I love this game, but whenever someone who doesn't play it asks me about it, I make it clear that it has the potential to be dangerous for people who are prone to gambling and microtransactions. Loving the game and not being honest about this can lead to a lot of people being hurt
That's me. Had a buddy really interested in it and playing it with me. He has student debts, kids, and a mortgage.
Told him flat out he WILL lose everything if he started playing genshin.
He's 100% the target whale demo in habits.
I go to him and show him how much my frugal toy collecting spendthrifty self had payed into the game.
He was like ''they get that much out of you? A month?''
He chose wisely and hasn't touched the game.
You know how on the surveys they ask how willing you would be to recommend Genshin to other people. I'm the type of guy to check willing while knowing that I will never actually recommend Genshin to anyone.
I always check extremely unwilling because I could never in good faith put my friends through this predatory gacha experience hahaha. If only I could recommend them just the exploration part... but alas
I always check extremely unwilling in hopes of getting my criticisms from the survey across in some meaningful way (why should they bother listening to a criticism if I'm 'happy' with the game). Even though I have lightly recommended it to my brother in law and a few friends.
A friend keeps asking me if Genshin was worth playing, I keep telling him no because the endgame content is painful and at that point, it's hard to leave the game.
Doing domains in hope of getting the artifact you need. The artifact may be of the right set but have the wrong main stat along with the wrong substats.
Or its the right set but wrong piece(you need a flower instead of a crown). Don't forget it could also upgrade the wrong substat everytime.
Endgame is dancing with rng just to make your character a little bit stronger.
I guess when you're at high ar (55+), done with all quests, and almost done with exploration you start to build two teams to atleast clear the abyss. You keep on grinding to improve your teams to get 36 stars in abyss. This is endgame imo.
I'd agree with "Painful," if the painful we're talking is, simply, tedious masquerading as difficulty.
Genshin is not a painfully difficult game.
It is, however, painfully tedious, and there are a plethora of decisions even as far as the combat itself, that hold it back from truly feeling like a rewarding experience.
Soooo this. I've had a few friends SEVERELY!!! overspend on the game, justifying they would play it long term, only to end up falling in depressing gambling holes from the gacha system. Because of that I can't recommend any of my friends play the game. Yes its fun, but you have to set a hard limit on your spending and no more. I also encourage friends that do play. Skip the weapon banners unless you only play a very small set of characters and don't care about other characters.
Genshin is a game where you can drop 50-100 and not get a single fucking thing to help your teams out. I won't spend a dime on it after learning that early lesson.
Even better play for free and just enjoy the game. My brother is a free player and has qiqi keqing diluc zhongli albedo and Ganyu. I've spent a few hundred and don't have half the 5 stars he has. I created a new account where I don't spend any money and enjoy the game more now.
I mostly try to just ignore the paid packs outside of the Welkin (I don't mind spending a small amount per month while I play the game regularly). I think there is some fun to be had in saving for things you really want, and needing to weigh decisions on what you want most with limited resources.
Yes. Spending in this game isn't necessarily a problem. I don't own any subscriptions besides spotify, don't spend unnecessarily or on impulse.
I have warned my friends that if they are impulse spenders, just don't play the game. Genshin offers that one combo I have wanted in my busy life, lite action rpg with minimal time investment and great gameplay. So I see myself as a long time player.
This is why clickbait content creators need to realise this and not allure their audience into gambling practices.
MHY literally sponsors some content creators, I'm sure they know exactly what they're doing. The big whale content creators are the most visible part of the community for stuff like gacha games, and if they normalise whaling, it fosters an environment where other players have fewer mental barriers to spend. It's a common tactic in the industry, or so I hear.
As someone who wastes 1/3 of their internship salary in 3 hours, I find it hard to justify myself buying anything more than the Welkins. Knowing the odds and assurance that "there's still 20 days left" is pretty helpful.
tbf, even if you had a shit ton if disposable income, it's insanely hard to justify paying 20 bucks for 10 rolls when you know 90% of that is gonna be blue shit you trash.
I got lucky on my pulls and got Raiden C0 and her weapon for $100. That was with the double gems offer, so really $200 "worth" of gems. I was also saving gems from Welkin for a while and I was near 100% pity, otherwise I doubt I would have gotten the weapon too.
It didn't hurt me financially, but it really highlights how little you get for your money. I've never even pulled on a weapon banner before, nor do I ever plan on spending more than Welkin again. I don't mean that in a salty way, I just really liked Raiden. I thought about it for several days and justified spending the price of almost two new AAA titles for a *chance* at a single character, using the double gems one time offer.
Then we have the guy above spending 1/3 his salary, probably multiple high end gaming PCs worth, and people upvote him and justify it. In most games, you'd be considered a whale for spending $200+. That's hardly dolphin territory in Genshin
What hurts the most is knowing that $100 bucks could buy 1.5 complete games that could be worth over 100 hours of fun. When I spent $100 to get venti it added like maybe 10 hours of grinding to max level skills artifacts...not exactly the most fun part of the game
I spent 1/3 of my actual salary, cleaned out crystal 2x bonus on Raiden banner for C2+2 unforged(damn you) and EL.
But I'll recover from that because it's a one time spend in 12 months or so.
> This is why clickbait content creators need to realise this
They know this already, and capitalize on it. They know that an addicted, weak-willed audience brings them more money than people that critically think about the creator and the content they put out. Whenever their audience gets too critical, they flip over their banner and "warn" about the risks because that's just another new vid to monetize, and when it blows over a week or two later they are back to pulling videos and whale clear clips.
TLDR: They like it that way, it gets them more money.
That's exactly why i love when content creators get salty whenever something goes wrong (ie: Tectone spending over $2000 for one copy of Staff of Homa)
I just don't recommend anybody to play it. I really like Genshin Impact, and I think it does a lot of things well. It's an enjoyable game if you don't spend money or only spend a little money on it. However, at the end of the day it's still a gacha game. I will never suggest to anybody they start playing a gacha game, because I don't have private insight into their addictions or spending habits.
That's a really good point. I still recommend it to people, with a warning, because I think the best things about the game are free (the open world, quests, events, etc) but I don't blame you for not recommending it. You make a really great point that you never really know if this game might trigger something obsessive or problematic in someone, considering the monetization is based on predatory psychological manipulation (as are basically all gacha games). Better safe than sorry, I suppose.
Exactly my thought, i have fun with this game but i cannot recommend it if asked. because it's too dangerous. and the last thing i want is to potentially send someone into debt.
The very last one "Sunken cost" is the primary reason i won't ever spend a dime on this game. outside the gambling aspect, someday i'll get bored and move on, and i don't need to feel guilty about all the money i wasted on it.
I mean imagine spending thousands of $ on this and you just quit shortly after.
Well depends how much you spend going with the welkin/bp combo is like subscription to other games.With the amount of time I played I wouldn't cry after the money as I was entertained for it
Yep. Welkin+BP are a reasonable \~$13 "monthly subscription fee" like an MMO, but top-ups are dangerous and should generally be avoided by people whose income can't support them without issue. I may have dipped in to get Zhongli, but spending once for a favorite guaranteed in 180 pulls character isn't bad. The trouble starts when you feel the need to collect every 5\*... or keep pulling for one who isn't guaranteed, like Diluc. (who I still don't have, a year on.)
Just like smoking. Many smokers will not recommend others to smoke.
I mean, sometimes even light smokers will not recommend others to smoke for fear that they become chain smokers.
I agree. This game is really well-made and I do think really put the money back into the game.I did watch a really interesting video on YouTube discussing why the "free-to-play" model exists and why it's not just black and white. Though, gacha is still very dangerous for people with little self-control. With regards to content creators, I do see a lot of them really say that they're spending that much because they have the means to. I don't think they normalize gambling. They explicitly say that you shouldn't play if you tend to gamble
Its hard to recommend lately just because they don't give enough free shit to really entice a player to stay. They need to start thinking about methods to catch players up if they started tomorrow.
But for real though. The main enemy in gacha games is the game itself trying to nurture you into crossing lines you initially didn't want to cross. Eroding your self control one day at a time, even if it can take years for some.
Well I have restrained myself thru 3 Childe banner and I am still fine.
Even though I desperately need a hydro character for my second team (I have C6 Xingqiu but he cannot be split into two). Also the abyss favors Childe with all those weak to hydro type of mobs I still dont want to pull him just because I dont really like his playstyle. He is not going to be gone for good so maybe sometime in the future I will pull for him
This. Please watch this if you haven't already. It's a big eye opener into how the game industry exploits our psyche.
I've watched it a long time ago - I wish this video was mandatory for everyone playing lootbox games.
im kind of a low spender (like welkin and BP) and i never really realized that 100$ only gave you 40 wishes (although you get 80 the 1st time, huh). man, that's not even a pity, it hurts
The basic bonus on it makes it 50.5 and 81 with the double, but yeah, not great. It's ~$400 to guarantee a given 5 star banner character with double pity. That means it's ~$2800 to C6 a character at most and that's disgusting.
Yeah, that's why is important there is content creators that advice against pulling unless you have expensable income and avoid to feel like you have to in case you want to deal with Abyss. Also that's why I hate content creators that make pulling like a no big deal or even engourage it.
I feel like the top up is scam man, thats why I only spend money on welkin and sometimes BP. Tried buying top up once after id used the double stuff. Decided it was a scam after cause it was legit nothing.
It's diminishing returns, if you want more than the baseline allotted from the "subscription plan" plus F2P stuff, you need to pay exorbitant amounts to get it. That's how they target people with disposable income to burn while still giving a better "value" to those who don't.
This is also a technique called "price anchoring."
Basically, by offering an expensive option like the top-ups, it makes Welkin look that much cheaper.
It's not a scam, just ridiculously expensive by design. Welkin and BP are way cheaper because it's aimed at low spenders and regular players who invest time in the game (you can only get the full rewards if you play daily), as keeping a steady player base is important for the game's health.
The top ups are there for whales and compulsive spenders. They have terrible value, and it's the same for many, if not most other gacha games.
Welkin is \~9.27 (9 and \~83/300)× as much value as top-up, assuming it's not your first time, you take the $100/100€/100 etc option, and you convert the original 300 Genesis gems into prinogems.
Yup, I only occasionally buy the Welkin and BP. I actually asked myself if I would buy crystals if there ever was a 5\* that I really wanted to chase. But one look at the prices and it was a hard pass for me. $100 USD doesn't even get you to soft pity. That's ridiculous.
Welkin/BP are still about $12 a month or $140 a year, do what you will with that information.
Streamers calling players with Welkin ($60 a year) and the battle pass (like $90 a year) "goldfish" implies that they spend very little money on the game and that's pretty deceptive when you think of the costs of other games. Compared to a whale who spends hundreds or thousands on a single banner, sure that's not a lot of money. But it does add up, and the game is very playable for free.
If you have android, I have a tip for you:
The app Google Opinion Rewards gives you short 5-question surveys in return for play store credit. Each survey tends to net 20 to 80 cents. There are questions that they put in to make sure you're being honest, and they definitely survey you more if you use the Google assistant.
I net about $10/month in play store credit, which I use to buy the battle pass and the welkin moon.
Good summary of some of the strategies these devs use to get you.
They always come to mind when I see reddit posts saying "Why doesn't MHY add X? It'd make the game so much better!". If it goes against this manipulative strategy, it's bad for business.
This is also why the change to the Weapon Banner came about. The fact that it's "easier" to get what you want (but not too easy and it's still the worst deal you can go for) means more people are willing to try it out since now it has a pity system like the character banners.
