UNAVOIDABLE LIMITATIONS of Gacha Game Stories

[@Musashi_M_]

I thought so too but Limbus opened my eyes. I guess that's what happens when a company with no gacha experience makes a gacha

[@silverhawkscape2677]

That was only because they only have 12 main characters and every gacha version is just a Variation or upgraded version of that character. The only other games I know who have a limited roster and just give you new version are Honkai Impact 3rd part 1 and Punishing gray raven.

[@thatrandomguyontheinternet2477]

@@silverhawkscape2677arknights story is pretty good, and they have a fuckton of characters

[@silverhawkscape2677]

@@thatrandomguyontheinternet2477 It's not that good it's typical Gacha of this kind.

[@nandanthony]

@@silverhawkscape2677 Reverse 1999 also has a great story and their roster is sizeable

[@silverhawkscape2677]

@nandanthony I play that game. The Story especially side character stories have Issues like Golden City and The half anniversary banner story. You know the one. Horse Girl with Room Temp IQ. It was so Bad The Devs replaced the writing team assigned to that. The Main story is Fine. They don't feel Pressured to include Banner characters in the main story since they can just include them in their own side stories or adventures in Vertin's suitcase...or the Great Matilda adventures. But seriously the side stories feel disjointed if you worry about continuity unless it's a Patch side story like Golden city. The way such Patch side stories go they usually explain how the character eventually ends up in the Foundation like Kakania, J, etc. No. Character is directly hostile to Vertin or the Foundation. Likely because we all end up in Vertin Suitcase in the end.

[@YamatoHotsuin]

The parasocial part limits the potential a lot indeed amazing video

[@progrockplaylists]

you are right that we need other gacha stories than saving the world. i feel like pulling for characters has become just collecting different colored power rangers that are only relevant for 1-2 quests, which ironically, is irrelevant to saving the world

[@imylq]

HSR has quite a few good stories, but I agree that there is a lot of yap. I wish they gave more characters Aventurine style storytelling, since he got a whole patch dedicated to his backstory and we got visuals and even a model of his child self. Nobody else gets this treatment and I think they should, Aventurine is one of the most interesting characters in HSR

[@nox6687]

One of my favorite gacha game stories is Enstars, largely because everything ties back to character conflicts. The big threat of !!'s main story isn't the world ending, it's the band not generating enough profit to justify their continued employment to their corporate shareholders, which would lead them to getting fired, being unable to achieve their dreams, and being stacked with debts they could never financially recover from. It's a realistic terror than anyone can emphasize with. No one wants to be in debt, no one wants to be the reason their friends are in debt. How do we stop the boys from being in debt? By making them better idols! But how do we make them better idols? What even is a 'good idol'? Is it someone who sings well? Someone who is well liked by the fans? ...Is it just someone who makes a lot of money? Why do they even have to make money like this in the first place, constantly stuck in a hamster wheel of debt and profit? To make money, you have to do shows, but to do shows, you have to pay a fee, and to make enough money to pay that fee, you have to have do shows. Why are things this way? Who made it this way? Is this just what an idol is? This isn't what an idol should be... right? It's a great, grounded core concept that then has a bunch of wild shit added on top, but even that is rooted in the characters and how they try to be the best idol they can, depending on what "idol" means to them.

[@Hesperus_]

You made it sound pretty interesting, I definitely gotta check it out

[@nox6687]

@Hesperus_ It's great, though the official English translation can be... questionable at times. Thankfully, the community is very passionate and there are masterlists online of fan-translations for every main and event story

[@Kagineko]

I'll read Snowbreaks waifu pandering story any day over unskipable hoyoslop, if only because I know that one will actually focus on the characters or relationships, rather than wasting 5 hours on a NPC that never shows up again. My time investment is rewarded with content surrounding characters I actually want or like Final Lesson was the first and last time hoyo commited to something, you can't even say the same for Flamechasers considering how much they were referenced after their "death", the 3.0 HSR thing certainly does not help. A lot of what you said can be boiled down to hoyos approach to gacha banners being the source of the problem. The gacha is already horribly designed but it affects the story as well, two new characters are being introduced every patch, so they have to get some screentime, then leave in time for the next patch, they need to show off and do something "cool" in a cutscene, not because its needed for the story, because they have to be advertised

[@hoseki4031]

Chinese gacha games have to also adhere to certain restrictions placed by their government, they can't talk about anything negative about their country for example or portray it in a negative light and blood and gore is strictly off limits, they can elude to massacres and genocides that took place in the story but wont actually show it to the player. You should consider playing FGO, the Lostbelts arcs are peak!!! though you'd have to bare through until Singularity 6 for the writing to actually be good.

