Just because I’m not blogging doesn’t mean I’m not gaming. It just means I’m not playing anything worth blogging about. In this case, it looks the “game worth blogging about” drought is going to continue for a while, so I might as well show I’m still alive by mentioning what I’m up to lately.
Genshin Impact
Adventure Rank 52 now, more than halfway to 53. I’ve done a lot of the things I said I would do in my last post, but I’m resin-gated or mora-gated for a lot of the other stuff. For example, Xiao and Sucrose share a lot of resources, plus I’m hoping to pull Venti, so Sucrose has been benched. And the amount of mora it costs to raise talents from level 6 upwards is like whooaaaa. So I’m focusing on raising artifacts and levels to some extent first.
That said, I’m not complaining too much about the resin system, because it makes it easy to fit Genshin Impact into a busy schedule. You only have to log in once a day, less if you use one day to make condensed resin and another to spend it. The reward for doing your daily commissions is small enough that it’s a-okay to skip them. So while I’m disappointed that Genshin Impact promised to be an open-world RPG but instead became a Romance Your Waifu Visual Novel with mini-games, I have a lot on my plate IRL anyway, so I can wait till The Chasm comes out in the next update to get another exploration fix. It’s going to come, right, Mihoyo? Riiight?
In the meantime, the events in update 1.4 aren’t terrible. At least they’re better than the non-event Lantern Rite in 1.3. The festival mini-games aren’t bad either, though I have mixed feelings about the simplicity. They’ve made it so that you just need to play all the mini-games once or twice to get the reward. The busy real-life person in me likes that, but the gamer in me wishes there was more of a reward to acing them. I understand the desire to avoid driving poor performers away, but at least there should be mora rewards for a higher cumulative score or something.
The Hangout events and the festival event quests are a good short distraction as well. I’m not too much into visual novels, but these don’t take long to clear. Plus the NPCs in Mondstadt are nicer and more familiar than the ones in Liyue (except Albert, brrr) so it’s not so bad hanging out with them and helping them. Honestly, I really don’t want this kind of event/VN/minigame fest to be what GI is all about, but since that’s all we’re getting for now, welp, I play it when I get the time.
Granblue Fantasy
I’m still sort of playing. The anniversary event just ended, so I logged in regularly for all the goodies. I got 160 free sparks, so I added 140 and sparked an Europa spear. Just didn’t bother documenting it because it was almost all bronze/silver/gold moons. And even if I got new characters, I wouldn’t really use them. At Premium Gala I’ll spark a Pholia bow and in summer I’ll spark Summer Cagliostro, if I remember to. New Granblue players, take heart! One day you too will be sparking characters like Dio Brando eats bread. It will just take… 4-5 years? Something like that.
Anywayz, as I mentioned some time ago, I don’t feel like grinding any more for new weapons, so my weapon grids are stagnant. But they’re enough to finish event bosses, and as for non-event grind fests like Tower of Babel and the Rising… thing… the one with the many gods like Suzaku… Yeah, I just skip all those these days because I don’t need them. So really, I’m sort of playing but really mostly done.
Rakuen Seikatsu Hitsujimura
My faithful browser game I’ve been playing since 2015, for those of you who think my casualization only began with Granblue Fantasy. I took a long break at one point because the game specializes in breaking the hearts of free-to-play players, but I came back because I like the aesthetics and simple gameplay. Plus once you fully understand that you ain’t getting diddly as F2P, you make peace with reality and just enjoy the ride. It’s a bit sad to see how quickly new players that join my guild fizzle out, though.
I always mean to post an update about it, but it’s just one of those games that are kind of there. Nothing much to say about it, but here’s a quarter of my current farm:
This is the only patch I actually use for farming and ranching. The rest is filled with houses, pets, items, assorted clickables and treasures, etc. I constantly need more space, but of course for an F2P to get even the tiniest patch of land is an ordeal. Have I mentioned that I love this game? š¤£š¤£š¤£ Man vs. Game Developer, the ultimate challenge.
Ray Gigant
Just a few more months to go before Experience Inc. releases Yomi wo Saku Hana, their latest dungeon crawling extravangza. While I’m waiting, I thought I’d catch up on their other dungeon crawlers I hadn’t finished. Right now it’s just Ray Gigant, Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy and Operation Babel: New Tokyo Legacy. Abyss I’ve played enough of. Babel I’ve never tried. Ray Gigant I tried earlier and it was a pretty insipid experience. However I didn’t drop it because I hated it but because I lost my save for some reason I can’t remember.
