#gacha players are a plague

[zeeph-containment-zone]

pjsk girlies really out here saying "Sega doesn't know how to tune vocaloids they sound like shit in project sekai" meanwhile every vocaloid song in the game is either an unedited but shortened version of a song that exists outside the game or a commissioned song from an actual producer edit: ty to the people who clarified this was about the human covers and not the actual songs. I've seen the same type of people legitimately complain that "there's too much miku in project sekai" so ngl I kinda assumed they were whining about the actual vocaloids again / thinking that because the commissioned song sounds different it's bad (example: how sasakure.uk's tuning is a little more robotic than others to fit the style)

[thelooniemoonie]

Oh boy I can't wait to enjoy a new markiplier video that was uploaded today-

"This video is sponsored by Honkai Star Rail!"

OH NO-

[call-of-ishmael]

So gacha as a format to make your game ends up having a lot of content, that means lots of characters and mechanics to try, a lot of moving parts to tinker with and explore.

But then you have the aspects that prevent you from actually doing that. Time gated energy refills, for one, forcing the player to make a habit out of playing their game, since you cant just grind to max in one big session.

Dailies, leveling curves getting incredibly steep.

And thats not even getting to the most sucky part, the gacha.

If you want to play around with a new mechanic, you best hope you are lucky enough to roll the character that introduces it

Randomness in games is gonna be a thing yes but to me gacha is at the extreme end of the unfun randomness.

So you have these games that have a lot of potential replay value, but trap it under a metric ton of busy work and time gating.

The mirror dungeons in limbus company are extremely fun to me, it scratches that itch of tinkering and optimizing i get sometimes.

And as far as gachas go, mirror dungeons you can play as much as you want, the energy cost is at the end if you wanna claim your rewards.

But its still plagued by the inherent tedium of the gacha formula.

I dont know how to close this

I guess i need more rouguelites to play is the thing.

[quincymaru]

i uh. wound up writing a lot oops. just to say it from the getgo- im not trying to argue or disagree, i just wanted to add to the convo but kinda wound up rambling

i think about when i was an avid/active khux player (pain) and i remember spending so much time on it and just being so unhappy for large portions of it and yeah this.

after khux, i avoided gachas like the plague (i still picked up one here and there to try to play casually but pretty quickly found that i wasnt at the point where i could so i stopped that) for the longest time. ive been playing honkai star rail and i think its overall been a positive experience for me. i do log in for dailies but they take me usually 5-10 minutes and most of that is just me slapping on a mission to run on auto and every now and then hit run again until im out of energy. and i usually do them on my phone so i can very passively do them (which for me and my adhd is a boon- being able to multitask and all). i spend the most time on doing the actual content drops which i find genuinely fun or on trying to beat endgame content which the puzzle of trying to figure out the right team combo to clear the stage is always fun for me.

the thing i hated that took more time was a weekly thing and the past two weeks i havent done it because my life is kinda shit rn and im like nope i dont wanna do SU so im not (which pains the resource poor part of me but im proud of myself for being able to go no sir we are not doing that). and the update from this week fixed the time consumption issue of that weekly thing (which im honestly still so stoked ab, its so easy- its literally just like any other mission).

i do casually play fire emblem heroes but i can absolutely see that i sometimes spend too much time on it where im just not having a good time because im just grinding for resources to do more pulls- thankfully im usually lazy enough that i dont often do this and just stick to the free pulls

i know i really derailed from the original content of the post, i just really wanted to talk about this in a space where i can be better understood. my friends are either gacha gremlins or anti-gacha so i cant really have this type of convo with them. im just really proud of myself with how ive been with honk and idk this post made me do a think. helped me realize that my current rut with the game is because of aforementioned shitty life situation and not because im burnt out on it

One thing about gacha that I think gets overlooked by critics, (perhaps because they have the good sense not to play the games in the first place) is, rather than monetary investment, how much time investment, sometimes even moreso than monetary investment, these games drain from users.

Essentially every gacha has a steep resource cost for utilizing its characters, requiring hours of grinding in repetitive content that adds little to no value for the player. Furthermore, most have "dailies" requiring a login every day. This combines to create a system in which most players log in every day, to spend too much time on content that does not actually satisfy them

Now obviously this whole thing is part of the gacha virtual casino system, keep them coming back and invested so they're more willing to spend money eventually. It all does come down to money in the end. But it is a little weird to me that even those criticizing the game design of gacha don't often focus in on this. Because 1) as a game design element this is atrocious but also 2) Many gacha fans brag about being "f2p," and know that they personally can control their spending habits (even as the genre preys on those who can't), but they ignore how they might have protected their wallet but found several days of time disappearing. It's something worth warning about, I think.

[danteinthedevildom]

@dreamseeker1032 You asked about Obey Me! on a previous post, but I have a tendency to ramble so I thought I'd make a new one just so that one didn't get too long.

Obey Me!, a game created by NTT Solmare, is an otome game with a gender neutral MC (meaning that the player character is never described, never refered to with specified pronouns outside of necessary they/thems, and very little gendered language attributed to them). The basic point is to romance an angels, several demon, and a human, all of whom you'll get horrifically attached to and want to fist fight literal Death for (who is also a character in the game!)

If you know the basic story of the biblical Fall - have ever read Paradise Lost, watched Supernatural or Fox's Lucifer, etc... - then you'll know a fair bit of the game's basic lore, as it follows the same sort of basis for the main characters' backstories. That said, it's also got a fairly unique plot;

MC, a human without magic, has been invited to the Devildom (hell) to take part in an Exchange Programme that's meant to improve relations between the Devildom (demons), the Human World (humans) and the Celestial Realm (angels). They're to stay there for a year, living with the powerful Avatars of Sin in order to keep them safe from harm, after which (should they survive) they'll be sent home. However, things aren't quite as they seem, as MC quickly realises that there's a brother missing, a staircase they're banned from going towards, and a voice crying out for help in the night. Not to mention a seemingly incredible amount of unresolved trauma from the Fall that plagues the brothers in very different ways...

