Game development begins with destroying Girls' Frontline.

Did you notice?

Will these things make the player's character stronger? No.

But what can it be?

You can draw cards.

Does drawing cards guarantee you'll become stronger?

Not necessarily.

Therefore, from the game's underlying logic, the formula that a player does something and the character becomes stronger no longer holds true.

Instead, it became a situation where no matter what players did, it was not as effective as spending money.

Whales and regular players aren't even playing the same game.

If this were a normal game...

The system was developed like this, it's bound to get criticized.

Such a simple principle.

miHoYo naturally understood this, but they weren't afraid.

Because they have found a solution: enhance the story presentation and the main plot.

The fact that the storyline cannot be skipped proves that they were well aware of this when the Genshin Impact project was first initiated.

Genshin Impact's core competitive advantage lies in its storyline.

After all, the main storyline doesn't hinder the player's combat power, and since this is a "single-player" game, ordinary players are unlikely to experience the frustration of not having a strong enough character.

It features heavy pay-to-win elements, but reduces player awareness through a compelling storyline.

This is the path that miHoYo has taken.

Subsequently, Honkai Impact 3rd simply abandoned the large map because, within this logical framework, the large map was an optional feature.

Chapter 115 Lin Li's Countermeasures [Bonus Chapter as usual, please grant all requests (*^▽^*)]

Of course, miHoYo hasn't completely abandoned the gameplay.

After all, if there's no gameplay at all, who would spend money on in-game purchases?

Under this approach, the racing PVP mode from the Honkai Impact 3 era has been preserved.

In addition, miHoYo has also created artifacts.

Artifacts are essentially a replacement for the traditional equipment system.

But overall.

miHoYo's games primarily focus on the storyline.

The game is built up through a large amount of storyline.

This allows players to experience emotional value and then pay for their emotions by trying to obtain characters.

On the other hand, the plot is used to cover up the emptiness of the large map.

It masks the lack of gameplay.

For most free-to-play players, Genshin Impact is less of a game and more of a large media player, a model that was later extended to Honkai Impact 0rd.

Of course, Bengtetsu has also undergone many reforms, but that's another story.

In Genshin Impact.

The storyline is absolutely central, even surpassing the gameplay.

However, this makes the plot a double-edged sword.

If the plot is good, then it's a masterpiece.

But if the plot starts to become verbose and boring, the game will naturally become boring as well.

At the same time, as the storyline becomes more and more complex and cannot be skipped, the motivation for many new players to get into the game is almost zero.

After all, once you get hooked, you might have hundreds of hours of unskippable story content.

Those who can finish reading it all have commendable perseverance.

~~~

This is miHoYo's path.

Lin Li has no intention of taking this path.

Mihoyo's own Honkai Impact 3rd has already negated many aspects of Genshin Impact, so Lin Li naturally wouldn't go through that process again.

Moreover, Lin Li saw it.

Genshin Impact's large-scale media player gameplay is a complete waste of the vast world's production capacity.

If Lin Li wants to create an open-world game...

At least in terms of character exploration and growth, he will fully unleash his potential.

After defeating monsters, players can gain experience to level up, obtain materials for crafting weapons, and even directly obtain rare weapons.

Simultaneously.

Lin Li also plans to increase his favorability.

It's also about price differentiation.

Why can't it be that once a player has successfully romanced a certain character, they get a separate affinity pool, and the player gets a discount when drawing that character if they reach max affinity with that character?

As for weapon systems, there is even more that can be done.

Wild bosses may drop top-tier equipment, while roadside monsters may drop materials for crafting weapons.

They could even go to a more extreme point and reduce the burden on players, like in Return to 1999, by placing rare weapons in interactive areas on the large map or in events to attract players.

Furthermore, since weapons are no longer a pay-to-win element, there's no need to design unique weapons for each character.

That would naturally allow for a greater variety of weapons.

Should Keqing wield the Wind and Thunder Sword, the Water and Cloud Sword, the Flame Sword, or perhaps the Sky-Piercing Sword?

Players can customize their own builds to create various playstyles.

Once the important resource of weapons was put to good use, the mining, crafting, and blacksmithing systems were also put to good use as well.

Lin Li could even have gone to a more extreme position.

If it's copying Zelda, why not copy it more thoroughly?

Why can't we just copy the weapon system exactly?

Why can't players just snatch weapons from monsters?

Alternatively, you can collect materials and craft the weapon directly. If the weapon's durability fails, you can either repair it or farm for another one.

Wouldn't a large map be useful?

As for the issue of character and weapon pairings, those are things that can be addressed.

Can't we all borrow systems from the many games on the market that focus on grinding for equipment?

As long as the resources are released.

There are always ways to make the open world more playable. When players start to visit the large map frequently, why not add a mount system?

~~~

Why did so many games that copied miHoYo die out in later generations?

It's also very simple.

Not every game can be made into a story-driven media player.

People only see miHoYo eating meat, but they don't understand why miHoYo can eat meat.

They only copied one pay-to-win model.

If you don't die, who will?

~~~

Finally, there's another reason why miHoYo's model can generate such phenomenal revenue.

It was the large number of story-driven players and free-to-play players that fueled the game's popularity.

Once the hype builds, regular players and hardcore gamers can provide a sense of superiority for whales (players who spend a lot of money).

Let whales spend money like water.

In its past, miHoYo created a revenue miracle by turning the core gameplay into a pay-to-win model.

This life.

Lin Li really wanted to see.

With the addition of Spark Games, will miHoYo innovate even more?

Honestly.

He was quite looking forward to it.

After all, among the major domestic companies, miHoYo is one of the more innovative ones.

of course.

Lin Li's desire for reform does not mean he will become a philanthropist.

He simply wanted to find a balance between profitability and gameplay.

The more players there are, the easier it is to find this balance point.

If there are 1 million players, and each of them spends 1 yuan per month, that's 1 million yuan in revenue.

To create more great games, a better market, and to cultivate more players.

Lin Li also needs to make trade-offs between profitability and profit.

And at present.

FGO was his testing ground.

First, Lin Li did not change FGO's original monetization model, which was a single monetization point for characters.

But Lin Li added a real safety net on top of that.

The minimum pity system for a single character is set at 50 pulls, and the maximum pity system is set at 100 pulls.

In other words, if a player is lucky, they can get the goods in one order; if they are unlucky, they need two orders.

Based on FGO's pricing, the actual cost of obtaining a character is around 1000 RMB, similar to Genshin Impact.

After adding the pity system, Lin Li also specified that each version would give away approximately 20 to 30 Saint Crystals.

This corresponds to the miHoYo system, where you can basically get a five-star character every two versions.

However, due to the single point of spending money, FGO still retains the Noble Phantasm level, which is the Constellation system.

To attract truly wealthy players.

However, at the same time, the difference in character strength between regular players and those who spend money will be slightly reduced, ensuring that characters drawn at one or even zero constellations can still reach the required strength.

In short.

Improve game quality and make monetization a unique feature to broaden game design and minimize the impact of monetization on gameplay.

At the same time, the difficulty of obtaining characters will be reduced, allowing free-to-play players to grind for characters and allowing paying players to acquire characters at a reasonable price.

Lowering the barrier to entry for in-game purchases will attract players who were not originally planning to spend money to do so.

After all, many people wouldn't spend hundreds of dollars just for a character fragment.

But if you could get a complete character for a hundred or two, then maybe you wouldn't need to.

In this situation, the revenue may not necessarily be lower than that from forced spending.

For example, the same product might be priced at 1000 by miHoYo, but only one person will buy it.