Genshin Impact

[Hammr2]

4.8 Genshin codes
YS2WHUHFNQ5M
5TJWHDHX7R59
PTKXYUGW7R6D
QoL updates coming
World bosses will have 10 sec respawn timer. Commission points are now stacked, so no more saving on claiming event or quest reward.
There'll be some additional changes to Imaginarium Theatre in acquisition characters for your team to be less randomized (working on it).
Natlan teaser. No brown playable character yet, twitter - reddit will be fun.

ZZZ stuffs, Adventure/Trailblazer level 25 to unlock Genshin World boss equivalent, only cost 40 stamina wow. Really feel like this game unlocking features taking quite a while, probably much faster if skip most dialogues. Around level 23 or 24, I think where you actually finish Chapter 1 story.
Also Hard mode unlocked for any story mode combat session, don't have to deal with TV section.

Kinda nice - fresh that early couple missions of Chapter 2, Belobog, are like comedy.

 

[CharcoalChkn]

Natlan teaser. No brown playable character yet, twitter - reddit will be fun.

These new characters are so fugly, please never let those responsible cook again.

They are childish in the way I would expect to see an American Saturday morning cartoon LARP as a true and honest anime but they don't understand wtf they are doing. I don't give a flying fuck about their skin colour, these are just so....not what I was expecting and probably not something I'm going to warm up to.

 

[Gar For Archer]

You can play it as a single player jrpg and ignore the hardcore endgame like my brother does, at most you need to spend a few days auto battling resource mines to level up your people and farm at least passable gear to clear the story. It's very high budget, extremely deep for a "two button game", soundtrack is godtier and has a lot of content if you play it as a "free game".

The real trick is that the game is just FUN so you want to have more characters for FUN and variety and that's when the gacha/FOMO becomes hard to ignore.

Oh you liked Aventurine at the story? He is a strong unit and a fun character that enables more team comps. Well i bet you want to roll for him now dont you? But for that you need premium currency. To get premium currency and for that i need to log daily and do events. And then if you want to use him you need to farm some decent gear for him. And then you liked this new character. Now you have to do all that again...

You see how things snowball right? Dont play this if you can't control your wallet lol.

Well I downloaded it so I guess we’ll see how it goes. Is there anything I should look out for? E.g. what banner to roll at the start, what free characters are good to level up, things to avoid, etc

 

[Dollar Store Sentai]

I like the combat in ZZZ, feels like a more refined WuWa where button mashing will only get you so far instead of doing fighting game combos. I do agree the UI is dogshit though. Far too many menus and finding basic information feels hidden. Also trying to find the fun in the TV sections, the novelty of them wore of VERY quickly. They also seem to be targeting the furry crowd hard with the character designs.

 

[LucasSomething]

Well I downloaded it so I guess we’ll see how it goes. Is there anything I should look out for? E.g. what banner to roll at the start, what free characters are good to level up, things to avoid, etc

For starters be aware that the premium currency is Stellar Jade, you get it by playing the game and you should ONLY spend it on the limited banner rolls.



When you start you have the beginner banner that has a pity of 50 and a 20% roll discount. This means you only need 40 normal passes for it. DO NOT spend gems here, you can get normal passes from the store (5 per month), battle pass (5), and 1 per week on simulated universe. The beginner banner will give you a standard 5* early so it's nice. They're not all great but even the worst one can carry you early.

If you're not going to do endgame you dont need to worry about powerlevels but having a strong easy to build dps/tank/support helps. If you're not sure someone you got is good or want to roll for someone just ask here.

Every banner has a 5* and 3 4* with higher chance of obtaining. The current banner is very good, It's either Firefly or Ruan Mei and Galagher/misha/xueyi. I recommend spending all you get on Ruan Mei banner because she is a busted universal support and those 4*s are really good for beginners.

After that we have Argenti or Jade + 3 of the free 4*s you get. That's a pretty bad and sad banner, the 5* are AOE specialists that are kinda niche and the 4*s are ok but there are better ones. If you can hold yourself not getting new characters for 3 weeks, i'd recommend saving.

