The Cost of 'Free' in PGR

Now that I've gone over the amount of generosity Kuro shows towards Punishing: Gray Raven, it's time to talk about the layers under their generosity. Not all goodwill is pure in any videogame, at the end of the day, these people have got to make their money. I will say that even though it's not all goodwill, it doesn't mean the other side is malice. So what's the deal with all this free stuff? Is there actually a method to the madness? So let's dig a little deeper into Kuro's Generosity.

Timestamps:
00:00 - In my last PGR video...
00:48 - The Cost of Free?
05:08 - A Generous Gacha Game but...
09:49 - How we look at "Free" in the Modern Gacha Space

[Smorticle]

~Bit of correction to make for the voucher shop, the limit is for the discount, you can still buy more after that. Ty for the correction commenters!

This is essentially a part 2 of the original video about Kuro's generosity so please watch the original video about Kuro's generosity to get the full picture. There are some more points I've certainly left out with what's behind Kuro's generosity, but that's not necessarily the point. The point is that there is a purpose behind it all, and they don't design or do things 100% out of the goodness of their heart. Maybe 70% at best. Which is still good because the fact is, it exists, but understand the position they are in and what kind of game PGR is at the end of the day. As for WuWa, considering how the Chinese Moon Festival is around the corner passing out a Free 5-star isn't really out of left field. Whether they "need to" or "want to" release that character for free is up to you to decide.

[RealQuarlie]

I mean, I Personally prefer free characters that just take work, or moreso specifically, are earnable.

It basically just makes the gacha like any normal game with proper progression, rather than just all free or only gambling

[DCminh-pewf]

Basically
Some nuance behind Kuro Game generosity:
-Most free unit are kept away behind grindable mechanic, which usually take a decent while before you're able to obtained them
-Free unit that are obtained easily at the start (the 2 S rank selector) arent that great, as the first one consist of characters that are power crept and mediocre at best, and the 2nd has only 2 meta option (garnet/rosetta, maybe plume). Though, this might just be an unavoidable issue and not as an intended nuance by the dev, as both selector were made available awhile ago and at that time the avaiable character were pretty strong
-Some character need shards (basically a duplicated system) to function effectively. That said, you can farm duplicated shard in PPC without using a gacha and while i wouldnt say any character need more investment than that, duplicate shard also take time to farm, which makes this similar to point 1
-BC gained from event/dailies arent actually that high, the S rank limited character are just spaced out enough with free S rank and A rank that you can still hard pity all the limited S rank without paying/luck and a little bit of left over

Some other nuance id like to mention:
-Sig weapon are really strong, with alot of them making rotation much smoother and in turn make character alot stronger and fun to play. Fortunately some of the more egregious case of this involve A rank sig weapon or uniframe (Haicma/Bambinata)
The harmonization system recently added has also made sig weapon even more valuable
-A rank in this game are pretty mediocre.If you're used to stuff like Bennett/Xinqiu/Xiangling or Tingyun/Pela/Gallagher, unfortunately this game doesnt have those kind of character. A rank does have cool animation and flashy gameplay unlike say, genshin, but strenght wise they mostly serve as subsitute unit before you get the S rank version of their respective role

[NovaStrike]

Another nuance to add is that these "prices" are purely because of "meta". Realisticly, if you want a specific old character, you can get them. If you want a new character, you can get them, just not both simultaneously without patience

"Meta" relates only to competitive modes (PPC and Warzone), whose BC rewards are participation based, not performance based. PPC skulls and WZ points do depend on your performance, but the difference isn't big, and those rewards only exist to strengthen your current characters, not get new ones.

So in terms of collecting characters, you *can* suck and you can go any route you want, and you'll still be mostly fine.

[tonyvn]

This game is a marathon, not a sprint.

[squarebrain]

Recently I watched a few streams of people trying out PGR and the most distinctive thing that turned away those gacha players, other then bugs in early game, is the fact that PGR doesn't present itself as gacha. PGR doesn't try to create a honeymoon period where player is showered with gifts making player spin andf ge hooked on gacha. PGR litterally tells those new players "clear my content and you get this, this and this character. Here are the missions to do BTW". It makes play PGR like your regular game, rather then full "gacha game", where you just unlock new characters while progressing the game, 100% rate up in gacha literally screams about this.
As for points made in video:
- a new player you get 2 S ranks, one is from starting line up the second is up to Luna iirc.
- Alisa + Ayla takes literaly 2 month sending commisions, for a player that just started, checked it at TW server some time ago. If you don't percive this as "gacha game" it's more like "complete quest X to make character Y join your party".
- The thing about income in PGR is a funny thing. It may look like rewards are very low and insufficient, but when you combine all incomes from the patch you will get like 12-14k cards in A rank patch and 16-17k in S rank patch. Combine these 2 incomes and you get more currency then even needed for gacha.
As about other "gacha games" from pre Genshin period it was the same as now. Some games like FGO, the king of gachas back in the days, was seen as unfair and the most predatory, while GI gaurantee system was seen as salvation from FGOs predatory, players knew little back then about GI true colors huh. On the other hand we had Kancolle and GFL as examples of the games which allergic to players money.

Also battle events in PGR are kinda sucks for many people and are just "long with low rewards" for the reason that many people see then as the way to get currency facerolling with CW, while in reality these events are made in away you could try diferent characters and still clear them, even with Lotus.

[darius]

also for voucher shop: if u bought the 20, able to buy more that character shards only without discount.
so basicaly can sss a unit day1 with horrible price

[unblockablelegoblock]

I don't mind grinding for the characters especially since most of them are pretty good but I suppose it depends on whether that grind is enjoyable.

