|OT| Genshin Impact - Breath of the Elements

[Line]

Well I ended up giving up entirely on the event, not gonna do the entire Chasm and more to unlock it.
That will help the next player satisfaction survey, I'm sure they like getting 1 everywhere.

Next it happens like this, I'm probably out of Genshin entirely. I don't play games that don't respect my time, and the daily shit is already using a lot of my petience.

 

[Line]

Rolled a bit with my random stashed fates since I don't mind getting Itto, and I don't have Shinobu (duh) nor Gorou, and Chongyun is C5 (though I don't ever intend to play him).
Didn't get him, but I got 1 Gorou, 1 Shinobu and 1 Favonius codex to refine my weapon on Mona.

Sure, I'll take it!

Also the music event is actually very good, much better than the last ones.

 

[Ascheroth]

Yeah, it's their best rhythm minigame by far. Great track choices as well.

I put in 11 pulls and got C0 Gorou and C0 Kuki. Literally perfect rolls, lol.
Next stop: Heizou
Then Yoimiya afterwards.

 

[Ascheroth]

10 pulls, 1 Heizou. The 4* luck continues!
In exchange I used the fates from ascending him and got C3 Diluc (was at soft pity so a 5* was expected)....
Still no Mona and Keqing.
Pain.


Anyway, Heizou is hella fun.
Probably just gonna move all of Sucrose's gear straight over to him and run him + Yelan, Shinobu and Xingqiu in overworld (maybe Fischl instead of Xingqiu after I get her C6 and outfit from the upcoming event).

 

[Line]

I ended up getting Itto, because I do like playing him.
Also got Shinobu to C5, and she's a surprisingly great character, probably underestimated like Kokomi. She's arguably even better, despite healing less per tick, having a 100% uptime on healing is unique and very, very beneficial, more so with her great electro application. Plus her burst is both cheap, large, and hits many times - not very damaging with a healing build, but a great addition to most quickswap teams - and to Raiden.

Also got Gorou C3. And his much welcome C4 on a random standard fate, what were the odds of that?
Dude will have to wait a while, Itto takes priority though.

Heizhou I just love his playstyle, but I guess I can wait, I don't want any of the others this patch.
I sure hope Iansan will have a similar type

 

[Ascheroth]

I ended up getting Itto, because I do like playing him.
Also got Shinobu to C5, and she's a surprisingly great character, probably underestimated like Kokomi. She's arguably even better, despite healing less per tick, having a 100% uptime on healing is unique and very, very beneficial, more so with her great electro application. Plus her burst is both cheap, large, and hits many times - not very damaging with a healing build, but a great addition to most quickswap teams - and to Raiden.

Also got Gorou C3. And his much welcome C4 on a random standard fate, what were the odds of that?
Dude will have to wait a while, Itto takes priority though.

Heizhou I just love his playstyle, but I guess I can wait, I don't want any of the others this patch.
I sure hope Iansan will have a similar type

Yeah it does feel like Shinobu is kinda underestimated, but I really like her as well.
I slapped Barbara's artifacts on her and have been running her in my friendship team and she's very comfy even at C0 where she doesn't have quite 100% uptime.

Her healing is pretty good. It's less per tick than Barbara or Qiqi heal with their skill, but it ticks faster so it's probably around the same if not slightly better (though with the downside that she has no team-wide healing whatsoever).

I want to transition her to a full EM Millelith set, but since I just got Heizou that will have to wait a bit longer.
Millelith is kind of obvious due to her easy 100% uptime at C2 and full EM because there doesn't seem to be much difference between going full HP vs full EM in terms of healing/skill damage, but I feel like EM is more future proof in combination with Dendro and a bit better for reaction teams (and her Burst damage, since that one scales with Atk I feel like it's better to look at is a way to quickly unload a bunch of reactions and do damage mainly via EM as well, but I haven't actually tested that since I didn't feel like farming gear for her until recently).


But in general I'd say she's a good character that opens up a bunch of new teams as well, simply because of her role consolidation (Millelith Buffer + Healer + Electro application). Like, if you pair her up with Eula for example you suddenly have 2 slots for more offense oriented supports open instead.



Heizou really does feel great to play, I hope they do more interesting stuff with movesets like this.