Also, after you get a unit, every of the same unit you get next becomes an "eidolon", a small upgrade. It's not worth going for 5* eidolons over new units so if you have the limited banner 5*, roll for the other one cause it's more value, even if you dont want them.

Also do not roll on weapon (light cone) banner, it gives weapons and not characters obviously. You can survive with 3* cones on supports and some of the f2p craftable gear is viable and you can earn 4.5* weapons that are very viable.

 

[Noebel]

These new characters are so fugly

Dollar Tree Gura seems fine.

 

[CharcoalChkn]

Dollar Tree Gura seems fine.

She's the best of the bunch, I'll agree, though none of them look like they fit the game, maybe I can't articulate it well, they look like they belong in a different IP entirely.

 

[Mysterious Girlfriend X]

She's the best of the bunch, I'll agree, though none of them look like they fit the game, maybe I can't articulate it well, they look like they belong in a different IP entirely.

Well, the loli catgirl looks really anachronistic compared to the rest of the cast. She's wearing sneakers and a visor, and looks more like she belongs in a setting like ZZZ than Genshin.

 

[Daddy's Little Kitten]

ZZZ updated and it's less stable for me now. It has crashed twice.

 

[CharcoalChkn]

After a bit more progression on ZZZ my updated thoughts.

• The story is a hell of a lot better when it is focusing on the siblings daily lives, the whacky trio + catgirl arc was insufferable for me. I really like the more low-key and chill "odd-jobs" and video rental store pivot the story has taken in the Chapter 1 Intermission, though I am well aware that this just significantly aligns to my own personal tastes in media. (I love stories that are just about vibing and getting into random """low-stakes""" situations and generally being a kind and useful member of your community.)
• Unlocking Hollow Zero has significantly improved my impression of combat. While it's still easy as I am low level and I assume they are not trying to wall players pre account level 25, I am starting to see the vision.
• TVs still suck big ass, balls and penis, however it's nowhere near as obnoxious in Hollow Zero, I can understand it's purpose there. Which leads me to question why did they include it in the story, it's implemented very poorly there and turns people off of the concept.
• UI still shit. I'm at the stage where I'm starting to level up my characters. Everything is grey, poor use of highlighting important things. Trying to level up skills took me longer than I want to admit to figure out what I'm meant to do. They really need to take their UX team to a firing squad for this one.
• I like the Bugaboo helper in battle, it's cute and just adds a little flavour.
• The music is really funky, I usually mute gacha games and just watch a video or listen to my own stuff, but I like the tracks here. Nice mixture of both high and low energy songs.
• Character designs seems pretty weak. There are some I like, nothing I feel very stongly about. There seems there is no way to visually discern an A Rank from an S Rank. I like the maid faction, but I think that is more because as a team, they are more visually cohesive than the others.

Overall my attitude towards the game is improving, but I still think it's not in the same weight class as Genshin and HSR.

For what it's worth, I pulled Lycaon, his weapon and 4 copies of Soukaku in under 100 rolls on the Standard banner with my free stuff, I know I got very lucky, not sure how people who have gotten ass fucked with luck are dealing with combat in terms of "unlocking" fun.

 

[Dollar Store Sentai]

The story is a hell of a lot better when it is focusing on the siblings daily lives, the whacky trio + catgirl arc was insufferable for me. I really like the more low-key and chill "odd-jobs" and video rental store pivot the story has taken in the Chapter 1 Intermission, though I am well aware that this just significantly aligns to my own personal tastes in media. (I love stories that are just about vibing and getting into random """low-stakes""" situations and generally being a kind and useful member of your community.)

I'm just glad we aren't the chosen one who has to travel the world and unlock our ability to change element/path.

TVs still suck big ass, balls and penis, however it's nowhere near as obnoxious in Hollow Zero, I can understand it's purpose there. Which leads me to question why did they include it in the story, it's implemented very poorly there and turns people off of the concept.

There was one fleeting moment it was cool as hell when we were told to play bomberman. The rest of the time it's annoying at best, a horrible slog the rest of the time.

