Genshin Impact

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Do I like that, particularly? Nah. But it's pretty much standard business practice. This is just a successful model at finding a method that encourages customers to spend money on their products. I got into Magic: The Gathering as a kid in the '90s, and card packs were just as much "loot boxes" as anything sold digitally. I still have my cards, and it's only in the last few years that some of my top-end cards might be worth selling, but they definitely won't make back the allowance money I spent buying boosters back in the day.

I never really played those card games (unless you count Hearthstone, which I played during the beta and the first few months... until the game went bad and you had to pretty much buy with real money in order to play PvP at all). I remember when Battletech tries the system out. It was weird. You'd go into Todd's Miniatures wanting to buy some mechs for your next tabletop wargame... but then you found out that the mechs were being sold in booster packs, and you had no idea which pack contained what. And then there were rare metal mech minis mixed in with the plastic minis. So imagine trying to get a metal Timberwolf/Madcat. I pretty much stopped playing battletech once they pulled that stunt. Fortunately Wizkids went defunct IIRC and the IP is in better hands now.




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so do eastern developers have an aversion to having adults as main characters,
and having them dressed appropriately for combat situations

Not really. I know people like to cherry pick games like Tales, but really many JRPGs and Chinese RPGs have adults too.

I think it has to do with the target audience. Series like Tales of are marketed towards whoever is 14 at the time, whereas most other RPG series Trails or Final Fantasy are more generally marketed towards whoever is interested in RPGs, from teenagers to adults in their 40s.

[Yunru]

This video bring up some good points.

[Video Games]

Almost every tales game has an adult protag

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Almost every tales game has an adult protag

Tales casts tend to be made up teenagers to people in their early 20s. Sometimes there might be one person in their mid to late 20s. Almost never older than that. Contrast that with Trails in the Sky, where you have two dudes in their late 20s, a woman in her late 20s, and a guy in his mid 30s. And two teenagers and a little kid. In the sequels, the playable cast is expanded and you get even more people in their late 20s and mid 30s. Or the Final Fantasy series, which tends to have people in their mid 20s and up, with a couple teenagers here and there (VIII, XIII and XV are the only real exceptions).

[Trifle]

IME, Amber's the "totally necessary mascot" character. As you describe, there's puzzles that essentially require Amber, because they're "light ranged stuff on fire" puzzles. You can do co-op puzzles using her doll E ability. When you're finished the world exploration, you can make an argument for chucking her off the team in favor of another Fire user, but until then, you basically need her. Even if she is meh in every other respect.

This. Most of the open world fire stuff you can do with other fire users, however there's a few puzzles that required you to hit fire totems a decent distance apart that have a time limit which seem to almost require Amber. Which is kinda fine since everyone has her, so I don't care that much.

What's more annoying is I've found a similar situation with geo totems, I tried to use Noel but her cooldown is way too long and the totems deactivated again before she could even trigger a second one. So I guess the MC is kinda "required" as well, and I don't have another wind user so I have to do the constant elemental swapping thing which I was hoping to avoid.

[Yunru]

This. Most of the open world fire stuff you can do with other fire users, however there's a few puzzles that required you to hit fire totems a decent distance apart that have a time limit which seem to almost require Amber. Which is kinda fine since everyone has her, so I don't care that much.

What's more annoying is I've found a similar situation with geo totems, I tried to use Noel but her cooldown is way too long and the totems deactivated again before she could even trigger a second one. So I guess the MC is kinda "required" as well, and I don't have another wind user so I have to do the constant elemental swapping thing which I was hoping to avoid.

I just mark those puzzles on map to do later. Some of them also need Geo skill to reach the objects.

[Ardenaso]

The best gacha game, in my experience, is Granblue Fantasy.

I'd say Summoners War imo

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I'd say Summoners War imo

What do they do well?

[Dakhath]

Dragalia Lost is the only mobile phone game that's every grabbed and kept my attention. It's currently about 1/3rd through its 2nd anniversary event and giving away a free 10 pull every day.

[Katchii]

so do eastern developers have an aversion to having adults as main characters,
and having them dressed appropriately for combat situations

The same could be said of Western developers....at least for the clothing part.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The same could be said of Western developers....at least for the clothing part.

The only western games with a primarily teenage/early 20s cast I can think of would be... Life is Strange? South Park? And... that's it.

[Katchii]

The only western games with a primarily teenage/early 20s cast I can think of would be... Life is Strange? South Park? And... that's it.

What I meant was that most Western games do have adult protagonists, but there are several examples of western games having clothing choices that are just as questionable as their eastern counterparts.

[Gref]

before blaming the game with copying BOTW, their previous game Honkai Third Impact was released before 1 year before it. Most of the system, character level up, weapon level up, stamina bar, fighting is carried over to here.

