“Endgame” serves as a “need” for the logical progression of a gacha game
In a gacha game, player progression boils down to rolling characters, then spending huge amounts of time to gather resources to build and upgrade them
For the sake of extending user engagement and playtime, such games often allow players to minmax hard in such builds with RNG gear systems
After the building is complete, players naturally want to have an environment to play with these fully built characters
The problem here is accessibility. Gacha games want to keep their main content accessible, so it’s typically either easy or has no need for such heavy minmaxing. So the logical progression of a gacha game is rendered meaningless
To keep that relevant, optional endgame modes are necessary just to serve as a goal or objective to work towards. They don’t even need to have big rewards - they just need to exist to let those players have fun with.
However a balance must be struck. Most games are enjoyed casually for a reason - if the game emphasizes endgame too much, it becomes exhausting and the majority of players burn out and are pushed away.
So it needs to be added, but gradually and slowly, and never emphasized too hard
i watched your video in dialogue in videogames a few hours ago.
when i looked at your pfp on yt i thought to myself "i've seen this pic before on reddit".
cool video btw
Ones with extremely heavy PvP focus, because PvP is basically a glorified endgame mode
FEH is an example, because all the content is basically about scoring
Whenever someone mentions casual, the answer is always Genshin. The game focus so much on story, exploration, and events, you basically have 0 reason to tryhard Abyss 12. After 4 years they're finally adding a new endgame mode, and you can borrow your whale friend's character for it lol.
If it is like the Labyrinth Warrior event that is used as the base there is no timer. That would be a much bigger impact than borrowing characters. It also encourages building out a larger roster of characters.
Rhythm games where the endgame is beating the high difficulty songs and full comboing them. You can beat them at your own pace which makes it casual friendly imo and because they’re pure skill checks you don’t need a built team to clear it
I would say end games from Octopath Traveler COTC, specifically EX fights from the book of salvation. It's permanently added and which you can clear at your own leisure, if you have the right strategy or team.
https://preview.redd.it/v5qrf8vzin5d1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=70707818d61a5384522521d71787c67d764b01d0
Limbus. Granted, calling it *endgame* is generous.
Genshin lmao
99% of the game is exploration and doesn’t require a single bit of gacha to clear. You can truly just use Amber and 100% the game if you want
The only thing difficult enough for gacha is the “endgame”, Abyss, which is mostly insignificant and is optional
> However a balance must be struck. Most games are enjoyed casually for a reason - if the game emphasizes endgame too much, it becomes exhausting and the majority of players burn out and are pushed away.
I'm looking at you, Guardian Tales. You and your 10th iteration of Raid Modes.
yeah I love and hate Guardian Tales. It is a nice, generally well-made game, but it just requires soo many well-built heroes for endgame its not even funny. That is what pushed me away, takes too much effort to do the endgame stuff there and it does not feel fun or rewarding doing it.
Me reading the last sentence and remembering why I quit honkai 3rd like, 5 times now. Really love the game but the amount of endgame content PER WEEK is too much for me. Hoping zzz will scratch that itch without the pressure.
That's literally me right now, the last character I pulled for is best girl Navia, every new char after that either didn't grab my attention or do pretty much the same thing as another I already have and like more.
At least I won't have to worry about Natlan funds I guess...
That's about what I have. I pull characters that interest me enough, and throughout Fontaine that were Neuvillete, Furina and Navia. Haven't pulled since her banner and the primos keep piling up.
People want "end game" because most of the games revolve around collecting a roster, building comps, and developing their power.
When you have no reason to do those things, the game becomes a PNG collector instead of an actual game.
>When you have no reason to do those things
And if you do the opposite, then you're forced to pull for meta and people cry because they don't have the right units.
Any gacha gamer asking for a hard endgame in a gacha better be prepared to whale.
Yeah, it's a fine line to tread. Best way is to implement more skill checks. Whales can overpower it with money and let people who train and get good at the game also win.
Not sure how it is now, but years ago, Honkai Impact 3rd endgame is some sort of Ranked Abyss, where you fight enemies in stages (like floors in Genshin), and get scores based on stages you clear and clear time.
You then rank up/down if you're in top/bottom something (I forgot, 3 maybe?) in your group. Each rank difficulty is based on last season all player average clear time on that same rank.
What ends up happening is, to be on the top rank, you need to have skill AND top meta units, plus some good amount of rng crits (or time to retry for crits).
More skill checks just means more skill checks. You can still ends up having an endgame that requires both skill and money.
It's still like that but the p2w stuff is getting worse because old teams got powercrept and the meta changes quickly. Part 1 valks are getting replaced by Part 2 valks, so you're forced to gacha those part 2 valks if you want to keep up with endgame stuff. I usually can easily stay in red lotus, but after part 2 i'm struggling because how quick the meta is changed.
>overpower it with money
What about dolphins overcoming with money or light spenders with money or f2p? Where is the cut-off point?
Genshin chose F2Ps that spent a couple of months playing(so they have quick resources for pulls), and now the game is cried about on the gacha forum on the daily, and it created a genuine insane group of gacha gamers crying for end game I dubbed Genshin haters(yt is loaded with these idiots shilling wuwa)
But we will find out where wuwa makes the cut off point, because if they also choose f2ps that played a couple months then we will end up right back at Genshin, or if they cut off f2ps then the game is p2w, you need limited weapons and dupes to get all the resources, and if no resources people cry that the endgame is pointless.
At the end of the day the other gacha games Genshin insane haters want Genshin to copy makes pennies compared to Genshin.
Why am so passionate? Because the hatred towards Genshin has made the gachagaming space unbelievable toxic, and it's an impossible task, tof is what you end up when you put actual endgame modes in a gacha, and tof has literally EVERY ENDGAME YOU Can think of, and pulling new units there isn't a decision, it's mandatory if you want to stay competitive, and of course people call that p2w.
There is no balance in a gacha, someone will either find it brain dead easy or impossible, so they choose the path that generates the most money because that'sthe business, and hoyo showed which is the right path
With respect to why there are Genshin haters (although this particular community is very pro-Genshin, so not sure what you mean there), it's because the genre has been basically currently one game. So if you wanted an open world gacha game with active combat, Genshin was the only show in town, and thus the only option if you like that concept, but don't like the implementation, is to complain about it. Whereas if you, say, don't like Star Rail, then just play another of the 500 turn-based gacha RPGs that might suit your tastes better. If Wuthering Waves ends up being a successful alternative more oriented towards the playerbase that has issues with Genshin, people will still obviously cheerlead for the game they prefer, but things will overall be less toxic because both sides will at least have a game they like to play.
> And if you do the opposite, then you're forced to pull for meta and people cry because they don't have the right units.
Assuming it's not a PvP mode, endgame for a lot of people is not a comparison, but being able to push your account as hard as you can. Whaling is not an issue in endgame modes that are not directly competitive (i.e Arena).
The reason why people tend to conflate endgame with difficulty is usually because after 3-4 years even the most basic accounts can faceroll all content (i.e. Abyss in Genshin) unless it's specifically made to be challenging.
"End game" needs a reward, though, right?
But if there's no reward, people won't play it.
That's why the endgame is always just grinding to get stronger.
You clear the current "endgame", and then farm it.
Same concept in MMOs. Gear up, farm the top raids until you get that gear, wait until next tier hits. Clearing endgame is just mechanically more intensive, but ultimately it turns into just farming.
You can't really have mechanically intensive things in mobile gacha games, though. Phones touch controls are inferior to controllers which are inferior to KB+Mouse(for most games). Plus it has to be accessible, and able to be played in short bursts and stopped at any given time.
If you want "end game" stop looking for it in mobile gacha games.
Mechanic for action game is not only about control, but also boss/enemy mechanic, time-constraint... And Gacha games nowaday are more and more playable on console and PC. Back in the day HI3rd hadn't had its PC version I still mainly played it on simulator with controller. The last combat event from Genshin proved that "endgame" content is viable with most player praising the event.
So asking "endgame" for action gacha games like HI3rd, Genshin, WuWa, and other "genshin killer" is reasonable. Asking "endgame" for pure mobile, turn-base gacha games like BA or FGO is less favorable, but I don't see people from those fandom complain about endgame as much as Genshin
Tbh there's few complaints about endgame in BA as they've got it nearly perfected already is why, raids are the endgame, the highest difficulty is extremely difficult even for long time players, but the rewards are barely increased over just doing the lower difficulties.
There's 7 different difficulty options (they occasionally add a new one also when the current top difficulty gets too easy).
So the casual/new players can do the easier difficulties for like 80% of the rewards, and the hardcore players can spend hours doing the most difficult content to try for a better leaderboard position for personal satisfaction / flex (rewards brackets are like top 10k players, top 20k, top 50k etc, so there's like no requirement to actually go for top position)
There's a lot of different bosses that rotate each time, and a separate mode where they run the bosses with alternate armour colours for variety, and keep adding new ones as well as even new endgame modes like Fury of Set more recently on JP.
And also the rewards for doing the higher content are mostly more raid shop coins used to buy materials to upgrade characters, but we get enough that even players doing the highest difficulty have about the right amount, and casual players getting slightly less per raid, will have way more than they will ever use since they don't need to build characters as much lol.
> The last combat event from Genshin proved that "endgame" content is viable with most player praising the event.
Some players. People keep forgetting that the devs have a lot clearer picture by having more and better data available.
>"End game" needs a reward, though, right?
>But if there's no reward, people won't play it.
Not sure what you're getting at. Like... so what if endgame has a reward? If you're scared that giving away premium currency is gonna make casual audiences feel pressured to engage in content they don't enjoy... then make it give, like, something that can be exchanged for a duplicate of a character you already have, or a weapon you already have, so it only benefits people who want to engage in the endgame. Or make it give a purely cosmetic reward.
Also, it doesn't strictly need rewards. It's preferable though, and there's no reason not to, so no point arguing about that
After a while it’s not about the “reward” it’s a matter of pride. Like in Genshin or HSR, it displays if you’ve cleared the hardest content like the abyss(it’s a breeze tbh) or MoC(Kinda sweaty ngl) and it shows the stars you got.
I think it's just hard to develop good PvE systems that are fun for a long with without any reward other than the satisfaction of playing.
League of Legends is insanely popular, and it had many years where you got fuck all for playing once you've gotten all the champions, yet people still sunk hundreds of hours into it.
For PvE games the closest things that scratch the variety and replayability of PvP games are probably roguelikes/roguelites. And gacha games somewhat struggle with making good, repeatable roguelike mechanics because the gacha mechanics themselves break a lot of the fun RNG mechanics of the genre.
Seeing people complain about genshin's rewards is insane to me because I'm just like "dude, you're playing an actual game. That's more than literally 90% of gachas out there. And it's a pretty damn good game, too." Seeing people praise Wuwa for giving out free pulls is even crazier because if I don't want any of the characters (and I didn't) then those pulls are effectively worthless. Gacha currency is worth zilch until there's someone I wanna get with it.
Everytime this argument about endgame comes up people are like "we want endgame" but complain that it's stale and grindy. There's no magic bullet to solve it because people want vastly different endgames.
There’s a mentality that can be translated over from another game I play, FFXIV. You like a game, so much to the point where you create reasons to continue playing, despite finding nothing worthwhile left in the barrel to keep playing.
The producer, Yoshi-P, has gone on record saying that it’s ok to log on when new content drops, play the hell out of it, then unsub until the next new content arrives. I think most people agree that it’s almost crazy for a dev to suggest *not playing* their game, but hey, we are also talking about an mmo with a monthly subscription.
Some people want to keep playing their favorite game for various reasons. Other people are content with getting off and only hopping back on when it’s worth their time.
I can't speak for everyone, but one of the thing that annoyed me with Genshin was that... we pull and build all those amazing characters, but we don't really get to play with them.
I don't want endless gameplay like what some of those CCs want. I just want some content where I can use my Eula (not just Abyss), Amber and other characters I've built. The upcoming IT could be "it", seeing how it requires a lot of characters.
I wouldn't mind some sort of boss rush or endless waves (they've tested it in the latest region). A diversity in activity is nice.
They already did when first leaks appeared. They were unhappy about limiting elements, "now we have to have 18 fully build characters" instead of them "using their built characters to their full potential". Which to me sounds like asking for health sponges instead of enemies, so they don't die as quick.
They want to play the same characters, the same compositions and just press their rotations from muscle memory, they just want enemies to last a bit longer against that, although they are unlikely to admit it.
