What if gacha games just REMOVE STAMINA SYSTEM entirely?

[@FeyHunt]

This video took longer than I expected to edit. Consider it... a celebration of another good year of gacha games! Music Used: - Honkai Impact 3rd - Herrscher of Flamescion Trailer - Arknights - Contigency Contract Ashring Menu (Instrumental) - Jorge Hernandez - Hit Me On My Way - Arknights - Contigency Contract Deepness Menu (Instrumental) - Honkai Star Rail - Fable of the Stars Webpage Music - NIKKE - The Godness Fall - RAGE - Book the Rental Wit It

[@lancergt1000]

a game that lets you infinitely grind is just gonna end up like a korean MMO

[@FeyHunt]

Yep! Tried WoW back in the day... nope! It feels like having a second job. I much prefer having a life, thank you very much! Those MMOs still try to limit your playtime by gacha luck to make grinding feel less and less efficient as time goes on. Usually there's a luck-based upgrading system with success chances that goes down as you level up, or EXP boost rate that runs out when you grind too much. I did play those Korean Facebook MMOs when I was younger, and it's not a great time at all...

[@RaidenKaiser]

It was already an infinite grind when I last checked. The rate i was going before I quit genshin the drop rate was so attrocious for good sub stats it would of taken years just to finish 1 character with the cursed luck i had.

[@FeyHunt]

@@RaidenKaiser I think I did use the calculator that there is a 75% chance of NOT getting the set you wanted for a character after grinding non-stop for a year. Genshin is just atrociously bullcrap.

[@legacymse7095]

Exactly. They’ll divide the ressources you get by 10 to compensate for that and it will be even worse

[@thez316]

Elaborate.

[@ObliviousNaga]

Its amazing how much social engineering goes into these games

[@FeyHunt]

@@ObliviousNaga Unfortunately, it's not just live service games. It's everything in our modern world today. Social media keep pestering you with notifications so you check in. Online shops keep throwing fake limited time discounts. FOMO events in Starbucks. And so many more. Our modern world has been hyperoptimized for consumerism. It's kinda impressive, but also terrifying 🤔🤔

[@HandOn-c40009]

it make sense in MMO and gacha game because they are stalling until next update is ready, it is when single player game do this that it become annoying

[@XieRH1988]

The RNG system in character progression is worse IMO. It causes you to feel like you're spending your stamina as though it's a gacha currency. And all that after you already went through gacha to pull the characters that you now have to build. Anyone who ever got stuck in relic/artifact hell in Hoyo games knows this feeling.

[@FeyHunt]

Oh absolutely! It's a blackhole sink and the topic of my next video: Can we get rid of them entirely?

[@kazaba1715]

Yeah those rng system would be alright if we could do it infinitely but since it's tied to the stamina it's really frustrating to grind. A gacha game should pick between stamina system or rng system not both of them

[@BobOrKlaus]

yeah, i play Zenless Zone Zero and gotta say, drive disk farming (artifact farming for genshin basically) is annoying as hell, you do it, get something you absolutely cant use 5 times in a row and then youre out of stamina... so annoying but honestly, i prefer it over even lower drop rates

[@concealer3850]

RNG artifacts or even weapon banners are just horrible in general, why gacha for something that is not a character when the game can just make us grind for it like an actual item?

[@FeyHunt]

@concealer3850 Because profit. Being a good gacha game in 2025 is about balancing players' goodwill and making money. Everyone draws the line differently. For me, I'm totally fine with weapon banner, but I hate RNG artifacts.

[@HandOn-c40009]

the timegating story is one of my gripe with gacha game, like I rather finish the story and just do a five minute grinding everyday rather than scheduling myself around when the story is released

[@FeyHunt]

Totally agree! And I think the developers know this too, so that's why they give you extra stamina refresh on new content for players who want to blitz.

[@Mr.ChaosPollensAllAround]

(I'm stupid, and haven't watched the video yet) What's Timegating?

[@FeyHunt]

@@Mr.ChaosPollensAllAround When there's a certain content forcing you to wait real-time hours.

[@HandOn-c40009]

​​@@Mr.ChaosPollensAllAroundIn a game like star rail and genshin when an update drop you usually can play the entire story right away while older gacha game usually split them in 3 act and made act 1 available at the start of the update, the second act usually unlocked in a week and 3 act a week after second act(time will vary depending the game), it's usually there so you have something to look forward to in the game

[@zrowngctr]

I recently started playing Zenless Zone Zero. The stamina system is indirectly what is keeping me from finishing some of the side commissions, in particular, Foliage Hunt. My Agents just aren't powerful enough to survive the enemy gauntlet, because they need upgrade components and senior investigator logs by the metric tonnage to become maximum effective. Acquisition of those components&logs require the consumption of stamina. If I could farm those items indefinitely, I would play the game more.

[@legacymse7095]

From a veteran’s perspective, if gacha game didn’t have that, they would lower every reward to make up for it to make sure you don’t get to max level at launch. It would turn into pure hell. I would rather play 1h per day for 30 days instead instead of farming 7h per day for a week IRL free time is also a ressource. I don’t want to to grind like it’s warframe because it’s free and unlimited. Give me a limit per day but increase the ressource drop significantly. Gacha devs chose the better solutions. Remember that the job of a game designer is to protect the players from themselves.

[@FeyHunt]

Perfectly summarized! The stamina system is a type of protection the dev gives to prevent players from burning out, at least to some people.

[@peterszalai1645]

"Remember that the job of a game designer is to protect the players from themselves." This reminded me to another topic. I think there should be a monthly limit on how much money you can spend on these games. I don't care if people spend a lot, it is their own business but being able to spend infinite money in a game is scary. They shouldn't let it.

[@FeyHunt]

@@peterszalai1645 Some gacha games already implement that, but mostly for children. China's government did try to push that spending limit for everyone, but it went nowhere. I'm a bit split on this part. Children, yes. You should NOT let them play gacha games. But adults? I think there's an argument that everyone should be allowed to spend their money however they wish. And I don't know if such regulation may destroy gacha games business model. Last I checked, only 1-5% of the playerbase EVER paid in the game. 95% of them are "freeloaders" who benefit from them. And generally, I'm also against the government telling people what to do. But I could also definitely see _some_ people do need interventions.

[@peterszalai1645]

@@FeyHunt Yeah... My main problem with this is the bad image that gacha games are horrible bottomless money drains for gambling addicts (because of the pity system they have guaranteed rewards so it is not even really gambling anymore). And it sucks that the western gamer community won't every understand these games and they will look down anyone who plays these games :( Even though the gacha games are better now then any time in the past. (in my opinion)

[@FeyHunt]

@@peterszalai1645 I really don't care about people who look down on gacha games as "predatory" nowadays. Those are usually the same people who would spend 200$ on Fortnite, League of Legends skins, or MMO pets. And they didn't find it predatory at all. 🤔🤔 Gacha games give you plenty of AAA values for free. You get the same game world, just with different characters.

[@zardon_zane1630]

Yep, I have played Old School Runescape (Not a gacha), so I know how good/bad can be to not be limited for Stamina, but if the stamina is not there, you are limited by painful RNG for so MANY HOURS

[@FeyHunt]

Exactly! And that's even more frustrating. I would rather do something for twice as long for a 100% guarantee success than 50% chance for half the time 😄😄 People keep recommending Old School Runescape to me, but I think old RPGs like it is something I would never like. You just have to be there when you were younger to like it.

[@zardon_zane1630]

@@FeyHunt It's ok, you would not like it, is really grindy, people that knows the game can take 2500-3500 hours to max all skills, and thats not even the end of the game and includes trading, Iron man mode needs you to craft all by yourself, no trading and only purchase with npcs, the game is good as a second game to multitask, but you need lots of patience, lorewise is really good and funny tho and with fiends you can make it faster. Only reason I stopped playing is cuz I would never stop if I kept playing .-.

[@FeyHunt]

@@zardon_zane1630 And that's why I can't play it. Friends 😄😄

[@zardon_zane1630]

@@FeyHunt that's fine, you save yourself of an infinite grind, sometimes I play and I see the same people playing from years ago

[@Soundwave1900]

Then just remove the rng.

[@kazaba1715]

I think every gacha game needs the ability for us to manually store the stamina into a charge when its full, it still encourage us to come back to the game but also let's us spend the stamina into something we want

[@FeyHunt]

Yes. The better way to do that is to give players more stamina refresh items. That would be immediately useful for sweaty players, and can still be used later by casual players.

[@RurouniHiro]

Still don’t understand the whole over cap stamina curse thing. I don’t grind every day on ZZZ, but I do get the coffee daily. So when I do play it’s a long satisfying session. And I don’t want to treat it like a job or chore.

[@UltraSadPot]

one imbus image spotted, project moon sleeper mode activate

[@FeyHunt]

Haha 😄😄

[@Greenst4rX]

LIMBUSSSS COMPANNNNYY!!

[@Tatar_crazy3110]

PM MENTIONED

[@SuperScoops]

Granblue Fantasy (the gacha) has a stamina system in technicalities only. In practice, the game showers you with hundreds of thousands of AP restoring elixers and berries that it may as well not exist. You can literally farm stages for a whole day and come out of it with more AP than you started with.

[@FeyHunt]

Yeah, I heard a lot of people mention this in the comment section. But they also said that it's an MMORPG masquerading as a gacha game, with some absurd RNG in grinding. Do you agree with that sentiment in your opinion?

[@dyrellius]

​@@FeyHunt From playing Relink, yea it can be super annoying to grind a boss for hours and not get the material you need, especially in the harder endgame content where many runs won't even be successful (looking at you, Lucilius) but it is more satisfying imo. I would rather this kind of system which is more reminiscent of Destiny and Monster Hunter, vs the typical stamina system. It can still take many days or weeks to optimize a build. The difference is you have more agency as a player to pace your grind the way you want i.e I only have free time on the weekend so I can dedicate that time to max efficiency, stamina reserves are a cheap alternative because of reduced stamina generation rate. And the frustration of not being able to use new character for long periods of time builds a lot of frustration until I lose interest in the game. Happens all the time. But I can see there being a lot of frustration in running the same content 100x and getting screwed by RNG.

[@kskr8610]

@@FeyHuntas an ex 6 year player yeah its completely true and gbf serves as the perfect example of what happens when a gacha doesnt have stamina, they just make everything 1000 times grindier to compensate

[@OKIGorgon]

There was one gacha game I know about, that initally didn't have stamina system: Pokemon Masters. It boiled down to having a team capable of autobattling a stage, so you can set it aside while you farm and play something else. Good old days.

[@FeyHunt]

I see! So eventually all returns to stamina system, huh? I guess they saw the numbers of retention going down and decided to implement it. Again proves that stamina system is just the best system for gacha games.

[@HybridShell]

Yeah with the lack of stamina system I find there was no incentive to play further especially if I can play an infinitely to grind. ​@@FeyHunt

[@lumocite9870]

I haven't even watched the video yet, but I know that it is a bad idea from personal experience. 1) If there is no stamina, the game developers will make grinding take longer compared to games with stamina. This is the biggest reason to hate no stamina gachas. 2) Running out of stamina is a nice reminder to stop playing the game and do something else. 3) People who wish for infinite or no stamina at all most likely have nothing better to do than play the game. I used to be someone like that when I was in high school, then real life happened, and I am glad I can quickly do my dailys and dip for the day. Those are 3 reasons off the top of my head of why I dislike no stamina gachas. I will now watch the video and see if some of my thoughts align with yours.

[@FeyHunt]

Congrats! You hit some of the points in the video. I was looking at it from the lens of game designers rather than player perspectives to avoid bias, and offering alternative examples that just don't work. Stamina system is the best system for gacha games, and only gacha games.

