The only thing spending money is good for is specific characters and weapons, none of which are required, and you can absolutely save up from playing for free and get almost any of those characters/weapons without spending a dime.
This is dramatically underselling the gacha loop. There is absolutely a ceiling for F2P content, where grinding to progress becomes unbelievably time consuming.
It’s deep in the game, I’ll grant that, but that’s the point - like every mobile game, you’re meant to get completely hooked on the progression loop with fast early rewards, then each loop drags longer and longer and longer until you either have to abandon the game entirely or start P2W.
It’s not that hard to get characters and items, but the FOMO system is ridiculous. Just invested all the grinded resources you had to mercy pull a character you’ve had your eyes on? Guess what, the next patch just launched an even better character, or the next banner brought back a 5* that is so meta for your team comp that getting that character will exponentially increase your damage output.
Now you have a limited amount of time to grind all that shit again, or let the banner pass and wait for that massive improvement to your team comp to be available some months/years into the undefined future.
And actually upgrading those items and characters to be useful in late game content?
Time to fork over $$, or at least dozens of hours grinding out dungeons that you can only play on certain days and with a limited number of the same daily grind resources that are required for every different type of progression from level ups to ascensions to gold to skill upgrades… the same materials that you can also buy. And each time you progress to the next “level”, the cost (and time needed to pay it) increases exponentially.
Basically, the “good” parts of Genshin are specifically (and very effectively) designed to increasingly consume your time or your money. There is nothing “good” about it because it’s all just a massive investment in stealing away your life or your life savings.
They didn’t make all that awesome content for you to have fun - they made it so that you don’t notice when your brain starts telling you “I’ve put hundreds of hours into this game, $5 is totally worth all that time… just $20 and maybe I’ll get that character or skip the next 30 hours of grinding… if I spend $100 I’ll get all the stuff I want at a discount, and then I won’t have to grind for awhile… except I still need to keep progressing and now that I’ve skipped ahead by investing money, the gacha loop is even more punishing now, but I’m locked in an ever spiralling sunk cost fallacy now”
And yeah, don’t even get me started on the sexualization. What the actual fuck.
So basically your argument is, if you don’t like the gameplay loop, they force you to pay? I’m not arguing that there are idiots out there who will spend their life savings on digital crop, but you are dramatically OVERselling the difficulty of upgrade requirements. Sure if you wanna play 8 hours a day you’re eventually gonna have to spend money, but. If you play for an hour or so each day, hit the events that are worth the time, do some daily/weekly dungeons as they are available, a little exploration and a little questing, and have any sense of “progress takes time”, the actual gameplay is fun enough to carry without spending money. If it isn’t, for you or someone else, then just don’t play?
Also, oversexualization of minors is a term that gets thrown around a LOT with this game and I just don’t see it, basically ever. The few characters that are actual children are dressed conservatively, act like children, are treated like children by other characters, there’s never inappropriate commentary about them… if you wanna offense to the anime-style art that makes everyone, including adults, cartoonist, that’s your opinion. It’s weird that a lot of people act like it’s a pervasive issue when it really doesn’t exist at all in the game.
So basically your argument is, if you don’t like the gameplay loop, they force you to pay?
Lol no, I’m saying if you do like the gameplay loop, you will eventually get trapped in it. The more you play, the more time-gated walls you hit in the daily grind, and the more time-gated ceilings you hit in the weekly/monthly grinds, all while the game is designed to hook right into your dopamine reward system and never let go. Want to play more? Better cough up some money! Finished your dailies? But today’s the last day, time is running out on the banner! Cough up some money!
Oh, lol, you don’t see it? The fact that there is an entire model type called “short female” with eight (edit: ten!) characters… but no short males? “Modestly dressed” lmao they’re like 60% exposed skin, short shorts and skirts.
And oh, right, there are some “modestly” dressed children that look like children, and act like children… but coincidentally several of those short female models who aren’t modestly dressed fall under that “I look exactly like the children but I’m not! I’m actually an adult! Or even an immortal” lolicon trope.
https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Short_Female_Characters I clicked on 4 among the grand total of 10 characters of this type and don’t see what you mean. Do you mean that the miniskirts are supposed to be sexy or something? …I don’t really see it. Maybe it’s a cultural thing where as an Asian I don’t find that sexy?
Do you mean that the miniskirts are supposed to be sexy or something?
Klee and Nahida’s skirts effectively don’t even exist - they end at the hip, with exposed undergarments.
It’s a good thing you don’t see that as sexy on those character models, but imagine those same outfits on conventionally attractive real-world adults. If you’re suggesting that miniskirts and exposed midriffs are considered “modestly dressed” then what, exactly, would be immodest to you?
Those were actually two of the four I checked out. That’s underwear‽ Didn’t realize that. That looks so itchy and bumpy on the skin… And that would indeed be sexualization IMO.
But if that wasn’t exposed underwear, I really don’t see that any more sexualized than https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Duan_Qun_Miao_women_from_a_One_Hundred_Miao_Pictures_album,_pre-1912.gif, which depicts one of the traditional outfits of the Miao shortskirt people. Not saying that this is what you usually find in Asia either, but I find the third person from the left conventionally attractive and not sexualized saved for exposing the breastbones, and perhaps her midriff is a little large.
exposed midriffs
While checking out the four I also checked what body type the male protagonist was. He also has exposed midriffs and I never noticed that while playing as him when I did a few years ago.
