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[IonMatrix]

Oh, right Genshin Impact! It's made from a company in China. Said they were going to revolutionize the market here. Well, maybe they did, but not in a way they expected. We've been busy hammering its frustrating mechanics here.

Really, look closely into the mechanics, and what do you actually find? A FUCKING mobile game! I mean seriously, what open world makes it's main way of aquiring weapons a ruffle draw? Well yes, you can find them in chests, but they only drop garbage. I would ramble on and on, but I don't have a keyboard, so I'll just list some of the most glaring points:
Ruffel draw (and they combine characters and weapons in one pool just to insult you)

Open empty world: You can spend a few hours opening the chests that spout garbage. What else are you going to find? Sorry, nothing.

Grinding campaigns: The only way to aquire material for progressation are those "campaigns" and they consist of...slimes. Also energy mechanic WTF?

DiabloIII randomness: The things beside weapons you equip all have random stats. Random amount of stats. Random type of stats. Random usefulness of stats. Random stat upgrades. Good luck grinding.

I would link to several videos, but they're chinese so you guys probably wont understand what they're saying.

[Nighthawk]

Oh, right Genshin Impact! It's made from a company in China. Said they were going to revolutionize the market here. Well, maybe they did, but not in a way they expected. We've been busy hammering its frustrating mechanics here.

Really, look closely into the mechanics, and what do you actually find? A FUCKING mobile game! I mean seriously, what open world makes it's main way of aquiring weapons a ruffle draw? Well yes, you can find them in chests, but they only drop garbage. I would ramble on and on, but I don't have a keyboard, so I'll just list some of the most glaring points:
Ruffel draw (and they combine characters and weapons in one pool just to insult you)

Open empty world: You can spend a few hours opening the chests that spout garbage. What else are you going to find? Sorry, nothing.

Grinding campaigns: The only way to aquire material for progressation are those "campaigns" and they consist of...slimes. Also energy mechanic WTF?

DiabloIII randomness: The things beside weapons you equip all have random stats. Random amount of stats. Random type of stats. Random usefulness of stats. Random stat upgrades. Good luck grinding.

I would link to several videos, but they're chinese so you guys probably wont understand what they're saying.

Wow. Uh... I don't know quite how to react to this. I don't want to start a war or anything, but it feels like you just took the most common complaints about the game that most people are aware of and repeated them, only louder, and possibly with a predisposition toward really disliking Chinese developers? Dunno. I get that impression. Could be wrong.

I'm not saying Gacha games are the future or anything, and I certainly think they're predatory, but they only work because people are stupid and willing to spend $1000 for a JPEG or something. If people are going to be that dumb, game developers would have to be equally dumb not to take advantage of it. Again, I do not think charging a fistful of cash for a chance at getting digital loot is a good system in any universe and I would be happier if it wasn't a thing, but yelling loudly about it on a forum isn't going to make it go away; people being smart is going to make it go away. So... it'll never go away.

I also think it's worth noting that you can play Genshin Impact as a Breath of the Wild-esque experience, completely ignoring the grindy end-game stuff and the gacha, and still have a decent time. The mechanics are a little shallow, yeah, but then again, Breath of the Wild didn't have very complex combat or a lot of enemy variety and people still loved it because it was fun to explore, so... yeah.

Yes, it's grindy. Yes, chests mostly give you upgrade-fodder. Yes, equipment stats are random. And does any of this stuff matter if you're just here to hang out for a few hours to hit some random goblins while enjoying the sights and sounds? No. Not really. And considering the fact that doing so costs you nothing other than some bandwidth to download it all... I don't think the game warrants such an explosive response. Please chill.

(Oh, and you mean raffle, not ruffel. I don't think a ruffel is a real thing, but if it was it would probably be the name of a generic dog Pokemon.)

[scriver]

I get a strong impression that IonMatrix is from China, Nighthawk.