 

[Ascheroth]

I had to do a double-take when my boy Heizou just casually 3 starred Kenki and the Perpetual Mechanical Array.
For reference, this is only the 2nd time since the release of the game (or maybe the 3rd?) that I got full stars.
Heizou is C0, 6/6/6 talents and full EM, Yelan is C0, Xingqiu C6 and Shinobu C0 with a borrowed Clam set. Everyone has 4 star weapons (except Shinobu, I realized afterwards that she still had her initial 1* level 1 Dull Blade )

Super fun team. It could also be that the Yelan + Xingqiu core is just that strong though, but Heizou is just a really fun driver and Shinobu adds the comfy healing.

(Had the most trouble with chamber 1 actually and only got 2 stars initially, stupid whopper flowers.)

 

[Line]

Yelan and Xingqiu are just kinda broken, and will be even more with the new +HP Hydro resonance. I do wonder what kinda scaling we will get on new characters.
Dendro resonance is cool too, and it's probably a better design to have EM, it works on anyone at least. The lack of anemo and geo reactions make little sense, though. When I think plants, those are pretty up there... unlike electrocuting seeds to increase dendro damage?

 

[Ascheroth]

Yelan and Xingqiu are just kinda broken, and will be even more with the new +HP Hydro resonance. I do wonder what kinda scaling we will get on new characters.
Dendro resonance is cool too, and it's probably a better design to have EM, it works on anyone at least. The lack of anemo and geo reactions make little sense, though. When I think plants, those are pretty up there... unlike electrocuting seeds to increase dendro damage?

I need to see Dendro reactions in practice before I make a judgement on them. They seem pretty different than anything we have right now.
On the one side you have it not reacting at all with half the elements in the game, but then on the other side it has triple reactions with the remaining half.

 

[Line]

New chars to play as and the Golden Apple Archipelago made me play a bit more for once.
Finished some main story quests, explored a bit more of the Chasm, also realized that I never did the post-story quests on Tsurumi island, so I did a bit of that too. Love the place still.

There really is a lot of content to do now, huh.
I wonder what people starting with Sumeru will think... and also how they're going to ascend brand new chars There's hundreds of hours before you can do so now!

 

[Ascheroth]

I wonder what people starting with Sumeru will think... and also how they're going to ascend brand new chars There's hundreds of hours before you can do so now!

Ideally they just let you walk to Sumeru on foot right from the start, regardless of how far along you are in the story. Like how you could just walk over to Liyue whenever you wanted. Otherwise things could get ugly.

 

[Amzin]

Haven't posted here in a bit but won my first (and still only) 50/50 on Yelan so that's great, absolutely love everything about her - from semi-unique build requirements (ATK doing nothing was a nice change from my other characters anyway), to playstyle, to her actual character, to... y'know, her. Really loved the new quest that happened as well, and the combat challenge was my favorite to date. Kuki I'm a bit more indifferent to, I like having another healer and another element for healing + comboing is certainly nice.

I'm as excited for Heizou though honestly. Unarmed martial arts characters are always my go-to in any game I play and it's exciting having one here finally. I've dumped a TON of resources into him already, although I only got C1 while pulling for Kaz (lost 50/50 so had to pull twice). I'm trying a selfish damage build for Heizou since I can use Kaz for EM Anemo. Heizou is so fun though. Can use a ton of different teams with him and just punch punch punch punch all day long.

I'm excited for Sumeru itself but so far none of the characters leaked or teased look interesting to me, but it's fine if I get to save primos for a while after playing catchup since I started. Hopefully the story stays more interesting and progresses characters like we've seen in Inazuma and some of the post-Morax-quest Liyue.

 

[Ascheroth]

Man, day 2 of the event was fantastic. If every day adds as much stuff than whew.

Haven't posted here in a bit but won my first (and still only) 50/50 on Yelan so that's great, absolutely love everything about her - from semi-unique build requirements (ATK doing nothing was a nice change from my other characters anyway), to playstyle, to her actual character, to... y'know, her. Really loved the new quest that happened as well, and the combat challenge was my favorite to date. Kuki I'm a bit more indifferent to, I like having another healer and another element for healing + comboing is certainly nice.

I'm as excited for Heizou though honestly. Unarmed martial arts characters are always my go-to in any game I play and it's exciting having one here finally. I've dumped a TON of resources into him already, although I only got C1 while pulling for Kaz (lost 50/50 so had to pull twice). I'm trying a selfish damage build for Heizou since I can use Kaz for EM Anemo. Heizou is so fun though. Can use a ton of different teams with him and just punch punch punch punch all day long.

