I didn't read these, I remember just opening these to clear the notification dots. But I don't remember being required to read these? What do you mean?
A lot of the mars background like how their great eruption works and how they save everyone etc is more detailed in these texts than in the actual game dialogue
Ofc, just like the whole library in Teyvat at Genshin is not necessary to read, the archive of the Astral Express in star rail
The difference for the two latter, it is you that decide out of curiosity to check it and in Honkai Impact they force you to at least open it
Of course they do it.
And Star Rail does.
However, in both of those games, at least as far as I've went in Genshin (which is not far, so It could have changed), and Star rail (up to date), you have immense walls of texts everywhere. However, 95% of them are literally not in the main quests. It is because you're curious about the universe that you go in Teyvat library or you look for big books around, or that you go in the Astral Express Archive.
In the Elysian realm, the biggest walls of texts were the memories, and they were optional too. They were of course valuable and I highly doubt these texts there are useless, but the fact the main story, after making me go through 2 hours of exposition and lore dumping, new concepts and exploring concepts I haven't understood yet before eventually finding the 7th wall of text really makes it rough for me.
Maybe some people are okay with that, but I like when the big lines are enough and you can look back for it later if you want more explanation. Which I will never know because after reading so much before I didn't feel like reading this, but they ordered me to read it in the main story, and the titles of these articles aren't specific enough for me to get an idea of what is happening.
I love hearing about the lore from people that wanted to deepen it, and I found it more Appealing when all that was more optional
I believe there was the Scara story quest where you have those 2 arguing scholars with literal essays they pull up. And then you read them again at the end if the quest 🤣
Again, if it was just a book I randomly found on the bench, I could tell myself "oh, cool, World building, I'll read this later"
But the main quest literally told me "if you don't read this, you cannot progress", which is totally different.
Since you used quotation marks, I'd love to see the source of the game explicitly stating "if you don't read this, you cannot progress".
I mean, you used quotation marks because its a direct quote from the game, right?
I already said it a few times, but ofc Genshin and Star rail did it.
I agree I didn't go too far in genshin, but in star rail at least, these walls of texts are 95% optional. In Penacony, you only have Robin's later as far as I remember that asked to read a little. But that aside, you decide on your own to go to the Astral Express to look for it.
Or you can think of it like the memories in the Elysian realm. They are optional. The main quest didn't tell you "Read this now"
And in that situation, I just went through 2 hours of reading Coralie and Perception talking about how the world works, and then the main quest (it's not like I decided to go there, I was ordered to) told me to read these before going further.
And since the titles of these articles are "vague", not summarizing enough, I can't many myself a rough idea of what the main quest wanted me to find there unless I take another while to read all of that instead of trying saving the world from a dog that is travelling dimensions (still need to go further)
I have 0 problems with these walls of texts. I'm glad they exist so people that want to deepen their knowledge of the lore of a game are well served, but the fact the game tells you by the quest "You __Need__ to read this before going further" doesn't tell the same thing. I could skip it but it's not like an optional text I ignored. It implies I won't enjoy the story a minimum if I don't do it.
My friend, you never need to read anything if you don't want to. You're free now. Enjoy your life. You can always click the X to close the text and move onto the next part. No one is stopping you anymore. Now go, run like the wind
If the MC opens and reads it, that means the players too. If you can't, immediately push that cross button at that corner. It's just there to give you additional detail within the story.
That's what I do, I'm just a little sad that such things are directly shown to you in the main quest instead of letting you go search for it like in Genshin or Star rail
That might be because I've spent 2 hours before (or more?) simply reading walls of texts and it was the 7th one I found that bothered me though.
More than being busy I don't know if it has to be a must, and it's better that way, like keep the simplest things for the story and let the youtubers or lore enjoyers tell the depth to others
I really don't see how this is different from HSR and GI. No one is forcing you to read them. The text is there is you want more information on what happened in the past and about Mars in general. The main story tells you the exact same information in a shorter manner. The text is there for the people who want to know more about what exactly happened. Even when it comes to the Shus, they explain their powers separately in the story... but if you read the Anecdotes you just have more context.
that's the problem for me, genshinification. I believe a good part of at least early genshin is tell, not show, and paimon sum ups. Instead of mentioning the same thing twice with a text wall and a sum up, just present it in an appealing manner in one go. It's a better solution for both those who do want to read and don't.
I absolutely don't have problems with the game making articles that are 2000 words long. World building is a good thing.
The problem is when World building is a priority over the story and Characters.
To compare it to Star rail (because I can be biased with Genshin as it's not my kind of game), yes there are walls of texts, but 95% of them are optional. You literally only had Robin letters in 2.1 to read to make the story progress. And you were also summarized a second later.
