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

[Alixsar]

My pulls have also been lopsided, but thankfully in a good way and thanks to the event, I now have a max constellation Fischl. She is great and only gets better as you get constellations of course. My artifacts aren't the best, so I'm not pulling in max damage or anything, but I have 55% crit rate on her and 1900ish attack and my entire gameplan is basically "immobilize people as much as possible with Mona/Chongyun and get Fischl out there" and it works pretty well. I only really struggle against ice enemies, but I can slot in Xiangling and Bennett for that (though they're only level 50 so they kinda get oneshotted by a lot of late game stuff).

Meanwhile, through playing less and putting less money into the game, my friend has gotten THREE Dilucs and one Childe, and a five star greatsword (whereas I've only been able to get ONE 4 star GS and even that was one that I forged). Gatcha luck really is insane.

The problem I'm running into now is that the dungeons require that I actually try a bit and use the proper elements, but I'm having a hard time keeping my characters leveled sufficiently. I'm also struggling to get good artifact combinations for all the characters I use. And having such high level up and ascension requirements stifles my ability to use new characters...like I got Diona and would like to use her, but I kinda can't justify spending purple books and ascension stuff on her when I have a constellation 1 Bennett and a good sword for him already. Leveling up the world only compounds this, since I can't even use my "B" team for lower level stuff...it's pretty frustrating. Like I really wanna use Beidou, but I only have the one non-3-star Greatsword AND I'd have to level her up and it's like...kinda a huge barrier to entry, you know? Which I know, is the point...they want me to spend money on books. But no way Jose

 

[aturtledoesbite]

don’t want two electric characters

are you sure

 

[Becksworth]

Man, I got enough elemental recharge effects from my artifacts that Keqing sometimes get her elemental burst back immediately after using it. I need someone who can set shit on fire sometimes.

 

[spines]

Yeah, I understand she is a much better archer option than the default one, Amber, who is apparently the worst character in the game. I don’t know, I have Keqing as my primary melee character and don’t want two electric characters. Also, I have only two archer characters, and only one fire character I think. My pulls have been kinda lopsided...

there's nothing really wrong with her for like, overworld battles, and plenty of the other exploration-type content that also takes place out there is very obviously designed around her, but i've hesitated investing more because baron bunny is just so slow and clunky compared to xiangling's guoba, and she's not 100% trivial to get early on but the guaranteed free copy is still kind of huge.

My pulls have also been lopsided, but thankfully in a good way and thanks to the event, I now have a max constellation Fischl. She is great and only gets better as you get constellations of course. My artifacts aren't the best, so I'm not pulling in max damage or anything, but I have 55% crit rate on her and 1900ish attack and my entire gameplan is basically "immobilize people as much as possible with Mona/Chongyun and get Fischl out there" and it works pretty well. I only really struggle against ice enemies, but I can slot in Xiangling and Bennett for that (though they're only level 50 so they kinda get oneshotted by a lot of late game stuff).

The problem I'm running into now is that the dungeons require that I actually try a bit and use the proper elements, but I'm having a hard time keeping my characters leveled sufficiently. I'm also struggling to get good artifact combinations for all the characters I use. And having such high level up and ascension requirements stifles my ability to use new characters...like I got Diona and would like to use her, but I kinda can't justify spending purple books and ascension stuff on her when I have a constellation 1 Bennett and a good sword for him already. Leveling up the world only compounds this, since I can't even use my "B" team for lower level stuff...it's pretty frustrating. Like I really wanna use Beidou, but I only have the one non-3-star Greatsword AND I'd have to level her up and it's like...kinda a huge barrier to entry, you know? Which I know, is the point...they want me to spend money on books. But no way Jose

i got diona when i was low level enough to try her out without much investment, and the targeting on her E is kind of maddening imo. i can see why people would rate her higher than amber (especially at high constellation levels...) but tbh the only reason i'm still considering leveling her atm since i have qiqi to focus on for ice is for a kinda gimmicky team based around the scholar set...