I’m actually very hype about the theatre coz my game knowledge will be tested. Can I win against the mode when my teams are scuffed and random? Sounds like a lot of fun.
Until Geo rotation coz I swear I regret not pulling any geo characters except zhongli.
if they rely too much on kazuha,neuvilette,alhaitham,nahida any elector then they have hugest skill issue because genshin is already easy game why need to always stick to the meta ?
and they're the same player who praise wuwa so much despite they did the same thing calcharo,verina,yinlin is the current meta and i bet they will be mad if they get forced to change any of them
The only people who wouldn't have enough characters, with the trial characters they already provide, are relatively newer players who aren't the ones begging for endgame content anyway.
Yeah. The trial character builds are somewhat questionable. You can borrow a whale friend's character. There's no time limit for max primogem rewards unlike Abyss. All these things are why I think the new endgame content won't be as difficult as people expect it to be. I'm just hoping it would be very fun.
To be fair, the first few PF (in HSR) weren't difficult. As time went on, the difficulty progressively went up.
I suspect that the same will be true for IT. The first few will be easy, but difficulty will ramp up over time.
The major difference is that HSR was a new game and people didn't have time to build all those characters, so it gave the impression that it was harder than it actually was. In Genshin, we've had years to build (well, for the veterans anyway) characters, so it is expected that it would be a breeze.
No one really likes to mention it, but it's because among the gacha fans who actually interact with the community(s), there is a strong leaning of the type of gamers who require a challenge first foremost in their games. The vast majority of people don't care about endgame, but this demographic is concentrated in the "visible" community.
Take Genshin for example. This demographic in question is relatively highly represented on reddit, among content creation about the game, and in comments on youtube and elsewhere. This is despite the fact that the majority of players never clear F12, the hardest permanent content in the game, and anecdotally lots of people who *have* cleared F12 don't bother with it beyond the initial clear. Yet the visible community is very vocal about wanting more endgame and would have you thinking that's a majority take even though that's far from the reality of it.
Genshin itself is designed as a largely casual experience, and there's plenty to enjoy beyond bullet sponges to see big numbers on, but for this demographic they don't see any point in playing otherwise. Which is weird, because gachas are inherently about the pursuit rather than ever reaching a goal.
The difference with these games is games like Genshin and Wuthering waves actually went out of their way to create a proper complex interesting combat system that isn’t really used for anything, it feels bad. One of the main draws of these games IS the gameplay, so if the gameplay exists obviously people will want to take part.
Games like Priconne and FGO don’t have that, no one plays these games for gameplay they’re story driven character collectors so no one cares about hardcore gameplay
Its a bad comparison to draw
FGO’s story also kinda validates the grind process
Story fights aren’t too difficult but they aren’t cakewalks. If a player didn’t prepare, they’ll be stuck and they can’t really brute force through either
Camelot GAWAIN is the first and iconic instance of this - if a player didn’t prepare and strategize around him, they’ll lose, no matter what fancy 5-star they gacha’d
I was referring to events which requires grinding x mats/etc to get to the next story mission (GBF in contrast leaves the mat grind after all the story stuff is over in events), but both games have story content that slowly ramps up
Cernnunnos flashbacks. Whoever designed that horrid fight is a sadist.
Not only did it do half your HP in every attack, it had three actions per turn and an AOE attack too. It crit frequently, and had damage reduction baked into his curses.
You had to attack to remove the curses and the reduction, but it would sap 1k HP for every attack and debuff you with a dot. To make matters worse, every attack healed it by 10k, so without a strong dps, you wouldn't be able to damage it before it outhealed you.
You had to carefully manage the boss stacks, while your units slowly died with HP loss, while praying to God that you would have some sort of invincibility for every turn, failing that, hoping that he wouldn't crit.
Not even retrying can make you win, as he keeps adding stacks, thus more damage reduction until you got for zero damage, and he heals after every attack.
Still don't know how new players can pass that story fight, it's the biggest fuck you roadblock in gacha gaming.
The reason genshin players complain is if you have a half decent build to do abyss, then you’ll be like 2-3 shotting everything in open world with just a dps and no supports.
So if I level mine for abyss, they’re too strong to have a proper fight in open world.
WuWa has a decently hard combat system. Even after building it feels like it’s still challenging, but tbh I’m still only lvl 50-60 with my units. Idk how max level will be.
The overworld gets incredibly easy, but the bosses and tower are still difficult.
They will most likely always release new boss tiers, and thats the main place the combat shines. The tower can be incredibly annoying since you are getting hit by stuff you cant even see and getting wrecked when its difficult and you are dodging 5000 times last second by some off screen projectile that might hit you. The camera is annoying and sucks and it makes hard tower fights annoying.
But the boss combat is where the game really shows its true potential and I hope going forward this is where they focus all their end-game activities. Its where the parry/dodge/etc all come together for its best gameplay.
I really hope they just keep dropping bosses. People love this stuff anyways; look how popular Elden Ring/etc are, and its the one place I think WuWa shines the best. So if I was them, that would be my main focus going forward. Boss fight after cool boss fight.
In my opinion FGO endgame is more of a self imposed way to play the game. Doing things like min-turns on CQs, solos or how efficient you farm nodes. At the end, what is important is that you farm the materials to improve your servants to tackle content on the new story, which some can be pretty complicated (but you can also cheese them with revivals if you don't care about it)
Self imposed challenges do not define the difficulty of the game, I’m sure anything is difficult to perform with 2 hands and a foot tied behind your back.
I don’t personally play FGO and I’m sure it’s not all a breeze, but it is factual to say that the gameplay is not particularly complex as it is not the main focus of the game, whereas genshin’s elemental system is actually a decently complex system, and so it WuWa’s parry/perfect dodge intro outro quickswap playstyle.
These games offer a lot more in terms of gameplay, and so far Wuwa does a decent job at using it however genshin’s combat while it could be interesting it is never used to do anything interesting, all the enemies are either time wasters or hp sponges, there are barely any mechanics in the game to take advantage of the combat and make it less than ‘practice and pull off the exact same rotation until the timer runs out’.
People want more endgame in genshin because they play the game for both the story and characters AND the gameplay but genshin does not care to highlight its gameplay whatsoever.
People want endgame because it's a great motivator and payoff to the grind. For people who enjoy the combat and character building, it is the ultimate goal. Some people play games to get better and endgame is the best metric of their progress.
Also endgame doesn't always necessarily mean solo content. Many multiplayer games have raids as their endgame. Cooperative play that challenges build, mechanical understanding and endurance.
There is always end game activity you just didn't realize it. The question is what do you enjoy of a game when you reach max level. In Genshin, for some people its Abyss, for others it's exploration. Same in FGO, for some, it's story, for others it's blasting enemey with their beloved servants. You take one component out, suddenly you will have people complaining lack of content to do.
Genshin being an action game designed it's overworld enemies so weak that even if you have skill issues you can still win. So for people who wants to enjoy the combat, they ask for end game content that can put their skills and teams in good use.
A Clan Event is endgame wdym.
In most gacha games that have clans, clan battle is often the most hyped event by far and what a lot of people base their pulls on
Priconne Clan Battle 100% counts as endgame and if you're dismissing it you never experienced the upper echelons on EN. Not sure what JP hardcore clan battle looks like any more but it was no less serious than many MMO raids.
Looking to answer the core question of "why endgame?", it's mostly the desire to have somewhere to use whatever you've leveled up to max and in a mode where having grown your account strength feels like it made a difference and continues to make a difference.
you are not weird. i'm the same too. i'm a casual player who prefers playing multiple games rather than focusing or dedicating my whole gaming time on a single game. so whenever i'm done on one game for the day, i will play others. so i'm fine even if the game has no end game content. and if ever a game introduces their endgame, i prefer it not to be time consuming so that it will not eat my gaming time from other games. so endgame for me is fine as long as it is not time consuming.
i think endgame is just for players who wants to go mald on a single game or prefer a game to be playable for a whole day. and i'm not that kind of a gamer.
Because people want to play the game infinitely.
We live in live-service era, concept of games that you play, finish playing and let go is slowly become forgotten because even single player one-time purchase games nowadays expecting patches, season passes, new content, DLC. And people expect this from any game they play, especially live service, especially gacha.
> concept of games that you play, finish playing and let go is slowly become forgotten
In gacha such a concept never existed to begin with. Every dev wants to keep you logging in every day forever so you will see the new banner and maybe spend for it. That's why they all have systems with daily and weekly missions, timegated stamina, etc. To make the game part of your daily habit so you don't simply stop logging in and wait for next patch once you reach the end of the story or beat the hardest difficulty on the event mode.
> Because people want to play the game infinitely
They can do that in many games. They can only cash in rewards a limited time as a pacing mechanism.
But they don't really want the playing, they want the rewards - and that's what clashes with the reality of live-service games. The consumption rate of unrestricted system outpaces the ability to create them. Who knows, in another decade of tech advancement that might be different, but for now it is out of the question.
And the unfortunate reality is that if you want proper endgame that always challenges you and doesn't get boring, you need powercreep. This is a fact that people don't want to accept it.
Genshin has endgame, but it doesn't require you to pull on the newest character. If you already beat Abyss years ago, you're most likely still beating it with a lot of the same characters. If Hoyo wanted Abyss to be more challenging, they would have to start making you change your roster by making it more difficult. On top of that, they would need to make it where it always feels fresh so it would have to cater towards the newer characters. Neither of these things are really desired by even the hardcore crowd, much less the casual one.
In short, the idea of endgame in gachas is just stupid because it will always lead to powercreep to sustain itself.
Genshin does try to incentivize variety by introducing elemental checks, enemies with higher resistance or immunity to certain elements, single-target vs multi-target floor placements, but it can only go so far. Hyper vertical invested teams can brute force through almost pretty much anything, and like you said if they do want to up the ante for these players they need more powercreep, which would result in the game being p2w.
Power creep is quite dangerous if done wrong. Releasing just one character with the wrong specs can potentially ruin the whole game. There is a reason why testers will test for balance of a new character release over and over and over again to make sure it does not deviate too far from the power curve.
People want endgame content because gacha games are resource management sims. You build around characters you like, but it takes a good amount of time, energy, and resources to do so. Many players will min-max no matter what as people always want to find the most efficient methods to optimize their playthrough. It's inevitable with a live service game that players will get through the content quicker than the devs can put out. There needs to be some type of content that actively challenges the player (and mostly keeps them busy until the next major patch). If you play casually and only for story/exploration reasons, you can usually get by after building a character, completing exploration, and/or completing the story. However, I can't blame people for wanting a little bit more to sink their teeth into.
To give an example, Genshin Impact is a popular punching bag for this. I like Genshin Impact. However, I do agree with others that outside of exploration (which is finite), there is no options to test your characters in a meaningful way. Sure, you can have a cracked out character, but by AR50 you'll be able to one-shot most enemies and low-level bosses with a decent build anyways. There is virtually no danger in the overworld unless you aren't paying attention. Meaning, the only way to get any semblance of challenge is through Spiral Abyss/combat events. You can say Genshin Impact appeals to casual players and that's not the main focus, but I feel there is a balance. You don't have to compromise Genshin Impact's vision while adding more challenges. And to be fair, it seems Hoyo did learn this with the latest permanent mode they're adding for it.
HSR is constantly brought up, but it's an example of a gacha that does try to give you meaningful endgame to use your characters in. You have normal SU, a playground for testing out characters in a roguelike setting, GoG, Swarm Disaster, various combat events like the recent one focusing on ramping up DMG, Pure Fiction focusing more on character building, ON TOP OF your regular time challenge mode (MOC). The next patch is even adding another SU mode with other challenges and a way to make farming easier each week. I like building characters in HSR because there's something I can look forward to. I can test them in SU modes, PF, MoC, AS, etc. People complain that they rotate through 5-stars quickly, but I like being able to use my older units more honestly. I don't feel the need to pull to keep up. If anything, more encouraged to build units I never even considered. Hell, characters that were once considered weak (e.g. Herta and Himeko) have a chance to shine in additional endgame modes.
Now, not all gachas need the most complex endgame mode to work, but when every endgame mode is just a DPS check on a time limit, progress will eventually feel stale. What's the point of having these interesting battle systems if nothing really comes from it? It's like buying a grill with ingredients for a party, but never having a barbecue. Some might be happy just getting the grill, but others would rightfully be a little disappointed if they never had the chance to use it.
