The Dumbest Gacha Smack Drama Of 2024.

[@devilak74]

TLDR Smack says gacha games are lazy, and Twitter freaks out.

[@GenuinelyTired]

I appreciate you, your basically the equivalent of a skip button. ☕

[@Drejkol]

GachaSmack take is wrong af. He's like "I don't have time to get through the 6 hours long story about the character building. Just make Sunday kill some kittens, then we all get mad and beat him, but he says he's sorry and we gonna forgive him. In the end it will take 20 mins". Gacha Devs are not lazy. The things we are seeing (story wise) right now was developed YEARS before the release. HSR example - Nick (EN Dan Heng), said during his stream of the early Penacony (the Bronze Melodia boss fight) that he remember his recording his voice lines 2 years ago. Sunday boss fight was in 2.1 or 2.2, either way, he recorded his voice lines for the 2.0+, before the game was even out of the beta. Same with WuWa, where 1.0 sucked ass, but 1.0.1 and above was and still is constant bar-up. What he's saying is that he don't want to spend that much of his time on the game, still want to profit from the game, and want to change of the whole game with millions of the players so it can fit his schedule, just because he's making "6 digits" from the said game. Gacha games are not lazy, the things we see right now were made over year ago + micro changes on the way. Twitter is always stupid so who cares. GachaSmack is just farming the dramas, he's like wanna be Tectone, and that instantly "don't recommend the channel" for me. Even Tectone is just himself, you are corrupted to speak whatever brings you more income.

[@JorjoGiovanna]

@@Drejkoltrue but I will say I don’t mind long story quests, but I do think a lot of the dialogue is filled up with a lot of unimportant stuff, especially in Genshin with Paimon basically repeating/explaining a lot of the stuff that was just said. That being said I do find it dumb that a lot of people got so mad over someone having an opinion

[@UnusualDeathCause]

​@@Drejkol the only thing that matters is the end result, and thr end result sucks dick. Play FF14 after ARR you gonna see what actuall effort looks like. And they make 10% of what gacha makes

[@Calm.101]

I was gonna ask where the skip button for the yap in this video is. Thanks @devilak74 for being that button :)

[@Cloutian516]

I'll take a skip button in HSR

[@YouryCh.]

ME TOO

[@xxhopexx2002]

Skip button is their Kriptonite

[@TheStonyIsRockSolid]

True. Last Story was boring af.

[@Swidiey]

YES. Fuck the click and read. Let me skip the mundane parts. Maybe even throw in a summary like ZZZ does when you hit the skip button.

[@PabloRodriguezreal]

They can't do that, otherwise if they did you would realize that there's barerly any additional content in the game

[@NotoriousZz]

I really dislike That the MC never has a voice. I want My MC to YAP just as much. Also i DONT want dialogue options. ITs literally pointless.

[@xelasneko]

Yeah, I notice the trend, they basically want the player to do something rather than autoplay all the way. On rare occasions they do have diffences but it is still the same conversation.

[@anapple6912]

@@xelasneko scrap same conversation, ITS THE SAME OUTCOME ALL THE WAY. your choices DO NOT matter on the grand story or even bits and pieces of it. an example of that is when Himeko told trailblazer that their opinion is valued, if you disagree with sunday boarding the train sunday is going to promise to behave and to leave the astral express on the asdna star system or wherever that place is, the crew agrees to keep him in the astral as long as he isnt doing anything sus but then what happened to "trailblazer has an important opinion"? no matter the choices you pick there is going to be no change in the story, the only trivial scenes where choices mattered were penacony cocona mission and kafka story mission

[@xelasneko]

@@anapple6912 agree. Even though there are some funny reactions or endings, we will continue with one single outcome in most cases.

[@xxhopexx2002]

Right? It’s like a waste a time for the VA’s to put their voices out for a character who says not a damn thing! Like bro let them be apart of the story not on the bench

[@kohikodogaming4308]

“Yes, I like to eat eggs” Genshin Impact Option A: “Yes, I like to…” Option B: “…eat eggs”

[@Fenyx950]

Wuthering Waves does this too. and I hate it.

[@Rinkha_MR]

Crazy how asking for more from a gacha company is looked at as a bad thing, when every patch mfs be spending 100-150$ per character a patch

[@elstrangeenemy887]

per copy of a character a patch***

[@Rinkha_MR]

@ oh u right 💀

[@Aerials357]

It's keep real though, when you ask for more you have aware there's a give and take for both sides. We are not asking for "more", we are asking for QUALITY.

[@wamoo577]

Shout out to all the fellas that just mash through all the dialogue so they can collect their jades and get to the end game content

[@rizerzzza]

i swear most CC cant take criticism seriously everytime someone disagree with them, they just like "____ shils" "leave the multi billion company alone"

[@anapple6912]

critcism not even directed to them btw, its directed to the game that made them a living

[@yuorion3056]

some criticism is valid while others is a whole lotta nothin and the latter is what doesn't get taken seriously

[@suicidesong9598]

So ur a boot licker

[@paragonoftorna2548]

​@ShouheiSuzuki Just because the model has been the way it has for so long doesn't mean we should accept it that way. Being complacent is the exact thing him and Teccy talk about. Teccy explained how lazy and easy the idle text boxes are. Nothing changes if no one says anything so no, it's not a BS take. Makes perfect sense to me.

[@samueldavid814]

Do you know how anime productions work ?​@@ShouheiSuzuki

[@KuroTheDesigner]

This shit is so annoying, its because of guys like Bran, sipsipstephen, and others who are content with the way things are and stand in the way of valid criticism, that games either improve slower than they could or not at all. For christ sake we made the ZZZ devs literally remake the entire beginning of the story because we vocally said in unison that WE ARE NOT OKAY WITH THIS TV SHIT. Even in the face of overwhelming confidence that your voice matters, people stand in the way of progress

[@giangtrinhtruong7952]

They lose money so they change

[@chonkyboi._.]

At least they changed. Unlike a certain company I know @@giangtrinhtruong7952

[@shai310]

Yep, the major change that ZZZ did with its TV mode is purely because of the community's outcry. The moment we show we're ok with stuff that are annoying to deal with that shit won't change. A skip button is a very easy option to include and hell HSR already improved SU, PF and even the shitty relic system so why won't we speak up over something that is a lot easier to include?

[@gcole6708]

Most of those creators do criticize the game especially for the dialogue bloat. It’s just smack decided to compare anime production to game production and didn’t just plain out state the game needs to be more concise with its quality and time.

[@dittoford]

The comparison to anime was the most out of touch and i think thats what people are mad about, not the really defending billion dollar company from criticism

[@Ribbonzarkuraspear]

Ain’t no way all this happened because my mans ask for more cutscenes 🤣🤣🤣

[@dittoford]

No its not, its because out of touch comparison with anime production and game development are two different things and he proudly boast his ignorance on 4k

[@FeuraL.]

​@@dittofordWith the money they make, they could hire 3 or 4 top tier anime studios though. They will probably still make millions of profit and even could rival Japanese anime.

[@FarosYT]

😂I’m also a content creator and I also made a video like this but it was for netmarble. The gacha community always has a group of white knights that will defend a multibillion dollar company that doesn’t give 2 flying f**ks about them. When you compliment the game white knights are nowhere to be found, but as soon as you criticize the game 1 time they all spawn in out of nowhere defending the game.

