Gacha gaming update 2023 – Genshin Impact Patch 3.7

Bit of a sleeper patch for me since I don’t like the card game and don’t intend to play enough of it to unlock the events. In an age of big data, video game developers pay a lot of attention to the content that players engage with and the content they ignore, so it’s important not to force yourself to play something you hate, lest you send them the wrong message.

Plus I have a lot of quests and hangouts I haven’t touched in Genshin Impact yet, and my Hydro Archon fund is a bit skinny, so this is a good time to earn primogems for when Fontaine eventually comes out. Two patches away, I think? We haven’t seen any official previews of the place, so maybe even more than that. I remember all the hype when Inazuma came out. Didn’t really like the place (too depressing somehow), but I’ve really enjoyed Sumeru.

Roast her! Roast her!

What I liked most about Sumeru

The archon

Nahida is cute! And super useful in battle too. I run her with Zhongli, Xingqiu and Fischl. Damage is not too crazy, but it’s very safe and efficient, which I how I like my parties. I also experimented with a high-damage Bloom team (Nilou, Xingqiu, Nahida and Yaoyao). A whoosh and a splash and then everything dies. But it needs too much healing and I actually have to try and dodge stuff, like seriously, in 2023? So I went back to Zhongli, haha.

Yah anyway, Nahida is cute and strong and didn’t abandon her ‘son’ or totally ignore her country for centuries, so we’re cool. If anything she’s too soft on everybody: literal heads should have rolled at the Akademiya for their perfidy, and Scaramouche shouldn’t have gotten away with a slap on the wrist. But her country, her way, so whatevs.

There aren’t as many in Sumeru, another plus.

The area in general

I also liked the desert more than the jungle, though the underground parts of both were/are a bit confusing. Going in, I thought it would be the opposite and I would prefer the lush greens areas more, but IDK, they’re a bit overwhelming. The desert is much easier for me to navigate, and exploring the temples makes me feel all Indiana Jones-ish. Favorite area so far: Vourukasha Oasis. I like the music, the colors, the atmosphere, the NPCs except Sorush, having all the puzzles in one compact location, etc.

The gameplay

That reminds me: I really like the puzzles in Sumeru because they’re so easy!! The time provided for the overworld challenges is super-generous so you can make a mistake or two and still pass. I occasionally return to Inazuma for daily commissions and see all the puzzles I left undone and I’m like “Yeah nah, that ain’t happening.” But I make a beeline whenever I encounter one in Sumeru. This is the way! I understand the people who want to rack their brains and test their reflexes, and there are games I play specifically for that, but Genshin Impact isn’t one of them.

Finally admitted it, did you?

The abundant loot

Treasure chests, treasure chests, treasure chests! Chests everywhere you look! Especially in the desert where you turn left, treasure, turn right, treasure! My eyes are all big and sparkly whenever I explore that place. I’ve been making good progress on the turnip thing in Varanara too, going up levels regularly. And I completed the Amrita pool without difficulty because after a while the game shows you where to find the remaining plumes of light. This is honestly my current style of gaming: low risk, high reward, and lots and lots of freedom.

Where to go from here

Fontaine… I guess. Not looking forward to it because the NPCs from Fontaine have all been weird and annoying e.g. Julien, Xavier, the various NPCs that run events. And somehow I hate their clothing. It’s so… dorky. A steampunk vibe with those dorky outfits, it just doesn’t work. And you just know there will be water puzzles of all kinds, and gear puzzles too. Ewwwww~~~ …is what I say now, but you know I’ll be all over it when it comes out.

You don’t have to convince me. I already know Paimon is scum.

In the meantime I’ll be finishing up quests and hangouts like I said. I’m facing a little problem in Nahida’s first story quest, though. The game lags at the point where I’m supposed to jump down and grab something before the area fills with water. I know it’s my computer’s fault even after lowering the graphical settings, but I’m not prepared to buy another computer for one game quest. So that’s going to remain undone for now. Which means I can’t do her second story quest, which means I can’t unlock the Apep weekly boss to farm talent mats for Kaveh. Sorry Kaveh. I’ll try to leech it in other worlds for you.

