This is not my beautiful Hyrule! This is not my beautiful Zelda! Talking Genshin Impact

[sfried]

So I got Venti, finally at Adventure Level 18 and unlocked co-op. Enjoying some of the quests but overall the focus on more combo-centric combat and more neutered physics (for online concessions) does make Genshin Impact a bit less like a BotW clone and more like an MMORPG that took BotW's climbing and rearranged how the chemistry system works to make them more buff/debuff centric and added level gating.

 

[Kairu]

So I got Venti, finally at Adventure Level 18 and unlocked co-op. Enjoying some of the quests but overall the focus on more combo-centric combat and more neutered physics (for online concessions) does make Genshin Impact a bit less like a BotW clone and more like an MMORPG that took BotW's climbing and rearranged how the chemistry system works to make them more buff/debuff centric and added level gating.

Let me know if you every want to give co-op a shot!

The more I play the more I feel like it's closer to an Action MMORPG mechanically; at least in its combat, commerce and quest systems. The climbing and gliding is definitely still BotW; though I don't think the movement system in general feels as good as in that game. I sometimes can't seem to get the glider to deploy when I want to, and I've noticed occasionally characters seem to move a bit on their own after you stop moving. I thought maybe it was my controller at first but I've seen reports from enough players to know that it's an issue with the game.

I reached Adventure Rank 23, with 25 being the next big milestone. At 20 you unlock the 'Battle Pass' equivalent which has a free and paid tier. The free tier rewards seem OK, but there's of course better rewards at the $10 paid tier. There are daily, weekly and monthly (well, season really, as the first season is definitely longer than a month) challenges that reward pass experience. I've reached level 6 after getting access to the pass this past Saturday. I imagine I could maybe reach 30 or so at the rate I'm playing by the time the season is over, out of the 50 levels available.

I do have a bit of an issue with the daily pass challenge that requires you to spend 150 of the games recharging stamina each day, despite the fact that the most you can bank is 120. Since I'm playing on PS4 I can really only play in the evening, and while it's not to hard to spend the banked 120 in half an hour or so, to spend the remaining 30 you have to wait 240 minutes for it to recharge (at 1 every 8 minutes). And really since all the stamina spends are either 20 or 40 so far it's more like you have to wait for 40 total, which means 320 minutes instead. I've managed it so far by playing for a bit right when I get home from work, then playing latter in the evening before bed; but I'd really prefer to just play for a single session of at most an hour.

 

[Violentvixen]

Watched my husband play this and seemed fun, but realistically I can't use the PC much. Downloading the Android version now.

 

[sfried]

I’m playing on PC and I hate the fact you can’t remap controls...even for keyboard and mice! And I hope this game stops assuming my default joystick is a DualShock 4, because in all honesty I prefer this game be played with my Switch Pro controller...but the seemed to have mapped “Accept” and “Back” incorrectly.

Let me know if you every want to give co-op a shot!

Shoul we just post UIDs here? Also I heard crossplay between PC and PS4 was...limited.

Here’s hoping the Switch version will allow for better interoperability.

 

[Kairu]

I’m playing on PC and I hate the fact you can’t remap controls...even for keyboard and mice! And I hope this game stops assuming my default joystick is a DualShock 4, because in all honesty I prefer this game be played with my Switch Pro controller...but the seemed to have mapped “Accept” and “Back” incorrectly.

I watched the recent Giant Bomb Quick Look where they were playing on PC with a Dualshock 4 and noted the weird reversal of the confirm and accept buttons compared to the game played on a PS4. I did a bit more reading and I guess they decided to follow the Japanese PS4 menu style where 'O' is confirm and 'X' is cancel. This is compared to the rest of the world where 'X' is confirm and 'O' is cancel. I've seen some cultural reasons given for this difference over the years, though oddly enough Sony has made the decision that for the PS5 Japan will be switching over to the other standard, which hasn't gone over well with Japanese players...

Shoul we just post UIDs here? Also I heard crossplay between PC and PS4 was...limited.
Here’s hoping the Switch version will allow for better interoperability.

My UID is 600189945.

While I haven't actually tried co-op yet, my understanding is that all platforms are fully cross-play with each other; but you can't have any main story (or even side story) quests set as your active quest when you want to do co-op (it disables the menu option). I believe you are limited to taking on the various dungeons (domains), overworld bosses and daily commissions in co-op. The issue with the PS4 is that's it's not *cross-save* with the other platforms as your account is tied to your PSN, rather than a mihoyo account.