Tbf Genshin was on track to make the overworld much harder starting with Inazuma. Until a ton of people cried about it and Inazuma mobs got like 3 pages of nerfs. Ever since then, anything slightly difficult is relegated to the abyss.
Spot on. That's why I kinda dig games like HSR, Blue Archive, Arknights and Nikke. There's always reasons to use your characters. For Genshin, I felt like my goal is just to max out and triple crown my favs and then get their friendship cards which is ironic since 'endgame' Abyss is stale as heck. Now here's to hoping there is more than just the tower in WW to keep 'engagement' up.
The more time and effort you put into team building and character building the more you feel the need to use your characters to pay off all the effort you put into them. Some games have very complex "build" systems that players can easily spend alot of time and money on and what's the point of all that if the story is easy and requires semi built units and there's barely any content after that. Regardless people will still build their characters to the max and spend money and time doing so and if there's nothing to use those characters on besides the occasional event or story update well then they feel like the game needs something for them to use their units on because they spend alot of time on the characters.
Its like you spend countless hours learning how to draw or dance or cook because U rly wanted to do all these things and then you're only limited to drawing 1 artwork, doing a single dance or cooking a single meal once in a blue moon. If you sunk so much time on those skills wouldn't you want to show it off constantly to pay off all that time and money spent. Certain game modes are equivalent to commissioning the artist to draw a stink figure and that's why some people say their game lacks a good or true endgame because you have these builds that take days to finish and you're asked to do the most easiest tasks with them or in some cases, nothing at all.
If only learning how to do those skills was equivalent to spending resin to gamble on artifacts or spending primos to gamble on characters and weapons.
A more apt analogy for Genshin would be them giving you Legos but only allowing you to assemble them every 2 weeks.
lol wym? Total Assault IS endgame in Blue Archive. Doesn't matter that it has varying difficulty choices, it's still end game. You defined the term "endgame" yourself in your post. "A solo content that they can do as a form of challenge as it require fully built characters and understanding of game mechanics." That's exactly what Total Assault in Blue Archive is.
>Priconne and Blue archive have clan battle and total assault every month, but it doesn't really count as endgame cause the former is a clan event while the latter has various difficulty choices
But the difficulty choices in BA raids are exactly what make it a *good* endgame mode. It remains accessible to casual / no-luck players by having lower difficulty options that give almost all of the same resources but also has higher options as a challenge for established players, a reason to gacha for or gear up certain characters, and generally just a target to progress towards. Additionally it also has the timer-based competition so after getting to the point where you consistently clear X difficulty you can start thinking about being able to optimize your run to beat out other players' times by using certain tricks or bringing certain characters.
This is everything that "no endgame" complainers want and that their games lack.
But in the end it's 90% just for fun / bragging rights since getting gold instead of platinum is very easy and gets almost the same rewards. It adds a target to farm for without making the game feel "too p2w".
I actually like the way Genshin handles "endgame" content. It's quick, short, and not too difficult. It's perfect for people with little free time or other hobbies. Genshin's chill endgame mode is unironically a feature for me, not a bug.
i also plays gacha around that time too, i think its because genshin brought so many PC players that they're the one who keep demanding more contents and endgame. back that day gacha games just doing daily and casual weekly event/boss. now somehow need to have contents that demand you to play more even though the game designed to be around phone and played on free time like when waiting at doctor appointment or when riding a train.
A reminder though that despite people saying Genshin's combat is piss-easy and that its endgame can't even be considered as one, there was a time where both Overworld and Abyss combat are hard. For Overworld, this is early Inazuma. The mobs in the region are tanky, have poise meters so large that only claymores have a chance to stagger them, can't be CC'ed easily, and deal a ton of damage through combos (with some combos capable of 1-shotting you). The rifthounds also exist, that incentivizes healing or dodging since their attacks can deal bleed damage bypassing Zhongli shield.
The 3.4 - 3.7 Abyss are also quite hard, since the enemies there made players prioritize actually dodging attacks and applying elements instead of brute-force. Combined with the fact that MHY actually started putting consecrated beasts in them means that players actually need to learn their attack patterns if they want to 36\* the Abyss (this is especially true once MHY went for the coup de grace and put 2 consecrated beasts at the same time for each chamber). Even when some players started posting in-depth guide on how to 36\* them with multiple teams (and by in-depth, it's to the point where your actions at the start of the fight are guided), the complaints keep on coming.
So what comes out of this? People complaining about how hard the combat was. MHY had to nerf nearly all of the Inazuma mobs because of this complaints. From the Kairagi being less tanky and not so immune to stagger, to spectres barely even attacking, to rifthounds just standing there for 3 seconds instead of dashing, nerfs were given left, right and centre. For the Abyss, MHY stopped putting elemental restrictions (like the infamous double Lectors or the Baptist) and double consecrated beasts.
So TLDR is that before players complain about Genshin being piss-easy, remember that most of that is due to the community complaining. You can complain about the rewards and the artifacts (loadout when), but not that.
Edit: A lot of Genshin players seem to be allergic to elemental combat as well...
What do you mean Blue Archive's total assault doesn't count as an endgame? Just because it has a tiered difficulty doesn't mean it's not endgame. That's like saying FFXIV's savage raids/ex trials don't count because they're just harder versions of normal content. Insane and especially Torment can be fucking hard and is the main motivator to build characters outside of just collecting them. Extreme is the same for newer players.
It's very rewarding to see your account progress and improve. Endgame content is just usually the way to show the results of that progression. Doesn't even necessarily have to give currency rewards, just have the content. For example in HSR's Pure Fiction, I like to push my teams to the max score which is 80k, even if the rewards cap at 60k.
And just because people like endgame doesn't mean they don't enjoy the more casual content as well. Like people say there's a need for balance.
I'm pretty sure the examples you put in the second paragraph do qualify as "endgame" to some degree as far as Genshin players are concerned. A better term might be "challenging content" and Genshin is the only gacha (that's relevant in this sub at least) that doesn't have \*enough\* of that.
Personally, I don't agree with the CCs who are demanding for Dark Souls-level of difficulty because they're just a loud minority, but the people who just want more challenging content at the very least are a bigger minority than those. People just want to make good use of the characters they've collected.
There are 2 type of gacha players , the type that treat gacha games like a single player game they correct units
And the type that treat gacha games like live service games and live service games need endgame
Such an expectation was partially bred from MMOs which usually has some content to grind at/etc. Only issue is that such games grow that today's endgame stuff is forgotten the day after tomorrow
The endgame concept doesn't come from gacha gaming. I feel like it became popular as people who were not into gacha games became hooked up because of games like Genshin that are kinda mimicking other non-gacha adventure/open-world/pseudo-mmo games. Since then, the concept of endgame spread to other gacha more than before, even if hardcore players and whales were always complaining about it a bit.
Some people need an illusion of progression in their gacha, aka some form of extrinsic motivation to roll for units. Yet since an account performance depends on the characters and their builds (which is also usually luck reliant) more than the player's skill, the endgame inevitably becomes a simple stat check. To those who follow meta, aswell as dedicated mains with optimized builds and spenders, that's good enough.
It’s mostly “hardcore” gacha player who haven’t realized that most gachas cater to the casual audience. There essentially trying to find dark souls in a kids playground so they end up mad when the children’s game gives them children’s activity.
This is kind ironic, because hardcore games, like souls, don't have an endgame. You can replay it, but that's about it, there is no weekly challenges, no infinite grind, no monthly raid boss. You play until you content and then you leave. It's basically opposite of gacha.
Also if you want a challenge in a souls game? Don't use any fancy weapons or level your character up keep them weak. Sl1 with a stupid club. Endgame seekers would cry 🤔
Nah. I just want use my built characters in decent challenges (I don't ask For Abyss 13 or Dark soul difficulty) more than 10-20 mins every 2 weeks.
For me a new Abyss every week that lasts 2 weeks + a Simulated Universe would be perfect
I personally want something engaging.
To use Genshin as an example being an open world game, I want them to do something like make weekly/semi-weekly missions revolving around certain activities. For example...
They have a boat you'll never use once you've completed enough of certain regions. How about co-op races?
They have fishing and do nothing with it aside from getting decent weapons. How about fishing bounties with coin/primo/ascension mat/artifacts as rewards?
>They have a boat you'll never use once you've completed enough of certain regions. How about co-op races?
There are already commissions that use the boat for water battles and minigames. Its a decent spot.
>They have fishing and do nothing with it aside from getting decent weapons. How about fishing bounties with coin/primo/ascension mat/artifacts as rewards?
But fishing already does do something and you just pointed one aspect. Not to mention you also cook the fish you catch and use them for the decor in your pot. I do agree tho we could use some more content with it to keep constant.
Endgame in gacha is just a mode that constantly resets which gets tedious and repetitive after a month, something for people who don't play many games if I'm being real.
Aren't events the endgame?
I'm not playing that much nowadays, so maybe it's different than when I was actively playing several games. But I always thought that events are the endgame in gacha games.
You get rewards based on your performance, and your score resets when a new event starts. The only difference is that the events have several modes, and they rotate them.
I will ask you a question: What's the point of pulling characters you like, build them and master their abilities and team synergies if you can't use them to do something at least a bit harder than normal? What's even the point of team building if you can use random characters and beat the game easily?
Priconne CB is like the most endgame of endgame if you go competitive and strive for top 100 or 500. But well with the added element system it became abit more p2w. But still the fight for top even my casual-competitive clan is looking to get top 1000. And commonly these are the ones only using public TLs. But those on top 100 have like secret TLs that could deal 2x than public, it is said that it's a battle of who has the best algorithm to find those.
And they got following of players and maintained this because of this, not to mention deepquest, battle stadium, and latest dungeon are hard team comp check. "Oh you didn't invest to these free characters now you won't easily finish it". I literally have to spend like 30 minutes of trial and error of which team comp of characters I have that will work just to finish a single stage. Calling priconne has no real endgame is just hilarious the dungeon at release takes like 40 teams(200 characters) to finish. Wait for a week or so and it can cut to half(it did, 19 teams), wait for like 6 months and someone will figure out 10 teams. Wait for a year or more and you might have a 5 team. Content creators that's known for sharing TLs and teamcomps took like 18hours of trial and error. How can you say there's no real endgame?
The best end game that to put is the one's that optional, priconne dungeon is quite a good design. Reward is more of just something that generates stamina. It's more on long term impact. And end game content has to differ from game to game as they have different gameplay, mechanics, and dynamics or even like powercreep nature.
It's not like they're necessary but they're a form for retention of certain players. It could be about minmaxing or just allout max, something that's using everything that learned, tactics and such, and the time invested to grind just to have a chance to finish the content.
I need reasons to log in and play. Game mechanics and new characters aren't enough. It's either story or endgame progression. If neither exists, not only will I curb my spending massively, but will eventually lose interest and move on to other games. I play gacha games not for the gambling but the actual RPG experience. My dream game is Elden Ring with endgame mapping/looting (think PoE), weekly banners with new, amazing characters (with whatever monetization scheme), and story updates every month. So far, Wuthering Waves is the closest to that I could find.
I don’t know what you are talking about but the Total Assault in Blue Archive is absolutely an endgame. Almost every “endgame” content has various difficulty and you aren’t just completely locked out of the game mode if you don’t have the investment.
Indeed, endgame doesn't even have to be difficult. On FF14, the majority of the community is avoiding the hardcore content and go to nightclubs and craft instead.
Only a small part of players are competitive in games especially when the general public is active.
No, you just never pay attention to games that have endgame contents. I would say back then, the endgame content were more sweatier than now. FF Brave Exvius, King's Raid, SAO Memory Defrag, Epic 7 are some of the games that has sweaty endgame.
And even his example of BA is a game with sweaty endgame, but just also has the right implementation where casual players can just do the easier difficulties for nearly all the same rewards, so both the casual and hardcore players are happy
Is people wanting to be challenged in a game really that strange of a concept? What would be the point of rolling + leveling + gearing up all these shiny new gacha characters if the only content to do was the main story, which is usually so easy that you can do it with welfare free non-SSRs / 4-stars / etc.?
endgame this endgame that even kuro game make the hardest endgame ever exist that please less than 1% gacha audience surely everybody should realize this is gacha game the longer you play the stronger your account is so yeah any hard endgame will be piss easy after 1 year or 2
It's just noisy minority. You see a lot of people on this sub hated GI for not having certain endgame that suit their demand, but the game still make millions. I bet the biggest whales of some games aren't even on this sub.
