Niantic has just announced a rewards roadmap for Pokémon Go. Just hearing the name Reward Road, you might get the idea that it’s a new way to reward participation in the game.
Nope. It’s just a way to encourage whaling.
Basically, the more players spend in the shop, the more points that players get. And, to make it clear, it’s not enough to spend the in-game currency of PokéCoins in the shop, the Reward Road feature rewards spending real-life money in the shop, for in-game assets like PokéCoins.
I don’t claim to know the particulars of how Pokémon Go is monetized outside of its in-game shop, but I would have guessed that Niantic had ways of profiting just from the fact that FTP players played the game. But if they’re trying to goad people into spending more money with something as blatant as Reward Road, then things are probably not going well.
I don’t expect Niantic to take my advice, considering that I’m just a guy who doesn’t have a deep understanding of how mobile games profit, and especially considering how obvious it is that Niantic hates the people who played their games. But assuming that they give a shit, then this is something that they may benefit from having gotten out there: People might want to spend money in Pokémon Go if Pokémon Go was actually fun to play.
And the fastest way to achieve this would be to make Pokémon Go a quality experience.
I honestly have no idea what Niantic’s philosophy is when it comes to making mobile games. But at this point, it’s apparent that it involves continually making poorly implemented features that sometimes don’t even work properly, and ignoring all player feedback as they move on to the next poorly implemented feature. And if anything gets rapidly corrected, it’s usually an oversight which has the potential to actually benefit the players who take advantage of them.
Even now, years into the game, players get falsely-accused of driving while playing, with the only way to dismiss the prompt being to tap “I’m a passenger”, despite merely sitting in their living room. Why is this even still a thing? Niantic should have figured out that GPS drift occurs, even when a person is standing still.
And while I’m complaining about Niantic, we can talk about the obvious honeypot events that are designed to catch cheaters, but can result in bans for players who somehow find a way to participate in line with the rules. Like with the recent Gigantamax raids, which can only be participated in in-person, but required something to the tune of three dozen players with optimized teams to even stand a chance of successfully completing.
How is that in any way reasonable?
And among the players who somehow got a raid train together to complete some of these raids, some of them have gotten their accounts banned. And for what? Getting a few dozen other players together to get the raids to actually work out? What a blatant disrespect of the real-life efforts of some of the most dedicated players!
And that’s just what grinds my gears. This isn’t just some game that players are sitting down and playing while completely stationary, Pokémon Go encourages players to “get up and Go!”. If a player goes outside and participates in a raid for an opportunity to catch a Raichu, it would be infuriating if the same player was banned after immediately going outside and walking a mile to get to the raid before it expires.
If Niantic can’t respect the time and real-life efforts of its players, then they’re not the company that should be running a game like Pokémon Go.
I really don’t have much expectation that Niantic is going to change for the better anytime soon, even under duress. It’s because of this that I think it would be better if The Pokémon Company were to somehow reclaim its IP, so that Niantic couldn’t further use it.
When it comes down to it, Niantic never learned to make a decent mobile game, they just benefited from getting their hands on an absurdly popular IP.
Sometimes, something happens that’s so huge, so massive, and so legendary that it will be talked about for years to come. Last Friday, the data from an immense GameFreak leak went live, giving fans the world over insights as to the internal creative decisions of GameFreak, the makers of Pokémon, the highest-grossing intellectual property in human history.
This post won’t go over each of the details of the leak, which is a developing story, with fans still combing over the gigabytes of information. This post is more about the implications of the leak.
For one thing, the leak is acknowledged by GameFreak as containing personally-identifiable information on a number of their thousands of employees. In saying so, GameFreak has indicated that the leak is authentic.
But it also adds to the potential legal consequences that could be faced by the hacker(s), which Nintendo is likely to hunt down like a shiny Pokémon.
To briefly touch on what the leaks contain, included are, among other things, documents involving the creative direction of the gens 3, 4, and 5 games, many images of Pokémon that were redesigned before release, many Pokémon that were never released, possibly-scrapped plans for a sequel to the Detective Pikachu movie, and some amount of data for upcoming Pokémon games, including Pokémon Legends Z-A and the 10th generation of Pokémon.
And there’s more, such as the internal name for the Nintendo Switch successor, which was referred to as “Ounce”.
Without question, as far as hacks go, this is comparable to the “gigaleak” of Nintendo data a few years ago. But this one is different, as it specifically concerns Pokémon. Again, Pokémon is the highest grossing intellectual property in human history, and it has a fan base in the tens of millions, possibly many more. In the gaming world, the impact of this leak is seismic.
Also among the documents are those concerning the creative direction of the anime, such as concept drawings for the characters, and the reasoning behind the choice to conclude the story of Satoshi/Ash, and take the anime in a new direction.
Personally, I would’ve liked to see Gorochu. But maybe that’s in there, somewhere. Still, having seen the creative decisions being considered for it, I kinda wanna play the Sapphire version, again.
But as for the content concerning future Pokémon games, it’s not a bad idea to consider that things are subject to change. And perhaps GameFreak will gain a desire to change them, now that certain elements that they intended to be a surprise have gotten out there. But considering that the leak has shown us elements of past games that did change, it’s reasonable to expect that unreleased games will be subject to change prior to release.