I'm excited for Sumeru itself but so far none of the characters leaked or teased look interesting to me, but it's fine if I get to save primos for a while after playing catchup since I started. Hopefully the story stays more interesting and progresses characters like we've seen in Inazuma and some of the post-Morax-quest Liyue.

After a stretch of characters that are very niche and/or constellation locked, they've been on a roll with characters that are versatile and great out of the box.
I really like all of Yelan, Shinobu and Heizou. And all 3 of them work great together

I think Yelan and Heizou are already well-regarded, but I feel like Shinobu is a bit slept on - I really think she's very good (and I have a feeling she'll get even better with Dendro).
Though like everything it depends on teams and your definitely trading some damage for her comfyness, but I prefer the comfiness. I once tried the original taser team with Sucrose/Xinqiu/Fischl/Beidou but the lack of proper healer or shielder made it quite annoying. Shinobu solves that.

 

[Line]

It took nearly two years, but I got her

Finally!
And I still don't have Qiqi.
Four Keqings though.

 

[hersheyfan]

It took nearly two years, but I got her

Finally!
And I still don't have Qiqi.
Four Keqings though.

Congrats! Jean gets shat on a lot for having been powercrept by the other name brand Anemos, but I really enjoy using her. Just built like an absolute tank, and remains the gold standard for emergency healing (because it isnt reliant on gradual ticks, it just gives you a truckload of HP upon triggering the Q). The E is also useful, and has a short cooldown.

 

[Ascheroth]

Codes:

Code 1: 8ANCKTWYVRD5
Code 2: EA7VKTFHU9VR
Code 3:KT7DKSFGCRWD

Special Program is on right now, not watching it myself yet, but some infos I picked up on the side:

(that's 5 weeks each for 3.0 to 3.2, to get back to the original schedule after the recent-ish 3 week delay).

Collei is gonna be free.
Tighnari will move into the standard banner with 3.1.

 

[Line]

Tighnari about to break Keqing's record. Poor guy will make no monies.

 

[Ascheroth]

I don't actually think so. If people want him, they should pull.
Getting a specific standard banner character is hella difficult. I still don't have Mona and Keqing after soon 2 years of playing!
I'd legitimately pull on a Mona banner these days.

 

[hersheyfan]

I don't actually think so. If people want him, they should pull.
Getting a specific standard banner character is hella difficult. I still don't have Mona and Keqing after soon 2 years of playing!
I'd legitimately pull on a Mona banner these days.

Mona is my personal white whale among the standard banner 5 stars, I've wanted to have a Mona for the longest time but havent managed it. (I don't have Qiqi, either, but I'm not too broken up about that lol)

I plan to pull on the Tighnari banner, but not actually for Tighnari... I just want to keep my streak of having all the 4 stars alive, and pull until I get at least one of all the new guys. Its worked well for me so far!

 

[Line]

We'll get a free Collei from the event though, so you don't need to roll on Tighnari.
Dori will be on Ganyu/Kokomi's banner.

 

[hersheyfan]

We'll get a free Collei from the event though, so you don't need to roll on Tighnari.
Dori will be on Ganyu/Kokomi's banner.

Wait, what? YES!!!

This is how you know I didnt actually watch the show and just stole the primogem codes off friends lol.

That makes things a lot easier for me, as rolling on the Zhong Li banner to get just one Dori is much more palatable (and statistically favorable). And if, in the process, I somehow get a Zhong in the early going, thats not so bad!

 

[Ascheroth]

 

[Line]

In for Candace
She seems to be a hydro shielder, that's cool. Totally the kind of archetype I like to play.

I will wait for the two others, they seem cool too. But not as much as Dehya.

And I completed missing bits and bobs of the Golden Apple Archipelago.

