Are the gacha mechanics important to your enjoyment of a gacha game?

[Thrill_house]

I have only really played one and its the most disgusting and absolutely FUCKED monetization system I have ever seen in my life. Shit should be illegal. I enjoy genshin impacy but I hardly play it anymore and I'll never play another gacha. I feel like I'm listening to someone with god damn stockholm syndrome when I hear folks praise them.

 

[Zafir]

It puts me off if it's particularly egregious. I have collectors mentality, so I do feel the pull of wanting to collect as many characters I like the look of as I can, however obviously with a gacha that generally means putting money in which I wouldn't want to do due to it effectively being gambling.

I can "tolerate" it in games like Genshin/Honkai as it's a bit less extreme, and you can save up enough to pity for something you really want, but I'd still largely be happier if it was gone.

I just dislike how predatory it all is. I'm not even against spending money in a game really. If I enjoy a F2P game enough I don't mind buying stuff at all - after all they've gotta keep the lights on somehow, but not in a crappy gambling way which is designed to make you spend hundreds of pounds for just one character. It just feels like the game wants to rinse me.

That all said I think there's other issues in those games on top. Like how they deliver content. Many of them feel like you have to commit your life to them with how grindy they can often be. Which is also something I'm not massively appreciative of. I'm the kind of gamer who doesn't generally stick to one game, there's been exceptions over the years like MMOs/Fortnite/Apex but those were largely due to my friends playing as well so it's more like a social activity than just a game experience. Outside of those I usually enjoy bouncing around different games/experiences and not being too tied down. If a game starts to feel like too much effort then I start to lose interest.

 

[horkrux]

I don't play the ones with <1.0% rates, so I really enjoy those gacha mechanics and usually get what I want. I consider it a core part of the experience, and if you asked me to make an offline version, I'd keep the banners and you still have to pull lmao

 

[TheChungusAmongUs]

HSR is the only gatcha I will ever play, because in general I find the genre pretty harmful.

I would prefer not to be taken advantage of from FOMO

I would prefer not having to roll a slot to get new characters to spice up gameplay

I would prefer if I wasn't time gated from getting resources with an option to buy more time gated resources

Sure I can say gambling feels good when you win, but it feels like shit when you lose

 

[Richietto]

"Every game that is a gacha game would be 100% better if they were removed."

That's what you said and that's the part I'm calling naive. No game, regardless of genre or monetization, would be "better" if you arbitrarily removed a mechanic key to their design, whether we're talking about "real" video games or gacha games. It's like saying "all existing fighting games would all be improved if you didn't have to fight in them". Those games would not be better, you just want a completely different thing.



This is something I was trying to get at in my earlier post. People treat gacha games like "they would be real games if only they didn't have those dang gacha mechanics" but most of them are just... not designed like traditional games at all. Story is definitely one of those things that's done super differently.

Most gachas have so much jumping around (chronologically speaking). The two main gachas I follow have an updating main plot, but all the side events vaguely take place in the future. If any of them were console RPGs, I'd be playing a game that's all main plot with zero side content until the end / in the post-game. It's very different from any traditional RPGs I've played, and just like the huge casts in gacha RPGs, it would never happen in a traditional console RPG.

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Okay they would be different games. And those different games would be better.

 

[ParanormalFupa]

As an occasional idle time waster, I liked the Apple Arcade Star Trek gacha game that didn't cost any money but had a lot of the mechanics. It spaces out and structures periodic play. I like the chance of getting something cool from a loot box. I don't experience the need to have something though it's just cool if I randomly did get it. Brute forcing my way to get something would defeat the whole purpose so that has never been a compelling way to engage with these games. I also find some enjoyment in trying to get the most out of something without spending money.

 

[LiK]

All part of the process.

 

[03-AALIYAH]

While the gacha mechanics ARE indubitably designed to be predatory, I think they also add an interesting layer of meta-gaming with how you manage your ressources to optimize as much as possible your box.

Starting a new account and pulling as most as possible for units that enhance your box is what interest/excite me the most, while I tend to lose interest quickly if I have all the "meta" units/teams.

 

[ultraluna]

i think the thrill of pulling stuff in gacha games is integral to how fun they are
they're usually designed around it so taking it off would probably do more harm than good
it's all about balancing, there's other progression systems that suck ass too, battle passes are a huge time sink and a waste of money for people that are not deeply engaged in a game

 

[Bard]

The only gacha game that I played for any reasonable amount of time was the Dissidia one. I refused to spend money on it because the rates were garbage. I will say that I appreciate that that game didn't lock characters behind gacha but their weapons to make them remotely viable, which while also sucks in its own way at least you technically had the character available to you to use.

I just remembered that I also played this one star wars gacha game, galaxy of heroes I think was the name, but I also didn't spend money on it.

Gacha mechanics in general just are not fun period. I don't really care how much fun I have with a game at one point I'll need to grind endlessly and worse yet, even if I did put money into it the fact that I'm not guaranteed to get the thing I need to start having fun again just means it's not something that was worth it to begin with.

 

[PallasKitten]

I was always kinda iffy on the idea of gacha games, and then I tried some out to see for myself if they were actually "iffy" or just my pre-conceived notions. And honestly, the gacha mechanics are what turned me off every one of them eventually, and I've had no desire to check out any more since then as a result.

 

[Buttonbasher]

I play a ton of gacha games, and mostly ignore the gacha pulls once I have a main team picked out. I don't see any point or reason to level up additional parties, or characters, and the idea of pulling for more characters that would start at level 1 is pointless for how I play.

I'll claim the free pulls just to do it, as part of dailies, but beyond that I don't really see the point.

I've also never spent money on any of em, despite playing daily for 5-7+ years.

That said, I think gacha pulls for weapons or like stat buffs are insane and the stupidest way to dilute what people are there for (Characters/costumes). If a game has that kind of gacha, I'll bounce, because it implies an insane grind

 

[Damaniel]

I will never play a game that has Gacha mechanics, so in a way it's pretty important to me

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In my case I'm not opposed to gacha mechanics, but I am opposed to spending money on them. I actually liked pulling Blades in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, but I won't touch mobile gacha with a 10 foot pole.

 

[Buttonbasher]

In my case I'm not opposed to gacha mechanics, but I am opposed to spending money on them. I actually liked pulling Blades in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, but I won't touch mobile gacha with a 10 foot pole.

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I think the thing that works for me with mobile gacha games (as someone who would never put any money into these) is the ease of being able to passively claim login bonuses in like 30 seconds each day without having to sit down an launch a console/PC game.

I'll play the GAME part a few times a week, but am able to accumulate a ton of in-game resources without thinking much about it each day. That extends to character leveling, and other game design aspects, not just gacha pulls.

 

[NeonZ]

I think the gacha mechanics are intrinsically tied to how these games end up with large roster of characters, which is a big reason I enjoy them. Still, yes, if I could take the characters and drop the gacha I'd do that, but I don't think that's realistic otherwise you'd see more console games with large rosters comparable to mobile games.

 

[Bengraven]

If you replaced the gacha with tons of DLC I'd probably love them more. And spend just as much.

 

[Ravelle]

I find that 9 out 10 gacha is the same video game in a different jacket, there are a few good and enjoyable ones out there but most of them aren't even fun to play or have for awful writing.

Fire Emblem was fun for a while but I got too many of the same characters and on the field most characters played the same and the lack of real combat animations killed it for me.

Princess Connect is the one I had most fun with, fun combat, characters and some good production values.

Back in the day, I did play a a shit ton of Brave Frontier. I miss that game.