Also, this leak is massive for the modding community, as it contains full beta versions of games from the DS era, and it sounds like it contains editors for at least one of the GBA games. Beta versions and developer tools are kinda a big deal.
There are also some creative elements that were probably better to leave out of the final products, such as a story about a woman with an injured foot who was attacked by a Vigoroth. That goes to show that the creators of Pokémon considered a lot, including stuff that wouldn’t have fit the tone of the games well.
Out of the unreleased designs, my favorite would be the unreleased Hoenn starter, Warabito (apparently Warabbit, a portmanteau of “water” and “rabbit”). While Mudkip may have fit in more with the other two, I’d have probably picked Warabbit, if that was an option.
There’s likely to be more to the leak to be discovered, as fans are still picking through them. It’ll be interesting to see what they find.
Okay, is anybody actually falling for this? Let me know.
What I’m talking about is a graph that started trending on X, which shows a bar graph of what is supposedly the most unattractive hobbies for men, “according to women”. The chart is as follows:
I ignored it at first glance, but seeing as people kept giving it attention, I’ve decided to take it behind the shed. Spoiler alert, it’s coming back with some teeth missing.
First of all, Online Trolling is listed among the hobbies. That should be a powerful indicator of what’s going on, here. Hopefully, I don’t have to spell this out. Okay, I’ll do it anyway, because no reader left behind.
It’s bullshit. Someone came up with this graph just to mess with people. And it worked.
But it’s not the first indicator that someone is messing with you. That would be the fact that there’s no citations. And if there’s no citations, this means that there’s no study, no survey, no polling, or anything of the sort. If someone wanted their study to be at all respectable, there would be a citation, so that a person could look into the methodology to ascertain that the data has any value. There’s no citation, so there’s nothing of value.
Instead, every indication is that someone just pulled all this information straight out of their ass, and posted it on social media knowing that it would push some buttons.
Notice something else about the data? Conveniently, every data point on the bar graph decrements by five. Sure, it’s possible that if you survey thousands of people, it’s possible for the data points, when arranged in the form of a bar graph, would form a neat decrementation by fives. But it would be strongly unlikely.
Having said all that, the point that really pushes people’s buttons is the one about playing video games. I call BS, because women I’ve met play video games. In fact, the last woman I was with played video games. She had a big stack of them. But she hid them from me, even though she didn’t have to, and I ended up finding them accidentally.
Look, I remember a time when video games were the pastime of hobbyists who frequented Radio Shack. Back then, I would’ve understood if someone regarded them as some nerd hobby. But a lot has changed since then, and now it’s something that pretty much everybody does. It’s been decades since it’s been regarded as a nerd hobby, and if anyone today said that they didn’t play them, I wouldn’t believe them.
It’s time for another dose of basic observation of reality. And today, it’s needed because a bunch of professionally-offended social media losers are throwing a fit over the creative decisions of a Chinese video game company.
Recently, the game company Mihoyo revealed a new Natlan setting for their Genshin Impact mobile game. It was recently revealed that the setting for the region has elements of inspiration from the African and South American continent, and even though the game is a few years old and has been played by millions of players, people are just now realizing that there aren’t any black characters in the game.
Even though the number of African tribesman who give a shit about skin tones in a game that they’ve never heard of is probably precisely zero, a bunch of Reddit and Twitter users have proceeded to flood Mihoyo with complaints, because that’s pretty much all they can do.
What they didn’t count on is that Mihoyo is based, and stated that Genshin Impact is just a video game, that any character can look the way that the game’s makers want them to look, and that, because it’s a work of fiction, nothing about Genshin Impact has any bearing on reality.
Basically, a Chinese game company told them what their parents should have told them back when their ages consisted of a single digit. They probably also quickly figured out what was going on by sorting complaints by IP address, and finding that hundreds at a time are coming from the exact same device. And, having been at this for years, they’re probably aware that, when you work in customer service, you’ll encounter a bunch of people with mental illnesses who hide behind sockpuppet accounts, and are so crazy that they think media contains hidden messages from the government/simulation intended specifically for them.
Ask me how I know.
One could easily point out that if there were black characters in the game, then the perpetually-offended will instead complain about cultural appropriation. One might even get the idea that one just can’t win with them. But you can win. When one of them starts getting offended on someone else’s behalf, just don’t engage with them. Let them bang their pots and pans together, where they’ll accomplish nothing.
And while you’re at it, savor the sad irony of the fact that, even though they are connected to the summation of human knowledge, if they had spent even half the effort that they put into being offended instead learning to do something useful, they might have self-taught themselves a skilled trade, and our generation may even have already cured cancer. Or at least learn how to make their own video games. Or even learn to draw in the anime style, so they can beat off to something which they drew, rather than relying on other people to draw it for them. Instead, they are actually dumber than they would be if they had never discovered the internet.
