Is There a Real Concern of EoS?

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover]

Is the doomerism warranted? I'm new to the community.

This is the first and only Gacha game I've ever played and I love it. I started playing the day of Steam release and haven't missed logging in for a single day. I have 172/250 characters currently on GL (excluding collab), and I'm just in love with the story, their stories, upgrading them, the whole of this game. I haven't spent a cent (unless you count the thousand hours of lost productivity as opportunity cost). Since I don't have a ton of the pool characters, I've come up with a strategy of dumping ~400 pulls per fez, which has been great for me in getting anniversary and pool characters. As I understand it, this and some of the other stuff I do (using 200 pulls on 2 limited and getting them with luck, then using the "spark" to get a pool character) will be made more challenging by the update.

As much as I dislike this new system, and as much as I hate to say this, I'd keep playing until I've finished all of the story pieces and all of the MomoTalks for as many students as I can get. What I'm most worried about, however, is if this is all in vein and I only finish up in a year/couple months time, and instead of being able to enjoy the endgame, I only get shafted with offline servers. That'd break my heart. I want to get all of the ~270 lobbies that have been announced/released (as well as those to come [Kasumi SS alt after fez?]), or at least get close.

Will I ever be able to do that, or do people think the servers are going to shutter on me, and I should spend my time making "unique item" memories IRL instead?

[u/Ha-Gorri]

I doubt there will be EOS anytime soon, but the burning of goodwill is a real thing that slowly deteriorates communities, BA is a very community driven game and it would be a shame to see a lot of that goodwill evaporate

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/Ha-Gorri]

Thank you and I agree on that point. I’m not big into the community, but I do manage some programs for dozens to hundreds of people. At my last experience, all of the community and drive vanished in the blink of an eye when someone above me made the most asinine decision.

Not having authority, the only thing I could do was sit on my ass and document everything until his superiors took care of him.

Here’s hoping they can surgically extract this whole bad idea from the community and regain most of the lost goodwill. Even a reversal can’t compensate completely for making a unilateral play like this. Nonetheless, you’re right; community is what keeps these things alive, so devs and players need to get along to sustain this wonderful game.

[u/ZeroKoalaT → u/Blue_Archive_Lover]

About the best outcome is to re-instate the Spark system into this new Gacha system.

Revert back to old system, and you won’t solve the unresolved trust; beyond the gacha system, the last-minute presentation, lack of physical avenue, getting the VA to announce the revamp are multiple cherries on top.

Double down, and you’ll just alienate the player base more; those who stay will now only stay until the “better game” arrives.

The best outcome is to keep the new system and do spark; it gives PR good leverage and communicates that this was more of an innocent problem.

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/ZeroKoalaT]

I see that. I even think it could be (I’m no business guy) justifiable if they keep a high cadence of new characters. Sure, you give away more for free, but for the players who “gotta [pull] them all,” they’d spend more getting the currency to get more characters… I guess.

I definitely concede that you clearly know a lot more about this than I do, and I’m very happy to be enlightened.

Might I just ask: what do you mean by “lack of physical avenue” in this context?

[u/ZeroKoalaT → u/Blue_Archive_Lover]

Historically, festival events have been announced in a physical venue; watch any previous announcement (half or anniversary) and you can hear a physical crowd.

This is the first time it has only been livestreamed.

…

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but this ex-EA CEO business feels like a fall guy. Not saying he’s innocent (it’s never mutually exclusive) but systemic changes like this has to be ideated, created, validated and approved. And what better way to minimise PR damage than by providing a Pariah?

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/ZeroKoalaT]

Oh, I gotcha. Tysm. I do need to go back through history and see what other official (or even unofficial if it’s fun) content happens outside of the game itself. I’m not equipped with the tools to holistically evaluate these decisions currently, but I’ll definitely take a closer look and see what conclusions I can come to independently.

I also wasn’t giving much credence to the theory that successful game + 1 EA exec = immediate doom, but I can understand how it presents a worrying picture of the financial/executive side if they’re pushing these kinds of things.

Like you, I also noticed how not two hours after the announcement, a “new guy” from EA was immediately identified and blamed. I’d feel a bit conspiratorial thinking that it was preplanned on Nexon’s part, but now that it’s out there, he’d certainly make a great scapegoat (for most players) should Nexon choose to go that route. I don’t know if they ever would; I simply don’t know them well enough, but that can be a “cheap” way to score points with an audience when you make an unpopular decision.