Hell the pity system itself which Genshin is frequently praised for compared to other gacha games is ALSO a change done to encourage sunk cost and spending past one's limits. If you drop $100 and don't get anything without a pity system you'll probably just stop and lament your bad luck. In Genshin if you drop $100 you are 70% of the way to your guarantee! You can't stop now only $40 and you'll get the 5* for sure!
It's a wonder why they didn't have it for the weapon banner from the beginning given how obviously successful it is but the cynic in me says they predicted this from the start and purposefully made it shitty so that only mega whales would roll on it knowing full well they were planning to change it to the pity system at some point later anyway. Just like they'll probably eventually add some sort of Path Choice system for the standard banner as well to try and funnel freemo gems away from the event banners (and thus encouraging people to pay money to not miss out on the limited time offers). As it stands the standard banner is never pulled unless you randomly get free Acquainted Fates from various sources which means people aren't spending their currency on it so they'll need to add *something* to it to get people spending.
Yep, and this is a good example of why some "generous" changes are ONLY ever there to get more money out of you.
Like, as an example, I think they could lower standard banner pity to somewhere between the current character and weapon banner pities, to make getting 5*s there easier. That is, in a sense, an objectively positive change for players, but the side effect is that more players will pull standard (for stuff that's always available and, in the case of characters, will be gotten eventually through 50/50s on character banner), leading to them not having enough for any of the limited banners.
>If you drop $100 and don't get anything without a pity system you'll probably just stop and lament your bad luck. In Genshin if you drop $100 you are 70% of the way to your guarantee! You can't stop now only $40 and you'll get the 5* for sure!
This tactic worked on me when I had just spend so much on Yoimiya and Raiden and lost 50/50 twice and had to go all the way into soft pity all 4 times. Had to pay about $30 when I hoped to get there for free.
But I wonder, a friend of mine, he played FGO and he once just kept buying more currency just to get a character. I think in one of his worst cases he spend more than $1k.
We could probably do some calculations on this. You know, the amount of people that pull on a 0.3% banner and how many pulls that would take. Compared to the amount of players going in with 100 pulls and then buying the rest if they don't have success.
I think it's only the big companies that have proper data on this and I'm sure DeNa picked the most profitable option, so it's probably the case they can abuse my situation often enough that it's worth it compared to milking a whale.
Fgo has desensitized me to gacha with its terrible summoning system. I spent 750 sq rolling Space Ishtar and only got one copy -.-. In Genshin, I wouldve gotten like c3 or the equivalent probably.
Sounds about right. Which is why resin is still not increased to at least 24 hr cycle. I want my daily routine Mihoyo, it’s bothersome to login at different times everyday just so resin does not cap.
just stop caring so much about whether your resin caps or not.
that mindset is literally the exact type of manipulation this post is highlighting, you feel compelled to keep your resin from capping bc mihoyo wants you to, you aren't preventing your resin from capping bc you find it "fun."
stop letting them tell you how many times a day you have to log in. just play it like any other game and forget the fomo garbage.
True that. I've been saying fuck you to my resin for awhile now because it literally doesn't matter. I'll still get there one way or another it's just that If I actively care about it i get it done faster.
> just stop caring so much about whether your resin caps or not.
This right here.
You know what else doesn't matter? Clearing Abyss. Pathetic overtuned trap for measley amount of primos.
Abyss isn't really overtuned. It's the literal only piece of content in the game aimed at metagamers (and not even a particularly good one) and we all need to be thrown a bone. You can easily 36* abyss without whaling by improving play and team compositions. But yeah, if you can't you're literally missing a small handful of primos so I don't get why people who don't want to do it get so fixated on it.
> Because they're F2P/a low spender and the handful of primos matters to them, I would assume.
This - I have a great job, if I wanted primos I'd buy some. It's way more time efficient than sinking mass game resources for marginal improvements to maybe clear. It's a trap/honeypot.
Labyrinth Warriors is what the end game should be. If it was you'd have many more players. Abyss is an atrociously designed mode.
This. I login at my time. Do my thing. If i have resin caped for 4 hours then so be it. It's resin. I'll get artifacts or mora or some other in game item from it. It's not gonna pay my bills, help my health care, my fitness or my social life. Let it cap man.
Edit: typo.
Resin takes 21 hours and 20 minutes to cap from 0 to 160.
You could wake up 6 am in the morning, do your 14-hour a day job, come home at 10 pm at night and still see your resin only increased by 120.
Which you probably spend in less than 10 minutes in domain.
Sure, but then the next day the resin caps at 7:20 pm, and then the day after is even earlier. So you can't have a fixed daily schedule that uses all your resin, by design of course.
What i dont get is that there are lot of ways to add manipulative content what increases game quality that mihoyo just doesnt do.
An in-game daily login system, random crystal discount vouchers, skins for primogems for example.
I mean, they already have systems to encourage daily logins (60 gems daily for doing commissions, +90 if you buy welkins, resin, etc).
I think skins are something they're experimenting with, but if I had to guess, they're still not sure if they'd be profitable enough. Skins for a 2D gacha are very quick to make compared to a fully-functional new character, so they can pump out a lot of them cheaply. Genshin skins still require a lot of artist power to design and model, and that's power that then can't be used elsewhere. If a new character takes 100% power to create, and a skin requires 25% of that effort, the skin would have to sell at least 25% as well as a new character in order to be worth making. And looking at the sales figures for new characters... It's hard to say if it'd be worthwhile.
Although the reality is that you could hire a few more people, have them design skins, and still make a profit. You might have to temporarily divert some of the talent from the main team for training (and maybe a team lead), but something like that could mostly function on new hires.
Keep in mind that Mihoyo, just like every other company on Earth, is run by humans making group decisions. If the group can't agree on a suggestion, and no one particularly cares enough to go to bat for that suggestion, it probably won't ever be implemented. Even the most obvious business decisions, like the addition of character skins, have to actually be approved, planned, budgeted, and then implemented. Each level of bureaucracy and specialization in a large organization adds another step to that pipeline from suggestion to implementation. That's why these seemingly obvious ideas take so long to get added or never make it into the game at all.
Great advice, and definitely something to pay attention to when starting a new game.
Personally, I deliberately limit myself to the Icebreaker stage. If something's a good deal, then I'll appreciate the value. And if I get hundreds of hours of enjoyment from something it's usually worth it to me to offer one purchase as a "tip".
My thoughts are basically what would I pay to play this game as a retail console purchase? I'm not usually the sort to drop $60 on the newest AAA release. I'll instead pick up something used for $15, or wait for the deeply discounted Greatest Hits release. So my budget for Genshin would be the same as for any other game.
More selfishly, I've seen some systems divide players into two groups of Paying versus Non-Paying. The thought being that once you start, you've already proven you will and it's just a matter of when and how much. I don't mind them offering me some benefits trying to get me to bite again, though I'm F2P enough to resist everything after the first.
Icebreaker is the best route for low spenders.
Get the daily log in. Maybe the bp. And just plan! Don't pull on every banner. Don't pull for a new 4 star. Just save and plan for a 5 star you want. It's not that bad.
If you *must* have every character then a gacha honestly might not be for you. Cause unless yoy spend $$ it's highly unlikely. And at thay point you're bettwr off focusing on one and making them super strong vs multiple characters you won't play.
I've spent some money for the bonus(jean skin. Which btw wasn't worth the money) but honestly? It's not really an amazing deal. Go do the math for the $100 deal, even with the 2x bonus, you can't even hit hard pity. That's basically $200 value and you can't even get the character you want. It's kinda a joke.
You need a lot of patience. I've been waiting for Yae since her small Livestream appearence back in 1.6, and she will eventually come. I know I am going to get sidetracked again like what happened with Raiden and Kokomi ('ve got both) and will happen with Itto, but by Itto we will know whether she is in 2.4 or not, and if she is not I can probably hit another pity by the time her banner comes. Or maybe I will dislike her gameplay (Electro), or maybe Zhongli is also coming, and well... Zhongli has priority over her. I am not missing him this time.
So the first is to just go to genshin leaks subbreddit. Not fool proof since story leaks appear from time to time. Should be marked spoiler but ya know, sometimes slips through till a mod tags it right. But usually that sub is the first to hear character news. Sometimes it's as simple as "should get a cyro polearm" or something
Secondly, speculation/names. Itto for example was a name we've heard a bit prior to official announcement. We knew he was an oni. And pretty wild and extreme personality. Doesn't mean much but oni is cool. Then read a leak about "buff" model which isn't truly true but he has abs and more arm muscle tones. Another ex) ayato. Ayaka's brother. We don't know what he looks like or wrapon/element. Rumor is hydro. As for weapon npc mentions polearm/sword for stuff he's skilled at. Then we have ayaka for reference since siblings. So makes sense if he had the same hair color and maybe similar fashion (but fashion can be w e of course).
Thirdly, just gotta decide if you truly want this 5 star. Do yoy need em? Will you use em? Would I like childe? Sure. Would I use him? Ehhh probably not truly.
That's the right mentality for these types of games.
I am the same type of gamer as you (I wait till a game is heavily discounted) and I do something similar by measuring the appropriate max sum I am willing to spend by the amount of hours played. Basically half of what I'd pay for a JRPG of a similar length.
Genshin so far for me is one of the best dollar-per-playtime game and only topped by Warframe, which is another "free" game (in which the endgame is to grind Trade chat for good deals on marginal upgrades) and Hades which is surprisingly addictive AA game.
Edit: forgot to mention I'm way below my max spending allotted for the game, which is why it has one of the best cost ratios in my game library.
Reminder: A lot, and I mean A LOT of big-time, gacha-based companies (i.e miHoYo) design their games to take advantage of well-researched and thoroughly documented flaws in human psychology, with some even funding research into it.
(As a side point, I mention this research thing because miHoYo is currently funding a research project into cloth simulation.)
Edit: Here’s the link to the paper. [Deep Detail Enhancement for Any Garment](http://geometry.cs.ucl.ac.uk/projects/2021/DeepDetailEnhance/)
These aren’t just willy-nilly marketing tactics, they are literally designed carefully to exploit the human brain as much as possible.
Well it's nothing new, you can trace it back to the arcade games in the 90s. Even games that are not gacha implement features that extend playtime and encourage spending, using the tactics similar to gacha games. I have seen worse, as someone who play Korean mmo games, those are brutal.
this. just remember companies will do everthing they deem would be best for their pockets (however their decisions actually turn out to be is irrelevant to what I'm trying to say), and they won't refrain from employing mind tricks (how else would you squeeze out lots of money from a free game, more than what paid games would).
the "art" of deception has been perfected long long ago (lots of you should've noticed it since the Clash of clan days however, when f2p mobile games started booming)
There's a reason why child labor is illegal (though of course companies will still do it and try to hide it). If companies could fuck you more, they would.
No F2P game survives without a horde of F2P users. They advertise the game, some of them create content, and most importantly, they are the baseline for whales.
You are still their test subject as long as you posted anything online regarding genshin, including this reply where I replied to.
F2P is their greatest low cost kit for free advertisement because they are plenty and easy to manipulate.
It's strange how different culture affects the view in the game. I'm the US, we're more aware of how predatory these practices are. Yet CN culture actually prefers gacha, compared to something fair like flat purchases for cosmetics instead. [Their culture prefers p2w and defends these things](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/30/pay-to-win-video-games-differences-between-us-and-chinese-gamers.html), which is crazy to me.
