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People do not spend money if they do not play or care about the game. The more time they spend playing or caring about the game the more likely they are to spend money. Even whales won't spend money on a game they are not playing at all. I didn't think this needed to be spelled out.
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Jul 28, 2023 12:27
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Clarste posted:I... I think there's been a misunderstanding because I don't actually see how this addresses any of the points I have made. Yes, of course the game and its surrounding fanspaces act as advertisements for the game. The point is just that if you stop playing entirely, stop engaging with Star Rail at all for months at a time, then you naturally stop paying any attention to all that stuff and realize you don't miss it. This is simply how the human brain works. Getting you to log on every day is a way of keeping Star Rail in your mind even when content comes out slowly. Just about every game with seasonal content is meant to be played in bursts. Mostly every 3 months I log into PoE for a few weeks to play through the new season content, I'm doing this with diablo 4 right now. Sometimes I skip a league / season. Earlier I logged into Black Desert to start a character that I hadn't played yet. But "Not played in years" is a bit different. I haven't logged into FFXIV since I beat the latest expansion but about a month before the new expansion hit I usually log in to do all the previous patch cycle content and play the new expansion when it comes out. Lots of companies would rather have you engaged, but short turnaround release schedules every 3 months is a standard in maintaining mind share and having people come back. People that come back in bursts are also big spenders.
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Jul 28, 2023 12:31
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Kanos posted:I understand what engagement mechanics are, thanks. I'm 100% certain that everyone posting in this thread has at least a vague understanding of what they are and what FOMO is. Apparently not! Given that I have people arguing with me that engagement doesn't actually exist.
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Jul 28, 2023 12:34
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Clarste posted:People do not spend money if they do not play or care about the game. The more time they spend playing or caring about the game the more likely they are to spend money. Even whales won't spend money on a game they are not playing at all. I didn't think this needed to be spelled out. The 10 minute microburst engagement isn't what gets the whales to keep spending though. This not a loving complicated point. You said, in response to that type of gameplay "I mean, no, it's to keep people "engaged" with the game so they'll spend more money" when that's not what gets people to spend money, nor is it what gets them to keep spending money. That is not correct. You are wrong. That was a wrong thing you said.
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Jul 28, 2023 12:36
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The microburst engagement is part of a wider set of features (including advertising) designed to get them to continue caring about the game. Because it is super loving easy to stop caring about a game. 90% of all gacha games die in the first year or so (although they might turn a profit anyway if they attract enough whales in the first month). People not caring is literally death for these games. Is it the most important one? Maybe not. But it is absolutely 100% designed to get people's money from them, albeit indirectly. Clarste fucked around with this message at 12:40 on Jul 28, 2023 |
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Jul 28, 2023 12:38
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I'm mostly just considering quitting because I'm not really engaging very well with the combat system in and of itself, at least not the same way I do with Arknights which is my main gacha game (which is itself a sidegame to my non-gacha games). The story's alright I guess but 1.2 dropped the ball for me. I should probably get around to doing Yukong's character quest at the very least before I go because of everyone telling me how good it is though.
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Jul 28, 2023 13:08
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Clarste posted:Apparently not! Given that I have people arguing with me that engagement doesn't actually exist. Mulva isn't arguing that engagement mechanics don't exist, they're arguing that they think engagement mechanics are an unimportant bullet point in terms of explaining why people drop money. I'm not sure I completely agree - companies go wild over engagement mechanics for a reason - but "engagement mechanics don't translate into money" and "engagement mechanics don't exist/i don't know what they are" aren't the same point at all.
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Jul 28, 2023 13:21
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I think it's more that the "log in for 10 minutes and auto a few Calyxes twice a day" gameplay is the, I dunno, bobber that keeps the bait floating out in the water. It's not the thing that actually gets people to spend money on the game, but it's what keeps people playing the game so that there's an opportunity for them to "bite the hook" and spend.
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Jul 28, 2023 14:24
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The people that bother posting about hsr is like 1 percent. People were surprised by moses dan heng despite being a literal showing in the trailer.