I really, really enjoyed the presentation and the quest design for once, the characters domains were pretty good.
Kazuha's story I still didn't care about (like everyone playable in Inazuma really... ), but good dungeon, excellent island mechanics to explore.
Xinyan was fine... but most of the story didn't even concern her, she has drama armor. Nice dungeon, I liked coming back to it a lot to see the big changes it made to them. Pretty good. island.
Fischl had the coolest story by far, loved it. Nice domain, if confusing, but her island... it was a chore, between the boring theater ravens, or the fact that most of her large archipelago is just empty...? Most islands look cool with buildings, but no, nothing on them, and no related quest? Bleh...
Mona's story was passable, but her domain was phenomenal, the best dungeon Genshin ever did, easily on par with other Zelda-likes. Incredibly pretty and flavorful, AND they have god mechanics, used in many ways, like the water reflecting the solution, or the solution becoming the puzzle itself, with really interesting secrets. Loved it.
Her island though? It sucked. Like, the worst exploration in Genshin. Why do we travel through time? It's just a repeat of Xinyan's gimmick but worse to activate, and the sub quest is miserable and forces you back and forth about 8 times, the puzzles are weird and most are not even related to Mona's domain.
What the hell? I didn't even bother finishing to explore, what a way to end the event...

At least Miitoboru's quest was nice and touching. Hope we'll see more of him another day.

Also I won primos from Hoyolab from listening to the new OST. Dunno if it's for everyone or if I was a bit lucky.

 

[Amzin]

Yea I was pretty disappointed in all the open-world islands in GaAA. They had interesting ideas but mostly just godawful implementation for little reward. They basically used them to add tedium rather than fun / cleverness in most of the spots. I think Kazuha's was OK in that it was relatively small and simple - if it had been as big as the others it wouldn't have worked.

I appreciated all the character stories, Kazuha's was probably the most boring to me because it was mostly just a rehash of the limited time (for some reason) quest we had for him just recently. I appreciated Xin's attitude just staying true to herself, and Mona's wasn't really about her so much as philosophy (also she contradicts herself at least once in like 5 minutes) but the dungeon was so pretty.

I started playing right after part 2 of Inazuma had come out so Enko and Chasm were new additions to me (and I super loved Enko) but it'll be weird to just have a whole new country / region thrown in. Hopefully the exploration is fun, we won't have any real progress in main story for another half a year all told so that's whatever. The characters don't sound too interesting to me so far but they might surprise me.

 

[Ascheroth]

Honestly to me the Golden Apple Archipelago this time was probably among the best content they've released since the release of the game, I loved (almost) everything about it.
By far the best domains both visually and mechanically, and interweaving story with the domains and islands and puzzles was great for an overall mix.
Most of the islands were very good too, only Fischl's was kind of a chore - excellent concept, but the execution wasn't quite there.
On the other hand everything that had to do with Mona was fantastic. Good story, incredible domain and island. By far the best puzzle content of the entire game since release, I absolutely loved it. Though I'm not surprised her island is super divisive, it was also by far the hardest puzzle content in the entire game and it mostly left you to figure out everything on your own. Not for everyone. Probably a very "love it or hate it" thing with little room inbetween.
A crying shame this was temporary though....

As for characters: I like Cyno and Candace a lot, and Nilou is okay (first design impressions). Will have to see their personalities, kits and animations to make a decision an which 5 star to go for (Candace I want either way).

Also somehow I'm more hyped about the leaks confirming we're getting a permanent TCG in 3.1 (with online-play, apparently?), then any of the characters
Hopefully it will be good, I absolutely love me a decent card game in my (J)RPGs.

 

[Line]

I mean I didn't feel like I had too much to think about, just had to find the right "key" to activate the puzzles. That's fine.
Except, since, you know, they were almost never close, and there's no quest involved so there's no notes taken, you just have to remember all the things... including the one from, say, the dream animal that leads you to the 4 elements in order. Did that 4 weeks ago? Lol tough luck, go read a guide or something.
Or one of the constellation puzzles, I did randomly, no idea what I was supposed to look at, unlike the other ones in the sky. And I'm a bit worried that it was a bug, because I 100% had one in one of the island where a windwheel didn't spawn and got me stuck.

Oh and the colossal mistake that they did that never appeared in Genshin before: there's not enough waypoints.
When you need to reach the top of Minacious island, how do you do it? You run, all around from the side, again, and again and AGAIN. The only way to get some heights is to use the windwheels, which aren't good for every area.

 

[hersheyfan]

As for characters: I like Cyno and Candace a lot, and Nilou is okay (first design impressions). Will have to see their personalities, kits and animations to make a decision an which 5 star to go for (Candace I want either way).

