ngl im feeling disillusioned about hoyo games. i know theyre gacha so they want max revenue but as someone who spent monthly, it feels punishing to stop or you wont keep up. and selling units to be bis of other newer ones, needing constellations to be top tier feels frustrating. and i KNOW you can be f2p if you want and these endgames are optional blah blah but i feel that once i stop spending then that means i will have to stop playing cause i wont get the targets i want and wont reap the same endgame rewards because i no longer spend. so i lose out on all the progress i made cause as soon as the meta shifts, none of my old units or investment can clear the new content in the same difficulty i experienced as a regular spender. so i just feel less motivated to spend now and feel more inclined to quit and having to roll multiple units to complete their team and get constellations to clear SO and dont get me started with Dire which needs you to roll every patch. i know these are dolphin/whale endgames but the strategy/challenge part gets lost that it doesnt feel satisfying
and i get it, this is how they make money but after getting zero cycle SO, it just feels like oh i can buy eidolons to get that shiny icon. same with Dire SO. and it just feels less like oh it took me skills to clear but more like i can just spend $$$$ to trivialize endgames
whereas for Arknights, max risk CCs still require so much skill, hours of trial and error. potentials dont trivialize the hardest endgames. and i just respect that monetary design more cause yes you can whale if you want but it's not a free pass to make everything easier. idk whats in store for Endfield so maybe it will not be like AK and have its own way to incentivize spending meta-wise (maybe like hyv or even wuwa does idk) but i do think that i am more inclined to spend on a gacha when i know that it wont remove the challenge aspects and that also not spending or missing out means i wont get heavily punished. cause i stopped playing arknights for a year but i still can do the hardest content (maybe not max risk cc but you just need whats required anyway) with the ops i got and i can catch up to all i missed idk anyway this is just me rambling. i dont want this to cause any gacha stan wars as it's not my intention