[@an1sXD]

good luck in your journey ma man

[@giangtrinhtruong7952]

Sad too see you gone man

[@Terra028C]

Thank you for this video - I've always hated how people would defend multi-million/billion dollar companies over their own interests. It's illogical and frustrating. It would be a joy for gacha games to have true AAA quality, they have the money and resources to do so. Why would anyone be against this? Surely people don't think the dry ass dialogue that's currently plaguing gacha games are peak. Lol. What's also ironic is that ZZZ provides a skip button and I barely ever use it because the quality of the cutscenes are quite good, but then there's HSR who refuses to give a skip button all while maintaining a dogshit quality to the story telling that I have to suffer through. It's such a shame.

[@AMatthew005]

What even more ironic is, they already had skip feature on Honkai Impact 3.

[@bagonsoul]

I stopped watching Bran because of that. I really like how you’re not afraid to speak your mind.

[@Vortex_ICEcold]

Yall know some people actually pulled for yappa after her back story.

[@Terra028C]

@ yappa 🤣

[@BranOnline]

1) you act like I follow Nijisanji, idk anything about that 2) your post is about genshin and other gacha games, of course it pops up on my timeline, and I like to engage in respectful dialogue about the things I enjoy, sorry that Nijisanji stuff doesn't interest me I guess? As for tectone stuff, read up on it all and I'd rather not get involved with messy shit that has nothing to do with me when everything is up in the air about it, didn't realise that was a bad thing to mind my own damn business 3) I'm not jumping on you or saying we shouldn't get more cutscenes, the comparison you used was just bad lmfao You say gacha games are derived from anime, but you ignore everything else. Nothing would exist without anime? Nothing would exist without writing, literature, but you act like those forms of story telling don't have a place or don't matter too. You can't really nitpick one thing, when the comparison was just simply not really it imo. Calling the games dogshit etc is a personal opinion, nothing against that, but forcing your opinions has been done plenty of times in this space and I'm not gonna sit back and change my mind on this when it's literally a difference of opinion, respectfully, even if your response was more distasteful! Grouping one person into a group of gacha gamers to justify a point is also quite disingenuous to act like you know my inner thoughts and what I want from games haha. But it is what it is at this point, good luck with it all! All that said, the post was clearly ragebait and people bit, you can act like you didn't expect that but you're only fooling yourself at that point, glad you got content from it!

[@critanddam9031]

Why don’t u just talk to him talk to him abt it on stream

[@BranOnline]

@critanddam9031 Because I'm not feeding into the drama bait that hard, it's not drama, it's not a problem, it's rage bait and doesn't need to go any further to feed more similar content

[@gabrielctpn]

You completely miss his point bro. The big question here is why is the community defending a multi billion dollar company? I mean it is gachasmack's opinion to want more quality for this gacha game devs for the betterment of the community and you are here antagonizing him for wanting more. You are accusing the guy forcing opinion but you yourself is actually the one forcing your opinion to not complain about the shit quality we getting.

[@critanddam9031]

@@BranOnline I think he made it clear that it was bait to get the community engaged with the topic, but ragebait feels more akin to like lying about ur opinion/over exaggerating it to make people mad. Even if u disagree on the topic having a conversation could potentially be a positive for the community. I do understand not wanted to because I could just be taking gacha smack at face value too much

[@jerryeljeremy7790]

This is coming from a person that avoid every bit of drama btw. He avoid playing other gacha and mostly Genshin because of it. I mean G.Smack has a point. If it wasn't derived from anime then why they look so similar? The artstyle? And if someone said that weekly anime and monthly patches from gacha games aren't comparable, it isn't true at all. Writers from gacha games wrote their script months before the patch came just like how weekly anime took their story from the manga that got published months ago (unless it is a filler episode, then it's a different story). So why can't gacha games do better with their story telling? The script is there, the money is there, the animators, everything are there months before the patch has to be released.

[@hikari7731]

I'll put a thing here, but even in Hoyo you have the good visual novel and the bad visual novel. The bad is Genshin, the good is Honkai Impact. Beyond having more cinematics, it is above all necessary to give emotions, to make the characters alive, whether it be through facial expressions, a meaningful lore and which leads to a development of this or that character, which we feel evolve as we progress through the story. If you want to make a gacha digestible, you need a good story, not 500 hours of yapping by an emergency food that speaks for you, to say nothing, or to repeat enough times so that the average child who has a 5 second attention span because of Tiktok understands it, when you have something called vocal cords. Even if the MC was voiced full time, it would make a lot of gacha more lively and interesting.

[@Mattyhaz123]

The argument "They're different mediums why compare" is disingenuous. They lack the understanding that story telling is just story telling. The benefit of VIDEO GAME story telling is that its an interactive immersive experience. Now someone, please tell me how standing and listening to people monologue in a circle for 3 hours with no interaction on our part, is an interactive immersive experience? There's a reason why Mihoyo is a billion(s) dollar corporation. It's because they ARE interested in maximising profits, with the least amount of effort/staff as possible. All corporations are like this, they will stretch their resources as far as possible before giving it more funding. The reason Genshin has been trash for years is beCAUSE they get the fucking money so why bother making sweeping upgrades to the gameplay/story experience. Now Tectone keeps making one valid point when it comes to companies. If they aren't doing as good, the company WILL put more effort in to pull in revenue. HSR at the beginning was the underdog, and they grinded that good faith and strong developments. They now stay the course but now because they make insane money too, the story telling is showing its age because it copies Genshin formula. ZZZ and WuWa are the underdogs now, and both of those games are by leaps and bounds more immersive and engaging when it comes to the storytelling beCAUSE they need to constantly improve. edit: On a side note, for people wanting a Skip Button for these gacha games they play. The people that argue against having a Skip Button, because they feel like the company would then put less effort into the story because you can skip it. Is that not just admitting to yourself that these companies will put in the least amount of effort into the games that make them billions? It's time to accept the facts folks. edit2: For people that complain about game size for mobile... Have you, by chance, thought about not playing MULTIPLE gacha games on your phone? You are arguing with your self because Mihoyo WANT you to play all of their games, so they try to make them all the size that they can all fit on your phone. They just want your fucking money, and will cut corners to get there. They are a megacorp, they are a business. Not your friend.

[@Frelsen]

I genuinely believe the source of this massive pushback is the fact that gacha players, and maybe some CC's, have never actually experienced a proper, complete product before in their life. There is no way you can drop takes like this if you ever played through a title like Witcher 3, Mass Effect or God of War. Keep in mind, CDPR made 548 million dollars in 2020 and 161 in 2024. We are talking about a company here that made 12 billion dollars in the same year. They are making over 12 times the amount of triple A studios per year. With having an open world game that has 10 times less the square miles from a AAA game, 15+ hours of less cutscenes and 100+ hours of less voice acting. Any individual that comes up with an excuse for this company to raise their barebones standards for the sake of the customer is not of sound mind, respectfully.

[@XIIVXVII]

I think a lot of people don't want the magnifying glass held over their favourite thing. Gacha games are inherently shallow yet somehow manage to rake in ridiculous amounts of money every month. If I was someone spending a lot of money on a product & someone started pointing out the obvious flaws in it, I'd probably get a defensive too. When the self-inflicted price tag exceeds a certain amount, you're probably overly invested in it. I'd argue it's especially true if you're not a content creator or have excessive wealth, the ROI is non-existent.

[@Frelsen]

@@XIIVXVII Yep, sunk cost fallacy.

[@XIIVXVII]

​@@Frelsen Exactly. In reality, these people have spent money, sometimes a very significant amount, on an entirely free-to-play game & have nothing to show for it. But ultimately I think your first post is correct. A lot of the outspoken players are typically younger & their loyalty is driven by an excessive consumption of Twitter-made fanfiction of their favourite characters rather than the game itself. Hoyo regularly pumps out 30-45 minute dialogue-only "quests" that have been stretched to 2+ hours & those same people are quiet. However, if Hoyo's character designs aren't up to par they'll start a boycott movement within their circles. Gameplay simply isn't a concern for a lot of Gacha players it seems.