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Jul 28, 2023 14:56
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I'd rather play star rail forever than reinstall Arknights or some other poo poo with infinitely worse "autobattle" That's why it's good I think.
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Jul 28, 2023 14:58
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I'm still enjoying the gameplay. I only autobattle calyxes, everything else is manual. The simple turn-based battles and the setting are what drew me in. I like thinking about what teams I could make and gradually improving my characters. I look forward to doing Simulated Universe every week, and would love to have an excuse to do it more than twice (I did it a whole bunch to completely fill out the indexes). I think it helps that I can play on my phone for stuff like calyxes, or just to mess around when I need a break from work. Or I can play on my laptop/desktop when I want nicer graphics and a bigger screen for stuff with spectacle like story bosses. I wonder if part of the reason I am not burning out yet is that I haven't finished MoC but also am able to progress further each week. Maybe people who started at launch and/or aren't f2p have started completing that or are hitting a wall, so there's no further progress to make? Still though, I really want to build up more than the 8 characters I am currently using, to try out other team compositions, so I think that will keep me occupied for a while. I'm trailblaze level 63 so I'm not quite to the last equilibrium level, yet.
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Jul 28, 2023 14:58
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I like the characters and want to pull for them
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Jul 28, 2023 15:03
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Genovera posted:I like thinking about what teams I could make and gradually improving my characters. This is a big one for me. I spend so much time when I'm not playing this game thinking about team composition and builds and possible equipment sets. I actually think this game's gameplay is much more nuanced than a lot of people give it credit for, despite your limited "choices per turn" within a given battle. There's so many subtle tweaks and optimizations you can make when building a team - it kind of blows my mind how many characters there are for which the "best relic set" isn't even agreed upon! That speaks to a surprising depth of care put into the balancing imo. And then I read about stuff like the intense simulations they had to do to make the DPS tier list on Prydwen (which aren't even "complete" and had to explicitly exclude certain high-variance characters like QQ and Clara), or see stuff like that Qingque guide that goes into excruciating depth about the mathematics of employing different strategies, and I get even more impressed. But also boredsatellite posted:I like the characters and want to pull for them
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Jul 28, 2023 15:32
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I don't care about the plot, but I like the character designs and interactions. It's also just sort of mindless fun of letting them smash into the bad guys for a little time every day that makes my numbers go +1 until I'm ready to upgrade or change my team.
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Jul 28, 2023 15:37
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Theyre updating su to mix blessings for you people next patch
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Jul 28, 2023 16:05
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I feel like an anomaly where I do not care about the plot or the characters, I just like turn based gameplay and making number get bigger. I think I saw the thread here, saw free + turn based and gave it a try. If the game cost $0.01 I probably would not have tried it because I am not big on mobile/gacha games and entering my credit card info would be too much work.
Pain of Mind fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Jul 28, 2023 |
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Jul 28, 2023 16:07
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You are receiving this broadcast as a dream...We are transmitting from the year one nine... nine nine ...You are receiving this broadcast in order t
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Izzhov posted:Lol thanks for this, I just dumped a bunch of resources into Herta just because of the goddamn Abundant Ebon Deer, so it feels really good to see she has more uses than just that. Every time Dreamy posts a video I want to build a new team. I'm honestly thinking of dropping Dan and Welt right now and focusing on March and Herta. 
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Jul 28, 2023 16:12
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Took a stab at MoC 9 and lost with just Svarog left with 4% health 
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Jul 28, 2023 16:35
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Pain of Mind posted:I feel like an anomaly where I do not care about the plot or the characters, I just like turn based gameplay and making number get bigger. I think I saw the thread here, saw free + turn based and gave it a try. If the game cost $0.01 I probably would not have tried it because I am not big on mobile/gacha games and entering my credit card info would be too much work. I'm the same way. The honeymoon period is ending and people will start dropping off, but this slow boring grind is what I'm here for, baby!