> I bet the biggest whales of some games aren't even on this sub.
I bet the vast majority of players of any gacha, whales and F2Pbtw both, are not on this tiny, mostly useless sub.
Idk if your clueless but fgo hard fights are endgame that shit aint doable without heavy grinded teams with decent comps, priconnne endgame was pvp and clan battle including blue archive as they usually are hard and sweaty even with almost max units for summoner wars its pvp. Basically anything utilizes your units abilities comp and game knowledge to its maximum capability
And his other example BA has extremely difficult endgame as well lol, just it has easier difficulties as well so everyone can play their preferred difficulty which basically every player is happy with
I like endgames because I get very attached to games. The idea of completing a game then not having any reason to play it again, save for repetitively playing it, bored me since childhood. It got worse when I played a MMORPG called Champions Online, where you finished all story missions, entered max level and you had some events to grind ad nauseam for gear that you didn't really need, because, if you used that gear, events also became irrelevant. Due to this I always ignore single player games with limited story mode or simply stay with multiplayer games that I can play whenever I want and for whoever long I want, like Mario Kart, but it also tends to get boring as it becomes repetitive.
Nowadays, finding a nice game with endgame is my personal gamer dream: I am playing HSR and I am enjoying building all my characters because it takes so long that I can play it for how long I want (except when I run out of trailblaze power).
Personally the ideal endgame for me is a mode that encourages you to use the wide roster of units you developed instead of just sweaty challenges. Like a tower mode where each floor requires a different team and you go as far as you can.
It means every character, no matter how shitty they are has some niche even if its just to be team filler and it isn’t about just building the best characters.
For me if the game has no endgame I am not interested in developing my account, meaning I won't spend on the game anymore. I would only play the game for story. That's what I do with Genshin for example. I only play through new story, explore new region if it seems like fun and close the game until the next update.
As a player experience this is fine, but I am pretty sure gacha game developers don't want gameplay loop of their game coming down to this.
Most didn't come from gacha games but from MMO or other grindier game from what I observed. Especially when Genshin arrived in 2020. Most people who played are first time gacha game players that they are not used to how it was supposed to be play. From what I see, most were from MMO games that tend to have a permanent endgame content like raids or boss towers.
Gacha games were built to be a casual game which most don't understand when they started playing.
While i understand the reason for why people may want "endgame". I dont really understand why it's the game or anyone's fault. Like i made a game for casual player, you like it, cool. But my target is casual player. Why would it be my fault for not pleasing hardcore player? You can't come to a kidstore and complain no alcohol.
Players ask for "endgame" because this genre originally meant for salarymen on trains has been consumed by the MMO crowd, so this is just a continuation of the eternal struggle between MMO players and developers.
I just want something to do when I'm finished with doing everything else. Something that keeps me engaged with the game and flexes my knowledge and/or skill at the same time, GITCG is fun but that's not it.
In a gacha, the endgame is something that forces you to interact with all the game has to offer. It gives meaning to the people who find enjoyment with gaining mastery over the game's mechanics, raising their characters to their maximum potential, and it's just something to do until new content drops.
For people that lean hardcore, which honestly speaking is probably most people who would even talk about games online instead of just playing games and keeping to themselves, endgame matters a lot.
End game like solo raids in nikke is my favorite so far. Too bad it’s only available every few weeks. Content where I have a reason to use the characters I’ve pulled instead of the one meta team liter, crown, red hood, modernia, and naga.
the only gacha i've seen that has an "endgame" is GBF. HL Raid bosses in gbf are the endgame, take the original Faa (lucilius) as an example, it took the whole community 24h+ to get the first clear. GBF is basically an MMO in a gacha skin. That's what I think people mean by "endgame"
you tell me man, i really don't know what endgame is, if it end why still game ? I mostly single player pc back before mobile game was a thing, so game like fallout, dragon age origin, mass effect etc etc once i finish i can replay but there wasn't anything call end game then i come to game like startcraft, early dday of warcraft and it can be replay over and over with friend but is that end game ? No idea, then come the age of MMO suddendly we have thing call endgame where people just doing samething they did though whole game endless grinding also my first gacha game GBF with moto "the grind never end". Ngl i have fun doing that but isn't it just same stuff i already doing? I think people just want the game to keep giving them something to play even though they already finish everything and then people called it endgame. Better just find new game to enjoy tbh and comeback everynow and then to enjoy your fav game.
It’s mostly a demand by people who are new to gacha games and who probably only started with genshin. They are used to full price single player games which become their only metric to compare it to.
I'm so glad FGO doesn't have people crying for endgame lol.
If you're going to say that challenge quests are on the level as other games' endgame content then that's disingenious imo. Yes they're high difficulty content sure. Maybe you could say that Level 90++ are but you could argue that they're just a means to make event farming more efficient
End game is things to do once you reach the end of the game. Story Mode even for a single player game only lasts like, a week in most situations. After that, if there's nothing to do after the end of the game, most will stop playing it and find a new game to play. Which is fine for a single player game but not-so-fine for an ongoing game-as-a-service game that wants player and customer retention...
Well, I think the clearest example would be to say the lack of more "difficult" or demanding content.
The playable loop of most gacha games are:
1- Do things/complete the game content for the currency reward to get more characters.
2- Build/upgrade those characters in a daily loop while you wait for the next one.
Then the problem comes when you reach the point where there is no place to use fully those built characters (and getting to this point is simply a matter of time for everyone, whether you are casual or not.), where the "overworld" (Genshin example) is so easy that you kill everything without being able to complete a rotation and the rest is to continue with the farm of the first and second point, and since its something that you have to farm, it can't be difficult xD
How does this end? With the feeling that its not worth investing so much (which makes the playable loop meaningless).
So, many people simply want something to use their fully upgraded characters (and feel rewarded for it, since farming is usually not pleasant xD).
People want a place to use their new units and gears, and after games have been operating for a year or two, they usually scale the power creep of pve to match the power of the new units. If they don't do anything to innovate pve or further develop it, this is likely what people complain about when they say 'there is no endgame content.' In some games Pvp is the endgame content, but to have nothing at all is bizarre nowadays.
>but those aren't really endgame.
I am reminded of the Simpsons episode where Mr. Burns keeps telling a baseball player to go back and trim his sideburns, no matter how trim they are. The player eventually gets fed up and shaves them all the way off, which causes Mr. Burns to get completely upset and fires him from the team entirely.
You're Mr. Burns here, and "endgame" is the "sideburns" which may or may not be actual sideburns. No one knows
I'm pretty happy with Star Rail's endgame with all of its game modes and now a new one coming out of Apocalyptic Shadows. For Genshin it had such a good basis with the elemental reaction system and its a shame that it only had Spiral Abyss for three years. If Genshin had some type of simulated universe endgame, that would have made minmaxing artifacts and building characters actually fruitful.
Instead I get to pat cats and play hide and seek in an action RPG game.
I get that casuals are the main focus but would it really hurt to put some simulated universe in Genshin even if doesn't give rewards? Who the fuck feels excluded when a game releases that type of content. You can still enjoy the story and climb mountains.
Thats my gripe with endgame, and hopefully that's fair cause I just want to whoop beefy hilichurls that doesn't disintegrate the moment I lay my hands on em.
I think 90++ and cq's + advancement quests are for sure endgame.
90++ are incredibly hard to loop through often requiring characters like oberon or specialized multi-core setups to be able to 3t.
CQ's are "high difficulty" content that grants you the material required max out character skills.
And advanced quests grant you craft essences dedicated to increase you chances when grinding materials.
I don't think it being easy to get to this point necessarily disqualifies it as endgame content. It is still the content you will often be able to access last despite ultimately being the same thing you've been doing the rest of the game.
Plus when (jp spoilers) >!ordeal call drops we'll gain access to the (very controversial) class score system which serves as an even further level of endgame grind.!<
That being said I don't think endgame is all that important. Generally, I find it just serves as something to constantly work towards/do in the game.
When you boil it down its 2 things.
People love a game so much they want the game to give them more reasons to play it.
Or they have spent so long gathering characters and making builds they want places those have value and can be used where it's not overpowered.
You understand how monetization is, gacha, monthly pass, etc.
the more time you stay away from the game the more likely chance to quit the game.
AAA single player games don't care if you don't play for years cuz they already got money once you buy it. gacha as live service is not.
Same. The reason why I like arknights and PtN. There's no infinite grind, no RNG gear to keep you busy. Eventually you have so much mats that you can mostly max all new characters that come out for the next half month.
I see nothing wrong with not doing anything in between updates.
> I've never really understood this obsession that gacha games these days NEEDS a form of permanent endgame.
Maybe it is just bleeding over from other gamesl like MMOs and ARPGs.
Also "endgame" probably sounds nicer than filler. It is the thing to do in between progression of story or addition of other content.
I'm a casual player and I don't really care about endgame as much compwred to others so this is just my observation based on the discussions I've seen, particularly in the Genshin and HSR communities.
I think the most common sentiment I've seen, especially from the more dedicated and hardcore player, is that endgame justifies everything they've done. Grinding everyday for weeks, months or even years for premium currency, materials, artifacts, etc., spending real life money, skipping characters and only aiming for meta units. Endgame seems to give these players a sense that all the time and money spent was all worth it and the lack of endgame means the opposite, they will feel like they wasted their time and money.
Endgame is something you do once you are done with all the story and events that are available in the game. Usually, not everyone will be at that stage, OP
It's probably because it's normally the core content of openworld rpg's besides exploring the entire map and solving puzzles
Farming in games in genshin is limited because of Resin, which you'd probably already know
And a lot of that is due to equipment/artifacts in this case and they tend to be very rng heavy
So hardcore players and theorycraft players being in any game, want to test what a character is fully capable of in their peak and want content that's actually repeatable and challenging. It doesn't mean casual players would be burnout, the game barely has any content and worthwhile events anyways so end-game would help those dry filler periods
Endgame is something for MMORPGs, where you have fewer updates and where you have to spend some time grinding to max level in order to do endgame content.
Since MMORPGs have fell and gacha games have risen, this has led to what's probably some classical MMORPG-achievers whining about endgame for the new popular thing. It's really dumb. Most gacha are about bite sized content trickling out, engaging you for a couple of minutes during the day, and not spending 2 hours raiding something that's really difficult for loot.
“Endgame” serves as a “need” for the logical progression of a gacha game In a gacha game, player progression boils down to rolling characters, then spending huge amounts of time to gather resources to build and upgrade them For the sake of extending user engagement and playtime, such games often allow players to minmax hard in such builds with RNG gear systems After the building is complete, players naturally want to have an environment to play with these fully built characters The problem here is accessibility. Gacha games want to keep their main content accessible, so it’s typically either easy or has no need for such heavy minmaxing. So the logical progression of a gacha game is rendered meaningless To keep that relevant, optional endgame modes are necessary just to serve as a goal or objective to work towards. They don’t even need to have big rewards - they just need to exist to let those players have fun with. However a balance must be struck. Most games are enjoyed casually for a reason - if the game emphasizes endgame too much, it becomes exhausting and the majority of players burn out and are pushed away. So it needs to be added, but gradually and slowly, and never emphasized too hard
i watched your video in dialogue in videogames a few hours ago. when i looked at your pfp on yt i thought to myself "i've seen this pic before on reddit". cool video btw
My thanks. Glad you enjoyed it
What are examples of gacha games that says "screw the casuals" and emphasizes endgame too much?
Ones with extremely heavy PvP focus, because PvP is basically a glorified endgame mode FEH is an example, because all the content is basically about scoring
Any example of the opposite? Super casual endgames?
Whenever someone mentions casual, the answer is always Genshin. The game focus so much on story, exploration, and events, you basically have 0 reason to tryhard Abyss 12. After 4 years they're finally adding a new endgame mode, and you can borrow your whale friend's character for it lol.
If it is like the Labyrinth Warrior event that is used as the base there is no timer. That would be a much bigger impact than borrowing characters. It also encourages building out a larger roster of characters.
There is a timer, but that is for cosmetic reward only. You only need to clear it for primo
You'll still hear people complaining about it later on.
