe you could make an argument for the poorer ones but as soon as you sit them side by side you can immediately spot the difference. One set has their own ambitions and goals and even if you don't know the detail of it they don't waste any time in trying to invest you in their journey. Comparatively, Yangyang has a story development later? Why should I care? They are intentionally flattened because they will have story arcs later or in another update or whatever, It doesn't matter what the reason is.
@@livaveragegamer
I chose Mass Effect and Dragon Age specifically because most of the characters (and let's focus on companions cause they are the most comparable with Wuthering Waves playable characters) have this huge level of initial rapport with the Commander (Mass Effect) or the Warden/Champion/Inquisitor for no other reason except their titles (with a few exceptions). Personally I find this believable, and i don't think it detracts from the experience. Assuming we take respect literally. - this was my original understanding of what you meant.
If how you said, we replace "weird respect" with "severe lack of personal friction" I think what you mean is those interactions we have when we choose to do something that clashes with a companion, usually this happens much later in those games. I don't think gacha games in general will ever have that capability, based on their motivations to squeeze and dime your wallet for what its worth. This also comes down to the fact they add meaningless choices (another negative point of the game). People want choices in games, but no gacha understands what people mean by choices considering their design ethos for "choices".
But hey that's just my take, sorry for being super critical, anyway it was a great video.
Easy, they don't want to risk simple as that.
That's a good point. Pity
Great video as always, sir. As someone who recently burnt out hard on Genshin after playing for 3 and a half years, I'm amused that your critique of the launch state of Wuthering Waves is basically all the reasons I've decided to drop Hoyoverse games and their way of doing things.
I realized recently that I had come to actually dread playing story chapters in Genshin. As much as I genuinely like a lot of the characters, most story quests are closer to extended hangout sessions with as many cameos by other tangentially relevant characters as they can book VA time for. Sure , a few characters are always a treat and some of the scenarios are pretty fun but I've come to feel like the purpose of most narrative content is more to reinforce the player's parasocial bonds with the cast rather than pushing anything with any narrative spark.
It's all very verbose, expository, revolves around sitting down for lunch far too often, and is made slightly worse by the fact that a subset of the community often gets very upset anytime a character who generates social friction is introduced.
Anyway, I'll stop airing my Genshin Grievances as I feel like I'm already just venting about my own problems rather than adding anything truly relevant to the conversation. XD
Just keep up the good work; your videos are great.
This game's dialogues have created a lot of controversies on Chinese social media (mainly Weibo,) mainly because of the writer's ignorance of ordinary working people's lives (one of the characters trying to introduce low calory diet to heavy labor miners) and the blatant arrogance of or even discrimination towards working people (they use 它们 (plural form pronoun, means they or them but can only be used to refer to non-human animals or objects) in the subtitles in a dialogue scene to refer to the miners.)
Now a lot of the angry players believe the writer is an out-of-touch middle class female fresh graduate who's never read any real literature but only braindead Marie Sues and brainwashed by gender war mentality.
That's crazy. I double checked what you said with my wife to see if it wasn't a cantonese/mandarin mixup thing but no. There's absolutely no way you would use that word for a human beings. The more you know.
@@livaveragegamer Since 它们 and 他们 have the same pronunciation, so it can be explained as they didn't check the context carefully. But it doesn't matter anymore. People are already piissed
it felt pretty underwhelming to me as well. ive actually started snowbreak around the same time and have been enjoying that much more
I started snowbreak last night 😅 I agree
6:55 I have absolutely no issues with the main characters all being women. The more the merrier. And when the dudes appear, I'm all like, I want that dude on my roster. It's not just women that are treated well, jiyan, mortefi, the blue walter guy they all look fantastic but yeah, it's a gacha game so there's obviously gonna be much more women that men. I chose female rover, but ngl I wish we had the option to switch them at will cuz that male rover looking good af.