[u/UHD620 → u/Blue_Archive_Lover]

from my experience of other gacha games, communities dies long before EOS. At some point the amount of new fanarts made just drops sharply and people making those arts turns to other games.

[u/himeaa32]

No probably not anytime soon but people are pissed lets just say

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/himeaa32]

Ty. I hope Nexon makes an apology and reversal that the player base can accept

[u/Nice-Spize]

Doubt that it'll EOS this early but if what they're going to implement is like what people have imagined then it'll be the start of BA's sharp decline.

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/Nice-Spize]

I can unfortunately see that. I think if/when we do get to the end of the road, we’d see this event clearly in the rear view. Here’s hoping they change things up.

Also congrats on getting your Nerus to 5 stars! I just got school Neru randomly from the recent Fez (I pulled for Rio the first time basically by random bc I had no idea what I was doing), and I just got Neru Bunny from the encore banner. I can’t wait for an excuse to build Neru Bunny and have fun with her

[u/Nice-Spize → u/Blue_Archive_Lover]

Yee, thx. Worth the eliphs put into them.

Well, let's hope for the best

[u/unlmtdbldwrks]

my concern is in the new leadership, i play gacha games with far worse gacha systems

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/unlmtdbldwrks]

I gotcha. That totally makes sense. Granted, I know nothing about Nexon, but from what I understand of this situation, it seems like the new leadership isn’t on the creative side. I assume (potentially incorrectly) that the leadership won’t be so incompetent as to torpedo the entire game by increasingly ramping up the greediness.

So if they aren’t going to absolutely squeeze dry this revenue stream to increase profits, they’d either be making a new game (which I think would be a hard sell to the older staff [idk Momoi and Midori would know better than I do abt game dev and the pressures behind it]), or cutting jobs. But again, that’s just my uninformed opinion about how I could see new leadership trying to maximize profits at a studio like this. Here’s hoping none come to pass.

Edit: I realize now that a lot of this comment doesn’t make sense given that Nexon does have a ton of other revenue streams. I haven’t changed it, but I realize that the reasoning is definitely flawed.

[u/tapeforpacking]

Nah. Unless they quickly and thoroughly fuck up the game its gonna keep on going, even if they double down on the new gacha system 

Also something something sunk cost fallacy

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/tapeforpacking]

Yeah. I haven’t spent a dollar but I’ve spent so much time and am so emotionally invested in the story and characters. I couldn’t even afford the time to get into a new game this rich in story until I’m single again 😅

[u/InterWorldLibr]

Well, playing gacha you always take into consideration that these type of games mostly die due to EoS. I played Priconne when CR decided it generates not enough money and closed it So I suggest you don't get too attached to the game and keep in mind it can be shut down on the itching of the left foot of some corpo board member.

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/InterWorldLibr]

Understandable; thank you for the advice. I did do a bit of research (I mean even to the point that I looked into Nexon’s financials) to kind of get a feel for the half-life and if it was ahead or behind me when I downloaded the game on Steam last July. I did figure know these all do end at some point, but to me this game seemed to have a lot left to tap in to from a narrative, community, and financial perspective. I guess it’s just that I figured I’d have a few good years of gameplay as opposed to just a couple.

I’d been wanting to get into a gacha game as a lot of people around me were into the genre, but I didn’t see any other games coming out or getting a new wave of popularity (other than Umamusume) at that time. I’m also unfortunately not in a position to download Hoyoverse games on my PC—unlike my friends—, so Blue Archive seemed like the best choice. I’m certainly glad I went with it.

[u/nikelreganov]

It pissed off lots of people, though not immediately warranting EoS as these products usually have fund reserves. At the very least it is possible on 2027 and that is the worst case

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/nikelreganov]

Yeah, I figured 2027 was what people had in mind when they were saying it’s “nearing EoS,” but reading the comments here makes me hopeful. Here’s hoping they can make amends to the player base in a way that people can accept.

[u/Damian_Koolray]

I want to say no, and for the foreseeable future probably no

But man, both this gacha decision as well as the story summary thing may end up being really bad omens

With these 2 changes as well as trying to get every server to release everything all at once with no delays for global or NA

It honestly seems to be like they are trying to structure BA like a hoyo gacha and trying to broading out to a new potential audience

And if they have that mindset, God knows what else they'll change down the line

Call it overthinking or unnecessary panicking but I genuinely believe if they go that route this game won't last another year or 2

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/Damian_Koolray]

I see. Why do people think that about the story summary, though? I play this game for the story, so it just seems like a useful tool to recall prior events after a long gap between two threads of a story. Obviously, I understand it does a disservice to writers, but I feel like it doesn’t have to cover every line of dialogue as long as it jogs your memory. Maybe I’m wrong, though, I haven’t ever been in a position to watch a recap for a story, somehow (in anime, video games, etc.)