[everydaygamer]

Whelp, AR 30 is definitely the point when the grind begins. At this point, you have to start grinding bosses, level 40 mobs and domains in order to upgrade your characters. Not saying this is bad because the game is still fun but yeah the game clearly goes into a holding pattern at this point although there are at least 3 more story quests to work towards so at least I have some motivation to keep going because I do like the story stuff.

[Pendulous]

Whelp, AR 30 is definitely the point when the grind begins. At this point, you have to start grinding bosses, level 40 mobs and domains in order to upgrade your characters. Not saying this is bad because the game is still fun but yeah the game clearly goes into a holding pattern at this point although there are at least 3 more story quests to work towards so at least I have some motivation to keep going because I do like the story stuff.

I'm still early in at AR 11. But the main draw for me is just roaming around exploring. I'm guessing at your point, you've discovered pretty much everything, so does the game still feel the same at that point?

[everydaygamer]

I'm still early in at AR 11. But the main draw for me is just roaming around exploring. I'm guessing at your point, you've discovered pretty much everything, so does the game still feel the same at that point?

Yeah, it does, the only difference is that I'm putting full focus on upgrading my characters which means a lot of farming. There are still a few more story quests at later ranks and I definitely haven't found everything on the map but the main story is done at this point until the next update so I can definitely see AR 30 being the point more casual players may choose to drop off until the next update.

[KrayZ33]

You don't "need" her though. She just makes all the open world content including bosses much easier. You can run over to torches and light em up with another fire user as I think most don't extinguish after a certain amount of time. You don't need to group up the mobs the Oceanid boss spawns but if they are attacking your doll you don't have to worry as much about your health. The other bosses are safer to fight with a ranged character but the other fire chars are gunna burn em down quicker.

Amber is useful until you get a different bow character.
Her autoattack chain is weak (strictly worse than Fishl btw, like... 20-30% weaker.)
Her E can be useful but offers nearly no damage.

Her Burst is good - that's about it - but I don't see that as enough reason to put her in. Maybe when you have her at like C4-C6 and she gets 2 taunt Dolls?
And you play in melee range with all characters anyway, including bow users. Especially since the best 3* bow, which is much stronger than most 4* requires you to do so.
Taunt isn't that helpful imho and might even catch you offguard when the doll disappears in the middle of it.

Since elemental reactions are a huge part of damage, it's a wasted character slot to have amber in your party, compared to a good character at least.
She doesn't prime, she doesn't proc (charged attacks suck balls against anything that doesn't get stunned such as golems/relic hunters), she deals less damage than other characters.
I did most exploration fire puzzles with Gouba and Pyronado alone, except for maybe 2-3.

Since Fischl is currently in the banner, Amber didn't even survive the first few minutes, which makes me sad, because I like "genki"-characters.

[Video Games]

Thanks game

[KrayZ33]

Yeah, it does, the only difference is that I'm putting full focus on upgrading my characters which means a lot of farming. There are still a few more story quests at later ranks and I definitely haven't found everything on the map but the main story is done at this point until the next update so I can definitely see AR 30 being the point more casual players may choose to drop off until the next update.

I found it to be rather easy to upgrade weapons and characters to lvl 70 without using the words "to farm".

I do agree though that upgrading AR takes time.
It's especially annoying that upgrading characters is attached to it (can't do Ascension 4 before AR35 for example).

[qwerty123456]

Amber is useful until you get a different bow character.
Her autoattack chain is weak (strictly worse than Fishl btw, like... 20-30% weaker.)
Her E can be useful but offers nearly no damage.

Her Burst is good - that's about it - but I don't see that as enough reason to put her in. Maybe when you have her at like C4-C6 and she gets 2 taunt Dolls?
And you play in melee range with all characters anyway, including bow users. Especially since the best 3* bow, which is much stronger than most 4* requires you to do so.
Taunt isn't that helpful imho and might even catch you offguard when the doll disappears in the middle of it.

Since elemental reactions are a huge part of damage, it's a wasted character slot to have amber in your party, compared to a good character at least.
She doesn't prime, she doesn't proc (charged attacks suck balls against anything that doesn't get stunned such as golems/relic hunters), she deals less damage than other characters.
I did most exploration fire puzzles with Gouba and Pyronado alone, except for maybe 2-3.

Since Fischl is currently in the banner, Amber didn't even survive the first few minutes, which males me sad, because I like "genki"-characters.

You use bow users charged arrow. Amber takes out the giant rocket launcher golems much easier than Fischl and Venti imo. Venti's attacks seem to always miss or something. Overall Fischl is much better damage wise and most of my teams are set up with her but I still find Amber extremely useful. Her doll even works better than Fischl's raven in certain situations like the wind elemental boss from the nameless island.

Using Fischl and Amber for reactions when Dvalin was in the air you can get him down to nothing quick so he only has one landing stage you use the others to burn the rest of his shield down. My Stormterror's lair run only needed one platform change because of it.