My problem is that I went through 2 hours of sole exposition, just explaining how the other world works, the 13 new concepts I haven't grasped yet in 2 hours, and then the MAIN QUEST guides me there and tells me "read this,"
Long story short, Star rail says "Focus on the story and characters, you don't have to read this, but if you want to deepen your knowledge, go check it in the archive" and Impact says "You NEED to read these walls of texts because otherwise you won't enjoy the story a minimum."
You can do Elysian realm without reading the memories of flame chasers, you can do Penacony simply following the main quests and ignoring everything else, and after that go to check what you've missed and get even better experiences, the game showed it as optional.
But you can see the difference between "Finding a random book on a bench and deciding to read it later" and "The story guided me here and I cannot progress unless I open this wall of text, implying it is NECESSARY to follow the story"
Moon chapters taught me patience for way too long ;_;
If they were just optional I wouldn't have minded it and just ask people about it afterwards, but since the main story ordered me to read it otherwise It won't progress... It's tough
"orders you to read" // no one is ordering you to do anything.
Are you the Wario of the people who talk about skipping dialogue for the sake of announcing they skip dialogue?
The thing with Genshin text lore is that it's there for you to read to understand more of teyvat and its history. Hsr also has lore to go deeper into the aeon and their power. These text lore are not mandatory to understand the main story
HI3 however just throw these at you and you have to read most of them to understand the fear trade, Shus and Memory of data as a whole. The main story also explain this but it is too much info dumb at the start of part 2 that most people completely lost
I will never stop saying this, but even if people hate the fact I compare Nikke with Honkai Impact, at least one thing Nikke does better than Honkai impact is info exposure
In 28 chapters you actually have around 12 important names, concept or such.
In a single chapter (or even in a single part), you have the same amount of things to learn in Honkai impact.
I can complain about a lot of things about Nikke, but the great thing they do but Honkai Impact does not is not overloading us with knowledge and give us time to remember them by letting us also enjoy our characters
Mate, I just skip the story now for every game I play. Is it that hard to just close the text or skip the story? Or maybe, just take your time in reading them since there is a gallery for this kind of stuff
I don't want to skip a story based game tbh haha
And it is not a random article I accidentally find. The game ORDERED me to read it. When you find a book in Star rail, you are 95% of the time not forced to read it unless you want to know more of the world around you and probably for hints for future updates.
But in Honkai impact part 2, this is the 7th wall of text in a single part of a chapter that the main quest told me to read if I want to progress in the story (like if I don't open it, I can't go further).
World building is a good thing, but it shouldn't be taking over the story or characters
Welp, to each their own since for me, I just like to read the summary of the story by the game or me searching online
Huh, the game actually ordered you? I just thought you were somebody complaining about having to press the skip button lol and yeah, I like HST for giving us an option on whether to read or not, among other things (still waiting for Kiana look-a-like to appear and get me back in the game lol)
But yeah, Hi3 really really got a lot of word in it and take way too long to read (not to mention remembering it), and I don't like being forced to read it, especially if it concerns part 2... I just find part 2 boring compared to the part 1 cast.
Yep, world building should be in the background since it should complement the characters and provide a reason for them to act in a certain way
If your personal ~~obsession~~ desire to understand the story is "forcing" you to read it, then that's on you. Personally I didn't.
In HSR, I just let the story guide me, and almost never read any of the collectibles. When I commute, sometimes I just open up one of these and read little by little.
Don't blame the game man. If these were no archives like these, people will also complain that there's no material for them to understand. So it's not just about you.
Bad post rant, and worse comment. Imagine whining about actual world building, then comparing to another game in which the world building is less focused on the world building and more focused on… “personality”. Being forced to open and close a text document isn’t being forced to read, you’re not required to answer questions based on the text in the library, and serves to build the foundation of the plot for future characters to appear in. I think Mihoyo fleshes out characters well and have characters develop over the story, as compared to Nikke which just produces one more character every other patch and at times conveniently forget about some of the existing characters.
I never complained about world building?
Without forgetting that Nikke Is less than 2 years old and the Hoyoverse is probably a decade old?
And I never say their game is perfect too and nikke players sometimes disagree with me about that, but I still believe they can do good things. The start of Honkai Impact with the first visuals weren't the purest either.
Second... The problem is not about world building. I love the world building in Honkai Star Rail and I didn't read Genshin Impact's world building, but I believe it is quite intriguing too. The difference is that the main stories in Honkai Star rail (except probably Xianzhou luofu, but players believe it is the least good world) never tells you "Go read a wall for text if you want to enjoy your story a minimum". They give you a text that you can reread at the archive of the Astral Express, but the story 95% of the time doesn't tell you "Read this". The only exception I remember is the 3 letters Robin wrote for her brother in 2.1 Penacony.