 

[Hammr2]

This should be my last thought on ZZZ current state, a solid 7-7.5/10. The additional 0.5 is having skip button, I still read most of the story though. I like comic and visual novel style for story section a lot.
maybe 5-6/10 depending on how much you hate TV section, UI, artifact grind and repetitive combat. For some can be like 8/10, if they enjoy story, visual presentation and music.
Small ranting on the worst side quest

Spoiler

The most annoying Exploration mission ever, just because writing is supposed to be self aware how society letting down on people, that doesn't mean it would somehow lessen the pain. Ignore that, it's totally appropriate mission for ripping off your Gear Coin (temporary currency in TV section) as much as possible in a billion dollar gacha game company.
Also, it's the longest and biggest TV screen section so far I know.

Only Rally mission type is fun for these side quests. No TV section, only combat with a bit more open exploration around to find 4 hidden cargos.
Unfortunately after a while, you can see again and again combat rooms/arenas, even same mob enemies. It really makes the game feel repetitive. Especially for now when game doesn't have much diverse characters and everyone in early game only have like one team to play. Gonna wait to see their new character release schedule.

More on resource farming and relic/artifact grind hellhole

Spoiler

I'm being a dumb dumb for not noticing that pretty much the stamina, cap level relics (15), and leveling up materials are more akin to HSR. Weekly bosses are Notorious Hunt, don't consume stamina but only 3 runs can be done.
World boss - Stagnant shadows, Expert Challenge, are for character specific ascension. In ZZZ, you use them to unlock Core Skill Enhancement.
Probably Attack, Anomaly and Daze characters have to build like all 5 active skills, basic attack, dodge, swap parry, EX skill and Ultimate in long run. Support and Defense type only need swap parry and ex skill.


Expert Challenge also gives Audio Booster Master Copy, middle blue circle disc thing. In ZZZ, dismantling any Disc Drive (relic/artifact) will give these Audio Booster. Tunning any 5 AB gives a random disc drive. You don't have to use gold tier relic/artifact like in HSR or Genshin.
You do have guaranteed main stat item from battle pass at level 45, Tuning Calibrator. However you need unlock music shop level 3 to use it, around Adventure/Trailblazer level 40.
BP level 35 gives you Genshin Crown equivalent, Hamster Cage.

Dismantling disc drive also gives Plating Agents beside AB, they are HSR relic exp. Pretty much you have to dismantling all disc drives.

The hellhole of artifact/relic grind. Worse than Genshin. Debatable as horrible as HSR, maybe a little bit better if ZZZ had double drop rewards event.
RNG of two relic sets pluses RNG of 6 relic slots farming in the same domain/cavern of corrosion, 60 stamina consumption. So you still have to farm like more than one relic sets whatsoever, 4 and 2 set bonus, or 2-2-2 set bonus.
Slots 1 to 3 are fixed main stat, HP - ATK - DEF. Slots 4 to 6 are main grind beside trash HP, ATK, DEF main stats.
Slot 4 unique main stats are Cr.Rate-Damage and Anomaly Proficiency (More debuff damage from fully built up element gauge, burn, shock, etc...)
Slot 5 are Element Damage bonus and Penetration ratio. I'm not even sure if Penetration is good in current state.
Slot 6 are Energy Recharge, Impact (more daze build up), Anomaly Mastery (element gauge builds up faster).
Slot here is called Partition. At least, with level 2 music shop, you can guarantee which slot you can get from tunning AB. Music shop level 1 gives you only creates disc drive 100% from one relic/artifact set only. Music shop is unlocked after finishing story chapter 2.

Edit: Forgot, later on there will be enemies with shield. Either you bring appropriate element type to deplete shield or you have to fully daze them in order to start damaging their health. Typical requirement to complete mission under X timer for S rank

 

[std::string]

Combat just feels bad to me. Feels like there's no weight to it. I mash X a million times, do a parry-swap when prompted, some flashy cut-in animations try to give me epilepsy, and the enemies barely react

It gives me Rogue Galaxy flashbacks where everything just seems kinda disconnected and nonimpactful so combat feels more tedious than fun or challenging.

I'll wait to see if the actual high level combat is good before I pick it back up again.