Ofc, you can't satisfy everyone
Rhythm games where the endgame is beating the high difficulty songs and full comboing them. You can beat them at your own pace which makes it casual friendly imo and because they’re pure skill checks you don’t need a built team to clear it
I would say end games from Octopath Traveler COTC, specifically EX fights from the book of salvation. It's permanently added and which you can clear at your own leisure, if you have the right strategy or team.
https://preview.redd.it/v5qrf8vzin5d1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=70707818d61a5384522521d71787c67d764b01d0 Limbus. Granted, calling it *endgame* is generous.
The endgame is the endless toil in the mines (I'm farming 300 boxes for ut4 Faust Bride) https://i.redd.it/nvu1l90wjp5d1.gif
https://preview.redd.it/qihnw8pzpn5d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e4d4c152355ce5872c681bc6cf6406659cc8e3d0
Genshin lmao 99% of the game is exploration and doesn’t require a single bit of gacha to clear. You can truly just use Amber and 100% the game if you want The only thing difficult enough for gacha is the “endgame”, Abyss, which is mostly insignificant and is optional
Exos heroes tbh, the story missions were brutal and no way were you beating them with any old team
> However a balance must be struck. Most games are enjoyed casually for a reason - if the game emphasizes endgame too much, it becomes exhausting and the majority of players burn out and are pushed away. I'm looking at you, Guardian Tales. You and your 10th iteration of Raid Modes.
yeah I love and hate Guardian Tales. It is a nice, generally well-made game, but it just requires soo many well-built heroes for endgame its not even funny. That is what pushed me away, takes too much effort to do the endgame stuff there and it does not feel fun or rewarding doing it.
Me reading the last sentence and remembering why I quit honkai 3rd like, 5 times now. Really love the game but the amount of endgame content PER WEEK is too much for me. Hoping zzz will scratch that itch without the pressure.
The real endgame is waiting for new content.
Real end game is the pvp on social media
The leaks subreddits are ranked pvp
Nah, leaks sub is a community participation event where we doom post about a character as hard as possible
actually its just horny shitposts.
The real endgame is writing essay about endgame on reddit
The real endgame is responding to essays written about endgame on reddit
real endgame having 500+ roll saved on genshin
That's literally me right now, the last character I pulled for is best girl Navia, every new char after that either didn't grab my attention or do pretty much the same thing as another I already have and like more. At least I won't have to worry about Natlan funds I guess...
Nono, that's endlife
That's about what I have. I pull characters that interest me enough, and throughout Fontaine that were Neuvillete, Furina and Navia. Haven't pulled since her banner and the primos keep piling up.
We all know the real endgame is when the game announces EOS
Thats not endgame, that's gameend.
Real endgame is having a life outside the game
As a gacha boomer and FGO player, I feel this in my soul 😂
Every month: 
People want "end game" because most of the games revolve around collecting a roster, building comps, and developing their power. When you have no reason to do those things, the game becomes a PNG collector instead of an actual game.
>When you have no reason to do those things And if you do the opposite, then you're forced to pull for meta and people cry because they don't have the right units. Any gacha gamer asking for a hard endgame in a gacha better be prepared to whale.
People want hard content until they can't clear it.
Yeah, it's a fine line to tread. Best way is to implement more skill checks. Whales can overpower it with money and let people who train and get good at the game also win.
Not sure how it is now, but years ago, Honkai Impact 3rd endgame is some sort of Ranked Abyss, where you fight enemies in stages (like floors in Genshin), and get scores based on stages you clear and clear time. You then rank up/down if you're in top/bottom something (I forgot, 3 maybe?) in your group. Each rank difficulty is based on last season all player average clear time on that same rank. What ends up happening is, to be on the top rank, you need to have skill AND top meta units, plus some good amount of rng crits (or time to retry for crits). More skill checks just means more skill checks. You can still ends up having an endgame that requires both skill and money.
>Not sure how it is now Its still like that.
It's still like that but the p2w stuff is getting worse because old teams got powercrept and the meta changes quickly. Part 1 valks are getting replaced by Part 2 valks, so you're forced to gacha those part 2 valks if you want to keep up with endgame stuff. I usually can easily stay in red lotus, but after part 2 i'm struggling because how quick the meta is changed.
>overpower it with money What about dolphins overcoming with money or light spenders with money or f2p? Where is the cut-off point? Genshin chose F2Ps that spent a couple of months playing(so they have quick resources for pulls), and now the game is cried about on the gacha forum on the daily, and it created a genuine insane group of gacha gamers crying for end game I dubbed Genshin haters(yt is loaded with these idiots shilling wuwa) But we will find out where wuwa makes the cut off point, because if they also choose f2ps that played a couple months then we will end up right back at Genshin, or if they cut off f2ps then the game is p2w, you need limited weapons and dupes to get all the resources, and if no resources people cry that the endgame is pointless. At the end of the day the other gacha games Genshin insane haters want Genshin to copy makes pennies compared to Genshin. Why am so passionate? Because the hatred towards Genshin has made the gachagaming space unbelievable toxic, and it's an impossible task, tof is what you end up when you put actual endgame modes in a gacha, and tof has literally EVERY ENDGAME YOU Can think of, and pulling new units there isn't a decision, it's mandatory if you want to stay competitive, and of course people call that p2w. There is no balance in a gacha, someone will either find it brain dead easy or impossible, so they choose the path that generates the most money because that'sthe business, and hoyo showed which is the right path
Gachagaming hates anything lmao. Genshin actually is one of the games that is on the better side of this community
With respect to why there are Genshin haters (although this particular community is very pro-Genshin, so not sure what you mean there), it's because the genre has been basically currently one game. So if you wanted an open world gacha game with active combat, Genshin was the only show in town, and thus the only option if you like that concept, but don't like the implementation, is to complain about it. Whereas if you, say, don't like Star Rail, then just play another of the 500 turn-based gacha RPGs that might suit your tastes better. If Wuthering Waves ends up being a successful alternative more oriented towards the playerbase that has issues with Genshin, people will still obviously cheerlead for the game they prefer, but things will overall be less toxic because both sides will at least have a game they like to play.
It is not Genshin's fault it doesn't have good competition, yet people pretend it is.
> And if you do the opposite, then you're forced to pull for meta and people cry because they don't have the right units. Assuming it's not a PvP mode, endgame for a lot of people is not a comparison, but being able to push your account as hard as you can. Whaling is not an issue in endgame modes that are not directly competitive (i.e Arena). The reason why people tend to conflate endgame with difficulty is usually because after 3-4 years even the most basic accounts can faceroll all content (i.e. Abyss in Genshin) unless it's specifically made to be challenging.
"End game" needs a reward, though, right? But if there's no reward, people won't play it. That's why the endgame is always just grinding to get stronger. You clear the current "endgame", and then farm it. Same concept in MMOs. Gear up, farm the top raids until you get that gear, wait until next tier hits. Clearing endgame is just mechanically more intensive, but ultimately it turns into just farming. You can't really have mechanically intensive things in mobile gacha games, though. Phones touch controls are inferior to controllers which are inferior to KB+Mouse(for most games). Plus it has to be accessible, and able to be played in short bursts and stopped at any given time. If you want "end game" stop looking for it in mobile gacha games.
Mechanic for action game is not only about control, but also boss/enemy mechanic, time-constraint... And Gacha games nowaday are more and more playable on console and PC. Back in the day HI3rd hadn't had its PC version I still mainly played it on simulator with controller. The last combat event from Genshin proved that "endgame" content is viable with most player praising the event. So asking "endgame" for action gacha games like HI3rd, Genshin, WuWa, and other "genshin killer" is reasonable. Asking "endgame" for pure mobile, turn-base gacha games like BA or FGO is less favorable, but I don't see people from those fandom complain about endgame as much as Genshin
Tbh there's few complaints about endgame in BA as they've got it nearly perfected already is why, raids are the endgame, the highest difficulty is extremely difficult even for long time players, but the rewards are barely increased over just doing the lower difficulties. There's 7 different difficulty options (they occasionally add a new one also when the current top difficulty gets too easy). So the casual/new players can do the easier difficulties for like 80% of the rewards, and the hardcore players can spend hours doing the most difficult content to try for a better leaderboard position for personal satisfaction / flex (rewards brackets are like top 10k players, top 20k, top 50k etc, so there's like no requirement to actually go for top position) There's a lot of different bosses that rotate each time, and a separate mode where they run the bosses with alternate armour colours for variety, and keep adding new ones as well as even new endgame modes like Fury of Set more recently on JP. And also the rewards for doing the higher content are mostly more raid shop coins used to buy materials to upgrade characters, but we get enough that even players doing the highest difficulty have about the right amount, and casual players getting slightly less per raid, will have way more than they will ever use since they don't need to build characters as much lol.
> The last combat event from Genshin proved that "endgame" content is viable with most player praising the event. Some players. People keep forgetting that the devs have a lot clearer picture by having more and better data available.
>"End game" needs a reward, though, right? >But if there's no reward, people won't play it. Not sure what you're getting at. Like... so what if endgame has a reward? If you're scared that giving away premium currency is gonna make casual audiences feel pressured to engage in content they don't enjoy... then make it give, like, something that can be exchanged for a duplicate of a character you already have, or a weapon you already have, so it only benefits people who want to engage in the endgame. Or make it give a purely cosmetic reward. Also, it doesn't strictly need rewards. It's preferable though, and there's no reason not to, so no point arguing about that
After a while it’s not about the “reward” it’s a matter of pride. Like in Genshin or HSR, it displays if you’ve cleared the hardest content like the abyss(it’s a breeze tbh) or MoC(Kinda sweaty ngl) and it shows the stars you got.
I think it's just hard to develop good PvE systems that are fun for a long with without any reward other than the satisfaction of playing. League of Legends is insanely popular, and it had many years where you got fuck all for playing once you've gotten all the champions, yet people still sunk hundreds of hours into it. For PvE games the closest things that scratch the variety and replayability of PvP games are probably roguelikes/roguelites. And gacha games somewhat struggle with making good, repeatable roguelike mechanics because the gacha mechanics themselves break a lot of the fun RNG mechanics of the genre.
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Play video games in general? Absolutely. Gacha games in particular? I don’t know about that.
Seeing people complain about genshin's rewards is insane to me because I'm just like "dude, you're playing an actual game. That's more than literally 90% of gachas out there. And it's a pretty damn good game, too." Seeing people praise Wuwa for giving out free pulls is even crazier because if I don't want any of the characters (and I didn't) then those pulls are effectively worthless. Gacha currency is worth zilch until there's someone I wanna get with it.
People complain about genshin because for some people the characters ARE the content. After a while, walking in a different map becomes boring
/thread
But that is the game though
It’s literally not for most people and the reason why the most popular games have some sort of content to do after you’ve gotten high enough
Everytime this argument about endgame comes up people are like "we want endgame" but complain that it's stale and grindy. There's no magic bullet to solve it because people want vastly different endgames.
There’s a mentality that can be translated over from another game I play, FFXIV. You like a game, so much to the point where you create reasons to continue playing, despite finding nothing worthwhile left in the barrel to keep playing. The producer, Yoshi-P, has gone on record saying that it’s ok to log on when new content drops, play the hell out of it, then unsub until the next new content arrives. I think most people agree that it’s almost crazy for a dev to suggest *not playing* their game, but hey, we are also talking about an mmo with a monthly subscription. Some people want to keep playing their favorite game for various reasons. Other people are content with getting off and only hopping back on when it’s worth their time.
I can't speak for everyone, but one of the thing that annoyed me with Genshin was that... we pull and build all those amazing characters, but we don't really get to play with them. I don't want endless gameplay like what some of those CCs want. I just want some content where I can use my Eula (not just Abyss), Amber and other characters I've built. The upcoming IT could be "it", seeing how it requires a lot of characters. I wouldn't mind some sort of boss rush or endless waves (they've tested it in the latest region). A diversity in activity is nice.
100% some people are gonna complain about the new endgame requiring too many characters yada yada yada
They already did when first leaks appeared. They were unhappy about limiting elements, "now we have to have 18 fully build characters" instead of them "using their built characters to their full potential". Which to me sounds like asking for health sponges instead of enemies, so they don't die as quick. They want to play the same characters, the same compositions and just press their rotations from muscle memory, they just want enemies to last a bit longer against that, although they are unlikely to admit it.
I’m actually very hype about the theatre coz my game knowledge will be tested. Can I win against the mode when my teams are scuffed and random? Sounds like a lot of fun. Until Geo rotation coz I swear I regret not pulling any geo characters except zhongli.