It admittedly follows a little more into the path of demonology in terms of characters and the like; the Avatars of Sin (the original romanceable characters) are listed in the same order seen in demonology (Lucifer = Pride, Mammon = Greed, Leviathan = Envy, Satan = Wrath, Asmodeus = Lust, Beelzebub = Gluttony, Belphegor = Sloth), and relationships between certain characters are lifted from things like the Keys of Solomon (King Solomon himself being an actual character, and Barbatos, one of his pacted demons, also appearing in the game).

It focuses much more on the plot than the romance, especially at first. The game's separated (fanonically) into arcs, with the first ending around Chapter 20, I think? That one focuses on MC settling into the Devildom, developing relationships with the Avatars of Sin, and uncovering a family secret that's frankly emotionally devestating.

Even if you don't like the romance aspect of things (which, if you don't, Obey Me! often has platonic options you can choose from to avoid romantic scenes if you don't want them), the plot itself is well worth playing the game. It's a refreshing take on the Fall that portrays the brothers sympathetically, and honestly makes you question if they even deserved to Fall in the first place.

The game recently made some prior secondary characters romanceable, too, so now you can romance Diavolo (the Prince of the Devildom), Barbatos (his butler and a demon of many talents), Simeon (an angel exchange student who seems to have a lot of love to give, regardless of whether he's allowed to give it or not), and Solomon (a human sorcerer, and another exchange student). Naturally this means the story has pulled away from the Fall and its consequences (emotional and mental, as well as physical), but it's even more interesting now because we're starting to see signs that maybe things aren't as good in the Celestial Realm as we're led to believe.

The actual gameplay is split into Story Elements called Lessons and Battle Elements called Tasks. To progress, you reas through the Lessons until you come across a Task, and then do a very simplistic Dance Battle. If you win, you unlock the next Lesson; if you lose, you'll have to boost your cards.

This is because the game also has gacha elements. You can pull cards from an in-game app called Nightmare, which will feature all of the romanceable characters, and use them to form your Battle Teams. Winning Battles gives you items to upgrade the Cards, and upgrading Cards lets you win Battles, so it's a pretty standard system

Some Cards also come with a Story, which you can read in another in-game app called Devilgram. This often gives you more information on the brothers and their relationships, but also affords you extra scenes with the characters that you might not get in the main storyline. A lot of the romance can be found there.

Of course, now new characters are soon to be added, so we'll likely be entering another arc in the story - which means anything could happen from here on out. But that's admittedly half the joy of Obey Me!. Yes, it's taken a basis in the form of a well-known source material and characters that have been used in media countless times before - but Solmare's interpretation, character development, and lore progression is so different to what I've seen before, I can happily say it's my favourite imagining to date.

The game can have its flaws, yes - later battles can be extremely difficult, and some of the events Solmare have run feel more like cash grabs than actual content - but if you're willing to overlook things like that for the interest of the story, I'd highly recommend the game.

[waheelawhisperer]

I googled the game in the tags, saw that it was hentai, and immediately decided I had learned enough.

Anyway, Path to Nowhere is definitely not as bad as the ads make it look, but that's not a high bar to clear because it has Arknights-level advertising that makes it look like shitty hentai.

I'll explain why it's edgy below. Expect frequent comparisons to Arknights/FGO, which are the two main gachas I've played.

The player character is literally a cop/prison warden

The deployable units are known as "Sinners" and are explicitly prisoners coerced into fighting for the player through the use of "shackles" that compel obedience and can override the shackled Sinner's willpower (you summon them using arrest warrants as currency and their recruitment in-universe is presented as the municipal government imprisoning them and requiring them to assist the player as part of their sentence). It's a big difference compared to Arknights, where pretty much all playable characters work for or cooperate with Rhodes Island willingly and frequently have motivations for joining that are no more complex or coercive than "I want to exchange services for money and this place has good benefits and/or my friends work here". The operators follow the Doctor's orders, but the main tools the Doctor uses to enforce their authority are just docking pay or whatever other standard workplace disciplinary measures are available. The operators are not bound to the Doctor by anything other than personal ties or an employment contract and can leave at any time. FGO has the whole Master/Servant thing, but if I understand Fate lore correctly, Servants can refuse a summons and are generally free to do what they want unless a Master uses a very limited resource (Command Spells) to control them.

Anyone who isn't a named character dies in droves.

The setting takes all the bleakness of Arknights and tempers it with none of the hope. The main city where the plot takes place is basically named "Hell City"; the game's version of Oripathy not only kills its victims, it drives them and everyone around them violently insane (thus perpetuating its own spread) and the closest thing to a cure is essentially brain death; the municipal government has essentially withdrawn from and sealed off an entire district (leaving it a ghetto ruled by the gangs), which is also the area where the first 5 chapters (which is as far as I've gotten) take place; everyone is in horrible pain at all times and/or mutating into weird-ass monsters and the narrative takes great pains to remind everyone of this; getting impaled by something is just a hazard of daily life in this game; two prominent characters were the victims of inhumane experiments; the deuteragonist of the story thus far believes that the only way to solve the problems plaguing the setting is to burn it all down, and if you're not careful when you touch it, you'll cut yourself on 70% of the cast's aesthetics.

Everything gets named shit like "Mania", "Corruptor", "Shackles", "the inheritance", "Black Ring", "Oblivion Pit", etc. It really does feel like everything was named based on what a 14-year-old boy would find cool.

The actual prose of the story is also mediocre and it's evident that the translator either isn't a native English speaker or just doesn't give a fuck, but at least Zoya makes my libido sit up and take notice.

On the one hand Path to Nowhere feels like someone decided to take a 14-year-old edgelord's horny fantasies and publish them as a game and developed the actual gameplay by blatantly ripping off Arknights and making every aspect of it worse

but on the other hand I want this woman specifically to utterly and violently destroy my pelvis:

[janumun]

ToT anon! I'm kinda stuck in Chapter 4, due to being a free player and bad gacha luck. But I'm really liking the cases and the world this game takes place in. I like mystery games and novels too, and the inclusion of Greek Mythology is a plus for me in this game. I think my favorites right now in terms of LI's is probably Artem & Vyn. Artem's support of MC is just great and their dynamic is great. I also like how she's a nice mirror of sorts to him. Luke's up there as well, but I'm torn on Vyn. Still trying to figure out if I like Vyn as an LI or if I like him due to intrigue. He's mysterious enough to pique my interest, clever and suspicious enough for me to be cautious, and I'm a sucker for the "Only You can see me like this" trope. (I have the same problem with the Professor in MLQC). Haven't gotten a good impression of Marius yet, but I'm hoping that'll change as I slowly go through chapter 4.