Also somehow I'm more hyped about the leaks confirming we're getting a permanent TCG in 3.1 (with online-play, apparently?), then any of the characters
Hopefully it will be good, I absolutely love me a decent card game in my (J)RPGs.

I'm super down for Nilou after seeing the leaked kit, she's basically got the dendro proc nuke. Her Q animation is also really pretty! Will also go for Candace, assuming she's not a 5 star - a hydro Beidou sounds like something I could cause some trouble with.

Will probably try for Zhong in the second half of the next banner, as he fills the only remaining hole in my rotation: a very competent Geo I can pair with Ning for when that flying dragon comes back around in Abyss. Then its Nilou, followed by Nahida whenever she drops.

Im also hyped for that TCG stuff! They must be really confident about a strong reception if theyre adding it to the weekly missions list.

Yea I was pretty disappointed in all the open-world islands in GaAA. They had interesting ideas but mostly just godawful implementation for little reward. They basically used them to add tedium rather than fun / cleverness in most of the spots. I think Kazuha's was OK in that it was relatively small and simple - if it had been as big as the others it wouldn't have worked.

This is basically how me (and most of my IRL Genshin playing cohorts) felt about GAA. I've never been so happy to be done with an event, ever.

 

[Amzin]

Though I'm not surprised her island is super divisive, it was also by far the hardest puzzle content in the entire game and it mostly left you to figure out everything on your own. Not for everyone. Probably a very "love it or hate it" thing with little room inbetween.
A crying shame this was temporary though....

See I didn't find it hard at all. It was just incredibly tedious. So many of the puzzles required going back and forth a bunch, running around, etc. The puzzles aren't localized at all like they are in the other islands. Puzzle games are like, one of the main things I play, and nothing here even approached some of the nonsense I've come across, but these were tedious. And some people don't mind tedium - when you only play one or two games, spending more time running around that game doesn't bother you. But I hate it. I hate multi-phase boss fights in games with no checkpoints where you have to do the easy parts over again. I hate running around, going to a boat, boating to an island, doing 1/3 of a puzzle, running BACK to the boat, going to another area, doing 1/5 of the same puzzle, and that over and over again for whatever reason (usually 2 primogems but even if it was 100 it wouldn't make it LESS boring).

Xin's island had 2 different states as well but everything was very centralized, and half her puzzles were actually in the cool domain anyway, although again none of the puzzles were hard (but the needing to double back in the domain-inside-the-domain was nice). Fischl's island had... no puzzles? Unless you count the kind of questionably written "who did the thing" ones but those weren't puzzles IMO. Kaz's had the best ones IMO because they were like Genshin mechanics but with an extra layer woven in pretty painlessly. The only issue there was the illusion that it was more complicated that it was because of all the different combinations, of which only like 3 mattered.

But yea if they just force in time wasting and tedium into the puzzles in exploration I'll probably just stop playing. I had to force myself to plod through Mona's island even though it was my favorite aesthetically. Her domain was much better, only one or two of the puzzles had kind of design issues and you could brute force those anyway, but again it cost time doing basically nothing interesting.

Edit: I'm actually having trouble remembering any puzzle on Mona's island that was more difficult than any other puzzle. The island was so chaotic and split between the two times so the clues were usually not what you'd come across first, but almost every puzzle just had a really obvious clue or something that literally guided you. The domain ones were a little harder but they were more contained so that was fine

 

[Line]

Mona's island has good ideas, but it's just tedious for a lot, like the ones with torches. You learn about a pattern and you have to use on the other version of the island (which again, I can't wrap my head around, why time travel and why reuse Xinyan's gimmick?)... but the problem is that switching is a lot more painful that it is in other areas, because it lacks good access to the time pools.

The weather changing should have been the only element, I actually liked to use the rain to see the invisible platforms, that makes sense. But not when it meant lacking all the wind currents, or the frost making dream animals appear (which is also a complete why???), so you have to sloooowly go back to every area every time you need something/explore the two islands.
If you see something unlockable in one, having to go to the other, potentially activate a weather pattern, trek to find the clue, go back in the other without messing up and forgetting the clue, activating another weather, and slowly going back to what you first saw? It's just too much busywork.

I can't imagine there will be problems like this in Sumeru, it's mostly due to the shoehorned time travelling mechanic.

 

[Ascheroth]

I'm super down for Nilou after seeing the leaked kit, she's basically got the dendro proc nuke. Her Q animation is also really pretty! Will also go for Candace, assuming she's not a 5 star - a hydro Beidou sounds like something I could cause some trouble with.

