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XionGaTaosenai said:

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Pity systems, exp boosts, and rate ups aren't what define a game as a gacha game - that would be like saying that Overlord isn't an isekai because its protagonist never gets hit by a truck. Any mechanic in a game where you spend a limited resource in order to obtain a randomized reward is a gacha mechanic. If engaging with a gacha mechanic is part of a game's core gameplay loop, with mechanically relevant (as opposed to purely cosmetic) rewards that cannot be obtained via non-randomized means, then that game is a gacha game.

Ship construction and event rewards in Kantai Collection are randomized, and as far as I know, there is no non-randomized way to obtain the vast majority of shipgirls. I know that the resources you use for construction and running events in KC can be obtained for free via grinding, which is definitely not the norm for a gacha game, but I had assumed that there was some way to obtain resources faster or run events more often by spending real money, encouraging players to pay up in order to "skip the grind" - after some quick research, it seems I might have been wrong about that. Still, it's undeniable that the core design of Kantai Collection revolves around enticing players to "roll" on ship construction and events as much as possible, with new batches of girls added to the game periodically in order to keep players hooked who might otherwise get everything they wanted and stop playing. Whether the goal is to tempt players into spending money or simply to monopolize as much of their time as possible via grinding, the backbone of KC's gameplay loop is still a textbook Skinner Box that uses "waifus" as bait in order to lure players into the box and keep them there. Saying that Kantai Collection is morally above any other gacha game that does the same thing is preposterous.

It's been years since I had dabbled with KC and while it has a gacha mechanic, I wouldn't really consider it a gacha game in operation. Monetization of the game primarily appears to be through inventory limiting (paying to keep more waifus) and marrying (character stat improvements). Yes you obtain ships and gear through a gacha system, but obtaining resources wasn't so difficult obtain and there was no limited time gacha to make you desperate to spend your resources to use the gacha. If anything the game was designed to really only use the gachas in between events, since players would need to horde resources in preparation for event maps. AL is a truer gacha than KC by having limited time gachas (though again still with a relatively easy to earn currencies) while also having the same inventory limiting and marrying aspects. Even then, they're both imo not a pure gacha since imo their monetization isn't directly through the gacha mechanic but through other routes. Skins, inventory expansions, marrying, etc.

When I think of a modern pure gacha I think most people imagine those where the gacha is predominantly restricted to currency mostly obtained through purchase where free to earn currency tends to be limited to do the gacha. Games like Genshin Impact are a good example, where there can be a lot of pressure to fork out money to roll for a new limited time character before you have to wait months to potentially have the chance to roll on again, and where even gear is predominantly obtained through gacha mechanics with the best gear locked behind the gacha.

XionGaTaosenai said:

Pity systems, exp boosts, and rate ups aren't what define a game as a gacha game - that would be like saying that Overlord isn't an isekai because its protagonist never gets hit by a truck.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't an Isekai the definition of "A character from reality/another universe end up being in another reality/universe" ? Doesn't need to be hit by a truck or die first before making the jump. Can SAO be considered an Isekai ?

Ship construction in Kantai Collection are randomized

Yes

and event rewards in Kantai Collection are randomized

No

and as far as I know, there is no non-randomized way to obtain the vast majority of shipgirls.

Yes and no. New introduced girls can be a random drop in an Event map, or a Map Reward. But if you're not playing said Event, then you have to wait until said girl can come back. Fortunately, for like 98% of the girls, missing one isn't the end of the world and you can perfectly clear an Event without mandatory ships, it will be more random because you have less odds in your favor.

I had assumed that there was some way to obtain resources faster or run events more often by spending real money

There is a way to do that, but boy oh boy even the Devs encourage you to NOT do that because it's absolutely not worth the money. Why spent 100 yens for 200 ressources when you can just setup 4 ships for 90 minutes in a single expedition, and play something else while waiting for them to come back ?

Saying that Kantai Collection is morally above any other gacha game that does the same thing is preposterous.

It doesn't bait you with shiny rewards or waifues girls, it all depends on the players' tastes at this point. Kancolle doesn't want your money, it want some form of engagement. How much engagement then more or less determine at which difficulty can you play Events, and guess what ? Even at the lowest difficulty, you will get the new girls anyway, but not the extra equipments that will reward the players that put more efforts and time into developping themselves enough so they can tackle harder difficulties in Events.