[@alexsanderivan6511]

This is just one of the reasons why I see gacha games the way I do: being a gacha doesn't necessarily stop a game from being good, but it DOES stop it from reaching its full potential. Standalone games like Xenoblade 2 or Trails into Reverie already showed you can put RNG-based character-collecting mechanics in an offline manner in a game, recreating that sense of excitement of "What will I get next ?" without the live-service pitfalls. That said, I will commend the ZZZ team, since in every new update, they add more and more ways to reduce the grind and increase your stamina gain. I genuinely think they would completely get rid of this system if they could, but since the company likely wouldn't allow it, they try circumventing it instead

[@FeyHunt]

Yes! I still think that a gacha system in single-player games is terrible. But you're right. Comparing Girls Frontline with XCOM and Genshin Impact with Breath of the Wild is not going to be a productive discussion. Of course, gacha games cater to a wide audience and any hardcore system will be watered down. That's why I think there will NEVER be a souls-like gacha game. Gacha games are great if you set your expectations correctly, considering their budget limitations and update intervals. To me, gacha games are the best single-player live service experience out there... FOR FREE. That's the part that people often miss.

[@DirecDelta]

@@FeyHunt For FREE is right. Why should I pay $70 for a single player game when there exist AAA F2P-friendly gacha games with nearly infinite content available? I only have a limited amount of time to play games after all. I've been playing HSR and ZZZ without spending a dime and I'm having a good time. I spent a bit on Genshin years ago and went F2P afterwards. Looking forward to Arknight Endfield and Ananta as well. The truth is I recently bought Hogwarts Legacy on sale, and although it's a great game, I just don't have enough time for it. RE4 remake is still sitting on the shelf, untouched. Maybe I'm getting old.

[@FeyHunt]

@@DirecDelta Perfectly valid! With gacha games, you just jump in with no commitment. If the game is bad, you leave anytime. Paid games? Not so much. I still have hundreds of games in my Steam library I haven't had time to play hehe... I'm also looking forward to Endfield and Ananta as well!

[@robertlaidlaw4592]

@@DirecDeltabut you never get a complete experience its constant grinding for currency to get the new characters. With a complete game yes it doesn’t have that super addictive quality of new new stuff all the time constant reason to play and grind, but maybe you don’t need new stuff maybe the product was well crafted and designed. I mean gatcha inherently has a hard time with story because they need to save time so they end up just people in a room talking. The only one I’ve played that is trying not to do that is wuwa. But the story’s only good not great.

[@TeintaKukoro]

@@FeyHunt And now i'm thinking of what a Souls-like gacha would be like and what i would do if put in charge on designing one. This will be in my mind for weeks now. Thank you.

[@thetruth3068]

The worst part about Nikke is that they powergate the main story. Most of the time, you will get spoiled about the story because you're not powerful enough to progress, which is awful.

[@FeyHunt]

Do you mean being spoiled because you play other events? Or spoiled from social media?

[@thetruth3068]

@FeyHunt yea, people who can finished the main story first, usually whales, will post the story spoiler in most Nikke group, so if you can't catch up, you will most likely be spoiled of the story.

[@FeyHunt]

@@thetruth3068 Eugh... That's why I never joined any gacha game communities...

[@tismaa1022]

​@thetruth3068 thats why on my discord union there is a spoil chat for story

[@keeichidarow]

The problem with Nikke's grind is the middle of it, because chapter 1~10 is very smooth and upgrading characters is very fast, but then you reach level 100+ and the 160 wall and you're stuck for months, but after you unlock Overload and reach lv 200 the power spike is so big that you can clear the story smoothly again since you will likely have thousands of core dust boxes laying around due to them not being used much before lv200. They did add a lot of ways to mitigate the grind like Dolls which are huge power boosts, cubes and overload lines giving CP, and the new free character selector and pilgrim wishlist which helps new players Break the 160 wall.

[@lpfan4491]

There are already some games that let you play essencially forever because they give you more stamina refills than you can reasonably use up. It makes the games better, but it also easily exposes a good chunk of other designflaws.

[@FeyHunt]

Yes! Usually, they resort to RNG drops to make your grinding less efficient like in Eastern MMOs. I read from other comments that King's Raid did this.

[@daridon2483]

I love how you pretty much said battle cats with this while not directly saying battle cats So many free leaderships it would take forever to burn them all

[@akiraokami]

My first gacha game was Shironeko Project (English version was called Rune Story, english version didn't last very long and also had several differences), the Japanese version of the game has never had a stamina system, what it used to have was that money and exp materials could only be farmed on certain days but over time they stopped limiting that. They also make it so that every single event they've held, except for collab events, can be done over again if you weren't around for the event, or if you didn't manage to finish it on time, they do take a little while before they get added into this system, but it's not particularly long that you have to wait. They also have it so that character copies, instead of you having to get a copy of the same character in order to make the character stronger, they have it so that all copies of any character, even 3 star characters, gets turned into an "ascension" currency that you use to unlock your characters.

[@justjuniorjaw]

Farm > Achieve something > Achieve nothing more > Burnout > Uninstall > Install another gacha. That'll be me.

[@FeyHunt]

@@justjuniorjaw Yeah, I have been in the same boat for a lot of gacha games if they're not appealing enough. I don't mind the grind, as long as the game is pure gold. 😄😄

[@Toonlink003]

I played a browser gacha game called Granblue Fantasy for years a few years ago and i don't know if it changed: it technically had a stamina system, but due to how much stamina/raid items you had it was merely an illusion. back when i played it was extremely grindy, it was mmo-lite, you needed to join raids and win MVP. you needed 6 elemental teams of 6 characters each because there was a PveP event every month or two that had elemental bosses that could only be completed with the correct element, and it was mandatory as the strongest characters in the game were obtained from completing these raids. It was fun while it lasted and was my only mmo-like experience but oh boy i don't want to go back, the fighting game and mh-like full price game were good tho! Now with games like hoyo games it feels like i retired work force and im just on vacation lol

[@justjuniorjaw]

And that's part of the social engineering. It's there to tick your brain that there's a limit, when in reality there isn't.

[@FeyHunt]

Yep, that's the point of the video. All live service games make systems to retain players. If it's not a stamina system, it's gotta be grindy. That's why I said stamina system is the best fit for gacha games. 😄😄

[@setsurayuuki]

@@FeyHunt I won't disagree that Granblue is insanely grindy, but the grind does have a definite end. Once you finish your goals, you can just stop logging in and not have to think about a resource you have to prevent from capping daily. I've played the game this way for 5+ years now and still rank within top 10k in the competitive event described by the commenter above. Although, to be fair, I don't think the presence or absence of a stamina system is a dealbreaker for gachas because it was never the main draw for these games anyway. The characters are and you just kind of have to accept the systems your favorite waifu or husbando is confined in

[@franky6983]

​@@setsurayuukiI agree with this, once you reach a certain power level, you can stop grinding interely and once you clear a certain raid enough times, you can fully skip it now. So the grind is much harder at the beginning but it become much easier once you reach a certain threshold. After that, you can just enjoy the story and collect gacha character. Unlike most other games, you can maxed out your new characters within the minutes in Granblue Fantasy

[@lemiru]

Well, there is one recent gacha game that doesn't have a stamima system. It's Wizardry Variants Daphne. Instead of stamina, each character (except for a player character) has something called "fortitude" which is decreased when they die or you fall into traps and it affects the chances to revive said characters if they fall in battle. Besides that there is also a mechanic that you can rewind right before the battle in which player character died, but it has 3 charges and one charge takes 2 hours to recharge. Which means if you play carefully you don't have to worry about getting stopped for not having enough "stamina"

[@FeyHunt]

@@lemiru Huh... is that a whole game-wide mechanic? Or just a level-wide mechanic?

[@lemiru]

@@FeyHunt Game wide. I also realised that i forgot to mention that fortitude also regenerates with time if it gets decreased by something

[@FeyHunt]

@@lemiru Well, then... I think that's just stamina with extra steps, no? Instead of having a game-wide stamina, you have stamina for each character. So if one character run out of stamina, you can still play with other characters. An interesting system, regardless! That does incentivize the player to pull for different characters to have more playtime. But I don't know if that would work for a mainstream gacha game, since everyone seems to have their "main" these days. And hopefully, the grinding to level up your characters are not that painful...

[@lemiru]

@@FeyHunt The thing is, the fortitude decreases are almost entirely avoidable if you are careful (at least in main dungeons) so it's not difficult for your characters to never run out of it. Another thing is that even if you run out of it on a character, you still can use it, you just run a risk of not being able to revive said character. As for leveling characters, well I'll admit, it can take a while but probably even more time consuming would be equipment grinding if you want to get the best gear possible as it's basically just gacha, except you can infinitely farm pulls from random chests and enemies (and they have both quality and amount of random stats different between different pulls)

[@oldsoulbiz3526]

We should compare gacha games to real non-gacha F2P live service games. What you will find is that the only successful F2P online non-gacha games are competitive games, because the players themselves are the content. It's why MMOs have mostly lost their luster since the only way they can survive is by making long, drawn out grindy content. The short answer is that there is NO company in the world that can keep making new PvE content consistently enough to keep players playing without them running out of content at some point. That's why competitive games are the only ones that can do that. Stamina system is indeed a necessary evil, but people who enjoy the game don't care about it anyways because they want to stick around regardless since new content is guaranteed to come out on a regular basis.

[@FeyHunt]

Perfectly summarized! Fortnite reportedly makes about 300 million per month, which is far above the best banners in any gacha game these days. So that's exactly why they don't need stamina system. Nowadays, I can't play multiplayer games due to how sweaty and unsatisfying it is. So I can be content with stamina system.

[@oldsoulbiz3526]

@@FeyHunt The only other games besides gachas that I get any satisfaction out of are competitive games. But that's definitely not for everyone.

[@WazeAr]

Infinity Nikki: Hey...

[@FeyHunt]

@@WazeAr I heard that game has just released on PC on Epic. Is it good? What's it all about? Specifically about the stamina.

[@WazeAr]

@@FeyHunt It's good, a dress-up game. Regarding Stamina, yup... it doesn't have it, but it was more of a time-gate system. They have Daily, and it's called Wishes. Max you can collect is only 500/day. This Wishes level will determine your "stylist" level. Stylist level will impact story. But even though it was time-gated, once you reach max stylist level, it means no more stamina systems, right? Nothing will lock you behind the upcoming story. Since it was open-world, you can consider it the same as GI and WuWa. But the grinding is more towards crafting the clothes. But once you craft, you can focus on other stuff. Like, no need to craft the same clothes again and again. "If you already get the artifact, no need get it again" Clothes will be used to battle stylists in the region, like Pokémon gym masters but with clothes. I don't know how to explain in detail. But the game more like crafting artifact or pulling artifact. Speaking about pulling, basically you can have "S rank" items in 20 pulls. Give it a try. Skipping story is fine, but enjoying it just feels immersive. A day or Two is enough for you to enjoy and make content of it.

[@FeyHunt]

@@WazeAr I see! I don't usually enjoy a dress-up game. Do you still recommend it to players like me? How about the combat? Is it good?

[@WazeAr]

@@FeyHunt combat are simple. If compare with LnD (Love and Deepspace), LnD are much better. Nikki more to explorations and puzzle.

[@FeyHunt]

@@WazeAr Huh, I think I'll try it out sometime!

[@firstorderblade4432]

I think it should regenerate faster, but it’s still necessary

[@FeyHunt]

Yes! And I think they've been listening since most gacha games these days are giving you plenty of stamina refresh items to use. Of course, they can also boost the drop rates of the items we grind for and make it less RNG...

[@firstorderblade4432]

@@FeyHunt 100% i think they should at least make ether batteries more available, or drop the cost of using polychrome to buy battery charge, because 150-200 polychrome for 60 battery is kinda scam, but i am fine with the system as is

[@FeyHunt]

@@firstorderblade4432 Those stamina inflation really hits us hard, eh? Back when I was playing Genshin, artifact grinding used to cost 40 resin with 160 cap. Now in ZZZ, it's 60 battery with 240 battery cap! Same thing, bigger numbers! They really should add more batteries in as battlepass reward. Or event rewards. That way, players who are grinding a lot get to grind, and players who don't usually grind can store them up when they need it.