Hey again, ToT Anon. Good to see you dropping by with an update! I'm straggling around at the end of Chapter 4 as well, trying to pop in cards into NXX headquarters to get as many level up items as possible, so you're definitely not alone. 😆 I'm taking a break from the MS after this however, to focus on my cards, before I challenge Chapter 5-1.

I agree with you on all fronts regarding the plot, too. The cases are engaging, interactive and easy enough to follow, even for individuals not good at brainstorming/detective work (...ME), with sound and clear enough reasonings you aren't lost. Also, the trial of Athena quests?

Thank you MLQC and Percy Jackson 🤣🤣

Artem and Vyn! ♥️♥️ Artem's a champion (with a deep bass JP voice 😇) and I like how their partnership feels very rooted in trust and mutual respect. I can't wait to get some Artem cards and read Dates with him. He's been avoiding me like the plague. Not a single Artem SR, let alone SSR 🤣💔

Re: Vyn, same boat as you are! In my case, though, I'm pretty sure I do enjoy Vyn as a love interest. I find that kind delicious: suspicious and suspiciously gentle (read: concealed BDE 😇). cunning and possibly... definitely always a step ahead of everyone. manipulation of events and people around, a necessity in their books sometimes, but also find their eyes and heart are for no one save for you. Professor Lu reeled me in with the same techniques :') Morally ambiguous characters are a treat for my soul.

Ooooh, I'm hoping Marius drives a better impression in for you soon! He's a good man, seating that lonely energy behind a (very fragile) mask of a bad boy. I enjoy his dynamic with Rosa (MC). Boy is very smitten with her 😆

[rex101111]

Why Trust Is Important: a quick Arknights ramble

okay so none of my followers/mutuals probably give two wet shits about this mobile tower defense game but I’ve been grinding it for about a month now and want to rant about it because I’ve never been this into a gacha.

Okay, some quick context: Arknights is a tower defense Gacha game where the units you collect are called “operators” and you play as their leader as you deploy them on several dangerous missions. We all caught up? Good.

Now, for those of you smart enough not to get caught by Gacha hell, most of them have this thing called a “friendship/affection/affinity meter” with your unites. As its name suggests, it’s basically a value of how much a given unit “likes” you. You usually fill it by using the unit in battle and you get some minor unlockable stuff as you do; such as voice lines.

This feeds into another fairly common, nearly ubiquitous aspect of gacha games: everyone loves the main character. And since most, if not all, main characters in those games are blank slates for the player, that means everyone loves you.

Either they consider you a very close friend, family, or are just straight up romantically interested in you. All of them, every single one, regardless of character traits.

Now, this is all part of the genre, part of the point, Gacha games are there for you to spend money to collect a huge and ever growing number of waifus/husbandos. That’s all well and good, even if the end result is that most of those characters end up feeling kinda flat because of it.

Then, there’s Arknights. Arknights has many of the typical gacha trapping, all the resource grinding and heavy use of banners to get you to whale for the latest and greatest unit, but it also diverges in a surprising amount of ways.

The one way that stuck out to me the most, the reason I’m writing this, is right there in the title.

In place of the standard “friendship” etc meter, this bar, which otherwise functions as it does in any other game of this type, is called “Trust.”

Not everyone in Arknights likes you. Most of them think you’re alright if a bit odd, a select few admire your strategic abilities, and yeah some of them have a crush on you (though you could probably count those people on one hand). Some of them just straight up don’t like your ass, and those are people on your side.

But, one thing they have in common, that they need to have in common considering what they do for a living, is trust you.

One more thing about Arknights, you character, in addition to being a battlefield commander, is also a doctor, it’s even your nickname in game. As you use these units in battle, as they see your ability to get them into battle at the right time and get them out alive, they start to trust you more.

Some of the things you unlock as you increase trust is several data files about the operator in question. In the beginning of the you have amnesia, so nobody trusts you enough to see any classified files. But, again, as you increase the trust people have in you, you gain access.

The way I see it, each operator has the choice of whether or not someone has access to their personal files, you included. Some of those files contain very personal, and sometimes compromising information. Including medical data regarding a fatal plague sweeping the game world. 

Once they see you care about them enough, they trust you, and give you access.

Another thing you get is some minor stat boosts, and the way I interpret that is that the more an operator trusts you, the more they can concentrate on the battle ahead, mind unclouded with doubt about your judgement.

Even then, even when you get them to max trust, there is some shit every single operator will never share with you if they can help it. Most of the cutscenes both in the regular stories and events concern the characters talking amongst themselves, discussing things they’d never share with you, and that is just faciniting.

Even trust has a limit, and in making that clear, the world and characters of Arknights feel so much more alive and involved. It’s fantastic.

Of course, this brings me to the one person on your side that doesn’t trust you, not at all. Even though you work together in the same place, even though you have history together, even though she’s known you longer then anyone (or perhaps because she does), Doctor Kal'tsit has never trusted you. Ever.

She’s one of they only Gacha characters I can think of that are on your side and yet don’t like you at all, whatsoever. A few others made posts about how much of an anomaly she is in the genre, that she’s presented as justified in her mistrust, that she has her reasons, valid reasons, not to trust you.

And yet, she’s one of the most popular characters in the game, and she’s one of the most requested additions to the playable cast. It’s incredible. But a long shot.

I think it’s going to take a long time that’s possible, both in game and in story. If Kal’tsit is to put her life in your hands, if she’s going to be able to take orders from you regarding her safety and the safety of those around her, she needs to be able to trust you.

We need to show her that she can trust us.

...though, of course, that would also raise the question, considering all her sneaking around and withholding information, of whether or not we can trust her.