I don’t know what an African tribesman would think of Genshin Impact if they were to learn about it. It’s easy to imagine that such an experience would be their first brush with the technology needed to run the game. Their typical concerns would more likely involve whether a neighboring tribe would invade them while they slept, forcibly remove their genitals, then sell them into forced labor (something that a dumbass neighboring chieftain may attempt to do just because he had a bad dream). There’s also the question of whether they can get enough to eat, something that a person who is aware that mobile games exist probably never has to worry about. An African tribesman cannot possibly give a shit about the skin tones of imaginary characters in a mobile game that they’ve never heard of, and if they had somehow heard of it, they’d probably join the Chinese in wondering just what the hell is wrong with anyone who would give a care. To become offended on behalf of an African tribesman is supremely pointless.
Genshin Impact is just a game, and nothing about it has any bearing on the real world. In that respect, it’s like any video game ever. If you don’t have fun playing that game, your solution to that problem is to not play that game.
If Mihoyo is going to be based concerning this matter, I might just support them. And not just because I want to add Nilou to my roster.
Some voice actors came out against Mihoyo on this matter. This is pretty brave, considering that it’s easier than it’s ever been to replace them. Also, it’s probably true that they’re under contractual obligation to not lay a steaming, fiber-rich loaf all over their employer.
One of them went as far as to call Mihoyo’s actions “unforgivable”. I get that people use that phrase to be dramatic, but they should think about what that means. If someone calls anything that I do “unforgivable”, what they’re saying is that I cannot possibly be reconciled to them, I don’t see any reason to waste any energy trying to impress them.
I look forward to the contributions of the replacement VAs. And if Mihoyo goes the AI route, that would go to show how impressive that the technology has become.
Disclaimer: Primogems are a precious in-game commodity. I advise you to pursue multiple opinions as to which characters to pull for!
It’s been a few days since I wrote up an article claiming that Sigewinne from Genshin Impact was shortchanged. In the time since, I realized that a key aspect of her kit, a healing charge attack that heals the entire party, was just what I wanted for my party.
Before you go and wish on her banner, know that she might not suit your team or your play style. There’s also the fact that I had her signature weapon to give to her, which I obtained while pulling for Furina’s weapon. My experience with Sigewinne may have been influenced by that, which is something to consider if, for some reason, my opinion is what influences you to pull for her.
But hey, I was wrong before, such as when I wrote an article calling Sigewinne shortchanged.
Sigewinne is a bow user. I wouldn’t primarily use her for her bow attack, but it’s something that’s proven useful for my team, which otherwise lacked a bow user. Those are great, because when you happen upon a wild critter, you can get some extra cooking ingredients out of it. I’ve gotten so used to not having a bow user in my party that I’ve easily forgotten that I could do that.
But you wouldn’t find yourself cooking as often, because her charged attack heals your entire party with each “bounce”, (except Sigewinne, who gets a big chunk of healing when the attack duration expires). And using it again only takes waiting out a cooldown.
You don’t even need any targets to use this move, so if there’s any time that your party needs healing, just have Sigewinne blow bubbles. And yes, this does make the game much, much easier. And it’s made bosses that I’ve struggled with nearly trivial. Sigewinne can take an account from getting by to thriving.
Sigewinne’s elemental burst is a bit controversial, as she has to remain on-field for its duration. But that’s acceptable, as it’s comparable to a mini-Neuvilette. The damage output is amazingly high, so as I see it, it’s worth the inconvenience.
Building Sigewinne is simple in theory: if you’re in a hurry, just select artifacts to get her HP as high as you can get it. Whether it’s offense or healing, the major aspects of Sigewinne’s kit scales off her HP. A bow that increases HP (such as her signature) would do great. In fact, her bow was easily tailor-crafted around her elemental charge, which was already her selling-point.
Sigewinne with her signature weapon, Silvershower Heartstrings. Don’t look at me, I didn’t name it.
Sigewinne is a great comfort healer on her own. In fact, she would seem to be the best in the game in that regard. Yes, contrary to what I said before, Sigewinne is better than Barbera as a comfort healer (putting aside Barbera’s auto-revive at C6, which is great). Barbera needs her burst to do full-party healing, which is inconvenient when exploring, and her charge only heals the active character, who might get wet as a result, which could result in unwanted elemental reactions. Like getting frozen.
So, Sigewinne is a great comfort healer. She might even be the best comfort healer in Genshin Impact, so far.
And, before I forget, she can actually automatically heal characters that fall below 50% HP while they are swimming in the depths of Fontaine. She only needs to be in the party to do this, and the only catch is that the ability has a cooldown. So if you were already good at fighting in the depths of Fontaine, you’d become almost unbeatable. This is great if you plan on spending plenty of time in Fontaine’s waters, which is likely if you plan on leveling Sigewinne.
Truth in advertising: Hoyoverse marketing depicts Sigewinne gathering the flower needed to up her level cap.