I'm not saying Gacha games are the future or anything, and I certainly think they're predatory, but they only work because people are stupid and willing to spend $1000 for a JPEG or something. If people are going to be that dumb, game developers would have to be equally dumb not to take advantage of it.

"People who get taken advantage of deserve to be taken advantage of or they wouldn't have been taken advantage of in the first place" is an awful and predatory way of thinking.

[Nighthawk]

I'm not saying Gacha games are the future or anything, and I certainly think they're predatory, but they only work because people are stupid and willing to spend $1000 for a JPEG or something. If people are going to be that dumb, game developers would have to be equally dumb not to take advantage of it.

"People who get taken advantage of deserve to be taken advantage of or they wouldn't have been taken advantage of in the first place" is an awful and predatory way of thinking.

Yeah, it is. Which is why that's not my view. I don't want to see people taken advantage of, because I'm not a psychopath, and I genuinely hope you don't assume I'm the kind of person who says, "Hell yeah, I want to go on to develop a game that abuses human psychology in order to make huge bank!" No. Just... no. It's just that I understand the reason it happens, especially in regard to gacha games--because it works. People running a business want to make money, and human beings are practically hardwired to take the easiest route to success. If consumers continue to pour unreasonable sums into a monetization scheme that takes little effort on the part of the game developer, of course the developer is going to keep using said scheme.

There are complex solutions to this issue, but if you boil it down to bare essentials there are two simple ones: either the developers stop doing it, or the consumers stop falling for it. In an ideal world, yeah, the first is preferable, but we don't exactly live in an ideal world.

Of course, not every developer is like this. There are some very passionate developers out there who are still making great games because they want to make great games, and that's awesome. But the vast majority of them also aren't making fat stacks of cash like the guys who use effective monetization schemes the way gacha games do. That's a damn shame, but again, that's partially due to the fact that developers pursue these money-making methods, and partially because people fall for them.

I'm not out to make miHoYo look like heroes. They're game developers. They run a business and they want your money like everyone else. I just don't like the idea of anyone taking a look at their latest game and pretending it has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I for one love how well the music compliments the game. I spent an embarrassing amount of time just hanging out in one of the mountainous areas in the game's second region to enjoy the ambiance. That's cool, and in my eyes, worth defending, because if all people see is an evil corporation trying to make money, they miss out on some very worthwhile aspects of the experience (which again, costs nothing, because the game is free to play).

Edit - Corrected minor spelling and grammar errors.

[IonMatrix]

Sorry, I didn't mean to have my original post to be so explosive. It was supposed to be more of a "so yeah I don't really like this game" instead of "hey you are all idiots for playing this garbage game!". I wrote that post after seeing a comment that roughly meant "bruh Genshin is the glory of China why the hell are you bashing it" somewhere else so I wasn't really in a good mood.

Oh and yes I am from China.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Though in my opinion if you already opened your computer,then why not pop in some other game that's, well, better?

[Egan_BW]

Dunno of any other BotW-likes currently on PC, especially not free ones. Though I decided not to play that one when I got an ad for it. I don't buy any products which are advertised to me. ;P

[Nighthawk]

Sorry, I didn't mean to have my original post to be so explosive. It was supposed to be more of a "so yeah I don't really like this game" instead of "hey you are all idiots for playing this garbage game!". I wrote that post after seeing a comment that roughly meant "bruh Genshin is the glory of China why the hell are you bashing it" somewhere else so I wasn't really in a good mood.

Though in my opinion if you already opened your computer,then why not pop in some other game that's, well, better?

Yeah, I won't argue that; there are plenty of RPGs that make Genshin Impact's systems look pretty dull. I, too would have vastly preferred it if the game was a one-time purchase like any other with better-implemented mechanics and characters that join your party as you advance the story and stuff. And it's kind of depressing to think that such a game probably would have been way less lucrative for miHoYo even though it would also be way less scummy.

Sorry if I came off somewhat brash myself. Your major complaints about Genshin are pretty valid, and I can understand wanting to counteract the words of some of the more... extreme fans of the game.