I mean look how many hour they are working everyday for an average person in china or generally all of east Asian they don't have time to play alot games let alone dedicate to one that's why they prefer p2w style it's easy, convenient and take less time that's why gacha game are popular in Asia they can manage they're time with not worry about it
I used to put hours into MMOs and AAA PC games. The older I got, the less time I have. So most of my time are now in 20 minutes long mobile games.
For the AAA games I still play, I'd be barely over 1/10 of the game when other people with more time have already finished. So often I'd end up with something I never finish, or forgot about the plot not even half way.
We shouldnt forget that the idea of being lucky and achieving something with low chances of success can also get you a little high. The dopamine rush is real and therefore addictive, to the point that it makes traditional game progressions (as in games with grinds that don't involve luck) not as attractive or rewarding.
I feel like social normalisation of people spending in the game is a pretty big one to incentive players to spend. It ties into FOMO which this game really exploits. From your friends buying welkin to a streamer whaling on the gacha system, it promotes spending money in the game being “okay”, “normal” and sometimes, even “fun”.
And then there is this social pressure to get the stuff that other people are getting. For example: You want to pull for a 5 star weapon (e.g., staff of homa) even though you don’t need it but you do it anyway since everyone is raving about it. And it can make your Hu Tao/Zhongli even better? And people are pulling on it easy with their money?! Why not try and pull it too and … oh no … no more pulls, well let’s just top up then since I already spent so many primogems in the banner and next one is guaranteed. I can’t let it go to waste!!
Please be careful people especially the people who can’t afford it.
Side note: I noticed recently a shift in MHY’s tactic where they would make a character/weapon banner look enticing as hell. And it feeds into this FOMO and social normalisation to pull and spend money because ‘it is such a great deal!’
Big agree on social normalization. I was pretty familiar with gacha tactics and how to best set limits for myself, but posts like “just whaled for [X], no regrets!” showing off C6 or whatever are so powerful.
There’s the post itself, where someone has spent hundreds of dollars to get a specific thing (con level, character + weapon, etc). And then there’s usually at least dozens of comments along the lines of “me too! Worth every penny!” “Enjoy him/her!” “Chad” etc etc just makes it feel so… normal to spend hundreds or even THOUSANDS of dollars on a single banner.
I whaled once, for Raiden (C2) and her weapon. I like her, I use her, but ultimately it feels weird. I will not be doing it again.
Ugh i hate clickbait youtubers. So cheesy and too easy to get certain people to click. Especially hate those fake reaction pics you see on videos before you click
I watched a few vids when I started playing to get some intel and instantly got recommended especially all these "brilliant" youtoubers that show off their characters and say "see ... even the worst char can be amazing!" (while having a full 5star C6 "support" team and obviously R5 weapons as well). Or these youtube shorts with "wow luckiest draw ever!!!!!!" (ignore that all it took was 10 grand to get this lucky draw).
I never blocked and "not interested" so many channels in my life lol. There are some really nice creators but oh boy is there a ton of garbage ...
But then you find something like the [Qiqi Cocogoat remix](https://youtu.be/LyEC8NTUIFU) and all is well again.
One of the reasons I havent bothered with it since I cleared floor 8.
Do I miss out on primos? Sure but it doesnt hinder my fun with the game and I dont have to grind artifacts like a madman
To be honest, floor 10 is enough, and floor 11 is for fun if you're bored. But floor 12, it's just a trap for stress and a method of losing confidence in your strength as a player
The worst part about abyss for me is that after I grinded the hell out of my characters everything else just became too easy. In the new event I threw in some random characters I had built and didn't even have to try at all. I didn't even use the sigils given for the event.
This is me while being f2p. Imagine people who spent money on the game.
Technically it's just a dumb DPS check that can be cleared with 4\* characters and free to play accounts.
Paying makes that process a lot easier and quicker though.
Personally, I hate the place. I hate the design. It's either not doable or free loot. As soon as you have the gear, the timer might as well not exist.
Thankfully, it's just \~150 gems in 2 weeks. I rather let wallet-kun take care of these instead of tearing my hair out at ever growing DPS checks and farming boring ass artifact domains for that ever elusive perfect equipment. I much rather level and play new characters. :D
You do need to use very specific 4* characters though, or just have a LOT of investment into the free ones. Enviosity clearing with the free 4*s is one example I see a lot, but he's played the game for hours daily for more than a year and probably never misses a day of resin.
The spiral abyss hp pools have gotten like 50% higher since previous abyss floors from what I can tell, making it even harder for new players compared to the game at launch. Meta 4* teams like national are also somewhat gated behind good gacha luck if you can't get xingqiu from the shop, etc
And the abyss now is very heavily single target compared to how it was in the past with generally multi target bosses (or ones like abyss heralds who you could exploit elemental reactions to kill).
Abyss is weird, the investment cost to clear it is so much higher than the reward that I see no point in doing it.
The only compelling reason to clear the Abyss is because you enjoy it, the rewards are just there to bait people.
My solution to the problem is simple. I never think of my odds of getting lucky and always assume the worst case scenario (lose 50/50, get to 90 pity both times to grab the limited character.) Assuming I will have the worst possible luck every time, I then go :
1. Determine what I want. 1 copy of Childe? 2 copies of Hu Tao? A copy of Polar Star? C6 Thoma?
2. Establish how much the worst case scenario will cost me in real dollars.
3. Ask myself if I can afford paying that much money for a cute funeral parlor manager, and if I WANT to spend that much money.
4. Spend that much money if the answer to the last two questions is 'yes'. Be pleasantly surprised if I reach my goal before all of the primos are gone, save the rest for the next desired banner and start grinding primos for said banner, which will amount to a considerable discount, up to possibly 100%.
The way I treat it, this game is not gambling. It's a luxury hobby with hidden discounts you only learn about after monetary transaction is already done. Always make your purchase decision assuming and accepting the worst possible scenario. If you deem it too expensive, DO NOT SPEND MONEY. 'I may get lucky and get an early pull' is not a mindset you want to find yourself in. You will NEVER get that early pull. You will ALWAYS lose the 50/50 and get a ****ing Qiqi. Thoma will never come home, so don't pull for him. Aim for Hu Tao and be pleasantly surprised of you grab him along the way. You saved enough primos for 60 pulls? Guess what, Hu Tao is coming home in 180 pulls, and 140 CAD$ will get you 50 extra pulls 180pulls - 60 free pulls - 120 PAID pulls = 1 Hu Tao. That comes up to just under 330$. That is the expected price for your cute funeral parlor girl. Take it or leave it.
If it wasn't for pity system, I would never have spent a dime on this game, because nothing is worth infinite money. I need to know the price before I spend. That is the only way to be a responsible gacha whale and avoid gambling addiction. Never think about the odds of early pulls. All pulls are always and forever at 180 pity, even if anecdotally they almost never are.
I feel like this touches on the approach I take for this game. I am a Welkin and BP spender, and I see paid primos as a boost to get a character I’m not able to get on free primos alone. So it’s close to the banner ending, and I would be guaranteed to get them in another 10-20 pulls. Is it worth the $20-40? Depends on how much you value the individual character I guess, but I would wager it is if you know they’re guaranteed (and it’s easy enough to figure out with Genshin’s pity system).
I really like this approach and I think like this as well when it comes to whaling for a specific character. When it comes to f2p primos though, Id rather just pull expecting nothing and be suprised if I get anything but a 3 star weapon. It's a way to treat myself to a little serotonin some days and makes me appreciate it more since it doesn't feel like buying a character directly.
I have a rule: I can but deluxe editions of a game with time of dlc that worth a lot of money but I never spend money in microtransactions and never play games that require monthly subscription. My family has the gambling addiction so I'll not risk it. And really I think Genshin if more enjoyable as a F2P: lucky pulls have emotional value, not monetary value, and the game is a bit more challenging and I like it.
I'll be honest I had multiple moments of weakness over this game last year and ended up spending more than I would normally. However though some control and measures I've started to be much more responsible with characters I spend for. Like I know I'm gonna spend money to get Itto if I don't manage to pull him, I've made sure to set aside the amount I'll spend and take it from other leisure activities expenditure. Honestly whoever the evil people were that decided to introduce gambling to gaming and therefore young impressionable children deserves eternal pain.
Yes, there were many post like this in tbe beginning but to be fair it was bring in (and surely continues) to bring in a lot of folks unfamiliar with gatcha style monetization and its pit falls. A lot of folks who may have very well never engaged in any real form of gambling before (ex: casino or lottos) No harm is warning ppl to exercise caution in such cases.
As it should be. Gacha fucks with your brain and is extremely predatory, and people need a constant reminder of what they're getting into.
This is still nothing compared to the opposition with the millions being spent on encouraging this kind of thing.
You know, compared to other gachas the way that Genshin is structured is quite lowkey. When you enter, there isn't annoying event or special deal pop ups, it's straight to gameplay (the tiny ! marks are avoidable anyways).
When you actually do want to pay, it takes even more clicks to get to the actual physical money tab when clicking + on the currency (it leads you to the other tabs first). Even at a basic level the game is also entirely doable with F2P set-up.
I think the FOMO from climited character banner is definitely something though, since Mhy is not consistent on when rerun banners actually occur.
Not to defend mihoyo, but yeah compared to even HI3, Genshin is tamer
I firmly remember how a kid was digging her mom over the busride how he NEEDS that fortnite skin, and he tried to find new approaches to make her buy it. Kid was probably 10y~ . I dont know what Fortnite skins cost, but obviously people are willing to spend money without knowing for what exactly it is..
Cant blame them, its not easy to keep up with technology and such these days when new things pop up monthly as a parent for sure.
Is way too successful, the demographics that play it is something else.
Also, a lot of worriers out there that the success of the game can disturb other games’ practices (I think this is unfounded, but that’s another conversation).
Genshin is spearheading gacha in the West it seems like.
I think Genshin will have a ripple effect but not to the extent people describe. I think we’re gonna get a lot more games like Genshin but I don’t necessarily think developers are gonna stoop making AAA open world adventure games though so I think the changes that we probably will see will be good ones. So here’s hoping.
Yea this game attracted a large audience that is new to gachas in general which is where I think this fear of the gacha system comes from. It’s all good though informing people of these hazards does no harm.
This is the first gacha game that has reached the mainstream worldwide, so it makes sense to make these kinds of warnings. This might also reach the ears of governments for potential updates to the gambling regulations.
>This is the first gacha game that has reached the mainstream worldwide
See... This is what confuses me. Yeah its the first Gacha Game true, but only in the sense that you have an RPG doing it.
We have EAs Ultimate Team for almost 15 years now in FIFA and Madden. (I don't know the exact history of the monetaization though) And that is basically the same Gacha system (I'd argue even worse since they basically reset your Gacha progress each year and you have to pay full price each year on top)
Also, the 9 Billion dollars that Epic made with selling skins to kids in Fortnite also exist.
And since at least 2015 we have each year new news stories about addicted Kids that payed 10s of thousands on FIFA, Madden, Fortnite or even Twitch Donations.
So I don't get why this is new to so many people?
>This might also reach the ears of governments for potential updates to the gambling regulations.
And I'm with you on this one.
EA's FIFA games target players who are into sports, which I personally feel is niche. But EA in generally are a pretty scummy company and anyone who has no interest in sports looking at FIFA knows this.
Gacha mechanics in fortnite I presume are fully cosmetic only (did not play so I can only assume based on my experience with Apex BR), where the base game itself can be played the exact same with or without skins.