Myschi said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't an Isekai the definition of "A character from reality/another universe end up being in another reality/universe" ? Doesn't need to be hit by a truck or die first before making the jump. Can SAO be considered an Isekai ?

That's the exact point I was making. There are a lot of tropes like "Truck-Kun" and cheat abilities that have become common enough in modern isekai that they're basically cliche, and if you were asking a modern reader what tropes they associate with isekai those tropes would definitely be near the top of the list, but you don't have to have those tropes specifically in order to qualify as an isekai, and there are plenty of classic and foundational works in the genre (particularly older examples) that lack them. In the same vein, pity mechanics and rate ups are definitely dominant tropes associated with gacha games, but they aren't strictly required in order for a game to count as a gacha game - all you strictly need is a core gameplay loop that simulates the operation of a "virtual gachapon machine".

Kantai Collection lacks a lot of the features associated with modern gachas, but that's primarily a product of its age and the fact that it was made before developers learned all the tricks to most efficiently bait players into spending money - KC is the "prototype gacha" that walked so that the others could run, and its success is definitely what inspired the glut of gacha games that we see today. KC pioneered the whole idea of a gamified harem fantasy that all of these other gacha games are built around, and while a lot of more recent gacha games have gotten even worse in that regard, I still very much blame KC for starting the snowball rolling in the first place.

Also, as a Touhou fan who was around to see the initial rise of Kantai Collection, I see a KC fan complaining about whatever the newly popular gacha game is and all I can think is... "first time?"

XionGaTaosenai said:

That's the exact point I was making. There are a lot of tropes like "Truck-Kun" and cheat abilities that have become common enough in modern isekai that they're basically cliche, and if you were asking a modern reader what tropes they associate with isekai those tropes would definitely be near the top of the list, but you don't have to have those tropes specifically in order to qualify as an isekai, and there are plenty of classic and foundational works in the genre (particularly older examples) that lack them. In the same vein, pity mechanics and rate ups are definitely dominant tropes associated with gacha games, but they aren't strictly required in order for a game to count as a gacha game - all you strictly need is a core gameplay loop that simulates the operation of a "virtual gachapon machine".

Kantai Collection lacks a lot of the features associated with modern gachas, but that's primarily a product of its age and the fact that it was made before developers learned all the tricks to most efficiently bait players into spending money - KC is the "prototype gacha" that walked so that the others could run, and its success is definitely what inspired the glut of gacha games that we see today. KC pioneered the whole idea of a gamified harem fantasy that all of these other gacha games are built around, and while a lot of more recent gacha games have gotten even worse in that regard, I still very much blame KC for starting the snowball rolling in the first place.

Also, as a Touhou fan who was around to see the initial rise of Kantai Collection, I see a KC fan complaining about whatever the newly popular gacha game is and all I can think is... "first time?"

By that definition Pokemon is also a gacha game. And getting pregnant is also a gacha game.

People just see "browser game with a lot of characters and random mechanics", so immediately think it is a gacha game, forgetting that a core mechanic of such games is the monetization of the gacha mechanic itself which KC lacks any aim of it. The construction poll doesn't form part of the core of the game.

Also dont be an hypocrite blaming KC considering Touhou was one of the first ones coming up with an all female cast of cute moe-anthropomorphic youkai girls way before KC or shipgirls were a thing.

Admiral_Shippai said:

By that definition Pokemon is also a gacha game.

There is indeed a Pokemon gacha game. It's called Pokemon Masters EX.

Admiral_Shippai said:

Also dont be an hypocrite blaming KC considering Touhou was one of the first ones coming up with an all female cast of cute moe-anthropomorphic youkai girls way before KC or shipgirls were a thing.

What does this have to do with anything? Touhou wasn't a gacha, or even a collection game. Touhou didn't start anything, and certainly isn't the first to feature an all female cast. If someone was to be blamed for the "collectible waifu" genre, it would absolutely be KC, but I wouldn't even know if they were actually the first.

Horse kick?

Unbreakable said:

Horse kick?

No, I think she tried to run and forgot completely the wall in front of her in the process.

SlaughteredMelon said:

No, I think she tried to run and forgot completely the wall in front of her in the process.

That was my second guess, but it felt a bit too bland for a gag.

