"6 months for regular versions, 17-20 months for major versions."
This what Aquaria said in an interview regarding producing content for Genshin. Surely this will cease baseless claims that the content that devs make for this game are "rushed" or "last minute". Everything we get in the game is very intentional.
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So imagine scrapping at like month 13
Personally I think its still too early to tell whether or not they’re actually screwed
https://www.awkwardzombie.com/comic/culture-schlock
However, that's not the only thing changed according to the leaks. They said that they also reshuffled the main story quests too for some reason.
Someone theorized that it's kinda like WuWa's Ragunna and Septimont in Rinascita Arc. And HSR's just gonna start with Septimont first instead of Ragunna because apparently it's Ragunna that is more Japanese heavy.
Either that or they already finished the Ragunna part, doesn't want to rehash it, so they're starting with Septimont first then go with Ragunna when the Irl Tensions died down.
This gives them a leeway that they could observe in the duration of the 2nd Half whether they still can re-insert back the 1st Half that they finished when the Tensions dies down or just completely redo it.
I'm just saying, the tensions won't be solved quickly or by any one thing, at this point. It's complicated and has a lot of potential to go the other direction even. Shelving a ton of work for a "maybe it'll be okay to release in x months" is riskier than modifying what they already had finished.
She was meant to be a leadership figure in edo star and has a Japanese sounding title.
The story is gonna be a mess I think
I think it’s a stretch for OP to say everything in the game is intentional and not rushed as we’ve seen in other Hoyo games recently characters being redesigned mid beta and whole region designs being scrapped and redesigned.
They just made it the fuck up and keep spreading it as a fact
Given some of the changes the game has gone through, I'd say that a vision exists, but has changed significantly in so short a time span to the point that they're struggling to implement it. 1.x was noticeably tighter, better written, and more consistent, and even then it feels like they chopped the story off by at least a patch to add Miyabi as quick as possible when the game was struggling, because of how fast the climax is compared to everything before it (that's speculation though, they could just be bad at endings). They're also writing off the main villain group, the Exaltists, and it's unclear who will replace them or what their goals will be.
They also listen to the players maybe a little more than is good for the game's health at times, but they've also gone out of their way in the past few patches to state that they are aware 2.x has been a rough spot and that they haven't dropped the main plotlines from the early days.
Or if you want to speculate a little, he DID help them write that ending, because that was more or less his plan, and now that he knows everyone hates it he has no idea what to do.
When the ending happened and it's an ultimate disappointment, even GRRM himself was surprised with the reception and just washed his hands, acting like it wasn't his ending. But now he doesn't fucking know how to end it instead because that's how he always envisioned the ending was supposed to be.
If GoT had more seasons to spread out developments. Like a full season for the Long Night and a full season for the 2nd siege of King's Landing. People would've liked it far more. As it was, D&D cut all the way to the bone, then sawed clean through.
Like how there's a build-up for the prophecy of the Sword Wielding Hero to save the world and whatnot, only for the Night King to be killed by Arya.
Then Dany's Army exiled Jon Snow back to the wall as a punishment, which doesn't make sense since they just can go back and forth from Winterfell to the Wall and Dany's Army also left the continent afterward.
The Biggest Disappointment for me is how the story kinda like implicated that there's some kind of Mindbending Time-Travel twist with Bran Stark fiddling with time. Some even theorized he's either the Night King himself or involve with its creation. None of that ever came to life lmao.
Example: The Godfather book was a pulpy b tier story then Francis Ford Coppola elevated it into two of the best movies ever made. Execution matters.
They unintentionally glazing genshin dev for working that fast.
There are 52 weeks in a year, and for every 26 weeks, a team get freed up to do the next patch.
Which means in order to release on time, they need 5 teams in rotation.
Which means that when 6.0 was released, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5 were already being worked on.
And then we have the major version developers, so they have about 7 teams of development time in order to make it through the release deadline.
draft team make quick drafts for like 1 month for 1 version
sketch team build upon that growing meat for 2 month
tech team create assets based on sketches for like 3 month
So its async operation
Plus a few more teams specifically for the major releases.
That doesn’t explain how to START a live service game with high quality but it explains how they’re still going now.
And I like Genshin but I don’t want every game to go the gacha route because it’s easy money…I mean it’s also NOT really ‘easy’ money because you have to have a product people want to gamble on but you know what I mean.
Gacha plays well into exploiting income inequality by letting those with lower income enjoy it at no cost (which also means higher server cost to bear without subscription/head to offset and profit off) while giving those with too much money on their hand a reason to keep spending way beyond $140 and covering the cost incurred by everyone else.
There is no shortage of gacha games that have failed and shut down, even when built on strong IPs. On the flipside, non-gacha Western games can also make boatload of money. The key ultimately lies in making quality product that appeals to a wide-ranging audience.
However, for the people attracted to the gacha aspect, the gacha mechanics in Genshin are extremely ruthless.
It's probably this combination of quality, generous base game and ruthless, predatory "side" game is what makes it feasible.
In the ideal world, gacha is a great way to "exploit income inequality by letting those with lower income enjoy it at no cost while making those with too much money cover the cost incurred by everyone else." And it definitely does that to some extent. But in practice, not everyone who got pulled into the gacha mechanics are people that can really afford to spend that money.
> higher server cost
I don't know exactly how the networking code in Genshin works, but Genshin doesn't seem like a game that would cost a lot of server resources. If multiplayer are p2p, most of the multiplayer traffic won't even cost them anything. Match making server isn't expensive, and the only thing the server really need to handle are inventories, currency, occasional save state sync, and gacha pulls.