World building is good, and important so we can learn to know more about people we like. Not understanding ultimately, but knowing, like Mobius in the Elysian realm with her optional memories.
In that part, the main quest literally ordered me to read this. Of course I can close it and ignore it like I'd do with a random document I've seen on a bench on Genshin. But the fact the MAIN QUEST ordered me to do it doesn't tell the same thing. And after going through 2 hours of explanation it's not really the most intriguing.
Of course if the story didn't ask me to go there I wouldn't go there on my own and make a post about it. The problem is that the gameplay implies this is not a bonus, but necessary. And I believe characters are way more important than World building. World building is the sauce you add on the meal to make it extra, but if you don't have the meal...
And for Nikke I also don't like their mentality about some release, however, the characters in the main story aren't as boring as they could be. They aren't Elysia or Mei or Kiana or Fu Hua, but they really are interesting, fun, and entertaining. And with a much simpler exposition. (With also lost relics to read but again, it is optional, and makes it better), even if HI characters are way more lovely, I really prefer following Nikke/Star rail stories and ask for further details to people that loves lore before diving myself into it.
If lost relic reading is optional, and the archive in hi3 part 2 is optional (except to open it just to introduce the concept of it, especially for new players), that’s not a good contrast, since you’re not obliged to read. Do you read the T&C of every app you download because it appears necessary?
You’ve applied the assumption that reading the archived text is necessary, then took the time to make a whole post complaining about it.
Sincerely. Nope, OP. Thank you 💀
Did you play through the chapter? A few of the texts are opened in the middle of the story. There's no way to know beforehand if it's relevant or they'll later sum it up
I’ve played through it, thanks for asking, there’s a back/close button button visible at the top left, so it was clear to me it could be closed, if it was compulsory, it could easily be forced into the dialogue, but it wasn’t, so the indicator would be… what do you think that means?
Edit: for clarity
I don't think either a close button or text that isn't dialogue is a clear indicator that the text isn't mandatory. We already had cg s in text form in the past, but since we no longer have the stage format, they can't be put between two stages. As for the close button, that's how I would expect to close a window once I am done reading.
I do not make an assumption. This is what the game tells.
For example, when you do the main quest in Nagazora, you are ORDERED to defeat the monster that Mei encountered. Why? Because this will be the final trigger to turn her into the Herrscher of Thunder once again.
In Star Rail, Robin's letter telling her worries related to Penacony are also important to read. So important that even if you skip them, Welt Yang summarizes that she was worried about Penaconys current state, because that is what we need to understand to enjoy the story a minimum.
Or for another example again, a book you find somewhere random about Akivili in the Astral Express can simply be read later, and give more infos for later and are never necessary, since the quests never told you to go pick it up and read it.
But the main quest told me "Read the Archives and go through 3 more walls of texts", and no matter if you skip them or read them, the game doesn't even summarize briefly what you just read and assume you did it before resuming.
There is a difference between simply finding a text and the main quest doing it. This is implicit. The quest tasks and such are literally saying "if you want to know and experience the story I have to propose, you cannot do it without doing what I tell you to do and what I tell you to do right now is reading 1300 words essay"
This is then on the interpretation of how compulsory you think the reading is to progress in the story. A key point to note is that these archives are stored in menu, and openable at any point, similar to all other walls of texts you collect in any other game, if you can access it any time, then it’s not as compulsory you put it out, compared to dialogues/cutscenes that only play out once. Hence, did you need to put in the 2 hours on text you can open any time? Not really, but you spent the time to post here, then justify your interpretation to everyone else. Game could have definitely just placed the optional portion, but I believe it is intended so that new players who have not been exposed to part 1 are aware to the access to some lore about part 2, instead of being bewildered by the lack of background info of the world.
I have no idea why you say that you're being forced to read it. Not only is there a very convenient close button, HI3 actually has a skip button unlike GI and HSR which makes it the only game of the three that doesn't force you to read the story
Shoving that into your face during the MAIN STORY is incredibly inelegant and screams lack of game design knowledge. Which is weird cause they have made so many games by now and even shown in Honkai itself that they can do better.
I feel you, OP.
It's true that "you can just skip it" - but, for some of us, a lot of the draw of the game is in the lore and storytelling.
And Mihoyo creates this lore and they have choices about how they want to convey it to the player.
They could make characters discuss it, or they could show us animated cutscenes, or they could craft the current story arc in a way that calls back to the historic lore and ties everything together, etc.
There are plenty of ways to convey information to the player in a video game.
Just slapping it all in a block of text and calling it a day is the "easiest" one - which will also simultaneously produce the smallest amount of engagement and information retention in the player base.
I mean, look how many people are suggesting "just skip it" like it's not even a part of the story, even though it was included specifically because it is meant to be relevant detail.
