3.0 Pros, Cons, and Player Choice
The patch has been up for a few days, and opinions can be quite divided among the players. I'm going to give my 2 cents on the patch itself, how players reception seems like, how my experience own with the patch has been, and what I think would be helpful to the game or the player base as a whole. You don't have to agree with everything I said, as they are my subjective views, and I would love to hear thoughtful discussions on the topic (in a friendly and civil manner, ofc)
- Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Greek Mythos inspired lore, very interesting from main quest to sidequests
- Rather straightforward storyline, not hard to follow and provide a good understanding of the world
- The amount of ambiguous/bloated dialogues is reduced significantly (some sections really, really turned me off during 2.1 and 2.2 when I was hyped for the story.)
- Awesome pre-rendered cutscenes
- Peak voice acting for most characters, in both EN and JP. The new Amphoreus cast is splendid.
- Hyped battle music, 1 very good idle song
- New maps, enemies, puzzles, and open world mechanics (The new maps feels grand, and time travel feature actually works very well for immersion. Most (not all) of the puzzles are fun to do)
- New QoL features like reroll, daily energy cap, and 1-click Calyxes
Cons:
- Story presentation is lacking, most lore sections are not supported with engaging visuals
- One questionable plot point (e.g. one power of friendship ahh moment done horribly)
- Some pacing problems: Too many puzzles in the middle of the story quest (many ppl just want to speed through the quest to get RMC, or quick forward to the cool stuff), too many back-to-back group discussion moments (which would be way less noticeable if there were variety in animation)
- Characters' animations during most realtime-rendered cutscenes are too limited, expressions too deadpan, monotonous and repetitive
- Pre-rendered cutscenes are too short, and too few for a 10-hour quest
- VA strike, a lot of crucial characters are unvoiced in EN. Also, the lack of facial animations didn't do the VAs performance justice.
- Most idle songs are the slow-burn type. It's not bad, and can certainly evoke a sense of nostalgia some patches later, but lack an immediate flare for a first showcase.
- Enemies are not diverse enough (Gundam titankins and you're telling me there's only 5 variants? And I was expecting to fight Herta bots, but I was given memes?)
- Some mechanics like Bartholos the spirit thief is tedious and lacking in variation (spacebar gameplay right now is NOT fire, yo). Hand of Zagreus is okay, but awkward controls.
- All these QoL updates and STILL no equipment loadout. No DU/SU update, no new endgame cycle and not enough events on the first week of a 3.0 patch.
- Player reception
Pretty much split into 3 sides (with variations, ofc, but dumbed down to 3 so that the matter is easier to address):
Side A: The storytelling is bottom-tier. Hoyo has not done enough for a 3.0 patch, for a game that has generated millions, and has existed for 2 years.
Side B: Story was good and compelling. I enjoyed it, it was excellent/good/fine. Can't people stop hating on it and just enjoy it?
Side C: Neutral. Story has both good and bad elements.
The main conflict is between group A and B (or should have been), but many from group C align themselves with one side, thus expanding the topic of discussion to a chaotic degree.
- Causes
The causes that led to the present discourse are many, but to name the most impactful ones:
- The rise in popularity of the term "yap", which people use to describe wildly varying degrees of text verbosity.
- The story patches from 2.2 to 2.7 (Allegations: yap too much, filler patches, etc. There's a whole new wave of CCs on Youtube making content on how HSR storytelling sucks and how wuwa did it better)
- Dissatisfaction with powercreep and the number of 4 Stars
- 8 banners in one patch is controversial
- Wuthering Wave's new patch was a massive success, story execution was highly praised.
- Sister game from the same company ZZZ's new patch was also a massive success, story execution was also highly praised.
- Hoyo scandals (Genshin CCs told not to play Wuwa, $20 million fine for predatory practice, not clarifying gambling odds)
- Kurobots vs. Hoyoshills ("My game/company is better than yours/at least my game/company is !@#$%")
- My own experience
I'm of working class, mostly f2p, bought monthly on some patches I have some money to spare. Never felt the fomo too much, despite the number of banners. I was excited for 3.0 and The Herta for a long time, so I played the main quest in the first 3 days, each day around 3 hours. I like the quest, I like the new characters. The world looks so interesting and is even better than Penacony for me. I was pretty happy with what I got.
But when I turn off the game and go on Youtube to see people's reaction, I have two completely different types of streams: Those that say the story of this patch has been crazy and cinema, and those that say the storytelling is sh!t.
It felt bad, so I continued playing the quest to see for myself, felt pleased, then go on to Youtube and feel bad again.
Now I'm not completely uninformed on the complaints with the game's storytelling. I agreed to a lot, if not most of them, to say the least. But the strong focus on the game's flaws was surprising, and saddening for me. I don't believe the experience I got was bad, but to see people so critical of the game hurts my soul.
You know how it feels when something you like is called trash? That's how I feel. If this is how a lot of people experience the patch, this story, this world that I'm falling in love with will be remembered for its flaws rather than its beauty.
But it's long overdue. The level of trust is getting lower, and skepticism is getting higher.
I'm invested in the story, it should be fine to think that.
Some couldn't get invested into the story because the problems are too glaring for them, they too are justified.
So... What now?
- Player's choice
You could play the game and enjoy the game, then drop it when it doesn't hook you anymore. You play the game for entertainment and it should not play you with its politics or dramas.
OR
You could play the game and enjoy what you can, but hold the company to a higher standard to keep your attention. Hold them accountable for the state of the game. If it fails to deliver then that's on the devs.
OR
You could do what you want.
My point is, don't be too bothered by what other people said, and don't hastily align yourself with either extremes of the spectrum when you have your own set of values and sensibilities. There are reasons to love the game, as well as reasons to criticize it. Don't take it personally like I did, lest it ruins your day.