I restarted it recently and played for about an hour. I’m planning to try the strategy where you give the MC in each chapter all the good stuff and ignore the hangers-on. Maybe that will make things a little faster and more challenging in a very pedestrian game. I’ll report on it if/when I pass the area I reached last time.
Happy Color
My latest obsession isn’t even a game. It’s a paint-by-numbers app. Like, not even a coloring app with creativity involved. Just see number, paint number, see number, paint number. Every once in a while they hide a tiny splotch of color in an obscure area to try to trick you into watching ads for hints. No need to fall for it, though. Just save the pic and continue later, and the incomplete area will just pop out at you the next time you load. Human brains are funny like that.
Why did I “play” this for 3 hours yesterday, at least 2 hours the day before and countless hours in the past month when I have so many AAA games in my backlog? If traditional game companies knew the answer, they wouldn’t have lost so much ground to mobile gaming, now would they? The honest truth is i just want to relax sometimes. No, a lot of the time. Games require too much headspace. They’re nice, but sometimes I just want to look at pretty colors and zone out.
And with that, you know all the things I’m up to when I’m not blogging. Next update will probably be about Ray Gigant, since talking about it has made me want to play it. After that… we’ll see.
Happy Color is an awesome app. Love to kill time with it.
Right? It’s so relaxing and non-demanding and there are so many lovely pictures.
Hey, cool to see that you are still going with your blog. I enjoy reading your articles so much and iĀ“ve been following them for a few years now. Mostly since I started my masterĀ“s degree two years ago.
But thatĀ“s done now and I can add another academical degree to my arsenal. :). More free time coming! Finally.
I find it interesting that you arenĀ“t playing a lot of GBF anymore as a lot of your older posts were about that game. For me, i quit the game a few months back.
I just felt that the game isnĀ“t really respecting my personal time if you want to grind out the better grids available. It just became a chore I couldnĀ“t accept anymore.
Kicking the game off my list was the best choice iĀ“ve taken this year when it comes to gaming as it opened up quite some time for other games i enjoy far more, where I donĀ“t feel “used” after comitting all of my gaming time to it.
I still like the design and the rpg-elements of gbf. But itĀ“s just not what IĀ“m searching these days.
I also have a friend that started the gbf journey with me. HeĀ“s still playing, grinding the latest weapons in the game and joining a very competitive guild.
Another problem i had with the game was that the gacha is just a frigging sh*t show.
ItĀ“s generous, yes. But i was only buying surprise tickets whereas my friend was throwing a few houndred dollars at it every single month.
I now have a very good job and could afford that as well, but i choose not do it since itĀ“s a very ignorant thing.
But yeah, heĀ“s cashing a spark when he feels like it.
I experienced an in-game difference between the two of us growing bigger and bigger each month.
Why? Well, he just whaled out the primal grids and didnĀ“t need to farm for Magna weapons or their respective uncap mats. That was huge (for him).
I realized how money-driven the game was and grinding became even more unattractive to me.
HeĀ“s now playing with 5 primal grids and 1 magna (light since that was the easiest to build for him). I truly believe that he has an addiction problem as he tries to hide his spendings from everyone. But I just canĀ“t make him realize it. I hope it wonĀ“t backfire on him.
Granblue Fantasy is a great time at first sight. But i think it will get worse as time goes on. IĀ“m glad i ditched it once I realized how much IĀ“d need to grind to get my grids to the next level. And that amount is unacceptable…even for a mmo, it would be.
So yeah. While I no longer play the game, I will make sure to visit your blog from time to time as that was probably the coolest thing that i followed when it comes to my GBF journey. Thank you for that.
best regards,
Shawl
I haven’t completely dropped Granblue Fantasy, but I’ve been in coasting mode for the past two years or more. I don’t have the time and energy to grind up weapons for grids and I hate learning how to deal with the increasingly complicated boss mechanics. I still log in at least once a week but the game doesn’t have much to offer me any more. I had a great time for about three years though, so I won’t trash the game, but it is time-consuming and ultimately unrewarding.
Congratulations on finishing your masters! It will serve you much better than a million gacha tickets in a video game ever could.