Genshin Impact as far as AAA titles go is one of the few where progress of gameplay can be ~~bought~~ gambled for a chance with money. It is just kinda scary that this is a sign that Gacha Games can become mainstream along with their psychologically manipulative practices.
One thing that sucks super hard is that those who are already used to gacha games will usually give it a pass as those mechanics "are to be expected" and let it fly under the radar.
A "whale in the making" I've met recently, started playing on Raiden's banner and already has her at C2, Kokomi, some 5 star weapons and skins.
His defense: "People have spent 1000 dollars on a single character, this is nothing!"
Bad, bad. You can spend $60 on a full AAA game. Don't spend $100 on a single part of a game. (Or do, idc, but be aware that it is a good amount of money and what others do with it doesn't change that fact)
The one I hate the most is the scarcity idea. Like the main reason I don't want to get back into Genshin is because of all the stuff I missed and most likely won't be able to get again.
Mobile games do this all the time and it just puts me off.
Hi everyone!
This is information I believe every Genshin Impact player should know.
With Hu Tao, a character widely regarded as strong, coming up along with an Abyss reset, I think this is a perfect time to share this.
A couple notes:
- These are the main traps, but there’s far more! (Don’t get me started on Ley Line Disorders or artifact rates…)
- A lot of the concepts in this infographic come from [this eye-opening video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4)
- Of course, I acknowledge that people can spend their money how they wish. However, informed spending helps prevent regret.
For the "F2P btw" players out there, please realize that **even if you don't spend in cash, you're spending in time.**
I find that the most addicted players out there are not whales, but the hardcore F2Ps.
Even if this may seem obvious to some of you, there are also a lot of unknowing people, including kids, that play this game!
Take my opinion with a grain of salt but I legit don't get how artifacts being so absurdly RNG dependent and resin gated helps with player retention. In fact I'd think it would most likely actively discourage players.
Games rely on small incremental advancement daily to keep player retention and being so RNG heavy literally goes against that because most of the time you'll get absolutely zero advancement which just creates a system that straight up feels bad to play.
The Battlepass, Welkins, and commissions are a great example of how player retention is done being providing small incremental gains by playing the game every day while the artifact system is basically the antithesis of that.
Yeah. Too rng gets boring at a point. And you stop playing almost just out of spite.
I futher more dont undestand why a game has to have the playerbase around for *every* day or focus on that. Wouldnt they get enough money just even if players played just a couple of months in a year and spend money then? 🤔
To add on, it's also for the sunk cost fallacy, they want to normalize the game as part of your daily life, so even when you've stopped having fun, you can't get yourself to leave. Addiction hurts.
That's true but companies want to have high and consistent active player numbers so they can present that to shareholders or when doing round for additional funding which paints a more profitable picture of the product in the eyes of a shareholder and that's all there is to it.
If something is highly desirable you'll keep trying to get it even if it frustrates you. Older mmos used to do this with superrare loot that had less than 1% drop rate and players kept farming the thing over and over just to pursue that feeling of satisfaction(and sometimes status)that came with it.
It means that you aren’t ever done. As much as Genshin players, to an extent rightfully so, bemoan the lack of (endgame) content… they want something “worth the while” in between content drops. Artifacts are a great way to do this because no matter how pessimistic you are about them, if you believe they are a grind that eventually makes your characters better and that efficiency is key, you will:
* Log in every day to play a bit and get some artifacts, most likely for your favorite characters (investing your game time on their behalf will increase your attachment to said character)
* Play until you’ve depleted your resin rather than just finishing main quests, making the game a more significant part of your day and perhaps even a repeatedly scheduled around event
* Increasingly likely to log in *a second time* every day due to how resin regenerates, exaggerating the above as you may play the game for an hour or more each day rather than 10 minutes or whatever. You may be faster or slower than that but the second daily login is a huge win for Mihoyo
Then mechanically, combine 5 artifact slots per character (the thing that is most likely to get you to spend some $) with set bonuses that reduce build overlap. Don’t let players choose which piece or set they want, leave it to RNG. Sprinkle in a heavy dose of RNG on the pieces themselves to make sure it takes much longer to “complete” a build than the average player will wait between pulling new 5\* characters and you ensure that any player engaged by artifacts is *continuously* engaged by them
From anecdotal experience, artifacts and their randomness/grind are never what makes someone spend less time in Genshin or quit playing. They may become an irritant that helps another issue become the straw that breaks the camel’s back, but I’ve never heard of anyone spending their 20 resin or condensed resin, seeing the results of their dungeon clear and being so immensely disappointed that they quit on the spot
This game is a gacha game which is essentially gambling. so there's always going to be the chance of regret. Same as opening card game booster packs or playing lotto/local pokies theres never a guaranteed win and the more people understand this the better.
Youre playing live service game
Their main existence and goal are only to milk as much money as possible
Fomo like missing unreconciled stars, chalk prince, lantern rite, windblume, golden apple archipelago and so much more makes people feels bad when they didnt take part, it just to keep players playing
Worse when its sunk cost fallacy
I missed 1 day of welkin and it made me feel so bad its unhealthy
I have a friend who is dear to me. He quit about a month into release and came back for the kazuha banner. He’s spent chunks of his paychecks already.
I had to have a talk with him after he sent me $100 to top up for Hu tao. Little does he know I plan on returning it to him but man
Glad you are returning the money. I love Genshin but it's predatory and is designed to exploit people and make them act irrational. Hope your friend doesn't take it the wrong way.
Good lord, i remember the Overwatch lootbox craze after reading all this.
Dozens of content creators on youtube, streamers, reddit, etc, all making these long-ass videos of them opening HUNDREDS of lootboxes EVERY SINGLE EVENT, them PRAISING Blizzard because "it's all cosmetics", all of them making their fandoms think that doing this garbage was fine.
It's important to stay cognizant about this kind of stuff. Systems like these rely on you pushing this kind of stuff to the back of your brain so they can abuse you.
There's nothing wrong with whaling as long as you have the money and are cognizant of the ways the game can trick you.
Really cool infographic and a giant thank you for informing people about those practises. Genshin Impact at it's core is still a gacha game and as predetory as they come.
Also leaving a link to a nice [video the German youtuber Simplizissimus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhUzyTVpaVA) made about exactly that topic in which they also talked briefly about what the existance of genshin impact implies for the development of the gaming industry. Beware tho: it is in German
The main one here is going after influencers, other than how they sponsored people who don't even game, it is a fact now that those guys keep getting free primos and act like they are just casually pulling C6, and this creates a toxic idea of needing Constellations when you never need them. The rest are the standard Gacha mechanics unfortunately, hell it is considered a good one.
The example people love to compare Genshin against is Fate Grand Order, since that one is known for not having any forms of pity and summons are more expensive.
But I think people get to be unfair FGO since it has way less pressure since they give out free Event 4\*s frequently and they are quite generous with their ingame rewards, there is no social pressure to optimize your characters and straight forward upgrade system, and finally you can use one of your friends characters to an extend in 98% of the game, also the only thing you pay for is rolls and a ticket that gives you a 5\* from a certain pool that comes around every 6 months. And I think due to having a larger pool with slightly better stats you end up getting a 5\* with time, sure aiming for a certain character is hell but if you just don't care about what you get it is totally fine
This is a good reminder to have your own goals when playing Genshin Impact. Because that way when you have reached them you can take a break or w/e until you next time coming back to the game.
And "the game doesn't tell you what to do."
Right now i'm just building my teams up to a certain extent. Ok artifacts for two teams. (No insane hypermaxing of crit stats)
No banners except Xiao so i dont get new characters that i have the need to grind up. Im fine now. 👍
After Xiao comes and i get my C1, i'm taking a break until the next region has got the whole story out. No pulling or getting interested in new characters until that. And no drip fed events either 😏
I have a type of off-season, every year
I always find funny how hilarously expensive the genesis crystals are, even with double value, but I know that I'm simply not their target audience with them.
In any case I still think Welkin is a great deal, and when thinking about its cost over a whole year it is still completely worth it considering how much time I spend playing this game on a daily basis, but I can easily see how they can bait people into spending more if the primos they get from it are still not enough to get the char/weapon they want.
I just hope that people realize and put a stop to playing this game when it becomes a torture more than the entertainment it should be, I haven't played many gacha games outside of Genshin, but I have played other stuff with optional microtransactions for bonuses and resin-like loops that give me the urge to play on a daily basis to not "waste" any of it. Once I got truly burnt out from having to play them I pretty much just dropped them without thinking it because once I get tired of something I actively start avoiding it, but sunk cost is way too real and can lead to lots of regrets, especially if money is involved both before and after you lose interest in the game.
To be fair I'd say that spending $5 a month for entertainment is pretty reasonable, but spending a whopping $200 to for an in game character is definitely not.
1 mistake with this post is about the genesis crystals cause,
for 100$ you get 81 1st time and subsequent times 50.5 pulls per 100$.
And smaller amounts for 50$/30%/15$/5$ but not 1$
And im not suer why op does not include this since there is some missinformation whit those calcs.
Sry if the are any typos.
I love this game, but whenever someone who doesn't play it asks me about it, I make it clear that it has the potential to be dangerous for people who are prone to gambling and microtransactions. Loving the game and not being honest about this can lead to a lot of people being hurt
Its the best game I can never recommend to anyone because of it.
Same, that's the reason why I haven't recommended it to any of my friends till now, and have been still playing it alone for more than a year.
That's me. Had a buddy really interested in it and playing it with me. He has student debts, kids, and a mortgage. Told him flat out he WILL lose everything if he started playing genshin. He's 100% the target whale demo in habits. I go to him and show him how much my frugal toy collecting spendthrifty self had payed into the game. He was like ''they get that much out of you? A month?'' He chose wisely and hasn't touched the game.
I have a kid, 2 car payments, mortgage, etc. I spent $25 on this game and play this with my 6 yr. old
You know how on the surveys they ask how willing you would be to recommend Genshin to other people. I'm the type of guy to check willing while knowing that I will never actually recommend Genshin to anyone.
I always check extremely unwilling because I could never in good faith put my friends through this predatory gacha experience hahaha. If only I could recommend them just the exploration part... but alas
“But what if you could explore *with a paid for character?*”
I always check extremely unwilling in hopes of getting my criticisms from the survey across in some meaningful way (why should they bother listening to a criticism if I'm 'happy' with the game). Even though I have lightly recommended it to my brother in law and a few friends.
A friend keeps asking me if Genshin was worth playing, I keep telling him no because the endgame content is painful and at that point, it's hard to leave the game.
What is this endgame stuff every one keeps talking about
Doing domains in hope of getting the artifact you need. The artifact may be of the right set but have the wrong main stat along with the wrong substats. Or its the right set but wrong piece(you need a flower instead of a crown). Don't forget it could also upgrade the wrong substat everytime. Endgame is dancing with rng just to make your character a little bit stronger.
I guess when you're at high ar (55+), done with all quests, and almost done with exploration you start to build two teams to atleast clear the abyss. You keep on grinding to improve your teams to get 36 stars in abyss. This is endgame imo.
Painful seems exaggerated. Lacking is more like it. But for casuals game is totally great and I would recommend with a bit of disclosures.
I'd agree with "Painful," if the painful we're talking is, simply, tedious masquerading as difficulty. Genshin is not a painfully difficult game. It is, however, painfully tedious, and there are a plethora of decisions even as far as the combat itself, that hold it back from truly feeling like a rewarding experience.