Candace is a 4 star, yeah. I kinda want Nilou more than Cyno, I think. So hopefully they're on the same banner.

See I didn't find it hard at all. It was just incredibly tedious. So many of the puzzles required going back and forth a bunch, running around, etc. The puzzles aren't localized at all like they are in the other islands. Puzzle games are like, one of the main things I play, and nothing here even approached some of the nonsense I've come across, but these were tedious. And some people don't mind tedium - when you only play one or two games, spending more time running around that game doesn't bother you. But I hate it. I hate multi-phase boss fights in games with no checkpoints where you have to do the easy parts over again. I hate running around, going to a boat, boating to an island, doing 1/3 of a puzzle, running BACK to the boat, going to another area, doing 1/5 of the same puzzle, and that over and over again for whatever reason (usually 2 primogems but even if it was 100 it wouldn't make it LESS boring).

That's fair. I think we agree on their difficulty, just said it differently. You are right in that they are not mechanically difficult, but that the "difficulty" comes from the clues/solutions not being obvious but rather all over the place. I really enjoyed running around and figuring things out, which you found tedious. Like I said, I'm aware it's very divisive

 

[hersheyfan]

That's fair. I think we agree on their difficulty, just said it differently. You are right in that they are not mechanically difficult, but that the "difficulty" comes from the clues/solutions not being obvious but raer all over the place. I really enjoyed running around and ,figuring things out, which you found tedious. Like I said, I'm aware it's very divisive

Not gonna lie, when I popped into the Era thread for the Genshin 3.0 patch, I was shocked to see people with very positive reactions about GAA. I was like... "Maybe they're talking about the OG Klee version of Golden Apple (which I never played)? Are we talking about the same event? Is something going over my head here?" Lol.

Different strokes of course, and I respect the opinion of anybody who loves it. I guess I felt that the gameplay distribution of puzzles vs. other kinds of "regular Genshin gameplay" that I usually expect was pretty unbalanced (on top of the tedium). I was so bothered by it that I explicitly called it out in the post mortem Paimon survey for the event.

Still, I'm super optimistic that Sumeru will be better off in this regard, as the mechanics they've shown off on the preview page look fun. One more day!!

 

[Ascheroth]

Not gonna lie, when I popped into the Era thread for the Genshin 3.0 patch, I was shocked to see people with very positive reactions about GAA. I was like... "Maybe they're talking about the OG Klee version of Golden Apple (which I never played)? Are we talking about the same event? Is something going over my head here?" Lol.

Different strokes of course, and I respect the opinion of anybody who loves it. I guess I felt that the gameplay distribution of puzzles vs. other kinds of "regular Genshin gameplay" that I usually expect was pretty unbalanced (on top of the tedium). I was so bothered by it that I explicitly called it out in the post mortem Paimon survey for the event.

Still, I'm super optimistic that Sumeru will be better off in this regard, as the mechanics they've shown off on the preview page look fun. One more day!!

Lol, I think I've seen more negative sentiment overall. And ya, regardless on how you felt about it, Sumeru is gonna be different anyway.

Really looking forward to finally being able to try out the new reactions. Ngl, I'm having a hard time evaluating the new characters at the moment.

 

[Ascheroth]

Well, played a couple hours of Sumeru yesterday and my first impressions are glowing.
It's absurdly prettly, lots of verticality, new traversal options, fantastic music.
Inazuma was great but it's nice to explore a main area again where the environment isn't actively hostile all the time.
Also story-wise the beginning is way better than the Ritou part in Inazuma.

Haven't yet had time to do all that much Dendro experimenting with teams, but it seems fun.


But anyway, we got Cyno, Nilou and Candace animation and kit leaks.
Sorry Nilou, but I need Cyno yesterday The animation powercreep is real.

 

[hersheyfan]

Well, played a couple hours of Sumeru yesterday and my first impressions are glowing.
It's absurdly prettly, lots of verticality, new traversal options, fantastic music.
Inazuma was great but it's nice to explore a main area again where the environment isn't actively hostile all the time.
Also story-wise the beginning is way better than the Ritou part in Inazuma.

Haven't yet had time to do all that much Dendro experimenting with teams, but it seems fun.