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Jul 28, 2023 16:37
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I like the characters and the music a great deal. The story is mostly okay with some good moments and nothing that really bothers me. I like that its very easy to keep up with when I'm busy but so far can expand to fill any amount of time I want to spend on it when I'm between other games or feel like playing. I can do bare minimum and not feel like I lost anything for the day thanks to muted autoplay on my phone, or I can load it up on my PC and crank up the music. I do spend more on limited characters than is objectively sane but its an amount I'm comfortable with. I'm actively using and enjoying the characters unlike some other hobbies where I collect and set things aside, or steam games that fill my library and don't get played much, or the books in my kindle I want to read but haven't gotten around to yet. So far I've gotten everyone but Seele and Clara. I was planning on skipping 1.3 but both characters are looking very cool in their trials and previews so we'll see how it goes. It's hard to keep all the characters in usable condition (going wide with my stamina keeps me from getting to the back half of MOC) but now that I hit the level cap its only a matter of time. Until and if they raise that cap. I'd like to see a release period of more rapid stops of the train, where we visit less involved worlds but they go wild with their imagination. Every stop doesn't need to be a 3 month epic quest. Like tv shows having one episode stories, 2-3 episode stories, and the overarching season story. Since they aren't doing full Genshin exploration they could easily do a lobby on a really crazy world and let us visit just for a sidequest and shopping or something. Yukong's story was great. Luocha's was funny. The main story had some fun moments and good music. They can do a good mix of comedy, western and eastern adventure themes, sci fi headiness, and batshit paranormal craziness. It's a good but weird setting with a lot of options to play with and I hope they embrace it. They've done a decent job so far with the side content. They'll also need to reload the text messages from the other characters on a regular basis and give them some new stuff to say on the train at each stop. I'll be curious to see how they keep up with the game and if it keeps doing well after Kafka.
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Jul 28, 2023 16:39
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Walla posted:Every time Dreamy posts a video I want to build a new team. I'm honestly thinking of dropping Dan and Welt right now and focusing on March and Herta. So many people in the cast are so cool and I want to build well over half of them. I need like triple stamina e: for the above, you don't have to worry about the cap being raised. Genshin's level cap has been the same as it was since launch. 70 will probably be the max til the game goes down.
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Jul 28, 2023 16:39
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arknights deleting your stamina refill potions after a few days if you dont use them is way more hosed up than anything in star rail tbh. like there's 'hey grind every day so you get your 5 exp books' and then there's 'you have to burn all stamina as soon as you get it or its wasted bitch.' back when i played it more regularly there were cases where i was basically locked to the game for hours because they dumped a bunch of stamina on us and i didnt want to waste it. in star rail i could just sit on that until i felt like having a grind session.
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Jul 28, 2023 16:40
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This game has a few of the same flaws that contributed to me quitting Genshin, but on the other hand, it completely avoids the core issue, which is too much time commitment for too little gain. Granted that it does it mostly by lowering the time commitment then by boosting the rewards~ I also really like the world/storyline of this one a lot more than Genshin, and I am still hopeful they'll do a better job with it in future patches. I wasn't as down on the recent content as others, but I definitely feel a decline since Belobog.
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Jul 28, 2023 16:42
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Endorph posted:arknights deleting your stamina refill potions after a few days if you dont use them is way more hosed up than anything in star rail tbh. like there's 'hey grind every day so you get your 5 exp books' and then there's 'you have to burn all stamina as soon as you get it or its wasted bitch.' back when i played it more regularly there were cases where i was basically locked to the game for hours because they dumped a bunch of stamina on us and i didnt want to waste it. in star rail i could just sit on that until i felt like having a grind session. That's horrible lol I haven't really played other gacha games, but everything I've heard about them seems to give me the impression that - despite how predatory a lot of the stuff in this game is, it's still overall way less predatory than basically every other gacha game out there. Is this impression accurate?
