Genshin Impact

[RIPRhongoBongo]

Time to stomp Notes on Shuori
Edit: finally done pulling this patch

 

[LucasSomething]

The new abyss feels like a middle finger to me for skipping kinich and emelie. Side 2 starts with lava dragon, thens two waves of mimiflora and finally papilla, i think burning is the only thing that can bypass all 3. I guess mavuika overload can kill lava dragon but i dont have iansan, ororon is level 20 and i dont want to turn bennet c6 on.

My plan was to kill lava dragon with an arle burn team and somehow it worked (its too big to burn me), but then on second room i realized nahida kept killing arlechino with the burn and even then it was too slow. I try to bring haitham hyperbloom but realize i did 300 damage on lava dragon. I google and find out the asshole has 150% universal resist in abyss at base meaning you're NOT killing it without stunning (maybe hyperwhales). But i didnt need to 3* it anymore so i tried anyway.


(i'll take any excuse to use ayaka)

The only reason it worked was due to floor 12 bonus of 20k true damage after 3 skill hits. Still took me 6+ minutes punching the guy and had to restart twice due to messing up and kuki dying but later parts were easy.

They're really star railing these new bosses. Glad they wont come back next abyss (sorry emilie wanters).

 

[Drifting Panzer]

As a relative new Genshin player, the near future will most likely test my willpower not to whale too hard. First in little over a week we got Raiden Shogun and the chronicled wish, and I want to roll on both. Then shortly after 5.7 comes with atleast 2 5-stars I want.

 

[RhoasJonas]

As a relative new Genshin player, the near future will most likely test my willpower not to whale too hard. First in little over a week we got Raiden Shogun and the chronicled wish, and I want to roll on both. Then shortly after 5.7 comes with atleast 2 5-stars I want.

If you have any plans to use Skirk I would suggest getting Escoffier since any non-Escoffier teams will be an at minimum 30% damage loss.

 

[Daddy's Little Kitten]

110 pulls. My punishment for that 10 pull P1 Fatutu.

 

[Drifting Panzer]

If you have any plans to use Skirk I would suggest getting Escoffier since any non-Escoffier teams will be an at minimum 30% damage loss.

I have been trying to the older characters, and leave the new ones for their rerun. I know I'm probably limiting myself in terms of meta play but I'm just AR 45 and about to start Fontaine so I should be fine.
But in what I only can call the ultimate irony I just lost 50/50 for Navia (got Dehya) and had enough primogems for 2 more wishes. Thinking "fuck it, spend them on the weapon banner, might get a new 4-star weapon to use". I did not get a 4-star, I got Escoffiers polearm. Atleast Iansan got a new shiny weapon while I sulk until its time to try for Raiden and Yae Miko.

This game is really fun, but the gacha part is really driving home how generous Azur Lane is when it comes to rolling for new characters.

 

[LucasSomething]

I have been trying to the older characters, and leave the new ones for their rerun. I know I'm probably limiting myself in terms of meta play but I'm just AR 45 and about to start Fontaine so I should be fine.
But in what I only can call the ultimate irony I just lost 50/50 for Navia (got Dehya) and had enough primogems for 2 more wishes. Thinking "fuck it, spend them on the weapon banner, might get a new 4-star weapon to use". I did not get a 4-star, I got Escoffiers polearm. Atleast Iansan got a new shiny weapon while I sulk until its time to try for Raiden and Yae Miko.

This game is really fun, but the gacha part is really driving home how generous Azur Lane is when it comes to rolling for new characters.

You got really lucky, the f2p spear selection is terrible (event ones are good but gone) so getting a top tier 5* crit spear is a big upgrade and the fork s is particularly flexible (good dps stick and 4* healers can use).

But yeah, people got used to it but it's insane how greedy and stingy genshin actually is. You get 50-55 rolls if you 100% the entire patch which isn't even enough to get one 5*. Pity can go to 90, 50% chance of winning and 2 rolls cost 5 dollars. The only thing worth buying is monthly pass (5 dollars = 18 rolls). If an f2p wants to guarantee someone they need to save for 2-3 patches.

I didn't know this because i don't live in US but if you play in america now they show how much each roll costs and how much money you might throw away to get one character, thanks to US gambling laws.



475 dollarinos for one 5* character? Really makes ya think...

 

[Girl Named Sandoz]

475 dollarinos for one 5* character

this obviously sounds ridiculous but it's calculated based on buying only the $1 crystal packs and going full 90 pity twice so no one will ever actually spend close to this

 

[Dollar Store Sentai]

Sadly finally lost a 50/50 on Zhezhi to S2 Lion Boy. Expected to but locks in Carlotta for the next banner.