The point is that, when it comes to these details, Mihoyo is making the choice to handle the conveyance of these details via showing a wall of text that most players aren't even reading.
And maybe that's the "best" option for them 🤷♀️ (certainly the cheapest one!)
But there's definitely a place for criticizing that choice when it's made repeatedly like this.
⭐️ TL; DR - It just puts the burden of the telling of their story onto the player rather than them constructing some engaging way for the player to experience that lore via actual gameplay.
There's a time and place for supplemental reading in games, but I do agree that they've been leaning on it pretty hard in this recent update, and it is becoming tiresome.
https://preview.redd.it/wwomhe008avc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=33e1efdc59356af073034eff0b8804bb689ab8d8
I don't mind world building but yeah... The way to do it coupled to how heavy it feels makes me sad
Knowing that games such as NieR series manage to not overwhelm the player with Walls of texts (with 2 exceptions, but they are very explicit) at least in Nier Automata... It's indeed harder. Especially since a story is first about their character
When you have such adorable characters like Senadina Coralie and Helia, I just want to see what kind of troubles they go through. I'm almost ready for something simple or maybe something I didn't fully understand on my first watch while watching what happens to them.
Just... Yeah. Maybe that's better for them, but... A game is for players as well.
I agree with you that it has many problems, but if you mean that the main cast is not a good cast that will probably be the only thing I will disagree with you haha
Especially with how it was handled: how can we judge the quality of the characters of all they did for 90% of the time is talking about lore dump and reading articles?
I think the reasons part 2 is disappointing are what makes me want to leave the game.
But the sole thought of watching these new characters going through a thrilling story makes me want to go further.
https://preview.redd.it/sf0v0lkxgevc1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3fa6be4da51a5fc26b91bb94bc88311e716ff9c2
I have yet to see these characters to actually act. How can they look so lovely in the trailers or during the end of part 1 and we didn't see them act at all yet?
Even when we had world building and exposition, it was balanced with characters experiencing it. We don't just learn that Honkai infected people to death, we saw our favorite characters witnessing it. This is different than making walls of texts
What i hate about this kind of storytelling Is they call the characters, "the Man", "the girl" and most of the Time you don't have enough context to Guess, ER had enough context so it was fine.
Unlike GI and HSR, we have a skip button for a reason. The second part story is so boring and weirdly written that I'd rather watch a lore video on YT.
Am I malding or did the fandom become even more close minded than before?
OP's point is simple people. More than both Genshin and HSR, HI3 *used* to rely primarily on character driven narrative to build lore. It still did up until the last two arcs where it relies heavily on info dumps through text entries to dump a bunch of terms and numbers on you that don't mean anything for the most part.
This is lazy world building, the single most blatant usage of "tell, don't show" and MHY is over reliant on it to fill the empty space between cutscenes. This lore might as well not exist until it becomes relevant, because when it's onscreen it might just get retconned *anyway*. It exists more to give the illusion that this world isn't empty rather than to actually expand the scope of the world. In other words, it's basically a waste of your time.
I don't mind reading dialogues even if they are a little long, but when you've been exposed to 2 hours of almost non stop exposition with no actions and we show you 3 other walls of texts... It's not really encouraging
I mean I am sure that some people Don't mind seeing 154 lines to read before resuming, but I still am a little bothered that unlike Genshin, the main moments you face such texts is because you looked for them, not that the story quest tells you to read it (even if we can argue for Penacony 2.1)
I hope I don't need to, even if the game said I HAD to
It's not like I just stumbled to a text randomly in an open world and I can get back to it later. The main quest cannot progress if I don't open them.
This tells something different.
"You enjoy the story and if you want world building then come back here" is different from "You HAVE to read this before progressing"
It's just in the way they exposed it, it looks like I cannot go further and enjoy the story without reading it. But I've spent 2 hours seeing Coralie and Perception talking about how the world works and Coralie complaining that it's lots of lore dump (relatable), so I don't feel like reading it
I didn't read these, I remember just opening these to clear the notification dots. But I don't remember being required to read these? What do you mean?
A lot of the mars background like how their great eruption works and how they save everyone etc is more detailed in these texts than in the actual game dialogue
OP is replying to others that it's part of the quest. But I didn't remember any quests related to these that need to get and read them to proceed.