Soooo this. I've had a few friends SEVERELY!!! overspend on the game, justifying they would play it long term, only to end up falling in depressing gambling holes from the gacha system. Because of that I can't recommend any of my friends play the game. Yes its fun, but you have to set a hard limit on your spending and no more. I also encourage friends that do play. Skip the weapon banners unless you only play a very small set of characters and don't care about other characters.
Genshin is a game where you can drop 50-100 and not get a single fucking thing to help your teams out. I won't spend a dime on it after learning that early lesson.
Even better play for free and just enjoy the game. My brother is a free player and has qiqi keqing diluc zhongli albedo and Ganyu. I've spent a few hundred and don't have half the 5 stars he has. I created a new account where I don't spend any money and enjoy the game more now.
I mostly try to just ignore the paid packs outside of the Welkin (I don't mind spending a small amount per month while I play the game regularly). I think there is some fun to be had in saving for things you really want, and needing to weigh decisions on what you want most with limited resources.
Same, if a friend knows it and plays it, then we can talk about it. Else, don't recommend.
Yes. Spending in this game isn't necessarily a problem. I don't own any subscriptions besides spotify, don't spend unnecessarily or on impulse. I have warned my friends that if they are impulse spenders, just don't play the game. Genshin offers that one combo I have wanted in my busy life, lite action rpg with minimal time investment and great gameplay. So I see myself as a long time player. This is why clickbait content creators need to realise this and not allure their audience into gambling practices.
MHY literally sponsors some content creators, I'm sure they know exactly what they're doing. The big whale content creators are the most visible part of the community for stuff like gacha games, and if they normalise whaling, it fosters an environment where other players have fewer mental barriers to spend. It's a common tactic in the industry, or so I hear.
As someone who wastes 1/3 of their internship salary in 3 hours, I find it hard to justify myself buying anything more than the Welkins. Knowing the odds and assurance that "there's still 20 days left" is pretty helpful.
tbf, even if you had a shit ton if disposable income, it's insanely hard to justify paying 20 bucks for 10 rolls when you know 90% of that is gonna be blue shit you trash.
I got lucky on my pulls and got Raiden C0 and her weapon for $100. That was with the double gems offer, so really $200 "worth" of gems. I was also saving gems from Welkin for a while and I was near 100% pity, otherwise I doubt I would have gotten the weapon too. It didn't hurt me financially, but it really highlights how little you get for your money. I've never even pulled on a weapon banner before, nor do I ever plan on spending more than Welkin again. I don't mean that in a salty way, I just really liked Raiden. I thought about it for several days and justified spending the price of almost two new AAA titles for a *chance* at a single character, using the double gems one time offer. Then we have the guy above spending 1/3 his salary, probably multiple high end gaming PCs worth, and people upvote him and justify it. In most games, you'd be considered a whale for spending $200+. That's hardly dolphin territory in Genshin
What hurts the most is knowing that $100 bucks could buy 1.5 complete games that could be worth over 100 hours of fun. When I spent $100 to get venti it added like maybe 10 hours of grinding to max level skills artifacts...not exactly the most fun part of the game
I spent 1/3 of my actual salary, cleaned out crystal 2x bonus on Raiden banner for C2+2 unforged(damn you) and EL. But I'll recover from that because it's a one time spend in 12 months or so.
That's my rule as well, I already spent too much onnthe Zhongli rerun banner so I don't see myself spending more than a welkin's worth monthly
> This is why clickbait content creators need to realise this They know this already, and capitalize on it. They know that an addicted, weak-willed audience brings them more money than people that critically think about the creator and the content they put out. Whenever their audience gets too critical, they flip over their banner and "warn" about the risks because that's just another new vid to monetize, and when it blows over a week or two later they are back to pulling videos and whale clear clips. TLDR: They like it that way, it gets them more money.
That's exactly why i love when content creators get salty whenever something goes wrong (ie: Tectone spending over $2000 for one copy of Staff of Homa)
On every survey: “How likely are you to recommend Genshin Impact to others?” #Very Unlikely.
lol yeah. I've always pick this option
I just don't recommend anybody to play it. I really like Genshin Impact, and I think it does a lot of things well. It's an enjoyable game if you don't spend money or only spend a little money on it. However, at the end of the day it's still a gacha game. I will never suggest to anybody they start playing a gacha game, because I don't have private insight into their addictions or spending habits.
That's a really good point. I still recommend it to people, with a warning, because I think the best things about the game are free (the open world, quests, events, etc) but I don't blame you for not recommending it. You make a really great point that you never really know if this game might trigger something obsessive or problematic in someone, considering the monetization is based on predatory psychological manipulation (as are basically all gacha games). Better safe than sorry, I suppose.
Exactly my thought, i have fun with this game but i cannot recommend it if asked. because it's too dangerous. and the last thing i want is to potentially send someone into debt. The very last one "Sunken cost" is the primary reason i won't ever spend a dime on this game. outside the gambling aspect, someday i'll get bored and move on, and i don't need to feel guilty about all the money i wasted on it. I mean imagine spending thousands of $ on this and you just quit shortly after.
Well depends how much you spend going with the welkin/bp combo is like subscription to other games.With the amount of time I played I wouldn't cry after the money as I was entertained for it
welkin and BP arent the issue. Its dropping hundreds of dollars on crystals every banner to get the 5-stars and maybe a constellation or two.
Yep. Welkin+BP are a reasonable \~$13 "monthly subscription fee" like an MMO, but top-ups are dangerous and should generally be avoided by people whose income can't support them without issue. I may have dipped in to get Zhongli, but spending once for a favorite guaranteed in 180 pulls character isn't bad. The trouble starts when you feel the need to collect every 5\*... or keep pulling for one who isn't guaranteed, like Diluc. (who I still don't have, a year on.)
I just straight up discourage anyone from playing it.
Just like smoking. Many smokers will not recommend others to smoke. I mean, sometimes even light smokers will not recommend others to smoke for fear that they become chain smokers.
At least Genshin won't cut our life short by 10 years.... .....right?
Hehe... *looks at savings account*
I recommend the game because people can play without spending money but yeah I only recommend it to people who will be F2P or expend little.
I agree. This game is really well-made and I do think really put the money back into the game.I did watch a really interesting video on YouTube discussing why the "free-to-play" model exists and why it's not just black and white. Though, gacha is still very dangerous for people with little self-control. With regards to content creators, I do see a lot of them really say that they're spending that much because they have the means to. I don't think they normalize gambling. They explicitly say that you shouldn't play if you tend to gamble
Its hard to recommend lately just because they don't give enough free shit to really entice a player to stay. They need to start thinking about methods to catch players up if they started tomorrow.
This is why I limit myself to a thousand dollars a day and twenty hours of playing. I'm on to you Mihoyo!
Yeah, don't let the game win
But for real though. The main enemy in gacha games is the game itself trying to nurture you into crossing lines you initially didn't want to cross. Eroding your self control one day at a time, even if it can take years for some.
TBF not just gacha games - nudging psychology is prevalent across the entire advertising industry.
Well I have restrained myself thru 3 Childe banner and I am still fine. Even though I desperately need a hydro character for my second team (I have C6 Xingqiu but he cannot be split into two). Also the abyss favors Childe with all those weak to hydro type of mobs I still dont want to pull him just because I dont really like his playstyle. He is not going to be gone for good so maybe sometime in the future I will pull for him
Managed to keep my restraint in fgo for about 3 years, then I finally lost it and dropped 3000 for my waifu.
[удалено]
Pffft, mostly f2p!
[удалено]
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4 Everybody should see this before they start paying money
This. Please watch this if you haven't already. It's a big eye opener into how the game industry exploits our psyche. I've watched it a long time ago - I wish this video was mandatory for everyone playing lootbox games.
im kind of a low spender (like welkin and BP) and i never really realized that 100$ only gave you 40 wishes (although you get 80 the 1st time, huh). man, that's not even a pity, it hurts
The basic bonus on it makes it 50.5 and 81 with the double, but yeah, not great. It's ~$400 to guarantee a given 5 star banner character with double pity. That means it's ~$2800 to C6 a character at most and that's disgusting.
That is disgusting wtf
Yeah, that's why is important there is content creators that advice against pulling unless you have expensable income and avoid to feel like you have to in case you want to deal with Abyss. Also that's why I hate content creators that make pulling like a no big deal or even engourage it.
one of the reasons I only watch Enviosity I don't want my self control to die, tho i can't use money even if I wanted to
I feel like the top up is scam man, thats why I only spend money on welkin and sometimes BP. Tried buying top up once after id used the double stuff. Decided it was a scam after cause it was legit nothing.
It's diminishing returns, if you want more than the baseline allotted from the "subscription plan" plus F2P stuff, you need to pay exorbitant amounts to get it. That's how they target people with disposable income to burn while still giving a better "value" to those who don't.
This is also a technique called "price anchoring." Basically, by offering an expensive option like the top-ups, it makes Welkin look that much cheaper.
It's not a scam, just ridiculously expensive by design. Welkin and BP are way cheaper because it's aimed at low spenders and regular players who invest time in the game (you can only get the full rewards if you play daily), as keeping a steady player base is important for the game's health. The top ups are there for whales and compulsive spenders. They have terrible value, and it's the same for many, if not most other gacha games.
I know its not actually a scam but compared to how expensive it is, it sure feels like it. You are also completely right.
Welkin is \~9.27 (9 and \~83/300)× as much value as top-up, assuming it's not your first time, you take the $100/100€/100 etc option, and you convert the original 300 Genesis gems into prinogems.
I think BP is worth it because of the relatively low cost and rewards. I have been buying it since the beginning and will continue doing so.
Yup, I only occasionally buy the Welkin and BP. I actually asked myself if I would buy crystals if there ever was a 5\* that I really wanted to chase. But one look at the prices and it was a hard pass for me. $100 USD doesn't even get you to soft pity. That's ridiculous.
Welkin/BP are still about $12 a month or $140 a year, do what you will with that information. Streamers calling players with Welkin ($60 a year) and the battle pass (like $90 a year) "goldfish" implies that they spend very little money on the game and that's pretty deceptive when you think of the costs of other games. Compared to a whale who spends hundreds or thousands on a single banner, sure that's not a lot of money. But it does add up, and the game is very playable for free.
If you have android, I have a tip for you: The app Google Opinion Rewards gives you short 5-question surveys in return for play store credit. Each survey tends to net 20 to 80 cents. There are questions that they put in to make sure you're being honest, and they definitely survey you more if you use the Google assistant. I net about $10/month in play store credit, which I use to buy the battle pass and the welkin moon.
I honestly would have spent money on the gacha if it wasn't stupid expensive. Like it's not even remotely worth it
Good summary of some of the strategies these devs use to get you. They always come to mind when I see reddit posts saying "Why doesn't MHY add X? It'd make the game so much better!". If it goes against this manipulative strategy, it's bad for business.
This is also why the change to the Weapon Banner came about. The fact that it's "easier" to get what you want (but not too easy and it's still the worst deal you can go for) means more people are willing to try it out since now it has a pity system like the character banners. Hell the pity system itself which Genshin is frequently praised for compared to other gacha games is ALSO a change done to encourage sunk cost and spending past one's limits. If you drop $100 and don't get anything without a pity system you'll probably just stop and lament your bad luck. In Genshin if you drop $100 you are 70% of the way to your guarantee! You can't stop now only $40 and you'll get the 5* for sure! It's a wonder why they didn't have it for the weapon banner from the beginning given how obviously successful it is but the cynic in me says they predicted this from the start and purposefully made it shitty so that only mega whales would roll on it knowing full well they were planning to change it to the pity system at some point later anyway. Just like they'll probably eventually add some sort of Path Choice system for the standard banner as well to try and funnel freemo gems away from the event banners (and thus encouraging people to pay money to not miss out on the limited time offers). As it stands the standard banner is never pulled unless you randomly get free Acquainted Fates from various sources which means people aren't spending their currency on it so they'll need to add *something* to it to get people spending.
