Maid Café (メイド喫茶) - 2020-10-28

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1:33 AM

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Q: Searching for a Manga from several years ago

There's a Manga I'm looking for that I don't remember the title to. I remember it was a Girls School Combat type Manga, and it involved competitions to strike Star Emblems/Pins with Wooden Swords on opposing team mates persons, and the Captain or some member had a Black Star hidden upon their per...

3 hours later…

4:59 AM

@Sakamoto kinda reminds me of Hayate x Blade, though I only read the first 6 chapters years ago and I don't really remember much about it

5:16 AM

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^ pixiv.net/en/artworks/50975424

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^ pixiv.net/en/artworks/83185717 (Image 4)

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^ pixiv.net/en/artworks/83724008

net's been slow to load today

also would totally wear a suit if it was like a coat thing that could blow about in the wind like that

4 hours later…

8:52 AM

Yes.... and no. While I agree that the game can be damaging to gaming in general if some mechanics become common in other games too (just imagine Final Fantasy 46 Gatcha Edition) what they are doing with the game do seem like it could be damaging for them too.
First, the gameplay. It is not fitting a gatcha game. Really - all the gameplay videos I saw point to the fact that the game at its core plays like a sort of Tales of mixed with Zelda/Secret of Mana.
It is an RPG, with actual lore, and to be fair... on that front it is better done than some actual "AAA JRPG" you see around. Cities fee…

But then you have the gatcha. And the gatcha is what forces people in playing the game "wrong".

Since there is gatcha, you want to get as much free currency as you can, as soon as you can.

This means playing without giving much attention to the story, as fast as you can. Quest? use guides, don't care for lore, just the reward. Those 50+ books that took time to write? Ignore them, they don't give you anything.

The game has hidden treasures, hinted by random npc dialogs, lore and books, without an actual "quest" with waypoint.

Would be fun to notice an npc talking about some rocks and then recognizing them in a mountain, climbing your way there and find a chest.

But that would be fun. Min/max is not fun, min/max is just optimization. You don't play the game, you don't solve the riddles... you just go to the point you read about in a guide.

Again, they crafted an RPG, something that on the Bartle's taxonomy is mostly skewed to the "Explorer" quadrant

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(source)

Yet, the explorer style of gameplay is badly hurt by the gatcha mechanics.

however it's not just the gatcha which is the problem

JRPG isn't a big market. Yep, games like Final Fantasy sell a lot, but that's just because somehow they managed to create a cult of "This is a great game, it you don't play it you are a loser". Compare the sales of Final Fantasy to the Atelier series, Neptunia ... even Tales .

with gatcha games some can get some fun trying to grind the odds for random drops but that isn't the case if there is a stamina system

@Memor-X will come back to that in a moment.

Sword Art Online? Tons of games, doubt that all of those together sold as much as a single FF7 remake

Morning~

9:05 AM

morning

And this game... had the potential to kill the average "SOA: We Like To Get Stuck In Games" sequel with ease.

I do wonder if in the long run selling the game for 60$ and then going the DLC route wouldn't have given them more money once the initial viral-like enthusiasm fades and only the anime/jrpg fans remain.

@Derpy actually no. while it itself might not follow the trend, others will

see the big publishers just steal the monitization schemes from others games when the audience finds them acceptable

@Memor-X I didn't mean that, I meant that if you remove all the gatcha components for the game the game itself is far more quality than the average SOA game.

Actual cutscenes, not the usual 2d visual novel style animations with 4 different facial expressions for each character, a world that seems alive, open world without invisible walls and so on....

Atlas, back to what I was saying, it is clear that this game was made for Anime/JRPG fans.

Tons of references from what I saw.

From a sword that just look like the buster sword, called "Old Merc Companion"

@Derpy yes but you also know what Anime/JRPG Fans accepted? Limited Timed DLC Events

and that's to try and push the "Live Service" model onto a single player offline game

years before you wouldn't expect a Season Pass in a JRPG, but you see them now

@Memor-X I did? When? Did Tales had those? Dragon Quest? Final Fantasy? If you mean some games that have online events like for example Monster Hunter... yep, that's true, but in those cases they exist mostly to keep people playing the game.

9:15 AM

@Derpy Final Fantasy did actually

XV has festivals and events ingame for the release of DLC which was limited time/ if i was to get the Assassin's Creed DLC for XV, i'd get nothing from it because the event ended

Yep, possibly, but one thing is extra content being an online (limited) event, another is limiting the game core content.

@Derpy actually it wasn't online

You lost... what? An alt skin? A small quest?

you could still play XV offline

One Piece World Seeker has dlc. They offer some more gameplay with other characters (Zoro, Sabo etc...) . They go ON TOP of the game, you can play the game without.

