Casuals don't whale for constellations and 5-star weapons. Casuals don't log in daily to spend their resin so they can build up their character for Abyss. They need that hardcore audience to keep the game going. They're the ones who keep these new characters and items relevant.
And let's be real, the amount of people who care about a character's power level is huge. Most online discourse is about that. From videos to tier lists to build guides and even leaks. So even if not everyone is a fan of Abyss specifically, it has always played a vital role in benchmarking characters' performance.
MHY doesn't really seem to gain anything from minimizing that aspect of the game.
Yep, all fair points. I don't think we'll truly ever see the split of hardcore/casuals from MHY itself. There are plenty of people that play that I've met in co-op that don't even have artifacts equipped on their showcase characters. Or me that uses Gladiator/Wanderer's sets on everybody as a now 3+ year "temporary" basis. Not sure how many people are at that level vs. ones that farm artifact domains for 160~ resin per day, but I'd be interested in finding out. You're definitely right that both can (and probably need to) exist to keep the game healthy. For me this isn't a big deal but I understand that it could piss off players that like the Abyss.
I get your criticisms about stats and such, but I feel like that's a problem with the core game mechanics, rather than Abyss itself. This new mode doesn't really address that, because those mechanics still make up the vast majority of this game.
I also doubt this mode will be more skill-based. MHY is able to control way more parameters for this challenge than Abyss. If anything, it's a more controlled environment for them to shill characters in.
Yea, no doubt that they will tailor these even further to sell banner characters, I guess I'm just in a wait and see with how it goes. I wish they'd have gone the route of multiplayer raids instead of another solo endgame mode. Something like Destiny's Nightfall raids would be so fun in this game.
I don't do Abyss just to get Primos. I do it because I want to challenge hard content with new characters, teams and builds. I don't (have to) repeat them because I know there's a new one in two weeks. I assume that's how it is for most players who even attempt the Abyss.
I don't really feel like it's a challenge though. It's a stat check. It's about killing things in time to get all of the stars. You're not gonna die in Abyss. Most of the time you don't even have to pay attention to what the enemies are doing. If anything it's just about getting them grouped up so you can press buttons in order and win. If they made it so you could get 1 shot, or even did some MMO raid style simon says/don't stand in the red circle shit, it'd at least be a LITTLE bit of a skill check. Now it's just stats/team comp/rotations. HoYo is really bad at creating genuine challenge in all of their games that I've played.
I really wonder what would possess those devs to make these changes.
Probably gonna change constellations and sell them to us to make it fun again.