I agree it lacks uniqueness
I've never played these types of games. Haven't tried Genshin, Honkai 3rd / Star Rail, or WW. I don't really like having things locked behind gamba. Also, as an RPG enjoyer, I like my characters to have depth, relevance to the main story, and to have overall cohesiveness. I cannot attest to these games if the characters have that, but I would be surprised. A gacha character can have a storyline that may intersect with the main antagonist or protagonist, but it would have to be thoroughly developed there after and ultimately have a concrete conclusion for me to feel justified in even introducing the character as playable. This is my personal taste anyway.
If these gacha characters have the depth in introduction, character arc, and resolution as, say, Mordin Solus or Urdnot Wrex in Mass Effect series, then I perhaps I would be interested. But considering gacha games mainly just pump new characters to power creep or pump sales, it would take a lot of convincing to me that they have the same amount of development. I would imagine a lot of people play gacha just for gameplay, collection, and gamba itself. Perhaps it makes sense for companies to not concentrate so much on all character development.
No hate though. It's just not my preference. The only gacha I play is Battle Cats and that's only because it's not a true gacha.
I friggen loved the mass effect games and I totally get where you're coming from. I guess that's why I have the critiques I have. It's funny because if these gacha games had that kind of depth I'd probably be more likely to spend money on them. I know I bought most of the mass effect 3 DLCs for that reason.
As someone who enjoys gachas, even I have to say that they are born severely crippled from a story and narrative perspective because the core of the content is basically the characters at the end of the day. Characters they have to sell. They can write a story that is quite good in it's principals, however they have to incorporate most of the new shiny toys they sell into the story of whatever patch version they release on. Therefore the natural flow of the story is at least somewhat slave to the many many characters we get. It bloats the cast of every arc, it forces consideration of potential interactions between that cast rather than the interactions between MC and the world/actual events happening on screen.
I think that's why a games like Genshin, HSR, WuWa, ect. can have some really solid lore and passive world building, but the stories suffer from a plethora of issues like horrendous pacing, a lack of narrative consistency and just completely jarring cuts from important events because they need to make sure we spend time with whatever characters they're trying to sell in the upcoming patches.
Not saying it can't be done right but gacha stories are inherently a difficult thing to tackle by the nature of how they go about making their bread.
I played 15 hours of nikke recently. it was the first gatcha I’ve played in 10 years and I couldn’t stop thinking about how awesome the game could have been if it wasn’t a gatcha. Combat difficulty grind pacing boring side activities too many characters to flesh them all out… it feels like it could have been a great vita game.
Been loving the game and I agree. I think the combat saves the game imo despite all the INTENDED issues made to make you spend. It's still way too close to genshin overall unfortunately. I'm not spending any money on this and I will not get baited by the endgame stuff that's made to make you spend, if I don't clear all the content that's fine by me.
endgame = get gud ngl. The grind for echos is insane tho. you could beat endgame with 4 stars just parry and dodge lol
Haven't played it, and don't think I will, but I still enjoyed the video.
Pacing is something a lot of games struggle with.
Bro. i feel the story dump feels super dragged on in alot of games. they really need to put the lore in companion missions or side missions or something.
Interestingly, there's a controversy that the beginning of WuWa in CBT was better with the intro characters weren't kissing your arse then following MC like Queen Bee, the CBT version makes the treatment to MC were more realistic and believable, until beta testers in CN complained about it, then they complained again in the release that it's now being too patronizing
Sounds like human beings for sure haha.We just never know what we want
I dont follow CN but I seen people in EN complaining about the characters being mean too so it wasnt CN's fault in this case... I also got into CBT1 and missed 2 but release feels way worse than what I had played back then
As someone who has an ungodly amount of time spent in Genshin, WuWa's copied homework really grates on me. They could have made the open world aspect and (most of) their story so much more enjoyable but Genshin didn't do it that way so it has to be shit. I find myself upset at the same things across both games and that really says something.
oof
Man, the attentionspan of zoomers nowadays.
As someone who plays Genshin, but doesn't play WuWa. I do hope WuWa would encourage competition and make Genshin better. I don't play WuWa due to me not wanting to add more Gacha games in my plate. PGR interested me and this was back when I'm already playing Genshin but found the gameplay too fast for me lol. It reminds me of Ninja Gaiden and then Bayonetta which is nauseating to play. It's lore is also nauseating for me lol. Not saying it's a bad game though as i played the first game only, still had fun with it though.