[@animeturnMMD]

Answering the question in the preview image of the video: without stamina system, world peace would be achieved and humanity will enter and new age of Utopia.

[@sergionery5053]

8:44 as a lvl 482 in Nikke the Combat power Numbers are irrelevant if u know the mechanics right now im fighting in stages that requires 1.3 million CP and I barely have Half of the “required” CP… and in still pushing Hard content (chapter 32 HardMode currently), also when I was a Low level commander I got most of my legendary Gear from the Outpost which generates resources and gear every minute after lvl 144 in the Outpost u generate legendary Gear. U might not know it since U must be super low level and haven’t progressed much in Nikke.

[@FrezASH5]

You missed an important part, new players will not have max LB pilgrims with full overload gear, you should expect them to have 0 LB with tier 9 gear at best overload gears, cubes, and dolls significantly increase nikke performance but not the CP itself thus you can clear those level even if you're extremely underpowered while newer player heavily relies on recommended CP. You can't out-dps CP requirement because dmg reduction penalty on not fully geared nikke is significant thus the dps check that's why the game get snowballed after your nikke's are fully geared because you can out-dps the CP requirement, it's just the raptures that gonna be hitting harder which actually make the game fun but somehow they didn't implement this from the starts

[@SoulWhiteAngel]

​@@FrezASH5 yea i tried the game twice, once from the start and 1 time at 1 year anni. Hated it both times and was blocked from finishing all the story even 6 months later (crown release i think) even with a LB +3 red hood. Drops for pilgrim gear was awful and half the bosses to farm gear i couldnt kill till that 6th month. And this was daily grinding and help from others. I made no progress. I promptly quit around the rezero collab.

[@keeichidarow]

​@@FrezASH5Cubes and Dolls DO increase combat power tho, same with OL lines

[@keeichidarow]

​@@FrezASH5They also added a lot of new features to help new players, like the free Alice with full manufacturer gear, SR doll and upgrade mats by doing quests like the free privaty event, the guaranteed Liter, Naga or Alice selector every 100 standard pulls up to 6 times which helps with MLB and the 160 wall as well as the new pilgrim wishlist

[@FrezASH5]

@@keeichidarow sorry my wording was off, I meant it boost the nikke themselves rather than increasing their CP example, equip resilience cube(increase reload speed) on Scarlet increase her CP by 10k and boost her performance by 10%. In late game where average CP is 500k, 10k(2%) increase is negligible but that 10% performance boost is game changing, it's like a hidden 50k CP increase that's why if your squad is fully build + right synergy you can challange a level with way higher recommended CP until the penalty is unbearable (yes dps check still exist) and dw, Im aware with those qol so that's neat

[@PorinaAdventures]

There's two possible systems I think that could be explored. 1, Increase the cap so you don't have to use it daily. I know, they want you to log in daily, but if the cap were say a week's worth, you could binge on the weekend rather than forcing yourself to log in every day whether you want to or not. Progress rate would still be limited by regen. 2, Without stamina, the alternative could be boosted drops each day (or some other period) that, once consumed, would significantly lower the reward rate. So you could grind forever if you wanted to, but for most it simply wouldn't be worth it.

[@FeyHunt]

Yes, a lot of people in the comment section recommended some variation of these. But it would only be in the interest of the playerbase, not the devs. 1. The dev definitely still want you to log in daily to have those sweet DAU (Daily Active User) data, among other things. I still think that giving the players more stamina refresh items works better. Sweaty players can use those immediately to grind, while casuals can store them until they need it. 2. This is similar to the limited drops I talked about in the video for NIKKE and GFL, and it runs into the exact same problem of having "infinite grind", which will make it a nightmare for the devs to balance the difficulty. Are you going to balance the game for those who grind? Then the players who don't grind will suffer. Are you going to balance the game for those who don't grind? Then the players who grind will find the game boring and lacking in challenge. They are more likely to leave.

[@PorinaAdventures]

@@FeyHunt I think devs are waking up to the fact that most players can't daily log into many games, gacha or otherwise. We see others outside gacha realm implement daily incentives too. If you can't make your game that unmissable one, it may still be preferable to get occasional players than not at all. In HSR and ZZZ they have implemented a secondary stamina store. When the main one is full, the secondary one fills at a reduced rate. So it isn't totally wasted but not optimal. Daily goals haven't gone away, but there is a growing shift to weekly or milestone ones. The question of grind and balance is a bit wider. Already there can be a substantial power gap between fp2 and whales who can steamroll everything. I don't have the answer, but it can't be good right now we have the situation where there may be days where I want to do more but can't, and there are days I don't really want to but feel I have to in order to maximise my progress. As a player, I can only watch and see how games evolve in this space.

[@keeichidarow]

2 is basically what Wuthering Waves does with Echoes (artifacts) you can get echoes from Tacet Fields which costs stamina and for bosses you have a weekly 15 guaranteed echo drops when you kill the boss, but you can also just go around the overworld and kill mobs to grind echoes infinitely if you want to. Upgrading them is still locked behind exp items and tuners tho, but the game gives them out like candy in basically every single event so you only really run out if you're hard-core grinding for the absolute best set. You can also farm basic upgrade mats from monsters in the overworld.

[@leesasuki]

great video, personally I do love to wait to consume more gacha game content Stamina is just an easier way to tell player that "you played too much", plus it is a good way to waste players money if they don't want to wait (a lot of TW and JP players do this at the start btw). I like how you talk about quick daily in gacha, because that's not the case at all back in the day. The game demand you to at least spend an hour and more in the game per day (using daily, stamina consumption, long match etc) which is also the reason why I didn't play any of them except one. Maybe I'm wrong but surprisingly, it seems like Mihoyo is the one who bring this "game-life balance" into the gacha world.

[@FeyHunt]

Thank you! Tech otaku save the world! Hoyo did a lot of things I don't like, but they do revolutionize gacha games to be a quick game to chill. Gacha games are evolving at a massive rate. I can't believe that Genshin's system feels ancient when compared to recent gacha games like ZZZ and WuWa. And we'll get more gacha games next year! What a time to be alive!

[@PowerOfTheAsian]

If you want to know what it's like for a gacha game to not have a stamina system, you can turn to GBF for that. GBF, while it does have a stamina system, effectively gives out so many stamina refills that it's infinite. The downside: you get MMO levels of grinding for loot. Imagine having to clear the same raid a hundred times or more just to upgrade a piece of equipment or character, not to mention they can be as fast as literal seconds (due to many players just hitting it too fast) or minutes or even the entire duration of the raid (due to low demand). And 100 isn't even high. you get people who do thousands of the same raid in a day.

[@FeyHunt]

Yep, that exactly proves my point in the video. A lot of people also agree with you in this comment section. You either have a stamina system or an endless grind.

[@Maki_Tsuki]

I believe that ZZZ is one of best games in term of balance on content from what I have seen. Yes most content are locked behind either level or waiting on a timer. For example the story can be pretty much played without having to wait for energy, there are enough stuff to do to get enough level to start the next story in the same day. I played ZZZ for pretty much 2 weeks straight and I never needed to wait for energy. The only thing I'm waiting for now is new story which takes about 2 months.

[@FeyHunt]

My only problem is that their combat events got boring after a while. It doesn't feel any different from one another. If only we have a solo roguelike event, that would be interesting!

[@Maki_Tsuki]

@@FeyHunt isn't that what lost void is supposed to be.

[@FeyHunt]

@@Maki_Tsuki Lost Void is still team-based experience. Yes, the main character has a little buff here and there, but it's still the same combo loop. Plus, the buff variations are subpar when compared to other gacha game roguelikes. In short, I find it boring.

[@Maki_Tsuki]

@@FeyHunt yeah it lack in variation, same boss which I thought was odd. Probably a placeholder until whatever it was that was part of the mission is done.

[@luisfernandosalvionelopes5579]

megaman x dive online was a gacha, now is offline with no stamina system but pay to have access to the game and when in game there is nothing stoping you to gring and max level any caracter you obtain as far i know.

[@FeyHunt]

@@luisfernandosalvionelopes5579 That's awesome! I wish more gacha game companies do this. They already got a lot in live service. Why erase the game when you can re-release it as a single player experience? Sadly, I can only trust 2 companies to do that right now: MICA (Girls Frontline) and Project Moon (Limbus Company). MICA has hinted that GFL 1 will be rereleased as single player experience later.

[@jaygarric4027]

Seeing the one limbus image gave me joy.

[@FeyHunt]

Haha, I wish I could like Limbus more... But it's one gacha game that I can't get into even if I force myself into it, just like Honkai Star Rail.

[@DaiPai1777]

interesting video! one game that had a stamina system even though it basically didn't was king's raid. while there was a stamina system, you gained stamina so easily via daily/weekly/monthly shops selling potions for in game currency and missions, while spending stamina so slowly on average, that it was easy for even f2p players to gain literally hundreds of THOUSANDS of stamina of potions in stockpile. it got to the point that the game had to release a dispatch system in which you could send up to 3 teams on 100 battles each while you were offline to make you be able to burn through all of it, as the only reasonable way to really run out of stamina is by legit afk repeat battle farming for up to multiple days in a row non-stop on secondary phone or emulator. that being said king's raid did many weird things, it was not a character gacha as you could obtain any unit you wanted completely for free in 2-3 weeks from a hero recruitment/bond system, and instead the gacha was for signature weapons/gear that could only be equipped on the characters, but they were also farmable in game and were dropped like candy somewhat as you went on, however the most controversial thing as the "balancing" factor for the generosity was that the way to enhance the gear in the game(both normal and signature gear) was with an mmo style system where as you starred up the gear it had a lower and lower chance to succeed in upgrading next time. however however, you could increase the success rate all the way back up to 100% by using more dupes on a single try. so while it could be really expensive dupe wise to guarentee 100% all the way to max dupe(5*) with 32 copies of the gear in total, if you gambled you could get a 5 star weapon in as little as 6-8 copies, so in a sense that was kind of the real gacha that was optional to take on. the game went to absolute shit within a single update and killed off a solid 80%+ of the playerbase and also made the company go bankrupt. its still running but a shell of its former self and there hasn't been any events in over 3-4 years now. i stopped playing it around 2021, and i remember having over 5 million stamina before i quit lol

[@FeyHunt]

Thanks for the breakdown! It seems that game kinda borrows a lot from the 2010s flash MMORPGs on Facebook. They still do limit your content by gacha RNG, where your content is on grinding to get those dupes weapons. Back when I was younger, I used to play tons of those Facebook MMO games. They have that kind of enchanting system with a success rate that goes down as your enchantment level goes higher. At around level 8, the rate of success is only about 10%, so you're incentivized to either get a lot of gems or buy a "guarantee item" in their cash shop. I'm glad to say that I never once get tempted to pull out my wallet 😄😄 I don't know if the system in King's Raid is that similar, though...

[@ericpratt984]

6:34 "You're not supposed to spend 3 hours coordinating with spreadsheets with 20 other players just for a chance to get a good gear." A chance?

[@FeyHunt]

Yes, that's how MMORPGs raid dungeon works. Plus, you need to do it multiple times until everyone in your guild gets the same gear. And every time, you need to craft enough resources like potions to even have a chance beating a dungeon. But these days, it's getting a bit easier since MMOs are more single-player focussed.

[@raikanjen8043]

This stamina sistem saves me from grinding 24/7 my friend

[@FeyHunt]

Oh definitely! That's the whole point of the video. Yes, some people hated stamina system, but it's actually a necessary evil.

