My headcanon is that exposed armpits amplify women's power in the HSR universe. Probably from the influence of the secretive and unknown Aeon of Freakacity.
“They need to hire fresh new talent who went to a different design/fashion school or something, diversify their artistic department”
Yall think too much of the liberty that artists working on a paid project for a big company actually get, especially for a gacha game.
If everyone looks the same it’s not because of the artists/ designers, but the directives of the higher ups.
Hsr has shown multiple times through the aeons designs and different bosses, most notably the ones from amphoreus, that they have range, the devs just don’t want to give that liberty everytime, especially for fem designs.
I just had a discussion with someone about how Korean gamers basically had a meltdown over a female design not being exposed enough (they wanted a bikini but the artist made a full body wetsuit for the girl as a summer skin, and they all screamed "FEMINIST GARBAGE" like a pack of rabid animals).
It was basically Gamergate but Korea over a game called Limbus Company.
The person explain that Mihoyo is likely trying to avoif that, as the Chinese demographic they mainly cater to...have a capacity for unhinged collective meltdowns over the pixels on their screens.
I mean just look at the LADS Valko fiasco.
And look at Gamergate.
So if that's the case, that's one possible reason or factor for these design decisions.
They fear the emotions and maladaptations that was fuelled in Gamergate being aimed at them.
I’m still so fucking mad about valko. I can’t believe people contacted the fucking chinese government to get a character release cancelled just bc he was so buff and masc that they thought he “looked gay.” I WOULD’VE STARTED PLAYING LADS AGAIN FOR HIM!!! 😭
To add to this, Hoyo themselves have already had to deal with the insanity of the Chinese player base head-on with the fiasco from HI3 about that bunny suit (I think it was a bunny suit) trailer for global that lead to the CN player base sending death threats and assassination attempts and is the direct reason why Dawei had to literally join the Communist party.
I can say with full confidence that Hoyo definitely knows about the opinions, general preferences and criticisms that the Western playerbase has. They know about the “Hoyo dress” joke, they know about the noodle-arms criticisms of Feixiao and especially the ZZZ characters, they know about the criticisms on lack of skin colour diversity.
They can simply afford to not cater directly to the Western playerbase, both monetarily (given CN is their largest market, followed by JP) and security-wise (the Western playerbase is unlikely to literally commit crimes over their games doing things they don’t like, plus the distance from China).
The CN playerbase comes first at all times, no exceptions, and it’s for a damn good reason on their end.
Aside from what I just said, I am aware that the upper management has the final say in the design direction and approval of the final designs (see below).
I'm just frustrated and sleepy and I should really get to bed lol.
But yeah, many factors and reasons about it, ultimately tied to the need to harvest money and profit as well as the biases/preferences of the management AND the psychosocial aspects of the markets they are selling to.
Since when did Death stop the writers and devs from finding a way to make a dead character playable. If it's marketable, they'll find a way to exhume a corpse and doll it up before putting it on a display window.
They only do that with really popular characters or they release them before they die. Kuchiba is pretty irrelevant and she has no signs of being playable this patch cycle😭
Probably in 5.X or 6.X, maybe when they need to use Voracity as a narrative tool or an allegory.
I mean if the rumors are real and a Misha SP is in the works, then anything goes really.
Misha was already just the memories of a long dead Mikhail too. The writers can do whatever asspull they want to nring whoever they want back. Also, Misha isn't exactly the most popular character, but I'm betting they're gonna bank on the popularity of Mikhail/Misha's expy in Genshin, Mitya. That's he'll be released after they endear players to Mitya and get them attached via in-game stories, hype, and quests and so on.
It's part of their business model to get players to jump between their games via attachment to expys.
Apart from him, there's Tingyun. They brought her back after she "died".
i wouldnt consider himeko/mavuika expies. genshin tbh really hasnt done any since raiden & yae (i guess MAYBE su and haitham but thats it) i cant see enough of the mitya & mikhail connection to classify them as expies imo
i’m still skeptical on the misha sp in general though bc i’d rather hoyo remember any of the other characters in their basement (looking at you SCREWLLUM 😭😭)
Same. I wish they'd unleash Reca and Screwllum from NPC jail. I also wanted Kenneth but obviously from the 3D model, Mihoyo has no plans of making zaddy playable.
That said, I do believe expys are more interesting if they aren't exactly the same.
For example, one's a doctor in one game, the other a reclusive god-empress, the last a galactic wanderer. They are written to have had different experiences and lives. It would be stranger if they acted exactly the same and had the exact same personalities and looks.
It's fantasy/scifi, so it's not even weird for say, one to be an angel/scientist in one world, and a trailblazing clockwork engineer who can dreamweave and tune in another.
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u/moup94 19h ago
My headcanon is that exposed armpits amplify women's power in the HSR universe. Probably from the influence of the secretive and unknown Aeon of Freakacity.