But anyway, we got Cyno, Nilou and Candace animation and kit leaks.
Sorry Nilou, but I need Cyno yesterday The animation powercreep is real.

Same! Really enjoying the intro to Sumeru, definitely way more than I enjoyed Inazuma's start.

I also really like Bloom, and have resolved to finally power up the Traveler with a nice Dendro set. She's finally going to be part of the rotation again, its a good feeling!

NGL, when I walked through the tunnel following that one Seelie into Sumeru, and they hit me with the wide shot, I got a little emotional haha. Its been so long since I last got a chance to explore something unknown

After seeing the Nilou demo with the instant Bloom explosions, I'm sold! Combining Nilou with Nahida is going to be fun - HP scaling baby! Numbers go up

 

[Line]

While you're having fun, I'm completing random quests I hadn't bothered to finish.
It's weird how things are less stressful when you don't have a timer to complete all content as soon as possible

 

[Ascheroth]

While you're having fun, I'm completing random quests I hadn't bothered to finish.
It's weird how things are less stressful when you don't have a timer to complete all content as soon as possible

I also still have a bunch of old stuff lying around. Mostly a bunch of hangouts and a whole lot of Enkanomiya. Started cleaning up over the weekend, but didn't get things done in time (but it's not like I'm in a rush, that stuff ain't gonna go away).

The Sumeru rollout is immensely better and so much more chill than Inazuma with 2.0.

• the main event that gives a character lasts the entire patch and the story prerequisites can alternatively be completely skipped if you want to take your time. So much better than the initial Inazuma event that gave Beidou and only lasted for a bit over 2 weeks - that must have been hell for new players.
• no story-gating for the area, which also means
• new players can build Sumeru characters straight away

Very happy overall.

 

[Derrick01]

Usually I begin a new region with a new team but I didn't set one up this time because of the limited team slots. Then the game catches me pants down by adding 6 more slots so while I've been doing some sumeru stuff I've also been scrambling to level some characters up. I had a hu tao/yelan/zhongli and either kazuha or xinqui team planned but now I'm seeing that dendro has broken certain characters (in a good way) and want to try out a dendro traveler/fischl/shinobu team with a yet undecided 4th. I have enough resources and resin to build as many as I want but as usual the artifact and talent grind is the real issue here.

Sumeru itself is gorgeous though, really shines in HDR. I still have at least half of the region to explore as I mostly stuck to the main quest and the event objectives. My only issue with it is I haven't really run into any cool puzzles or crazy hidden areas yet like I have in all the other regions but that could change since I have a lot of this place left to cover.

 

[Amzin]

I'm liking Sumeru a lot so far. I liked Chasm a lot, and Enko a lot, but obviously this is a completely different scale. The main quest so far totally caught me off guard too. Although there's kind of like... more than one main quest, I know "Archon Quest" is the main story line but the Rana one feels like it should be flagged as essential somehow too.

I very much appreciate the new domains having ONE WAVE of enemies, holy crap it's so nice. I still need to farm more Husk set but that's the most tedious for me. Also I keep running low on artifact leveling fodder so need to do more exploration.

I haven't seen what her kit is but loving the design of Candace

 

[Ascheroth]

I'm liking Sumeru a lot so far. I liked Chasm a lot, and Enko a lot, but obviously this is a completely different scale. The main quest so far totally caught me off guard too. Although there's kind of like... more than one main quest, I know "Archon Quest" is the main story line but the Rana one feels like it should be flagged as essential somehow too.

I very much appreciate the new domains having ONE WAVE of enemies, holy crap it's so nice. I still need to farm more Husk set but that's the most tedious for me. Also I keep running low on artifact leveling fodder so need to do more exploration.

I haven't seen what her kit is but loving the design of Candace

Sumeru has been fantastic all around.
Best new area in terms of area design.
Best beginning to an Archon quest.
Best side quest.
Dendro raising the power floor instead of the ceiling and making less popular/strong characters better.

And we still have a lot of the area unreleased!


Yeah, Aranara quest is basically a "world main quest".

 

[Line]

So I've completed the archon quest, it was surprisingly very good for a fantasy action game even, not only just Genshin. Very low on combat, which is not a problem, but the slow rolling text certainly makes the game feel slower than intended... I don't want to skip, but let me read quickly when I want to, please.
Even if the voice acting is good, I don't want to hear every single word every time.