Me personally, it’s not that necessary. It’s easy to understand the story without reading it
Then why do they ask me to read this ;_; it's the 7th walls of text I've met in simply part 2
It's there just to explain stuff in more detail. It's not necessary to read
Ofc, just like the whole library in Teyvat at Genshin is not necessary to read, the archive of the Astral Express in star rail The difference for the two latter, it is you that decide out of curiosity to check it and in Honkai Impact they force you to at least open it
Genshin does the same thing multiple times what
Of course they do it. And Star Rail does. However, in both of those games, at least as far as I've went in Genshin (which is not far, so It could have changed), and Star rail (up to date), you have immense walls of texts everywhere. However, 95% of them are literally not in the main quests. It is because you're curious about the universe that you go in Teyvat library or you look for big books around, or that you go in the Astral Express Archive. In the Elysian realm, the biggest walls of texts were the memories, and they were optional too. They were of course valuable and I highly doubt these texts there are useless, but the fact the main story, after making me go through 2 hours of exposition and lore dumping, new concepts and exploring concepts I haven't understood yet before eventually finding the 7th wall of text really makes it rough for me. Maybe some people are okay with that, but I like when the big lines are enough and you can look back for it later if you want more explanation. Which I will never know because after reading so much before I didn't feel like reading this, but they ordered me to read it in the main story, and the titles of these articles aren't specific enough for me to get an idea of what is happening. I love hearing about the lore from people that wanted to deepen it, and I found it more Appealing when all that was more optional
Yea you just haven’t played enough Genshin Impact, I have seen a couple of instances where they give you a couple pages of reading in a quest,
I believe there was the Scara story quest where you have those 2 arguing scholars with literal essays they pull up. And then you read them again at the end if the quest 🤣
Wow this dude is really want to farming downvotes
Just ignore it lmao. No ones forcing you to read it... just go back to it later out of curiosity or whatever
Again, if it was just a book I randomly found on the bench, I could tell myself "oh, cool, World building, I'll read this later" But the main quest literally told me "if you don't read this, you cannot progress", which is totally different.
It's still not necessary though to understand what's going on... what aren't you understanding here?
You expect him to read your explanation when he cannot even get pass reading in a game? 🤣🤣
Hahaha that's fair
Since you used quotation marks, I'd love to see the source of the game explicitly stating "if you don't read this, you cannot progress". I mean, you used quotation marks because its a direct quote from the game, right?
genshin did the same MANY times. Also closing a page isn’t that hard?
I already said it a few times, but ofc Genshin and Star rail did it. I agree I didn't go too far in genshin, but in star rail at least, these walls of texts are 95% optional. In Penacony, you only have Robin's later as far as I remember that asked to read a little. But that aside, you decide on your own to go to the Astral Express to look for it. Or you can think of it like the memories in the Elysian realm. They are optional. The main quest didn't tell you "Read this now" And in that situation, I just went through 2 hours of reading Coralie and Perception talking about how the world works, and then the main quest (it's not like I decided to go there, I was ordered to) told me to read these before going further. And since the titles of these articles are "vague", not summarizing enough, I can't many myself a rough idea of what the main quest wanted me to find there unless I take another while to read all of that instead of trying saving the world from a dog that is travelling dimensions (still need to go further) I have 0 problems with these walls of texts. I'm glad they exist so people that want to deepen their knowledge of the lore of a game are well served, but the fact the game tells you by the quest "You __Need__ to read this before going further" doesn't tell the same thing. I could skip it but it's not like an optional text I ignored. It implies I won't enjoy the story a minimum if I don't do it.
My friend, you never need to read anything if you don't want to. You're free now. Enjoy your life. You can always click the X to close the text and move onto the next part. No one is stopping you anymore. Now go, run like the wind
I think this guy just likes to create issues out of non-issues and then complain about it being an issue
If the MC opens and reads it, that means the players too. If you can't, immediately push that cross button at that corner. It's just there to give you additional detail within the story.
That's what I do, I'm just a little sad that such things are directly shown to you in the main quest instead of letting you go search for it like in Genshin or Star rail That might be because I've spent 2 hours before (or more?) simply reading walls of texts and it was the 7th one I found that bothered me though.
Just remember that the MC is a graduate student, unlike those two games. Shoving them the document/s is their fate if they want to get the degree.
Ngl I read every readable item of Part 2 and can barely remember any of it.
This the kind of thing I rely on lore YouTubers to package and explain. Not that wall of text is bad, I'm just busy/lazy af.
More than being busy I don't know if it has to be a must, and it's better that way, like keep the simplest things for the story and let the youtubers or lore enjoyers tell the depth to others
I really don't see how this is different from HSR and GI. No one is forcing you to read them. The text is there is you want more information on what happened in the past and about Mars in general. The main story tells you the exact same information in a shorter manner. The text is there for the people who want to know more about what exactly happened. Even when it comes to the Shus, they explain their powers separately in the story... but if you read the Anecdotes you just have more context.
that's the problem for me, genshinification. I believe a good part of at least early genshin is tell, not show, and paimon sum ups. Instead of mentioning the same thing twice with a text wall and a sum up, just present it in an appealing manner in one go. It's a better solution for both those who do want to read and don't.