[@detoxloop]

i think those gfl issues comes only at early stages of the game. i remember how i've been grinding it 24\7. you can lvlup char by doing some steps, like start a mission with spending resouses only on 1 doll which gonna solo it and restart. lategame leaderboards required not only player skill, but a huge amount of maxed out echelons, building which takes hell of a grind. also lots of chars could be obtained by the end of a mission. but i dropped it by the time heavy timegates started to come in so my opinion is on ~2018 game state

[@FeyHunt]

@@detoxloop Yep, I'm feeling much better about it right now as I enter chapter 5. I do enjoy its take of "tactical" combat. And I piled up 50K resources right now. But I really don't like their sudden spike of difficulty and DPS without proper tutorials. Logistics are not something the game tell you to do. The first time I look at Logistics, I thought those are for farming permits in exchange for your resources. Nope, you actually get both. Hopefully the issue never appeared again. But since you said "heavy timegates" appear later on, I think it may appear again later 😀😀

[@kaptinkitten3683]

Imagine having 7 years worth of stamina refreshers that you never use. You irl stamina wouldn't last and my brain can't handle using them. It's only in the triple digits, it's fine not using them right?

[@FeyHunt]

🤣🤣 Well, the premise would change dramatically. The hope is that by giving players the freedom to spend their time, they will opt to regulate themselves. But, we do know that's very unlikely. Most will burn out rather quickly and then complain that the game is grindy.

[@albedo195]

I think Honkai star rail raising the cap of stamina to 3000 for players who just stop playing for a while and when we come we have 3000 stamina to use wherever we want is a pretty good mechanic

[@FeyHunt]

Absolutely! It does help ease up the problem, but not a complete fix. But it's still the best solution we had by far. That and the dev constantly giving free stamina refresh generously.

[@SBimon155]

I feel like the best thing a gacha game can do is a stamina system but being generous with storable refills so that if you want to make some long grind session from time to time you can do that. I've never played a game that did this to that extend but I would really enjoy it when a game gave around 20% of the daily stamina in a form that can be used later. Like for example if the daily coffe in ZZZ would be replaced by a daily free ether battery.

[@FeyHunt]

Genshin actually has a unique storage system where you can craft "stamina battery" to be used later. So on days where you're very busy, you can just login for 1 minute to do the daily mission and then craft the 3 "condensed resin" and then log out. The catch is that you only got max 5 resin at most, and that it requires some crafting material you need to gather. But this does mean that you can play only 4/7 days or even 3/7 days in a week. ZZZ and HSR have a different system for overflowing stamina storage. I doubt that they'll implement Genshin's resin in the game.

[@soulfire7860]

@@FeyHunt There is some neat spots to farm those crafting materials which if you know about means you just need to check in every once in a while to get. I think it's enough for 6 crafts every 12 hours. Ran out? Just go get some and you will also probably have a surplus. Max 5 is a issue tho i guess. ZZZ is better in terms of consumption, you can easily consume 100 at a time, in addition with coffee stamina you get 300 stamina per day which can be easily used in 3 runs if need be.

[@seanxhunter77]

0:00 "If have played multiple gacha games, you will find one common feature among them. And that is the Stamina System", meanwhile MMORPGs: "If you have played multiple MMORPGs, you will find this feature to be quite the norm"

[@FeyHunt]

Oh, so all MMORPGs use stamina system too these days? I guess it proves how alluring stamina system can be.

[@seanxhunter77]

@FeyHunt unless there are some exceptions

[@carlosdeandres4774]

I only like genshin's cause it only slows down grinding, but lets you freely do quests of any kind

[@FeyHunt]

Yes, and that formula has been implemented in all Hoyo games since then. ZZZ and HSR and also Wuthering Waves.

[@carlosdeandres4774]

@FeyHunt WuWa isn't from mihoyo

[@FeyHunt]

@carlosdeandres4774 I know

[@smittenmittens1364]

I think the system is fine cause it prevents us from no-lifeing the game when none of us should be cause it just isn't healthy.

[@FeyHunt]

Yep! That's a part of it!

[@BaalSilverwing]

Before you start reading this, keep in mind this is MOSTLY about Genshin. Nikke doesn't have a stamina system for example but it has daily content, while HSR has stamina, but Nikke and HSR share one thing in common: autobattle. Genshin requires me to manually play through content I can easily clear so I don't see a reason to do pointless runs of repetitive actions when there could be a quick-clear system to do it for me. Now for the actual reasoning I log in daily but I don't really use up my stamina, I'm already forced to do chores for gems that I still tolerate but you will NOT force me to grind pointlessly. Let it be capped, who cares? Those materials are not going away, you'll just have to rush it and wait when the time for farming comes (new characters, new weapons), or I just prepare beforehand when I have the motivation to play. Some people set up farming routines which is great but I'd rather spend that time on game that I actually want to play, not a game that is using stamina as a threat to make me play. I'm aware many people will find my mindset confusing but I don't want to start hating game I enjoy just because stamina forces me to do repetitive grindy battles.

[@FeyHunt]

I totally get you! I didn't go that far with ignoring stamina entirely, but I just don't engage with late game weekly content in any gacha game, like Spiral Abyss. It's just not fun doing the same thing over and over like a chore. I would rather spend time reading stories in other games. Autobattle is just weird for me. Why not make it easy-wipe instead? Luckily, a lot of modern gacha games these days have implemented that feature. It saves a lot of time and boredom.

[@asafpm8196]

I think you could've talked about fire emblem heroes. this game has a stamina system that's basically just inexistent with how much stamina refills you get

[@FeyHunt]

@@asafpm8196 Well, I made it my policy to not talk about systems or stories on games I haven't played yet. I don't want a "he said, they said" type of argument from my mouth. It has to be from a personal experience. But yes, a lot of people pointed out that there are some gacha games that give you plenty of stamina... But this quickly turn into a grindfest with a lot of bad RNG drops to compensate. Is that the case in FGO?

[@asafpm8196]

@@FeyHunt Well I was talking about feh not fgo but yeah, it is the case in fgo. Most stuff in this game has an insanely low drop rate so much so that even with how much stamina they give you you can run out of it easily. Some materials are also time gated for higher drops, and if you really want to not have to grind too much you'll have to wait for events such as the christmas event that has "generous" drop rate. Most events aside of the chrismas-like events have a shop where you can grind currency and purchase materials for your character, but the thing is, those events don't even give the materials you need for the NEW CHARACTER ON THE BANNER. Like, wtf? With feh however it's very different, you only grind for levels and sp that let's you level up skill points. Some events are also a bit grindy, but it's nothing too bad. The only real grind you have to do it getting the new characters so you can get the new powerful skills, but the game is pretty generous in terms of gacha imo

[@FeyHunt]

@@asafpm8196 Oh really? That's a very rare thing to hear. Is it still going strong? I had a few exposure with the story, and I get the impression that the writing is average or lower than mainline FE games. Oh, and I think my brain was having short circuit. I see FE as FGO. That tends to happen when I'm replying to 50 comments a day 😂😂

[@asafpm8196]

@@FeyHunt Lmao, that's fine. I think the game makes a couple of millions a month according to sensor tower, so it's doing decent. The main "hard mode" of the game is aether raids, a game mode where you make your defense map and try beating other's defense my with your attack setup. you're only allowed to do a couple of games per day, so I guess you can say that's where the main stamina system is. but aether raids is mainly just for people who want to compete for fan. most of the rewards are just for show.

[@hiirozero3623]

1:28 well, late game honkai have so little to do that my stamina capped to it limit, and my inventory have thousand of stamina items

[@FeyHunt]

Honkai Impact 3rd is a bit of a weird game where they just gave up on retaining players with stamina entirely. Because it has no artifact to grind, and once you leveled up your Valkyries to max, there's nothing else you can do beyond doing your dailies in APHO and such. And I kinda like it. They did try to do roguelike events in Elysian Realm, but I can't say that is successful. I think at this point, they're just trying to appease old players more than new players. And... it's understandable why they don't get much players these days. People just left because they have nothing else to do.

[@hiirozero3623]

@FeyHunt honkai impact is kind of interesting. The first couple 20 chapter require alot of stamina to conplete, and then there are apho, apho 2, open world mission. But then you reach late game and stamina become almost useless. The game have many good thing but the fact that it story content run out so fast, the game also change meta too fast. Only good thing about the game is it minigame event and somewhat good story. me personally i stay because i want to see how the story end, the momment everything end i will quit.

[@FeyHunt]

@@hiirozero3623 Yeah, I think post Chapter 20, they kinda shift to appeasing the current playerbase so they won't leave. I don't know how their gambit works on Part 2, since they're trying to attract new audiences. But at that point, I had already checked out.

[@Facepalm-Guy]

In GFL 2, you still need stamina for equipment but the Hard mode in the story doesn't use it. It's a good balance of having players still use their Gacha units whenever they want while locking equipment behind stamina. This is because unless you whale, there comes a point in the Hard mode story where you can't one shot enemies anymore.

[@FeyHunt]

Yep, still exactly the same system with compromise. But I still can't get behind their random substats weapon attachments.

[@brian9a331]

Many old gacha games just don't have stamina or gave players mountains amount of stamina, and their players r gacha gamers aka no "tourists". As far as i was observing/can remember, they lasted 3 years on average.

[@FeyHunt]

That sort of checks out for me as well, even on modern gacha games. Mostly because they either EOS-ed or I got bored with their writing. As far as my sources tell me, gacha game stamina is a relatively recent addition. Around 6-7 years ago when gacha games went from a "random 5-minute session" to a "dedicated game time". Mostly when they started to have stories.

[@cyrnogen]

The stamina system was made to regulate progress and incentivize the habit with rewards for being optimal on your resource management. It moulds you to dedicate yourself even for a short amount to the game everyday. Without it, players would just eventually automate farming, and you're no longer even playing the game at that point.

[@FeyHunt]

Yep! You would be surprised at how many people in this comment section would rather grind for hours. I really don't get that.

[@cyrnogen]

@FeyHunt I used to do that on Epic 7, spent 8 - 16 hours everyday to points where I'd put my phone in the fridge for overheating. Burnout was devastating. Now I play 3 gacha games, but just to have fun and no longer compete

[@EXXIONN516]

Really liked your storytelling analysis. Hope you can do a video for the 1.4 main quest of ZZZ

[@FeyHunt]

Stay tuned! I gotta finish GFL 2 first, then I'll go catch up with ZZZ. I should have more time soon. Thank you for the support and kind words!

[@tootkoro]

I think it’d be sick if they release like a mini event for a 2-3 day period where there ARE no limits, just an idea LOL

[@FeyHunt]

@@tootkoro Oof, I immediately feel bad for the overworked game designers already 😂😂

[@koranichijou25]

Granblue Fantasy also has a stamina system. But, they gave you so many stamina recovery items, basically making you have unlimited stamina. Most High Level players can spend so many hours just to grind materials, weapons, or obtain characters they want without worry of not enough stamina. It really a grindy and time-consuming game and not so new player friendly, cause most of the good contents are placed at high level (level >100).

[@FeyHunt]

Ooof... Yeah, so it's basically an MMO in disguise. Not everyone's cup of tea due to the grinding.

[@GabrielSantos-el4ir]

Brah true, i want replayable content that gives you reward without using stamina

[@FeyHunt]

That's supposed to be the roguelike modes in these gacha games. But I find it a bit of a hit or miss...

[@nathanlamaire]

One gacha game that comes into my mind that doesn't use stamina system (sort of) is Sdorica. It limits times you can grind for upgrade resources per day so you don't need to keep track with stamina recharge. Plus it doesn't do DPS-check in story mode and most events. I used to love this game until everything went downhill two years prior.

[@FeyHunt]

I keep hearing Sdorica mentioned in this comment section. What happened to it?