As far as teammates go, I haven’t attempted using Sigewinne in any post-game content, such as Spiral Abyss, but I think it’s safe to say that she’d be one of the many who would want Furina’s company. And the two go together amazingly well. Furina reduces the party’s HP, while increasing damage input as the party’s HP changes, and Sigewinne adds more damage output with Furina’s ability by also changing the party’s HP, by bringing it back up. After those two, you could pick just about any main DPS and any sub DPS, and have a killer team. Because you’d have hydro application covered by Furina and Sigewinne (mainly Furina), you could pick your other teammates for a desirable elemental reaction that involves hydro.
My current team’s sub DPS is Xiangling, with the main being a C4 Gaming. Triggering vaporize for high damage is simple, and this team is super fun to play! The main flow is to have Furina’s troupe gang up on the baddies, activating her burst, if available. Then, Sigewinne activates her charge, and optionally, you can fire off her burst. Xiangling activates her burst, if available, and you can plop down Gouba, if desired. If all the bad guys weren’t already demolished, then Gaming can come in and clean up. Switch to another character and reactivate their ability, if desired. Just mind your HP, as Furina’s ousia charge can zap your party’s HP. But hey, don’t forget that you have an adorable nudibranch on your side to make the boo-boos all better!
It seems like Sigewinne is getting some undeserved hate from people who aren’t even giving her a chance. While I got swept along with that for a while, my experience with her has been very positive. To not run along with the crowd has its rewards.
But Sigewinne might put a sticker on you while you’re not looking.
I think we know what power creep is. But for the benefit of those who don’t, here’s my attempt to explain it: when a game with the potential for updates is introduced, an economy of power is established, and it’s often expressed to the player how characters compare to one another through attributes such as attack power, techniques with area of effect, efficiency of play with the given resources, and in many other ways. As the game is updated, new characters, equips, techniques, or what-have-you are introduced which tend to be more favorable when compared to what’s established. Thus, players tend more towards the new content, as it tends to be more attractive given the in-game resources available to the player.
Pokémon is one example of a game where power creep has happened. In the base games, the legendary bird Articuno was one of the strongest Pokémon, due to the damage output of its Ice-type moves. But in successive generations, more legendary Pokémon have been introduced with preferable abilities and moves, some of which play directly to the Pokémon’s strengths. The Pokémon Trading Card Game is even worse; players might remember a time when 100 was a lot of damage.
While power creep is often spoken of as though it were a bug in game design, from the viewpoint of the developers of mobile games, it’s a kind of feature. It’s a way that developers can introduce new content into their games that catch the attention of established players who may believe that they already have ideal setups, and give them more content to strive for that might be a more practical choice, compared to what’s previously available.
However, game developers must be cautious with power creep. It’s one thing to introduce a character with attributes that challenge the current meta, but if power creep is accomplished through raw stats, then previous premium content can be left in the dust, and there wouldn’t be much reason for players to concern themselves with it. But if a new premium character doesn’t have an advantage over other established characters, then there wouldn’t be much reason to care for the new character. Its a delicate game.
One mobile game that I can think of that’s been hit with power creep pretty hard is Pokémon Masters EX. My first truly OP premium character in that game was the sync pair of Leon and Charizard. I thought it was pretty cool that he had a really strong attack that can be used for free after using a setup move. That was a few years ago, and since then, we’ve been introduced to characters that pack such an absurd punch that even Leon has been overshadowed, despite him being the greatest trainer in the Pokémon lore!
To move closer to the topic of this article, let’s look at Genshin Impact. While power creep has occurred, it’s handled it relatively well. It’s true that some of the premium characters have been overshadowed, but none of the old ones have become an absolutely bad choice. For example, there are still players who main Klee, and get it to work.
Lately, there has been some impressively powerful characters that are relatively new. One would be Nahida, who combos well with other characters due to her Dendro element. Another would be Furina, which grants huge damage output as she decreases the party’s HP, but pairs well with full-party healers which further boost her damage output. Then there’s Neuvillette, a high-damage-dealing catalyst wielder. Arlecchino does a lot of damage, but with the drawback of not being able to be healed by teammates, but is still exceptional in the hands of skilled players. Clorinde is a fast-paced damage dealer.
These are all relatively new characters. Thus, it would be easy to make the case that Genshin Impact is being hit with power creep, even if in a slow, carefully-controlled way.
However, as it so happens, there is a character that one can point to to make the case that, while power creep may be a trend, it’s not a constant. And that character would be the newest one to hit Genshin Impact, Sigewinne.
It seems the train of thought with her is, “Make her cute, and hopefully, no one will notice that this poor girl is not worth their hard-earned primogems.” She’s a Hydro element full-party healer with some decent damage output, but there’s a problem: other characters can do what she does, but better. Among these is Barbera, whose charge attack steadily heals the active character, and whose burst attack significantly heals the entire party. And better yet, once she reaches C6, she automatically fully revives an active party member who faints, once every 15 minutes.
What’s more, Barbera is available to all players once they hit Adventure Rank 18 and complete a certain quest, something that players can do within a month of starting the game. And because Barbera is a 4 star character, getting her to C6 can be reasonably accomplished, even if it would take a while for most players.