[@Frelsen]

@@XIIVXVII Good point. They always complain when a character is not flashy or naked enough but couldn't care less if they had meaningful end game or cinema experience. Now to be fair, the story itself, especially Penacony in HSR, is well thought out as an overarching plot line that combines 4 character arcs inside of it and provides backstories for those same characters. The problem was, it was missing a lot of pre-rendered cutscenes to drive home the impact of the events that are happening on screen and instead we have overbloated dialogues over still images and T-posing characters that most people don't even have the patience to go through and by the 4th hour mark it gets very tedious even for people like me that actually enjoy the visual novel style medium. They literally just need an alternate storytelling method and allocate one team to render cutscenes for it and there you go, instant narrative experience improvement. The reality is that their CEO just cba with increasing the budget, either that, or the devs are not listening enough and the feedback from the community is missing.

[@kuvjason7236]

You're comparing two completely different mediums thats where I have a problem. An anime vs a gacha game. Since your main argument is STORY You fail to take into consideration that the anime of One Piece, streches the shit out of 1 manga chapter per episode with nearly half of the episode into a recap up until the Wano Arc. Its the sole reason why the anime OP has 1000+ episodes. You definitely do not and did not watch One Piece since you're were confident to use the anime of One Piece to comparision. Its why the Fishman Island arc is currently in a remake to fix their poor pacing of stretching and recapping. I aint even defending the gacha scenes because yes, they 1000% can put more content into patches but your comparison here is the same as you trying to find family quality time with playing Mario Party vs reading a book. Ofc, youre getting more quality time with Mario Party than a book.

[@Dimpslilbro]

Yall keep saying this yet ZZZ and GFL2 manage to do it. Do they just not exist or sumn?

[@KrakenZzz123]

Brother, no one wants to read constantly in a video game. If I wanted to read, I’d read a book.

[@kiefermcray1649]

Yea OP anime episodes have been dog shit for multiple decades. I don't disagree with Smack entirely but the specific comparison is a little weird

[@PabloRodriguezreal]

Yeah, because a company that makes 100 times more money than anime studios do can't possibly afford improvements to their story telling. The game would go EoS right away

[@kuvjason7236]

@@Dimpslilbro I don't play either ZZZ or GFL2 nor do I keep up with whatever they got going on so I'd like some context with them before providing any inputs

[@toxicabyzz]

This is probably one of the funniest Gacha Drama's this year

[@VxVFiction]

Aint no way this grampa; just posted an hour long video for the first time ever!

[@sergito_45]

Smack can you condense your thoughts into a small paragraph so we can slap it into the surveys pretty please?

[@Sarrr1]

+1

[@thescorbunny9511]

Just give us more dynamic cutscenes and story telling methods that's not just a glorified visual novels. There you're welcome

[@anapple6912]

quality over quantity or "These games don't value your time for the amount of money they get so, content < profit is unfair." idk speak out to make a change?

[@noiseyy]

bro thinks we have 5 hours everyday to watch yo dramas *but fr now i think not even wuwa devs are generous enough to give you one piece level story ykkk

[@Derpazu]

Bro is getting jumped on twitter for telling the truth, gacha brainrot is next level.

[@fischlbiggestsimp3091]

if u think about it, what smack said is based af why kurobots satisfied with just being abit better, when they can be miles better especially after their success in 1.x version, we should be expecting more in rinascita and u know giving our critiques to kuro have a high chance of getting implemented even kuro himself always admit to their mistake and we as players hv rights to expect them to be better

[@Swift69420]

Skins and boss amounts every patch are below expectations and they need to improve upon that

[@fischlbiggestsimp3091]

@@Swift69420 i totally agree, they need to design more boss and i hope toa feels more like hologram i want endgame that rely purely on skills

[@Peanatty13]

The moment they put a skip button is the moment players realize how little content they have. Just asking for more cutscenes for how little content they have is fair. 🤦‍♂️

[@ahmedmubarak751]

So wuthering waves and zzz has very little content ?

[@achilles288-r3n]

​@@ahmedmubarak751Yes. I don't think the daily chores and TOA can be considered as good content. Wuwa just feels dry in a few days after each update. We still need to wait 30 more days with nothing for 2.0. Moreover, Wuwa still needs to have a skip on their "cinematic" cutscenes. ZZZ, I don't know.

[@i.m5452]

@@ahmedmubarak751 zzz has many events and end game content to make up for it however with hsr you skip the story and end up with one long event and simulated universe for 6 weeks

[@ahmedmubarak751]

@i.m5452 In zzz you said events and endgame but when you mentioned hsr you skipped over the events and endgame . The bias is totally NOT in the room with us right now

[@i.m5452]

@@ahmedmubarak751 what events hsr have ?

[@amirridzuannnnn]

What smack pointing out is so simple to catch bro. Why some are so dumb? So YES THEY COULD add more cutscenes. They wrote the story wayyyyy before the current vers for next patch story, and may already decided the ending even before the game launches, YES THEY COULD. If they want us to spend 4-6 hours completing the story, story enjoyers will appreciate more if the storytelling is engaging and well-executed with cinema looking cutscenes, YES THEY COULD. Don't compare 3d and 2d scene because both are as hard in their own way, but in the context 3d games, 3d is a lot easier, most of the thing handled by the engine and the assets are always ready prior animating them, unlike 2d in which a labor intensive and lack of reusability, YES THEY COULD. They have seperate teams that develop gameplay and story, YES THEY COULD. They can improve story telling by reducing bloated dialogue and concisely deliver the plot hence less space consumed by voice over, YES THEY COULD. Integrate with in game rendered cutscenes for the whole story sequence as it uses in game assets, thus improve the story telling, far better than static breathing motion shit, YES THEY COULD. They make billions, just hire more people, YES THEY COULD. It's all about ✨️DEDICATION✨️ Why people feel so pressed by smack's opinion? That proves you are just a shill then.

[@jimmylau7242]

I am not a big fan of wuwa's story, but I think they have the best storytelling out of these games starting from 1.3. The camera movement/angle, graphics, BGM, and character expression are all peak. They don't do cutscenes but in-game animation, which I think is the best way to present a story in a video game.

[@achilles288-r3n]

Wuwa does have a good story telling. The cutscenes look great. But the story itself needs a lot of improvement. The story needs to make me not want to skip the cutscenes. The game doesn't allow me to skip the cutscenes and I was forced to watch painfully. (Wuwa only let us skip the dialogues)

[@tabkg5802]

​@@achilles288-r3nif you criticize the story make an actual argument

[@eraba661]

@@achilles288-r3n Idc I love the story, everyone is entitled to their own opinion but what I want to point out is that cutsences aren't that long lmao, bro you won't survive HI3 if you think WuWa cutscenes are long I want them long cause they are objectively short. Longer than Genshin? Sure. But that's setting the bar extremely low

[@MikeTruemanVK]

I’ll give short take whether people realize it or not. People play game, game becomes part of their “identity” in whatever shape or form it takes. Criticism game or anything of it = criticism of them/their identity. Which then takes form of delusional takes by them or childish tantrums defending said company, in order to defend themselves.

[@CometTVs]

The structure of gacha games is the main reason I remain free-to-play. Thank you for being blunt. I unsubscribed from Bran and many other creators because of their takes on this matter.

[@SavageRodent]

I'm gonna be honest my guy, story is not the primary reason the majority of people play video games. Keyword "play". Improving the story would definitely improve one aspect of the game and I'm for that, but a lot of this would just be done and solved if they added a skip button. I'm a believer in the famous John Carmack quote about story in video games, because gameplay and interactivity is what differentiates the medium of video games from other forms of media like movies/shows and books. And the majority of games, not just gacha games, do not incorporate the gameplay well into the story.