[@h0ll0w0ne]

I don't mind stamina systems per se but I do mind the over reliance on making me grind 15 different types of materials, often for the same purpose. Like, take ZZZ for example. I love that game but Is it REALLY necessary to separate the agent level cap increase items into different categories like attack, support, etc. Just make it 1 thing and let me level who I want. There isn't even any obstacle to getting the one I need. just go to HOA and pick the one I want so it really only serves to bloat my inventory. This also applies to W-engine level cap items and skill increase items. It feels like they are making things needlessly complicated to foster confusion in the hopes I'll make a mistake and waste my energy and resources, thus forcing to grind even more. This could really be all streamlined with next to 0 impact on the companies profit margin or player retention.

[@FeyHunt]

HOA as in Homeowner's Association? 😂😂 But yes, you do have a point. I haven't looked into it yet, but I think there's a reason for it since EVERY gacha game uses the same varied level-up materials. One is to waste your time, and two is for providing varied challenges for different characters in their grinding levels. This problem can somewhat be reduced if a gacha game allowed "transmutation" system to convert materials, like in WuWa or HSR.

[@h0ll0w0ne]

@@FeyHunt Ya, typo. lol But that's the thing, if the different mats required different challenges to gather. I could get behind that but in the case of ZZZ, they don't. It's all the same. Go to the HIA (or notorious hunt) and fight some easy, recycled, mobs. There is really no point to separating them at all. You can't even increase the challenge for more rewards, at least the rewards that matter. To be frank, ZZZ could use some more variety overall to begin with. I love the gameplay but I feel the devs are really not making the most of it. All the high level content boils down to a DPS check. Deadly assault could've been a welcome change but it is also just a DPS check, with a twist. Lost Void is a step in the right direction but is currently very undercooked with only 3 characters having special gear. IMO, All the ingredients are there, they just need to be used. Shiyu for DPS checks, Deadly Assault for skill checks, just put a greater emphasis on the bonus objectives and the Tower for overall challenging encounters, just you know, refresh the damn thing every other week instead of just letting stay there, uselessly. The removal of the TV arrays is going to make that even worst now. Those could be used for fun puzzle challenges. Yes, I am one the few who enjoyed those. Anyway. I don't want to say the game is bad, it's actually really good but these are the things I would like to see changed to bring it to an even higher level. Rant over. 😅

[@FeyHunt]

@@h0ll0w0ne Yeah! I'm so with you on this one! ZZZ combat just feels exhausting... because it's just the same thing again and again! Sure they added some bells and whistles with minor buffs here and there, but it's boring! And then, they remove TV Mode now? Even worse! I wish the new roguelike was just one character focused on dodging and attacking with crazy OP buffs. But this one is just the SAME THING AGAIN! This, combined with the declining story quality and pacing just really burned me out... There will be a video about it soon.

[@yearslate9349]

I've been discussing this topic with a friend recently as I've gone deeper down the gacha well, so this was very timely. On a side-note, Chaos Zero Nightmare is an upcoming roguelite RPG gacha. I agree strongly with your sentiment that a stand-alone roguelite gacha wouldn't do well, but I'm intrigued all the same, so we will see. While it's important for these games to not take too long to do daily tasks, I also find that if there's no amount of effort required or anything to make you admire your progression, these games can quickly grow tedious. Auto-clear, for as beloved as it is by most players, is the bane of my existence. The only game I've played with an auto-clear I've been happy with is Punishing: Gray Raven, which unifies most grinding into a single stage that gives a tradable shop currency. No need to check your storehouse and see what materials you are short on before you go throw your stamina at the auto-clear. I'm also a big fan of Arknights auto-deploy, which lets you watch replays of your clears and appreciate how you did them. Much better than letting the AI auto-play for you.

[@FeyHunt]

@@yearslate9349 Hey, thanks for the food for the recommendation! Chaos Zero Nightmare, eh? I will have to check it out next. My main gripes with Arknights auto-play is just that it's really time consuming when you do 1-7 on repeat. I wish they act more like Reverse 1999, where their autoplay only plays once for a 4x the reward. Plus, unlike R1999, Arknights CAN make a mistake in its replay. 🤔🤔

[@yearslate9349]

@@FeyHunt I think your gripe with Arknights auto-play is valid! But despite it being faulty, I've always found it as additional motivation for me to tighten my clears up. That doesn't excuse it though.

[@almightyrasen]

i think it’d benefit if they half the consumption costs of energy, especially in zenless,since it’s my main, 100 to 50, 60 to 30, or like a few comments ive seen boost the items gained, and..denny drops need to be increased…by a lot

[@FeyHunt]

Yep! And just make grinding discs easier to do. I hate substats grinding.

[@j-frame]

most game with stamina only made me quit but a game without stamina will get me hook for a long time.

[@FeyHunt]

Interesting! Which games are those? And which ones you play on the regular?

[@miguiREC]

Wuthering Waves could have a good "no stamina" system if the devs wanted it. - They could increase the chance of getting echoes in the overworld and make them drop echo exp. - They could make each area of the game have enemies with different levels with each dropping more and more character exp so you could level up your character without having to farm the "character exp dungeon". - They could make it so different enemies drop materials for leveling up your weapons so the game wouldn't need a "weapon exp dungeon" -- This would also need to change how the weapon leveling works to be less annoying. For example you could need only said material and money to level the weapon up and make the max weapon level be 10 or something like that (with lvl 1 needing 5 materials, lvl 2 needing 10 and so on). - They could make the bosses drop the materials needed for leveling up character skills - With all these changes they could make the weekly bosses harder and make them an endgame mode serving only to get more gems to for the gacha system. Anyways, I know this would make it the most different gacha game there is but I don't think it would be a bad thing, maybe it would push away some of the gacha players but it would atract the attention of RPG players, MMO players and Souls-game players making it more atractive to the more mainstream gamers too.

[@FeyHunt]

I agree! To be fair, they already adapted tons of MMO-influence in their designs, like how every quest chain led you to a new region, forcing you to explore the story in that area. I think they just need to make Echoes be usable for level up, and we'll be golden.

[@someonewhospams0w0inchat16]

Lol I thought you we're ongbal 😂

[@AgataGaming]

If there's no stamina in a gacha game, I don't think there will be any different, for me at least. "People will grind 24 hour for eq, artifact, etc and they will be bored and leave the game". bro you need help if this is the first things that come in mind when stamina system is gone. Yes there will be people that do that, and just like what I say, they need help. Normally people will only grind whenever they have time, because there is no urgency in the PVE gacha game ( I play WuWa and HSR ). There is no competition in these games, as long as I can finish the story and event than everything is ok. Stamina system is there just to make a FOMO for a player, and a quick cash grab for a whale. If you think "I rather play 1 hour everyday then grind non stop" then you need to read the word everyday in that sentence, that's what a FOMO is. I rather choose to log in and grind whenever I want than forced to log in everyday and feeling guilty when I miss it.

[@FeyHunt]

Haha, you missed the part where some people have nothing else to do with their lives. For some people, their favorite gacha game is all there is to them. If they can grind infinitely, they will. And some would burn out. This is what game developers do "to protect players from themselves". Of course, entirely for profit. But it's statistically better for gacha game players to stick around on a slow burn than burn bright and gone out immediately.

[@AgataGaming]

@@FeyHunt Nope, I don't miss that part, I already said "Yes there will be people that do that" referring to grind 24hour and like you said "Some people", like 10 or 20% of the player ? So yeah I do think it won't make any different. Genuine question for gacha gamers, why do you play gacha game ? For me like I said, I like the characters and sometimes the story.

[@FeyHunt]

@@AgataGaming Character, story, the world, the vibe, the gameplay, or just because it's free. Everyone is different. I'm just saying that to clarify. Some statements may be true to you. But it can differ wildly from person to person.

[@PixelleHearts]

Destiny Rising already did this in their Alpha. Their "stamina" system is called Pinnacle Power, which is already like how Destiny 2 operates on its weekly milestones, except instead of the pinnacle rewards being tied to singular completions of those milestones independently of each other on a weekly refresh, you can use your Pinnacle Power to selectively choose which activity you want to run instead of doing things like you wouldn't want to do for the week (ex. A dungeon you don't want to run in Destiny 2 is the weekly rotator for pinnacle so you basically lose out on a pinnacle reward VS Destiny Rising lets you use your pinnacle points anywhere... and then once you claim the reward you can just keep spending more points until you are out... and then you can do them still without stamina, but with reduced payout). Netease made it a point to try to onboard concurrent Destiny 2 players onto their new mobilized game in Destiny Rising, so they already knew people would want to play their game for hours on end sorta like how they do in the titular, proper game. From what I've heard, people aren't really all that bothered with how it operates because it essentially evens out to the same pacing as the original game series but expects you to play more on a daily basis than on a weekly one.

[@FeyHunt]

Wait, is Destiny Rising the new sequel to Destiny 2? Is that why they're rushing to wrap that light story arc? Is the new game promising?

[@tilletnans7795]

From what I can remember, SAO MD (memory defrag) didn’t have any stamina. And the first 10*pull where half price for each banner.

[@FeyHunt]

Yes, I did hear this from other commenters. I heard it does have RNG for its loot-drops and the game was killed by terrible managements by the dev.

[@BurstFlare]

I play an MMO that has a stamina system, but it's different from Gacha games. It doesn't fill up over time, but instead resets at a specific time each day or when your character's level increases (each of your characters have separate stamina). It's only for PvE content, though. Also, while individual characters have a level cap, characters who reach the cap can still gain EXP, but for a system that benefits the *entire* account (even characters who don't reach the cap can benefit from it, but they can't gain EXP for it).

[@FeyHunt]

Interesting! What is the name of the game?

[@BurstFlare]

@@FeyHunt Elsword

[@Hambs23]

So to avoid artificial time-gating they implement artificial time-gating. Alright, makes sense to me. But to be real, I think every gacha game is made worse because of the gacha itself. It's like the whole game needs to circle back to it in order to function. - Gameplay is simplified because there's too many characters and it would be a mess to develop complex unique systems for all of them. - Story often feels unfocused so every character gets screen time. - Time-gate and bs upgrade RNG to keep player retention. - Predatory monetization. - Drip-fed content release since it needs to be a live service. - Combat balance out the wazoo with every new banner. - Endgame or event content balanced around new banners in order to promote them. (varies, but mostly applies) - And the ever looming fact that one day it will be taken down as, again, it's an online-only game.

[@FeyHunt]

Well, it's more like a different way to timegate a live-service game. Would you like stamina or no stamina? That's the thing. Yes, I do agree. There's no single gacha game that is BETTER than its non-gacha counterparts. This has nothing to do with its monetization or its live-service nature, but more because they need to cater to a wide audience. The simplified gameplay and story followed that core issue. For example, you just CAN'T create a soulslike gacha game and expect for it to be successful. There are simply not enough players to sustain that ongoing development. This is why debating whether gacha games are better than single-player games is pointless. Gacha games can only be compared with other live service games. To me personally, there's no other live service game I'd like to play than a stamina-based live service game. I have a job to do and I'd like to have a bit of fun at the end of the day. MMORPGs are not for me.

[@Hambs23]

@@FeyHunt Well, MMOs also have a lot of forced player retention issues, but usually in the form of obnoxiously long grinds for gear and/or levels. I guess it comes with the Live Service package. If thinking of how player friendly you can make a game, either reduce the ammount of grind and RNG required to clear content, or have an auto-grind option for when offline. The only reason for stamina to exist is to stop players from "finishing" the game too fast, even if a lot of players with less time still wouldn't be able to even if they had infinite stamina. It really doesn't make anything better, it's just a less worse poison. There's also the "special" alternatine where grinding is the game, and the whole process is made fun. Tho this I only ever seen done well in single-player games. Games like rogue-likes or the Disgaea series makes it so that every action you take has an immediate reaction in form of progress. In Disgaea, even performing a basic attack, whether you hit, miss or deal 0 damage, you get Weapon mastery EXP which unlocks new attack skills and stat bonuses. I'm ain't even saying I don't like gachas. Played a lot of Genshin and Blue Archive, and before then also played Kancolle and an untranslated Japanese +18 gacha that was very similar to Granblue. And heck me if I didn't have fun with them. And yeah, Kancolle didn't have stamina but had the other things you mentioned: Craft times for new ships, repair times to restore HP. But it was also kinda cool that the newer ships were unlocked through completing missions (and RNG drop rate) instead of using the construction system. But you couldn't max more than a single ship without paying, but the stat bonuses weren't even that big of a deal. Man, I miss Kancolle... Never got Littorio and Yamato and I'm still mad...