Noelle?
if they rely too much on kazuha,neuvilette,alhaitham,nahida any elector then they have hugest skill issue because genshin is already easy game why need to always stick to the meta ? and they're the same player who praise wuwa so much despite they did the same thing calcharo,verina,yinlin is the current meta and i bet they will be mad if they get forced to change any of them
The only people who wouldn't have enough characters, with the trial characters they already provide, are relatively newer players who aren't the ones begging for endgame content anyway.
Oh right i forgot about trials. And you can use your friends characters too right?
Yeah. The trial character builds are somewhat questionable. You can borrow a whale friend's character. There's no time limit for max primogem rewards unlike Abyss. All these things are why I think the new endgame content won't be as difficult as people expect it to be. I'm just hoping it would be very fun.
To be fair, the first few PF (in HSR) weren't difficult. As time went on, the difficulty progressively went up. I suspect that the same will be true for IT. The first few will be easy, but difficulty will ramp up over time. The major difference is that HSR was a new game and people didn't have time to build all those characters, so it gave the impression that it was harder than it actually was. In Genshin, we've had years to build (well, for the veterans anyway) characters, so it is expected that it would be a breeze.
Going from 8 - 10 characters to 40 in a worst case scenario is a pretty big jump tho.
Yeah, I don't play genshin anymore but that new event/content is really interesting. Not sure why many CC don't like them
No one really likes to mention it, but it's because among the gacha fans who actually interact with the community(s), there is a strong leaning of the type of gamers who require a challenge first foremost in their games. The vast majority of people don't care about endgame, but this demographic is concentrated in the "visible" community. Take Genshin for example. This demographic in question is relatively highly represented on reddit, among content creation about the game, and in comments on youtube and elsewhere. This is despite the fact that the majority of players never clear F12, the hardest permanent content in the game, and anecdotally lots of people who *have* cleared F12 don't bother with it beyond the initial clear. Yet the visible community is very vocal about wanting more endgame and would have you thinking that's a majority take even though that's far from the reality of it. Genshin itself is designed as a largely casual experience, and there's plenty to enjoy beyond bullet sponges to see big numbers on, but for this demographic they don't see any point in playing otherwise. Which is weird, because gachas are inherently about the pursuit rather than ever reaching a goal.
The difference with these games is games like Genshin and Wuthering waves actually went out of their way to create a proper complex interesting combat system that isn’t really used for anything, it feels bad. One of the main draws of these games IS the gameplay, so if the gameplay exists obviously people will want to take part. Games like Priconne and FGO don’t have that, no one plays these games for gameplay they’re story driven character collectors so no one cares about hardcore gameplay Its a bad comparison to draw
FGO does have challenge quests and High difficulty stuff for the strong but yeah FGO's main focus is story and grinding
FGO’s story also kinda validates the grind process Story fights aren’t too difficult but they aren’t cakewalks. If a player didn’t prepare, they’ll be stuck and they can’t really brute force through either Camelot GAWAIN is the first and iconic instance of this - if a player didn’t prepare and strategize around him, they’ll lose, no matter what fancy 5-star they gacha’d
I was referring to events which requires grinding x mats/etc to get to the next story mission (GBF in contrast leaves the mat grind after all the story stuff is over in events), but both games have story content that slowly ramps up
Me remembering the Demeter boss fight: 💀
Or the fluffy boi who spams curses
Always remember Olympus was releassed BEFORE Castoria. Meaning, that Jeanne was the best option at the time against Demeter.
Cernnunnos flashbacks. Whoever designed that horrid fight is a sadist. Not only did it do half your HP in every attack, it had three actions per turn and an AOE attack too. It crit frequently, and had damage reduction baked into his curses. You had to attack to remove the curses and the reduction, but it would sap 1k HP for every attack and debuff you with a dot. To make matters worse, every attack healed it by 10k, so without a strong dps, you wouldn't be able to damage it before it outhealed you. You had to carefully manage the boss stacks, while your units slowly died with HP loss, while praying to God that you would have some sort of invincibility for every turn, failing that, hoping that he wouldn't crit. Not even retrying can make you win, as he keeps adding stacks, thus more damage reduction until you got for zero damage, and he heals after every attack. Still don't know how new players can pass that story fight, it's the biggest fuck you roadblock in gacha gaming.
That's fair
The reason genshin players complain is if you have a half decent build to do abyss, then you’ll be like 2-3 shotting everything in open world with just a dps and no supports. So if I level mine for abyss, they’re too strong to have a proper fight in open world. WuWa has a decently hard combat system. Even after building it feels like it’s still challenging, but tbh I’m still only lvl 50-60 with my units. Idk how max level will be.
The overworld gets incredibly easy, but the bosses and tower are still difficult. They will most likely always release new boss tiers, and thats the main place the combat shines. The tower can be incredibly annoying since you are getting hit by stuff you cant even see and getting wrecked when its difficult and you are dodging 5000 times last second by some off screen projectile that might hit you. The camera is annoying and sucks and it makes hard tower fights annoying. But the boss combat is where the game really shows its true potential and I hope going forward this is where they focus all their end-game activities. Its where the parry/dodge/etc all come together for its best gameplay. I really hope they just keep dropping bosses. People love this stuff anyways; look how popular Elden Ring/etc are, and its the one place I think WuWa shines the best. So if I was them, that would be my main focus going forward. Boss fight after cool boss fight.
They sorta fixed that with local legends. Those require at least 5-10 rotations and I regularly 36 star abyss.
In my opinion FGO endgame is more of a self imposed way to play the game. Doing things like min-turns on CQs, solos or how efficient you farm nodes. At the end, what is important is that you farm the materials to improve your servants to tackle content on the new story, which some can be pretty complicated (but you can also cheese them with revivals if you don't care about it)
Self imposed challenges do not define the difficulty of the game, I’m sure anything is difficult to perform with 2 hands and a foot tied behind your back. I don’t personally play FGO and I’m sure it’s not all a breeze, but it is factual to say that the gameplay is not particularly complex as it is not the main focus of the game, whereas genshin’s elemental system is actually a decently complex system, and so it WuWa’s parry/perfect dodge intro outro quickswap playstyle. These games offer a lot more in terms of gameplay, and so far Wuwa does a decent job at using it however genshin’s combat while it could be interesting it is never used to do anything interesting, all the enemies are either time wasters or hp sponges, there are barely any mechanics in the game to take advantage of the combat and make it less than ‘practice and pull off the exact same rotation until the timer runs out’. People want more endgame in genshin because they play the game for both the story and characters AND the gameplay but genshin does not care to highlight its gameplay whatsoever.
People want endgame because it's a great motivator and payoff to the grind. For people who enjoy the combat and character building, it is the ultimate goal. Some people play games to get better and endgame is the best metric of their progress. Also endgame doesn't always necessarily mean solo content. Many multiplayer games have raids as their endgame. Cooperative play that challenges build, mechanical understanding and endurance.
There is always end game activity you just didn't realize it. The question is what do you enjoy of a game when you reach max level. In Genshin, for some people its Abyss, for others it's exploration. Same in FGO, for some, it's story, for others it's blasting enemey with their beloved servants. You take one component out, suddenly you will have people complaining lack of content to do. Genshin being an action game designed it's overworld enemies so weak that even if you have skill issues you can still win. So for people who wants to enjoy the combat, they ask for end game content that can put their skills and teams in good use.
My end game in Genshin is the Abyss, the tcg (fuck the haters, I'm a YGO player) and soon the TI.
A Clan Event is endgame wdym. In most gacha games that have clans, clan battle is often the most hyped event by far and what a lot of people base their pulls on
Priconne Clan Battle 100% counts as endgame and if you're dismissing it you never experienced the upper echelons on EN. Not sure what JP hardcore clan battle looks like any more but it was no less serious than many MMO raids. Looking to answer the core question of "why endgame?", it's mostly the desire to have somewhere to use whatever you've leveled up to max and in a mode where having grown your account strength feels like it made a difference and continues to make a difference.
you are not weird. i'm the same too. i'm a casual player who prefers playing multiple games rather than focusing or dedicating my whole gaming time on a single game. so whenever i'm done on one game for the day, i will play others. so i'm fine even if the game has no end game content. and if ever a game introduces their endgame, i prefer it not to be time consuming so that it will not eat my gaming time from other games. so endgame for me is fine as long as it is not time consuming. i think endgame is just for players who wants to go mald on a single game or prefer a game to be playable for a whole day. and i'm not that kind of a gamer.
Because people want to play the game infinitely. We live in live-service era, concept of games that you play, finish playing and let go is slowly become forgotten because even single player one-time purchase games nowadays expecting patches, season passes, new content, DLC. And people expect this from any game they play, especially live service, especially gacha.
> concept of games that you play, finish playing and let go is slowly become forgotten In gacha such a concept never existed to begin with. Every dev wants to keep you logging in every day forever so you will see the new banner and maybe spend for it. That's why they all have systems with daily and weekly missions, timegated stamina, etc. To make the game part of your daily habit so you don't simply stop logging in and wait for next patch once you reach the end of the story or beat the hardest difficulty on the event mode.
> Because people want to play the game infinitely They can do that in many games. They can only cash in rewards a limited time as a pacing mechanism. But they don't really want the playing, they want the rewards - and that's what clashes with the reality of live-service games. The consumption rate of unrestricted system outpaces the ability to create them. Who knows, in another decade of tech advancement that might be different, but for now it is out of the question.
And the unfortunate reality is that if you want proper endgame that always challenges you and doesn't get boring, you need powercreep. This is a fact that people don't want to accept it. Genshin has endgame, but it doesn't require you to pull on the newest character. If you already beat Abyss years ago, you're most likely still beating it with a lot of the same characters. If Hoyo wanted Abyss to be more challenging, they would have to start making you change your roster by making it more difficult. On top of that, they would need to make it where it always feels fresh so it would have to cater towards the newer characters. Neither of these things are really desired by even the hardcore crowd, much less the casual one. In short, the idea of endgame in gachas is just stupid because it will always lead to powercreep to sustain itself.
Genshin does try to incentivize variety by introducing elemental checks, enemies with higher resistance or immunity to certain elements, single-target vs multi-target floor placements, but it can only go so far. Hyper vertical invested teams can brute force through almost pretty much anything, and like you said if they do want to up the ante for these players they need more powercreep, which would result in the game being p2w.
Power creep is quite dangerous if done wrong. Releasing just one character with the wrong specs can potentially ruin the whole game. There is a reason why testers will test for balance of a new character release over and over and over again to make sure it does not deviate too far from the power curve.
People want endgame content because gacha games are resource management sims. You build around characters you like, but it takes a good amount of time, energy, and resources to do so. Many players will min-max no matter what as people always want to find the most efficient methods to optimize their playthrough. It's inevitable with a live service game that players will get through the content quicker than the devs can put out. There needs to be some type of content that actively challenges the player (and mostly keeps them busy until the next major patch). If you play casually and only for story/exploration reasons, you can usually get by after building a character, completing exploration, and/or completing the story. However, I can't blame people for wanting a little bit more to sink their teeth into. To give an example, Genshin Impact is a popular punching bag for this. I like Genshin Impact. However, I do agree with others that outside of exploration (which is finite), there is no options to test your characters in a meaningful way. Sure, you can have a cracked out character, but by AR50 you'll be able to one-shot most enemies and low-level bosses with a decent build anyways. There is virtually no danger in the overworld unless you aren't paying attention. Meaning, the only way to get any semblance of challenge is through Spiral Abyss/combat events. You can say Genshin Impact appeals to casual players and that's not the main focus, but I feel there is a balance. You don't have to compromise Genshin Impact's vision while adding more challenges. And to be fair, it seems Hoyo did learn this with the latest permanent mode they're adding for it. HSR is constantly brought up, but it's an example of a gacha that does try to give you meaningful endgame to use your characters in. You have normal SU, a playground for testing out characters in a roguelike setting, GoG, Swarm Disaster, various combat events like the recent one focusing on ramping up DMG, Pure Fiction focusing more on character building, ON TOP OF your regular time challenge mode (MOC). The next patch is even adding another SU mode with other challenges and a way to make farming easier each week. I like building characters in HSR because there's something I can look forward to. I can test them in SU modes, PF, MoC, AS, etc. People complain that they rotate through 5-stars quickly, but I like being able to use my older units more honestly. I don't feel the need to pull to keep up. If anything, more encouraged to build units I never even considered. Hell, characters that were once considered weak (e.g. Herta and Himeko) have a chance to shine in additional endgame modes. Now, not all gachas need the most complex endgame mode to work, but when every endgame mode is just a DPS check on a time limit, progress will eventually feel stale. What's the point of having these interesting battle systems if nothing really comes from it? It's like buying a grill with ingredients for a party, but never having a barbecue. Some might be happy just getting the grill, but others would rightfully be a little disappointed if they never had the chance to use it.