 

[ZMOT]

This obviously hurted the marketing but the game's marketing is underrated in how terrible it was. For some reason the devs specifically sponsored a lot of female v-tubers and i find that retarded. V-tuber fans will spend money on v-tubers and forget what they play a day later. It should've targeted the action JRPG crowd instead. Another is how the trailers did not explain what the game is about, it was ONLY the protagonist fighting something and a little bit of baseball. They made 2 youtube channels and 2 twitter accounts and failed to upload trailers on time.

nip vtubers/watchers are different, and people do remember the games if they can connect it to their oshi's antics. there are still memes about pekora playing minecraft years ago.
there's also the added "I wanna play what my oshi plays" aspect, similar to celebrity advertisement. "well if george clooney wears those watches, they gonna buffy my appearance too!" - it doesn't always makes sense, but it works. from the other direction "my oshi likes what I like, win!". lot of streaming content (or content in general) is about validation after all.

EDIT: plus of course they might like what they see and start playing themselves. most of the millions of marketing are for the sole purpose to make people aware the thing exists at all.

or you simply enjoy japanese women gooning to zani. one of us!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=XA2wPrjH0Vs

"feebi-chupi" will stay with me for the rest of my life.

 

[DenseDeerFather]

I can feel it in my bone that I'll be doomed to hit hard pity before I ever get vampire fag with the cool ass hat.

Dangit, I just wanna grind for Lighter's W engine already.

Edit: I came across this video going through the issues with WuWa's and Genshin's stories, particularly Natlan in Genshin's character. Thought it interesting, but I can't say anything about it because I'm listening to it right now.

Edit 2: Typo, and yeah, I did take note of the story response video. Thought it interesting that there's a 1/4 dislike ratio to this one.

Evidently, it's rather telling. In all honesty, I wouldn't mind MHY and Kuro killing one or two waifus like Girls Frontline. And keep them dead. It's not gonna be Cormac McCarthy levels of deep or kill count, but no one goes into gacha games with such expectations - I think.

The whole thing is window dressing anyway, and the point is to make people like waifu or husband. You don't need to keep them alive, you just need to shove them in our faces enough to make us pull.

Of course, having issues with writing and pacing is fair, and these companies have proved they can put effort into a story presentation so naturally, people are gonna notice when they don't. I think most here have aired out their gripes with MHY's writing or ZZZ's direction or the giant hot box of MEH that is HSR 3.x.

But there's a difference between that and wanting a "deep" story.

 

[ZMOT]

Edit: I came across this video going through the issues with WuWa's and Genshin's stories, particularly Natlan in Genshin's character. Thought it interesting, but I can't say anything about it because I'm listening to it right now.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=H7XxhtODHjA

>41 minute video
>5 seconds in MUH MEDIOCRE WRITING

yeah no shit, it's a videogame story to make you care enough to roll for the newest character, not trying to win any literature prices (that being said have you seen what gets those prices these days?).
it's the same old fart-sniffing argument about "low-brow entertainment", completely ignoring that this matters fuck all as long as it does the job - entertain. that's why some people can enjoy the fuck out of independence day, and some feel embarrassed for offending their sensibilities (faggots).

I'd go as far and say a mediocrity is exactly what you want. you don't want it to be overly "intellectual" only PHDs can enjoy it, nor too simple most people are bored. you want the right sweet spot, in addition to make it work for most since different people like different things.

 

[Hammr2]

I came across this video going through the issues with WuWa's and Genshin's stories, particularly Natlan in Genshin's character.

All I'm gonna say, comments are right for criticizing him being wrong on many things. I pick a random section. One, Rover travelling to Rinas wasn't to figure out what Abby is, but to fix Abby. Two, calling Threnodians as deities is kinda a stretch, also Leviathan is a special case because Leviathan fused with Imperator, so Leviathan has a resonator. Saying Threnodians having their own resonators is incorrect. The first thing he says in WuWa part, "Idk what a Black Shore or who Shorekeeper is?", totally did not press skip story once.

I'd say he's also wrong on Genshin about Xilonen crafting Ancient Name for the Traveler in Natlan and the whole "show and telling" about Xilonen profession.
The part where Xilonen giving the Traveler their ancient name happens much later (patch 5.3), aka after Xilonen release patch (5.1) - her story quest. Oh no, the guy is "dumb" for playing the game late and not doing the quest progression accordingly. Similar dumb complaint about Cantarella doesn't have enough character exploration/development in WuWa main quest, meanwhile Cantarella's story quest provides exactly that.