[@andreascarpato7003]

I would get a lot of materials that i need in like a day instead of waiting weeks Like in ZZZ i constantly run out of disk drives exp or dennys Infinite stamina could make me farm as many as i need until i die of boredom I dont think its bad , but the limit adds a bit of time where u have nothing else to do and log off

[@FeyHunt]

True... but do you think it's more likely to lead you to faster burnout? And would you be less likely to log in every day if you can be done with it and wait until next update?

[@andreascarpato7003]

@@FeyHunt i think it does lead to faster burnout . I would personally log in everyday for dailies and quests but not for farming i would have specific days dedicated to farming only. I would still farm and not wait until the next version

[@savemygames]

I already have no content to do in zenless. Only dailies remain.

[@Franklin_Johanessan]

As someone who played Postknight 1 and 2 (not gacha games), I have 2 distinct memories of grinding each: Pk1 was just mindlessly redoing the same route to get the resources for maxxing out each set (endgame 100%) Pk2 has a cooldown after completing each route, meaning you are encouraged to take breaks, which definitely helped reduce burn out

[@FeyHunt]

I see! Do you ever find that cooldown frustrating if you have the urge to max out your characters? Or do you never bother with it?

[@Franklin_Johanessan]

@@FeyHunt Postknight only has character levels, and armour sets. It's an rpg. But the same applies to the armour sets, like characters. I don't find it frustrating personally

[@kazaba1715]

What hapend if they remove the stamina cap, so the stamina could still generate even if you miss a day, but you will miss your daily task if you miss a day

[@bunnyx2819]

I know a few games like HSR and Guardian Tales whose stamina overcaps. The stamina accumulates even if you miss multiple days.

[@kazaba1715]

​@bunnyx2819the problem with hsr is that the overcapped stamina regenerates slower than the non overcapped stamina, so player's are still encourage to spend the stamina when it reach the maximum amount

[@FeyHunt]

@@kazaba1715 Of course. You got to have that. Otherwise, people won't have enough incentive to play daily. Loss aversion is way stronger than a measly 0.4 gacha pull daily reward.

[@ushinkou8569]

Nikke's once a day system and every other stamina system achieves the same goal. So they are NO different.

[@FeyHunt]

They are different, though. That's the point of the video. Yes, they achieve the same goal, but do it differently. Would you prefer to play through the main story without restriction? Hoyo games allow you to do that. NIKKE doesn't.

[@Luna_69420-m]

Hoyo doesn either​@FeyHunt

[@hendrass9716]

Ah.. Early girls' frontline 1, for me who experienced playing since 6 months first year in CN server. I gotta say, early days is hell. The meme of the game in GFL1 in CN is "The game is fairly relaxing". Until you deep dive into the grinding system and yep, I did a 7h/d just to do a repetitive leveling. It was at the 4th to 5th year that they finally make it truly relaxing.(from your video, you need to do some Career missions as they give you a fair exp books and resources including decent dolls, but out of 300 to 400 units yeah that's not enough.) Also the only reason why I'm still playing Girls' Frontline 1 until this day is probably the most Free to Play gacha game I've only played, with the only cash gacha system would be the costumes. It's one of the reason why their revenue is low. The other reason would be their spaghetti coding and old-style gameplay mechanic. In the end the game is now just a visual novel. They are focusing more on their sequel and prequel(Project Neural Cloud). As for is Stamina a necessary evil? Hmm, for me it is quite a necessary evil, it is also the reason why I played Blue Archive and Princess Connect in CN server, because everyone had the same starting point. Not to mention you got Thousand Miles Insight(referring to Tier list in JP server) granted to you if you are a year late. You can just stock up things and do adjustment on who to pull and who to not. The only thing I hate about Stamina is coupled with RNG drops when farming equipments. It would be nice if my 900 stamina spent attempts would net me a good amount of goddamn targeted equipments drop.(Princess Connect and Blue Archive)

[@FeyHunt]

Yeah... I kinda get the appeal of GFL. The combat is totally auto-battle, but the feeling when you're slowly taking every spot on the map is just... awesome. I've just finished Chapter 5 several minutes ago. I think I should go to Operation Cube instead of Chapter 6, right? The RNG is always the worst. I think that would be a topic for the next video... What if gacha games remove substats RNG?

[@hendrass9716]

My comment is deleted THREE TIMES in this video.. this is my fourth attempt I wrote a long one earlier, I'll make it short this time : Continue the Chapter, the Cube mission is first introduction to Night Battle, which if you don't have the Night Vision equipment your units will lose 90% of accuracy. You can do targeted equipment crafting to get either blue or green nightvision. But still Gold will be better because it cleanses the 90% accuracy entirely. Also recommend unlocking Data Center if you have battery in Dormitory so you can make more combat reports(exp book) to level up your characters. The reason for continuing the chapter is because logistic timer will be shortened mostly at average 6 hours with decent amount 3 types of resources. While 4 hours average will target one kind of resources from Chapter 7 on. I want to give you the link but since my comment is deleted 3 TIMES I'm just recommending you to find the wiki with just googling GFL Logistic Support Chapters and find the iopwiki one.

[@hendrass9716]

I'll come back and see if my previous comment is purged again.(third time now) As for substats, sure go for it. Blue Archive and Princess Connect are 2 games with Stamina that doesn't have Substats RNG that I know of. It'll be nice to know more and see how fare they are right now in this era of gaming preference.

[@FeyHunt]

@@hendrass9716 Oh sorry about that! I don't know where your comments went to. I did check my youtube dashboard and there's no held comments there. KZbin just hates links, I guess. I see! Is there a story in Operation Cube? I heard that is where we met Groza OTs-14 the first time, right?

[@hendrass9716]

@@FeyHunt Yep, she is also the 5 stars doll that specialize in night battle because of her skill. But sadly until now GFL1 still hasn't give her Neural Upgrade(in Azur Lane terms, Retrofit;in Kancolle terms, Kai Ni) Her skins are mostly elegant though, I "bought" the anniversary outfit. While the GFL 2 is her Chinese outfit. Which is a bit weird for me, because in GFL1 that outfit is released exclusively in Chinese New Year. lol

[@joshuakevin1232]

in my personal opinion, the best solution for now is do what ZZZ and HSR do, applying stamina reserve system. if the point of using stamina is to delay player to finish the content until next update, then using stamina reserve will ease player who plays later and still give slight advantage to player who onlines everyday, because not all of their player can play everyday... i think if the player who plays late finish it immediately, they wont be boring, because they dont have to wait too long for new update

[@FeyHunt]

I do agree! But a true no-penalty "overflow" stamina system will create a negative incentive for players to NOT log in every day. Instead, they will log in every week, and then more players will drop the game because other gacha games demand their attention every day. So we do still need some kind of percentage penalties for those who didn't log in every day... which is exactly what Hoyo games do nowadays. It's definitely more friendly to people who have a job to do 😆😆

[@HeroDarkStorn]

There's also subtler reason (though I don't think all devs even realise it is happening): By limiting how much you can earn daily, they reduce how much you "need" to do daily. All live-service games have "bad meta" patches - when the game is not as good as given player remembers it being. By limiting the "necessary daily grind", anyone who hates the "current state of the game" can just do their dailies, skip interacting with the "bad" parts of the game and wait for next patch while preparing resources to engage with new content. If you could play for 10 hours, then playing for 10 hours would be optimal, and so lot of players would force themselves to grind even when the game is in "rough patch", and thus eventually quit with 0 chance to return to the game they'd remember hating when they last played.

[@FeyHunt]

Oh, they're very aware of this. They just don't play into or around it. Even if you hate the patch, they would still make plenty of limited-time events to play around it. Also, a big section of the playerbase are completionists who have to get every quest and event done for that sweet gacha reward. So, I think your take can only apply for a specific portion of the playerbase who are okay with skipping "unnecessary part" or unfun of the game. I am one of those people myself. I don't do my weeklies Hollow Zero run in ZZZ because I think it has grown stale.

[@nintykidthegamer5088]

I know of a game that has and doesn't have a stamina system at the same time. It's Guardian Tales, and it has a stamina system in the form of coffee. But it also doesn't have a stamina system cause you are given so much coffee that extends pass the limit that you can play as long as you want

[@dukc6338]

i currently have 3 games i play GFL - super f2p friendly and can be grinded infinitely for doll exp using certain stages and methods (corpse dragging), though slow, its low effort and it feels good to make steady progress. To complete a lot of content you only really need a few (specific) dolls maxxed. In time you will acquire almost every dolll you really want, but to max all the systems out will take time. Being able to make progress without need of stamina is one of the strongest aspects of this game, next to its f2p friendliness and character collection. Blue archive - while not f2p friendly its relatively low effort dailies make it ok to play consistently, main draw of the game for me is the characters rather than the gameplay tbh. The game being lw effort to maintain is why i dont mind the stamina system, what progress i do make is felt when i invest on the characters i like. Counterside - hands down the most addicting pvp gameplay ive encountered in gacha games, since im a day 1 player i have end game gear and can compete to high rank and experience almost all the games metas and niches have to offer with varied gear sets maxxed out for flexible teambuilding, however the WORST thing about this game is its use of RNG gear stats, which are the most gated resource the game has. While the gear progression is time gated, the pvp provides so much value once you have a few good gear sets going it makes up for it.

[@FeyHunt]

I see! I only recently played one game on your list, which is GFL 1. Figured that since I want to dip my toes into GFL 2, I should at least give it a shot. Though, I'm feeling kinda lost figuring out what the game want me to do. As I said in the video, I keep bumping into the DPS check ceiling. The difficulty curve in this game is rather harsh. Chapter 7 and it's already 20K Echelon Rating, which does require me to get all 5x Dummy for low rarity dolls, or an expensive 30+ Dummy Core... Luckily, I got Airstrike Fairy very early to max level ability to wipe out some hard encounters. Am I playing the game wrong here? Or is the DPS check going to get even crazier later? Am I supposed to wait until all my echelon gets to level 90 to proceed?

[@dukc6338]

@@FeyHunt not really sure what uve built so far but if you prioritise maxxing out ar team you should bee able to keep up with the dps checks i think, its been a long time since i was low level working through campaign so im not sure how to best advise you progress forward. basic advice would be invest in 2 good smg tanks (RO or UMP45) to help keep pace, use kiting (jiggle ur smg tank back and forth to interrupt the enemy advance while ur ars shoot them) and utilise basic F formation. there are some specifiic units you can build to help overcome some of these difficulty spikes more efficeiently but id consult guides for specific adviice( i used guides a LOT)

[@FeyHunt]

@@dukc6338 I mean, I just use the recommended lineup for the most part. I don't get the guides. There doesn't seem to be a tier-list that teaches how to do formations and stuff. Or at least something I can easily just read up on. If you have particular resources, I'd like to know what website you look at for it.

[@H.Kuriyo]

Yeah stamina just feels like a safe time gate for the devs to create newer content while players are busy Making stuff being daily activity keeps players away from blitzing through all the content in one sitting and wanting more It takes months to finish specific gacha games, but you wouldn't be surprise that your total hrs of gameplay didn't even reach 50 hrs for most of em 2 months to complete a game, and only 30 hrs of gametime? Seems like the main gameplay was just waiting

[@FeyHunt]

Well, by that logic, half of your playtime in any RPGs is walking. So the main gameplay in RPGs is walking. Nobody can create a perfectly engaging content for every single moment of the game infinitely.

