The recent activity of placing copies of Holy Relics seems to have entered a refractory period. After numbly finishing four insulating books, they often just glance at the 2~3 materials that are revealed and throw them into the warehouse to eat dust - they can give the lineup The

’s recent activity of placing copies of Holy Relics seems to have entered a refractory period. After numbly finishing four insulating books, they often just glance at the 2~3 materials that are revealed and throw them into the warehouse to gather dust - they can give The probability that the lineup will increase combat effectiveness will not exceed 1%. The best embryo itself is difficult to produce, and the probability of turning the best embryo into a top holy relic is negligible.

Most of the holy relics my wives carry are just one step away from the word "top quality", and the time to reach the ultimate level is far away - maybe a new copy of the holy relics will be released by then.

Prison

The reason why I farm Holy Relics every day has changed from "increasing combat effectiveness" to "Oh, it feels so uncomfortable to see the full physical strength."

The cultivation system of "Holy Relics" has already inspired me, an old player. It's close to nothing. In fact, not cleaning up the physical strength will not have much impact on the game - but the line is online, and it doesn't matter if you spend a few minutes brushing the dungeon.

is broken, it is a trap of MiHoYo.

hasn’t been updated for a long time. I’m rushing to write an article at the end of June to talk about how the “Holy Relic”, a system that many players love and hate, helps game operations and affects player behavior.

1. Characteristics of the "Holy Relic" system

Holy Relic is an equipment system whose strength growth curve has a clear marginal effect (that is, the more you grind it, the lower the income). It seems familiar to you. Many MMORPG veterans (Diablo, Big Pineapple, Legend, DNF) all have the design of brushing entries.

But it is not entirely consistent. Two-dimensional games themselves are an emerging thing. The holy relic system deployed according to the characteristics of two-dimensional games also has many differences from the above-mentioned "swipe" games.

① Marginal benefit

Very simple calculation: For example, for explosion damage, the limit of a single adverb entry is about 45% explosion damage, while the basic explosion damage of an explosion head is 62.2%.

In other words, the ultimate strength of a single holy relic is only about 160% of its initial strength.

Of course, the calculation of damage in the game will not be that simple. The conclusion here is that the strength of the holy relic will not reach an outrageous level. Compared with traditional MMORPG, the damage gap is often hundreds or thousands of times.

If the ultimate strength of a set of holy relics is marked as 100 points, then it is easy for most players to reach the level of 50 points. 70 points will require a period of jail time, and 90 points will not only require sitting in jail. The longer prison of the holy relic copy requires a little more European energy. If your dream is to reach a 100-point level, then start by learning to have a stable mentality - be fully prepared for a year without harvesting any copies.

An important function of setting marginal revenue is to reduce the gap between new and old players.

② Not tradable

If you count all the brush MMORPGs in the past, most of their outputs are allowed to be traded. This approach essentially allows civilian players to work for Big R. Those who have time will spend their time getting equipment, and those who have money will spend money to buy equipment, and the official will charge an agency fee.

"Warframe", which is similar to the "evil" reputation, is famous for its arrogance. The legend of the "Legend" paralysis ring is still circulating on the Internet. The rare equipment in this type of game serves to a certain extent as a tool to attract civilian players to continue to stay. However, the reason why these equipment are valuable is not because of how awesome their attributes are, but because the difficulty of obtaining them is unusually high. ..it is said that rare things are valuable.

So how do game officials use this type of high-rare equipment to gain profits? In the era of point cards or monthly cards, the benefits of motivating players to keep swiping are self-evident.

For free games, game parties generally do not sell game coins directly. There is often a price difference between players selling game coins and buying game coins, and the real profit of game parties comes from this.

Holy Relics The characteristics of low circulation make the cost you need to obtain the best Holy Relics and the rewards you get completely disproportionate - there are many people who are willing to buy an account for a character, but they are willing to buy a set of beautiful Holy Relics. And very few people invest heavily.

" Genshin Impact " has the work type of substitute liver, which proves that labor creation value is not inapplicable in games. However, the numerous restrictions on the transaction of holy relics make its price on the free market far out of proportion to the labor you pay (also known as transaction costs are too high).

This is the essential feature of the holy relic system in "Genshin Impact" that distinguishes it from other brush games.

③Slow development

In the early games, there was no physical system, and then a problem was discovered - this would cause the gap between Gan Emperor players and ordinary players to be too large. Such an environment will gradually give birth to the birth of professional studios. No matter how hard players try, they will never be able to beat the streamlined production line.

Nowadays, the stamina system of "Genshin Impact" basically stabilizes the player's online time at about fifteen minutes, no more, no less. More will make the player feel overburdened, and less may lead to player stickiness. This is the result of careful calculation by MiHoYo's planners.

would like to add that the current extreme attributes of the holy relics will cause serious damage to the current game environment. I just want to clear the Twelve Stars of the Abyss with all stars without spending money. The strength requirement of the holy relic may only be 70% or even 50% of the limit (referring to the number of entries). Therefore, once the strength of your holy relic exceeds the requirements of the 12th floor of the abyss, the benefits of completing a copy of the holy relic and the improvement of the game experience will be greatly reduced.