[@sigit2u]

My idea taken from ryuukyu sensei is that make the storytelling more immersive through gameplay. Let us play as aventurine when he was a child on desert or robin when she was on warzone giving war relief and so and gave us still images that strongly represents the story dramatically. Not just one image and voiced wall of text. The key is immersion and show dont tell storytelling. My 2 cents rly.

[@ironclad-m3q]

What you expect talking about improvement to a community that go mad over mentions of skip button?

[@that_guy11211]

I think that incredibly weak banana "side story" opened the eyes of a lot of people as too how bad the story can be. Definitely could have benefited from a skip button.

[@zain3x]

55:27 one of the problems with the larger package update is the download size for the patch. At least in my country, a lot of players always protest when an update package is big. Idk why exactly, maybe they have limited quota for their mobile internet. Most of us f2p, doesn't have a big budget for these or maybe no self income.

[@Swift69420]

I do agree that these gacha companies can do alot more for the amount of bank they're making. On a different topic pertaining to the same capacity issue, I want to call out Kuro's capacity problems with some aspects of the game updates so far, for the purpose of this argument, I will only be making comparisons to PGR their other game and why we're not getting similar levels of capacity as PGR is despite it being their smaller game. Skins: We get 2-4 skins every patch in PGR, 1 for the new character, the rest for the other characters either brand new runs or reruns. Where's that for WW? I remember us PGR players gassing up the skins we've been getting in PGR and were expecting that same capacity for WW before la unch. Fast forward to now, where they at? Sometimes, the skin has some involvement in the story whether it's main or companion stories. Recent example is Camellya's alternate look she was beautiful as fuck, give that to us or heck even sell it to us. XLY had some alter ego in the trailer, people were asking for that on twitter, sell or give that to us. Bosses: We get a brand new boss every patch, and a hologram equivalent stages of difficulty for the same boss. So far, WW only prints out 1 new boss every 2 patches. That's below their own capacity for a company. On the same subject of bosses, they need to work on unique bosses. The camellya companion story is an example that needs to be addressed. Where's the alter ego camellya boss for cinematic fight purposes? They just rehashed death incarnate to the damn joint. It is still a filler patch as far as WW patch standards are, but they coulda used existing overworld bosses and made a new hologram. We're waiting on turtle, dreamless, Thundering memphis, Ice Bird, Mech Abomination. If a patch had to be filler and no unique boss in any of the story, use one of those atleast. The base movement patterns are already ingame, just expand upon them and make it a Hologram. As someone that consumes both Kuro Games, my expectations have not been delivered so far as far as the 2 above problems are. Ofc there are more things I got problems with, but they have nothing to do with capacity hence that'll be for another topic.

[@redgitreds2767]

honestly i agree i want better content, story cutscenes etc but your comparison is straight stupid between anime and gacha for instance you yourself say you get 3 days worth of content for 6 weeks and for an anime in that same six weeks assuming it's weekly you'll get like what? 2 hours of content instead? instead of comparing a media you watch instead of play compare 2 games I.E ZZZ and genshin, I 100% think you'd have had alot more support on this if you did a more reasonable comparison.

[@jamess359]

Tell me. How much "playing" did you do in patch 2.7 story? Rhetorical question.

[@ower9283]

Ngl Smack, imma have to postpone this one, I need snacks and the comfort of my room to watch this cinema

[@z_DrPain]

I dunno bout you guys but im always done the whatever event at last 2 or 1 day left remaining like every single time and finished everything..because im lazy to do it earlier and for that event to get finished like 2 days for me to complete 6 weeks of "content" is wild

[@sippinhotcocoa5934]

I definitely agree that Hoyoverse games outside of HI3 and ZZZ need more cutscenes, 100%. Unless the story itself is improved (which could actually justify the lack of cutscenes) then having more will really help with engagement of many players. That said, I would say gacha games with actually great stories don't necessarily need more cutscenes to be good. In particular, visual novel style games like FGO work because while they are limited by their method of storytelling, they try to use it to the fullest while also having really solid stories on top of that. Whereas games like HSR, Genshin and Wuwa have a large playground to work with due to their respective worlds, but they don't even try to extend their storytelling to maximise that playground.

[@deftabyss280]

I think the main reason people are upset is mostly cause gacha games are being compared to anime which a lot of people love their anime. Is it reasonable to ask for more cutscenes? Yes, but here is the thing for games like Persona, God of War those games are one time purchases so once you pay the full amount for their game thats already a profit for them so they put their all into it to be quality with loads of development time. Gacha games on the other hand firstly are free so they already losing profits and secondly unlike the previous games are ongoing still and need to push out more content then those previous said games, hence the quantity over quality thing. So why are people upset? Well we already know at this point most gacha game stories are not really the best and at this point with just some feedback to improve it I think people may have taken it the wrong way since these gacha games mean something to some of these people. Honestly the drama is really silly and I do respect Smack for putting his opinion out there tho

[@vanoid4366]

Spenders demand the most because they invest heavily in every patch. However, if gacha games improve everything, the players who benefit the most are the F2P players. They don’t pay but still get better contents. Why wouldn’t they stay F2P? This might even encourage some spenders to stop spending, which would cause companies to lose revenue in the long run. If spenders feel their contributions aren’t respected, then they can stop supporting the game. Meanwhile, these content creators act as if they don’t rely on the gacha game industry and its drama to make money

[@anapple6912]

one time purchase games arent always going to be great, and you would think with the money they make they would atleast invest it on making the games good, they dont need to push out more content if the content is going to be a nothing burger (its not the time that only matters, its the execution) until the cutscenes they show, no one is reading dialogue after dialogue, the majority is spamming the left mouse button. they prioritize in making less and gaining more, that's ridiculous that people are defending the billion-dollar company i would argue it would make them MORE money if they were to improve the quality of the games they make, less players are going to leave (besides the gacha system and lack of gameplay or challenging combat)

[@mites7]

Honestly feel like your criticisms are especially more valid for HSR and Genshin ZZZ, Wuwa, GFL actually respect my time

[@thescorbunny9511]

Imo Wuwa is just a less bad Genshin. If Genshin is 5 across the board for example then wuwa average about 6.5 to 7 across the board. Better? Yes. Respect your time? Ehh depends on the person

[@thescorbunny9511]

Don't play enough gfl to say. And i agree that zzz feels more kept up with the time as a game.

[@jamess359]

Don't be delusional. Not a single gatcha game respects your time, lol.

[@mites7]

@ I suppose I should have ended that with “in comparison” But honestly I don’t really feel like the zzz or wuwa chapters overstated their welcome

[@forcodingg1287]

Some wuwa story sure, But Almost everybody skip/fall sleep from wuwa 1.0 story before act 6 Lmao And also i can argue same thing about the 1.2 story. it's the ded patch, But that does not mean it could not be better, They literally copy genshin Right there, If you want to be better then do better. If you say those two thing "appreciate your time". With all due respect you are a shill Lmao For Zzz tho, It's probably the best out everyone (If you dont mind the TV system). And they also fix the TV system For GFL (i assume this is the newest GFL 2), if thats the case then It's not really fair to compared to other. Other gacha games you said been out for Atleast 3 patch, We need to see first how they handle other patch

[@AceKite00]

Defending a company that makes more money in one month than they will in over ten lifetimes

[@tidf-wh1zg]

Don't expect skip button from HSR or making their story shorter. Its hoyo predatory business model of making people deepen the commitment to sunk cost fallacy resulting to customer loyalty then customer retention. I mean sunkcost fallacy not just happen on money, but on time you spent as well. Look what happened to ZZZ that has skip button, I feel like that game don't have much loyal fanbase and a bunch of them are like tourist or casuals.