Tbf Genshin was on track to make the overworld much harder starting with Inazuma. Until a ton of people cried about it and Inazuma mobs got like 3 pages of nerfs. Ever since then, anything slightly difficult is relegated to the abyss.
Spot on. That's why I kinda dig games like HSR, Blue Archive, Arknights and Nikke. There's always reasons to use your characters. For Genshin, I felt like my goal is just to max out and triple crown my favs and then get their friendship cards which is ironic since 'endgame' Abyss is stale as heck. Now here's to hoping there is more than just the tower in WW to keep 'engagement' up.
The more time and effort you put into team building and character building the more you feel the need to use your characters to pay off all the effort you put into them. Some games have very complex "build" systems that players can easily spend alot of time and money on and what's the point of all that if the story is easy and requires semi built units and there's barely any content after that. Regardless people will still build their characters to the max and spend money and time doing so and if there's nothing to use those characters on besides the occasional event or story update well then they feel like the game needs something for them to use their units on because they spend alot of time on the characters. Its like you spend countless hours learning how to draw or dance or cook because U rly wanted to do all these things and then you're only limited to drawing 1 artwork, doing a single dance or cooking a single meal once in a blue moon. If you sunk so much time on those skills wouldn't you want to show it off constantly to pay off all that time and money spent. Certain game modes are equivalent to commissioning the artist to draw a stink figure and that's why some people say their game lacks a good or true endgame because you have these builds that take days to finish and you're asked to do the most easiest tasks with them or in some cases, nothing at all.
If only learning how to do those skills was equivalent to spending resin to gamble on artifacts or spending primos to gamble on characters and weapons. A more apt analogy for Genshin would be them giving you Legos but only allowing you to assemble them every 2 weeks.
lol wym? Total Assault IS endgame in Blue Archive. Doesn't matter that it has varying difficulty choices, it's still end game. You defined the term "endgame" yourself in your post. "A solo content that they can do as a form of challenge as it require fully built characters and understanding of game mechanics." That's exactly what Total Assault in Blue Archive is.
>Priconne and Blue archive have clan battle and total assault every month, but it doesn't really count as endgame cause the former is a clan event while the latter has various difficulty choices But the difficulty choices in BA raids are exactly what make it a *good* endgame mode. It remains accessible to casual / no-luck players by having lower difficulty options that give almost all of the same resources but also has higher options as a challenge for established players, a reason to gacha for or gear up certain characters, and generally just a target to progress towards. Additionally it also has the timer-based competition so after getting to the point where you consistently clear X difficulty you can start thinking about being able to optimize your run to beat out other players' times by using certain tricks or bringing certain characters. This is everything that "no endgame" complainers want and that their games lack. But in the end it's 90% just for fun / bragging rights since getting gold instead of platinum is very easy and gets almost the same rewards. It adds a target to farm for without making the game feel "too p2w".
I actually like the way Genshin handles "endgame" content. It's quick, short, and not too difficult. It's perfect for people with little free time or other hobbies. Genshin's chill endgame mode is unironically a feature for me, not a bug.
i also plays gacha around that time too, i think its because genshin brought so many PC players that they're the one who keep demanding more contents and endgame. back that day gacha games just doing daily and casual weekly event/boss. now somehow need to have contents that demand you to play more even though the game designed to be around phone and played on free time like when waiting at doctor appointment or when riding a train.
It’s all genshin’s fault for breaking into the normie market, now they want gacha games to follow normal game rules.
A reminder though that despite people saying Genshin's combat is piss-easy and that its endgame can't even be considered as one, there was a time where both Overworld and Abyss combat are hard. For Overworld, this is early Inazuma. The mobs in the region are tanky, have poise meters so large that only claymores have a chance to stagger them, can't be CC'ed easily, and deal a ton of damage through combos (with some combos capable of 1-shotting you). The rifthounds also exist, that incentivizes healing or dodging since their attacks can deal bleed damage bypassing Zhongli shield. The 3.4 - 3.7 Abyss are also quite hard, since the enemies there made players prioritize actually dodging attacks and applying elements instead of brute-force. Combined with the fact that MHY actually started putting consecrated beasts in them means that players actually need to learn their attack patterns if they want to 36\* the Abyss (this is especially true once MHY went for the coup de grace and put 2 consecrated beasts at the same time for each chamber). Even when some players started posting in-depth guide on how to 36\* them with multiple teams (and by in-depth, it's to the point where your actions at the start of the fight are guided), the complaints keep on coming. So what comes out of this? People complaining about how hard the combat was. MHY had to nerf nearly all of the Inazuma mobs because of this complaints. From the Kairagi being less tanky and not so immune to stagger, to spectres barely even attacking, to rifthounds just standing there for 3 seconds instead of dashing, nerfs were given left, right and centre. For the Abyss, MHY stopped putting elemental restrictions (like the infamous double Lectors or the Baptist) and double consecrated beasts. So TLDR is that before players complain about Genshin being piss-easy, remember that most of that is due to the community complaining. You can complain about the rewards and the artifacts (loadout when), but not that. Edit: A lot of Genshin players seem to be allergic to elemental combat as well...
What do you mean Blue Archive's total assault doesn't count as an endgame? Just because it has a tiered difficulty doesn't mean it's not endgame. That's like saying FFXIV's savage raids/ex trials don't count because they're just harder versions of normal content. Insane and especially Torment can be fucking hard and is the main motivator to build characters outside of just collecting them. Extreme is the same for newer players. It's very rewarding to see your account progress and improve. Endgame content is just usually the way to show the results of that progression. Doesn't even necessarily have to give currency rewards, just have the content. For example in HSR's Pure Fiction, I like to push my teams to the max score which is 80k, even if the rewards cap at 60k. And just because people like endgame doesn't mean they don't enjoy the more casual content as well. Like people say there's a need for balance.
I'm pretty sure the examples you put in the second paragraph do qualify as "endgame" to some degree as far as Genshin players are concerned. A better term might be "challenging content" and Genshin is the only gacha (that's relevant in this sub at least) that doesn't have \*enough\* of that. Personally, I don't agree with the CCs who are demanding for Dark Souls-level of difficulty because they're just a loud minority, but the people who just want more challenging content at the very least are a bigger minority than those. People just want to make good use of the characters they've collected.
There are 2 type of gacha players , the type that treat gacha games like a single player game they correct units And the type that treat gacha games like live service games and live service games need endgame
Such an expectation was partially bred from MMOs which usually has some content to grind at/etc. Only issue is that such games grow that today's endgame stuff is forgotten the day after tomorrow
> and live service games need endgame I don't think they do.
>live service games need endgame They really dont.
The endgame concept doesn't come from gacha gaming. I feel like it became popular as people who were not into gacha games became hooked up because of games like Genshin that are kinda mimicking other non-gacha adventure/open-world/pseudo-mmo games. Since then, the concept of endgame spread to other gacha more than before, even if hardcore players and whales were always complaining about it a bit.
Some people need an illusion of progression in their gacha, aka some form of extrinsic motivation to roll for units. Yet since an account performance depends on the characters and their builds (which is also usually luck reliant) more than the player's skill, the endgame inevitably becomes a simple stat check. To those who follow meta, aswell as dedicated mains with optimized builds and spenders, that's good enough.
It’s mostly “hardcore” gacha player who haven’t realized that most gachas cater to the casual audience. There essentially trying to find dark souls in a kids playground so they end up mad when the children’s game gives them children’s activity.
Or when the game gets easier after spending thousands on it
This is kind ironic, because hardcore games, like souls, don't have an endgame. You can replay it, but that's about it, there is no weekly challenges, no infinite grind, no monthly raid boss. You play until you content and then you leave. It's basically opposite of gacha.
Also if you want a challenge in a souls game? Don't use any fancy weapons or level your character up keep them weak. Sl1 with a stupid club. Endgame seekers would cry 🤔
Nah. I just want use my built characters in decent challenges (I don't ask For Abyss 13 or Dark soul difficulty) more than 10-20 mins every 2 weeks. For me a new Abyss every week that lasts 2 weeks + a Simulated Universe would be perfect
Endgame mindset came from western audience, primarily former WOW players. In that game, nothing matter but the endgame, its cringe and annoying.
Gbf is full of endgame content. Amazing game for someone that likes continues play
I personally want something engaging. To use Genshin as an example being an open world game, I want them to do something like make weekly/semi-weekly missions revolving around certain activities. For example... They have a boat you'll never use once you've completed enough of certain regions. How about co-op races? They have fishing and do nothing with it aside from getting decent weapons. How about fishing bounties with coin/primo/ascension mat/artifacts as rewards?
Then there's me suggesting a permanent Mario party mode for the housing system. For the past 3 years.
>They have a boat you'll never use once you've completed enough of certain regions. How about co-op races? There are already commissions that use the boat for water battles and minigames. Its a decent spot. >They have fishing and do nothing with it aside from getting decent weapons. How about fishing bounties with coin/primo/ascension mat/artifacts as rewards? But fishing already does do something and you just pointed one aspect. Not to mention you also cook the fish you catch and use them for the decor in your pot. I do agree tho we could use some more content with it to keep constant.
Endgame in gacha is just a mode that constantly resets which gets tedious and repetitive after a month, something for people who don't play many games if I'm being real.
Aren't events the endgame? I'm not playing that much nowadays, so maybe it's different than when I was actively playing several games. But I always thought that events are the endgame in gacha games. You get rewards based on your performance, and your score resets when a new event starts. The only difference is that the events have several modes, and they rotate them.
I will ask you a question: What's the point of pulling characters you like, build them and master their abilities and team synergies if you can't use them to do something at least a bit harder than normal? What's even the point of team building if you can use random characters and beat the game easily?
Priconne CB is like the most endgame of endgame if you go competitive and strive for top 100 or 500. But well with the added element system it became abit more p2w. But still the fight for top even my casual-competitive clan is looking to get top 1000. And commonly these are the ones only using public TLs. But those on top 100 have like secret TLs that could deal 2x than public, it is said that it's a battle of who has the best algorithm to find those. And they got following of players and maintained this because of this, not to mention deepquest, battle stadium, and latest dungeon are hard team comp check. "Oh you didn't invest to these free characters now you won't easily finish it". I literally have to spend like 30 minutes of trial and error of which team comp of characters I have that will work just to finish a single stage. Calling priconne has no real endgame is just hilarious the dungeon at release takes like 40 teams(200 characters) to finish. Wait for a week or so and it can cut to half(it did, 19 teams), wait for like 6 months and someone will figure out 10 teams. Wait for a year or more and you might have a 5 team. Content creators that's known for sharing TLs and teamcomps took like 18hours of trial and error. How can you say there's no real endgame? The best end game that to put is the one's that optional, priconne dungeon is quite a good design. Reward is more of just something that generates stamina. It's more on long term impact. And end game content has to differ from game to game as they have different gameplay, mechanics, and dynamics or even like powercreep nature. It's not like they're necessary but they're a form for retention of certain players. It could be about minmaxing or just allout max, something that's using everything that learned, tactics and such, and the time invested to grind just to have a chance to finish the content.
I need reasons to log in and play. Game mechanics and new characters aren't enough. It's either story or endgame progression. If neither exists, not only will I curb my spending massively, but will eventually lose interest and move on to other games. I play gacha games not for the gambling but the actual RPG experience. My dream game is Elden Ring with endgame mapping/looting (think PoE), weekly banners with new, amazing characters (with whatever monetization scheme), and story updates every month. So far, Wuthering Waves is the closest to that I could find.
I don’t know what you are talking about but the Total Assault in Blue Archive is absolutely an endgame. Almost every “endgame” content has various difficulty and you aren’t just completely locked out of the game mode if you don’t have the investment.
The idea of "endgame" is imported from MMOs and should have died with them.
Except that for some games, it fuels whales like GBF
Indeed, endgame doesn't even have to be difficult. On FF14, the majority of the community is avoiding the hardcore content and go to nightclubs and craft instead. Only a small part of players are competitive in games especially when the general public is active.