2. Functions of the "Holy Relic" system

① Basic functions

The most direct function of "Holy Relic" is to encourage players to continue playing.

If players don’t do enough damage in the big world, they will think of grinding equipment. After being equipped, it will be more convenient to explore the big world. The desire to explore the world will be stronger . After entering a new area, you will find that the existing equipment is gradually insufficient and you need to buy more equipment... Enter now A positive incentive cycle is created to guide players from the early stage of the game to the middle and late stages of the game.

② Filling the long grass period

Two-dimensional games generally have the characteristics of favoring single-player gameplay, which inevitably leads to a contradiction - that is, the contradiction between continuously operating games and highly consumable content .

Reusing the same content is quite difficult for stand-alone games. Of course, for buyout games, it is not necessary to forcefully extend the player's game time. But for games that continue to operate, the lack of content means that players have nothing to play, and they will gradually lose.

Therefore, in addition to "open world adventure", the main gameplay of "Genshin Impact" (also the most competitive content), MiHoYo also needs to design some relatively marginal gameplay to satisfy players who are "growing grass". period” needs. The gameplay of

is the "character development" of .

Most of the joy of development does not come from the development itself, but from the improvement of the character's status after development.

In the process of brushing the copy of the holy relic, the pleasure of "becoming stronger" always runs through this process.

In addition, the randomness of 's output of also makes the process of brushing copies less boring. I believe players will still feel a little happy when the top quality embryos are revealed.

③ Meet the needs of character chefs

In addition, if you pay attention to other popular two-dimensional games, you will find that most of their characters have a relatively clear development online.No matter whether the process is long or not, the path for players to reach the peak of a single character's combat power is relatively clear.

For example, "Arknights"'s Elite 2 Specialization 3 (module upgrade has recently been opened), "Honkai Impact 3"'s Stigma Weapon, etc.

But in "Genshin Impact", you can get almost unlimited equipment for your favorite characters. Even a novice character like Amber Lisa, whose damage is not outstanding, can burst out with surprising damage with the blessing of a strong enough holy relic.

"Genshin Impact" introduces new characters at a very fast pace. The Inazuma version launched nearly a year ago has as many as thirteen new characters.

However, players’ love for characters is limited, and it is impossible to have the same enthusiasm for every newly launched character.

If the upper limit of character development can be easily reached, and players lack interest in developing new characters, churn will still occur.

In games such as "Honkai Impact III" or "Double Pamish", characters can have many forms - Kiana, 's Bai Lian, Moonlight, and Flame Law, Lucia's Red Lotus, Dawn, Crowfeather.

Although the new armor has to be drawn again, the character is still the same. They have grown up in the story. They are new but familiar wives, and they naturally have no grudges when they are raised.

"Genshin Impact" is a game that sells "emotion" with characters as its core. However, its complex world view and numerous characters will make it difficult for some players who are interested in specific characters in the later stages of the game - this problem will become more and more serious in the future. .

Fortunately, MiHoYo does not intend to continue to increase the game's training requirements. The phenomenon of numerical expansion is not obvious in the short term. Players can make their favorite characters become the true gods of the Teyvat continent by continuing to go to jail.

④ Flexibly adjust the character strength

In the long run, there is a high probability that the characters in "Genshin Impact" will not have armor attachments (that is, similar to Kiana White's training to the Herrscher of Shining Fire). If the old characters are too weak, they will It opened a huge rift between players. Balance is not as critical, but it is necessary.

The tens of millions of player communities are comparable to a small country. Wherever there are people, there are rivers and lakes, and there are contradictions and conflicts. As time goes by and players' love for characters becomes fixed, there will be more and more problems between different character chefs, character parties and power parties. MiHoYo is slowly exploring whether

can slowly adjust during this process to bring the overall game atmosphere to a good state.

Holy relics can be used to adjust character strength in many ways (because directly modifying character values ​​is a taboo), such as the sea dye set for Xinhai and the cinnabar set for Mandrill.

⑤ Feed a large number of guide authors (#狗头)

3. Some explanations?

① Zero improvement in jail time, low explosion rate of high-quality holy relics.

If the income from clearing copies of holy relics remains stable in the later stages of the game, the gap between new and old players will widen to an exaggerated level. Under physical limitations, new players will have almost no chance of catching up with old players.

In addition, the increase in the overall player damage limit will further increase the difficulty of the game. We must understand that the overall difficulty of "Genshin Impact" Abyss is not inherent, but is planned based on various data. The increase in damage for all players means that MiHoYo has to increase the difficulty of the Abyss in order to reduce the clearance rate. In the end, everyone is back to the starting point.

② Physical limitations.

The physical limit is largely to cater for the needs of people who don’t have that much time to play games. Students who are on vacation may spend dozens of hours every day swiping holy relics. But for office workers, society is hard enough and they don’t want to stay in jail in games.