It’s not just the multiplayer aspect. Character and enemy hp, hit register, damage calculation, energy, certain stats, certain passives, etc are all handled server-side.
>for people attracted to the gacha aspect, the gacha mechanics in Genshin are extremely ruthless
Average f2p pulls income/patch = ~80. Average pulls/limited 5-star = ~80. On average, each player is expected to pull 8-9 limited 5-star over a year.
Naturally, if someone wants **every** new and shiny things Genshin releases with its gacha, then you won’t be able to stay f2p, because after the low-spending bracket (ie. Welkin only, which will net an additional ~3 limited 5-star on average per year) the cost increases quickly. Though remind me again how many limited 5-star does Genshin release per year?
When you have that level of “want”, you should have the means to back it up. Otherwise, that’s more of a sign of an irresponsible person that lacks self-control.
cuz there is managers of managers and manager helpers.
Even Cai said before leaving that mihoyo so bloated that its impossible to make small project without skipping long chain of higher stuff
Patch teams probably just work on managing the content, so making sure that everything is ready for patch release, and there is enough event and web event content. They would get direction from the story and lore teams, then direct the other teams to implement it.
The longest development as far as time before release probably goes into character and landmass designs, with lots of changes between idea and implementation
Some of the dev units would probably ONLY focus on the big picture, and just be working on Natlan to a certain point, then shifting entirely to nod Krai, and now probably well into building out assets for Snezhnaya. Then other types of content probably have those 4-6 teams, like "character design," who would be building character models, animating them, designing combat kits, and then testing them and balancing them out (or not). From the sounds of this, the 7.0 characters are likely already well into development.
Heck that happened to Anthem. They basically sat on the project for years then rushed to create a full game in a year and a half.
"And we have dead patches cause all Hoyo employers are working 24/7 on Miliastra!"
something something *"not enough melanin"*
something something *"wtf we're flying gun and riding bike now"*
but they probably bite too much with Snezhnaya project and they notice it early in the dev they could not have finish their big ambition by 2025, so they took 6-9 months to cook nod krai out?
I cant wait to see what Snezhnaya install for us after hoyo give their dev an extra 1 year time to cook.
When people say last minute, they of course mean last minute in dev timetable. Like the foundational principles of Shneznaya have likely been there from day 1 5 years ago, Nod Krai in its current scope, likely only came into inception around the time the team where releasing Fontaine and already well into Natlan’s development and realized they needed to course correct on lore delivery. As far as the overall plan is concerned, that is a last minute addition.
Forget all the small details too that have to be managed between regions.
No wonder last updates feel more empty then anything before when they are made in 6 months only....
2: you can delete the extra resources from Miliastra if you don't want it.
3: empty is subjective. the past few patches have been heavily story-driven and lore-redeeming, and that's not nothing.
But if they really spend so much time on each patch, it just makes the bad writing and lack of general improvements look even more pathetic.
I like how Nod-Krai now mostly yaps important stuffs; lore, etc. The plots feel more connected with each other.
Ex: People found the many celebrations in Natlan to be useless but storytelling-wise, it shows that the Natlanese culture enjoy every moment with each other as much as they can bc they never know when they'll live to see another day. Party before war? Going away celebrarion. Party after war? Celebrating surviving.
Nod-Krai feels more concise because it's stuff that has already been in the game if you cared enough to look for it, so it's pretty much just summaries. Like Perinheri summary from Arlecchino or the Narzzisenkreuz quest from Sandrone. Every other region before Nod-Krai had their AQs be exposition dumps bc the majority of lore gets first revealed IN the AQs.
>Party before war? Going away celebrarion. Party after war? Celebrating surviving.
All of the above? They're fine to be shown in-game, you know, to make it more immersive and relatable; to show it is part of the nation's unique culture.
But before reaching those, players were hammered with countless same repetitive dialogues that are framed and phrased differently but still saying the same thing. Worst is when Paimon parroted them.
And it didn't happened only in Natlan version, but in others as well. But, it was most prominent in Natlan.
To put it simply, some players (like me) find it annoying when the game had to repeat the same matters again and again using different phrasing before getting to the point. Which, in the end didn't get to the point, had to wait another version update for continuation.
Bothh Lunar 1 and 2 weren't like that at all. There were some padding here and there, the writings still managed to arrive at important points. The right kind of cliffhangers.
Also, this is just to add another example, and since you mentioned Natlan right out the gate; it really was annoying when players are being told off in our faces "this is Natlan's culture" but in using different phrases whenever we arrived in a village and there's pre-battle or post-battle feasts. Like rather than keep on telling that, just show it. I don't mind even if its through "slide show" like cutscene.
Or, i don't know, Traveler and Paimon silently walk through the place and soak in the experience. Or someone just straight up invite Traveler and Paimon to join them without saying repeating the "this is a Natlan's culture."
I agree with your points about more showing than telling though.
There's a reason "kill your darlings" is such common writing advice it's cliche.
I doubt this info will cease or silence those who already made up their minds.
Edit: I wish it can be true but I just really doubt it.
I highly doubt that Genshin's content takes that long to develop, unless there's a lack of staff, which is a symptom of greed.
This means that AT LEAST they made Sumeru since 1.X
And worked with Nod Krai since Fontaine.
And time-wise makes sense, they released two Albedo story parts and added three summer events, they started with the Sinners... The story was getting too big.
Also would explain why Inazuma story was so mild for many (me included). Not only they had less time and probably planned it since 1.0, during the first months Genshin doubled it's service time (from 5 years to 10) and it got in the middle. Makes sense now why it's just three arcs.
That was probably a lot of overtime and overnighters by those devs to reshape everything in the span of what? A month? Or three?