my rolls haven't been too uneven or weird, i guess. i rerolled like 10 times early on and didn't get venti before i gave up because it was too long and repetitive, but i took the one where i had the most 4*s once i actually started playing so i've got a fair spread of them, and next banner will probably even things out even more. (i'm really excited for xinyan, hahaha) no sucrose or jean either does make wind my one big gap, and only the one spear user (it seems like the least common weapon so far though) but otherwise i have a pretty decent spread of elements and weapons. haven't tripped pity on the permanent banner yet, but i got qiqi at my 90th event banner roll, then a (fairly) lucky childe a couple 10s after that. which is honestly amazing aside from the fact it ruined the possibility of guaranteeing getting zhongli now, and means i have to fight even more oceanids...but if i can get one more xingqiu constellation i'll have a super devastating water combo between the two of them.

no 5* weapons yet though, so for beidou i've just been using the crafted sword that does an extra aoe hit every 15s, and similarly for ningguang i've been using a crafted one with hp and energy restore on burst, so she's become a kind of crazy battery for the team when i can fit her in, and she occasionally gets the same thing becksworth mentioned with an entire burst refilling instantly.

beidou is by far my favorite character though, the parry timing is forgiving to learn, not really that hard in general, and sometimes completely free (like standing in burning grass) so you can really explode with some huge damage. even if she's generally considered a kind of main attacker i've found she works great with childe, partly because of his downtime cycles but also because switching to him after her burst just causes constant electro-charge procs.

 

[Becksworth]

Having finally ran out of things to do, but not wanting to farm for rank up materials from those roaming boss monsters just yet, I decided to do the world rank up quest, only I apparently had enough adventure exp banked it shot me straight up to world rank 3. Now in order to level up any further I’ll have to repeatedly fight and defeat boss monsters 10 levels higher than my level cap...

I think I’m done with this game now.

 

[Kairu]

Having finally ran out of things to do, but not wanting to farm for rank up materials from those roaming boss monsters just yet, I decided to do the world rank up quest, only I apparently had enough adventure exp banked it shot me straight up to world rank 3. Now in order to level up any further I’ll have to repeatedly fight and defeat boss monsters 10 levels higher than my level cap...

I think I’m done with this game now.

That sounds... off?

The World Rank should be tied to your Adventure Rank, which in turn determines the max level you can raise characters to.

At World Rank 3 the boss levels should be 50 and your character level max should be 60.

Oh... I think I get what you mean... maybe... Is it that you can't ascend any of your characters to increase their level cap because the materials needed to do so would now need to come from bosses that are higher level than you can fight?

Yeah, that's not a great system if you can get yourself in a bad spot like that.

I've got a similar issue in that I've got some newer characters I'd like to play with, but to play any of them in the overworld content I'd have to invest in them heavily to bring them up the same strength as my existing team.

It sure would be nice if you could set the World Rank down so you could play with lower level characters even if it meant a decrease in the quality of items dropped by enemies.

I can't think of a easy way to get around having to beat some of those world bosses for ascension materials... I guess you could try loading up on food and potion buffs, but that's still kind of brute forcing it. Another option would be to find someone else with a lower World Rank and join their world in a co-op session. The World Rank in co-op is determined by the host.

 

[Becksworth]

Yeah, I need to ascend to increase my level past 40, but the boss monsters on the map currently I need to kill were all level 50.

Technically, I can still ascend the traveler without those boss items it looks like since they aren’t tied to a specific element, but they kinda suck compared to the characters I usually use.

In any case, if I’m getting into the grindier part of the game, maybe now is a good time to stop anyway...

 

[Alixsar]

I have a friend who ran into a similar problem. It wasn't an issue for me since I was leveling/ascending people the whole time, but I feel like there's a sizable amount of people who aren't doing that and are just playing the game as if it's BotW and then get caught unaware that they're "supposed" to be grinding for ascension materials the whole time once the world level gets too high. The game mentions all of this but doesn't really make it clear what you're "supposed" to be doing.