[raguna-blade]

So i’ve had this floating in my head for a while and well...There’s going to be some obvious straightforward “That’s absolutely not what they intended, I can’t envision it as a thing cause I mean it’s that.”

But I wanna talk about the way the gacha mechanics reflect on the story of Arknights.

So here’s the thing. It’s all about trust. Literally it’s all about trust. One of the things that Arknights makes really clear in it’s story is that there is a very very real problem with people just taking things on faith and listening to each other. The big central conflict, as of now, with the issues between the infected and the non? All of it is based on a massive breach of trust because the infected to a man know that the uninfected are going to make their lives a living hell, even if they’re a model citizen. Hell even if they’re part of the big wig nobility upper class it’s basically a crapshoot if catching the in game plague is going to torpedo you to the depths of the pecking order and ruin your life or “merely” have you waste away from a degenerative disease that causes rocks to grow out of your skin, is horrifically painful, and can cause wild and terrifying super powers that can have you control temperatures wildly, suddenly start reading peoples minds, or create a horde of zombies (although admittedly these require training to use, let alone use in combat but it does seem true that the powers kinda work without it albeit probably much worse)

So trust is a big thing here obviously, and that leads me to the next point.

The Doctor is the sketchiest motherfucker I have ever seen in my life. They’re this mysterious person wrapped up in a coat that exposes exactly none of their body, they down sanity potions like water, they’re a super tactical genius the likes the world hasn’t seen, and also save for your scary Medicine Boss Lady and Their Adopted Kid (who runs your hospital knight order) nobody knows anything about them at all.

And the few people who DO know the doctor from the past seem keen to stay the hell away from him (excluding Boss Bunny, which actually considering what the Doctor was like right before their amnesia should PROBABLY be more concerning?)

And the last point before I start tying this all together, from all indications story wise? Any and all Operators that you choose to use are already there. They’re already working with or are a part of Rhodes Island proper. They’re in the background sure and they may not know the doctor personally but they are already there is the important thing.

Barring certain event characters tied to certain events they’re already part of Rhodes Island in some way.

Which leads me to my little gacha connection.

The Gacha here indicates a willingness to trust the Doctor (and perhaps if we’re gonna dive into this further, a broader connection and willingness to support RI’s cause, and an active display of trust because you know this dude is going to be sending you into a combat zone. In a story where people sometimes just hot die because sorry bro it’s a war story at least in part)

Now i’ll admit the specifics of the gacha don’t work for this perfectly because you’re calling back the same people sometimes which has weird implications (although I think you could chalk it up to doctor getting to better know people and how to pull the very best out of them if we wanna keep the story mechanic connection strong.) There’s only so much you can do with what is mechanically just rolling the dice a bunch...

Except...The Pity Mechanics have neat little implications too! There’s the Guaranteed 5/6 Star mechanic, as well as the guaranteed 6 star after I think it was 100 Rolls, as well as the Guaranteed Limited Character when you roll 300(???) times on their banner.

And Recruitment via the papers works here too.

One sec lemme order the thoughts a bit better

The Headhunting and Recruitment Rolls are, in universe terms, a character actively signing on to work with the Doctor Specifically, as well as signing on fully with Rhodes Islands objectives and ideals. It's not enough to have a business deal with them for treatment of you or your people. It's not enough to have a roof over your head. It's not enough to simply have another place to fight, or access to the person you want to fight.

You are trusting this mysterious no face no history manipulator to put you into combat situations with utter monsters and you're trusting them to either see you through it alive (which is a thing they're eeriely good at) or at least to have your death really tangibly mean something (also something in short supply on Terra). You're trusting this organization that simultaneously wants to heal the world of a horrifying disease, protect those who are infected, and also seemingly really make the world a better place (fat chance)

Not to mention the counseling the Doctor also seems to provide which you know...

That's absurd. It's insane.

And it's reflected in both Rarity Level, as well as the manner of recruitment.

Tag Recruitment pulls mostly from a pool of people already associated with Rhodes Island, with the vast majority being low level recruits. Basically all of 3* and below come from RI, and of 4* up only about half do.

That is to say, using the method that costs you the least amount of money and effort (Originium is, in universe, actually pretty valuable and useful if also you know the source of the plague) most of the people that you can actually recruit already sign on to RI's whole thing for one reason or another and everyone else is there for a variety of other reasons.

The people recruited are also generally unskilled, owing to largely being newbies or generally just not being super tough, but then this also plays into it.

RI is in general, or at least ideally anyway, a Hospital First and Military anything a distant second. Ideally, but it doesn't necessarily play out that way (or at least we as players don't get to see it, and there does seem to be a general work if you want treatment but the portrayal so far scales the work to what you can do. Kids gotta work too but for them it's like...Make some Origami, play and go to school and that's your work which could be sinister sure but seems mostly not)

But even accepting that conditions for infected are awful basically everywhere, leaving your home is a big ask, and fighting for people who may in fact end up fighting against your home is also a big ask. It's not something you're gonna see low level folks do by and by.

But the people recruitment DOES pick up who are those higher level folks? They're generally sent specifically to Rhodes Island if they didn't come specifically because they're some of the foremost scholars on the subject of Originium Infection and so on. A lot of them don't have a choice.

Understandably, no matter how skilled or powerful or conneted they are they're not gonna wanna work with you or put themselves in danger for no real reason

And then you have the cases of people who are or were leaders in their field, arguable or actual royalty, people who hold massive amounts of power who are just...Not going to trust like that. They're wise to the world, and they know what's up.

That they're also massively personally powerful is perhaps a side effect of being so high up in the ranks because when you have people who can and do hop out of planes for a snazzy entrance with no harm and at least 8 kinds of completely uninfected Juggernaut Nightmares not being absolutely shredded when you're the big leader of a place is a liability.