It's even funnier, that he made a response video to WuWa story critic that he totally didn't skip story at all and 100% read it thoroughly by here's his ID in cutscene 100%. Only til comments why there are parts of player ID being blurred out?

To my, maybe unpopular opinion, I don't think Genshin did it well portraying Furina as did her best. I see her is kinda retarded and also Neuvilette to a certain extend. But who cares, Fontaine doesn't suffer any catastrophe for 400 years and everyone loves theatre acting and twitter justice system.

---

I have my fun with ZZZ. Time to let go. Game was fun and homely.


The game has multiple jokes about gacha, it's very self-aware.

Some screenshots I like.

Spoiler

I totally did not quadruple timing these guys. I'm not counting Lycaon, even though he would be canon choice with Belle in Beaststars.


Most people would notice the whole siscon or brocon insult. But not enough "old people" to notice in Belle case, "woman driver".
If player is Wise, then Lucy would insults about gacha addiction instead.


Most applicable to game journalists.

S11 and her love for cat. Also, Phaethon adopts the cat later on.




Harumasa story quest and trust events.


Left is Hugo's event trust (mistaken Vivian's admiration post on interknot as threat). Ellen sleeping one is old/early game.

 

[Daddy's Little Kitten]

It's even funnier, that he made a response video to WuWa story critic

He also pussied out in doing story content videos.

 

[DenseDeerFather]

Similar dumb complaint about Cantarella doesn't have enough character exploration/development in WuWa main quest, meanwhile Cantarella's story quest provides exactly that.

I did notice that. I was waiting for him to mention the character quest, but.....nothing. Which was rather suspicious. Does he not play character quests?

Side note: I'd much rather have character quests they exist to flesh out the characters than having that shit dumped onto like two kicks to the face.

AHEM AVENTURINE AND CASTORICE AND ACHERON. And I like those characters, but I don't like how deeply their backstories were ingrained into the main narrative.

It outright overshadowed Anaxas in the case of Castorice.

Speaking of ZZZ, think I'll be skipping the entire first half of 2.0, depending on who reruns. I hear tell that Caesar reruns in phase 2, so I might come back to get her.

 

[LucasSomething]

I can feel it in my bone that I'll be doomed to hit hard pity before I ever get vampire fag with the cool ass hat.

Dangit, I just wanna grind for Lighter's W engine already.

Edit: I came across this video going through the issues with WuWa's and Genshin's stories, particularly Natlan in Genshin's character. Thought it interesting, but I can't say anything about it because I'm listening to it right now.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=H7XxhtODHjA
Edit 2: Typo, and yeah, I did take note of the story response video. Thought it interesting that there's a 1/4 dislike ratio to this one.

Evidently, it's rather telling. In all honesty, I wouldn't mind MHY and Kuro killing one or two waifus like Girls Frontline. And keep them dead. It's not gonna be Cormac McCarthy levels of deep or kill count, but no one goes into gacha games with such expectations - I think.

The whole thing is window dressing anyway, and the point is to make people like waifu or husband. You don't need to keep them alive, you just need to shove them in our faces enough to make us pull.

Of course, having issues with writing and pacing is fair, and these companies have proved they can put effort into a story presentation so naturally, people are gonna notice when they don't. I think most here have aired out their gripes with MHY's writing or ZZZ's direction or the giant hot box of MEH that is HSR 3.x.

But there's a difference between that and wanting a "deep" story.

This guy has some point but he's mostly surface level, lacks certain awarenes and sounds like he only glanced the main story on youtube once. He says "i dont care about this cast cause they only talk and i don't know what they do" and like, bro you're supposed to their quest. Did you do that? I admit i didn't care much but at least i did them. You don't show them in the video so i guess not.

Another is when he says xilonen "solves the problem of traveler ancient name offcamera" and i'm like, i don't think she did?? It took me one google search to see we switch POV to Citlali and Xilonen asking the literal god of night kingdom to help forge a name for traveler.

>offcamera

He could've said it was too easy and contrived sure, but it wasn't offscreen.

He says mavuika is too perfect while Furina is sad therefore human so fontaine is well written but that's a shallow idea of "True art is angst". Zhongli was kinda perfect boring too but he got away with it. Natlan is not fontaine, it wasn't going to be like fontaine.

He brings up sumeru pseudo-time loop as amazing writing (which is funny to me since i found it the most boring) and then goes on to ramble about some weeb visual novel (always an intelectual flex). Sounds like he just likes to talk about time loops and didn't explain why sumeru quest was well written.

He says "No one knew Capitano had the curse of immortality or his backstory, it's a deus ex machina" except capitano literally... tells traveler he has it... much earlier... meaning he's a Khaenriah knight like dainsleaf... This was a common theory and it made sense.

