That's also how I feel. (Criticism)

by EffortlessFury , Wednesday, January 26, 2022, 12:51 (1038 days ago) @ Cody Miller

I understood that seasons were added because some players wanted content to grind even when there wasn't really any new content (more narrative, novel mechanics, new environments).

I feel like maybe you could replace the word 'players' with 'streamers' and have a more accurate sentence.

Which seems to incentivize either going all in-- base game, DLC, and season passes-- or nothing, because it seems like nobody would really be able to understand what's going on in Witch Queen without either playing several of the preceding seasons (some more relevant than others, I expect) or watching a catchup video.

It's intentional. This is how free to play is meant to work. When you're in, they want you to stay in, and thus keep paying. Interruptions would set you behind, so it's working as intended. It's not about having an accessible, lasting work of art.

There are better ways to go about it, though. While Genshin Impact does have seasonal events with narrative content, it's supplementary. They have character arcs that give the characters additional depth but never really impact the overarching narrative in a way that you'd be missing anything substantial had you missed the event. Additionally, the seasonal narrative events are very short. You can complete them in a matter of hours, in contrast to Destiny's seasonal events whose narratives require you to grind out parts of the event to progress. (at least IIRC)

You're not forced to keep up with a power grind if you've taken a break from the game. The difficulty scales essentially with how much you've played and nearly always requires you to voluntarily complete a quest to (permanently) increase the difficulty. I've been parked at the last difficulty gate for months because I enjoy playing at the present difficulty given the amount of investment I want to put into building out my characters. None of the content is gated from me at any time, other than the most challenging end game content and the occasional non-narrative seasonal event that's challenge oriented, and even there the only thing I'm missing out on are some bonus rewards I can do without.

There are still flaws, sure, but far more tolerable, and it's easier to stay regularly engaged to avoid dealing with those flaws anyway.