Then there is a quest that probably due to age rating is only provided as an oddly gated but still FREE download

9:20 AM

@Derpy some people like the small stuff and all DLC is an indication that the game was not complete at release and Square knows this. you just have to look up Augment your Preorder where they took out content to ransom off for pre-orders

it only was acceptable when Bandai Namco did it because they kept it to weapon skins and a free game

@Memor-X Yes, that I agree. There are cases where the Game+DLC does indeed look like that was the FULL game as intended and not buying the dlc gives you the butchered version.

But again, that is not what I meant here.

Let me try another comparison.

Let's think about... Azure Lane? Dragonball Dokan (was it called this way?)? One Piece Treasure Cruise?

Those are the average mobile gatcha.

Tons of units, they usual star based rarity system (really, why every gatcha has stars? I want a game that rates rarity in... oranges. A six oranges character) and so on

some are very fanservice focused, so expect to see the limited time swimsuit local fanservice girl quite a lot....

But those.... Yep, you will probably have a favorite character (see line above, oddly the swimsuit character will be useless, very weak but still be a Legendary Ultra Hyper Secret Rare)...

Still, you mostly can replace one character with another.

In the end, they are basically CARDS.

Paper thin images of a character, with no characterization, no card specific mechanics, no moveset....

Here, you have full characters that change the way you play the game.

It is not an "units" based game anymore. In this case you are playing gatcha with gameplay modes. It is like having a Sonic game with gatcha for playing as Talis or Knuckles.

And that... is going to hurt them.

actually i'm lost now what the point you're trying to make

@Memor-X The point I am trying to make? You knew Azure Lane, right?

@Derpy yeh, one that i no longer play

i play the full game on PC now

and Azure Lane's mechanics are just more acceptable than Kantai Collection's

as much as i like the characters in both, the games get to a point where it's no longer fun to play without spending more money

So, suppose you like a character. For example, since you also like Neptunia you may want to get the Limited Neptune ship.

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9:33 AM

@Derpy i got them all

now, suppose that you weren't able to.

i drained all my resources to get Vert, the last one and i got her on the last day

from what i understand there's been no Neptunia event after that

the special Neptunia map is gone which i never completed because i wasn't strong enough

So, suppose you didn't get those ships. Yep, you will be salty. Yep, you lost your favorite character. This is already hurting the game - the more salty you get, the closer to quiting you are.

@Derpy yeh but i'm the average player who didn't spend money

they don't care about those players

they care about the ones who spent money in the game, who now have an investment in the game. who will keep playing because they spent more money on it

@Memor-X That's not the point I was making... Answer me this: are those Neptunia themed ship actually inreplaceable? I mean, do they do something that you can't do with any other ship in the game?

Maybe they are stronger than other, and maybe some quest are oddly crafted to promote their specific sets of skill, but probably there is no "If you don't have Neptune this mission is impossible" thing

A lot harder, maybe, but not impossible.

9:38 AM

@Derpy thing is, that's not how FOMO works

it's missing out on the content itself

Again, give me a second.

As I said, keep that in mind. Neptune isn't changing your gameplay. The game doesn't suddenly becomes a platformer because Neptune plays like a platformer character instead of a shooter.

So, yes there is FOMO, but Fear of Losing your favorite character, fear of losing the 100% collection and so on....

But guess what? Not even a whale can most of the time hope to reach 100%, if anything because new units are released constantly.

But the point here is that units are cards with some flashy skills and numbers, not movesets.

It is easy to have thousands of cards.... Have you seen a fighting game with thousands of characters?

Gatcha have to strike a dangerous balance. The FOMO is actually a good thing for them as long as they are balanced for fishing for whales.

But it is a double-sided sword.

If you pull the rope too much... it breaks.

The second the gamer crosses the line from hope to realization that they will never win the game against the house... that is an user ready to leave.

And if that user was a whale, that is less money for you.

Most gatcha games manage to use FOMO against the player but still keep them playing because the ton of units are paper thin like I said.

The sadness of not getting your favorite Neptune is made more bearable because after all Neptune is a drop in the ocean.

Genshin Impact....

Those characters, now they aren't paper thin

they change the way you play, they open new mechanics, they have specific gameplay elements.

I looked at the limited banners they had so far.