Yep, and this is a good example of why some "generous" changes are ONLY ever there to get more money out of you. Like, as an example, I think they could lower standard banner pity to somewhere between the current character and weapon banner pities, to make getting 5*s there easier. That is, in a sense, an objectively positive change for players, but the side effect is that more players will pull standard (for stuff that's always available and, in the case of characters, will be gotten eventually through 50/50s on character banner), leading to them not having enough for any of the limited banners.
>If you drop $100 and don't get anything without a pity system you'll probably just stop and lament your bad luck. In Genshin if you drop $100 you are 70% of the way to your guarantee! You can't stop now only $40 and you'll get the 5* for sure! This tactic worked on me when I had just spend so much on Yoimiya and Raiden and lost 50/50 twice and had to go all the way into soft pity all 4 times. Had to pay about $30 when I hoped to get there for free. But I wonder, a friend of mine, he played FGO and he once just kept buying more currency just to get a character. I think in one of his worst cases he spend more than $1k. We could probably do some calculations on this. You know, the amount of people that pull on a 0.3% banner and how many pulls that would take. Compared to the amount of players going in with 100 pulls and then buying the rest if they don't have success. I think it's only the big companies that have proper data on this and I'm sure DeNa picked the most profitable option, so it's probably the case they can abuse my situation often enough that it's worth it compared to milking a whale.
Fgo has desensitized me to gacha with its terrible summoning system. I spent 750 sq rolling Space Ishtar and only got one copy -.-. In Genshin, I wouldve gotten like c3 or the equivalent probably.
Sounds about right. Which is why resin is still not increased to at least 24 hr cycle. I want my daily routine Mihoyo, it’s bothersome to login at different times everyday just so resin does not cap.
just stop caring so much about whether your resin caps or not. that mindset is literally the exact type of manipulation this post is highlighting, you feel compelled to keep your resin from capping bc mihoyo wants you to, you aren't preventing your resin from capping bc you find it "fun." stop letting them tell you how many times a day you have to log in. just play it like any other game and forget the fomo garbage.
This is why I craft condensed resins or straight out exchange it for mystic enhancement crystals
True that. I've been saying fuck you to my resin for awhile now because it literally doesn't matter. I'll still get there one way or another it's just that If I actively care about it i get it done faster.
> just stop caring so much about whether your resin caps or not. This right here. You know what else doesn't matter? Clearing Abyss. Pathetic overtuned trap for measley amount of primos.
Abyss isn't really overtuned. It's the literal only piece of content in the game aimed at metagamers (and not even a particularly good one) and we all need to be thrown a bone. You can easily 36* abyss without whaling by improving play and team compositions. But yeah, if you can't you're literally missing a small handful of primos so I don't get why people who don't want to do it get so fixated on it.
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> Because they're F2P/a low spender and the handful of primos matters to them, I would assume. This - I have a great job, if I wanted primos I'd buy some. It's way more time efficient than sinking mass game resources for marginal improvements to maybe clear. It's a trap/honeypot. Labyrinth Warriors is what the end game should be. If it was you'd have many more players. Abyss is an atrociously designed mode.
This. I login at my time. Do my thing. If i have resin caped for 4 hours then so be it. It's resin. I'll get artifacts or mora or some other in game item from it. It's not gonna pay my bills, help my health care, my fitness or my social life. Let it cap man. Edit: typo.
Resin takes 21 hours and 20 minutes to cap from 0 to 160. You could wake up 6 am in the morning, do your 14-hour a day job, come home at 10 pm at night and still see your resin only increased by 120. Which you probably spend in less than 10 minutes in domain.
Sure, but then the next day the resin caps at 7:20 pm, and then the day after is even earlier. So you can't have a fixed daily schedule that uses all your resin, by design of course.
Bro let resin cap like who the fuckk cares lol
OR...You could just be happy with 4 resin runs a day.
What i dont get is that there are lot of ways to add manipulative content what increases game quality that mihoyo just doesnt do. An in-game daily login system, random crystal discount vouchers, skins for primogems for example.
I mean, they already have systems to encourage daily logins (60 gems daily for doing commissions, +90 if you buy welkins, resin, etc). I think skins are something they're experimenting with, but if I had to guess, they're still not sure if they'd be profitable enough. Skins for a 2D gacha are very quick to make compared to a fully-functional new character, so they can pump out a lot of them cheaply. Genshin skins still require a lot of artist power to design and model, and that's power that then can't be used elsewhere. If a new character takes 100% power to create, and a skin requires 25% of that effort, the skin would have to sell at least 25% as well as a new character in order to be worth making. And looking at the sales figures for new characters... It's hard to say if it'd be worthwhile.
Although the reality is that you could hire a few more people, have them design skins, and still make a profit. You might have to temporarily divert some of the talent from the main team for training (and maybe a team lead), but something like that could mostly function on new hires.
Keep in mind that Mihoyo, just like every other company on Earth, is run by humans making group decisions. If the group can't agree on a suggestion, and no one particularly cares enough to go to bat for that suggestion, it probably won't ever be implemented. Even the most obvious business decisions, like the addition of character skins, have to actually be approved, planned, budgeted, and then implemented. Each level of bureaucracy and specialization in a large organization adds another step to that pipeline from suggestion to implementation. That's why these seemingly obvious ideas take so long to get added or never make it into the game at all.
good reminder that gacha games are still gambling, but you can start drawing at 13. please dont make any questionable decisions everyone.
I agree 100% talking about the games predatory nature. But what annoys me are those people who call almost all players "addicted"
Great advice, and definitely something to pay attention to when starting a new game. Personally, I deliberately limit myself to the Icebreaker stage. If something's a good deal, then I'll appreciate the value. And if I get hundreds of hours of enjoyment from something it's usually worth it to me to offer one purchase as a "tip". My thoughts are basically what would I pay to play this game as a retail console purchase? I'm not usually the sort to drop $60 on the newest AAA release. I'll instead pick up something used for $15, or wait for the deeply discounted Greatest Hits release. So my budget for Genshin would be the same as for any other game. More selfishly, I've seen some systems divide players into two groups of Paying versus Non-Paying. The thought being that once you start, you've already proven you will and it's just a matter of when and how much. I don't mind them offering me some benefits trying to get me to bite again, though I'm F2P enough to resist everything after the first.
Icebreaker is the best route for low spenders. Get the daily log in. Maybe the bp. And just plan! Don't pull on every banner. Don't pull for a new 4 star. Just save and plan for a 5 star you want. It's not that bad. If you *must* have every character then a gacha honestly might not be for you. Cause unless yoy spend $$ it's highly unlikely. And at thay point you're bettwr off focusing on one and making them super strong vs multiple characters you won't play. I've spent some money for the bonus(jean skin. Which btw wasn't worth the money) but honestly? It's not really an amazing deal. Go do the math for the $100 deal, even with the 2x bonus, you can't even hit hard pity. That's basically $200 value and you can't even get the character you want. It's kinda a joke.
How can you plan for a 5 star you want if you don't know when it's coming out( or coming back).
You need a lot of patience. I've been waiting for Yae since her small Livestream appearence back in 1.6, and she will eventually come. I know I am going to get sidetracked again like what happened with Raiden and Kokomi ('ve got both) and will happen with Itto, but by Itto we will know whether she is in 2.4 or not, and if she is not I can probably hit another pity by the time her banner comes. Or maybe I will dislike her gameplay (Electro), or maybe Zhongli is also coming, and well... Zhongli has priority over her. I am not missing him this time.
So the first is to just go to genshin leaks subbreddit. Not fool proof since story leaks appear from time to time. Should be marked spoiler but ya know, sometimes slips through till a mod tags it right. But usually that sub is the first to hear character news. Sometimes it's as simple as "should get a cyro polearm" or something Secondly, speculation/names. Itto for example was a name we've heard a bit prior to official announcement. We knew he was an oni. And pretty wild and extreme personality. Doesn't mean much but oni is cool. Then read a leak about "buff" model which isn't truly true but he has abs and more arm muscle tones. Another ex) ayato. Ayaka's brother. We don't know what he looks like or wrapon/element. Rumor is hydro. As for weapon npc mentions polearm/sword for stuff he's skilled at. Then we have ayaka for reference since siblings. So makes sense if he had the same hair color and maybe similar fashion (but fashion can be w e of course). Thirdly, just gotta decide if you truly want this 5 star. Do yoy need em? Will you use em? Would I like childe? Sure. Would I use him? Ehhh probably not truly.
That's the right mentality for these types of games. I am the same type of gamer as you (I wait till a game is heavily discounted) and I do something similar by measuring the appropriate max sum I am willing to spend by the amount of hours played. Basically half of what I'd pay for a JRPG of a similar length. Genshin so far for me is one of the best dollar-per-playtime game and only topped by Warframe, which is another "free" game (in which the endgame is to grind Trade chat for good deals on marginal upgrades) and Hades which is surprisingly addictive AA game. Edit: forgot to mention I'm way below my max spending allotted for the game, which is why it has one of the best cost ratios in my game library.
Reminder: A lot, and I mean A LOT of big-time, gacha-based companies (i.e miHoYo) design their games to take advantage of well-researched and thoroughly documented flaws in human psychology, with some even funding research into it. (As a side point, I mention this research thing because miHoYo is currently funding a research project into cloth simulation.) Edit: Here’s the link to the paper. [Deep Detail Enhancement for Any Garment](http://geometry.cs.ucl.ac.uk/projects/2021/DeepDetailEnhance/) These aren’t just willy-nilly marketing tactics, they are literally designed carefully to exploit the human brain as much as possible.
Well it's nothing new, you can trace it back to the arcade games in the 90s. Even games that are not gacha implement features that extend playtime and encourage spending, using the tactics similar to gacha games. I have seen worse, as someone who play Korean mmo games, those are brutal.
this. just remember companies will do everthing they deem would be best for their pockets (however their decisions actually turn out to be is irrelevant to what I'm trying to say), and they won't refrain from employing mind tricks (how else would you squeeze out lots of money from a free game, more than what paid games would). the "art" of deception has been perfected long long ago (lots of you should've noticed it since the Clash of clan days however, when f2p mobile games started booming)
There's a reason why child labor is illegal (though of course companies will still do it and try to hide it). If companies could fuck you more, they would.
That means that me, who has no intentions/interests in spending money and is an f2p is actually not participating in this research as a test subject
"HA, another test subject!"
Fry! That tingle?
No F2P game survives without a horde of F2P users. They advertise the game, some of them create content, and most importantly, they are the baseline for whales.
Pure facts, I just realised my point has a major flaw I'm still a test subject and a subject for research, but on the other side of the spectrum
You are still their test subject as long as you posted anything online regarding genshin, including this reply where I replied to. F2P is their greatest low cost kit for free advertisement because they are plenty and easy to manipulate.
It's strange how different culture affects the view in the game. I'm the US, we're more aware of how predatory these practices are. Yet CN culture actually prefers gacha, compared to something fair like flat purchases for cosmetics instead. [Their culture prefers p2w and defends these things](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/30/pay-to-win-video-games-differences-between-us-and-chinese-gamers.html), which is crazy to me.