>nobody knew

He brings up muh conflict and "Man vs X" chart (wow so smart) but he's kinda cynical about it. Yeah, john npc is an npc so you don't care if he dies but then you're not trying to enjoy the godamn thing. I'll admit i'm a bit like that and hoyo lacks stakes but Natlan wasn't that much worse on practice. I never believed anyone playable in fontaine was going to die either, the prophecy had no weight.

He also doesn't get that there is more a videogame writing than the writing itself. Natlan had other contentious stuff like technology level, character design, overly spread out cultures, lack of men and black people (lol), exploration requiring natlan units, hyped units being 4* or unplayable etc. This negativity seeps into the main story. He clearly didn't play natlan in real time and keep up with the fandom.

Can't believe this dude had me defending genshin story. There are a lot of valid stuff to criticize natlan and some stuff he says is valid but he picks either wrong/pedantic stuff to complain about and it just makes him look dumb.

edit: he confuses the god of night with god of death too (they're not the same thing).

 

[The oxymoronic European]

All this talk about the Genshin story quests made me wonder, what does everybody here think are the best/worst of Genshin Archon quests?

In descending order, mine would be;

Spoiler: Wall of text

6. Natlan - Maybe it's the recency bias, but I just can't stand it. The dialogue feels more repetitive than ever and I feel punished for attempting to occasionally read out segments. The characters are flatter than ever, with the most 'interesting' dynamic being between Orororn and his faux grandma. It has the worst Archon who is pretty much perfect at everything she ever does, which is ironic given she's a human and that factor doesn't pay off in any way. The war arc was completely wasted by focusing so much on the Traveler instead of jumping around different character Pov's to at least give out the illusion of a larger scale conflict going on rather than a print of Death toll: 2144 mooks
I could say more, but it would just be more of echoing things other people have already said.

5. Inazuma - Personally dislike the Archon more, but I think Mauvika is worse from a writing standpoint. Too much focus on npc's (rip my nigga Teppei, he was a real one) over any other actually important characters. They completely shifted gears in Archon quest four or five with the Raiden Shogun to make her not so completely evil, which hurt the story. The character dynamics were -- better than in Natlan. Slightly, in that there were some, rather than none. The war arc was *extremely* underwhelming, with the Traveler doing random shit for an entire part before getting to meet Scaramouche and actually kicking the rest of the story off. I *think* it's shorter than Natlan. If so, this alone makes it better.
It's been a while since I played Inazuma, but I *really* disliked it when it came out. Maybe on a rewatch, I'd consider it worse than Natlan, but I don't hate myself quite enough to check.

Powergap

4. Liyue - Comparatively a much better bunch of quests, it still suffers from a lot of busywork segments to tie it all together. Outside of that, some of the grander worldbuilding problems rear their heads in Liyue, like how the Fatui can operate a bank in full view of everybody when they were integral in almost destroying the whole city. Zhongli as an Archon isn't really allowed to be much of anything (because China), but I kinda like his aloof penniless personality. It's rather middle of the road as the writing quality Genshin gets, but I would take this any day of the week over Inazuma and Natlan.

3. Mondstadt - It serves as a fine introduction to the world of Genshin, setting up most of the central conflicts with the Fatui and Archons well enough. I suppose it would have been better to give Signora more foreshadowing before she upchucked Venti and peaced out with the Gnossis. Venti himself is pretty good as far as Archons go, different from all the rest by just living up to his title of god of freedom. In all honesty it's been so long since I played Mondstadt that I can't really give it a fair review without rewatching the story.

2. Fontaine - I think the story of Fontaine is the most consistently good out all the Archon Quests. Even though I think they mishandled Furina's character and made her trial into a glorified Kangaroo court, the rest of the story is mostly good. Outside of the fortress part, that part dragged on a bit too long. Furina herself was -- fine enough as an Archon. Maybe a bit too one note in the whole 'I'm INCOMPETENT! NOTICE IT!!!"

1. Sumeru - I'll admit, before the time loop shenanigans began to happen, I was not very invested in the story. After that though, it ended up surprising me with how good the rest of it was. The conflict between Nahida and the Sages was interesting, and one that I wish was expanded upon more. What really holds Sumeru up was it's cast of characters who all came together to help their Archon, each for their own individual reasons. Alhaitman, Cyno, Nilou and Dehya felt more like a team than the six in Natlan ever did. Nahida herself is interesting as an Archon, being she's the only one of them who still has to grow into her position after her five-hundred-year absence. I just wish that Genshin kept up this level of writing quality throughout.