P.S: Wuwa's free character is also tied to the progress in the festival event so there is a bit of a grind involved there as well although the event and the free character is time limited so the grind is nothing compared to pgr

[carloconsignado]

Its actually better to grind for character rather than spending in game currencies or even real cash for the characters you want. It makes PGR more of a "playing game" rather than a "intro-game" where, after the honeymoon phase of constantly receiving freebies at the start, you feel the tediousness of grinding after that so-called honeymoon phase. The thing with PGR is that it makes a more authentic, or should I say a playable game because you need to actually play the game to earn amazing rewards. I said amazing because these are not just your average standard/ outdated characters given for me; the freebies are actually the meta ones where you can bring these in hard contents and they help you clear these contents (Ayla Kaleido actually carries the Ice team while Alisa is a big upgrade from Liv Luminance as Alisa is the 1st physical amplifier and has an actual time-stop mechanic). All in all, this "free character system" by Kuro games is a big change in the gacha gaming space, wherein gacha games' reputation are predatory games, but Kuro us making a way for gacha games to be more "palatable or acceptable."

[ZetaZeds]

If you put your time and dedication you'll get rewarded.

So don't expect everything will be thrown at you on the 1st day😎

[Morkibay]

i have to correct you with the vouchers: they are always on the shop even after you bought 20 of them. the only thing the limit is for is the 20% off

[ddice]

jokes on you, i fucking triple S'ed Vera: Rozen and Selena: Capriccio purely by farming.

[carlovergts]

I’m glad you made this video bro. After playing this game for 2 years I was starting to get sick of the grind. I’ve had my fun of it and wanted to start taking it more seriously, attempting to build the meta teams (or at least close to it) and an attempt to do better in WZ, PPC, and Guild Battle. However I’ve encountered an issue where I can never seem to have enough of anything to make my characters as strong as possible.

I was in a constant dilemma, where it was either I needed to wait weeks and months for enough PPC skulls to get a character to SS (or SS3), trying to budget my limited BC to get the cubs/sig weapons for specific characters to boost teams overall, or making hard decisions/sacrifices to try to unfuck a past mistake I may have made.

My advice to people coming in would be to know what you want before getting into the game. If you want to be a competitive F2P/whale then MAKE SURE you use every resource you get wisely.

If you are in it for pure fun and just getting who you like to fuck around and do the bare minimum, then do that and commit to it.

But if you’re like me, who started out just wanting to have fun and slowly transitioning to wanting to be capable of more and more, then you need to be prepared to play an endless game of catchup, and one that you may never finish

[disins]

I feel like this could be best described as Schrodinger's free character because it's through effort rather than given away(which most say is free cuz they already play the game hence the wording)

[swordsmanmagi]

when Ayla: Kaleido release took me 3weeks to get her. & for alisa echo 1 day & for the free skin 2 weeks . btw the skin is gone you need to buy it with real $ ... i say this im ok with the grind as long as the reward are good sometime i even skip a event if the event takes to long to clear what i like about this i feel like my time that i spend in pgr is respected not like that ONE GAME

[Eitya]

You should force yourself to use "earnable" instead of "free" when you're thinking of those things in my opinion, because we all have limited time, and you can't buy it back, it's the only ressource that is invaluable for oneself, which of course you can buy others time through employment, but doesn't work for gacha or else break T.O.S

[Weirdos]

Honestly I don't mind the grind because it gives me a goal to achieve at least

[spartan_mib_spartan]

2:30 FISH !!! (I m sorry for my Immaturity)

[liyan]

It really does depend on how you play the game, as you mentioned. For me, I'm fine with a team that will do good enough. They are absolutely scuffed teams, but they get me through the content that I enjoy playing. (My most scuffed team is my dark team consisting of Karenina Scire, Vera Rozen, and Selena Capriccio. I got Selena on the 100% anniversary banner and she fixed my dark team so I can actually clear stuff so I'm skipping Lamia (a weird move, yes, but I don't like the underwater sound effect Lamia has)).

[lemonsquishy]

So your point is:
- kuro gives free stuff = Sus
- most gacha don't = fine

You say the new player experience ain't that smooth despite the freebies, then I challenge you to give the names of 10 or even 5 gacha/live service where the new player experience is smooth, 2~3 years into its life cycle, without the need for time or money to catch-up with veterans

You say "only x pulls from y event" sure, but you didn't say how much BC the free Alisa (or any character) would amount to if one has to do the 60 pulls instead for example.

For a video claimed to bring "more nuances " to kuro's generosity, you're focusing on how sus it is and overlook other things, that's quite ironic. On top of saying that if we don't want to pay we have to play. I don't know a lot of gacha where is not the case, why even start the game, if the goal isn't to play?

So the big difference with other gacha is that kuro is giving us free stuff. It's as if you'd rather want to get nothing at all, since if there's no freebies, there's no caveat lol

This is the first video from you I've watched but I think "smearticle" would be a more fitting name so far.

I'm baffled, people really find problems where they want to see them. PGR made less than stellar revenue for the longest time, we still had free stuff, then kuro blew up with wuwa, we still got free stuff, but somehow it's seemingly not as generous as we thought. Well duh, we're talking gacha, it's supposed to make money. But I guess it's alright when billions worth companies don't give anything but when smaller companies give freebies, "omg there are strings attached"....

Edit: I mean your point makes sense tho, if the companies don't give us anything, we can't blame them for their generosity and the strings attached. Imagine a game company doing things for player retention, oh God, how dare they
But I guess you'd rather get nothing at all so you can't blame them for the attached strings. And the title "the truth" I guess you're also secretly a kuro employee or got your source from one? I find haters less toxic than your roundabout way to "warn" people from kuro's "semi-deceptive" generosity