The other quests are under control though. Just have Baizhu and Yoimiya’s story quests to do, then the Enkanomiya book collection thing. I need to explore the whole of Enkanomiya more thoroughly, actually. Also the Liyue thing with the offerings. Gotta finish Jarjar’s last challenge. And then I have thoroughly ignored all the hangouts so I’ll start tackling them little by little.

On the non-gacha front, Picross S9 came out recently 💗💗💗. But I haven’t bought it yet. I want to tackle the other games on the Switch first, like Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (IDK what went wrong with me and that game), Triangle Strategy, Great Ace Attorney (too much talking!) and the Square-Enix games I bought the other time. May 17th was the first anniversary of my buying a Switch, and to date I’ve only finished… umm… I… haven’t finished anything! Of course, as per my policy, “it is enough to play a little bit of a game,” but I haven’t even given most things a chance so I’ll need to work on that going forward.

Gacha gaming update 2023 – Epic Seven

Fun game is fun! Almost nothing has changed with regards to the factors that made me drop Epic Seven last time (gearing, insufficient PVE content, gearing, gearing). Nevertheless, I got my second wind for more grinding, grinding, grinding and was able to get some good equipment and use more of my party members in a variety of content. It helps that I finally have a clearer idea of what gear to keep and what to trash, so I’m doing pretty well.

Gear I keep:

•Anything with speed of 4 or higher on it and at least one other desirable stat.

•Anything with two or more of these: Attack percentage, Critical Hit Chance, Critical damage percentage AND high starting rolls in at least one of these stats, e.g. 6%-8% for Attack%, 4%-6% for Crit Chance and 6%-8% for Crit damage, etc.

Keep doesn’t mean guard it for life, it just means I try rolling on them till +6 or +9 to see if they turn out any good. If they’re so-so, they can go on other characters I’m not seriously planning to use – ultimately it’s good to have at least 9 strong characters in every element for World Boss and stuff.

Also I’m a little more lenient with my requirements for right-side gear (necklace, rings, boots) than for left-side gear (weapon, armor, helmet) because the former is much harder to get. Some of my less important characters are still rocking ATK% boots and other weird things because I just don’t have enough speed boots to spare.

Three desirable stats, so I would keep this.

A helmet from the gacha game Epic Seven

It literally can’t roll badly. IIRC the +12 stat was HP%, which is also useful.

The gear I trash:

•Every purple and red (Heroic and Epic) piece outside these.

•Level 51, 65, 70, 71 etc. gear. Anything under 78.

•Any blue, green or grey equipment.

•Necklaces, rings and boots with flat main stats except Speed.

Trash doesn’t mean throw the piece away. Usually I extract the level 85+ stuff for cores or use it to craft charms (until that option was recently removed). Lower level stuff I usually use it as fodder or sell. It’s pretty satisfying to clear out non-optimum stuff and keep only the gear that sparks joy. I’m the kind of person that gets antsy when I have unread mail or unchecked notifications, so doing a Marie Kondo on my inventory from time to time is very carthartic.

These are all obviously bad.

These are also all bad but I thought I could make something of this…

Badly rolled rage set equipment in Epic Seven

…only to end up wasting 1,100 skystones. It’s better to buy nothing than to buy trash.

To explain further, Rage Set is usually used on DPS. Pure attackers, so I really wanted ATK% instead of that Effectiveness. I could replace the Effectiveness but I will lose a lot of stats. The other rolls are also very low for +15 gear. Basically I just threw skystones away. Don’t be like me.

Wait, what about health, defense, etc?

Those will naturally appear as “undesired” substats with high rolls as you are rolling for the gear you want. It’s the law of the “desire sensor.” If you get a nice piece of gear with Atk%, Spd, Crit% and Eff. Res, naturally it will all roll into Eff. Res. just to spite you. Yes, you in particular.

You can’t have nice things. My soulweavers don’t want it either because the HP% is too low, plus it’s Crit set.