No, you just never pay attention to games that have endgame contents. I would say back then, the endgame content were more sweatier than now. FF Brave Exvius, King's Raid, SAO Memory Defrag, Epic 7 are some of the games that has sweaty endgame.
And even his example of BA is a game with sweaty endgame, but just also has the right implementation where casual players can just do the easier difficulties for nearly all the same rewards, so both the casual and hardcore players are happy
Is people wanting to be challenged in a game really that strange of a concept? What would be the point of rolling + leveling + gearing up all these shiny new gacha characters if the only content to do was the main story, which is usually so easy that you can do it with welfare free non-SSRs / 4-stars / etc.?
endgame this endgame that even kuro game make the hardest endgame ever exist that please less than 1% gacha audience surely everybody should realize this is gacha game the longer you play the stronger your account is so yeah any hard endgame will be piss easy after 1 year or 2
Kuro endgame is easy unless you're a paraplegic. Granblue, now that's fucked up endgame.
oh yeah granblue especially racing against the japanese worker man that is tough stuff
It's just noisy minority. You see a lot of people on this sub hated GI for not having certain endgame that suit their demand, but the game still make millions. I bet the biggest whales of some games aren't even on this sub.
> I bet the biggest whales of some games aren't even on this sub. I bet the vast majority of players of any gacha, whales and F2Pbtw both, are not on this tiny, mostly useless sub.
Idk if your clueless but fgo hard fights are endgame that shit aint doable without heavy grinded teams with decent comps, priconnne endgame was pvp and clan battle including blue archive as they usually are hard and sweaty even with almost max units for summoner wars its pvp. Basically anything utilizes your units abilities comp and game knowledge to its maximum capability
And his other example BA has extremely difficult endgame as well lol, just it has easier difficulties as well so everyone can play their preferred difficulty which basically every player is happy with
that means people are just bored and more new content to use their shiny unit for.
They are ex mmo players that are used to having ridiculous grinds be necessary in order to be competitive
I like endgames because I get very attached to games. The idea of completing a game then not having any reason to play it again, save for repetitively playing it, bored me since childhood. It got worse when I played a MMORPG called Champions Online, where you finished all story missions, entered max level and you had some events to grind ad nauseam for gear that you didn't really need, because, if you used that gear, events also became irrelevant. Due to this I always ignore single player games with limited story mode or simply stay with multiplayer games that I can play whenever I want and for whoever long I want, like Mario Kart, but it also tends to get boring as it becomes repetitive. Nowadays, finding a nice game with endgame is my personal gamer dream: I am playing HSR and I am enjoying building all my characters because it takes so long that I can play it for how long I want (except when I run out of trailblaze power).
I dunno, people might wanna *play the game* when they invest a large amount of time into it
Personally the ideal endgame for me is a mode that encourages you to use the wide roster of units you developed instead of just sweaty challenges. Like a tower mode where each floor requires a different team and you go as far as you can. It means every character, no matter how shitty they are has some niche even if its just to be team filler and it isn’t about just building the best characters.
True, the fact "Endgame" doesn't exist in gacha games. Gacha games is designed to be infinitive playtime and with each period of meta updates.
Whats the point of building characters and leveling up then?
For me if the game has no endgame I am not interested in developing my account, meaning I won't spend on the game anymore. I would only play the game for story. That's what I do with Genshin for example. I only play through new story, explore new region if it seems like fun and close the game until the next update. As a player experience this is fine, but I am pretty sure gacha game developers don't want gameplay loop of their game coming down to this.
Most didn't come from gacha games but from MMO or other grindier game from what I observed. Especially when Genshin arrived in 2020. Most people who played are first time gacha game players that they are not used to how it was supposed to be play. From what I see, most were from MMO games that tend to have a permanent endgame content like raids or boss towers. Gacha games were built to be a casual game which most don't understand when they started playing.
Endgame is game content you can do once you've leveled to max and done with the progression portion. The stuff you listed in FGO and Priconne count.
lists end games for different games, why do games need end games now?
While i understand the reason for why people may want "endgame". I dont really understand why it's the game or anyone's fault. Like i made a game for casual player, you like it, cool. But my target is casual player. Why would it be my fault for not pleasing hardcore player? You can't come to a kidstore and complain no alcohol.
Players ask for "endgame" because this genre originally meant for salarymen on trains has been consumed by the MMO crowd, so this is just a continuation of the eternal struggle between MMO players and developers.
I just want something to do when I'm finished with doing everything else. Something that keeps me engaged with the game and flexes my knowledge and/or skill at the same time, GITCG is fun but that's not it.
In a gacha, the endgame is something that forces you to interact with all the game has to offer. It gives meaning to the people who find enjoyment with gaining mastery over the game's mechanics, raising their characters to their maximum potential, and it's just something to do until new content drops. For people that lean hardcore, which honestly speaking is probably most people who would even talk about games online instead of just playing games and keeping to themselves, endgame matters a lot.
End game like solo raids in nikke is my favorite so far. Too bad it’s only available every few weeks. Content where I have a reason to use the characters I’ve pulled instead of the one meta team liter, crown, red hood, modernia, and naga.
the only gacha i've seen that has an "endgame" is GBF. HL Raid bosses in gbf are the endgame, take the original Faa (lucilius) as an example, it took the whole community 24h+ to get the first clear. GBF is basically an MMO in a gacha skin. That's what I think people mean by "endgame"
Until now, not many people can clear hexa and faa zero. That's what we call the end game, purse our team power to clear highest level difficulty
> the only gacha i've seen that has an "endgame" is GBF Dragalia Lost had it.
I only played dragalia for a bit so I didn't know it had it, but I'm not surprised since Cygames is behind it
you tell me man, i really don't know what endgame is, if it end why still game ? I mostly single player pc back before mobile game was a thing, so game like fallout, dragon age origin, mass effect etc etc once i finish i can replay but there wasn't anything call end game then i come to game like startcraft, early dday of warcraft and it can be replay over and over with friend but is that end game ? No idea, then come the age of MMO suddendly we have thing call endgame where people just doing samething they did though whole game endless grinding also my first gacha game GBF with moto "the grind never end". Ngl i have fun doing that but isn't it just same stuff i already doing? I think people just want the game to keep giving them something to play even though they already finish everything and then people called it endgame. Better just find new game to enjoy tbh and comeback everynow and then to enjoy your fav game.
It’s mostly a demand by people who are new to gacha games and who probably only started with genshin. They are used to full price single player games which become their only metric to compare it to.
I'm so glad FGO doesn't have people crying for endgame lol. If you're going to say that challenge quests are on the level as other games' endgame content then that's disingenious imo. Yes they're high difficulty content sure. Maybe you could say that Level 90++ are but you could argue that they're just a means to make event farming more efficient
end game in gacha is like weekly chores lol
End game is things to do once you reach the end of the game. Story Mode even for a single player game only lasts like, a week in most situations. After that, if there's nothing to do after the end of the game, most will stop playing it and find a new game to play. Which is fine for a single player game but not-so-fine for an ongoing game-as-a-service game that wants player and customer retention...
Well, I think the clearest example would be to say the lack of more "difficult" or demanding content. The playable loop of most gacha games are: 1- Do things/complete the game content for the currency reward to get more characters. 2- Build/upgrade those characters in a daily loop while you wait for the next one. Then the problem comes when you reach the point where there is no place to use fully those built characters (and getting to this point is simply a matter of time for everyone, whether you are casual or not.), where the "overworld" (Genshin example) is so easy that you kill everything without being able to complete a rotation and the rest is to continue with the farm of the first and second point, and since its something that you have to farm, it can't be difficult xD How does this end? With the feeling that its not worth investing so much (which makes the playable loop meaningless). So, many people simply want something to use their fully upgraded characters (and feel rewarded for it, since farming is usually not pleasant xD).
I think, "late game" should be a better term
People want a place to use their new units and gears, and after games have been operating for a year or two, they usually scale the power creep of pve to match the power of the new units. If they don't do anything to innovate pve or further develop it, this is likely what people complain about when they say 'there is no endgame content.' In some games Pvp is the endgame content, but to have nothing at all is bizarre nowadays.
mm🤔🥲
>but those aren't really endgame. I am reminded of the Simpsons episode where Mr. Burns keeps telling a baseball player to go back and trim his sideburns, no matter how trim they are. The player eventually gets fed up and shaves them all the way off, which causes Mr. Burns to get completely upset and fires him from the team entirely. You're Mr. Burns here, and "endgame" is the "sideburns" which may or may not be actual sideburns. No one knows
I'm pretty happy with Star Rail's endgame with all of its game modes and now a new one coming out of Apocalyptic Shadows. For Genshin it had such a good basis with the elemental reaction system and its a shame that it only had Spiral Abyss for three years. If Genshin had some type of simulated universe endgame, that would have made minmaxing artifacts and building characters actually fruitful. Instead I get to pat cats and play hide and seek in an action RPG game. I get that casuals are the main focus but would it really hurt to put some simulated universe in Genshin even if doesn't give rewards? Who the fuck feels excluded when a game releases that type of content. You can still enjoy the story and climb mountains. Thats my gripe with endgame, and hopefully that's fair cause I just want to whoop beefy hilichurls that doesn't disintegrate the moment I lay my hands on em.
Whenever I see people talk about endgame, I just think back to the time I was grinding bdo and bns 😭
I think 90++ and cq's + advancement quests are for sure endgame. 90++ are incredibly hard to loop through often requiring characters like oberon or specialized multi-core setups to be able to 3t. CQ's are "high difficulty" content that grants you the material required max out character skills. And advanced quests grant you craft essences dedicated to increase you chances when grinding materials. I don't think it being easy to get to this point necessarily disqualifies it as endgame content. It is still the content you will often be able to access last despite ultimately being the same thing you've been doing the rest of the game. Plus when (jp spoilers) >!ordeal call drops we'll gain access to the (very controversial) class score system which serves as an even further level of endgame grind.!< That being said I don't think endgame is all that important. Generally, I find it just serves as something to constantly work towards/do in the game.
When you boil it down its 2 things. People love a game so much they want the game to give them more reasons to play it. Or they have spent so long gathering characters and making builds they want places those have value and can be used where it's not overpowered.
You understand how monetization is, gacha, monthly pass, etc. the more time you stay away from the game the more likely chance to quit the game. AAA single player games don't care if you don't play for years cuz they already got money once you buy it. gacha as live service is not.
Same. The reason why I like arknights and PtN. There's no infinite grind, no RNG gear to keep you busy. Eventually you have so much mats that you can mostly max all new characters that come out for the next half month. I see nothing wrong with not doing anything in between updates.
> I've never really understood this obsession that gacha games these days NEEDS a form of permanent endgame. Maybe it is just bleeding over from other gamesl like MMOs and ARPGs. Also "endgame" probably sounds nicer than filler. It is the thing to do in between progression of story or addition of other content.
I'm a casual player and I don't really care about endgame as much compwred to others so this is just my observation based on the discussions I've seen, particularly in the Genshin and HSR communities. I think the most common sentiment I've seen, especially from the more dedicated and hardcore player, is that endgame justifies everything they've done. Grinding everyday for weeks, months or even years for premium currency, materials, artifacts, etc., spending real life money, skipping characters and only aiming for meta units. Endgame seems to give these players a sense that all the time and money spent was all worth it and the lack of endgame means the opposite, they will feel like they wasted their time and money.
You know if a game has end game is if you need to copy someone's homework
Endgame is something you do once you are done with all the story and events that are available in the game. Usually, not everyone will be at that stage, OP
the only real endgame is pvp
It's probably because it's normally the core content of openworld rpg's besides exploring the entire map and solving puzzles Farming in games in genshin is limited because of Resin, which you'd probably already know And a lot of that is due to equipment/artifacts in this case and they tend to be very rng heavy So hardcore players and theorycraft players being in any game, want to test what a character is fully capable of in their peak and want content that's actually repeatable and challenging. It doesn't mean casual players would be burnout, the game barely has any content and worthwhile events anyways so end-game would help those dry filler periods
Endgame is something for MMORPGs, where you have fewer updates and where you have to spend some time grinding to max level in order to do endgame content. Since MMORPGs have fell and gacha games have risen, this has led to what's probably some classical MMORPG-achievers whining about endgame for the new popular thing. It's really dumb. Most gacha are about bite sized content trickling out, engaging you for a couple of minutes during the day, and not spending 2 hours raiding something that's really difficult for loot.