[@OdysseyNaafiri]

That's not the reason ppl don't invest on zzz. I'll explain later

[@tidf-wh1zg]

​@@OdysseyNaafiriyou're probably right I kinda rushed my explanation but at least you get my main point.

[@mites7]

Zzz’s storytelling style is honestly great People got annoyed about the TVs and is the main reason so many dropped it Not because the storytelling was bad It’s why they’re drastically chilling out on the TVs going forward

[@tidf-wh1zg]

​@@mites7ZZZ Storytelling is definitely a step-up compare to other hoyogames, but I feel like it got dragged by poor story direction and very underwhelming main char like i feel the mc of zzz is a bit similar to customer service support or IT tech support or glorified gps 😂.

[@mites7]

@@tidf-wh1zg yep that’s a fair criticism Though to be fair to zzz none of the gatcha MCs are particularly good Trailblazer, Rover, traveler are basically just self inserts I miss stuff like Kiana from Honkai 3rd: an actual main character with depth and history and her own personality and character development

[@infinitykiyen6270]

I think Saintone make a point that you shouldn't say WuWa is the most predatory games. Which I also don't agree. If we going to hate gcha said to the whole game not just WuWa. I play over 20 gacha games and drop all of that. WuWa is the least of all those bad gacha. So that logic kinda weird man. I won't call out one game. That's what gacha is not just WuWa.

[@jamess359]

Wuwa is a gatcha game. Gatcha games are predatory. Accept it.

[@infinitykiyen6270]

@jamess359 did you even read? I state Gacha Smack should just call all Gacha game out. Why are we target just WuWa. If you want the most predatory games? Try Nebmarble games. They are still doing it!

[@infinitykiyen6270]

@jamess359 I will tell you how this wording will make it worse too. 1) Bandai Namco SAO and all Gacha game has 2-5x the dollar cost per Gacha currency compare to Genshin and WuWa. So why we don't call that out? 2) Nebmarble Gacha game even make Gacha currency per dollar 10x of Genshin Impact for Marvel games. Also every new Gacha character always get priority damage buff in all PvE and PvP spaces. One of the No.1 player in Nebmarble even state his monthly Gacha cost to stay relevant is 100k$... This is why I don't want just WuWa. I want EVERY Gacha game as predatory. If not those company that get left out will be like "So I'm good? Let's bleed the gamer more!" That's not what Gacha Smack want with his wording.

[@jamess359]

@@Gheniel_ Who the fuck cares which one is less predatory. ALL gatcha games are predatory.

[@TrueLordPotato]

no way bro decided to make his own archon quest lmao so ironic

[@SketchyPololo]

There's a very simple baseline solution that can help keep engagement in these snoozefests, and that's camera work. It's basically resource free, but would require the devs to sit through their own dialogue slog to implement properly. Hell, even if they had the camera focus on the character that was speaking, I'm sure that's not many lines of codes to get working as a wholesale solution. But no, camera only will ever orbit on the MC. Huge pet peeve of mine. (I think HSR did this ONCE)

[@SketchyPololo]

1:00:39 to your point here, I'm not entirely sure how feasible it is to retroactively add features like this. Reason why is most if not all the game dev tools to manage the content and systems are created during that 2-4 year dev period you mentioned earlier. Adding something new that's integral to the game systems like a different animation system, dialogue system or even combat systems can easily ripple throughout the rest of the "finished" parts. This why I gave up on Genshin, I knew all the issues I had with the game were hard coded 5 years ago into the core (terrible story writing aside)

[@thescorbunny9511]

Buckle up grandpa. The people from the dream land say that 3.x story is gonna be the longest in hsr so far :) let see if they fix anything or we just get a novel instead

[@tabkg5802]

I really don't understand your WuWa complaints. When I watched this live I thought that maybe I remembered last patches wrong but no. Literally all of the quests in 1.3 and 1.4 are made up of cutscenes, gameplay and greatly directed in-game dialogues (which are better than cutscenes because it's a videogame), like even 1.1 and 1.2 were mostly like that. I just don't understand what's the issue here Also games don't have identical visuals just because they share an engine. Outside of obvious points about system requirements (7 rebirth doesn't run properly even on ps5) and different art styles, assets and effects themselves still have to be done by devs. Even ue5 doesn't magically make the game look pretty

[@Thachery]

Shillshillstephen really thinks hoyo devs are overworked 🤡

[@shaka2tu]

the editor working fast lol

[@Totsukachi]

Btw HI3rd has a section just for “media content”, cutscenes, manga, etc. And it's a 2016 game lol Edit: And with cutscenes that are better than any of these games will ever do

[@pumpalin8661]

Bro got an hour long vid off of ppls reactions to a 1 minute vid lol

[@Destroyer.1909]

Man , i agree with you .. HSR story is soo long i just become an autoclicker while doing the story ... I would rather have it as a 30 min cutscene and watch it... I would understand the story and enjoy the process... But right now.. I don't know the story and neither am i enjoying the story.

[@karinkanzuki5512]

people like you is the reason why the ccs keep making stupid contents

[@ardee9337]

WuWa should get a pass for this and here are the reasons: 1. Kuro isn't a "multi-billion" dollar company, they are a relatively small company. WuWa as per the haters of the game ain't earning well and is even close to EoS, so as per the haters logic WuWa is just scraping by and are producing content with whatever few and limited resources they have. 2. Despite reason no. 1 some mad lad on X actually did a cutscenes duration count for all 4 big gachas the 3 hoyoverse games and WuWa for 5 patches(they only limited it to 5 patches bec. WuWa and ZZZ are fairly new and literally only have 5 patch updates so far), and for some miracle WuWa had the longest cutscenes duration, longer than Genshin and HSR while having a shorter story length per patch, ZZZ was closest to WuWa when it came to the cutscenes:story length ratio.

[@critanddam9031]

Tbh I would agree but how do u recommend wuwa to someone when the story is so ass. The fact that u have a skip button is a cut above the rest tho lol

[@SilverAuras]

​@critanddam9031 story is subjective, you would be surprised how many people in global think the story is good especially Asia countries like cn, JP, kr who praise it since lots of people like these type of stories and there popular type too

[@Aerials357]

If you're comparing revenue, objectively we are getting an inferior product and the craziest thing is WE ARE OKAY WITH IT. HOW ARE PEOPLE DEFENDING THIS?! I play the damn game too bro, open your eyes. Oh wait you probably can't cuz you've been staring at the textbox and a still image for 8 hours.