Same with Health% Def% Effectivenes etc. Then I mod out one or two other things and put them on my tanks/healers and presto! Just save a few HP% necklaces and rings and you’re okay. I mean in practice it’s not that easy because the game will mess with you as soon as it detects what you’re looking for, haha.

But actually the game gives out enough HP set gear for all of your soulweavers and some of your Knights to have two pieces each, so it’s not really an issue. In fact, my Roana, Destina and Angelica are all rocking full HP gear without breaking a sweat. Also I was dumb when I started out and farmed a lot of Golem because I thought HP and ATK sets were bound to be useful.

And you know, they’re not that terrible. The important thing in Epic Seven is achieving the final stat goals you set for a character. If you want Knight A to have 2000 DEF and 30,000 HP and you have to put on DEF/HP sets to get that, then don’t listen to what anyone says. You can’t entirely ignore useful effects like Rage/Destruction but there’s still plenty of room to play around with various 2-piece sets.

Just 400-500 more ATK and I can start one-shotting Banshee.

The gear I craft:

For regular crafting, the general advice is to stick to left-side gear. I do that most of the time, because it makes sense. You’ll just get crap main stats for right-side, which is a gamble. But for situations where you get to pick at least which main stat you want, e.g. accessory chests from Automaton Tower, free crafting events, equipment conversion, then definitely pick right side, preferably speed boots, attack rings and crit damage necklaces. However I do occassionally craft right side if I need cores and don’t have enough from extracting bad drops. Not often though. Probably because I was dumb early on and crafted and built a lot of junk items, so extracting it all gave me lots of cores. Don’t be like me.

Junk, more junk and nothing but junk

Is this advice any good?

Hehe, you got me. I’m just a middling player who just barely finished Episode 4 and doesn’t touch RTA. I can’t do Nightmare Raid, half of my Expeditions are still stuck at level 2, I peace’d out at Challenger V in Arena, etc etc. If you want to get really strong in Epic Seven, I’m the last person you should take advice from. You’d be better off reading more serious guides and throwing your gear in an automatic calculator.

As I mentioned in my first post about Epic Seven, a lot depends on whether you’re building up for PVE or for PVP. I’m a PVE-only player so my stat requirements are much lower than for PVP. Especially when it comes to speed, effect resistance, effectiveness, etc.

Moreover, this isn’t actually advice, per se. This is just how I play Epic Seven and keep it fun for myself. After playing the game for quite a long time, I naturally accumulated a ton of gear that exceeds the 500-piece limit. And so I had to come up with a way to sort out what to keep and what to extract, and the above has worked pretty well for me. I don’t like the idea of using software to optimize gear: I’d rather quit the game if that’s the only way to progress. But I understand the people that do because gearing in this game is a MASSIVE grind. It just happens to be one that I enjoy in moderation and intend to see through to the end.

This first ran when I first started, and I couldn’t make head or tails of it. Reading it later provided a lot of closure.

Notes to self:

I can never remember which parties I use for normal labyrinth Azmakalis of Cycle raids, so let me note them here.

Queen Azmakalis

Adventurer Ras, Angelic Montmorancy, Seaside Bellona, Cermia. Strategy: Kill the mobs and then kill her. She’s not tough as long as you keep your health up and avoid too many debuffs. A. Ras is good here for keeping your health up via his defence boost while stripping her self-buffs.

Executioner Karkanis and Devourer Arakhan

Violet, Angelic Montmorancy, Seaside Bellona, Cermia.My go-to team for almost everything. I just beat them till they die.

Secretary Vera

Crap, I forgot again… I think it was A. Ras, Verdant Adin, Cermia and… wah, I really don’t remember. Definitely Cermia for smacking it for big damage whenever she gets the chance. I think I used Green Vildred for clearing the eggs? I’ll check again in two days when the labyrinth resets.

Update: beat her pretty easily with A. Ras, Iseria, Tamarinne and Vildred. It was easy to the extent that I’m starting to consider building Nightmare Raid teams… but I won’t do it because it’s work.