[@H.Kuriyo]

@FeyHunt and that's why I'm a rhythm gamer Insta content every second >:)

[@H.Kuriyo]

But srsly, stamina isn't bad if the gameplay can be infinitely played, Hoyo games have done well in allowing their users to play the game without upgrades nor good teams Arknights though, i just started playing and being locked behind stamina to just play is quite tedious...ik there's endless end game content but the progress to reach there is quite frustrating with these sanity

[@FeyHunt]

@@H.Kuriyo I wouldn't say endless. Arknights is the remnant of the old gacha game practices where the game is meant to be played for 10 minutes whenever you have the time. In modern terms, it is a second-monitor type of game. On the flipside, it has a finite progression. You can easily max out every character you like within days or a week.

[@Romashka_Sov]

I don't know a single gacha without stamina or something similar. BUT, i know one where players abused infinite stamina glitch, and to combat it devs also give away a lot of stamina items. People still use it tho, but it's less prevalent now The name is Battle Cats.

[@FeyHunt]

Haha, and the devs allowed it? What a generous dev team you got there! Usually most gacha games would just rollback the server.

[@Romashka_Sov]

@@FeyHunt tbh, I started it only ~2 months ago, but it has much worse (for devs) exploits, so, yeah. If you wanna know more, I'll recommend a video "The exploit that shaped the game (Battle cats)" by Canned juice, he explained it in detail

[@daothinhkhang2112]

this is such a well made video

[@FeyHunt]

Thank you for the kind words! 😄

[@5ynT4x_Error]

If the gacha have something like "gacha currency missions", then I think the stamina should go. If there is none and you can farm the gacha currency, it needs a stamina system. I think AK have done this well enough. Yes new players still needs to watch for caps but as you progress further, stamina wouldn't be an issue anymore. Daily missions can just be done by checking in the base, replacing ops in your base and do the recruitments. Annihilation only consume like 1 day worth of stamina so, you veterans can just login to do their base and log out. On top of that, AK have 2 different endgame that doesn't consume stamina. There are rewards there. and some good ones at it. Also, I don't know if anyone will agree with me on this but you can also apply this concept on other games that have "reserved stamina". You log in, use the reserved stamina, log out. Yes both of this statements does make you login everyday but still, I think reserve stamina can fix the stamina problem in gachas

[@FeyHunt]

@@5ynT4x_Error I agree. Arknights really don't care much about stamina for player retention. They're happy if you just login for five minute to do auto grinding. Unless there's a major new chapter. Doing all three environment at once really drains stamina quickly. Arknights also has grown beyond the stamina, since it has the best roguelike mode in gacha games in my opinion.

[@blueferal8626]

Everyone and their grandma would be maxed out and done with the game within a week🐇

[@FeyHunt]

Haha, you underestimated how easily gen Z can get bored these days. People do burn out very quickly.

[@Brolen45]

Instead of resinless gameplay it’s resinFULL

[@FeyHunt]

ResinFULL Genshin is the most scariest two word phrase I ever heard. Can you imagine how low they'll make artifact RNG if everyone can grind infinitely? *Shudders...*

[@nitokagaminen9660]

basically Nikke: goddes of victory

[@FeyHunt]

That's what I'm talking in the video

[@nekochen]

I played many gacha games including Girls Frontline 1, Neural Cloud, Azur Lane, all Hoyo games, and honestly speaking, stamina doesn't bother me at all. I've never once actually think I need more stamina to play those gacha games... until now... I can't stop playing Girls Frontline 2!! I need to know what's happening in the story 🥲

[@FeyHunt]

I have only reached Chapter 4 last night. Is it getting better and better?

[@nekochen]

@@FeyHunt It's already getting better seeing Kalina and UMP-9 makes a nostalgic reappearance 🥰

[@FeyHunt]

​@@nekochen Aw man... got that scene last night. I have to make a video talking about that! It's so good! The awkward atmosphere between Kalina and the Commander. Kalina just doesn't hold her punch to make the Commander feel like dirt. Deserved!

[@PooBoi_YT]

All I’m saying, if hoyo let us have infinite energy (or at the very least extra energy) and locked it behind a paywall, I’d be inclined to buy it because of how bad it is having to wait so long just to build any of my characters. Hell, HSR and ZZZ already have that extra energy storage either on release or a few months after. Genshin is literally older than both games combined and STILL doesn’t have this QOL feature. 😐

[@FeyHunt]

I think Genshin does have this free 30-day stamina pack last time I played it 2 years ago. I don't have the exact statistics on how many players bought it. Anecdotally, not much. But yes, Genshin not following modern gacha game QoL is just absurd. It shows just how confident they are that their players won't leave the game for greener pastures.

[@Carlisho]

As a Honkai Star Rail player is just dont get why we have a stamina system when the things we farm from said resource is heavily rng based, like bro just let me grind the rng is not helping 😭

[@FeyHunt]

Hoyo games 🤝 terrible substats RNG. One commenter said that grinding artifacts with stamina system is like going to the junkyard. When you've done it 4 times, you're forced to pull out. "Did you have fun? Oh, you didn't get one? Try again tomorrow!" For frick sake... This is why WuWa no stamina for getting artifacts is a godsent. I wish HSR could implement it.

[@Carlisho]

@@FeyHunt for real man, I dont quit because I already spent money on it and I want to see the story play out but holy hell the farming is horrible

[@FeyHunt]

@@Carlisho Is not grinding an option for the game? Because when I played Genshin, I just don't care at all with the artifacts. Same for ZZZ.

[@Carlisho]

@@FeyHunt you can do the story without grinding but the endgame modes all require not only grinding for godlike substats they also force you to pull for recents units, the HP inflation is out of control

[@FeyHunt]

@@Carlisho Oh screw that! I'm not going to play that! I hate Spiral Abyss and Tower of Adversity. Any weekly DPS checks is such a chore for me. I'm only here to enjoy good combat and stories.

[@FreakGeSt]

Check the game Alice Gear Aegis, is JP only, but that game have a unique take of limiting the play per day instead of using stamina.

[@FeyHunt]

Oh, is it a new gacha game? That's kinda what I've said in the video with either time-gating or limiting per play. A bit better if you can bottle those tries up.

[@seabookarno1664]

@@FeyHunt Alice Gear's shells analyze system is a good "brake" while the game don't have stamina system. Sure we can use batteries to quick finish the cooldown, but higher the shell's rarity, also bigger the amount of battery consumption we needed to. 4* gear shell, which containt each Actress' personal gear, need approx. 4h to cooldown and you need 24 batteries for quick finish one analyze device (3* shell all type need 1h, 2* 15, 1* 1m). It's not a big deal when you have surplus batteries, but when you already run out of batteries you'll need to wait patiently. My daily routine for playing Alice Gear is "cleaning up" shells that I already obtained yesterday on morning (up to 12 shells for daily mission, focusing on either *3-*4 (if drops) gear shells and any rarity of materials shells, then logout and continue in afternoon after daily reset (Alice Gear's daily reset on 15:00 JST) to do daily co-op 5x (it'll grant you scout points (SP)), 5x map clearing with 15 SP for 5x no damage accomplishment per day (you can pil it up max 30x which is 6 day accumulation), finishing all daily farming for total 40 SP, and done. The game itself already on 5th anniv and still ongoing. If you like mecha action with SHMUP element, you can try Alice Gear Aegis.

[@saitenkloppa9205]

Genshin had a few mechanics additionally to the stamina system that made the experience so much worse for me. to level up your character you´ll need a few items which can be farmed on certain days only - item A on tuesday, item B on saturday, item C on wednesday... then with launch of Inazuma I should have changed my setup completely to get somehow through the main story. But to level up the characters further i had to do the time limited events. But at a certain point i was behind the main story and the limited events were blocked.... after that i uninstalled the game. it was more work than "joy" for me... With ZZZ there were minor changes which made it really great for me. There is a Stamina System with 240 points/24hr, additional batteries to get 60 points each and wasted points will add to an extra battery with max. 2400 points. so even if i not login every day i won´t get any "FOMO" because i won´t lose any points. And if i want to i can level a new character to max within 1 or 2 days. Every item needed can be farmed at anytime. So character leveling takes me max. a week, not multiple weeks or months as in Genshin ;)

[@FeyHunt]

I just don't get Genshin's gungho attitude over their terrible UX design. I heard rumors that it was because of a certain key figure in that company that has been messing the design and turning Genshin into a cashcow. You're not supposed to have a calendar reminder to farm certain things on certain days. And their RNG artifact system are just horrendous.

[@monochrome_linux]

Ye, I used to play Genshin, it was just atrocious for grinding, now I just got into ZZZ, and it's significantly more fun, even the grind dont feel awful. The only big irritant is the 100 batteries for character ascension material runs, that's diabolical. If that cheaper, everything else is good, no issues.

[@saitenkloppa9205]

@@monochrome_linux yeah, but with a bit of playtime you can get a few extra batteries. I save them normally and use them when i have to upgrade a new character :D so it is not so a big deal for me

[@FeyHunt]

@@monochrome_linux Yep, they added plenty of UX features that I'd like to have in Genshin too. I'm more irritated with those CD tracks grinding. Min-maxing is just hell.

[@untemperance]

Very bad things happen. Gacha games have other time limits. If you have time limited farming, Stamina no longer is the bottleneck, real time is. Meaning the most efficient player is the one who plays 24/7, and, as a result, has an unhealthy relationship to the game.

[@FeyHunt]

Yes, definitely! However, to the developers, the players' relationship with the game is not their major consideration. It would only be a problem if most players consider the game "too grindy" and decide not to play the game, which is more likely to happen if you have infinite grind. The game balance would also be terrible for players who don't grind, which will force everyone into that grinding mindset.

[@PuyawaPun]

Bruh the opening bgm give me ptsd

[@FeyHunt]

What do you mean?! It's the best chapter in the entire game! After this point, the writing gets weird. 😆😆

[@PuyawaPun]

Just whole pv come in my head lol

[@FeyHunt]

@@PuyawaPun _May all the beauty be blessed~_

[@KickUpHammyDude]

Can I be honest. As long as Stamina doesnt get in the way of story progression per progression. Im fine with it. I HATE paying stamina to play a story stage when that stamania can also be used for grinding materials for my characters. So I can play for as long as I want and should I hit a roadblock, I could either rethink my strategy or go back and improve my characters.

[@FeyHunt]

Yep, that's also my stance on it. Because as this video shows, the alternative is worse in almost every way.

[@KickUpHammyDude]

@FeyHunt Kinda why I eventually dropped Gaurdian Tales. It's a good game but between spending energy to unlock stages and grinding materials for my Heroes, it's hard to progress when I'm focused on farming for Hero materials to evolve them or level things up. This is especially irritating given the in-game difficulty spike that happens later. Now full disclosure. Once you start a story level, you can play it again for free but again, I'd rather play it for free from the get go so I can invest the energy in the dungeons.

[@FeyHunt]

@@KickUpHammyDude Totally got you! That is kinda related to the topic I'm working on next. Grinding and character progression. Stay tuned!

[@RISCHARD1238]

what if staminan't like, there is stamina, but it exists to increase the ammount of rewards like in zzz the rewards you get are normal, but without stamina you get like 1/4 of rewards, you can still GRIND but at a lower efficiency and chose to use your stamina or not once you get enough and also GIVE HIGHER DIFFICULTY HIA MATERIAL FARMING

[@FeyHunt]

That's basically what MMORPG does with EXP login bonus. When you're not playing the game, there's an EXP bonus building up in the background. Then when you log in, you'll get to use those EXP bonus to level up quicker. When the bonus ran out, you can still play the game and grind, but you won't get extra bonuses. I'm not sure this system would work in gacha games though. Because unlike MMOs, gacha games are single player contents. Once you ran out, that's it.