 

[sfried]

I watched the recent Giant Bomb Quick Look where they were playing on PC with a Dualshock 4 and noted the weird reversal of the confirm and accept buttons compared to the game played on a PS4. I did a bit more reading and I guess they decided to follow the Japanese PS4 menu style where 'O' is confirm and 'X' is cancel. This is compared to the rest of the world where 'X' is confirm and 'O' is cancel. I've seen some cultural reasons given for this difference over the years, though oddly enough Sony has made the decision that for the PS5 Japan will be switching over to the other standard, which hasn't gone over well with Japanese players...



My UID is 600189945.

While I haven't actually tried co-op yet, my understanding is that all platforms are fully cross-play with each other; but you can't have any main story (or even side story) quests set as your active quest when you want to do co-op (it disables the menu option). I believe you are limited to taking on the various dungeons (domains), overworld bosses and daily commissions in co-op. The issue with the PS4 is that's it's not *cross-save* with the other platforms as your account is tied to your PSN, rather than a mihoyo account.

My UID is 605452568.

Well hopefully the Switch version will resolve those controller Confirm button issues seeing how Nintendo has always standardized the “A is Confirm” format on all of their consoles post-SNES.

Also wishing for the Switch version of Genshin Impact feaures cross-saving. I just did a short burst of a quest and already completed Act 1 of Amber’s quest arc (the one with the glider license) and its perfect for a nice handheld session in a waiting room.

I do have to wonder who handled the localization. I have a sneaking suspicion its 8-4 again...

 

[spines]

downloaded a day or two after it came out and poked through the very intro. definitely doesn't feel very botw to me, aside from the climbing/gliding, which is certainly a potent combo to me. not that i'm very far into botw either, i've played for like 20 hours and my view of it is basically "game where i run around semi-arbitrarily and occasionally solve random puzzles while trying not to fight things". it has more of the feeling of an mmo due to the quest structure and stuff, albeit i dunno when the multiplayer stuff opens and i'm pretty sure it's not "massively" even then so...i dunno, more of an open world rpg. oworpg?

anyway, i end up trying a lot of things because of an unfortunate desire to know what a hundred people i follow on twitter are shitposting about, so i gave it a bit more of a shot. there's certainly elements i'm not way into but that always happens with a huge game like this, and if the long term progression isn't too annoying or rare-character based it'll probably be worth messing with for the long term for me i guess? the character switching element is cool, and the mechanics having that kind of gacha game streamline to be focused around a sort of direct thematic interaction rather is sort of like a guild wars 2 that doesn't feel so convoluted to follow and set up.

also i just realized this game has a mandarin voice track, huh? i'm down for that

 

[Oathbreaker]

The big problem I'm having with the game is what someone else mentioned, that I'd rather pay $60 for it and play it like a non-gacha game so I can actually get the characters I'm interested in having in my party without hoarding currency to dump into the appropriately boosted banner still with no guarantee of getting them.

I ended up making a PC account to have a save that isn't stuck on PS4 and I had MUCH better luck starting out. Got Jean and Xinqui on the beginner banner with Noelle, and picked up Fischl from Venti's, and only Venti himself is a stronger character than her. Now I gotta decide if I wanna ditch my PS4 save entirely or not cuz this game is pretty time intensive. Definitely takes some getting used to the reversed confirm/cancel. It's not the first game I've played like that, but for whatever reason it's much harder for me to adjust when all the other controls are identical.

Speaking of, that battle-pass is almost worse than the pull rates with how much time a free player has to spend in the game to get much out of it. Even paying $10 the big attraction is a 4 star weapon at the 30th reward which requires some pretty intense time investment. And the $20 only puts you AT the 10th reward, it doesn't just boost you 10 more. The real money prices in this game are ridiculously steep and the battle-pass is designed to punish people who don't buy in at $20 right away.

 

[dosboot]

How does the game work out if you stick with the characters you get automatically? (Not doing any free pulls or anything.) Does it feel bad to play if you just treat the game like that or...?

 

[sfried]

i dunno, more of an open world rpg. oworpg?

You just created a new genre like "Metroidvania".

How does the game work out if you stick with the characters you get automatically? (Not doing any free pulls or anything.) Does it feel bad to play if you just treat the game like that or...?

I'd say you're pretty much set. Just having Amber around for her elemental attacks is enough to access new areas.

If there's one thing this game gets right, it's to prevent any sense that the gacha portion is gating anyone from the exploration like what Starlink did with its pilots.