Anyway, by the time I get a PS5 I'll definitely play Stellar Blade and i hope Shift Up makes a crossover with Nikke which is my 2nd Gacha game. I played it early last year while for Genshin i played it since launch though the download speeds is slow due to my country having one of the worst internet speeds. Anyway this has gone long enough! I first saw your content about fanservice and glad the algorithm recommended you. I also watched the Gamergate videos and they're fantastic!
The music in your videos are way too good. What's that one song from in the first 2 minutes?
its wuwa maincity ambiente
Thanks boss, the intro song is - Tea Time - Ofshane, It's in the youtube audio library, Wuwa main city was after that one. Nikke music tends to feature quite a bit in my videos
Would be interesting to see you try Genshin now, specially if you don't mind having a mascot character as a partner, I feel like the banter in Genshin is a lot more fun and natural, definitely a much more casual game, even if the lore can get pretty dark. XD
Try Limbus company! It's really different from other gachas
just downloaded it
My 2 gacha slots are full. So I got no opinion on Wuthering Waves.
Nikke Bunny Girls are making our community go feral!
The Battle Cats just keeps on chugging along. A 9 year old gacha.
I'm hoping to get Soda bunny soon😅
My sister played Battle Cats but then moved on with it. Also yes I'm a Genshin, Nikke and HSR player. Genshin alone is enough for me but i decided to add two more Gacha games. Genshin is actually my first Gacha game.
I'll just watch from the sidelines with WuWa especially the "plot" = waifus and the actual plot XD
@@livaveragegameras for me i want Mary bunny lol
I understand your frustrations about your companions being glorified asskissers for the sake of the power fantasy, and I also understand where you're coming from when you make the assumption that this all stems from Genshin. However, I'd like to inform you that Genshin does not have this problem, at least not nearly to the same extent. The characters in GI are very well developed and don't come to befriend the MC (aka the Traveler) without good reason. Everyone has their own agenda. In fact many, if not most, come to be skeptical of the Traveler until they've proven themself worthy of trust. I think you'd enjoy Genshin for the most part. If nothing else, I'd love to hear your opinions on it.
The traveler is a glorified bread shuttle. And i always found it weird that going into next region no one seems to know of the traveler's feats.
@@greatmacaron5779 What? Yes they did. Not every single character of course, some are more well informed than others. And it's not like most civilians are aware of other nations' events in full detail
@equinoxflowersofcenturysen5881 I quit just before Sumeru released, so that was definitely the case at that point. Not sure about now though.
oddly enough according to Eroticwalrus (yes that's this guy's channel name lol), he asked average people in Shanghai (which is most of the biggest gacha games' developer headquarters are centered at) and they tend to know more about MOBAs akin to Mobile Legends than fullblown gachas akin to Genshin Impact
Yeah, that's my experience too. There's a tonne of mobile mobas and mmos there. One mobile moba even had a festival the last time I was there for their opening. You're far more likely to see that kind of thing on billboards too. It might be because their marketing is more targeted at Japan and US for gacha. Those are the highest spenders per download.
You said everything about the game that I wanted to say but didn't because I dont like the sound of my voice enough to be a content creator.
From the story to characters to gameplay and how much better PGR is (Even at launch) is insane to me. It's like they took one step forward, then two steps back... WuWa should feel like Gen 2 PGR characters, but instead it doesn't even feel like Gen 1... and you didn't even mention the MUSIC bro... Why the hell did they make all the tracks in house? WuWa feels like not just alternate genshin, but budget PGR... Yet it made almost as much in 7 days as PGR has made in a year and I hate that people are flocking to WuWa instead of PGR when it's been highly talked about for over a year now and Wuthering Waves is drowning in bad publicity...