[@RISCHARD1238]

@@FeyHunt i mean, you have to also put into factor that in mihoyo games we have to farm this equipment with random stats, so chances are that without stamina at 1/4 of loot from the discs drop people would still be playing a lot to get the desired stats, also, heking ingame money, 100% there needs to be a way to farm money without stamina

[@DantoriusD]

Even if you reduce the No Stamina Ressources to 1/10 im pretty sure by then people would write some Scripts or use Autoclicker to farm 24/7 i mean it doesnt matter if your getting only 1/10 of Materials when you can farm while your sleeping. I already saw exactly this on Bleach Brave Souls where almost everyone using some kind of Cheat to bypass the Stamina System.

[@RISCHARD1238]

@@DantoriusD ok, so because some geeky nerds decided to script the game we should take away the fun for everyone

[@ChiriKain]

before playing gachas i used to play other mmo's like eden eternal, blade and soul and way way before, 9 dragons and ragnarok online, in those you grind exp by mob training basically rounding up all the mobs from a zone and killing quickly with aoe, you do that for a couple hours and you get maybe 1 or 2 % of your level bar and to get items there were caps on how many times you could do a dungeon per day, so getting gear was also slow, so one way or another they put limitations on your progression. leaving the social aspect of mmo aside, the system on gachas are better, 15 mins for progression vs grinding 5 or 6 hours a day. i just wish the rolls rng on gear werent so bad.

[@FeyHunt]

Yeah... MMOs are mostly for people who don't have regular jobs. I don't think I can ever play WoW or FF14 again and still have a balanced workweek.

[@shutup1037]

When the rng for gear is just as bad there's no good thing about it

[@menosgenerade6697]

I can only think of Holocure. Idk if u wanna call it gacha games since its more of a fanmade project and not profit driven like any other gacha, but it has gacha so i'll mention it. Holocure is a fanmade game for Hololive, taking inspiration from Vampire Survivor. There's currently 47 characters and u can max them out by pulling each one 21 times. Each character has multiple skins and u can get it just by pulling the gacha. This game has ZERO monetization so pulling gacha is using non-premium currency.

[@FeyHunt]

Well, then that's just a single-player game with gacha in it. Of course, it doesn't face the same problem of player retention and profit of an ongoing live service game.

[@JohnPeacekeeper]

Nikke already does the infinite stamina. Instead, you passively generate mats and do dailies for more mats

[@FeyHunt]

Yes. At the risk of keep bumping your heads on their DPS check ceiling, as I said in the video. The annoying part is that you have to wait to progress through the main story.

[@TheAliceMargatroid]

Really good video! Overall yeah at the moment stamina system is a necessary evil. I don't mind having to jump in and out of the game because that means if I am caught up with my two games (HSR, ZZZ) I now have free time to play something else or just watch anime or youtube videos. I remember realizing how much time I wasted playing FF14 Doing my roulettes and such. I think the Stamina system would be less hated if grinding for your CDs, Relics, and armor wasn't such a pain in the ass to farm, and ESPECIALLY for ZZZ, we are also having a goddamn Dennies crisis while farming for character mats. I currently don't know how we can have a no Stamina system atm unless we want Nikke and Girls frontline systems and HELL NO TO THAT.

[@FeyHunt]

YEP! HELL NO TO NO STAMINA! I think the biggest problem with ZZZ is more on the disc gacha. It's such a waste of time and resources, I just don't bother doing substats. Cheers mate!

[@TheAliceMargatroid]

@@FeyHunt Thats not just a ZZZ problem, its a Hoyo games problem. I am used to it at this point so unless we get real competition that threatens Hoyo to change it up, we are stuck with this CD/Relic system.

[@FeyHunt]

@@TheAliceMargatroid Also a WuWa problem and soon-to-be Endfield problem. Artifact substats RNG is the first thing needs to go for gacha games to move on.

[@TheAliceMargatroid]

​​@@FeyHuntThe only way that'll happen is if we have another Gacha competing against Hoyo and if it is just as popular if not more with no sub stat rng for them to change it.

[@FeyHunt]

@@TheAliceMargatroid Well, yes... But also design-wise, I'm still thinking about what system can replace it. It is material for future videos "What if we remove substats gacha from gacha games." and maybe "What if we remove gacha from gacha games" 😄😄

[@mRidley508]

Honestly I hate stamina systems so much. I would love to just grind something out for a few hours and be done. I hope that in the future when stuff like genshin and wuwa inevitably go offline, they release an offline version that requires no stamina instead of scrapping the whole game. And maybe a system to unlock the characters instead of the gacha.

[@FeyHunt]

With Hoyo and Kuro, I don't see how they'll do it. They certainly have no motivation to do so, even when they have the money to do so. Honkai Gakuen hadn't had any news of being released as a single-player title. The only gacha devs I trust that would do something like that are MICA (Girls Frontline) and Project Moon (Limbus). MICA seems to be hinting that there will be a single player GFL 1 remake sometime in the future.

[@FrezASH5]

great video as always, both system has flaws but stamina definitely more effective and efficient to prolong game contents and make new player easier to catch up while (if you care enough) you won't get the anxiety of full stamina in no stamina(duh) from what i know nikke did a pretty good attempt to not discouraged new player and easier to catch up kinda early chapter used to have double recommended power than the current and they keep reducing it as far as im aware

[@FeyHunt]

Thank you! I do take the advice that I treated NIKKE's main story as a sort of single-player game. If I'm busy, I just do my dailies and level up, then I can blitz through the main story when I have the time. It's like winding up a coil 😄😄

[@pinklove1924]

Sdorica doesn’t have stamina. I quit a while ago but it was the first with no stamina. It is very good based on my memory. Story has no stamina but I think they combat it with gating how many times you grind for material and do dps check you.

[@tsuaririndoku]

The reason why they have to do this is because Asian people loves grinding than any other people around the world tbh. Like seriously yesterday I spent 10 hours of grinding in ZZZ just to make sure I have enough to instantly upgrade Miyabi once she becomes available. While the west usually spending time on other areas, we Asians will always stay at home unless Alcohol related. So what we ended up is grinding stuff even it is pointless. Asia + Gaming is the powerhouse. Why you wonder a lot of Chinese Names are so good at FPS or Moba? They literally spend times on Video Games a lot longer than The West do. Some people spends time in Video games to death. If they are immortal and don’t have to eat or pee. They would stuck on the screen until no more electricities. Which is why Gaming in Asia becomes a big concern as a lot of us have gaming addiction, me included.

[@FeyHunt]

As an asian myself, I don't relate to this. But it's already a common knowledge in China, India, and SEA region that mobile screen time has increased significantly. But unfortunately, I have to disagree with your argument on the basis that these gaming companies are still... companies. If they can force you to spend more time to gain better profits, they would. They're not doing it out of a social responsibility "to limit screen time", unless the government mandated it (some do). They just so happen to adapt stamina system because it's the best way to keep retention, to keep players from burning out.

[@Rcck.7282]

do you think it has something to do with eastern culture that like TONS of repetitions to learn something? Like you could see in anime they swinging their sword 1billion times, or japanese carpenter has to spend 1 year learning how to sharpen their tools (or something like that), or Kumon math school where im forced to grind additions and subtraction before learning multiplication. lol

[@tsuaririndoku]

@ Yes. Because it part of my life, apparently. High expectations is a Bitch and we all Asians have to bite the bullet and deal with it.

[@FeyHunt]

​@@Rcck.7282 That or it's just how gaming started in the region. For example, Tycoon/management games are still a big hit in there. I think it's one of the reasons why eastern RPGs can get away with more intense grinding. Meanwhile, western games are usually one-and-done thing.

[@Xthe_enemyX]

Memory Defrag had no stamina system and it is still my favorite gacha of all time. Shame the devs killed it with terrible management.

[@FeyHunt]

Interesting! I never even heard of the game. Usually, they compensate for no stamina by having either bullcrap RNG or entry limits. Does the game do that?

[@Xthe_enemyX]

@FeyHunt it's older, servers shut down a couple years ago. Outside of gacha pulls there was some RNG and no entry limits. There were dedicated stages for character progression items that were only available for limited times each day, but those same items could be farmed ad infinitum from regular stages. The special stages were just the most efficient way to get them.

[@bencegergohocz5988]

I ran away from the MMO graind fest that consumes all of the time. I like stamina believe it or not. At least as long as story content isn't gated behind it.

[@FeyHunt]

Yeah... I did look back at my MMO days fondly in WoW and RIFT. But that's only when I was still doing the questlines. Once you get to the grinding for raids part, it becomes a chore. Stamina system helps preventing that.

[@Boricosa]

What about Octopath Traveler COTC? I believe it has no stamina system since you can get gear by just farming enemies for crafting materials

[@FeyHunt]

Oh, does Octopath Traveler have a gacha game now? I haven't heard of this. Is It grindy with RNG?

[@Boricosa]

RNG is mostly tied to the soul gear of recent updates. I think getting through most of the history up until Master of All, which is my current progress, doesn't feel grindy. If you are interested, play the game while you still can since the game is changing hands to a different publisher in January, and many of the good aspects about it could change.

[@FreakGeSt]

There's is other type of stamina that nobody is taking about because is quite unique to a game, that game is Alice Gear Aegis, that game stamina is inexistent, but the game give you resourse in form of shells, that you need to scan, 4 shells at the time, each shell consume the scan from 5 minutes to 4 hours, depending of the quality of the shell, and you can have at most 30 shells, you can overcap shells but can't farm more in the normal way, but you can reset the scans using batteries, and bateries have not limit in quantity, so when you are in end game territory, you probably have to many bateries, so you never gonna left shells unscanned, also you can sells unscanned shells that you don't want, when farming, the game gives you to many low quality shells, so cap to 30 is easy, that's way is better sell them, but you need to wait 30 minutes for sell again, so never sell when you are bellow the cap. Idk if I explain it correctly, the system that use AGA is so unique that I never see it in other gacha game, get bateries is so easy if you play the game a lot, because nothing is stoping you to play more to farm bateries, at the cost to get quickly the cap of shells.

[@FeyHunt]

Wait... So the system limits your shell consumption by time? Like the gacha crafting system I showcased with Girls' Frontline? Wouldn't that be kinda annoying? What did you get from farming those shells?

[@seem03fox]

This is not out of topic, just trust me. How could you haven't even noticed the most epic Gacha drama of the past year which happened to Yostar and Yongshi? "Aether gazer is a wake up call" stuff" Please pay attention to this situation. It is scary.

[@FeyHunt]

I'm not interested in drama content at all. I'm more interested in talking about game design and storywriting. If you have something interesting to point out about certain drama, sure, we can talk about it in this comment section.

[@seem03fox]

@FeyHunt @FeyHunt well actually the main conflict started from game design decisions ( which were probably changed after a sexuall harassment on the working place ), and I actually analyse this too in my own video about this situation. also I'm an Indie game developer who was trying to help to the game development team with even sending concepts of my own project t and making concepts of new update and new story arc to them for free. The were not expected this probably but I do not know for sure since I was asking them about this even scary situation with harassment and changing game designing course for about 4 months. But I still do not have any answers from the companies ( Chinese officially mail addresses and publishers mail addresses) about what have happened. Just some mails from global server CS which can't say anything about this clearly and said that they have sent my concerns to the relevant department with asking me to not confuse game with reality. The point is I build my statements on real cases of such things in othere companies and on the very strange marketing decision which actually looks too much obviously as a reminder to some employee about the harassment at working place.. But. I have made a video with a lot of content about this game, new Fanmade song to this potential story arc I was making to them, analysing even the content and actually design of the characters. So yeah... This may fit your common theme of the content probably....