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Jul 28, 2023 16:48
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Mulva posted:Not one loving dime is made because of the 10 minute daily gameplay loop keeping people in until eventually something gets them to spend money. The only people that spend money don't need that poo poo to get their attention in the first place. Basically
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Jul 28, 2023 16:51
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Izzhov posted:That's horrible lol
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Jul 28, 2023 16:53
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anyway my motivation for playing this game is pulling for fu xuan and jing liu
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Jul 28, 2023 16:57
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Ibram Gaunt posted:I'd rather play star rail forever than reinstall Arknights or some other poo poo with infinitely worse "autobattle" That's why it's good I think. I've never really had an issue with Arknights's auto personally, I kinda prefer it because at least it copies (or tries to copy) your winning clear rather than leaving it up to an AI to replay it every time. Ideally a sweep ticket system is the best but eh. I have a few quibbling gripes about how HSR's auto system works too on top of the wonky AI that makes me prefer AK's. Also this is completely a personal thing but I just dislike that HSR's stuff that is hard to auto (echoes of war, SU) is on a weekly basis, while AK's (SSS, fixed roguelike team clears) are on a monthly timer. It's easier for me to find motivation once a month as compared to once every week, I guess. Endorph posted:arknights deleting your stamina refill potions after a few days if you dont use them is way more hosed up than anything in star rail tbh. like there's 'hey grind every day so you get your 5 exp books' and then there's 'you have to burn all stamina as soon as you get it or its wasted bitch.' back when i played it more regularly there were cases where i was basically locked to the game for hours because they dumped a bunch of stamina on us and i didnt want to waste it. in star rail i could just sit on that until i felt like having a grind session. I'd say this is a fair complaint about Arknights, yeah. It doesn't really affect me on the AK side because I burn mine when I get them because I'm always farming something in that game, but it's nice to know that if I ever get back into HSR I'll have like 22 potions sitting there waiting for me.
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Jul 28, 2023 17:13
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I now have a total of 13 characters on my roster that I wanna build up to 80 and equip, please help
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Jul 28, 2023 17:27
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JT Jag posted:I now have a total of 13 characters on my roster that I wanna build up to 80 and equip, please help I'm just having to write down a strict order so I stick to it. Just need a crit damage back for Bronya and I'll just declare my awful Blade good enough so I can move on to gearing up Clara, and then I need to finish off Clara and Blade's traces, and then Bronya's traces and then I want to ascend and gear Asta. And then Pela. And then despite me just not liking her Tingyun because she's so good, and hey my Gepard is leveled but he needs traces and gear. And I mean I need a lightning dps and it's either level a bunch of dot chars for Kafka or just actually give my Serval good gear. And then Yukong is really cool so maybe I should gear her out, and my Qingque is e6 so maybe I should build her for mono quantum shenigans and that point that's well over half the drat cast.  and that's ignoring any new characters I actually pull in the months this will take.
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Jul 28, 2023 17:38
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JT Jag posted:I now have a total of 13 characters on my roster that I wanna build up to 80 and equip, please help I have 19 at level 70, 8 on their final ascension and 4 more I'm currently working on. Maybe that's why new characters don't excite me right now. 
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Jul 28, 2023 17:40
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Izzhov posted:That's horrible lol Nah, there are definitely significantly less predatory games out there. For all that it's an anime tiddy waifu game, in Azur Lane you can genuinely get every single character on every single event without spending a dime on the game (even their UR characters have literally twice the drop rate as 5 stars in this one and they're super generous with currency) and everything else is farmable. They make their money off skins and out of game merchandise, neither of which are anywhere near as predatory as Star Rail. Hell, both skins and characters all eventually get added to the permanent shops/banners, so there's not even that much FOMO. Star Rail's pity system is better (AL only has a pity for UR characters, and it's per banner with no rollover, so you can theoretically spend hundreds of cubes chasing a gold or purple), but it's also got eidolons, which are super, super predatory. There's also no way you'll ever see someone collecting every character in Star Rail while simultaneously increasing their overall supply of pull currency, which is what happens in AL. There are definitely games that are significantly more predatory as well, of course. SR's pity system is genuinely great and far better than the industry standard, which is enough to elevate it above possibly even the majority of other gacha games on its own. But don't let them trick you into thinking this game is a paragon of virtue, even relatively speaking.