 

[Kairu]

The game mentions all of this but doesn't really make it clear what you're "supposed" to be doing.

For me at least, engaging with the Battle Pass has provided a good guideline about what I should be accomplishing, as it has a set of recommended tasks per day, week and pass (about a month). The goals don't change between the free and paid version of the pass, just the rewards.

However, I do think engaging with the pass certainly means playing the game more like an MMO or any other gatcha game with all the grinding and reputation systems. So I can see how some players will hit a wall if they thought they were signing up for anime BotW.

 

[Mightyblue]

Yeah, it's why I stopped playing because I could already tell that the game wasn't going to just let me wander around doing shit without having to worry about engaging with the gacha systems. World Rank should absolutely be a slider or similar you change at Seven statues for the world zones, not just a permanent change to the game state.

 

[ThornGhost]

I'm pushing AR 26 and I kind of feel like the gacha elements actually become less valuable as the game goes on. The real limiting factor is leveling and ascension mats, neither of which are ejected through the wish system. By the time you hit a couple of ascension levels on your characters and items, you won't want to waste your limited exp items on new gacha grabs. Sure, you can feed extra gacha pulls of weapons and characters to those on your team, but that's minimal use compared to levelling.

 

[Mightyblue]

Too bad you still need that limited stamina to effectively farm anything, and that's a core element of gachas.

 

[ThornGhost]

Oh, I was referring to "gacha" as only the randomized pulls. If it means the whole F2P system then I retract what I said. The resin system would slow down grinding for mats without paying if you get in a crunch for them.

I only play like an hour or two at night at most so I never really feel that crunch. By the time I do my dailies, spend some resin doing domains or bosses and mop up a couple open world or story quests I'm done for the day. I have to have played like 40 hours of this thing and never bumped into a point where I felt pressured to spend money. Everything has been completely approachable.

 

[Mightyblue]

The thing is, the smart gachas don't weight the predatory mechanics on the character acquisition end, they weight towards making that desired character useful. Whether that's just a punitive stamina system like Genshin has or just letting players outright trade money for levelling materials that's arguably more harmful than making the best (either in looks or effectiveness) characters punitively rare.

 

[SabreCat]

Gave this a try today, and it... seems to need some work, yet? The password registration was bugged, telling me that my password couldn't be just numbers and had to be between 8-30 characters, when I gave it a 20-character alphanumeric. (It eventually worked when I went down to 16 characters...) Then it earned the dubious distinction of being the first app in years to get me a full-blown frowny-face Blue Screen of Death. wow.

Seems to run much better on my phone, but the control scheme instantly ignited RSI symptoms, so that's a no-go too.

 

[ThornGhost]

There is a ton of new playable content during the Liyue Lantern Festival (roughly scheduled around Lunar New Year) if you've been needing a reason to dip back in to Genshin. I honestly don't think I'll get close to finishing it all in the time period since I usually only play an hour or so a night. There's like, so many quests y'all.

Also the night time view of Liyue with the lanterns floating off from the docks is very pretty if you'd just like to hop in and check that out.

 

[Vaeran]

Anyone still playing this? I got into it at the beginning of this three-day weekend and have been playing it pretty much non-stop since. It's definitely one of those "let me just see what's over this hill... whoops it's 3am??" games. I'm Adventure Rank 18 and just got encouraged by the Adventurers' Guild to go explore Liyue, which has some really gorgeous vistas. The game manages to scratch both my BotW and FF14 itches to varying extents, even if it's not really as good as either of those.

The few pulls I've done haven't been amazing, but I got the guaranteed Noelle along with Razor and Ningguang, and have mostly been rolling with a party of Traveler, Kaeya, Amber and Noelle. I spent very little money on FFRK in my six years playing it so I don't see myself dropping much on GI either, but that $5 battle pass sounds like it could be worth looking into.

I'm not super interested in co-op at the moment but my user ID is 616360267 if anyone wants to add me anyway. Ad astra abyssosque!