[@Hesperus_]

Yeah, Chinese censorship is also pretty limiting, and I don't expect any gore from them. But while most popular gacha games are Chinese, some of them aren't so I didn't include country-specific things here. I've been thinking about trying FGO, maybe it's time to finally do it. But it kinda sucks that you have to sit through the boring beginning to get to the good stuff

[@purplecats2471]

honkai impact third had it down with the story with actual stakes (like character deaths) and character alts rather than new characters. Having a few main characters who undergo development makes a much better story than an everyman protagonist who just meets new characters all the time and has very little characterization of their own. While the model of hsr and genshin of new region/planet every major update is easy to sell and generally enjoyed by fans, it really limits the storytelling abilities. That's part of the reason why so much great hoyo lore is in stuff like artifact sets and readables rather than the actual main story.

[@Hesperus_]

I agree, the format of going to a new region every patch is limiting, and leads to much weaker connection with characters and the world. And also the overarching narrative is often lost as we concentrate on region arcs. I think HI3rd story is the best hoyo story s far in terms of structure and stakes, at least part 1, we'll see where part 2 goes. Having Kiana as an actual protagonist with her own feelings and motivations was the best decision ever. Ans it went well with players too, as the majority of Hi3 player base absolutely adore her.

[@KuroisonYT]

There are plenty gachas with amazing stories most have real MCs like reverse 1999 honkai 3rd nikke People love saying console games stories are way better but most jrpgs are the same thing so I don't really get it

[@Hesperus_]

​@@KuroisonYT I agree, jrpgs tend to have similar issues, especially the yapping problem. But I guess the attitude is different because these are games you play once and move on, while gacha games require more investment over a longer period of time. HI3rd has the same yapping problem in later chapters, it would be so much better if the dialogue was just a bit more to the point. I've heard a lot about Reverse 1999, I'm going to try it too, although the gameplay doesn't look that interesting to me

[@Zora72954]

lmao hi3 only had one character death and it never felt like there was actual stakes. the flame chasers werent even alive to begin with

[@lhobang]

Try heaven burns red, it's just a true classic visual novel telling but with gacha slapped onto it because they wanted it to be free

[@poke8391]

I be honest after playing so much gachas I start quit one by one leaving only 2 genshin (they have a lot of yapping but the game is relaxing, powercreep almost don't exist and they don't release a lot characters per patch) and brown dust 2

[@silverhawkscape2677]

@@poke8391 Sort off. The powercreep is less Crazy in Genshin but you should be able to Push through with Hyperinvested characters. Or the Powerful 5. Or most Patch 1.x 4 stars like Melt Rosaria.

[@poke8391]

@silverhawkscape2677 yeah, I didn't want to shit talk about HSR is just I really like the game but the patter they doing really piss me of, they release too much characters, change the meta too fast and the enemies Hp is getting triple the size of 2.0

[@poke8391]

@@silverhawkscape2677 I basically just want to chill to be honest no powercreep no must have unit for team don't know maybe play gachas for 5 years now is finally catching me up and I'm getting tired, and hoyo business too

[@Hesperus_]

To be honest, most gachas require too much time investment for too little in return, and playing more than 3 at the same time is straight up exhausting, so I just alternate different games every month now

[@poke8391]

@Hesperus_ exactly, is kinda hard to stay in more than 2 for me, 3 is manegeble but that was when I play HSR since is mostly auto play on day to day, but I quit HSR and currently I'm on genshin, brown dust 2 and zzz but I don't think I stays in zzz for that long, simulated universe there takes 30/40m to clear, I don't know but the game click and didn't click for me, I like as a game but he is a gacha and doing daily, events, farm artifacts is getting realistic annoying for me

[@deo9424]

Limbus

[@Hesperus_]

Limbus is a phenomenon worth looking into 100%, a gacha game that defies most gacha game traditions. But I'd love if at least one action-RPG gacha tried to do this too, I just like the dynamic action gameplay

[@TheBeginnerviolin]

Arknights story is good.

[@Hesperus_]

From what I remember, they were definitely good at writing characters and making them connected to the world around and other chars. I wish I liked the gameplay, and they had a proper PC client

[@DebiSenpai]

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