Making things worse for Sigewinne is the fact that her debut banner is running alongside the first rerun for Furina, a character that should be preferred by just about anyone who hasn’t already obtained her from her own debut. Because Furina gains a lot of fanfare stacks from partywide healing, one can make the case that Sigewinne pairs well with Furina. But do you know who else can do that? A bunch of other healers, such as Jean. It says a lot about how Furina has impacted the game that a character that hasn’t stood out in a while is now quite viable.
The train of thought may have been to debut a character alongside another one she would hypothetically pair well with, but what ended up happening instead is that the rerun banner greatly overshadowed the debut! And this was a great disservice to the character of Sigewinne, who was obviously designed to be highly endearing. Sigewinne would have been considerable as a 4 star character, to be randomly pulled while pulling for a 5 star banner character. If that was the case, she could have made her debut within Furina’s rerun banner. But instead, here she is as a 5 star featured on her own banner, with a signature weapon on a different banner that’s competing for pulls with a weapon that players would rather pull.
I do like the character of Sigewinne. She has a beautiful and tragic story. Not as much as Aerith from FF7, but it’s comparable to that of Marona from Phantom Brave. It’s because of this that I would have preferred that she had a better kit, which would be viable in more than just a few hypothetical fringe cases. And even if the character was made to appeal to girls and women who play the game, don’t they deserve better?
But one thing that I can say about Sigewinne’s kit is that it does resist power creep. Well done.
I know what you’re thinking, seeing the title and thinking, “Raizen! I thought that you were an anime nerd! Why are you only just now getting around to playing Genshin Impact?” I even wrote an article about it back before it was released, so it’s not like it somehow escaped my attention.
But yeah, as of about two weeks ago, I finally got around to installing the game on my phone, and I gave it a go to see what all the fuss was about. And I’ve been digging into the game’s content. Really digging into it. And as of typing this up, I had no choice as to whether I’d take a break from it, because the game is under periodic server maintenance to prepare for a new version.
Wow, does this game have a lot of content. And while comparisons to Breath of the Wild are already obvious, it’s comparable (perhaps even greater) in terms of content. Which is astounding considering that this is a free-to-play mobile game with almost no in-game content locked behind a paywall (as far as I’m currently aware).
So basically, it’s like Breath of the Wild in that there’s a short outset, after which you can just explore the world at your own pace. Alongside the free exploration, Genshin Impact’s story is quest-driven, with much of the more valuable resources being available in the game’s many side quests, including the in-game currency that is used to obtain the premium content.
Where Breath of the Wild has you only play as Link, but with numerous clothing options with associated benefits, in Genshin Impact, you have the freedom to choose your playable character, each with their own kit, among whom you can swap out on the fly. Much of Genshin Impact’s strategy revolves swapping out your characters based on their attributes, though it’s generally preferable to focus down on a character that you choose as your main attacker, with the rest of the party offering support, considering that resources get more scarce as you continue playing.
What the game looks like.
Some of the in-game resources and quests refresh on a real-time day-by-day basis. Otherwise, you can simply buy up massive quantities of cooking ingredients from shops, and cook up enough dishes so that you can heal up continuously as you blow through the game’s content.
But hey, is delayed gratification really that bad?
And speaking of food, your characters each have a fullness meter, which increments when the character is fed, and prevents feeding them when they’re full. However, it decrements with time. This encourages players to battle strategically, rather than cheese battles by healing up from huge quantities of food each time they take significant damage.
Because the game’s battle system is kinda complex, I appreciate that players are introduced to strategic elements incrementally based on their progress, with players becoming acquainted with some of the games more advanced strategies (such as elemental reactions) after days of playing at a reasonable pace.
Which I might have waived, unless it’s reasonable to expect a player to reach Adventure Rank 29 and a character level of about 50 in a couple weeks. It feels like I’ve been going at it hardcore, but at this point, I might continue on at a more steady pace.
So yeah, I like it. And I’m impressed. I remember a time in which the smug “hardcore real gamers” refused to accept mobile games as real games. And now, here we are, with a mobile game that’s about as deep as some of the deeper console games. And more impressive about it is that it’s free-to-play.
If the option is available, which it is for iPhone, PS4, and PC, I suggest playing this game with a controller. The touchscreen controls suck Chicken McNuggets, as you’d probably expect, but you have the option to switch to a connected controller on your iPhone once you reach a point that reasonably takes about 15 minutes of play (a drop in the bucket, considering all the content this game has to offer). From what I hear, the controller option isn’t available when playing on Android, but Android players are free to clue me in if they get one to work.
As an aside, I thought that this game was coming to Switch, as Mihoyo stated at one point. Are they waiting for Nintendo to release a platform with a beefier processor?
If you go to download it, be prepared, because it’s a doozy of a download. The initial app download wasn’t huge, but be ready for a download of about 23 GB of assets on the initial bootup. When I downloaded it to iPhone, the assets downloaded in about 2 minutes, which is pretty impressive considering that I was situated between a couple hills at the time, without a cell tower in sight. When I downloaded it to PC at home, the same 23 GB took about a half-hour to download. And again, the game downloaded to my phone in about 2 minutes. Cellular technology has gotten impressive.