 

[Oathbreaker]

I'm still playing it, almost entirely because my friend circle all enjoys it enough to play together. I'm still having fun having played since launch and the exploration content is still great. I still wish I could've just paid $60 for a non-gacha version of it though.

I get what you mean by not having amazing pulls but Razor can do some wild damage when his equipment is kept up to date (especially paired with Kaeya for Superconduct) and Ningguang is fullstop one of the strongest 4 star characters, and if you were to max out her constellations she becomes stronger than many 5 stars. Noelle is similar to Ningguang that she needs her constellations maxed to fully shine but because she gets a big damage boost scaled from Defense while her ult is going she can slingshot from being a little more support based to ruining worlds and if you ever get to the point of grinding equipment, it's a lot easier to get Defense equipment for her than it is to get good damage gear for anyone else. Pair them together though and you'll get an elemental party bonus for doubling up on an element that gives Geo damage a buff while shielded which Noelle can set up herself and is easily done with Geo reactions, they're a really amazing pair.

Have fun with the story especially though. It escalates in ways I thought was really fun.

 

[ThornGhost]

I put Genshin down for a while but have recently started playing it again. Honestly what killed it for me the first time was buying that battle pass. Once I did I suddenly felt this pull to log in every day to grab the daily bonus whether I wanted to play or not and literally alllll the fun got sucked out of it for me. I honestly bought the pass with the best of intentions to reward the devs for making a game I've played like 60 hours of at least, but it ruined it for me.

I'm inching my way back in, trying not to focus on daily quests or maxing out resin use unless I'm just feeling squirrely and just enjoying the story and world quests. I also think this game is just too damn good for a gatcha and wish I could've paid AAA price up front and grabbed paid expansions as we went on.

 

[Vaeran]

Cool, thanks for the tips Oathbreaker! I just got Barbara before bed last night, and I'm excited to have a dedicated healer in my party, as I chewed through a lot of healing items during the Dvalin fight. It's a little difficult to experiment with different combinations of characters when everybody's hungry for the same upgrade materials that are in limited supply.

Here's kind of a dumb question: is it necessary/advisable to keep an archer in my party? I'm not real hot on Amber (my only archer so far), but I keep running into those Eye of the Storm enemies that spend like 80% of their time in the air and out of range of my melee attacks. From what I understand I'm just one AR away from getting the free Aloy, so maybe I'll like her more.

I will meditate upon ThornGhost's thoughts about the battle pass, as I haven't plunked down for it yet. (It seems I was conflating two things when I said "$5 battle pass" earlier -- I guess there's the $5 subscription that gets you daily Primogems for a month, and then a $10 something-or-other that boosts the rewards you get from the free battle pass you unlock at AR 20. Put them together and that's as much or more than you'd pay for an MMO per month! I dunno, you guys.)

 

[Oathbreaker]

I haven't really played with Aloy yet, but Amber is definitely the least fun of all the archers and the most encouraged to keep around throughout Mondstadt and Liyue exploration. You'll see puzzles like the stone torch things or chests wrapped in vines that want to be hit with Pyro until you move on to the newest story/area bits that just came out in the last month or so. It's really unfortunate but I wouldn't say it's worth keeping her in your active party at all times if you want to switch her out. I switched her or another pyro character in when necessary and immediately switched them back out any time I came across that stuff and had a lot more fun during combat for leaving her out.

Coincidentally, Ningguang can deal with the Eye of the Storm enemies very competently though you gotta get a bit of a feel for the correct distance because her attacks are projectiles that track and can miss if you're under a flying enemy (or too far for the auto lock-on to kick in).

The $5 is sadly the best real money value in the game, and also the most punishing if you don't log in every day to claim the primogems. If you miss days you just miss those gems.