Juleeve Council

Roana (taking point with Touch of Rekos artifact), Vivian, Kise and Angelic Montmorancy. It’s slow because of two low-damage soul weavers, but as long as I stagger the heals and immunity between Vivian, Roana and A. Momo, it’s very reliable. If I can raise Roana’s Eff. Res a little to stop taking that initial poison stack and spreading it, that would be even better.

Update: Also tried it with Cermia instead of Kise. It was faster but much riskier because Cermia occasionally triggers the Unhealable debuff for the boss. But she hits like a truck so as long as the soul weavers keep the party’s HP up, it’s not an issue.

Next steps for Epic Seven and me

I’m planning to drop it for a bit, now that I’ve finished Episode 4. Then I can pick it up again when Episode 5 is fully released. I largely enjoy reading the stories in Epic Seven, but more importantly, having new chapters and bosses gives me a goal to work towards. And that inspires me to keep working on my parties in a way that other PVE content like Expeditions and Labyrinth does not.

That said, I’m not dropping it right this very second. I was planning to stop at the end of April, but first they released a Custom Banner that I want to pull on, then they sprang a “Forge your Epic Gear” event on me, giving me two free ideal epic gears. And then there’s a collab with That Time I Reincarnated as a Slime coming up. Not a fan of the series, but I can’t say no to free characters and the other goodies that come with collabs. But after that it’s break time.

Gotta refresh 18,000 skystones in two weeks, aieee (update: ran out of gold long before running out of skystones)

What else am I playing?

Picross, of course. In its various incarnations. I recently learned about a similar game on the Switch called Murder by Numbers, but the macabre title is turning me off a bit. Still I’m out of new Picross games so I guess I’ll play it sooner or later.

Apart from that, I recently returned to Genshin Impact in a major way. It took a while, but I worked through the Aranara quests with minimal outside help (yay) and I’m currently working on the first desert world quest. I preferred the Aranara TBH. It felt wholesome somehow, versus all the greed and bickering in this one. Also I explored ahead and came across some explorer notes that potentially spoil some twists in this quest. We’ll see how that turns out. I’m loving having lots of chests to open, at least, and the overworld quests are much easier than in Inazuma. And I recently pulled Nilou so I’m having fun trying to figure her out. Good game, good game.

I’ll write more about it next time. Until then!

Gacha gaming update 2023 – Shining Nikki (dropped again)

Continuing the series updating the gacha games that sustained me in 2022. This time it’s Shining Nikki, the sequel to Love Nikki (which I prefer by far, but Shining Nikki isn’t terribad). I started playing it at launch, dropped it for a while in January 2022, and I picked it up again in time for the first anniversary in July 2022. I’ll probably get it again for the second anniversary, or whenever a particular double UR event reruns. For all its flaws, Shining Nikki does anniversaries and other milestones right with lots of freebies! The returner bonuses are nice too.

So I’ve played and dropped it and played and dropped it. Has my opinion of Shining Nikki changed at all since I wrote my first impressions calling it a grindy gacha game? No, not really. It is still a grindy gacha game, though not too grindy once you get a good set of concepts and reflections together. It’s like many other gacha games (Granblue Fantasy comes to mind) where you collect characters in different elements with weapons to match and eventually you get teams that are “good enough” to run most content. In Shining Nikki that means getting a good set of UR clothes, UR reflections, UR or maxed SSR concepts in every “element” and then grinding up extra stats like the academy and the… dream thingy where you strengthen your clothes.

Once you’ve done all that, say in about 6-9 months give or take a few, you enter coasting mode. Okay, I entered coasting mode. Your mileage may vary. In that mode, though, there isn’t much to do unless you have a lot of money to spend. Events in Shining Nikki are all pavilions (gacha draws) and very expensive, especially if you want to pull full sets of anything. Don’t let the game’s “generosity” fool you there: only super mega-whales, no, actual leviathans, can pull on everything. So you must patiently let most events pass by unless you really like the clothes or they’re really powerful.

There are some games where you’re advised not to pull at all on banners unless you can hit pity, but in Shining Nikki you can still get some useful new items regardless, so I try to do at least the free pulls and maybe a little more if I like the stuff. Random pulls here and there to satisfy the gaming itch are okay IMO, but overdo it and you won’t have the 20,000+ diamonds needed to pull the full set in a double UR event, and then you’ll kick yourself.