 

[The Lawgiver]

Haha holy shit I was just gonna come in here and talk abotu the story stuff that happened last time I played and it's people covering some video essayist going "ah nooo it's all the same shit aaa" and disregarding actual fucking shit that happens IN CUTSCENES AND SPELLS OUT WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE CUTSCENE MULTIPLE TIMES IN CASE YOU AREN'T PAYING ATTENTION.

He could've said it was too easy and contrived sure, but it wasn't offscreen.

Youtube video essayists are lying scumfucks that push narratives to try and make companies subvert the story they already got going by pretending it doesn't exist. I noticedf this with genshin clickbait shit talking about "story" being "mediocre" and "making no sense" the moment they started popping up a few years ago. Genshin plans it's story shit ahead. Said it before but my big gripe is how dialogue heavy some stuff can get with repeats of prior info but when people like this exist I immediately understand why the writings started getting like that.

Anyways I'm fucking shocked we didn't get an actual real durin fight before mini durin became a human, and also surprised it happened so soon. The way shit was hinted at made it seem like it was gonna be endgame stuff. By the way, how do the cutscenes go for people that didn't do the simulanka and the snow mountain quest thing from a few years back? This is the first big plot thing I've seen in a while that heavily ties into what was a timed lore quest since scaramouche's intro.

By the way I'm glad the one npc kids dad that got found during the timed event with the whopperflower skinwalker didn't turn out to be another skinwalker, he's still there after you finish the new quest.

 

[Troon Whisperer]

Genshin content creators will never stop showing the world how they can't fucking read, and it'll always amuse me. Conjured up Escoffier's signature weapon through the power of fuck it I'll finally do Abyss just this once for the primos.

 

[LucasSomething]

By the way, how do the cutscenes go for people that didn't do the simulankra and the snow mountain quest thing from a few years back?

I gave my thoughts on why i think the 5.6 quest was rushed some pages ago and how the summaries are given 2 pages ago. The tl;dr is that there is one prompt to see a very short and vague one for Albedo's event and no prompt to see the simulankra summary at all (you have to open the quest list and search for it). I did not finish the simulankra and i did not know who mini durin is.

And i agree this thing all sounds like something that "feels endgame" but the devs admitted they were too slow and now they need a full year of nodkrai to adress all the loose plot threads. This was their way to finally put the lore of 4 different events into the main quest.

All this talk about the Genshin story quests made me wonder, what does everybody here think are the best/worst of Genshin Archon quests?

It's been a while since i played them but i'll try, not objective but more personal ramblings

Spoiler: dottore best villain

1-Monstat: This is definitely nostalgia and vibes talking but i remember loving monstat story quest and can't find much to complain right now. It was just happy fantasy quest, meeting cool people, learning reactions and saving the village from a corrupted dragon.

2-Fontaine: I got tired of the trials and prison but that emotional climax of each archon quest ending saves the story hard. Fontaine in general is a joy to watch and the cast looks so good, it would get away if the story was shit.

3-Sumeru: Probably the real "best written" story. There was too much god tree lore for me and i started mashing and missed a chunk of it but the entire cast is used extremely well and has their own dynamics and motivations. Dottore has insane presence for how little screen time he has.

The moment Dottore says "You know, out of all of my versions, the one you see is the most selfish one. If it wasn't me, your plan would not have worked." solidified him as the best "true villain" of the game in my eyes, by significant margin.

4-Liyue: It was still honeymoon phase but liyue quest was kinda boring and lame in hindsight, like a bunch of sidequests. Not offensively bad, it was still enjoyable.

5-Inazuma: Probably the worst written in general but at the time everyone was extremely excited so there was definitely some hype backlash. The idea of the archon being the villain had sooo much potential. Another problem is that they made kokomi and raiden quest optional after backlash of ayaka + yoimiya quest being mandatory but that was a BIG MISTAKE. Kokomi quest pretty much finishes the war and raiden's quest with her being out of touch, miss both and the main quest feels outright incomplete. Raiden quest 2 is huge for her development too.

6-Natlan: I understand "The Nation of War" might've set up the wrong expectations but man, the whole thing and the fanbase felt negative from start to finish. Some characters were wasted and the dynamics felt safe and boring, other than citlali and ororon. I don't think i got a single character cause i liked them, it was only Xilonen, mavuika and citlali for meta (and i regret citlali a bit). At least pyro traveler is actually usable and not a troll pick.

Genshin content creators will never stop showing the world how they can't fucking read, and it'll always amuse me. Conjured up Escoffier's signature weapon through the power of fuck it I'll finally do Abyss just this once for the primos.

Paimon really is a necessary evil. For everyone who hates her for repeating stuff, there are 4 who won't remember what she said.