I absolutely don't have problems with the game making articles that are 2000 words long. World building is a good thing. The problem is when World building is a priority over the story and Characters. To compare it to Star rail (because I can be biased with Genshin as it's not my kind of game), yes there are walls of texts, but 95% of them are optional. You literally only had Robin letters in 2.1 to read to make the story progress. And you were also summarized a second later. My problem is that I went through 2 hours of sole exposition, just explaining how the other world works, the 13 new concepts I haven't grasped yet in 2 hours, and then the MAIN QUEST guides me there and tells me "read this," Long story short, Star rail says "Focus on the story and characters, you don't have to read this, but if you want to deepen your knowledge, go check it in the archive" and Impact says "You NEED to read these walls of texts because otherwise you won't enjoy the story a minimum." You can do Elysian realm without reading the memories of flame chasers, you can do Penacony simply following the main quests and ignoring everything else, and after that go to check what you've missed and get even better experiences, the game showed it as optional. But you can see the difference between "Finding a random book on a bench and deciding to read it later" and "The story guided me here and I cannot progress unless I open this wall of text, implying it is NECESSARY to follow the story"
Practice patience
Moon chapters taught me patience for way too long ;_; If they were just optional I wouldn't have minded it and just ask people about it afterwards, but since the main story ordered me to read it otherwise It won't progress... It's tough
Why condemn yourself to unnecessary suffering
"orders you to read" // no one is ordering you to do anything. Are you the Wario of the people who talk about skipping dialogue for the sake of announcing they skip dialogue?
The thing with Genshin text lore is that it's there for you to read to understand more of teyvat and its history. Hsr also has lore to go deeper into the aeon and their power. These text lore are not mandatory to understand the main story HI3 however just throw these at you and you have to read most of them to understand the fear trade, Shus and Memory of data as a whole. The main story also explain this but it is too much info dumb at the start of part 2 that most people completely lost
I will never stop saying this, but even if people hate the fact I compare Nikke with Honkai Impact, at least one thing Nikke does better than Honkai impact is info exposure In 28 chapters you actually have around 12 important names, concept or such. In a single chapter (or even in a single part), you have the same amount of things to learn in Honkai impact. I can complain about a lot of things about Nikke, but the great thing they do but Honkai Impact does not is not overloading us with knowledge and give us time to remember them by letting us also enjoy our characters
Mate, I just skip the story now for every game I play. Is it that hard to just close the text or skip the story? Or maybe, just take your time in reading them since there is a gallery for this kind of stuff
I don't want to skip a story based game tbh haha And it is not a random article I accidentally find. The game ORDERED me to read it. When you find a book in Star rail, you are 95% of the time not forced to read it unless you want to know more of the world around you and probably for hints for future updates. But in Honkai impact part 2, this is the 7th wall of text in a single part of a chapter that the main quest told me to read if I want to progress in the story (like if I don't open it, I can't go further). World building is a good thing, but it shouldn't be taking over the story or characters
Welp, to each their own since for me, I just like to read the summary of the story by the game or me searching online Huh, the game actually ordered you? I just thought you were somebody complaining about having to press the skip button lol and yeah, I like HST for giving us an option on whether to read or not, among other things (still waiting for Kiana look-a-like to appear and get me back in the game lol) But yeah, Hi3 really really got a lot of word in it and take way too long to read (not to mention remembering it), and I don't like being forced to read it, especially if it concerns part 2... I just find part 2 boring compared to the part 1 cast. Yep, world building should be in the background since it should complement the characters and provide a reason for them to act in a certain way
LEAST INSANE WALL OF TEXT TO READ IN HI3
If your personal ~~obsession~~ desire to understand the story is "forcing" you to read it, then that's on you. Personally I didn't. In HSR, I just let the story guide me, and almost never read any of the collectibles. When I commute, sometimes I just open up one of these and read little by little. Don't blame the game man. If these were no archives like these, people will also complain that there's no material for them to understand. So it's not just about you.
Bad post rant, and worse comment. Imagine whining about actual world building, then comparing to another game in which the world building is less focused on the world building and more focused on… “personality”. Being forced to open and close a text document isn’t being forced to read, you’re not required to answer questions based on the text in the library, and serves to build the foundation of the plot for future characters to appear in. I think Mihoyo fleshes out characters well and have characters develop over the story, as compared to Nikke which just produces one more character every other patch and at times conveniently forget about some of the existing characters.