@Derpy if that's the case, they are no better than the cards used in Star Wars Battlefront 2 originally

digital items with artificial rarity hidden way by an RNG that effect gameplay

difference being that they can't be used against other players

9:53 AM

Venti? (is that his name?) is not just strong, it has things other don't have. It gives you vertical movement during exploration from what I understand. He has a move that is basically Revali's Gale from BOTW. The game has a glider... put that together, he seem to be the one that can glide up from a lower position.

and if they actually are then that's pay-to-win. like paying to use the premium drop pools in Azur Lane which higher rarity are actually stronger

max level S ranks ships will beat max level D rank ships

Klee? So far she is the one that seems to trive of a hit&run gameplay.

A character that can actually place traps and then pull the enemies into them.

I wouldn't be surprised if the next limited time character was able to go for a ranged sniping mechanic.

So... probably now what I am saying should be clear

They are dangerously getting to the point this could become akin to playing Team Fortress, a game that gives specific roles to its character... but with those characters hidden behind gatcha.

Or, like I said before, a Sonic game with Knuckles as gatcha. Limited time gatcha even.

The danger I was talking about is specifically FOMO getting too far.

Users can probably cope with not getting their "waifu ship".

They will cope a lot less with not being able to play some roles because those are locked to specific limited time characters

The way the game is right now, just for the sake of a realistic example.... I expect them to add soon or later a limited time Tamer Class character.

She/He will probably use either pets or be able to control monsters, with mechanics specific to that.

If they pull the rope to far... it will break

mornin'

You don't get that character? Then the game is forever incomplete, you don't have access to the (Pokemon) Tamer gameplay. And making that limited actually makes that felling stronger.

Is the Tamer always available but with very low rates? The gamer will probably accept it, after all "I will get that soon or later" (probably... never). The HOPE is still there.

Limited? They will quickly realize that they can't win this battle against the house and leave.

The point is that Gatcha still have to give the player HOPE.

Hope that they will get what they want.

Limited uses FOMO, but FOMO destroys HOPE.

And HOPE is that lingering things that keeps the user playing.

And my point is that HOPE is hurt if you lose access to what basically is a skin, a card, a nice picture with some numbers and a 2d sprite.

But the second you start to lose gameplays modes, levels, actual ways to play the game.... the game loses.

Would you play a platform where levels are gatcha?

Would you play a team based FPS where roles are gatcha?....

Would you play an RPG game where characters classes are gatcha and you can lose access to them FOREVER?

because that... is what they are getting into.

My point here is that they are putting together a set of mechanics that while common for standard gatcha games will probably crash a lot with the specific type of game, and could easily escalate and add together to the point of scaring away a lot of the potential userbase

See above consideration for locking gameplay structures behind gatcha and actual party roles / character archetypes.

Then, you could say that from an mere $$$ viewpoint you are teaching the players to actually expect time-limited events with stuff they want to get at any cost.

Since you are already dealing with a community that YOU (as in, the devs) forced into Min/Max mentality this means only a thing.

"Farm as much currency as you can, never pull on anything but those few limited characters you REALLY want".

Whales will probably continue and pull on everything they see... but again, you are risking quite a bit by actually TRAINING your userbase into... you know... Spending less and be more careful of what you spend on?

And again, this also reinforces the whole Min/Max thing.

Which can bite you in the leg if your offer is aimed at Explorers. Explorers love to run around, see thing, discover wonders. NOT having to plan their runs to do as much as possible as quickly as possible and at the same time have to deal with a stamina based system that stops them from playing an RPG like an RPG

@Memor-X sorry for the wall of text. I hope that this clears up what I meant

10:50 AM

@Memor-X A quick question too... Listening to the video, why the author is suggesting to do multiple pulls instead of single ones?

That goes against anything I read so far.

This game doesn't seem to have any "buy 10, get one free" mechanics, so everyone is suggesting single pulls so that if you get what you wanted on the second one YOU CAN STOP BEFORE SPENDING EIGHT MORE.

@Derpy i think it's because the cost per pull along with what you use duplicates for

like from my understanding, duplicates aren't trash, you can like fuse them into others?

@Memor-X same cost, there is no advantage. Spending 10 pulls in a row is probability and cost equivalent to 10 single pulls, with just two differences

The first, it takes less time.

The second, you can't stop halfway

If I was to play the game, I would prioritize being able to stop over wasting a few more minutes.

"oh, look, I wanted Klee. I got her on pull 4, no need to spend six more since there is almost no chance I get two. I will keep the resources for the next character I want"

@Derpy that's fine for collecting but like i said, from my understanding you fuse characters together or you get something out of having duplicates

i don't play the game myself but i trust Upper Echelon Gamers did a fair bit of research

@Memor-X If I am a whale, sure, if I have to play with limited resource, I will prioritize.

The rates are low, and apparently everyone is suggesting singles since they are the same cost and rewards wise.