Which ok that tracks, but Headhunting? Headhunting is where you start finding people like Skadi who are just...Absolute freaks of nature being honest. You start seeing people who have even less reason to want to have anything to do with Rhode Islands, more guarded, more independent, less reason to be actively into RI despite being there (like Popukar who's a kid)

And then you have the limited pool characters like W and Nian who have ample reason to not want to deal with the Doctor or are just kinda bumming around and Could Help but don't want to (with secret implications to being basically a Kaiju)

And getting them is difficult and painful and nearly impossible because they don't WANT to interact with the Doctor or perhaps really want to put the effort in to do anything at all.

All of this I think is pretty sound so far. Generally speaking, higher ranked characters have less need or want to deal with the Doctor and the Larger Rhodes Island, in addition to be just being from other locations entirely.

What I think makes this more interesting though, and continues on the gacha story link is the pity mechanics.

So, going with the idea that recruitment is more or less deciding to interact with the weird person who tries to eat originium slugs(!?) it makes the decision of various high ranked operators deciding yeah you know what I'm going to go talk to this weirdo. A LOT of people seem to trust him and that's perhaps concerning, but also well...It's a lot of people. People I know (in all probability. Especially in the case of banner rolls where there's usually one or two people who know the high rank units), and even then there's some wild folks in there deciding to put their faith in them...And Heck I'm already here so why not.

And of course that feeds into the trust mechanics too mind you. The more a unit is used, the more the doctor is demonstrating their small extension of trust is proven a good decision. The Increasing potentials is understandable as the doctor coming to a greater understanding of the individual (indeed they're all tokens of trust in some way shape or form aren't they? Things that Mean something to the Operator, even if they're implied to be things that they hate to think about or be connected but still unfortunately mean something that they can't let go of). And or, for that matter, the Operator becoming more open around the Doctor. Becoming more willing to show their full strength, and honestly, playing on the trust angle, isn't it interesting that so many of the operators talents don't come into play until they've been upgraded once or even twice? But hey if we look at it through the lens of Do I trust this person, some of these talents suggest really impressive things which maybe you don't want this guy who you barely know but you're at least willing to work with to know just in case it doesn't work out. TO say nothing else of the fact that upgrades COST. It's a massive investment of money time and supplies to get an operator up there.

Which, to come back to gacha and the pity mechanics, for the two limited characters to call for (at maximum mind you. Luck as always is a factor but you know) truly EXCESSIVE amounts of rolls, and rolls that call for you burning a massive amount of supplies? It can read as, honestly, an attempt to reach out to this isolated person. Mind it's just an extension on the pity bit from before, but given the limited nature it could also be read as a “I am trying to get to know you please respond?”

And For Nian and W that may well mean something. It's a degree of effort that could read as interesting and or alarming given their respective personalities and histories.

But well..that's about as far as I can pull this I think. As always there's going to be an aspect of well “it's monetization don't think too hard about this it's for that cold hard cash” which is absolutely and unfortunately true. Still, I think it's interesting that it DOES line up as well as it does here. If it's intentional that's really cool actually but still.

[oswaldsirius]

Helloo!!! Im still a newbie to the cybird game world and was confused on how birthday events work?? Is there any way to do them without spending like $20+?? Cause from what i see, it doesnt seem possible- and if you can, how?? Its all so overwhelming!!

Hello! So two things right off the bat: this is going to be long because I’ve spent a lot of time playing this game to the cheapest I can. That being said I have spent a lot on this game during events. There hasn’t been an event yet that I haven’t spent money but it varies from event to event how much I drop.

I made a post once before about this, but I feel like I can flesh it out some more so on to some tips and tricks with Tasha!

So there are two types of events in IkeRev, story and collection. You didn’t ask about collection, but I might do another post about it because with Kyle’s route coming soon, it’ll be the next one we have and it’s completely different rules and strategy for that one. But for now! Story Events!

But for Story Events there’s a few key things to think about: Friends & Cards, Duels, Lucky Time & Bonuses, Love Points, and Items.

1. Friends & Cards

These two go hand in hand. Once you join an event, you want to get 20 friends as quickly as you can so you can start tapping in to the extra points they’ll bring when you duel. The later you join, the harder it is to fill this list. When you’re picking friends, to either send requests to or who to accept from, players with 5 star cards in their first slot are going to bring in the most points for you (30 while 4 star is 25 and 3 star is 20). If you have a 5 star card, put it in your main slot even if it isn’t your best boy. You can swap back at the end but people do play favourites when choosing friends and if you have a 5 star in the second slot but not the first people might pass you over. And try to keep the 5 star card in the main slot through the whole event. If you want to swap to hear lines in battle or with other characters for a new card from the event, that’s fine. Do it for a set of duels, but swap back. It’s not really fair to your friends to change like that mid event so try to be polite if you can! Don’t sweat it if you don’t have 5 star cards though. There’s plenty of people who will still accept your request because the extra points add up in the end no matter what!

2. Duels

Now, the game will give you a notification when your meter is full, but when I first started playing the game, I set alarms for every five hours. At the time, my phone was normally on silent so I wouldn’t hear the game notification; I heard the alarm loud and clear. It was easier and lord did it train me to pay attention for every five hours. Also at the end of your day, do as many duels as you can before bed. Your meter doesn’t have to be full to do them and these extra points will add up in the end! Now, as a new player, you’re going to want to really pay attention to the people you’re dueling. Some people are traps. They might have 4 star cards in their hand but they might just have terrible gacha luck. Always do single duels. It’ll sting less if you get a draw and you’ll get the most out of your friend points. They don’t stack if you do multiple duels. You get one bonus from a friend no matter how many duels you do. So just try to do them one at a time unless you know you can beat whoever you’re going up against.

I don’t have actual confirmation on this, but from what I’ve seen in Story Events is that the people you’re paired up against are those that have similar Love Points to you, not Beauty Points. So if you get a rash of good luck and amass a lot of points, you might find yourself up against people who are older players and have far more points than you. So always do single duels and try to remember names of people you know you can beat and those you know you cannot. The more you play, the easier it’ll be to recognise people. I’ve been playing since launch and there’s some people I avoid like the plague because I know I can’t beat them. Just keep cycling through duel partners until you get one you can beat! Or take a hit and get the draw points and wait the hour to see if it’ll give you new partners next time.