I ended up making a PC account to have a save that isn't stuck on PS4 and I had MUCH better luck starting out. Got Jean and Xinqui on the beginner banner with Noelle, and picked up Fischl from Venti's, and only Venti himself is a stronger character than her. Now I gotta decide if I wanna ditch my PS4 save entirely or not cuz this game is pretty time intensive.

I'd say stick with the PC version. The game is pretty well optimized to run on lower end hardware, and if your rig can handle it, its well worth playing with mouse and keyboard (which incidentally feels better, not to mention you can zoom out) at 60fps.

 

[muteKi]

Given the exceptionally low level of adoption of XBox consoles in Japan compared to Sony and Nintendo, the 3-o-clock position button on 4-button control schemes has been very consistently the accept button there, with the GameCube the one really obvious exception but the gamecube button layout is maybe best defined as "surreal". SNES, Wii Classic Controller, WiiU pads, and the Switch controllers in addition to everything by Sony.

The Dreamcast is like the one Japanese exception, and that sold less worldwide than the Saturn did just in Asian markets.

 

[Oathbreaker]

How does the game work out if you stick with the characters you get automatically? (Not doing any free pulls or anything.) Does it feel bad to play if you just treat the game like that or...?

It's fun enough, but other than the main character all three of the others are somewhat basic in their roles. So it's really about how much you enjoy the default party and how their gameplay interactions work (Lisa, the Electro mage is by far the most mechanically interesting and also the worst trope of them). The one big hangup will be mining. Amber's decoy skill explodes which is good for one node or maybe two if they're clustered together, but the Beginner banner to get Noelle is very intended to give you a guaranteed Claymore user so that mining doesn't take forever.

One of my friends told me yesterday also that in the Abyss, the place you need to go after you reach AR20 to get Xiangling, it eventually requires you set up two parties of characters so you might also hit a hard limit there if you never pull. But that's well beyond the free character and also meant to be end-game type stuff. It's basically just a series of combat arenas so that may not be important to you.

 

[Becksworth]

How does the game work out if you stick with the characters you get automatically? (Not doing any free pulls or anything.) Does it feel bad to play if you just treat the game like that or...?

You get a fire, ice, and lightning element characters automatically, and the main character starts as a wind element and can switch between that and earth once you get to Liyue. That means you’re only going to miss water as a possible elemental attack type (there is also wood apparently, but no available character uses it yet). Between those you should be able to handle the story content from what I’ve seen. From what I’ve heard, trying to get five star characters/weapons and grinding for their upgrade materials really only matters if you want to keep on playing the higher level optional content.

Also yeah, you should get enough of the gacha currency for a few full pulls and you’ll at least get Noelle from the beginner’s banner.

 

[Alixsar]

Petition to change this thread to "Breath of the Waifu". Also petition to formally sanction everyone in this thread who didn't think to start the previous petition sooner, shame on all of you for not being big dumb idiots!

Anyway this game is surprisingly good?! The music is good and the art is good and it runs pretty well and like where did this game even come from?! (I just wasn't paying attention, is where it came from)

I managed to get Barbara (water mage/healer) and multiple Fischl (lightning archer) AND 4 star weapons for each, so they make a great combo for now, but everyone else I have is kinda lackluster so far. But I'm sure that'll get fixed over time/more gatcha pulls. Obviously the English voices are trash but there's plenty of options, thankfully. The elemental combos are fun to mess with, and the combat is pretty easy most of the time but some of the tougher encounters are pretty fun. I don't know how long I'll stick with it, but for now at least it's fun to mess around with.

I really wanna get the fire spear lady and have her dog barf flames and have Fischl's bird crap lightning on everyone while Barbara makes explosive music notes and does idol poses. What a game.

 

[Violentvixen]

I couldn't stand this. Annoying loud fairy who talks to much was grating but tolerable, but the controls just felt off somehow. I also didn't feel like I had as much freedom to do stuff as in Breath of the Wild, and boy does everyone talk too much.

Also didn't like that my first party member is a Playboy Bunny. And none of the other ladies wear pants, just garters or something. Meh.

 

[Alixsar]

I definitely cannot imagine playing this on keyboard, I am using a Dual Shock 4. The game makes you reset it as the default control EVERY time, which I hope they fix, but it feels wayyyyyy better.