 

[spines]

the game is designed heavily around the idea that you have access to amber, since there's a large amount of "light the torch" areas and more generic bow-aiming puzzles. you'll probably have to put her in sometimes for world exploration and puzzles, but you don't really have to do anything but shoot fire pedestals with her in the long run

i haven't played this game since 2020 though so i don't know where a lot of stuff is at with everything lol

 

[ThornGhost]

It's also worth noting that the $5 Blessing item awards you with daily Primogems along with a handful of Genesis Crystals while most of the other real money items provide Genesis Crystals. At first there was nothing to do with Genesis Crystals apart from trading them in for Primogems, but now there's starting to be a bit of daylight between the two currencies with some things purchasable with only Genesis Crystals. (This has mostly been cosmetics from what I've seen unless I'm missing something.) So it's just a teeeeney difference at the moment but worth remembering when you're deciding how/if to spend your money on Genshin.

 

[Vaeran]

Bah! I just unlocked Aloy, but the materials she needs for her first ascension are in Inazuma, which I'm probably(?) dozens of hours away from, given that I'm just taking my first steps into Liyue. I can't be babysitting her level 20 ass for that long. Bah!!!

Also, in her profile, her voice actor field is blank. It sounds like it could be Ashly Burch to me but idk

 

[Paul le Fou]

Also, in her profile, her voice actor field is blank. It sounds like it could be Ashly Burch to me but idk

That...strikes me as weird!

 

[MetManMas]

I know that union voice actors sometimes do non-union work. I mean, the union doesn't like it when they do, but generally is 'cuz they're not getting enough work from said union.

Could be why Aloy doesn't have a credited VA.

 

[Vaeran]

Maybe she just didn't want her name associated with gacha traaaash

Speaking of which, I got Qiqi and Sucrose on the same pull today! Qiqi's my first five-star character (aside from Aloy), so that's nice, though I don't know that I have a spot for her in the party just now. Right now I'm running with Traveler (Anemo), Aloy, Razor and Barbara. (Aloy's still locked at lv20 but I figure I can get a little use out of her before the level disparity grows too wide.)

Funny thing happened while exploring Liyue tonight. I ran across a single hulking enemy guarding a chest. It had a Geo shield and a ton of HP, and hit like a truck. I was chewing my way through the fight and had it down to pretty low HP when suddenly it stopped fighting me, turned and walked back to its starting position by the chest, where it sat down and regained full HP. I guess I pulled it too far away from its starting position so it just reset itself. I didn't feel like doing the fight over again so I just wandered off.

 

[Vaeran]

Got Raiden Shogun and Xiangling in one pull tonight! I guess I can't say my pulls haven't been anything special anymore. I know I can get a free Xiangling from the Spiral Abyss but I haven't gotten around to that yet, and hey, that just means I'll get her first constellation now.

Party is now Traveler (Anemo), Xiangling, Razor and Barbara. Amber was pretty lousy for applying Pyro status and Xiangling's not quite as versatile as I'd like, but she's definitely a step up from Amber. I tend to start combat with Barbara to get everyone wet, then switch to Razor to shock em, and now to Xiangling for Overload. Traveler can then spread the fire around with Swirl and back to Razor for another Overload, or Barbara again if I need healing. It's probably a pretty basic rotation but this is the fastest and most consistently I've been able to deal damage yet, so I'm pleased! (Traveler probably seems like the weak link in this party setup, but he's got a nice 4-star sword and can do great DPS, so I don't have any reason to want to swap him out yet.)

 

[ThornGhost]

Yeah, Xiangling definitely punches above her star rating. Getting a few constellations on her really helps. She can drop Gouba pretty quickly and her special is great for dealing lots of extra damage in a pinch. The joke is she's a developer favorite since she always seems to get more buffs.

 

[Vaeran]

Xiangling's not quite as versatile as I'd like

I wish to amend this statement: this was said before I realized that Guoba can turn to face enemies if they move away after he's deployed, which changes things quite a bit. I'll have to experiment more, but I think he can only turn once per deployment. But that's much better than being locked in place and breathing fire at nothing. Thanks for bein' a friend, Xiangling