[@xynoipse]

Agree, atlus cooked when in comes to story telling from SMT, Persona and Metaphor

[@Corteslatinodude]

Alright, I get your point, I think. Yeah, we should get a higher quality story telling. I see you don't actually want more cutscenes, I don't think that is your point. I skimmed through at 2x speed the "Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth FULL MOVIE (FFVII Remake)" Which is 8 hours long. Observing the Characters animation and the environment around them. The Artstyle in Wuwa is different than FF7 first of all. Wuwa is anime 2D going 3D, while FF7 is more of a realistic anime style (people have noses, omg). In FF7 there characters even when just standing around (story telling) have way more animations including when moving about on the screen its more smooth and natural, during the dialogue (not cutscene). There is more going around in the background action as well. To name some examples are like , someone walks around bents over to fix something, cleaning there weapon, smoking, more body language people going by, cars, animals etc. Then you have these gameplay to dialogue moments (very smooth transition) girl falls of the edge but the MC runs to grabs her but there was no black screen, jump cuts or sudden camera angle switch. Boss appearing and you entering combat no jump cut or sudden camera angle it just breaks in and its time to kick A. It makes the game feel more alive and immersive. Compared to Gacha games like HSR, GI, ZZZ, and including WUWA to name a few. So I do agree that I think Gacha games do need to step up there game for those 8 hours of story telling dialogue benchmark each 6 weeks. Especially HSR which is the worst out of the bunch by leagues. Followed by Genshin Impact than lastly WUWA. ZZZ is kinda of a hard take for me to give a score (its either 1st place or 2nd place, wuwa being the other). As it does just as bad as HSR a majority of the time the character are just standing there with the black bars around where you can't see there legs dialogue. Yet they have such good and smooth body language animations that it just looks good to watch despite having zero camera angles and one still background image. (Worst) HSR, Genshin, WuWa or ZZZ (Can be better). FF7 being the comparison for story telling. So I think I fully understand your take. They make a lot of money compared to a game that is $60 bucks. That has so much Character animation and environmental animation during story telling. Compared to a Gacha game that makes a lot of money with each Character drop. Yet the majority of there story telling dialogue. Character spend most of there time just standing idle and having 2-3 janky animations, HSR being a prime example of this. In ZZZ they do just stand around but they also have 2-3 animations but they don't look robotic. It is very fluid and natural they should add more of those fluid animations not just one animation for each expression. Did i understand your take or did i miss it completely? (These are the videos I skimmed through watch yourself and compare) Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth FULL MOVIE (FFVII Remake) Zenless Zone Zero - All Cutscenes Movie Full Story (2024) Genshin Impact Full Story Before Natlan (EXTENDED), With All Event & Story Cutscenes Full Movie Wuthering Waves - All Cutscenes Full Movie Version 1.0 Story (2024)

[@phabinh]

In one of the Penacony devlogs they mentioned that they were already working on Penacony content at the launch of HSR 1.0. So you know, just a "little" bit more than 6 weeks development time.

[@jerryeljeremy7790]

And these hoyoshill content creators still saying anime and gacha games aren't comparable. The only difference is one is a game and one is not. At the end both are story-driven.

[@rizerzzza]

@@jerryeljeremy7790 as a programmer, this comment is just stupid for me Cutscene, in a game, even if it pre rendered or in-engine, both can take significant amount of storage Anime, to deliver their creation to the audience, they only need to consider which streaming platform they gonna use So the difference is not only one is game and one is not, obviously how they can deliver their product to player/audience

[@kokoro212]

​​@@rizerzzzawhat's the problem? My phone has 255gb. People like you should just keep quiet. Nothing gonna be better with your type of mentality. Since you're happy with this 💩 quality of storytelling, then just be quiet and enjoy your 💩. We want better so we voice, you don't want it to be better, then buzz off.

[@jerryeljeremy7790]

@@rizerzzza That's is why "one is a game, one is not", means you program things with games, what part from that sentence was wrong? There's also a fact that animators were working hard for 4 episodes per month vs a patch from gacha games that comes monthly. Both have their own difficulty but also both have months of preparation way before they hit the deadline. (Unless you are Mappa lol) There's no 1:1 comparrison between 2 things in this world, and there will never be. It's just the matter of how you draw the line between "similar" and "completely different". Hoyoshill creators however have always been ignorants and just straight up saying "this ain't it" to every bit of comparisson they found when it comes to their game without providing any real argument.

[@sergito_45]

45:14 true brother, that's what I hate about the game. Instead of copying things from good games they brought the stupidest things from GI without any thought.

[@ydraw3784]

Hello bro smack , I’m with you in the fact that need the story and animation to be éprouve in the gâcha game , but also I’m a designer and anime creator, you know 1min of animation that can take for me 3 months and more if it’s complex action to do , but I hope for those company add more animation creators and designers and pay more the actors voice

[@jerryeljeremy7790]

They def can speed it up with money. Hiring more freelance animators is a normal thing these days in animation industries, but idk if Hoyo ever do that tho for their games. I believe they have their own animation studio? Idk for other gacha games tho.

[@utilae1]

For me the thing i don't like is how he glosses over game development or the work that goes into animation. He has no understanding, and from a game design perspective, cut scenes will also need a skip button. Imagine if they spent more time to make cut scenes instead of dialogue, and players just skip it. They will go back to text pretty fast.

[@ydraw3784]

@@jerryeljeremy7790 I think they can’t pay 1000 dollars for 1min of animation good quality , and think that for each anime creator going be working in the company like kuro or hoyoverse , if they want gain money with that they need to do there own anime and to sell it to tv or other company , like league of legends they sell the right to do anime series about arcane, story of Vi and jinx , like that you gain money and you gain popularity more , I understand the point of you of smack like a costumer that he look for better think , and I understand those company how is difficult to do those think and how you need to invest to that can work bcs you can do a big story with great animation 2D or 3D you don’t know if you going gain to survive in the long term big if you don’t gain what you need , the server going end in one year or max 2 if you are lucky

[@69nadyacole69]

Yeah, only you can make 1 minute of animation in 3 months. Imagine if there's multiple designer involved, it will definitely take less.

[@haruhokkaido9559]

I actually like how gacha game story fold but I respect your opinion on the topic.

[@HuH22132]

Yeah I ain't watching all dat

[@shradha7624]

same lmao

[@zahraamohammed3947]

He is talking about Hoyo🐚😂 ☝🏻

[@Accountthatexists]

Summary for all who don't want to watch it: Nothing happend it was just gacha smack reading dumb tweets on twitter

[@LUCAS420BLZ]

Got 3 seconds into the video and gave up

[@Normadus]

four retards in one comment

[@phabinh]

50:15 they did just add the ability to delete old content to HSR with the last update. I think it's mobile only at the moment, but if they wanted to start doing more/longer cutscenes I'm sure they would add it to PC as well.

[@yulianaqsa1093]

I only play hsr of allat gacha game but i understand why people would like more cutscene in hsr cuz dialog in hsr story is unnecessary being overcomplicate and it feels the dev was just stalling the story.... Idk if that is the case with other gacha but if they fix it i think more people would enjoy dialog and not actually just crash out from boringness of endless yapping

[@heatgg7394]

Now this is what i called a real beef with Hoyo-bots

[@bustercallPrime]

How is 6 weeks to fast that’s literally 1/9 of the year???…

[@zain3x]

This content... i need to use 1.5x speed, dang!! What kind of content did you make, Smack

[@SSCuuK]

I think its just very weird that ppl prefer 8 hours of slop instead of a 2/3 hours of actual solid story telling. Also to make said 8 hours of slop is more effort then 2 hours of solid story. Less Voice acting, less scripting, less "animating" you name it. Instead they can improve things like animations or cutscenes like Smack said. If its actually good story telling the ask for a skip button would also be less asked for. That being said, it would still be very nice to have for the people that aren't as interested or simply wanna do the events and get the rewards. But to just say Smack is clowning and even ragebaiting is crazy man. if you really disagree with Smack you are really just coping.

[@zain3x]

10:25 owh.. that's why i felt something weird why Rappa doing that move. I'd imagine Rappa doing direct assault like ninja, or more like throwing little kunai without making the enemy thrown.

[@kchill2305]

One thing to have in mind my brother… The main story the most important story … they develop it in a span of a year I just wanted to point it out… and for them to take a whole year to deliver these garbage bloated storytelling is wild… they aint some indie small company they have no excuse to not make bangers….