The art style is definitely gonna be polarizing. It's anime as all get out. That said, I feel like it's BotW but with more frequent and better combat and that works for me. I just played for like...four hours and didn't realize it. That's something, at least

 

[sfried]

Anyway this game is surprisingly good?! The music is good and the art is good and it runs pretty well and like where did this game even come from?! (I just wasn't paying attention, is where it came from)

This was my impression too. I realized much later on checking the game's main website that all the music was conducted by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. MiHoYo must have some deep pockets.

I definitely cannot imagine playing this on keyboard, I am using a Dual Shock 4. The game makes you reset it as the default control EVERY time, which I hope they fix, but it feels wayyyyyy better.

Really? I've been playing on keyboard and mouse the whole time, but it still has those stupid DualShock 4 prompts that I can't stand.
Also aiming and character switching is much quicker using keyboard, though I think they really screwed people over by not letting people to be able to remap either. (I want my "A" button to be the Confirm button, among other things.)

Also didn't like that my first party member is a Playboy Bunny. And none of the other ladies wear pants, just garters or something. Meh.

You and I must have a very different definition of "Playboy Bunny". I know she has those huge, dumb bunny ear ribbons, yes, but come on...

Edit: You can always voice your complaints in the recent survey they sent out.

I guess later once I attune my playable character to fire I wouldn't need to rely on her being in the party just to utilize her flame shots.

On the other had, you know those extra gacha characters are optional, since you often run into situations like this (then again, you kinda can do this once Amber is in your party):

"Press F to pay respects."

 

[sfried]

Should we move this thread to the Television Games Online subcategory? I could use a few matchups for those dungeon challenges, and the character switching combo stuff does get interesting.

 

[aturtledoesbite]

This game is more fun than Breath of the Wild.

It's also an incredibly bad and predatory gacha, please do not spend money on it like I did.

 

[muteKi]

This was my impression too. I realized much later on checking the game's main website that all the music was conducted by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. MiHoYo must have some deep pockets.

Gacha games tend to pull crazy money. I think both FE Heroes and Dragalia are some of Nintendo's most profitable games of all time

 

[MetManMas]

Gacha games tend to pull crazy money. I think both FE Heroes and Dragalia are some of Nintendo's most profitable games of all time

Really just Fire Emblem Heroes. And it still ain't pulling the numbers Pokémon GO is.

Looking at Google Play's top grossing games* of the moment, Fire Emblem Heroes is at #60. Well below Pokémon GO (It's at #3), but that's still pretty dang good considering how much competition there is; it placed above all the Final Fantasy stuff.

Mario Kart Tour is at #146, above Draglia Lost's #155. The anniversary promo with the SNES Mario Kart drivers and the associated My Nintendo goal for those Mario 35th anniversary pins likely brought in some new players.

Dr. Mario World is way down at #597. I'm guessing it still has some dedicated fans but given the numbers other Match Shit games are doing that's not too good.

Out of 652 games, Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp didn't even place on the list. I kinda get that, given how its microtransactions are almost entirely cosmetic (give or take some easier won Happy Home Academy ranks and li'l vignettes for getting certain rare fortune cookie furniture), but seeing as how it's my F2P game of choice I'm disappointed it didn't rank at all. And then there's that upcoming third anniversary update that'll leave some old operating systems behind; people not being able to play your game anymore is always good for sales.

* These numbers might be different depending on what games are compatible with your phone.

 

[sfried]

This game is more fun than Breath of the Wild.

It's also an incredibly bad and predatory gacha, please do not spend money on it like I did.

Dunno about more fun than Breath of the Wild. Areas are constantly gated by story/level progression, and mission structure is much different in that there are definitive "beats" to follow, though there are many (a la The Witcher 3).

Also I don't get why you'd want to spend money, unless you were really that desperate after a specific characters (such as Venti's special which makes a mini blackhole of sorts and sucks up opponents). I manage to acquire Venti, Noelle, Sucrose through Primogen rolls, and was able to acquire Xiangling through the challenges in that Spiral area.

But yeah, I don't think this will beat BotW anytime soon, but I will say the game is quite fun in its own right.

 

[ThornGhost]

Played a couple of hours of this so far. It's pretty fun and as long as the game is beatable without spending money, I doubt that I will. I mean, maybe, MAYBE if I play it enough that I feel like I should compensate the developer, I will, but I hope it will be on my own terms and not because of Gacha gambling addiction. If it becomes necessary to pay to advance I'll probably peace out right there though.