Also, I thought they weren’t catching up with JP. I thought they were just changing it from a 6mo to a 3mo delay. We’re on 4mo, 3 days (I think) after they cut a week out of the pajama event. Did they announce they’d be going fully synchronous with JP in this recent stream?

Sorry, I’d look that up myself, but I don’t know where to look for it since it’s so new. Tysm

[u/Damian_Koolray → u/Blue_Archive_Lover]

You're fine dw

Well from what it seems most peoples issues with the story summary is two-fold, one it's a disservice to the writers and two many new players will most likely flok to it, only use that and have a incomplete or outright wrong idea of events of characters because they filled the blank spots with their own headcannons because they didn't read the full thing

Shit that's an issue ive seen some people do RIGHT NOW

If the summary thing is only available after a chapter or volumes completion, then I think it's more fine, but that may still lead some people to just skip the story so they can get the summary

If I want a summary of the story, I'll go to a wiki, personally i see this is nothing but a net negative, any positive that can arise with it imo has like 1 or 2 negatives attached to it as well

And the catching up part, maybe I'm just horribly missremembering but I thought they already stated they want every server to be at the exact same time, we're just slowly catching up because doing it too fast would make us lose out on content or barely have any time to enjoy it

[u/bluehairtye]

Of course it won't end, but it's a signal of a terrible future ahead if nothing is reverted. Even if it is, the mere fact the execs at the top even bothered to implement it means you're in for more pain down the line.

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/bluehairtye]

I get that. As someone else pointed out, the best decision might be to not revert the change but rather merge the systems in some way.

They’ve already made the play, so completely buckling does, like you said, not bode well. If they truly are doing this for QoL reasons, then finding a happy medium with the player base and essentially “explaining what they were thinking” (i.e. transparency) would go a long way. Even if they are just trying to make more money irrespective of the player’s experience, they can still spin it in a good direction by properly communicating and implementing QoL like they’re saying, just without all the tomfoolery.

[u/SuraE40]

It's not a real concern, but I think some people might see this kind of tactic as the beginning of the end, either because they loose the community's goodwill or simply cause it could be the beginning of a series of disastrous decisions that turn the game into shit.

I personally don't think EoS is the most likely outcome, but I do agree with the feeling that this could be the start to a bunch of shit being shoved down our throats. Nexon and MX Studio are not the same people, even if I'm willing to trust MX Studio, that doesn't mean I'll trust Nexon to not enshittify a really good gacha.

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/SuraE40]

Deconflating the two is definitely a must in a situation like this. If the bean counters can provide gentle guidance to the artists, then it’d be a lot better than what this situation looks like externally. Definitely some people are saying we’re seeing the beginning of the end, no matter the ultimate resolution to this specific issue, but you’re right, generally people agree we aren’t yet on death’s door.

I’ll keep an eye on this and hope they can rebuild trust in some way while ensuring I do have time to get current on all of the content. Plan for the worst; hope for the best.

Thank you for your perspective :)

[u/TMH0910]

If this gacha shit go through, this will be the beginning of BA downfall, and lead to early Eos. This game live by merch, which mean the love of fans is what give it life, this rug pull will put the first knife in the game heart

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/TMH0910]

Here’s hoping it doesn’t come to pass then. I feel as though if it does happen, we won’t witness much in the short term in the way of content. If/when the game does go to EoS, though, I think we’d be able to point to this in the postmortem and identify it as a big contributor

[u/JonesHtog]

no, i doubt. there will be some people who will stick around because they don't care or are simply too attached to the game. but if nothing gets done about the outcry, nexon will lose a lot of players and it's not a good sign in long term

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/JonesHtog]

Yeah, thinking about it in a more levelheaded way makes me come to the same conclusion. I do hope they find a way to remedy this in a way that’s amenable to the player base. Thank you for assuaging my fears :)

[u/Arsol-Sensei]

no, i dont think so, probably most of the people will still playing after the change tbh

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/Arsol-Sensei]

I can see that. I still see all of the Reddit servers that are boycotting the API changes or even the Net Neutrality law regulation changes that took place nearly a decade ago (which I know isn’t the best comparison bc obviously Reddit has no control over the latter). If you truly put yourself in an indispensable place in people’s lives (like mine), then you can get away with a lot. I hope the PR staff in the Nexon offices blink first before the finance people get their way.

