When immersion becomes addiction

Was not aware there's 8 Hoyoverse games now. Looks like a gacha hell to avoid or play sparingly.

A friend dropped GI and HSR, but still plays ZZZ because the excessive dialogue of the 2 games takes hours to catch up on their current stories. It's mostly irrelevant to character development and lore too.

It's likely a strategy for Hoyo to boost "player engagement" for their shareholders by artificially increasing time spent logged into their games. CN gachas in general have this problem.

Take Hypergryph (Arknights devs): Characters in AK tend to ramble, turning would-be simple explanations into 15-minute monologues. Excess dialogue still persists in Endfield; NPCs needlessly explain the same concepts and situations multiple times through the story while compulsively glazing Endmin, a run-of-the-mill silent amnesiac MC. It hurts the pacing and artificially pads out its "play time".

Even then, HG shouldn't copy Hoyo on inflated player stats. Not when they need to work on Endfield's story, cuz right now it's Hoyo levels of bloat. Valley IV arc is a boring mess.

I can't picture myself sticking through future patches each filled with tens of hours of bloated dialogue and poor story pacing just so I can be "caught up" with the story. Devs, not just Hoyo or HG, need to put in effort to make spending time (and optionally money) in their games worth it. Don't hold players captive with dailies and drag out stories just to pad it out.

Damn, only 1 week before Endfield releases. So many new gachas/live service games coming out the next few years. It's a fight for space in my phone and iPad, and my free time. Juggling several gachas already, I have to decide which ones to play less or drop.

Reception of CBT2 seems lukewarm on the fans' side while sponsored CCs seemed to glaze and overhype the game, not really sharing concerns and criticisms. Hoping Endfield doesn't disappoint, or it'll just be a flavor-of-the-month title for me.

My advice: Keeping to 2-3 gachas is reasonable, 1-2 if GI/WW/HSR-sized. Skip Endfield for now or drop 2-3 gachas since it's a large game (bigger than many AAA open-worlds and RPGs on the market, gonna get bigger with future patches). Avoid playing gachas just to keep up login streaks and do dailies. Emerging research shows majority of people don't realize they're chronically online based on the content they consume (streaming shows, live-service games, music, socials).

Is the amount of gachas you're juggling sustainable? New gachas get bigger every year which makes it difficult for players to maintain them with their current gachas. Seems devs know this, forcing people to drop their existing gachas and weed out tourists playing their gachas like flavors-of-the-month.

Endfield special program dropped a few hours ago, and my excitement died a bit. HG already forcing FOMO with the gacha currency in their welcome rewards. They won't carry over to limited banners and need to be spent before they expire. Gacha system is really convoluted so many different currencies.

The use of AI dub for the special release is awful. Either HG got lazy, or doing more than they can reasonably do.

The endgame modes are uninspired and come off as the Endfield's Spiral Abyss from Genshin, and I wasn't the only one who thought about it based on viewer reactions. HG really using everything in the FOMO playbook to make people pull for characters to pass the DPS checks.

Based on the narration (again with AI dubs), story barely improved from CBT2. Understandable given it's not too long since CBT2 ended. Also disappointed with the lopsided male-female ratio. It's gonna be another waifu gacha, but it's expected more males will play than females like with the original AK.

At this point, they'll be Hoyo 2.0 with how they exploit players and promote the game. AK glazers on YouTube are lapping up this special program like it's the greatest thing ever and it's honestly sad.

Varsapura, Nexus Anima, and Petit Planet aren't out yet. Even without them, Hoyo's game pool is so saturated. I don't know anyone who keeps up with every Hoyogame. Add all the dailies, weeklies, LT story events, dialogue fluff and it's another job and a half. Maybe two extra jobs on busier patches.

That is, unless you're 2hu the "God of Gacha" a.k.a. God of Unemployment.

Stopped prioritizing gachas years ago as they're huge time sinks. Some say play it for the memories, but will I actually look back on all the brain rot dailies I felt pressured to do back then? I'll watch story summaries on Youtube since gachas aren't known for concise storytelling.

I'll leave this here also, same FOMO energy as this meme: https://www.reddit.com/r/gachagaming/comments/1ho1hth/gacha_has_consumed_you/

That video is nuts. Multiply by 365 and you easily waste hundreds of hours a year just doing dailies.

No surprise CN gacha devs are making their own Hoyoverses. It's an easy way to force FOMO on fans and trap them in the ecosystem. Kuro Games (WuWa devs) probably cooking their own too.

FOMO is real, and gacha devs aren't your friends. Besides, ex-gacha employees revealed companies hire psychologists when developing games to manipulate players to prioritize dailies as the first things to complete even on busy days. Now? It's all about creating their own Hoyoverses to trap them.