Wuthering Waves is an upcoming open-world RPG with gacha features, which has managed to generate a lot of buzz in recent months.
Many gamers and gacha pundits are hailing this as a title that will dethrone HoYoVerse’s Genshin Impact, ending its era of superiority.
Although a great game on its own, Genshin Impact has faced considerable criticism from fans, mostly for its lack of consideration of the community’s feedback. Wuthering Waves already promises to address some of these issues, which should satisfy a chunk of the community already.
Areas where Wuthering Waves improvises over Genshin Impact
Combat
Genshin Impact boasts a fun and unique combat system with elemental reactions, but it can get repetitive pretty soon. The combat mechanic eventually becomes a button-masher system. Wuthering Waves improves on this by implementing a more skill-based combat system.
Although the title is by no means a souls-like game, it emphasizes on learning enemy attack patterns and timings to implement features like parry and stagger. This is likely to appeal to players who prefer a more challenging aspect to an open-world RPG game.
Community feedback
Genshin Impact has faced considerable criticism for not listening to player requests for quality-of-life changes. Wuthering Waves, on the other hand, has a history of taking community feedback seriously. The developers reworked their title significantly after receiving negative feedback from the first closed beta test.
They’ve also been transparent about addressing issues raised during the second closed beta test. These suggest that Wuthering Waves is more likely to evolve based on player input. For a live-service game, actively taking the community’s feedback into consideration is a good practice.
Better exploration
Exploration is a key factor for open-world RPG titles, and Genshin Impact’s robust exploration enticed many. That is, till multi-layered world elements were introduced. Slow movement speed, very limited stamina, and a dull climbing mechanic were some of the complaints voiced by the playerbase.
Wuthering Waves already seems to be addressing these issues. The game features a grappling hook that players can use to freely explore the world, similar to that of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, as well as smoother climbing mechanics.
Gacha System
Wuthering Waves offers a more generous gacha system, which is evident by a standard banner where you can choose the 5-star character of your liking, in a 50-pity system.
Additionally, players can directly purchase up to two armbands (Genshin Impact’s constellation equivalent) for specific character upgrades in Wuthering Waves, eliminating some of the randomness inherent in the gacha system.
Endgame content
Genshin Impact’s endgame content is limited, as a major chunk of the story is yet to come out. The Spiral Abyss provides some “content”, but its one-time only rewards does not provide any major incentive to players.
Wuthering Waves appears to be offering more endgame content at launch. The game will feature a roguelike mode and a traditional tower-defense mode, providing players with more ways to test their skills and continue to progress after completing the main story.