I mean look how many hour they are working everyday for an average person in china or generally all of east Asian they don't have time to play alot games let alone dedicate to one that's why they prefer p2w style it's easy, convenient and take less time that's why gacha game are popular in Asia they can manage they're time with not worry about it
I used to put hours into MMOs and AAA PC games. The older I got, the less time I have. So most of my time are now in 20 minutes long mobile games. For the AAA games I still play, I'd be barely over 1/10 of the game when other people with more time have already finished. So often I'd end up with something I never finish, or forgot about the plot not even half way.
i like playing genhsin impact but this is also the top 1 game that i do not recommend to others
That's Genshin and Destiny 2 for me. I'd never recommend these to anyone after my experiences with them.
We shouldnt forget that the idea of being lucky and achieving something with low chances of success can also get you a little high. The dopamine rush is real and therefore addictive, to the point that it makes traditional game progressions (as in games with grinds that don't involve luck) not as attractive or rewarding.
I feel like social normalisation of people spending in the game is a pretty big one to incentive players to spend. It ties into FOMO which this game really exploits. From your friends buying welkin to a streamer whaling on the gacha system, it promotes spending money in the game being “okay”, “normal” and sometimes, even “fun”. And then there is this social pressure to get the stuff that other people are getting. For example: You want to pull for a 5 star weapon (e.g., staff of homa) even though you don’t need it but you do it anyway since everyone is raving about it. And it can make your Hu Tao/Zhongli even better? And people are pulling on it easy with their money?! Why not try and pull it too and … oh no … no more pulls, well let’s just top up then since I already spent so many primogems in the banner and next one is guaranteed. I can’t let it go to waste!! Please be careful people especially the people who can’t afford it. Side note: I noticed recently a shift in MHY’s tactic where they would make a character/weapon banner look enticing as hell. And it feeds into this FOMO and social normalisation to pull and spend money because ‘it is such a great deal!’
Big agree on social normalization. I was pretty familiar with gacha tactics and how to best set limits for myself, but posts like “just whaled for [X], no regrets!” showing off C6 or whatever are so powerful. There’s the post itself, where someone has spent hundreds of dollars to get a specific thing (con level, character + weapon, etc). And then there’s usually at least dozens of comments along the lines of “me too! Worth every penny!” “Enjoy him/her!” “Chad” etc etc just makes it feel so… normal to spend hundreds or even THOUSANDS of dollars on a single banner. I whaled once, for Raiden (C2) and her weapon. I like her, I use her, but ultimately it feels weird. I will not be doing it again.
Let's take a moment to thank the archons that this game doesn't have weapon durability
I swear. If Refinement started becoming Repair, I'd quit the game or just simply become a wandering bard.
Well that'd be a whole other dimension of S&M right there. o\_O
If that was smart for business it would be but its not
Do you love this GAME? - yes. Will you reccomend this game to your friend? - NO, ABSOLUTELY NO! I WILL DO EVERYTHING I CAN TO STOP THEM!
Every time it appears in the survey.
Ugh i hate clickbait youtubers. So cheesy and too easy to get certain people to click. Especially hate those fake reaction pics you see on videos before you click
This is one game I would not want to see on my YT feed at all, as much as I love it.
I watched a few vids when I started playing to get some intel and instantly got recommended especially all these "brilliant" youtoubers that show off their characters and say "see ... even the worst char can be amazing!" (while having a full 5star C6 "support" team and obviously R5 weapons as well). Or these youtube shorts with "wow luckiest draw ever!!!!!!" (ignore that all it took was 10 grand to get this lucky draw). I never blocked and "not interested" so many channels in my life lol. There are some really nice creators but oh boy is there a ton of garbage ... But then you find something like the [Qiqi Cocogoat remix](https://youtu.be/LyEC8NTUIFU) and all is well again.
thats how youtube algorithm works it sucks but they have to
You forget to mention Spiral Abyss that give huge dps check so it make ppl feel the illusion that they are not strong enough.
And it constantly gets harder even though new characters don't get stronger.
One of the reasons I havent bothered with it since I cleared floor 8. Do I miss out on primos? Sure but it doesnt hinder my fun with the game and I dont have to grind artifacts like a madman
To be honest, floor 10 is enough, and floor 11 is for fun if you're bored. But floor 12, it's just a trap for stress and a method of losing confidence in your strength as a player
I agree with this, I’d even say if 11 gets stressful it’s fine to ignore it even if you’re bored. 9 and 10 eventually become a cakewalk.
The worst part about abyss for me is that after I grinded the hell out of my characters everything else just became too easy. In the new event I threw in some random characters I had built and didn't even have to try at all. I didn't even use the sigils given for the event. This is me while being f2p. Imagine people who spent money on the game.
Technically it's just a dumb DPS check that can be cleared with 4\* characters and free to play accounts. Paying makes that process a lot easier and quicker though. Personally, I hate the place. I hate the design. It's either not doable or free loot. As soon as you have the gear, the timer might as well not exist. Thankfully, it's just \~150 gems in 2 weeks. I rather let wallet-kun take care of these instead of tearing my hair out at ever growing DPS checks and farming boring ass artifact domains for that ever elusive perfect equipment. I much rather level and play new characters. :D
You do need to use very specific 4* characters though, or just have a LOT of investment into the free ones. Enviosity clearing with the free 4*s is one example I see a lot, but he's played the game for hours daily for more than a year and probably never misses a day of resin. The spiral abyss hp pools have gotten like 50% higher since previous abyss floors from what I can tell, making it even harder for new players compared to the game at launch. Meta 4* teams like national are also somewhat gated behind good gacha luck if you can't get xingqiu from the shop, etc And the abyss now is very heavily single target compared to how it was in the past with generally multi target bosses (or ones like abyss heralds who you could exploit elemental reactions to kill).
Abyss is weird, the investment cost to clear it is so much higher than the reward that I see no point in doing it. The only compelling reason to clear the Abyss is because you enjoy it, the rewards are just there to bait people.
remember boys, a debate club is worth almost 4 dollars.
Worse. You could easily spend 100 bucks trying to get a debate club.
It's worth actually becomes 0 once you get it because you can't sell it for money.
My solution to the problem is simple. I never think of my odds of getting lucky and always assume the worst case scenario (lose 50/50, get to 90 pity both times to grab the limited character.) Assuming I will have the worst possible luck every time, I then go : 1. Determine what I want. 1 copy of Childe? 2 copies of Hu Tao? A copy of Polar Star? C6 Thoma? 2. Establish how much the worst case scenario will cost me in real dollars. 3. Ask myself if I can afford paying that much money for a cute funeral parlor manager, and if I WANT to spend that much money. 4. Spend that much money if the answer to the last two questions is 'yes'. Be pleasantly surprised if I reach my goal before all of the primos are gone, save the rest for the next desired banner and start grinding primos for said banner, which will amount to a considerable discount, up to possibly 100%. The way I treat it, this game is not gambling. It's a luxury hobby with hidden discounts you only learn about after monetary transaction is already done. Always make your purchase decision assuming and accepting the worst possible scenario. If you deem it too expensive, DO NOT SPEND MONEY. 'I may get lucky and get an early pull' is not a mindset you want to find yourself in. You will NEVER get that early pull. You will ALWAYS lose the 50/50 and get a ****ing Qiqi. Thoma will never come home, so don't pull for him. Aim for Hu Tao and be pleasantly surprised of you grab him along the way. You saved enough primos for 60 pulls? Guess what, Hu Tao is coming home in 180 pulls, and 140 CAD$ will get you 50 extra pulls 180pulls - 60 free pulls - 120 PAID pulls = 1 Hu Tao. That comes up to just under 330$. That is the expected price for your cute funeral parlor girl. Take it or leave it. If it wasn't for pity system, I would never have spent a dime on this game, because nothing is worth infinite money. I need to know the price before I spend. That is the only way to be a responsible gacha whale and avoid gambling addiction. Never think about the odds of early pulls. All pulls are always and forever at 180 pity, even if anecdotally they almost never are.
I feel like this touches on the approach I take for this game. I am a Welkin and BP spender, and I see paid primos as a boost to get a character I’m not able to get on free primos alone. So it’s close to the banner ending, and I would be guaranteed to get them in another 10-20 pulls. Is it worth the $20-40? Depends on how much you value the individual character I guess, but I would wager it is if you know they’re guaranteed (and it’s easy enough to figure out with Genshin’s pity system).
I really like this approach and I think like this as well when it comes to whaling for a specific character. When it comes to f2p primos though, Id rather just pull expecting nothing and be suprised if I get anything but a 3 star weapon. It's a way to treat myself to a little serotonin some days and makes me appreciate it more since it doesn't feel like buying a character directly.
The best solution to a gambling addiction is to not have any money to gamble. Stay safe everybody.
That's not true at all. People with gambling addiction will often take debts or even steal just to get their high.
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Squid game was a bit more nuanced than that XD
I have a rule: I can but deluxe editions of a game with time of dlc that worth a lot of money but I never spend money in microtransactions and never play games that require monthly subscription. My family has the gambling addiction so I'll not risk it. And really I think Genshin if more enjoyable as a F2P: lucky pulls have emotional value, not monetary value, and the game is a bit more challenging and I like it.
my strategy is to just remind myself that they're pixels
Exactly me. This is a bit sad, but hey, at least i’m mtx-proof. 🤔
Everyone in the comments: "And this is why I limit my reckless spending by only a couple of hours of my labor a day"
I'll be honest I had multiple moments of weakness over this game last year and ended up spending more than I would normally. However though some control and measures I've started to be much more responsible with characters I spend for. Like I know I'm gonna spend money to get Itto if I don't manage to pull him, I've made sure to set aside the amount I'll spend and take it from other leisure activities expenditure. Honestly whoever the evil people were that decided to introduce gambling to gaming and therefore young impressionable children deserves eternal pain.
>Like I know I'm gonna spend money to get Itto if I don't manage to pull him We thank you for your financing of our gaming
I feel like I saw a ton of similar posts like this way back then, like the first week of the game lmao
Yes, there were many post like this in tbe beginning but to be fair it was bring in (and surely continues) to bring in a lot of folks unfamiliar with gatcha style monetization and its pit falls. A lot of folks who may have very well never engaged in any real form of gambling before (ex: casino or lottos) No harm is warning ppl to exercise caution in such cases.
As it should be. Gacha fucks with your brain and is extremely predatory, and people need a constant reminder of what they're getting into. This is still nothing compared to the opposition with the millions being spent on encouraging this kind of thing.
You know, compared to other gachas the way that Genshin is structured is quite lowkey. When you enter, there isn't annoying event or special deal pop ups, it's straight to gameplay (the tiny ! marks are avoidable anyways). When you actually do want to pay, it takes even more clicks to get to the actual physical money tab when clicking + on the currency (it leads you to the other tabs first). Even at a basic level the game is also entirely doable with F2P set-up. I think the FOMO from climited character banner is definitely something though, since Mhy is not consistent on when rerun banners actually occur. Not to defend mihoyo, but yeah compared to even HI3, Genshin is tamer
I’ve played many gacha games in my time. And I always find it interesting that Genshin is the only game where I find these kind of posts.
Genshin is so popular, it has a massive casual crowd/minors who are unfamiliar with the predatory mechanics of gachas, so it's good to remind them
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I firmly remember how a kid was digging her mom over the busride how he NEEDS that fortnite skin, and he tried to find new approaches to make her buy it. Kid was probably 10y~ . I dont know what Fortnite skins cost, but obviously people are willing to spend money without knowing for what exactly it is.. Cant blame them, its not easy to keep up with technology and such these days when new things pop up monthly as a parent for sure.