 

[ZMOT]

These new characters are so fugly, please never let those responsible cook again.

they remind me of "we want the promilia audience"

Also, it looks like WW brought back the rougelite event with adjusted difficulty levels so hopefully that'll be fun to play through again.

apparently it's gonna be a regular thing, not surprising since it's pretty cheap to make and letting you go HAM with a limited char, not only showing it off to make you pull but giving you the whale experience alongside it.
kuro was even smart enough to just require leveled chars/weapons, no echoes. meanwhile in IT you better have all those chars properly geared at the same time...

 

[Keine]

they remind me of "we want the promilia audience"


apparently it's gonna be a regular thing, not surprising since it's pretty cheap to make and letting you go HAM with a limited char, not only showing it off to make you pull but giving you the whale experience alongside it.
kuro was even smart enough to just require leveled chars/weapons, no echoes. meanwhile in IT you better have all those chars properly geared at the same time...

Thinking about HSR's Divergent Universe and Genshin's new mode it does feel weird that they made it such a requirement to have have up to 18 characters ready to go at level 70+. If they added the same kind of "boost" that characters below the minimum get like in DU then the mode would probably be a lot less frustrating for a huge amount of players and likely be much better received. Most content until now like Spiral Abyss has demanded you only invest in a handful of characters.

But I'm an ultra casual, so I have a ton of characters who are built-ish so doing IT wasn't a massive task. I personally cleared all 8 stages in the first day on my primary account with a handful of missions that gave me issues but I don't think I got stuck on any stage more than 20-30 minutes.

My other big gripe with the mode is that all the boons are mostly a waste of currency and you're better off getting more characters or restoring vigor to characters you want to keep using. Doing the boons more like HSR's blessings would be much better and add another layer of strategy.

 

[LucasSomething]

I did the Imaginary theater in genshin and while it was mostly easy cause i have a bunch of units well geared, god what a jankyass mode that forced me into some cursed comps. It also forces you to use 4 units so even hyperinvestment isnt that rewarding as you can't have someone solo carry so you can spare more units for later. This gives you no choice as you'll be forced to make teams with 2-3 main dps often.

I had to do an arlequino (trial), clorinde (trial), cloud retainer, kazuha comp and i had no clue how the first two work (i guess healing them is bad??), i only won cause my kaz is strong enough to carry. I have not lost any single match thankfully.

It's also very RNG reliant with the buffs and characters you can unlock, so it doesnt feel competitive either. It's really only salvaged by not being as hard as abyss because if it ever gets HARD it will be cancer. Most people probably dont have even 12~ endgame geared characters much less complete elemental coverage. My only anemo dps is Wanderer who still isnt built to this day lol.

Thinking about HSR's Divergent Universe and Genshin's new mode it does feel weird that they made it such a requirement to have have up to 18 characters ready to go at level 70+. If they added the same kind of "boost" that characters below the minimum get like in DU then the mode would probably be a lot less frustrating for a huge amount of players and likely be much better received. Most content until now like Spiral Abyss has demanded you only invest in a handful of characters.

But I'm an ultra casual, so I have a ton of characters who are built-ish so doing IT wasn't a massive task. I personally cleared all 8 stages in the first day on my primary account with a handful of missions that gave me issues but I don't think I got stuck on any stage more than 20-30 minutes.

My other big gripe with the mode is that all the boons are mostly a waste of currency and you're better off getting more characters or restoring vigor to characters you want to keep using. Doing the boons more like HSR's blessings would be much better and add another layer of strategy.

I think the priorities with DU and IT are obviously different.

DU is meant to be FUN and let players use some characters they never touched to experiment. The current weekly challenge has the erudition equation, elation blessings and the 3* quantum break relic so i brought my ungeared Xueyi and she popped off. The mode is EXTREMELY RNG but it's fine because you have acess to ALL your characters and free gear so you can change your team around the equations.

IT on the other hand feels like the most artificial endgame challenge designed to remove your choices and make you regret not pulling for coverage. Have you been stomping abyss with Neuvilete+furina every 2 weeks? Fuck you (me in this case), hydro is out of rotation so they're useless now. If you dont have an E6 built Chevruse you can't even play a decent overload comp.