[@Tnt0Tony0Tnt]

its really funny he used ff7 remake as an example of good story telling because ff14 has probably the worst story telling of any game ever. imagine hsr levels of stand there and watch them mime but for 10x the amount of time(per expansion) and also your endgame content is locked until you finish it

[@annguyenphuc1795]

If anime is released one episode per week, are there any anime series with 48 episodes per year? (Bro just really think anime is 1 ep per week)

[@MikaelZoran]

Cn stories are even worse as word padding is a common thing in certain genres of novels, and it expand into these cn gacha games as well.

[@MaineOneV1]

Can we add a skip button to this video? This shit is too long😂

[@jamess359]

Your attention span is likely too short.

[@ahmedmubarak751]

​@@jamess359 That's ironic of gacha smack complaining about gacha games yapping and needing a skip button when he's doing the same now lol

[@giangtrinhtruong7952]

@@ahmedmubarak751 But you have a skip button

[@FoxSiR]

Yea I remember a senior game developer made a video about why game development is failing and he mainly talked about how the new guys do very little and complain they are overwhelmed when asked to add a line of code which takes less than five minutes. So I have no sympathy for any of these developers that lose their jobs when their games don't sell cause they told me it's not for me.

[@Hoontarius]

For real, thats why HSR has fallen off so much for me and why I procrastinate its story, when a game is turn based, obviously the turn based combat needs to be engaging, BUT THAT MEANS THE STORY MATTERS MORE THAN OTHER SORTS OF GAMES, some games can have a weak story but amazing combat and its enough, sure better story is a net positive there too but its easier to engage people with more complicated and engaging combat

[@RinrinFran]

Still waiting for basic QoLs day 999.

[@ZOMBIJO]

You should play and cover solo leveling because that game gives you everything that you’re talking about wanting in a gotcha game

[@FifthHorsemanTV]

No one is saying that more and higher quality cutscenes would be a bad thing, But that development pipelines for anime studios and game development teams are very different. Lets just stop comparing apples and oranges and talking about work environments you dont actually have any experience in.

[@Ai愛ofSauron]

I don't understand Bran's take tbh. Love the guy but he was the one unhappy with Penacony with all the yapping. Bro wanted "show don't tell", that's what more cutscenes mean 😅

[@lonemarkkingoftypos3722]

46:17 ngl, i do think introducing 50/50 is quite outdated now and that they should atleast improve the gacha system now that alot of gacha games are in existence. One idea would be Guaranteed First copy. After that is the 50/50 thing and Guaranteed after losing 50/50. I think PGR's is like this? Hell Wuwa's weapon banner even is such a great taste that youll never lose 50/50 as its guaranteed weapon banner. i do kinda think wuwa should do that improvement in their gacha to make themselves ahead quite a bit as that will rake in F2P players and low spenders who will actually play and have fun with their game. Thatll then spread its popularity that THEN rakes in more people who will potentially spend in their game. Going to regard its user gameplay experienxe for abit, its already overwhelmingly reduced farming time needed is alread a huge step up, it took me 1-2 weeks to fully build a Set with double crit stats and dmg bonuses for a single character. While in GI and HSR, it took me 1-2 weeks (sometimes even months) to get a piece with the correct set and substats. Me? I only spent money once in WuWa and im certainly having alot of fun because i never had to farm 10 mins a day for 3 weeks or more just to farm for a single piece of relic/artifact. And with how they have mini events (like the lollo logistics daily events, simulacrum, etc.) Every other week that gives pulls currency, and 3 Cost Echo (Relic/Artifact) selectors that gives the correct elem dmg on the correct set. That is how much fun i am having. Even i think i should spend money in their game to atleast support them because farming echoes wasnt a huge issue with how they give out selectors during events, and neither the pull currencies because of those events aswell. Edit: English isnt my first language so some of the things i said may not make sense.

[@sevhoss]

When GachaSmack leaves gacha, JohnnySmack will be born.

[@1Onsokumaru1]

My only problem is smack is basing this entire thing off 4 games. There is more to gacha story telling than hoyoverse and Wuwa. Other than that, of course more cutscenes and expressive story telling would be amazing.

[@TacticalDimples]

He’s basing it off the most popular games that everyone knows about-GI, ZZZ, HSR, and WuWa and that’s because these games are ran by multibillion dollar companies. Most companies get a pass since they’re much smaller, but there is zero excuse for Hoyoverse, especially when you look at ZZZ’s (and GFL2’s) storytelling in comparison. Like imagine going to your favorite restaurant and the portion size was 90% filler like rice/potatoes and 10% of the actually meal you ordered.

[@1Onsokumaru1]

@@TacticalDimples I understand but he consistently said "all gacha games" "these gacha games" "the gacha space". He's talking about the entire medium based off 3 games which doesn't make sense. If he wanted to base his points only towards those three games then it makes total sense. I only play Nikke & Zenless. I recently dropped GFL2 after a few days of playing (just because of time constraints". Great stories in gacha exists. Not all gacha games have 45mins of yap that can be easily condensed into 5mins of concise writing. These problems only exist amongst Hoyoverse & Wuwa, but he is basing that on the entire medium which is unfair. I definitely agree that those 3 games have the capacity to do better and SHOULD do better of course. Another issue is he is acting like the "VN Style" storytelling is a bad thing. It's not. Some of the best stories ever told were in VN format, with two (or more) static characters on a screen. The issue here is the writing style that these hoyoverse & wuwa games have.

[@hydroho]

it's the thumbnail for me

[@DFojas]

Legend of Legaia mentioned!

[@GodofGoblins]

Yeah so critique is an art. If we want to compare how star rail handles story, we gotta compare it to other gachas and on going games, not anime or books or regular games. Makes no sense. If he prefers more cutscenes, that is fine, but that isnt objective criticism. That is personal preference. So if we want to critique story telling in star rail, comparisons to wuthering waves or nikke etc makes more sense. Do they yap a lot in those games? Ok, that is a style of story telling. Is it better or worse there? How so? Look persona 5 has TONS of yapping. I love persona 5, and the yapping is...ok. Then I played Metaphor Refantazio, and they yap a lot too. I would argue its slightly higher quality. But I cant go "no we need more cutscenes, they make plenty of money." No, that is there style of delivering a narrative. Perhaps final fantasy 16 is more to your liking. That is chunked with cutscenes. But you see how I kept these comparisons within the same realm of genre? Not anime or a complete separate type of game? That is important when making these comparisons, and we gotta check out personal preferences and biases as well. Last thing I will say, is I would love to see comparisons of other gachas that are dishing out more high quality cutscenes and no yapping. Does Nikke does this? How about wuthering waves? Etc. Because that sounds borderline impossible. They gotta do the trailers, the VA across several languages, create worlds (WW is more difficult with open worlds I would argue), the fomo events to keep us engaged, etc. I doubt they can deliver us final fantasy quality cutscenes every patch, thus the yapping and literal essays of lore in simulated universe. "hey dont defend these big companies." Oh I will crap on Hoyo all day, dont get me started. But I will do so with accurate criticisms and comparisons, not personal preferences or fallacies. Just my perspective

[@Dimpslilbro]

"You can't compare it to anime, books or regular games it makes no sense" Why doesn't it make sense? And also regular games makes perfect sense get real.