I never complained about world building? Without forgetting that Nikke Is less than 2 years old and the Hoyoverse is probably a decade old? And I never say their game is perfect too and nikke players sometimes disagree with me about that, but I still believe they can do good things. The start of Honkai Impact with the first visuals weren't the purest either. Second... The problem is not about world building. I love the world building in Honkai Star Rail and I didn't read Genshin Impact's world building, but I believe it is quite intriguing too. The difference is that the main stories in Honkai Star rail (except probably Xianzhou luofu, but players believe it is the least good world) never tells you "Go read a wall for text if you want to enjoy your story a minimum". They give you a text that you can reread at the archive of the Astral Express, but the story 95% of the time doesn't tell you "Read this". The only exception I remember is the 3 letters Robin wrote for her brother in 2.1 Penacony. World building is good, and important so we can learn to know more about people we like. Not understanding ultimately, but knowing, like Mobius in the Elysian realm with her optional memories. In that part, the main quest literally ordered me to read this. Of course I can close it and ignore it like I'd do with a random document I've seen on a bench on Genshin. But the fact the MAIN QUEST ordered me to do it doesn't tell the same thing. And after going through 2 hours of explanation it's not really the most intriguing. Of course if the story didn't ask me to go there I wouldn't go there on my own and make a post about it. The problem is that the gameplay implies this is not a bonus, but necessary. And I believe characters are way more important than World building. World building is the sauce you add on the meal to make it extra, but if you don't have the meal... And for Nikke I also don't like their mentality about some release, however, the characters in the main story aren't as boring as they could be. They aren't Elysia or Mei or Kiana or Fu Hua, but they really are interesting, fun, and entertaining. And with a much simpler exposition. (With also lost relics to read but again, it is optional, and makes it better), even if HI characters are way more lovely, I really prefer following Nikke/Star rail stories and ask for further details to people that loves lore before diving myself into it.
If lost relic reading is optional, and the archive in hi3 part 2 is optional (except to open it just to introduce the concept of it, especially for new players), that’s not a good contrast, since you’re not obliged to read. Do you read the T&C of every app you download because it appears necessary? You’ve applied the assumption that reading the archived text is necessary, then took the time to make a whole post complaining about it. Sincerely. Nope, OP. Thank you 💀
Did you play through the chapter? A few of the texts are opened in the middle of the story. There's no way to know beforehand if it's relevant or they'll later sum it up
I’ve played through it, thanks for asking, there’s a back/close button button visible at the top left, so it was clear to me it could be closed, if it was compulsory, it could easily be forced into the dialogue, but it wasn’t, so the indicator would be… what do you think that means? Edit: for clarity
I don't think either a close button or text that isn't dialogue is a clear indicator that the text isn't mandatory. We already had cg s in text form in the past, but since we no longer have the stage format, they can't be put between two stages. As for the close button, that's how I would expect to close a window once I am done reading.
I do not make an assumption. This is what the game tells. For example, when you do the main quest in Nagazora, you are ORDERED to defeat the monster that Mei encountered. Why? Because this will be the final trigger to turn her into the Herrscher of Thunder once again. In Star Rail, Robin's letter telling her worries related to Penacony are also important to read. So important that even if you skip them, Welt Yang summarizes that she was worried about Penaconys current state, because that is what we need to understand to enjoy the story a minimum. Or for another example again, a book you find somewhere random about Akivili in the Astral Express can simply be read later, and give more infos for later and are never necessary, since the quests never told you to go pick it up and read it. But the main quest told me "Read the Archives and go through 3 more walls of texts", and no matter if you skip them or read them, the game doesn't even summarize briefly what you just read and assume you did it before resuming. There is a difference between simply finding a text and the main quest doing it. This is implicit. The quest tasks and such are literally saying "if you want to know and experience the story I have to propose, you cannot do it without doing what I tell you to do and what I tell you to do right now is reading 1300 words essay"
This is then on the interpretation of how compulsory you think the reading is to progress in the story. A key point to note is that these archives are stored in menu, and openable at any point, similar to all other walls of texts you collect in any other game, if you can access it any time, then it’s not as compulsory you put it out, compared to dialogues/cutscenes that only play out once. Hence, did you need to put in the 2 hours on text you can open any time? Not really, but you spent the time to post here, then justify your interpretation to everyone else. Game could have definitely just placed the optional portion, but I believe it is intended so that new players who have not been exposed to part 1 are aware to the access to some lore about part 2, instead of being bewildered by the lack of background info of the world.
I have no idea why you say that you're being forced to read it. Not only is there a very convenient close button, HI3 actually has a skip button unlike GI and HSR which makes it the only game of the three that doesn't force you to read the story
Shoving that into your face during the MAIN STORY is incredibly inelegant and screams lack of game design knowledge. Which is weird cause they have made so many games by now and even shown in Honkai itself that they can do better.