Honkai is also like, balanced enough for 4* units to be viable on DU. You can use Arlan or Yanqing on DU and they will do damage which is all you want from them. Meanwhile if you use the trial thoma and faruzan you'll realize they're awful. The main strategy isnt making a good team, it's trying to juggle terrible units and comps in a way that they're good enough to win but you save the top tiers for the boss.

The boon balance is also super broken like you said. There is no reason to get a very specific small buff when you can get a new character that gives you more comp freedom or restore vigor of. I even got lucky to restore kazuha vigor and get Al haitham to beat the last boss. You dont change your team around the boons, you just try your hardest to cheat the dumb limitations.

 

[Dumpster dived waifu]

I had to do an arlequino (trial), clorinde (trial), cloud retainer, kazuha comp and i had no clue how the first two work (i guess healing them is bad??),

Arlecchino wants to apply her skill, fuck off until the marks get big, come back on field, charge attack and turn everything to dust. She gets buffs whenever he healing debt changes, and she can very effectively do that by herself.

Clorinde is similar, except she can cleanse and build up the debt with just her skill. Attacking while skill is up creates debt, using the skill again to dash a few feet clears the debt. Same type of buffs for fluctuating her debts.

It's a min-max minigame, but if you just ignore it entirely the two of them are purely "okay" characters.

 

[Hammr2]

I had to do an arlequino (trial), clorinde (trial)

You may or may not figure out their gameplay logic and usage by now, just my more wordy explanation comparing to Dumpster dived waifu.
Both has BoL mechanic, neither will get any healing during their special state. The more BoL they have more damage they do. Every enhance normal attack will consume a portion BoL, so their damage is kinda slowly reducing overtime.

Arle, press E skill to mark enemies, defeat any enemies with the mark giver her BoL or you use charge attack to consume the mark and get BoL. Because the mark has two levels, needs a few sec to reach level 2 for more bonus, people swap other characters doing buff routine and swap back to Arle. Using charge attack to consume the mark is used for more tanky enemies. Her E burst is basically consuming all BoL, dealing AOE damage, healing her and importantly resetting E skill cooldown.

Clorinde is similary to Ayato, use E burst (to gain a huge amount of BoL), then E skill in special state enhancing her normal attack. During this state you can pressing E skill up to 20 times to move around - dash attack stabbing. The state duration is much less than cooldown, so there is some downtime. Any healing to Clorinde during the state will increase her BoL, which means continuous healing type probably a lot nicer than burst healing.
Another thing her enhance normal attack does piercing through multiple enemies near each other. I find this beneficial for Hoyo intentionally putting multiple or few slow moving tanky enemies (Lectors) in SA multi wave floor 2.

 

[Shart Attack]

IT on the other hand feels like the most artificial endgame challenge designed to remove your choices and make you regret not pulling for coverage. Have you been stomping abyss with Neuvilete+furina every 2 weeks? Fuck you (me in this case), hydro is out of rotation so they're useless now. If you dont have an E6 built Chevruse you can't even play a decent overload comp.

Honkai is also like, balanced enough for 4* units to be viable on DU. You can use Arlan or Yanqing on DU and they will do damage which is all you want from them. Meanwhile if you use the trial thoma and faruzan you'll realize they're awful. The main strategy isnt making a good team, it's trying to juggle terrible units and comps in a way that they're good enough to win but you save the top tiers for the boss.

I've been building wide rather than tall since I started playing the game. I like building up all my characters equally and playing around with off-meta characters and comps, so I had no problem filling out the IT roster with leveled, fully geared, decently built characters. I still timed out on multiple challenges multiple times because decently built characters aren't worth much against endgame HP bloat. I can't find any hard numbers on it, but it seems like even on the normal difficulty, the IT enemy HP scaling is at least equivalent to Abyss floor 11. That would be tolerable if the time limits were more generous, the random buffs were worth a shit, or you had more control over your team comps. To me it just seems like a bad combination of factors that would work well on their own.

Bring back the Labyrinth Warriors event, I say. That had a lot of randomness, but it was also really fun.

 

[Troon Whisperer]

I don't mind the time limit, just remove the fucking lightning attacks once it hits zero. Just don't give me that flower currency and let me take 20 minutes to chip away at things. Same with bosses, just don't hand out the rewards, but let me finish the fucking thing and move on.