Unbreakable said:

That was my second guess, but it felt a bit too bland for a gag.

GolShi tried to abuse Rice's "blind"spot but ended up "blinded" by her own blinders and hence the wall crash.

+1 to Kaichou's pun list 'cause Shikaku(刺客) no Shikaku(死角) is the damned gag here.

How do you even translate this...

And today, both awesome babes are reunited in Granblue Fantasy Versus!

The house always wins

we're gonna need another zero soon.

what's the hammer for?

kett_er said:

what's the hammer for?

It's a callback when she liberated herself from her abusive dad.

Look kid, she might be older than dirt but Kong can attest to the fact that she still kicks ass at her age.

NegativeSoul said:

Look kid, she might be older than dirt but Kong can attest to the fact that she still kicks ass at her age.

funny thing about that she young by titans standard

Long hair and sleeves past wrists are a weakness of mine, this Momiji is great.

Kaede's Gyarufication beam 3: Gyaru-inator (cuteness overload)

Nice style!

At least shave the chocolate, human! Not like the ants can nibble bits off, right?

Ants cannot eat chocolate due to the high amount of cocoa powder and caffeine; this last ingredient is particularly toxic for their small digestive system, mainly because they simply cannot digest it properly like we, humans, can do. Is worth to remember we are used to eating highly processed food, thus meaning the chocolate bars you can buy, for example, on convenience stores is filled with a great variety of chemicals and ingredients in order of making the chocolate more delicious and pleasant to our taste; some stimulants like theobromine, phenylethylamine, and others are added to induce cravings in humans, but they are not suitable for insects, and yes, this includes ants.

For all those reasons, ants can potentially die by merely eating chocolate, and that explains why one of the ants is nervous and why the other is pushing the chocolate aside and is on the verge of tears.

SlaughteredMelon said:

Ants cannot eat chocolate due to the high amount of cocoa powder and caffeine; this last ingredient is particularly toxic for their small digestive system, mainly because they simply cannot digest it properly like we, humans, can do. Is worth to remember we are used to eating highly processed food, thus meaning the chocolate bars you can buy, for example, on convenience stores is filled with a great variety of chemicals and ingredients in order of making the chocolate more delicious and pleasant to our taste; some stimulants like theobromine, phenylethylamine, and others are added to induce cravings in humans, but they are not suitable for insects, and yes, this includes ants.

For all those reasons, ants can potentially die by merely eating chocolate, and that explains why one of the ants is nervous and why the other is pushing the chocolate aside and is on the verge of tears.

Interesting. Thanks.

Pity, though ( if one wants to give them a treat... )

Claverhouse said:

Interesting. Thanks.

Pity, though ( if one wants to give them a treat... )

I think in this particular comic we shouldn't think so much of them as real ants with the aversion to and intolerance for chocolate that real ants would have. After all, she looks interested in the chocolate to begin with, and the artist has been more than happy to show the ants enjoying human food in the past. Also, that doesn't really seem to fit the "punchline" of the comic. Rather, note the prominent reveal at the very end of the last panel: this chocolate is very pure, 96% cacao. There's a good reason for that reveal: chocolate that pure is bitter as hell.

Verxina's status in the fanbase before Gentildonna was introduced:
Cool doting onee-san.

Poor Verxina's status afterwards:
Useless rival.

NNescio said:

Verxina's status in the fanbase before Gentildonna was introduced:
Cool doting onee-san.

Poor Verxina's status afterwards:
Useless rival.

I guess this is what happens when one can compress an iron ball and the other is still stuck in the realm of a mere mortal... Not that that's gonna stop me from eventually pulling both of them when they drop

Jnglmpera said:

I guess this is what happens when one can compress an iron ball and the other is still stuck in the realm of a mere mortal... Not that that's gonna stop me from eventually pulling both of them when they drop

I wonder if after the Gorilla Legend Race comes out we'll get a surge of Verxina reversal artworks, otherwise it will be unfair indeed.

NNescio said:

Verxina's status in the fanbase before Gentildonna was introduced:
Cool doting onee-san.

Poor Verxina's status afterwards:
Useless rival.

The fanbase also discover that she is a heavy siscon before Gentil (iirc it was when Cheval was released together with Verxina's sc)

Saved before it gets deleted.

[deleted]

so this is the powaa of ue5

the dialogue was a bit cheesy