And if the BotW-esque open world trend (see Immortals Fenyx Rising) continues across gaming, we can always hope for a proper AAA title that makes Genshin look like a prototype, eh?

[Sirian]

Genshin Impact is the type of game that, I think, would be a blast to play as a kid.

It's really very well made and polished and I did have some fun with it for about a week. Although, ultimately, it feels repetitive and shallow, it has redeeming features, for instance the combat has some depth to it due to how you can swap team members, and you can totally play it for free and not feel like you have to spend money to enjoy it.

The exploration feels like an almost endless easter egg hunt, so even though 99% of what you find is 'whatever', there's some childlike enjoyment about finding little chests in every nook and cranny. Also, there's a decent amount of little riddles and puzzles to fill in the world a little.

In the end, of course, I wouldn't expect many to play it long-term and non-casually, at least not if their tastes are like mine.

[JimboM12]

finding myself going through a weird pirate/viking kick right now:

Assassin's creed valhalla (i could not stop myself)
Mount and blade viking conquest (a classic in my eyes)
Assassin's creed black flag (where my little rotation started)
sid meiers pirates! (another blast from the past, this was my childhood right here)
man' o war: corsair (weirdly satisfying to krump ork pirates)
crusader kings 2 and 3 (being a clan chief is funnnn)
tempest (a fantasyish version of sid meiers pirates crossed with kind of like a board game, its hard to describe)

its leaning more pirate, its too bad theres not a lot more video games set in the early middle ages where i can be ragnar jimbrok raiding ships, bringing loot back to my longhouse and generally praising odin.

[Robsoie]

I've been replaying Caesar 3 campaign mode, using the excellent Augustus engine

After the first couple of missions that mostly are used to teach you the ropes, i've taken the 1st peaceful mission, Capua, a simple one to relearn my ressource management instead of going into a military one.
Once done, i continued to take another peaceful mission. This time it was Tarraco, with increased requirement to fullfill it.

I forgot that Caesar 3 could features earthquakes, a great way to destroy your planning .
I was somehow lucky as the earthquake destroyed half of my ressource gathering location, taking out many wheat, animal and fruit farms (the faults do not disappear and you can't make bridges over them for some reason).
Fortunately i managed to recover from this as i built more farms elsewhere and my population never went into full famine fortunately.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Apparently the earthquake on Tarraco is always at the same location, i should have remembered this

It was going really nicely after this disaster, i had to trade around to get furnitures as there's no way to manufacture them in that mission, and was selling a lot of marbles (making good money in trade from my southwestern island industry dedicated to marble extraction) to another city in exchange.
Caesar seemed to like fruits and pottery, as he asked me a lot of them regularly, my worshops and farms were numerous enough to provide everytime.
Meaning that after a few years i reached all the requirement to have this mission completed. Could also send gifts to increase my Favor rating faster.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

For my main housing, i was using a variation of the very popular simple 9x9 block system described here :
https://caesar3.heavengames.com/strategy/housing/block10.shtml

I'll try a military mission next time for a change, though this one, Mediolanum, at this point of the game is a challenging mission.
Incredible how Caesar3 aged so well, and with the Augustus features and quality-of-life addition it's going to stand the test of time for a long while.

[Nighthawk]

I started mucking about in Kenshi.

Difficult game to love, this one. Everything feels a little one-dimensional and slow. Money is all-important, and there are a few rather risk-free avenues toward making it, but it tends to be grindy regardless. You can raise your characters' strength and athletics easily enough, but if you want to raise combat skills you either need to base-build for training dummies, which is risky and investment heavy (not to mention they don't even train you that much), or get yourself beaten to a pulp countless times by animals and ne'er-do-wells.

Or you can capture a random bandit guy and repeatedly beat him up then heal him, effectively using a living being as a training dummy until said dummy's usefulness is at an end. But that feels like an exploit. And it's pretty mean.