My record high must be commemorated with a screenshot

However now that I have enough clothes in most categories and the new stuff rarely excites me, there’s not for me much to do outside the mega double UR events. Log in, do dailies, do a few other things like Memory Stairway when available. Then… nothing. I got tired of the nail competition long ago (also I always bomb) and the stylist competion is boring and one-way (also I always bomb) and the Reverie and Blossom Plaza things they added to liven things up rather added more stress. I started to find logging in a chore, but at the same time I didn’t want to end up disliking Shining Nikki because it’s not a bad game. There’s a lot more to do in it than in Love Nikki, and the developers are much more generous with the free suits and frequent gifts. So the solution was to take another extended break and come back fresh again.

And so here we are, game is dropped until July or whenever the wedding event runs because I really need to complete those suits. Right now my regular gacha games are down to Epic Seven and Love Nikki with Genshin Impact being something I either play hard or ignore completely depending on how busy I am. I’m in “play hard” mode right now, having finished the Windblume events last-minute and trying to clear some Sumeru world quests when I have the time, so I’ll probably write about GI next. Then Epic Seven, then we’ll see about tackling some console or handheld games for the first time in… wow, when was the last time I played anything non-gacha that wasn’t Picross? Wow…

Gacha gaming update 2023 – Tried Alchemy Stars, gave CounterSide a second chance

Dropped both after roughly two days, though. It’s going to take a lot for a game to make it into my permanent gacha rotation now. I don’t even think it’s possible because I’m either really busy or really tired these days. Peak earning years, I told you. Games aren’t going to pay for my retirement home, you know? Ahem, anyway, on with the update.

evelyn keller, a character from the gacha game countersideCounterSide – Studio Bside did a major overhaul of the game’s user interface and player experience. They called it the Origin update or something like that, IIRC. I was a bit curious, so checked in for the rewards and to see what had changed. I liked what they did with dupes because previously I just hung on to them with no clear idea of how to use them effectively. Now it’s clear how to re-arm characters, now to get re-arm data, how to strengthen them with dupes, etc. and I was able to clear out much of my bloated character inventory.

Everything else about the update, I didn’t care for. The UI changes make everything bland and hard to find, though possibly that gets better once you’re used to it. Moreover, the boring core gameplay and depressing, sleep-inducing weapon grind hasn’t changed. And I discovered that once I lost interest in the story, it was impossible for me to regain it no matter how many side stories and new episodes they released. The magic is just gone.

Furthermore, the update makes it so that fighting battles doesn’t give characters experience any more. Previously I enjoyed throwing characters I was trying to level into a single team and using them to clear all my dailies. A simple, pointless pleasure, but why would they take it away and force me to use appraisals instead? What’s wrong with wanting to level your characters in battle?

They also made some changes to dives and dispatches, but I didn’t stick around long enough to find out. Despite the offer of two (or was it three) Awakened characters if I played around for several days, the fact that my core problems hadn’t changed and they had taken away the little I enjoyed just killed CounterSide for me. I wasn’t done-done with it before, but I am now.

Alchemy Stars – Only played for two days and dropped it. This is largely my own fault because I didn’t do a lot of research on it before starting it. I’ve recently discovered that the more I read about a game, book, anime etc. before starting it, the less likely I am to actually do so. I looked at a couple of screenshots, it seemed decent enough, I jumped in.

And yeah, I played it and it was “decent enough.” Just that, though. No more, no less. And it takes more than “decent enough” to make me stick around. The color-puzzle combat in particular left me cold. It’s like all those match-colours-to-fight puzzle games but on a flashier scale. If you like the base concept, cool, otherwise it has nothing to offer you. I’m trying to think of what they could have done better, but the system works very well, controls are very smooth and there is a lot of room for strategizing and experimenting with party combinations and positioning, so it’s not a them thing, it’s a me thing.

