When immersion becomes addiction

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.

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.