You might be wondering, “Raizen, why did you download it to your phone, and your PC? Did you start multiple accounts?” No, just one account. You actually can access the same account from different devices, with PS4 being an available choice, if you have one. What’s really cool is that, in Genshin Impact, you don’t save the game. The game does it for you, automatically, and in real time. As it does so, your save data is stored on the server, so you can pretty much just close your game while it’s connected to the network, and you can just resume it when you open it again, even if you open it on a different device.
The downside to this is, there’s no save-scumming. So whatever mistake that you make, you’ve gotta cope.
Genshin offers an introductory Gacha, and enough of a currency to guarantee a character, to introduce players to the gacha system.
As you probably guessed, the game makers don’t keep their lights on by offering this game for free without microtransactions. And while it seems like nearly all in-game content is accessible to players, there is a gacha system that offers premium characters and weapons for a premium currency. Like many such games, Genshin Impact creates an economy that establishes the value of its premium currency.
This premium currency is provided to players over the course of normal gameplay, to the point that players can start making pulls after they’ve progressed to the point that the gacha system becomes available (for players considering making multiple accounts for “rerolls” to increase the chance that they can have premium content early on, in Genshin Impact, this is highly impractical to attempt, because the non-permanant gachas aren’t available from the outset).
While this is the case, unless the player is astoundingly lucky, the pull rates for the best premium characters is astoundingly low. Thankfully, the gacha system does have a “pity” system, which guarantees a random premium item after a certain number of pulls, and has a system that guarantees a featured premium item will be pulled. It’s somewhat complex, but players have figured out how it works.
The downside is, it takes a whopping 180 pulls for this guarantee to kick in, though a player would have to be highly unlucky. It can take months for FTP players to save enough Primogems to guarantee a pull of a featured character, even if they are unlikely to spend them all when they finally make the attempt. It would take 28,800 Primogems to attain enough of the currency used to make pulls to guarantee a banner character, and because there’s two of the “wish” currency, you want to be careful to buy the right one for the banner you want to roll on.
It could potentially take a lot of money for a whaling player to straight-up buy a new character from nearly no Primogems. Which is why, for your effort, you might find it easier to justify combining consistent play with a cheap package which rewards players with 90 Primogems each day for 30 days.
No mayhem here, just totally normal gameplay.
It is hypothetically possible to obtain all playable characters (besides one limited character) in the course of a year as a FTP player, as this is the approximate amount of time it takes for the gachas to cycle through all the featured items that have been released. But this would take an amazing amount of luck. Or a person could whale during that time, if they’re an oil baron’s kid. But I don’t want to calculate the amount of money that could potentially take. I suspect that most FTP players would research which player they’d want the most as they save up their gems, and go for it if they’ve saved up enough for a guaranteed pull and the respective gacha cycles back around.
Okay, story. Genshin Impact has a story. So, it’s like this: Rin and Len Kagamine fly through the sky, minding their own business, when they’re suddenly attacked by some woman who seems mean but is probably just totally misunderstood. You choose between Rin and Len, and your choice determines the main character you play at the story’s outset (and probably eventually swap out for some premium waifu character). The two get separated, so the character you choose and name has to embark on a journey to find their twin. At some point, they fish up some space fairy that nearly drowned, even though she can fly. They then go on adventures, visit cities, and take on numerous quests. Where does the story end? I don’t know, because it’s still ongoing, with more content added as the game is being updated. There are many, many characters, with distinct personalities, particularly the ones that get featured on the gachas. In some cases, you get to test out some of these characters in story battles, where they stomp all opposition with ease, to demonstrate that these premium characters are worth having.
Also, Paimon is ten tons of adorable in a five-pound sack. And considering that she’s one character that you’re going to see a lot of, it’s great that they got it right. The main character is mostly a silent protagonist, so Paimon chimes in so that half the game’s dialogue isn’t implied by subtext.
Paimon sometimes talks herself into trouble.
While you can tell just by looking, I’ll point out anyway that the production values in Genshin Impact are surprisingly high. Not that the character models are particularly realistic, but I appreciate that they did an anime-style game right.
By cel-shading character models AND GIVING THEM OUTLINES.
Which is apparently really, really hard, because for some reason, game makers seem to struggle with making anime-style games actually, you know, look like anime. A sincere “thank you” to the Genshin Impact team for getting it right.
Based on my experience with it, I think Genshin Impact is well-made, and I can give it a recommendation to anyone looking for a robust, mobile JRPG experience.
If you try it, please take to the comments, and tell me who your favorite character is, and why your favorite character is Klee.
I’ve been out of Pokémon Masters EX for a while. But this morning, I learned from Serebii’s site that a new sync pair dropped, which is characterized by a combination of cuteness and overwhelming force.
Some might find such qualities mismatched, but such a combination of attributes appeals directly to my sensibilities, which could probably be called the most normal thing about me. So, I opened the app for the first time in months, and saw that I only had enough gems to run the x11 gacha three times. With a 2% draw rate for each of the 33 attempts I’d make, it was a roll of the dice. But it worked out with the 3rd x11 scout.
This time around, I scouted a character before even knowing the character’s kit. I’ve been through this enough times that I had learned from the pattern: the power creep had long since hit this game like a monster truck, so the newest character was probably the best by a long shot.