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Jul 28, 2023 17:43
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I'm the rare imaginary "puts down the game for months at a time and plays only with free party" player. Only through part of the snow planet because my current routine doesn't admit for much pointless phone gaming but I'll probably get more into it if my routine changes again. Truthfully I'm mostly here because 1) it's the most game-like thing with decent controls I can easily play on my phone and 2) I really want to know if I'll ever understand what draws people to character based gachas. I mean I get addiction well enough and I like plenty of other games with similar fandoms but I don't understand what makes some people go feral over these little guys and I'm curious about it. And this has a way lower barrier to entry (and can be played more inattentively) than genshin, and way better production values than other competitors, so it seemed like the place to start.
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Jul 28, 2023 17:46
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The thing I'll say about Honkai just in terms of how it's structured, is that while it's definitely financially predatory like most gacha, it is the least time-demanding one I've seen for someone to get all their free daily currency and such, and by a long stretch, and completing all the content in this game with just your free pulls is provably possible.
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Jul 28, 2023 17:48
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Ibblebibble posted:I've never really had an issue with Arknights's auto personally, I kinda prefer it because at least it copies (or tries to copy) your winning clear rather than leaving it up to an AI to replay it every time. Ideally a sweep ticket system is the best but eh. I have a few quibbling gripes about how HSR's auto system works too on top of the wonky AI that makes me prefer AK's. I don't like having to run my phone for 30minutes to run the big weekly things or w/e.
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Jul 28, 2023 17:49
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Ibram Gaunt posted:I don't like having to run my phone for 30minutes to run the big weekly things or w/e.
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Jul 28, 2023 17:51
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Endorph posted:they added skip tickets for that but hilariously you only get one a day so you have to play every day and clear out your daily missions for the right to not waste 6% of your phone's battery on annhilation It's a fail player retention thing but clearly it works on me  JT Jag posted:The thing I'll say about Honkai just in terms of how it's structured, is that while it's definitely financially predatory like most gacha, it is the least time-demanding one I've seen for someone to get all their free daily currency and such, and by a long stretch, and completing all the content in this game with just your free pulls is provably possible. I would say that that's generally the norm for most of the big gacha names, to be honest. The only ones that are pay to clear are like, really trashy cash grabs usually.
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Jul 28, 2023 18:04
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big cummers ONLY posted:I'm the same way. The honeymoon period is ending and people will start dropping off, but this slow boring grind is what I'm here for, baby! yep also same, don't care at all about the story or waifus just love putting together rpg teams and slowly progressing them over time. It's extremely low effort and something to do while on break or when my kid is watching the Mario movie for the 11th time. I could not see myself playing this if it were PC only but it's great as a secondary game
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Jul 28, 2023 18:13
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For anyone else in this thread who is interested in the story (spoilers for 1.2 trailblaze missions): I've been thinking a lot about when exactly Tingyun could have gotten possessed by Phantylia. I'm fairly convinced that the Tingyun we first meet is in fact the real Tingyun, and she gets possessed at some point during the story itself. Consider how different her attitude is earlier on in the story: she's highly risk averse, and particularly seems loath to comply with Jing Yuan's direct order that she accompany us as we travel the Luofu. This is completely, 100% the reverse of how she behaves right before the big reveal: she won't leave our side even when we specifically and insistently ask her to! The thing I can't figure out, though, is when exactly the change would have happened. All I can say for sure is that it must have been at some point before we fight the deer, because the Tingyun who's obsessed with the abundance and immortality surely must have been Phantylia. Anyone here have any ideas?
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Jul 28, 2023 18:41
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Izzhov posted:For anyone else in this thread who is interested in the story (spoilers for 1.2 trailblaze missions):
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