Even if you AIM at dupes, it is still better to be able to stop as soon as you get the last dupe you needed, right?

The only time multi are worth something in a gatcha games, is when doing the multi gives you some advantages.

For example, the 10+1free thing some games seem to have.

If the return is the same but "less time consuming", not worth it

if there is no cost benefit then it's probably a probability thing aimed for getting duplicates

like i said, i don't play the game

i can only make assumptions based off games i have played in the past

11:03 AM

I am talking not by playing the game, but by actual arguments I saw on the game Reddit. Almost everyone there is telling people to do SINGLES unless they already plan to spend all ten.

So, ok, if you planned to do 15 multis... ok, no need to do all singles. But if you plan to "pull until condition" do singles.

11:17 AM

anyway, the video also says that the resin is "stopping you from playing the way you want".

Yep, totally true, but only because the game is forcing you to min/max. The resin from what I got is a system that requires you to spend a consumable resource (the resin) to be able to pick up loot from dungeon bosses.

This means that you need a lot of resin when you want to actually farm the boss.

But why you want to farm the boss?

Because the JRPG is forced to play like an idiotic MMORPG

And again, that is funny.... because the game is clearly built with a JRPG atmosphere, not a MMORPG one.

in mmorpg the plot is a pretest to have quests and something to do, in a jrpg the plot is the core experience.

so yep, I totally agree with them on that point. What I was point out on top on that is that if the resin system is already "stopping you to play the way you want", putting classes archetypes as limited gatcha boxes also robs the game of the ability to play the style/role you want.

Which could be even worse.

> If the player chooses to open the Ley Line Blossom by using 20 Original Resin, it will give the player Adventure Rank (AR) EXP ...

World Levels and Abyssal Domains have an Adventure Rank requirement before going to the next level.

Not only you are pushed to RUSH an acual RPG (and that... will hurt them plentiful. Think it will be easy to keep people busy with updated on an RPG scale? How frequently do monsters like WOW add a new dungeon? Gatcha... two pictures of a swimsuit unit makes an update, not the same to add new cities, world areas and stuff.....

so AR is used to limit progression in game and one way to increase it is to open Ley Line Blossoms using Resin which is replenished as energy

it would be like say you need Cloud to be Level 20 to get into the Wall Market, the only way to get to Level 20 is to open chests and to open chests you need to spend keys which replenished 1 every 10 minutes

i don't know if AR is a scale but if it is, later levels require much more to go up

@Memor-X not very informed there, but I can tell you that people reached the AR cap in a week.....

so I would say that THAT pushed you more into rushing than paying

> Original Resin passively replenishes at a rate of 1 every 8 minutes. A full replenishment of 120 Original Resin would take 16 hours. This replenishment will not go past the normal maximum amount of 120 Original Resin.

bring it down to 12 hours, that's 240 x 7 which is 1680 Resin in a week

not knowing what the respawn rate of chests are in the open world area, if you was to get AR EXP, lowest is 20 so that 84. max is 60 for bosses so that's 28

not counting instant refilling because i don't trust any system that has that which doesn't make it to try and get people to spend real money to refill, either people who are maxing it in a week are

- spending real money
- following efficiency guides
- using exploits

or there is a real lack of content

11:36 AM

Apparently, the efficiency guides are there.

That was exactly what I meant - again, min-max

anyway, I am curios - apparently there will be an update soon.

November 11 I think.

@Derpy which if the game, to be fun, requires something like that

13 hours ago, by Memor-X

and before anyone tries it. no, i don't care if there is a guide to set up stuff so i could get huge lots of Resin or currency or whatever late game. if i have to look up a guide to set up the end game to be fun, then there's a problem with the game and i would have more fun grinding Fuka, Desco and Val against Prinnies

whatever would also include AR

@Memor-X yep, again exactly what I meant.

But what I was adding on top of that is that they are entering a market where people could react poorly to extreme min-max

Gatcha if you notice are mostly units based collection games with little plot and sometime complex mechanics based on formulas and so on.

In a way, they attract people that love to optimize, farm, collect.

Here the game seem to attract people who love to explore, watch anime and play JRPG.

It is true that some farming elements overlap with online MMORPG, but that is exactly why I play Tales of instead of WOW.

I can live with Grind, but for games where it makes sense like Disgaea, not for Sword of Mana

if I have to farm bosses again and again to get party member in a JRPG.... bwhahahaha

ONE tried to do that, and even if it was BUY TO PLAY (virtual gatcha with in game got items, no real world currency) .... players hated the system as hell.