3. Lucky Time & Bonuses

Before you join an event, Cybird is kind enough that you can check to see when Lucky Times are and what bonuses they’re offering this time. I always check these, Lucky Time first since you’ll get double points for both the points you get for the duel and secret duel (friend points don’t double). A common trend is that the first Lucky Time will be 24 hours after the event begins. There have been some that it’s been later and that sucks when it comes to the bonuses. For myself, I made my own agenda/day planner and specifically put in a calendar page to track events in IkeRev, but what I suggest is putting reminders in your phone for when Lucky Time is. In the hours leading up to Lucky Time (and this really depends on your time zone), I usually will do just enough duels so that when Lucky Time starts I will have a full meter. It nets me a few extra points and I know I’ll still have a full set for when it starts. And a wonderful friend just mentioned to me that if you have a secret duel ready before Lucky Time, sit on it until Lucky Time starts. It’ll net you 200 points instead of the usual 100 so it’s another boost!

As for bonuses, being able to see them before you start an event is a fucking godsend because you can decide right there and then what you want to go for. Early Clear Bonuses are where you’re going to be dropping money if you want them. You need to decide up front if you do or don’t because you have to commit if you do. Usually the first one, for birthday events, needs to be attained within the first 25 hours for when you enter an event and the second at 72 hours. This is why you check bonuses before diving straight in. If you don’t like either of them or don’t think you can commit to it, start the event right away and just start earning you some points! If you do want the first one, don’t start the event immediately. Wait a half an hour or an hour and then start because that will give you a little more time in Lucky Time to make sure you have enough time to do Duels and still read the required story parts to get the bonus. If you want the second bonus but not the first, you have to make the decision if you want to wait for the first Lucky Time or just start right away. The Lucky Times are usually spaced out far enough that you’ll only hit one of them when trying to get the Early Clears. But that’s your call on if you want to wait and try or just go right into it!

For ranking bonuses, well, this one is harder since you never know how hard or easy people are going to play the event. Sometimes people lose steam and the border between the tiers is a lot lower than you would expect. Sometimes it’s stupidly high, especially if it’s a top 200 instead of the 300 we see on a lot of events. Take a look at these and plan as best as you can. Check the border for bonuses button on the ranking screen if you’re curious and set reasonable goals for yourself when it comes to them. As much as everyone wants to be top tier, it’s not always easy to get there without spending money.

Bonuses are always the deciding factor on if people want to spend money on an event or not. It’s best to look at them and decide what you want right at the start. Deciding half way through you want to try can end in heartbreak because you might not get it and then you’ve spent money for something you can’t have. 

4. Love Points

Ah, the bane of my damn existence right here. So this is what Story Events run on. The more you have the easier it is to get through the event. But how many do you need to get through the different parts? They sometimes follow a standard but I’ve seen a pretty steep rise in points going from event to event all this year of playing. If you’re curious about how many points you need to clear endings, the best way to find out is to ask people. A few blogs on here are power houses when it comes to events and will finish within the first few days so if you ask nicely they’ll most likely share with you how many you need to get through the ends. Some only keep track of final points, others how many you need to get the Early Clear bonuses. 9 times out of 10, you can ask me. At the start of events, I usually have a rough idea of how many you’ll need and I don’t mind sharing as I play through. I won’t have exacts until I play routes but I can give estimates and update them as I go through.

Generally, we see the first ending clearing between 7500-8000 if you’re doing the Premium ending (which you should be if you want that first Early Clear bonus). The rest get tricky, depending on how many routes there are and this can be frustrating because you never know if it’s going to be a simple double or jump to 20,000. It gets messy when there’s more than four routes and full clearing on those can see point values getting close to 60,000.

But do your duels as much as you can and just keep amassing them!

5. Items

Alright, so I’m guessing this ask is mostly from the fact that I posted I made second rank on the Sirius Birthday Event. In full honesty? I started saving Tea and Cake sets in January for this single event. Before they dropped Clash in Cradle on us, I had 62 tea sets saved for Sirius. I used some in that event, bought more, and just died inside at how much I was spending. But I digress.

I played events like normal and on Lucky Time I buy the smaller item set. 800 crystals for 6 sets. It’s not that hard on the wallet and I would usually only buy one each event and then I sat on them. If I could afford more, cool, I would throw a little more money to buy another set and just use a couple on the current event to boost my numbers. Because Tea and Cake sets are the single most important item for Story Events. Use them only during Lucky Times so you can get the most out of them. I burn through my friends list every Lucky Time because I use my tea sets then and I max out my points as much as I can during it. I also sat on every single one the game gave me for login bonus. They only give one every two weeks but they do add up after a while. I also didn’t use my crystals for anything I didn’t need to and sat on them to use for buying Lucky Time sets. You get 100 every two weeks and if I didn’t need closet space, I just kept them. Since they’re free, you need 300 to pull on the gacha and I decided the Story Event sets were what I wanted more. But that’s your call!

Another thing I invest in is the Secret Tea Party. You get 900 crystals across two weeks time and another Tea and Cake set! It’s not that expensive in the grand scope of things and mine lines up with my pay day so once every two weeks I buy it and get more crystals and more goodies! It’s a good way to spend just a little and get things for the long run!

If you start the event on the first day, you’ll get both a Love Potion (500 points) and a Tea and Cake set. If you start after the first day, you only get the Love Potion, which still helps but those tea sets are what you want.

Love Potions are the other item you can buy if you want to boost your points. Single ones are 150 crystals for 500 and they are guaranteed points vs the 150 crystals for a tea set that can net you more points provided you win all your duels. A set of 27 is….3500 I think? I can’t remember but I’ll correct if someone can remind me! That will net you a lot of points but it’s a lot of money to drop so it’s not the best thing to get if you’re trying not to spend money.

If you want to save money, buy the smaller sets and try to save as many as you can that the game gives you.

-

I know this is…a lot. But it’s what I follow and I manage to get through the events well enough. I’ve missed a lot of Early Clear bonuses because of it but I just accept that not all of them are for me and keep going. I knew at the start of the year that May was going to be a mess because we have not only Sirius’s birthday event but also the anniversary event is right around the corner and it’s a two parter with bonuses linked between the two of them. So I still have almost 30 tea sets saved for that nonsense. But following this, there’s only been one event in the year of playing that I haven’t been in the top tier and I chose not to go hard on that event. I was still in the second tier and I didn’t use a single item in the whole event.