This is dramatically underselling the gacha loop. There is absolutely a ceiling for F2P content, where grinding to progress becomes unbelievably time consuming.
It’s deep in the game, I’ll grant that, but that’s the point - like every mobile game, you’re meant to get completely hooked on the progression loop with fast early rewards, then each loop drags longer and longer and longer until you either have to abandon the game entirely or start P2W.
It’s not that hard to get characters and items, but the FOMO system is ridiculous. Just invested all the grinded resources you had to mercy pull a character you’ve had your eyes on? Guess what, the next patch just launched an even better character, or the next banner brought back a 5* that is so meta for your team comp that getting that character will exponentially increase your damage output.
Now you have a limited amount of time to grind all that shit again, or let the banner pass and wait for that massive improvement to your team comp to be available some months/years into the undefined future.
And actually upgrading those items and characters to be useful in late game content?
Time to fork over $$, or at least dozens of hours grinding out dungeons that you can only play on certain days and with a limited number of the same daily grind resources that are required for every different type of progression from level ups to ascensions to gold to skill upgrades… the same materials that you can also buy. And each time you progress to the next “level”, the cost (and time needed to pay it) increases exponentially.
Basically, the “good” parts of Genshin are specifically (and very effectively) designed to increasingly consume your time or your money. There is nothing “good” about it because it’s all just a massive investment in stealing away your life or your life savings.
They didn’t make all that awesome content for you to have fun - they made it so that you don’t notice when your brain starts telling you “I’ve put hundreds of hours into this game, $5 is totally worth all that time… just $20 and maybe I’ll get that character or skip the next 30 hours of grinding… if I spend $100 I’ll get all the stuff I want at a discount, and then I won’t have to grind for awhile… except I still need to keep progressing and now that I’ve skipped ahead by investing money, the gacha loop is even more punishing now, but I’m locked in an ever spiralling sunk cost fallacy now”
And yeah, don’t even get me started on the sexualization. What the actual fuck.
So basically your argument is, if you don’t like the gameplay loop, they force you to pay? I’m not arguing that there are idiots out there who will spend their life savings on digital crop, but you are dramatically OVERselling the difficulty of upgrade requirements. Sure if you wanna play 8 hours a day you’re eventually gonna have to spend money, but. If you play for an hour or so each day, hit the events that are worth the time, do some daily/weekly dungeons as they are available, a little exploration and a little questing, and have any sense of “progress takes time”, the actual gameplay is fun enough to carry without spending money. If it isn’t, for you or someone else, then just don’t play?
Also, oversexualization of minors is a term that gets thrown around a LOT with this game and I just don’t see it, basically ever. The few characters that are actual children are dressed conservatively, act like children, are treated like children by other characters, there’s never inappropriate commentary about them… if you wanna offense to the anime-style art that makes everyone, including adults, cartoonist, that’s your opinion. It’s weird that a lot of people act like it’s a pervasive issue when it really doesn’t exist at all in the game.
Lol no, I’m saying if you do like the gameplay loop, you will eventually get trapped in it. The more you play, the more time-gated walls you hit in the daily grind, and the more time-gated ceilings you hit in the weekly/monthly grinds, all while the game is designed to hook right into your dopamine reward system and never let go. Want to play more? Better cough up some money! Finished your dailies? But today’s the last day, time is running out on the banner! Cough up some money!
Oh, lol, you don’t see it? The fact that there is an entire model type called “short female” with
eight(edit: ten!) characters… but no short males? “Modestly dressed” lmao they’re like 60% exposed skin, short shorts and skirts.And oh, right, there are some “modestly” dressed children that look like children, and act like children… but coincidentally several of those short female models who aren’t modestly dressed fall under that “I look exactly like the children but I’m not! I’m actually an adult! Or even an immortal” lolicon trope.
It’s. Fucking. Gross.
https://genshin-impact.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Short_Female_Characters I clicked on 4 among the grand total of 10 characters of this type and don’t see what you mean. Do you mean that the miniskirts are supposed to be sexy or something? …I don’t really see it. Maybe it’s a cultural thing where as an Asian I don’t find that sexy?
Klee and Nahida’s skirts effectively don’t even exist - they end at the hip, with exposed undergarments.
It’s a good thing you don’t see that as sexy on those character models, but imagine those same outfits on conventionally attractive real-world adults. If you’re suggesting that miniskirts and exposed midriffs are considered “modestly dressed” then what, exactly, would be immodest to you?
Those were actually two of the four I checked out. That’s underwear‽ Didn’t realize that. That looks so itchy and bumpy on the skin… And that would indeed be sexualization IMO.
But if that wasn’t exposed underwear, I really don’t see that any more sexualized than https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Duan_Qun_Miao_women_from_a_One_Hundred_Miao_Pictures_album,_pre-1912.gif, which depicts one of the traditional outfits of the Miao shortskirt people. Not saying that this is what you usually find in Asia either, but I find the third person from the left conventionally attractive and not sexualized saved for exposing the breastbones, and perhaps her midriff is a little large.
While checking out the four I also checked what body type the male protagonist was. He also has exposed midriffs and I never noticed that while playing as him when I did a few years ago.