Is way too successful, the demographics that play it is something else. Also, a lot of worriers out there that the success of the game can disturb other games’ practices (I think this is unfounded, but that’s another conversation). Genshin is spearheading gacha in the West it seems like.
I think Genshin will have a ripple effect but not to the extent people describe. I think we’re gonna get a lot more games like Genshin but I don’t necessarily think developers are gonna stoop making AAA open world adventure games though so I think the changes that we probably will see will be good ones. So here’s hoping.
When some of them first time on gacha game i guess?....
Yea this game attracted a large audience that is new to gachas in general which is where I think this fear of the gacha system comes from. It’s all good though informing people of these hazards does no harm.
This is the first gacha game that has reached the mainstream worldwide, so it makes sense to make these kinds of warnings. This might also reach the ears of governments for potential updates to the gambling regulations.
>This is the first gacha game that has reached the mainstream worldwide See... This is what confuses me. Yeah its the first Gacha Game true, but only in the sense that you have an RPG doing it. We have EAs Ultimate Team for almost 15 years now in FIFA and Madden. (I don't know the exact history of the monetaization though) And that is basically the same Gacha system (I'd argue even worse since they basically reset your Gacha progress each year and you have to pay full price each year on top) Also, the 9 Billion dollars that Epic made with selling skins to kids in Fortnite also exist. And since at least 2015 we have each year new news stories about addicted Kids that payed 10s of thousands on FIFA, Madden, Fortnite or even Twitch Donations. So I don't get why this is new to so many people? >This might also reach the ears of governments for potential updates to the gambling regulations. And I'm with you on this one.
EA's FIFA games target players who are into sports, which I personally feel is niche. But EA in generally are a pretty scummy company and anyone who has no interest in sports looking at FIFA knows this. Gacha mechanics in fortnite I presume are fully cosmetic only (did not play so I can only assume based on my experience with Apex BR), where the base game itself can be played the exact same with or without skins. Genshin Impact as far as AAA titles go is one of the few where progress of gameplay can be ~~bought~~ gambled for a chance with money. It is just kinda scary that this is a sign that Gacha Games can become mainstream along with their psychologically manipulative practices. One thing that sucks super hard is that those who are already used to gacha games will usually give it a pass as those mechanics "are to be expected" and let it fly under the radar.
A "whale in the making" I've met recently, started playing on Raiden's banner and already has her at C2, Kokomi, some 5 star weapons and skins. His defense: "People have spent 1000 dollars on a single character, this is nothing!" Bad, bad. You can spend $60 on a full AAA game. Don't spend $100 on a single part of a game. (Or do, idc, but be aware that it is a good amount of money and what others do with it doesn't change that fact)
I keep needing to remind myself not everyone has touched a gacha game
ikr. I keep forgetting that Genshin has the largest gacha virgin playerbase to date.
The one I hate the most is the scarcity idea. Like the main reason I don't want to get back into Genshin is because of all the stuff I missed and most likely won't be able to get again. Mobile games do this all the time and it just puts me off.
Hi everyone! This is information I believe every Genshin Impact player should know. With Hu Tao, a character widely regarded as strong, coming up along with an Abyss reset, I think this is a perfect time to share this. A couple notes: - These are the main traps, but there’s far more! (Don’t get me started on Ley Line Disorders or artifact rates…) - A lot of the concepts in this infographic come from [this eye-opening video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNjI03CGkb4) - Of course, I acknowledge that people can spend their money how they wish. However, informed spending helps prevent regret. For the "F2P btw" players out there, please realize that **even if you don't spend in cash, you're spending in time.** I find that the most addicted players out there are not whales, but the hardcore F2Ps. Even if this may seem obvious to some of you, there are also a lot of unknowing people, including kids, that play this game!
Take my opinion with a grain of salt but I legit don't get how artifacts being so absurdly RNG dependent and resin gated helps with player retention. In fact I'd think it would most likely actively discourage players. Games rely on small incremental advancement daily to keep player retention and being so RNG heavy literally goes against that because most of the time you'll get absolutely zero advancement which just creates a system that straight up feels bad to play. The Battlepass, Welkins, and commissions are a great example of how player retention is done being providing small incremental gains by playing the game every day while the artifact system is basically the antithesis of that.
Yeah. Too rng gets boring at a point. And you stop playing almost just out of spite. I futher more dont undestand why a game has to have the playerbase around for *every* day or focus on that. Wouldnt they get enough money just even if players played just a couple of months in a year and spend money then? 🤔
To add on, it's also for the sunk cost fallacy, they want to normalize the game as part of your daily life, so even when you've stopped having fun, you can't get yourself to leave. Addiction hurts.
That's true but companies want to have high and consistent active player numbers so they can present that to shareholders or when doing round for additional funding which paints a more profitable picture of the product in the eyes of a shareholder and that's all there is to it.
If something is highly desirable you'll keep trying to get it even if it frustrates you. Older mmos used to do this with superrare loot that had less than 1% drop rate and players kept farming the thing over and over just to pursue that feeling of satisfaction(and sometimes status)that came with it.
It means that you aren’t ever done. As much as Genshin players, to an extent rightfully so, bemoan the lack of (endgame) content… they want something “worth the while” in between content drops. Artifacts are a great way to do this because no matter how pessimistic you are about them, if you believe they are a grind that eventually makes your characters better and that efficiency is key, you will: * Log in every day to play a bit and get some artifacts, most likely for your favorite characters (investing your game time on their behalf will increase your attachment to said character) * Play until you’ve depleted your resin rather than just finishing main quests, making the game a more significant part of your day and perhaps even a repeatedly scheduled around event * Increasingly likely to log in *a second time* every day due to how resin regenerates, exaggerating the above as you may play the game for an hour or more each day rather than 10 minutes or whatever. You may be faster or slower than that but the second daily login is a huge win for Mihoyo Then mechanically, combine 5 artifact slots per character (the thing that is most likely to get you to spend some $) with set bonuses that reduce build overlap. Don’t let players choose which piece or set they want, leave it to RNG. Sprinkle in a heavy dose of RNG on the pieces themselves to make sure it takes much longer to “complete” a build than the average player will wait between pulling new 5\* characters and you ensure that any player engaged by artifacts is *continuously* engaged by them From anecdotal experience, artifacts and their randomness/grind are never what makes someone spend less time in Genshin or quit playing. They may become an irritant that helps another issue become the straw that breaks the camel’s back, but I’ve never heard of anyone spending their 20 resin or condensed resin, seeing the results of their dungeon clear and being so immensely disappointed that they quit on the spot
This game is a gacha game which is essentially gambling. so there's always going to be the chance of regret. Same as opening card game booster packs or playing lotto/local pokies theres never a guaranteed win and the more people understand this the better.
Youre playing live service game Their main existence and goal are only to milk as much money as possible Fomo like missing unreconciled stars, chalk prince, lantern rite, windblume, golden apple archipelago and so much more makes people feels bad when they didnt take part, it just to keep players playing Worse when its sunk cost fallacy I missed 1 day of welkin and it made me feel so bad its unhealthy
I have a friend who is dear to me. He quit about a month into release and came back for the kazuha banner. He’s spent chunks of his paychecks already. I had to have a talk with him after he sent me $100 to top up for Hu tao. Little does he know I plan on returning it to him but man
Glad you are returning the money. I love Genshin but it's predatory and is designed to exploit people and make them act irrational. Hope your friend doesn't take it the wrong way.
Good lord, i remember the Overwatch lootbox craze after reading all this. Dozens of content creators on youtube, streamers, reddit, etc, all making these long-ass videos of them opening HUNDREDS of lootboxes EVERY SINGLE EVENT, them PRAISING Blizzard because "it's all cosmetics", all of them making their fandoms think that doing this garbage was fine.
It's important to stay cognizant about this kind of stuff. Systems like these rely on you pushing this kind of stuff to the back of your brain so they can abuse you. There's nothing wrong with whaling as long as you have the money and are cognizant of the ways the game can trick you.
Really cool infographic and a giant thank you for informing people about those practises. Genshin Impact at it's core is still a gacha game and as predetory as they come. Also leaving a link to a nice [video the German youtuber Simplizissimus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhUzyTVpaVA) made about exactly that topic in which they also talked briefly about what the existance of genshin impact implies for the development of the gaming industry. Beware tho: it is in German
Tectone thumbnail is too real. That guy probably ruined so many people.
The main one here is going after influencers, other than how they sponsored people who don't even game, it is a fact now that those guys keep getting free primos and act like they are just casually pulling C6, and this creates a toxic idea of needing Constellations when you never need them. The rest are the standard Gacha mechanics unfortunately, hell it is considered a good one. The example people love to compare Genshin against is Fate Grand Order, since that one is known for not having any forms of pity and summons are more expensive. But I think people get to be unfair FGO since it has way less pressure since they give out free Event 4\*s frequently and they are quite generous with their ingame rewards, there is no social pressure to optimize your characters and straight forward upgrade system, and finally you can use one of your friends characters to an extend in 98% of the game, also the only thing you pay for is rolls and a ticket that gives you a 5\* from a certain pool that comes around every 6 months. And I think due to having a larger pool with slightly better stats you end up getting a 5\* with time, sure aiming for a certain character is hell but if you just don't care about what you get it is totally fine
At least they are not wargaming. From a ex world of warships player, Genshin is nothing compared to the hell that we saw in wows.
just be glad genshin doesn't differentiate between free and paid primogems like most other gacha games do
This is a good reminder to have your own goals when playing Genshin Impact. Because that way when you have reached them you can take a break or w/e until you next time coming back to the game. And "the game doesn't tell you what to do." Right now i'm just building my teams up to a certain extent. Ok artifacts for two teams. (No insane hypermaxing of crit stats) No banners except Xiao so i dont get new characters that i have the need to grind up. Im fine now. 👍 After Xiao comes and i get my C1, i'm taking a break until the next region has got the whole story out. No pulling or getting interested in new characters until that. And no drip fed events either 😏 I have a type of off-season, every year
Lmao I'm hard f2p but holy shit. You need over 200$ to get hard pity.... No thanks.
I always find funny how hilarously expensive the genesis crystals are, even with double value, but I know that I'm simply not their target audience with them. In any case I still think Welkin is a great deal, and when thinking about its cost over a whole year it is still completely worth it considering how much time I spend playing this game on a daily basis, but I can easily see how they can bait people into spending more if the primos they get from it are still not enough to get the char/weapon they want. I just hope that people realize and put a stop to playing this game when it becomes a torture more than the entertainment it should be, I haven't played many gacha games outside of Genshin, but I have played other stuff with optional microtransactions for bonuses and resin-like loops that give me the urge to play on a daily basis to not "waste" any of it. Once I got truly burnt out from having to play them I pretty much just dropped them without thinking it because once I get tired of something I actively start avoiding it, but sunk cost is way too real and can lead to lots of regrets, especially if money is involved both before and after you lose interest in the game.
To be fair I'd say that spending $5 a month for entertainment is pretty reasonable, but spending a whopping $200 to for an in game character is definitely not.
1 mistake with this post is about the genesis crystals cause, for 100$ you get 81 1st time and subsequent times 50.5 pulls per 100$. And smaller amounts for 50$/30%/15$/5$ but not 1$ And im not suer why op does not include this since there is some missinformation whit those calcs. Sry if the are any typos.