It is possible to rank and do well, you just have to be patient and play smart. I went into Sirius’s event wanting to be in the top ten and then I decided to be stupid and go for second spot for my second in charge guy. Don’t be like me. It’s a dumb way to play.

Another thing you can do, is check IkeRev’s Japanese twitter. If you go back far enough, it will show old events and sometimes you can see some of the bonuses so you can decide in advance which events you want to try a little harder on. Then you can start saving early for when it finally rolls around to us!

If you’ve made it this far, I love you and hope I’ve helped a little. If you have more questions, feel free to ask. I’m more than willing to help and share because I know the events can be odd. If you want to know about collection events, let me know! Because I have some good ways to earn hearts without spending a damn penny. But I’m going to stop typing this essay now and just pray I helped a little bit!

[venomlad64]

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Well ok, to be fair: Skullgirls is pretty player friendly as was FEH with how many orbs they throw at you, but has gotten even MORE player friendly since the addition of freebie first summons every new banner. FGO is....yeeeeeeeah.

But AL is like the first two in that it really feels like they WANT you to play the game and play A LOT of it. The generosity of the gacha is not an exaggeration either, I managed to get quite a few rare units and I’ve only been playing for like a week or two and I’m just now hitting chapter 2 (they’re not long, I was just grinding in FGO). It’s simple to pick up and manage and the actual game is fun to boot. One thing that pricks me in the side with certain games is how they let their greed pull the game down. FGO is fun as shit...too bad it’s plagued with a number of poor design choices from AP cost to drop rates.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with it.

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[sorovalo]

OH BOY THIS WHOLE THING REGARDING YUU HAS BEEN PLAGUING MY MIND FOR SOOO LONG 😭😭. I want to ramble so so badly maybe it's not entirely about the topic but here goes nothing:

Anon's opinion (at least how i see it ) comes from the way they have engaged with blank slate protagonists: they played RPGs, maybe several visual novels before where main focus is directly on the player experiencing adventures and stories, while also having happened to play as a blank slate protagonists with loosely traits. The difference to twst is that, as piano said, Yuu is not a protagonist safe for minor involvement here and there throughout the plot. This leads to helplessness, the feeling as if player is underutilized and is just a bystander, something that alienates people who played games that are centered around the player protagonist. The fact that we experience the story through Yuu's eye's as a player but do not functionally do anything other than observe how present protagonists engage doesn't help at all. If we mainly saw events through Grim for instance, those feelings of dissonance would water down because he has distinct personality and design (i will get to it), he initiates with plot and his actions have weight and are far prominent than currently ours. Grim, most importantly, has far more significance within the plot. Crowley kinda said that we are some beast tamer, which imo gave false sense of significance because player doesn't fulfill that role (we literally just befriended the cat thing that was about to steal our clothes and almost burned us down in the first minutes of introduction) nor is it really brought up again as far as i remember.

Now here something that i completely agree with anon: our relevancy is so little that it's possible to write Yuu out and the story won't lose much. Grim would work as a protagonist much nicely than us actually, he could sign another shitty contract with Azul in exchange to use magic but give Ramshackle away and then pester Leona to help, befriend Malleus and give him cringy nickname. Now that i think about it, their dynamic could be so awesome, like Grim wanting to be as cool and powerful magician as Malleus like teleporting and fixing stuff (ch 5 and 6) with ease. And Grim becoming Malleus familiar in the end of the game 👀👀. Anywayssss. Im a pragmatic person so i think the reason why Yuu exist (because Grim can be player's lens in Twisted Wonderland, he is as unknowing as Yuu and inquires far more than we do) is because the game makes characters "hit on" Yuu (in story and through home screen) to make us, players, spend money on the characters. This is gacha, not PC visual novel. Have you heard max vignette level character lines?? Some of them sound super sus for a reason.

And finally, blank slate. What if i told you that you can project almost onto everything? Player can play the role of Grim, omnivorous cat looking monster who breathes fire and wants to become the strongest magician. He has personality, good and bad traits, goals and ambitions that he wants to achieve for reason(s) that most certainly will be given in the future. I can argue that projecting onto fleshed out characters feels much more better than onto blank slates with little to no personality and justified motivation. I believe that it's impossible to make a functioning blank slate character that i, as a player, would feel comfortable projecting onto. What if i don't want to help Ace? (seriously i would punish him too for eating my sweets 😒😒) Befriend Malleus? (hello, please leave my property) Talk to anyone from Octavinelle? (self explanatory) Get into mess Jamil made? (sorry about the situation but im literally a nobody) What if I don't want to leave Twisted Wonderland at all? (for now at least lmao) All those things alienate me further away from projection, it feels like watching Yuu standing there somewhere doing absolutely nothing when it's supposed to be me for some reason. If i were an established character like Yuuken or Yuuya (him specifically as his personality fits with Yuu's "involvement"), i would root or facepalm at them as i don't feel bad for their actions because it's not me who acts and i have enough emotional intelligence to connect with them on some level.

Welp i don't feel like making a proper conclusion, i just wanted to share my thoughts. Hopefully it was interesting to read this half baked essay~~

To be completely honest, I have to completely disagree about Yuu being a good blankslate character. I think they are one of the worst that I've ever come across and are one of my goto examples about what to avoid when writing a protagonist. Good blankslate characters allow you to project onto them, but they still have an impact on the plot and some personality traits. Think of ones like Joker from Persona 5, "Survivor" from Fallout and Link from Legend of Zelda. Whereas Yuu is the the exact opposite, they have zero impact on the plot most of the time to the point that you could write them out of the game completely and have absolutely no difference outside of a couple exceptions like Azul's arc. That's just a poorly written character. Protagonists should always be active characters who impact the plot and push the story along.

[Reply to here!]