If Poppy and Tinkaton are not the best, then they are sure close. Their slap-you-in-the-face power can be likened to that of Steven and Deoxys or Erika and Leafeon, and certainly far beyond my first OP sync pair, Leon and Charizard.
Let’s give this kit a look, starting with the stats:
Yes, I already unlocked the EX outfit. What she’s supposed to do with that Sp. Atk, I don’t know, as her attack moves come off her physical attack. She’s got the glass cannon thing going for her, which is just fine, because you’ll place her behind two bulky support characters. Probably Red and Snorlax and Leaf and Eevee. Which go great with just about any attacker.
Here’s the move selection:
You could probably guess what Play Rough and Thunder Wave do. Play Rough will be the move you fall back on after your initial catastrophic barrage. There’s two moves I want to focus on, here:
The main setup move, which instantly cranks Tinkaton’s Attack stat to max, and makes the next move free. That’s gotten to be a standard convention for these OP characters. But now for her attack move:
A move only available each time Tinkaton uses a different move, which is slightly inconvenient, but with a catastrophic 450 power. While I’m not as impressed as I once was with such huge numbers (I’ve seen what power creep does to games like this), it’s still to be appreciated just how enormous this attack is. You do get to use this immediately after using the setup move, which means it can come off a maxed attack, for free.
Looking at passive abilities, she gets a couple good ones. For one thing, her stats can’t be lowered, so that increased Attack and whatever other stat boosts she gets from her allies isn’t going anywhere. This also ruins any strategy an opponent may try that depends upon lowering an opponent’s stats, but that doesn’t happen in this game very often. Speaking of, she also lowers an opponent’s Defense by two stages if her use of Thunder Wave is successful against them. Which is great if you want to slammify an opponent even harder.
But here’s the passive skill that I want to put the spotlight on:
So, on top of all that, her attacks are going to be critical hits. Unless the opponent is immune to those, for whatever reason. Assuming that critical hits work in this game like they do in other Pokémon games, this means that the attacks will do 1.5x damage, and ignore opponent’s defensive stat boosts. Because, you know, this kit needed even more irresistible power.
Reading Poppy and Tinkaton’s kit is like seeing that a character has a lot of damage potential, and as you continue reading, each ability the character possesses increases the damage potential further, for reasons that are simple and straightforward, and only require minimal setup, if any.
Basically, if a kid wanted to design a character who they wanted to win because they do a lot of damage, they’d come up with a kit like this. Except they’d probably also attach missiles and laser beams. Or is that just me?
If you’re interested, here’s Poppy’s character tags:
“Fancy” does not mean “nice”.
For those participating in her event, she can gain access to an exclusive Lucky Skill that brings down an opponent’s defense if they’re already paralyzed and survive an attack that Tinkaton uses against them. This sync pair is the total package.
And what’s more, at 6* EX, her sync move hits all opponents. Standard for an attacker sync pair, but hits a bit different considering the force behind it.
At this point, it’s clear why this game doesn’t have a direct PVP element. If it did, then most battles between players would come down to which ones can wipe out the other before the other can even make a move. This being the case, Pokémon Masters EX depends on in-game opponents to provide players with satisfying challenges. And it does okay at this with event battles.
Like with most RPGs, the objective of battles in Pokémon Masters EX is to lower the opponents HP to zero, before they do the same to you. Poppy’s kit shows that she’s very effective at this, and can accomplish it in a highly straightforward manner, with little in the way of elegance.
This sync pair may be diminutive in stature, but if you respect power (and admire cuteness), then it’ll quickly become a favorite. In my opinion, it’s definitely worth pulling.
Matt Walsh is developing a reputation for bad media takes. This time, Matt railed against violent video games by saying that, even if a person who plays a video game doesn’t commit a violent act, there’s still some part of their mind where they’d entertain such a fantasy.
By now, people are starting to figure out that Matt Walsh is more Conservative than Libertarian. And to those who are starting to figure out the difference between the two, that’s great, because that’s the kind of thing people need to know.
Matt Walsh is still problematic. For one thing, it’s already obvious that Matt doesn’t care for anime, and has no idea why anyone would. He also seldom plays video games, and can only guess what motivates anyone who plays them.
What Matt Walsh does is a great job of representing a brand of Conservatism that is insular and only grudgingly participates in culture, preferring instead to piss all over it when he can do so in a way that’s consistent with the image that he made for himself, which is akin to a stodgy old curmudgeon whose idea of entertainment is sipping an Old Fashioned while watching some non-interactive form of entertainment that’s so ancient that any surprise and every point of trivia has been thoroughly raped from it, leaving behind a desiccated film on the musty reel that hosts it.
Conversely, the left has no problem with making culture. The culture may be debased and a sad debauchery of what has already been established, but they still have no problem with making culture. And for their efforts, they now have an entire team of Avengers which, while they inspire no confidence, will parrot all the DEI talking points that the consultants lurking at Marvel and Disney would have them say.