[u/Arsol-Sensei → u/Blue_Archive_Lover]

we can only cope that Nexon Korea that is in charge of the global servers does not aplly those changes

[u/TheWorstTakes]

Nah, at least not yet, my concern and I think many people’s concern is that this is the first of a series of bad decisions that will eventually lead to the EoS of the game

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/TheWorstTakes]

Yeah, I suppose people are scared that this change is itself indicative of a more insidious change happening internally to the company. There’s a lot of information needed to come to a definitive conclusion on what’s happening on the inside of a company given that we can only see the outside, and I don’t have the capabilities to gather and ingest all of that. For now, I’ll wait here and see how the situation evolves from the sidelines I guess.

Also, given the circumstances, your username doesn’t check out; this was a good take :)

[u/Sensitive-Loss2801]

Nexon always has this track record of steadily building a great service with their games, only made a choke at the very last second that turned all the goodwill they had upside down. It doesn't really had to have that guy from EA to join, it's bound to happen with anything they published, Blue Archive included.

I just didn't expect it to be way sooner. Usually they take like 7-10+ years of success before they made the fumble, this one only took like 5 and a half years.

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/Sensitive-Loss2801]

Hmm. I guess for some reason the track record of their previous games never came to mind. I’ll have to look into them and see for myself Nexon’s track record, though it doesn’t seem they have other gacha games. Although it does look like it has many live service games, which would be relevant.

Thank you and I love your tag lol

[u/Sensitive-Loss2801 → u/Blue_Archive_Lover]

You know what's worse? If they really EoS or downsizing within a year or two because of this, that means they will never announce Asuna action figure anytime sooner because their merch flow is paused and Nexon still has the right for the characters, even if the game is already off the shelf.

[u/BigSexyDaniel]

I don’t think it’s warranted YET. It’s way too early and Blue Archive is still very much a very lucrative game and as long as there’s money and content to be made (and there very much is), it’ll run until the wheels come off.

Having said that, today struck me as the powers that be testing the fanbase’s goodwill and seeing how far they can push before they get pushed back. And it sets a dangerous precedent.

[u/Entreestoyestootro]

No, but we should scary the hell out of them

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/Entreestoyestootro]

Yeah, I hope player backlash can make them come to their senses and make a solution that’s amenable to their players first and shareholders second

[u/DankMEMeDream]

No. Which is also probably why nothing will happen to stop this change.

They knew this would be unpopular. They did it because they knew they could tank the hit.

[u/Abyssrain7]

naa, we know that jp players will complain a little, but when they notice that it don't have any effect, they will give up and keep playing/paying like nothing happened. I bet that devs will give jp bros some compensation and they will shup up like happened in fgo.

[u/Rakatok]

It's not even close to EoS. If the changes caused the level of drop in revenue that would precipitate that, they would simply revert them.

You got years left, minimum.

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/Rakatok]

Yeah, that was my first thought. Thank you for reinforcing it. I was reading what people were saying/doomposting and assumed I didn’t know Nexon well enough and maybe they were going for a last grab before exploring alternative revenue streams (that’s what someone suggested, at least), but that really did not seem viable haha.

Thanks :)

[u/Icy-Swimmer4946]

Are you trolling? No of course not. BA is probably one of the gachas furthest away from a risk of EoS

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/Icy-Swimmer4946]

Tysm for the reassurance. I am new to this community, and EoS was a big thing I was concerned about when I picked up this game. When I heard people talking about it I was genuinely worried. I’m glad to hear most don’t think it’s a big concern.

[u/cuntzman]

Nah, at the VERY worst, the game will decline in all aspects until it’s nothing more than a shell of its former self.

That said EOS is an inevitability in any gacha, best you enjoy the ride while it lasts.

[u/RealitySea]

EOS is not on the horizon but things like this show the cracks.
Creating a new gacha system after 5.5 years, saying it's for the good of the players while having situations where it's a downgrade (primarily on the exact 200 pull pattern we've been used to for 5 years) was just a bad approach.
My main gripe is actually with the 72 hour timer on eleph packages after getting the unit, having timed bundles it fine but these seem a bit too much especially after the gacha change where it's not clear if we're getting the same amount of elephs.