Xenoblade Chronicles, remember?

had that stupid gatcha mechanics for getting the rare blades.

you got dupes over dupes over dupes of the common, generic blades.

the rare one you had to farm a lot to get.

I have friends who love JRPGS skip over that game just for that nonsense.

11:56 AM

you are you're not talking about Xenobalde Chronicles X?

i hear that was very grindy, not that i got a chance to play it

@Memor-X Sorry, missed part of the title.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

@Derpy yeh, the original i have never heard it being like that

those were basically support party members you got from items called core Crystals.

Outside a few story/quest related ones, the blade you got from a core was random

And you could get dupes.

Even more annoying. All common blades reused 4/5 base looks, with randomized names and skills

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so you got hundreds of copies of the same dog blade, with a different name and minor stats changes

and the rare ones, the ones with actual character design... were rare as hell.

At least you couldn't get dupes of those

12:50 PM

@Memor-X btw, you made me realize another thing.

If the character need dupes to be leveled up, for a limited character that means you need to get all the dupes within the two weeks period

Basically, impossible to do for free, impossible to do even with reasonable spending

2 hours later…

2:30 PM

@Derpy i was more thinking to what Azur Lane has where you can choose ships to be fused into another, 20 max at a time, but you get a bonus if it's the same ship

it is a way that's used to try and mitigate the issue in getting duplicates of characters you already have. though only just

@Memor-X nope, from what I heard you need dupes of the same unit to increase the level of some special skills. Apparently those aren't that relevant so far (meaning that the character doesn't need to max them to face current content) but who knows if they will become needed in the future?

@Derpy well if that's the case then it's easy to see higher rarity characters being stronger over all then lower rarity which just feeds the predatory nature of it

god forbid they ever implement PvP because you'll see a pay-to-win gatcha

@Memor-X yep, but you will have a 5* character with no skill up against a maxed 4* - not sure the 5* will have the edge.

If they have undergone equal duplicate feeding, then yes, the 5* probably will be far stronger

@Derpy generally from my experience the highest rarity one still wins

Atlas, the videos above have valid points, but I am not sure if they will manage to shift the acceptance windows since I think that the userbase they are getting with the game being a JRPG with gatcha may be more akin to getting angry

2:37 PM

@Derpy we got to this point from Horse Armor

also Upper Echelon Gamers, as he notes in the second video, did a video on the evolution of this

@Memor-X depends on the game I think. I heard that is the case with Dragonball, but apparently One Piece Treasure Cruise... just pulled units are "useless" until you level them up because you need manuals to decrease their skill turn counter, and content is basically made with the assumption of maxed units.

So I guess you could pull a rare char only to not use it until you can farm the additional items needed to make it even USABLE

2:49 PM

@Memor-X I'll say that we should all play the game but not buying a thing.

It is worse than not playing. You are causing additional load on the servers for no gain :P

@Derpy i'll pass. i got enough anime and games that i can run offline and if i was going to play an always online game it would be Final Fantasy

@Memor-X The one with paying users getting punished for "not beating the boss the way we had in mind"?

@Derpy yeh, because atleast that isn't as predatory

@Memor-X depends, that thing has subcription. I get the blame because they aren't able to design a boss in a way it makes sense?

anyway, @Memor-X... About the horse armor thing, I'm not sure that actually mattered that much. I doubt they got any $$ worth out of that...

Not with the Nexus providing free DRAGON mounts at the same time.

Now, it probably would be better to move the focus on the actual DLC areas, Shivering Islands and the such.

@Derpy the oblivion horse armor? Because that sold like hot cakes

3:05 PM

@Dimitrimx people bought that? Ok, then I guess we deserve to be where we are right now.

Yeah, I remember hearing or reading about them not creating similar dlc's due to the controversial opinions regardless of it being very profitable.

@Dimitrimx I am just baffled someone bought that while alternatives - BETTER alternatives - were available for free.

I think I never used horses, I used the Akatosh Mounts

Never really bothered with modding oblivion. Athletics made you fast enough anyway.

Oblivion Akatosh mount mod

@Derpy That's pretty sweet

3:23 PM

@Dimitrimx To the point of looking bad, I will say this. Oblivion/Skyrim are imho worthless without mods.

I found morrowind, oblivion and skyrim quite enjoyable even without mods for sufficient hours to consider it worth while.

I do agree with mods adding a whole new dimension to the games, making it truly more enjoyable in the long run

All together, I think I have a little over 5k hours in those 3 games together ;p

3:43 PM

Modded Oblivion - 2017 - The River Ethe

nope, sorry, I won't even consider the option to play Vanilla :P

To each their own ;p

See the video, Unique Landscape IS that good

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Oct '2028

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