Are we trading UIDs? You can get me at: 609347032

 

[Oathbreaker]

Played a couple of hours of this so far. It's pretty fun and as long as the game is beatable without spending money, I doubt that I will. I mean, maybe, MAYBE if I play it enough that I feel like I should compensate the developer, I will, but I hope it will be on my own terms and not because of Gacha gambling addiction. If it becomes necessary to pay to advance I'll probably peace out right there though.

FWIW there is someone over on reddit that managed to clear all the content the game has to offer right now without doing any pulls at all, including on the Noelle beginner banner. It's doable but the time investment for level progression on characters and weapons gets significantly steeper after about level 40.

Based on some leaks it looks like they're also gonna let people get Fischl for free during an event after 1.1 drops, and there are rumors based on leaks they'll also give away a new 5 star for free too but almost everyone is saying that one's probably not reliable. Here's hoping though, because that 5 star is the Vergil to Fischl's V and they would work incredibly well together.

 

[Kairu]

Been playing maybe an hour or two each night, usually enough to do the daily commissions, a few Domains, and a Elite boss or two after which I'm out of Resin for the day. Then it's back to wandering and exploring the map.

I've finished the main story line for the first area, Mondstat, but haven't even started the second area's main line quest. I have at least revealed the entire map, but haven't opened up all the fast travel locations.

I'm at Adventure Rank 29, and progression has definitely slowed down noticeably after I hit 25.

I gave the new co-op Elemental Crucible event a shot. It's pretty straight forward and each round takes maybe 5 minutes or so to play through. Shouldn't be a huge investment of time to get most of the rewards and thankfully you get credit for a run even if you don't have the Resin to claim the completion prize after each one.

Match making is fast, under 15 seconds typically; though I do find it annoying that you have to load in and out of the hosts world if you end up as one of the 3 clients. As far as I can tell there's no way to decide if you want to be a client or host when you use the automatic matchmaking option.

As the host you *can* try to perform subsequent runs with the same players (which as a client also means not having to load back in and out), but in the pubs I've played in I've never managed more than 2 runs in a row before either I get kicked by the host as a client or all the clients leave as a host. As a host you can wait around to matchmake with more clients again but it seems to put you at the back of the queue to be matched with as the wait goes from 15 seconds to closer to a minute.

I'd be down for running through it with a few other Tyrants some evening, you need a total of 20 runs to get all the available rewards (I've done 6 so far).

Anyone interested or care to suggest a time? I figure we can organize via the TT Discord.

 

[ThornGhost]

Did my second free 10x pull last night and grabbed Jean and Sucrose from it. I was pretty excited about my luck until I heard a sort of throwaway comment on this week's Bombcast that you actually have to pull the character 7 times to level them up fully or something? That's a hell of a bucket of water on my excitement to be sure.

 

[Becksworth]

Duplicate character pulls gives you items that let you unlock constellation nodes that give that specific character new/upgraded abilities. I think you can unlock those another way, but those pull items are quicker/easier if you get them.

 

[Oathbreaker]

Duplicate character pulls gives you items that let you unlock constellation nodes that give that specific character new/upgraded abilities. I think you can unlock those another way, but those pull items are quicker/easier if you get them.

Unfortunately the only character with another way to get them currently is the MC, because MC can't be pulled at all; you get a couple from story progress, and the rest are bought from the vendor with a Gem over their head. For everyone else it's definitely a bummer but most everyone just ignores that crap and talks about the game assuming you have zero of those upgrades because it's so ridiculously unlikely to ever get a duplicate 5-star without spending absurd amounts of money, even on the event banner.

Jean is amazing though. If you got a Skyrider sword from your pulls slap that on her and she's basically set unless the gacha spits out her signature weapon which is currently boosted on the Weapon event banner (wouldn't recommend actually pulling for it though). She even has a really funny synergy between her own ult and her skill when held down to gather up enemies. I'm not as sure on this but I think Sucrose's ult pairs up with Jean's nicely despite not having an element interaction, because it drags enemies in while Jean's tends to push enemies out. Have Kaeya shoot some ice in there and the swirl damage should rack up quickly either way.

 

[BEAT]

SO I JUST EXPERIENCED 15 NEW KINDS OF RAGE NEVER BEFORE ENCOUNTERED BY HUMAN SCIENCE.

 

[spines]

paimon is quite possibly named after a demon from the ars goetia and really obviously is only pretending to be a fucking idiot (though doing a good job at it)

fate/grand order has the only good mascot because fou doesn't talk intelligibly and yet he's still a manifestation of a great and terrible entity who could destroy the entire world. that's just how gacha games work