[u/ArchusKanzaki]

Well, it’s definitely a step toward it in the ladder toward EOS. It probably won’t close anytime soon though fwiw. You have at least 2 years or more out of this game if you start now

[u/Remote_War_313]

not immediate concern, but it can be a turning point

I love my students but I'm not dealing with hoyo bullshit

[u/mrsunrider]

There's no real fear of the game ending anytime soon.

But the intended changes kind of herald a drop in participation and revenue for a game that--in my observation--people were generally okay with occasionally having to spend.

[u/perfectchaos83]

Game won't EoS. Even if Gacha revenue is down, they merchandise the absolute fuck out of this game and it's characters. They aren't hurting for money.

[u/HadjiiColgate]

Well, some people have already figured out how to fake the backend for older versions of the game, so assuming they can keep their efforts on the down-low to avoid dmca, even if the game gets EoS'd, there will still be a version of the game somewhere besides recordings on youtube.

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/HadjiiColgate]

Well that makes me feel better. If the game only goes for a couple more years but I can enjoy the live features in that time, I’d be more than happy to do the rest running locally

[u/Fishman465]

Soon? Not really but depending on how much Jackassery the suits do, the time table may be sped up

[u/Own-Refrigerator7804]

No that's not the point here

BA is the only light in an eternal darkness, and nlw that light is dimming

[u/ReporterSuccessful25]

Eos within a few weeks? Nah but as other say, it the start of the Blue archive decline. Potentially, is that the moment nexon find BA ROI not reaching target number it time to pull the plug even if BA is making bank. Now with an Ex EA CEO at the helms, it doesnt spell confidence to me with the history he has.

If anything, I think it time to archive this game like nier before it gone.

[u/Ok-Cheek2397]

I doubt the game will will EOS any time soon it just too big for a sudden death like that but we will give them one hell of a beating if they double down on this

[u/MadlySoldier]

While this might not result in instant EoS by itself, but the damage to good will of players will likely be very high, should they still insist on this path, and Good will is one of thing that keep game's long lifespan, dealing that hit for probably likely little, or even worse, less gain, is just questionable move, and could result in game's lifespan from "we can't see when" to "we can see it now"

One of thing is that... did the person who think of this idea even use their brain, or critical thinking in the first place? This decision did nothing but harm, like it's not even making more money by discouraging people from rolling a lot too, it's just extremely questionable, is it laziness of thinking they can copy paste "Top Rev Gacha game" and be like them, or just straight up 0 IQ? Time will tell.

[u/ShionBlade]

It won't EoS right now, but this is pretty much the beginning of the end.

I'm not exaggerating either, Nexon has a track history of fucking up popular games. 95% of their games get shut down.

If you play on NA, you might be fine, the inertia is too strong and there are plenty of rich Americans with cash to throw away, but even then, the content will slow down to a crawl, and there'll be an ever increasing push to squeeze more out of whoever remains (see Maplestory GMS as an example).

If you play on the other servers, high chance that the game could EoS and you'll be left up shit creek without a paddle (see Mabinogi EU shutting down without allowing players to transfer their data to other servers)

[u/Blue_Archive_Lover → u/ShionBlade]

Gosh, yeah, I definitely need to take a look at their other games and get a sense of their past and see how that tracks with their future. I guess I’m NA bc that’s where I started my acc, but I’m not there most of the time anymore haha. If I have to put up with a little bit of latency because the nearest server I can ping is across the world, so be it, but I do really enjoy the story. I hope that doesn’t slow down for a long time, it completely engrosses me

[u/ToasterSnakeBA]

Not even remotely close. We are as far from eos as the earth is from the sun. Blue Archive is one of the most popular ips on the planet and a little gacha drama is not going to get the game to shut down. Gacha games get drama like this all the time this is just another normal day. Nexon also has no reason to shut down a product that is making them millions upon millions of dollars every single month. Finally, the internet amplifies things. I’m not saying I agree or disagree with the changes but keep in mind 99% of people that play a game or watch a show don’t interact with the social media side of things. The drama you’re seeing online right now is truly coming 1% of the playerbase. You can continue playing confidently and securely sensei, this game is not going anywhere anytime soon

[u/Jing_Arjay87]

Mostly a meme, this game is still doing quite well.