Wuthering Waves’ Gacha Mechanic And Reward System Already Far Surpass Genshin

As my fellow gacha enthusiasts must know, Wuthering Waves is the talk of the town these days. Considering how much of an overwhelming success Genshin was, people had high expectations for this new open-world gacha. The thing that excited me the most was its brilliant combat, everything else would’ve been a bonus. Needless to say, it didn’t disappoint there.

Now that it’s out, there’s a lot of controversy surrounding it, and it might not have lived up to your expectations, but let’s put that aside, and discuss solely its gacha system today, and how it compares to Genshin.

Initial Benefits

Wuthering Waves has its fair share of problems, like a poor story, initial performance and internet flaws, and features that can be considered a Genshin-copy, but the devs are hard at work fixing whatever they can. I believe the game should’ve taken some more time and not proceeded with a rushed release, but what’s done is done.

Hey, at least we got plenty of rewards out of it, am I right? Wuthering Waves at its core is still a gacha game, and thus the character and weapon-pulling system will be at the center of it forever. For what it’s worth, Wuthering Waves has successfully surpassed Genshin in this department, and in a way that Genshin’s gacha feels very inferior now.

For those who are curious how many compensations and rewards you got at the BEGINNING of the Wuthering Waves after the incident (open the mail), well, here’s the summary.
byu/normie_dude ingachagaming

Before discussing the core mechanics, let’s discuss just how many initial rewards Wuthering Waves has issued. The game gives you over 100 free rolls just by playing, and 2 guaranteed SSR characters, one of your choice. Not only that, but due to the game’s messy launch and consistent problems, the devs issued additional rewards, which included over 40 more rolls, and one selectable SSR unit. Now that’s what I call generosity.

In comparison, let’s take a look at Genshin’s rewards. Never in its life has Genshin ever issued a free SSR unit. Even its sibling Honkai: Star Rail issued free five-star units, twice. Moreover, Genshin’s launch rewards were nowhere near as impressive as Wuthering Waves.

Genshin Impact Launch Rewards and Event Rewards
byu/TheWorldisFullofWar ingachagaming

Core Gacha System

The initial rewards only stay for so long, what matters is how user-friendly the gacha system is in the long run. I’ll be dissecting some of the pull rates and roll requirements now, so bear with me.

Wuthering Waves starts with a beginner banner, which includes all the standard SSR characters, you can only do 50 pulls on this banner and then it disappears, and each 10x pull costs only 8 Lustrous Tides (the standard banner currency). This is similar to what we got for Genshin, except Wuthering guarantees an SSR on the 50th pull.

After you pull the SSR, whether on the 50th roll or early, another banner appears. This one asks you to select a standard SSR, and then you are guaranteed to obtain it when you hit pity. This is the second guaranteed SSR you get. Genshin could never.

Wuthering waves adds self pick standart 5 star beginner banner we also have another self pick 5 star weapon from beginner events
byu/Egehan550 ingachagaming

These are short-lived banners, now for the permanent ones. In every version you’ll have two limited characters, each running for about 21 days, just like Hoyoverse’s games. Unlike those though, the pity value is 80 rolls, not 90. That means you’ll get your SSR early; soft pity starts at about the 60-65th mark. The same 50/50 logic applies, and you need Radiant Tides here.

Wuthering Waves Gacha Rates (CBT 2)
byu/zurstein ingachagaming

The weapon banner is where things get very interesting, and the point where I was genuinely surprised. The weapon banners in Wuthering Waves are always guaranteed; you only get the 5-star weapon on rate-up, nothing else. I can’t express how much of a blessing this is, compared to Genshin’s downright rage-inducing system. You need to hit pity three times there, imagine my hatred for every loss.

What’s more, the limited weapon banner has a separate roll currency, again different from Genshin and Co. Plus, the game provides six of all these currencies every month. Even the standard weapon banner is choice-based. In a nutshell, Wuthering Waves’ gacha system and banner division are exponentially better than Genshin, to say the least.

General Reward Scheme

Lower SSR thresholds and more forgiving gacha are all well and good, but does the game provide enough free Asterites (This game’s primo gems) to make use of it? You bet it does. Wuthering Waves not only has a better gacha system, but a more F2P-friendly reward scheme in place as well.

The game has 4 tiers of chests, the same as Genshin. However, no chest gives more than 10 primo gems. In Wuthering Waves, the highest tier chest gives a whopping 40 Asterites. And it’s not like there are only 2-3 of these chests, there’s plenty. Wuthering Waves’ chests give 5, 10, 20, and 40 Asterites respectively.

Wuthering waves has been super generous can’t be Genshin 🥱

— 𝔓𝔞𝔫 𝔇𝔲𝔩𝔠𝔢 (@BootyHimee) May 26, 2024

This is close to Star Rail’s values. But in that game, the overall chest count is lower since it’s divided into short sectors. This means Wuthering Waves has Genshin’s quantity, but Star Rail’s quality when it comes to its chests. To translate this into English, Wuthering Waves is extremely generous.

That’s not all. Even the simplest of things awards Asterites in this game. From simple exploration objectives that only give reputation in Genshin to reaching a certain progress with synthesizing materials, every little thing you achieve rewards you. 

This is the number of asterite we get from 1.0 via exploration (every chest and puzzle claimed using a map) and side quests. More info in the comments
byu/zekken908 inWutheringWaves

Genshin Needs To Step Up

To sum it all up, Wuthering Waves may have a thousand flaws, but the gacha and reward system is not one of them. In fact, it gives Genshin a run for its money when it comes to this department.

Genshin Impact is so stingy with rewards comapred to other gatcha. My experience.
byu/Eevika inGenshin_Impact

In terms of overall appeal, Genshin is not going to be taken over anytime soon, but its stingy reward system and the straight-up predatory weapon banner are a constant criticism. Now that a competitor is in town, one continuously striving for self-improvement, Genshin mustn’t stay as relaxed as it was before. We’ve already seen a shocking resin extension I never thought possible. It’s proof Genshin was rattled, and I hope Wuthering Waves continues to push it.