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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/RadioRavenRide on 2024-05-20 18:16:50+00:00.

If you’ve been around this subreddit for a while, you might be aware of Genshin Impact, an open-world Action RPG developed by Hoyoverse (formerly Mihoyo). However, the actual core gameplay of this game is not as important to this post as it is to others. Instead, the game’s gacha aspect and how it doles out its rewards is what is important here. If you know what gacha games are, feel free to skip this next paragraph.

Gacha games are free-to-play games that, instead of base pricing, battle passes, or direct microtransactions, base most of their revenue around the gacha, a randomized lottery system where you exchange some premium currency for the chance to get what you want. If you, say, wanted to get Jeanne D’Arc Alter in the game Fate/Grand Order, you would put premium currency (Saint Quartz) into her banner (special pool of characters and items). This submission then corresponds to a certain number of pulls, each of which has a set chance to get the character you want, and usually a larger chance to get characters and items of lower rarity. Additionally, many games have a “pity” system, which guarantees that you will get the character or item you are trying to pull for within a certain (usually large) number of pulls. Got all that? The key thing to understand is that while you can pay to get premium currency, this premium currency can also be gained “for free” through normal gameplay. This is the social contract between players and gacha game developers: have fair rates and generous rewards (preferably in that premium currency), and players will stick around to pay and play.

When it comes to Genshin Impact, this social contract between player and developer can be strained. Few would dispute Genshin’s overall quality: its story, exploration, characters, and general production values are through the roof compared to other gacha games and most games you can play for free on a phone. 

However, the gacha system itself is considered to be quite strict: each pull on a limited banner has a 0.6% to summon the limited 5 star character. As such, many players will have to rely on the pity system to reliably acquire 5 star characters. The chance to get any 5 star will increase after 75 pulls, and on your 90th pull you are guaranteed to get a 5 star unit. Key word a 5-star unit, because this guarantee comes with the caveat of the dreaded “50/50”, where there is a chance of getting a standard banner item or character instead of the limited character you actually wanted. As such, to guarantee a limited character, you have to be prepared to spend upwards of 180 pulls on their banner. This would be fine if the game gave a lot of rewards, but that isn’t entirely the case: with 160 primogems per pull, the average player usually gets about 70 pulls per patch (a 6-week content cycle). 

This has led to some grumblings and even outrage in the past when players have felt that Hoyo is too stingy with rewards (see 1st anniversary drama). Nevertheless, Genshin players have generally gotten used to this treatment and kept on playing. It’s not like there would be a better game coming along anyway. (Dun dun dun)

v3.6 and a new challenger approaches

On April 26, 2023, during Genshin Impact version 3.6, HoYoVerse announced the launch of a brand new gacha game named Honkai: Star Rail (HSR). Unlike Genshin, which is an open-world RPG with exploration as a key mechanic, HSR is a turn-based RPG without exploration that focuses more on combat.

From the instant its servers opened, HSR was compared to Genshin. Some of this was deliberate, as the two games are by the same developer and share many design elements: 

• anime art style
• legacy “expy” characters like Bronya, Raiden Mei, Seele
• gacha (obviously)
• same gacha system (160 currency per pull, 90 hard pity, 50/50 mechanic)
• gear based on RNG
• and so on…

Both players and content creators gave HSR a go, both because of it being a new game by the same company, but also because of a phenomenon in Genshin’s yearly content cycle known as the “dry patches”. As mentioned before, Genshin releases its content in the form of 6-week-long patches, which contain new characters as well as events and sometimes main story content. However, the main story of Genshin is confined to Archon Quests, which only last for the first three patches of a version. This has caused many players to perceive patches released later in a version as “dry” and lacking in meaningful content. Sumeru was no exception, as the main quest wrapped in version 3.2, and by version 3.6 and the release of HSR, Genshin was in its usual lull season.

But there were also other grievances in the Genshin community at the time besides the usual complaints about dialogue or lack of endgame. Version 3.5 saw the release of Dehya, a highly anticipated character from the Sumeru Archon Quest, whose kit was generally considered underwhelming and disappointing. HoYoVerse did not respond to player requests to fix Dehya, and the main Genshin Impact subreddit blocked people’s complaints. While this could be an attempt to avoid spam, blocking all discussion of Dehya’s flawed gameplay resulted in even more anger among Dehya mains. While one could argue version 3.6 had content in the form of a new exploration region and story, it was another desert region, which people were growing a bit tired of. Suffice it to say, that many Genshin players were dissatisfied with the state of their game, and were looking to find other games.

To someone who might be burning out of Genshin, HSR had many attractive elements.

• a guaranteed standard 5-star in your first 50 pulls
• more humorous writing, without the involvement of a third party like Paimon
• Simulated Universe - an actual endgame mode
  • on the topic of endgame modes, HSR also has multiple endgame modes that test different characters’ strengths, but Genshin’s only endgame is the pure damage-focused Spiral Abyss
• more pulls (BUT: HSR releases more 5* characters, this will become relevant very quickly)
• auto-battle mode
• no time-gated materials
• PERMANENT EVENTS

Additionally, many of those elements listed above were not available in Genshin.

The full value of those features is a matter of personal taste, but overall, Genshin’s dry state made it easier for players to appreciate a sister game bursting with content. And so it went for several patches, with Genshin and HSR players scuffling back and forth about which game is better. 

L + Ratio

In its version 1.6 Livestream, the HSR developers announced they would be giving out Dr. Ratio, the newest 5* character, for free as a thank-you gift to players for supporting the game. Importantly, this news came out of nowhere.

While a cynic might suggest that this was just a marketing tactic used to get players back in time for version 2.0, the sudden news poured gasoline on the Genshin/HSR civil war.

Infamously, unlike many of its contemporaries, Genshin has never given a 5* character for free. There has never been a standard banner selector, and while there was an early game rumor that players would obtain Kamisato Ayaka at AR42, this was misinformation that has become community layspeak for false rewards and not believing everything you hear. The closest they have ever come to that is giving out Aloy, a collab character who is widely regarded as bad and forgettable.

Moreover, Dr. Ratio was…a good unit. While some people believed he would be weak because he was free, they were quickly disproven once players were able to test him out. So not only was HSR giving out a free 5* character, but that free character was actually usable and competitive in the meta.

With that information in mind, the Genshin and HSR communities devolved into open warfare. The phrases “Genshin could never” and “Genshin is the middle child” were thrown around endlessly.

Why is Genshin Less Generous, Anyways?

There are several potential answers to this question.

Firstly, characters in Honkai Star Rail are probably cheaper to make. The game has a lot less freedom of movement, so characters have fewer moves to worry about. For example, in Genshin, characters can run, jump, glide, and swim in the overworld, but in HSR, characters can only run. Overall, this leads to characters taking less time and money to make, which then corresponds to a higher output of new characters. More rewards may be compensation for t…

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