The one thing I do like is that there aren't a lot of situations that instant game-over you. Yeah, you'll get beaten within an inch of your life, but if it's just bandits they'll likely take your stuff and leave you. And if it's the law, they'll probably just chuck you in a cell and let you rot there for a while. There's always a way to scratch out a living, even if you've hit rock-bottom, so it feels like the game is intended to be ironmanned.

I just wish there were more enemies that didn't require two-dozen fighters (which I could only afford by hitting rocks for an in-game month) to defeat.

I've decided it's probably better to focus on adventuring with a very small squad for now. Just my main character Nose, his bonedog Dog, and Sensei, a random old guy I picked up to have a second person to carry the injured in case something goes awry. Which it probably will.

[delphonso]

Before food was a thing in Kenshi, the strategy was to hire someone to just sit in bars, run around with the rest of the team and get beat up, then run the bar-fly out to heal everyone up. Rinse and repeat. Ultimately, the static nature of Kenshi and the grindiness gives it diminishing returns as you play more and more. There is an addictive side to "number go up", though - which I hope you can get to. That's how I poured like 300 hours into the game.

[Sirus]

Worth noting that there are several free companions to be found in various settlements. You don't have to pay out the nose for extra hands unless you really need the additional manpower, and unlike many games with pre-set companions (cough Mount and Blade) they work together and get along just fine.

[Cyroth]

Got convinced by some "friends" to install World of Warcraft again and play the pre-event for the new expansion...
... I'm now quite angry at those people.

This has to be one of the lowest effort events I've ever seen in a big name MMORPG.

They basically just added 3 or 4 very boring daily quests to the icecrown area and gave each mob there a new drop that can be exchanged for catch-up gear at absolutely horrible rates.
Every 20 minutes a boss mob spawns, taken from the pool of old WotLK undead dungeon/raid bosses that have, like, one ability from their old skillset and 3 apparently randomized ones (from a positively gigantic pool of... maybe 4? 5?).
20 minutes is just short enough that you can't do anything elsewhere during the wait, so most people in my guild/friendslist just afk during spawns to watch youtube/netflix/whatever.
Farming the new drops ingame during the breaks is also not really viable because of the horrible exchange rates.

I know that at their core the old WoW pre-expansion events were the same, a half dozen quests (sometimes repeatable), some mob farming for exchangeable drops, a CGI video or two for the newer expansions... but here they have such a "we didn't even care" feel that I'm positively mad at Blizz.
Where Legion hat giant battleships in the sky that bombarded quest areas, Cata had doomsday prophets everywhere, WotLK had armies of undead at most city gates and even BfA had at least some work put in to make it look good; Shadowlands gets bosses that spawn with a horribad classic-WoW era graphics whirlwind and a CGI video thats 5% action and the rest a still frame of Tyrande while her VA tries to hit a gravelly batman voice.

[xaritscin]

i usually aim to not be "that guy" but, that's current Activision Blizzard development effort and schedule for these last years. game is so old and the project direction has changed so much they dont really churn out decent content anymore. not saying that the first expansions were better but Vanilla was basically short on some stuff and TBC/WoTLK helped to fill those missing things on the content (with some of the new zones and dungeons/raid being of enough quality to be memorable). they havent done anything substantial like that since MoP (despite the anti-pandas backlash) or Legion (bit this one was at the cost of killing an expansion that had potential).

at this point WoW as a whole doesnt have much time left to live. its gameplay while being a staple 20 years ago hasnt aged well (specially due to Blizzard's stubborness to improve what was instead of churning out new and fresh content so people forgets the underlying mess).

Azeroth has potential if given a reboot under a new development team. specially if they invest into making it less focused on dungeon powerfarming and more into sandbox territorial control. the time of the whole Horde vs Alliance storyline with BBEGs looming on the distance has to die already, the game would be several times more fun if you could just roll the race you like and WILLINGLY join a faction that is much more dynamic and in depth than just "Good"  vs "Evil" teams. that sh*t belongs to ancient mmorpg design doctrines like Everquest which should also be a dying breed nowadays.