[@allenserrano4982]

@@DimpslilbroYou gotta understand that they make money every banner right and they declare millions of it online MILLIONS that should mean they CAN add more cutscenes to cut dialogues. ZZZ is a perfect example of balancing Snooze Fest and Good Cutscenes

[@GodofGoblins]

@@Dimpslilbro sure. so it doesnt make sense because these are very different formulas in how to deliver a narrative. an anime you dont actively control a character; you sit and watch. a book you dont see moving images; you imagine or see stagnant ones. as such, these are very different experiences and formulas for delivering a narrative. so when we compare a movie or an amimes story telling, it is best to compare it to other movies or anime. same with video games, and genres in general. if I think the story telling in resident evil is bad, i dont talk about final fantasy story telling or hunter x hunter story telling. those are different genres or mediums with different formulas. no, I would look and compare with another survival horror like silent hill or condemned and analyze how they tell there narrative. Why? Because both are within the same spectrum: a survival horror video game. Do you follow? If I compare story mode of Tekken, I would compare it to Street Fighter 6, not Dragonball Z on Toonami. If we want to highlight bad story telling in honkai, great. I am on board. Do a comparison to another gacha. "Hey, wuthering waves handles it better by doing this and that." Beautiful, perfect. Dont talk about Elden Ring. lmao. That is a very different game that doesnt have to drip feed or sell us characters. Its a full game that tells story through item lore. Lets look at other gacha games within the gacha space to compare and contrast in order to properly criticize.

[@PabloRodriguezreal]

​@@GodofGoblinshow is controlling character relevant in any way? Everything is scripted anyway and your choices in these gacha games 99,9% change absolutely nothing. You telling that just because you have to move from one location to another it's impossible to make story telling more cinematic? Look at tales of berseria,zestria etc. And tell me how is it not possible for a multi bilion dollar company. You act as if they were delivering genshin level patches when new region releases everytime, when most of the time they don't

[@GodofGoblins]

@PabloRodriguezreal ah, so here is the problem. you seem to believe if a story is linear or doesnt have much choice or consequences in delivering a narrative, it is therefore bad? that is personal preference, not objective criticism. when it comes to cinematic experiences, we cant compare to full one time games like Tales, because that isnt an on going game. They have the luxury of dedicating time to development for some years, release the game and that is it. Maybe a DLC here or there, but that is it. On going games like gachas or mmos dont have that luxury. They have to keep us hooked with content over and over, thus the fomo events. So we want to compare and contrast the overall cinematic experiences, its best to compare with other games in the gacha space. Does Nikke handle it better? Ok how? How about Wuthering Waves? I cant talk about final fantasy 16 though. Why? That is a full one time game experience. Gotta keep the comparisons reasonable here. As for the money, keep in mind every game has there formula. What do you think they spend there time and development on? Likely trailers, VA for several languages, creating worlds (open worlds is tougher so shout out to WW), fomo events, making characters, music, etc. This is why most gacha tie a lot of there story and lore to literal essays and talking. Do you expect them to deliver final fantasy 16 levels of cinematics every couple months in addition to all of this? No. I dont care how much money or staff they got; impossible. But again, if a gacha is doing this consistently, feel free to point out. Then I would be like "yo, this company doesnt have as much money, but there gacha game constantly delivers long high quality cutscenes over and over. step it up hoyo." Great, beautiful. So whats the example? Dont say Red Dead 2 or ff16, because those are not good comparisons. MAYBE they do DLC and that is it. And even with that, that comes off more as personal preference. Whether its a lot of talking or a lot of cutscenes, neither is better than the other. That is preference. Plenty prefer to be told a story, or shown. I love Persona 5; they talk A LOT. Not a big fan. Elden Ring? They show more, not tell. I like that more. Neither is better than the other in story telling; its just a different formula. And see how that comparison were two full rpg experiences? Makes more sense. Im not gonna compare persona 5 to something like wuthering waves. Hope that makes sense. I think star rail deserves a lot of critique and should improve on multiple aspects. Hell, there fomo events are easy to critique since we see other gacha games do it better (Nikke a great example.) Im not gonna mention ff7 rebirth; why? Very different formula and game. Anyways, make sense? Critique the game please, but do it right.

[@mattiasimbola]

The only good cutscene they make is on youtube to sell you the upcoming character. Then in game it's dogshit slop

[@imjustlikedenji5954]

I will say this: what gacha games should aim for is not anime adaptation but Yakuza Yakuza mastered 2 static characters speaking and smart use of cutscenes and QTEs, I never once questioned "hey why are they just standing" cause the dialogue is interesting or funny and you have cutscenes where they are NEEDED Like mix it up, we should have massive fights in those gacha games, more boss fights, QTEs, scripted sequences, dynamic intros Look up "yakuza dynamic intro and qtes" it's like 10-20 mins per game and it's pure GAS

[@Doro-bashi]

Hoyostans are showing their obsession with Story as a "Status", Like if it was the goal itself, when in fact, the story is the cohesion of all elements on the gamez The medium for a goal, not the goal itself People promoting that mentality to talk down other games, are the reason devs are bloating dialogues If that was true... story masterpieces like Guardian Tales, wouldn't be completely ignored

[@zain3x]

42:43 i hope zzz is part of their test ground for their other game for the cutscenes. Better storytelling might make me doing a story more enjoyable

[@leoaerts2217]

I want to honestly hear your thoughts on games like blue archive... where the the game is story heavy and the gameplay is simple. I esnt to hear your thoughts on arknights as well? It could potentially be a good idea for a video. I mean they dont have voice acted cutscenes or cutscenes like wuwa, genshin, but the story momemts are worth the read. but they have a good. balance of game and story telling

[@KrakenZzz123]

Zzz is the best example. Which he compliments

[@zain3x]

1:08:07 dang!! I'm finished listening to this long as content. *ps: owh it's just a cutscenes without me requires to tap "next dialogue"

[@Human_Decoy]

Better story sells characters. You don't even have to look outside HSR to make this argument. Now I'm not calling Firefly's story good but it built a connection between the player and the character which is the foundation of good story telling and her sales were much higher than others and that wasn't just all meta slaves.

[@amermuhib9113]

this is not weird considering what happened back in covid with genshin

[@disembark]

3:45. Legends of Runterra took care lf their players so well that their game died completely. But i actually blame the devs not being able to make both parties happy in spending and playing

[@jwinterspring]

34:05 WE TALKED Episode 3 with Legionz?

[@adamstrakna6270]

to be real I think you should probably play a different genre if you're looking for story telling that respects your time

[@forcodingg1287]

45:40 This is basically what 99% Wuwa Playerbase always said Lmao. Some of them really think their game is god Greatest Gift. It's Overglaze basically Lol

[@BladieTv]

This is why i appreciated Belobog more than Yappacony there is so much dialogue more than gameplay

[@utilae1]

Final fantasy 7 rebirth file size = 150GB for 100 hours of game play. That means for a live service game, you would have to download more then 150GB per month lol. Oh and now you realise that Wuwa and FF7 both use Unreal Engine 4!!! OMG, you have no idea about game development at all and how big those engines are, and how many different types of games you can make. And there is so much that can be done differently, literally everything, in the same engine, by different development companies. In terms of ZZZ vs HSR, there is only like 30 minutes more of cut scenes. Most cut scenes are actually not in the game but are on their KZbin channel. And I do think that there is a technical limitation between Genshin, HSR, ZZZ, as we see newer technology in ZZZ, with facial animations, but it's much more difficult to bring that into Genshin, but they have done it to some extent.

[@bitndragon]

"There is not one guy doing this" thank god someone says the truth like if they cant make more then the company that brought in like 100 million dollars in a month can just hire more people lol

[@pod27]

I'mma say it right out the gate that i agree with asking for better stuff since they are making alot of money. but i dont agree with comparing console/pc games to mobile gacha games and bring anime/manga also into the mix just because the games in question are in the "anime game" bubble. Everyone involved lost the plot and some started making excuses to protect the brand. GS made a good point but a bad comparison, and some on the other side failed to realize that asking for more when they are making so much money off our backs is totally fine and expected. Even if the game is f2p