Once the combat didn’t work out, the rest of the game didn’t stand a chance. But I might have stuck around a little longer if at least the story didn’t turn out to be the same old “aliens are attacking and we don’t stand a chance!” as in CounterSide. Every spot on the map is dotted with Eclipsites, every bit of story is interrupted by a battle against Eclipsites. Having a conversation? Eclipsites. Eating a meal? Eclipsites. Just entered a very cool-looking underground city that you wish you could explore thoroughly? Eclip-bloody-sites.

If I hadn’t played CounterSide, I would be wondering, perplexed, perhaps even hopeful. Having played it, though, I know that the same Eclipsites menacing the world in chapter 2 will still be threatening us in chapter 10, 20, 30. Every new place we visit will be invaded by Eclipsites, every event will involve fighting Eclipsites… am I wrong? I could be, but I don’t feel like finding out.

Also I’m just too lazy to get into Alchemy Stars now. Strengthening a character seems like so much work: ugrading, ascending, breakthroughs, equipment for dozens and dozens of characters to finally form decent parties. Not to mention all the different kinds of stages you will have to grind to get enough material to do all that. I’ve done it in other games so I know precisely how involving and time-consuming raising characters in gacha games is designed to be. It’s better to cut my losses after two days than waste more time and then drop it.

I want to go on and declare that I won’t even start any more gacha games from now on, but I said that last year, and we know how that turned out. It’s more likely that I will try some new stuff here and there for the rest of the year but keep coming back to my regulars in the end. So that’s the skinny on CounterSide and Alchemy Stars. I’ll probably talk about Shining Nikki a bit next time.

Gacha gaming update 2023 – Dissidia: Final Fantasy – Opera Omnia

dissidia final fantasy opera omnia penelo in battleI’m a big sucker for game anniversary events. I suspect a lot of people are, which is why most online games make a fuss over anniversaries. When I heard Dissidia Final Fantasu Opera Omnia was giving away hundreds of free draws for its 5th anniversary, I couldn’t help logging in again. And like smart developers, they doled the draws out over weeks, all the way up to March 2nd. That kept me playing for a good long while, but once it was over… same old, same old. And so I uninstalled it again.

I had fun getting new characters, though. It’s nice for DFFOO to be generous with gems and tickets, but normally your pulling options are limited to a few rate-up character weapons in a banner. Which is nominally a good thing because you pull for weapons, not characters, and you need most/all of a character’s set of weapons to use them effectively. But when you play a game about lots and lots of Final Fantasy characters, naturally you want to pull lots and lots of FF characters.

The 5th anniversary banner was a rare opportunity, which I enjoyed to the max. Not only did I use all the free pulls but I also grinded the hell out of the Spiritus dungeons that give 400 draw tickets each. And I used all the tickets on the anniversary banner for even more characters. Somebody stop me! As a result, I got a lot of characters, but only a few weapons for each, so most of them are functionally useless, at least for now. But that’s totally not the point, so I’m okay.

Once the banner ended, there was nothing to keep me around. I’m not interested in the game’s story, and I still think the Force Era is too gimmicky and I still don’t want to fight any Shinryu damage sponge enemies. It was very much a “Wait… why am I playing this again?” moment. And I did get the answer to that question: to pull lots and lots of FF characters! Unlike most other games that make you work your butt off for less than a single pull (ahem Genshin Impact ahem), DFFOO hands them out quick and easy, which makes it a great source of that ever-elusive gacha dopamine fix.

dissidia final fantasy opera omnia gacha game 5th anniversary draw

AWWW YISSSS

So I’ll definitely be back the next time they do something similar, or whenever I just feel like it. I think it’s a very good game, actually. I’m just occupied with flashier, more/less demanding stuff. DFFOO requires more babysitting than I’m willing to give, but it’s not as engaging like peak Genshin Impact, for instance, so it’s in a weird spot for me. Just hope it doesn’t get cancelled before I can get back to it. Same with Romancing SaGa Re;Universe, which I want to try again for much the same gacha-pulling reason, once I’ve played a few Romancing SaGa games.

Aight, enough for one day. Back to the grindstone.