That is exactly what makes Yuu a great blank slate character. 😂 There literally isn't anything about them, aside from the fact they have no magic, and they seem to live in a world similar to ours except there's probably no Disney. They're blank, aka they don't have much of a personality or even a design.

Remember that this is a visual novel, a kind of game that lets the players interact with the story and not just watch characters go through their journey. Yuu is meant to be the character that lets players immerse themselves in due to their blankness and consequently make it a more interactive experience for everyone in general. For a visual novel that aims to be interactive and inclusive, Yuu does a wonderful job of letting players imagine themselves in the story. Just look at the amount of OCs and Yuusonas in the fandom. Yuu fulfills the role as a visual novel character very well.

The characters you specified (Joker, Link) are from RPGs and not visual novels. They have designs (with Link having how many versions of himself 😂) and set personalities, however little they have. So these characters ultimately aren't blank, and it still gives players the experience that they're watching a character go through their journey, just that they're controlling them. So that interactive element is not as evident as it is in a visual novel. They're fulfilling their roles as RPG characters.

Furthermore, the thing with Yuu is that they are the player, not the protagonist. Yuu is essentially the player's way to enter the world of Twisted Wonderland, to meet and get to know all these talented and dysfunctional characters. They're our lens in Twisted Wonderland.

If anything, the protagonists in this game are all the students. Just as they play the roles of villains, they also play the roles of protagonists, just that they act out such roles in different episodes of the main story. Yuu is the way for people to see these characters undergo their struggles and whatnot.

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I'm trying to add support for a game on Steam called DirtyBomb: http://store.steampowered.com/app/333930/

When ever the script gets to

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It fails with:

The issue seems to be the working directory being pointed to ~/.PlayOnLinux/tmp and no instance of Steam exists in that directory. What am I doing wrong? As well ~/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/DirtyBomb/drive_c/Program Files/Steam does not exists, I was under the impression the following would install Steam like that:

Linux OS: Debian Sid

PlayOnLinux Version: 4.2.5

This is the entire script, this is my first POL script so any improvements would be much appreciated! I tried to follow the wiki as close as possible.

I also hope this is the right board? From the general discussion sticky it seemed this was also considering testing?

As well if anyone can explain the following:

I did not find any documentation in the wiki yet it seems every script has it (if you need steam):

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Once the script is working should I post in 'Application tests'?

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[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: The Unique World of Cygames Adaptations

  Hello everyone, and welcome back to Why It Works. What do you think of when you hear the phrase “based on the videogame” in reference to a show or film? I can’t imagine it’s anything good; after all, film adaptations based on videogames have a long and largely negative history, for a variety of reasons. In the past, film rights for game franchises have frequently gone for cheap, and adaptation teams haven’t had much familiarity or love for the source material, leading to a glut of tossed-off action movies.

    Anime has certainly had its troubles with game adaptations. The plain, fundamental issue is that attempting to convert art from a medium centered on player agency to one with a straightforward, non-interactive narrative is messy. If you attempt to convey the player’s agency within the show, you might end up with a shapeless mess — if you attempt to just tell the main plot of the game, you might end up with the game, but worse. This fundamental paradox has plagued game adaptations for years, but recently, companies like Cygames have been investing heavily in animation, with impressive results. So how has Cygames resolved this adaptation riddle?

  In a way, the changing nature of gaming partially solved it for them. While hit games of prior eras generally had straightforward narratives, the mobile game era is filled with games that have plenty of worldbuilding and characters, but less “essential” core narrative. When you’re adapting an epic JRPG, the expectation is that you’re going to tell the story of that JRPG — but when you’re adapting a card battling gacha game with vaguely fantasy-oriented visual flourishes, you can tell any story you want. Cygames offers up entire prefabricated worlds, and lets creators tell their own stories.

    Such is the case for one of Cygames’ greatest adaptations so far, Rage of Bahamut: Genesis, along with its followup Virgin Soul. Given the context of Rage of Bahamut’s gods-and-dragons fantasy tableau, MAPPA created a thrilling, swashbuckling tale of adventure, with an endearing cast and a generous array of genre-hopping vignettes. Rage of Bahamut never feels encumbered by its adaptive roots; in fact, its style is actually a breath of fresh air, as it seemingly takes more influence from classic westerns and adventure films than other recent anime. 

  Of course, for stories with a bit more traditional narrative, it’s sometimes better simply to realize the game’s vision in animation. Such is the case for Cygames’ Granblue Fantasy, a visually lush adaptation with delicate character art that neatly captures the ethereal appeal of its source material. Both Granblue’s character animation and background art are terrific, and it’s also got plenty of action highlights; if you’re looking for a traditional high fantasy outing, it’s an easy pick.

    Beyond fantasy, Cygames have also been offering up charming, ridiculous slice of life and comedy through shows like the improbable Umamusume, or the much-loved and totally unique Zombie Land Saga in collaboration with MAPPA and Avex Pictures. It’s hard to argue that game adaptations lack much creativity when we’re getting premises like “what if there was a horse girl sports drama” or “let’s make zombie idols,” but beyond their premises, these shows fully embrace the potential of their strange universes and are clearly unencumbered by their connection to Cygames’ game portfolio. Heck, Zombie Land Saga doesn’t even have a game attached; it’s a full anime-original, clearly demonstrating the studio’s commitment to this new field.

  Cygames’ latest adaptation seems to embody all the lessons of their work in anime, with Konosuba’s own director tackling the unabashedly Konosuba-esque Princess Connect. Cygames gives Takaomi Kanasaki space to do what he does best, encouraging creative takes on their properties that let their adaptors’ talents shine. By expanding the idea of what a “game adaptation” means, and embracing the flexibility of the changing marketplace, Cygames has created works that eclipse the stigma of the genre entirely and actually stand as some of the most engaging anime of the past few years. With a new season of Princess Connect on the way, it seems like Cygames will be making a unique impact on the anime landscape for many years to come!

  What’s your favorite Cygames adaptation? Let us know in the comments!

      Nick Creamer has been writing about cartoons for too many years now and is always ready to cry about Madoka. You can find more of his work at his blog Wrong Every Time, or follow him on Twitter.

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Nick Creamer