If I had to rate WuWa, it's a 6/10 when it should have been a 9/10. I dont think I'll play it long and just stick to PGR and Snowbreak. fulltime after another month or so. I'll see where the game goes for patch 1.1 and maybe 1.2 but if there isnt major overhauls to at least the writing then I'll be logging out
Asmon is going to react to this one day. Hi baldy
I want to hear you go off on a game for being bad. No compliment sandwiches, no isolating your opinion, no limiting critique only to what and when bothers you. Just find a game that deserves it and let loose. I'd argue most of the milquetoast 'pay to enjoy' model games you spend half your arguments defending are the ones we should be beating with a flamethrower, so mostly I'm just curious what it takes to earn your ire. I'll wait patiently.
OOF! Tall order. It's difficult for me because I tend not to play bad games long enough to get that mad but ok. Next video. I want to see if I can do this.
Scar is not a hard boss….try fighting a lv 80+ hologram
The Genshin yapping problem is the real killer for this game for me. I don't know if I'l end up playing it anymore after i've explored the world a bunch. Nikke has honestly spoiled these Hoyo-type verbose affairs. I think even something great like FF14 has the boring 80% of the time, interesting 20% of the time, but atleast in that game the interesting bits are really good.
Some people like the story
Maybe it's just me, but I don't quite get what gacha games are or why this game is a gacha game. I thought Genshin Impact is a MMORPG... Probably I am getting too old. After reading the wikipedia on gacha, I still don't quite get it... But if a great Australian RUclipsr was to make a video about gacha games, explaining what the core elements are or even diving into the history, I would definetly watch and appreciate it.
Haha, I'm sure Skill up will think about it.
I'll give you the short version. gacha = "got ya" As in the aim is to catch you in a gambling loop.
gacha games can be any type of game in any format where you gamble to get (usually) characters or weapons. Gambling attempts are tied to a web of ingame currencies that almost always link to a real money cash shop.
They are almost always free to play and pay to win.
@@livaveragegamer Gotcha. Thank you kindly. I still don't understand how Wuthering Waves or Genshin Impact, makes one gamble. Do you gamble for new companions or weapons? I'm sorry... I probably missed something in the video.
@@walterwhite8031 no worries, you gamble for both. When I say companions. You are a single playable character but you play as a party of three characters total and you can play as any character on your roster so you don't neccesarily need to play as your "main character" The best characters and weapons are only available through gambling. Your gameplay objective is to farm currency to gamble for the best characters. They then layer that with a specific weapon that will make that character better and then they layer all of that again with multiple copies of said characters and weapons can be consumed to enhance their stats.
To add urgency they only make the best characters and weapons also only available for limited time events.
Basically if you were to ever take these games seriously you would end up spending a tonne of money to max out any one character and you need to do at least 3 and by the time you do the developers will probably bring out a new character does the same thing but better and so on and so forth.
Wait the have gacha shops? I thought it was all lego bootlegs and transformers likes
This also why Battle cats is the best gacha, gameplay 2 minutes in, independence 10 minutes after
Depends where you go, but the big shopping centres tend to have an official lego shop (These are amazing) Some sort of plushie/ultraman centred toyshop mixed with school accesories and then shops that are dedicated to gacha collectables.
If you go to the market areas though you'll defs see a lot what you're talking about.
I'm not playing it cuz I'm too busy
Fair call. I'd say the game is a heavy time investment if you're trying to follow the story. Probably not too bad if you don't care.
@@livaveragegamer i am too busy grinding Honkai Impact 3rd and Azur Lane, where i actually care for the story is HI3, the elysian realm story is in my humble opinion, peak fiction. at least definitely in gacha games. you should try it out. but, that is part of the Part 1 story, there is part 2, which i haven't been playing, and story is kinda slow until around chapter 9.
@@shinjiikari1021 F 😅 Don't tempt me.
Apparently in the original story you weren't the special one ane and you were shunned and treated as a other the chinese community didnt like that and they changed it to we are the special one
Good for you, move on then like normal ppl.
Thanks, I will
Review the arknights, please
Gacha games were inherently bad is you talking about them in comparison to those good old day purchase for all you will get game,most notable the PS2 too PS3 era
cool