Matt Walsh is out of touch and more willing to complain about culture than pull it in any particular direction. Unless you were to call Johnny the Walrus a sincere attempt to influence culture.
If you’ve been following along, you’d know my position when it comes to violence in entertainment media: that any depiction of violence in media that someone consumes does not indicate a sincere desire to act out the violent acts depicted. And even if the person did harbor such fantasies, I’d prefer that they keep it limited to their fantasies. I wouldn’t consider them guilty of a crime that they haven’t committed.
But if you disagree, then go ahead and call me a dragon slayer, because I’ve killed a bunch of those. And died a lot. But for that matter, can we talk about the time I saved spacetime by slaying a reality-devouring parasite? Or captured and cataloged over 1000 cryptids, and currently have living samples of each?
What’s that? That didn’t actually happen? Exactly. It’s just made-up stuff, and nothing to get worked up over.
But while we’re at it, let’s talk about the time I studied mountains of math and physics, and only ended up making slightly more per hour than someone at a nearby gas station.
As we consider culture, it helps to keep in mind that culture doesn’t form in a vacuum. Culture always forms in response to something. Aboriginal culture came about in a particular time and place, that is, recent Australia, which contrasts with the Inuits of northern Canada. Considering what these cultures are in response to, it should be obvious why these cultures would not be expected to continue in their new homes if the people were to swap geographies.
California has a particular culture in its densely-populated coastal areas, which came about as a consequence of a willingness to explore new paradigms, which they were more willing to do as the area became wealthy, in no small part due to the richness of the land and climate. Because of their wealth, it appeared as though the consequences of traditionally-unwise behaviors would be blunted, emboldening the people to continue in them. At the same time, relative ease allowed for people to become more creatively involved, and an industry grew in the midst of this.
Normally, the particulars of a culture would be localized, and thus any failures of that culture would be specific to the location in which the culture developed. However, because California has a far-reaching influence by reason of its tech and entertainment sectors, its culture has reached far beyond California’s coast. This allows for the consequences for the failures of its culture to be felt far outside its point of origin. Thus, there’s a new problem, which will result in a new culture that seeks to solve the problems caused by California culture.
One of humanity’s greatest attributes is the ability to adapt to changing circumstances, either over the long term through adaptation, or on an individual basis by reason of the plasticity of our minds.
Matt Walsh, however, is characterized by a certain rigidity of mind that makes him poorly suited to adapt to changing circumstances. This is a huge shortcoming, and contrasts with the real manly men throughout history who have been nimble, quick to adapt, and diligently sought solutions to problems.
The fact is, times are changing. While it’s true that humans are motivated by the same things they historically have been, the technology and the means available to them have changed, and those who insist on remaining in the past are likely to do just that.
But hey, perhaps Matt Walsh can change. I remember that my mom wasn’t fond of video games either, but she became more accepting of them when she saw that they didn’t negatively affect my grades, among other reasons.
As far as politics goes, Conservatives are not that great. Where one party insists upon radical change, the Conservatives are little more than the ones that mildly resists. Sure, they slow the other side’s agenda, but they can’t be counted on to reverse direction.
If Libertarians prove to be more proactive in their advocacy for limited government and personal freedoms, they’d be an excellent replacement to the Conservatives, who have largely proven themselves useless.
I didn’t go in with high expectations, but I was somehow still disappointed. Just remembering last year, it seems like Pokémon Presents has basically come down to a bunch of announcements for some mobile games that I mostly don’t care about.
Pokémon Sleep? I tried it, and it got old after about a month. Pokémon Cafe Remix? I played it a few times, but it was basically a puzzle game with a Pokémon theme. Pokémon Unite? Did anyone really still care about Pokémon Unite a week after it dropped?
The new Pokémon TCG app looks kinda lit, but outside of that, what was there? Pokémon Go is still huge, but its announcement was yet another Pikachu with a hat. Anyone who has been playing Pokémon Go can tell you just how mundane that is. The Pokémon Horizons anime is great, so it deserves a better tie-in than to add its characters to the list of photobombs in Pokémon Go.
Here’s the Pokémon Go announcement that I want to hear: that Niantic will finally address the many problems that have plagued the game’s features since the inceptions of those features.
Instead, Niantic is probably just going to implement one flawed feature after another, not implementing fixes unless there’s an exploit that players could potentially benefit from, that they would issue a quick-fix for.
I used to really like Pokémon Masters. So I might have hoped for something that might have gotten me back into the game. Instead, they announced a new batch of variant trainers that you have to randomly pull from gachas. At this point, Pokémon Masters can be called a “try to pull your favorite waifu character from the gacha” game. Is that accurate?
The big announcement was for Pokémon Legends Z-A. That was completely unexpected. That might be exciting, but it’s not even arriving this year. Sure, it’s great that GameFreak is putting more time into their next game rather than going for the yearly scheduled Nov. 18ish release. And it’s from GameFreak and not another buggy ILCA mess, so it’s probably going to be great. And mega evolutions are coming back, so there’s that, too.
But overall, this year’s Pokémon Presents was a great disappointment. So, maybe I’ll give PalWorld a try.
Magnetricity 