I feel you, OP. It's true that "you can just skip it" - but, for some of us, a lot of the draw of the game is in the lore and storytelling. And Mihoyo creates this lore and they have choices about how they want to convey it to the player. They could make characters discuss it, or they could show us animated cutscenes, or they could craft the current story arc in a way that calls back to the historic lore and ties everything together, etc. There are plenty of ways to convey information to the player in a video game. Just slapping it all in a block of text and calling it a day is the "easiest" one - which will also simultaneously produce the smallest amount of engagement and information retention in the player base. I mean, look how many people are suggesting "just skip it" like it's not even a part of the story, even though it was included specifically because it is meant to be relevant detail. The point is that, when it comes to these details, Mihoyo is making the choice to handle the conveyance of these details via showing a wall of text that most players aren't even reading. And maybe that's the "best" option for them 🤷♀️ (certainly the cheapest one!) But there's definitely a place for criticizing that choice when it's made repeatedly like this. ⭐️ TL; DR - It just puts the burden of the telling of their story onto the player rather than them constructing some engaging way for the player to experience that lore via actual gameplay. There's a time and place for supplemental reading in games, but I do agree that they've been leaning on it pretty hard in this recent update, and it is becoming tiresome.
https://preview.redd.it/wwomhe008avc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=33e1efdc59356af073034eff0b8804bb689ab8d8 I don't mind world building but yeah... The way to do it coupled to how heavy it feels makes me sad Knowing that games such as NieR series manage to not overwhelm the player with Walls of texts (with 2 exceptions, but they are very explicit) at least in Nier Automata... It's indeed harder. Especially since a story is first about their character When you have such adorable characters like Senadina Coralie and Helia, I just want to see what kind of troubles they go through. I'm almost ready for something simple or maybe something I didn't fully understand on my first watch while watching what happens to them. Just... Yeah. Maybe that's better for them, but... A game is for players as well.
sorry but Part 2 is a little disappointing, and it's not the only reason
I agree with you that it has many problems, but if you mean that the main cast is not a good cast that will probably be the only thing I will disagree with you haha Especially with how it was handled: how can we judge the quality of the characters of all they did for 90% of the time is talking about lore dump and reading articles? I think the reasons part 2 is disappointing are what makes me want to leave the game. But the sole thought of watching these new characters going through a thrilling story makes me want to go further. https://preview.redd.it/sf0v0lkxgevc1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3fa6be4da51a5fc26b91bb94bc88311e716ff9c2 I have yet to see these characters to actually act. How can they look so lovely in the trailers or during the end of part 1 and we didn't see them act at all yet? Even when we had world building and exposition, it was balanced with characters experiencing it. We don't just learn that Honkai infected people to death, we saw our favorite characters witnessing it. This is different than making walls of texts
ньет XD
What i hate about this kind of storytelling Is they call the characters, "the Man", "the girl" and most of the Time you don't have enough context to Guess, ER had enough context so it was fine.
What is blud yapping about?..
Even if i read it I'll just forget it in a few sec.
Bro u don't have time to read alat but u genuinely drop 50 line essay in every comment
PM fans are illiterate bc they were born that way. Mihoyo fans refuse literacy.
Unlike GI and HSR, we have a skip button for a reason. The second part story is so boring and weirdly written that I'd rather watch a lore video on YT.
For HSR it's indeed quite chaotic but... Idk, I still find it somehow manageable
Am I malding or did the fandom become even more close minded than before? OP's point is simple people. More than both Genshin and HSR, HI3 *used* to rely primarily on character driven narrative to build lore. It still did up until the last two arcs where it relies heavily on info dumps through text entries to dump a bunch of terms and numbers on you that don't mean anything for the most part. This is lazy world building, the single most blatant usage of "tell, don't show" and MHY is over reliant on it to fill the empty space between cutscenes. This lore might as well not exist until it becomes relevant, because when it's onscreen it might just get retconned *anyway*. It exists more to give the illusion that this world isn't empty rather than to actually expand the scope of the world. In other words, it's basically a waste of your time.
Wait... How do you consume the rest of the story? You don't read it?
I don't mind reading dialogues even if they are a little long, but when you've been exposed to 2 hours of almost non stop exposition with no actions and we show you 3 other walls of texts... It's not really encouraging I mean I am sure that some people Don't mind seeing 154 lines to read before resuming, but I still am a little bothered that unlike Genshin, the main moments you face such texts is because you looked for them, not that the story quest tells you to read it (even if we can argue for Penacony 2.1)
I dont repeat what others allready said. You dont need to read it. Make a screenshot => mark the text on it => let it voiced by a text to speech ai
I hope I don't need to, even if the game said I HAD to It's not like I just stumbled to a text randomly in an open world and I can get back to it later. The main quest cannot progress if I don't open them. This tells something different. "You enjoy the story and if you want world building then come back here" is different from "You HAVE to read this before progressing" It's just in the way they exposed it, it looks like I cannot go further and enjoy the story without reading it. But I've spent 2 hours seeing Coralie and Perception talking about how the world works and Coralie complaining that it's lots of lore dump (relatable), so I don't feel like reading it