An apology email that made every otome game player in China burst out laughing. NetEase's romance mobile game 'Beyond the World' (世界之外) sent an email to all players sincerely apologizing: 'We're sorry — we don't have a game balance designer.' Meanwhile, a job listing for a 'Numerical Planner' (数值策划) was already posted on their hiring page. This might just be the most brutally honest operational disaster in gacha gaming history.
The whole mess started when the game promised players 101 free pulls before launch. After reportedly spending seven full days trying to crunch the numbers, the dev team delivered their answer: a precise 101.4 pulls — yes, with a decimal point. And these weren't simply handed to players; every fraction had to be earned by grinding through every single in-game dungeon. Even the tiny bonus from linking your phone number was counted toward the total. As one NGA commenter put it: 'Can nobody on the team do elementary school math? What does giving out freebies have to do with having a balance designer?' Another quipped: 'They spent 7 days trying to figure out how to make it 111 pulls, gave up, and just winged it.'
But the gacha banner design is where things get truly wild. The new rate-up pool features FOUR SSR characters simultaneously, with no wish system, no selectable pity, and no choice mechanism whatsoever — just raw pulling. Long-time gacha veterans were stunned: 'In all my years of playing mobile games, I've never seen a pool like this.' What made it worse was that before the official launch, players could only pull on the standard banner. Then on launch day, the devs quietly patched the rules to enable the limited banner — meaning anyone who'd already dumped all their resources into standard pulls during beta got absolutely scammed. Players who fell for this trick were absolutely livid.
Beyond the gacha fiasco, the game's stinginess with resources was roasted by players across the board. Stamina is given out in pitiful amounts, experience dungeons have daily entry limits, and the combat power requirements are absurdly high. One player shared that even with every character at 1-star clears where possible, they were still stuck on the Day 4 or Day 5 challenge of the 7-day newbie quest. Their verdict: 'Of all the games I've ever played, this is by far the stingiest.' For comparison, players noted that while 'Love and Deepspace' (恋与深空) also has mediocre combat, at least it doesn't gate progression behind ridiculous power walls and gives enough stamina to actually complete the 7-day quests on time.
The NGA comment section turned into a full-blown roast session. One user said the new banner 'is honestly the bigger scandal.' Another suggested: 'Just send 10 pulls via mail every day with an SSR selector on the last day — it's open beta, just be generous.' Someone else fired shots at NetEase (nicknamed 'Pig Farm' / 猪场): 'Has NetEase changed strategy? Are they going for the comedy route now — being so bad it's funny?' Others compared the situation to other disasters: 'When is Girls' Frontline going to announce they can't make games and this was all a social experiment?' But the most gut-wrenching comment came from a player who said: 'I usually spend a little on games I enjoy. Beyond the World is genuinely the first game that made me think — maybe I should just stay F2P.'
The game has only been live for a few days, and Weibo is already a warzone of complaint posts and community infighting. Some players have already uninstalled; those who stayed are unanimous: 'Stay free-to-play if you must, but spending money? Never again.' For an otome game that just launched, starting off with the 'we have no balance designer' tag is a rough opening act. Whether they can recover their reputation remains a very big question mark.
评论 (0)
暂无评论，来说两句吧！ 🍉