Now I'm doing the aranyaka quest, and the opposite is true, slow down text mid combat or give me voice acting for that! Always the same priority issue in that game... but that's better to have things to nitpick rather than huge problems, Sumeru is great.

I didn't do much exploration, but I do like that the event works so well with the lore too, we just reached the area, and we fight new ennemies for the first time, take pictures of the fauna and flora, run around exploring... none of the mechanics are new, but they make complete sense to fill the adventure log, that adds a lot of consistency to the world.

Can't say much about dendro, I use Collei as my dendro monument activator pretty much. Using the geoboyz don't help to see the intricacies of the new reactions... geo and anemo really need a shake up at some point...

 

[Amzin]

They need to revamp their dialogue system for sure. The "locked in" dialogue makes sense with their new fancy camera work, but then sometimes I accidentally skip something trying to get the text to go faster, or yea the open world dialogue when you're running around just zooms right by and if you do basically anything it cuts it off. Most (?) MMO or games like this have a chat tab that is just NPC logs. Although Genshin managed to break their barebones chat recently for some people so that might be asking too much from one of the biggest games in the world /s

 

[Ascheroth]

The sand deformation is fascinating. The attention to detail is crazy.
Look at Raiden

When she does her "teleport" normal, you can still see her leave a trail showing how she's just moving super fast.

Or Kokomi

Who barely leaves footprints during her floaty attacks, only tapping the ground lightly every now and then and those shallow prints accordingly vanish much faster.

 

[SkyStarblaze]

The sand deformation is fascinating. The attention to detail is crazy.
Look at Raiden

When she does her "teleport" normal, you can still see her leave a trail showing how she's just moving super fast.

Or Kokomi

Who barely leaves footprints during her floaty attacks, only tapping the ground lightly every now and then and those shallow prints accordingly vanish much faster.

Holy wow I unironically find these kind of details much more impressive than raw realistic graphics progression.

 

[Line]

Good physics goes a long way to make the game feel good, beyond just looking good for screenshots.
Now if only that could apply to attack momentum when you're on a slight elevation... sure Mona/Ayaka/etc special movements are fixed, but it's still frustrating to see my chars struggle to move forward because hillichurls are 10cm lower than they are.

Still working on the aranyaka questline. Only spent the entire week doing so... and nowhere close to finished, what the hell. At least I cleared most of the event content now, but I guess I'll do some side quests to reach Sumeru weeklies.

And it feels weird to have so many primos without spending anything for such a long time. And I'm not sure I ant Cyno... but Candace will be on his banner....

 

[SkyStarblaze]

Good physics goes a long way to make the game feel good, beyond just looking good for screenshots.
Now if only that could apply to attack momentum when you're on a slight elevation... sure Mona/Ayaka/etc special movements are fixed, but it's still frustrating to see my chars struggle to move forward because hillichurls are 10cm lower than they are.

Still working on the aranyaka questline. Only spent the entire week doing so... and nowhere close to finished, what the hell. At least I cleared most of the event content now, but I guess I'll do some side quests to reach Sumeru weeklies.

And it feels weird to have so many primos without spending anything for such a long time. And I'm not sure I ant Cyno... but Candace will be on his banner....

Yeah that's my biggest pet-peeve with Genshin, the complete lack of momentum anywhere, it makes the game much stiffer than it has to be :/

 

[Amzin]

I straight up thought Candace was a 5 star, a bit sad she isn't. Of the two next patch, I'm probably more interested in Nilou even though she looks REALLY restrictive for team building right now, having a dedicated hydro-dendro only comp sounds kinda fun when more dendro are available. Plus then I can get Candace, the real star.

I've been working on other quests and keep stumbling across the Aranananana quests / friends while doing so, which is kind of fun, but I'm sure I'll have to backtrack a lot with that. So far my favorite dendro use is Collei + Ayato + Ei, throw all the buffs on and Ayato E and stuff just kinda happens all over the screen, it's chaos.

 

[Line]

I'm expecting for Cyno/Candace, then Nilou with three others.
Can't say I'm excited about any banners in 3.1... Nilou I can wait until people crunch up numbers, and for way more dendro chars to appear, she does not sound good at all right now.

My new team is aggravate Keqing/Fischl/Collei... it's really, really strong, I ended using Jean as a fourth, I wanted to use Kokomi and hyperbloom, but reactions ended up all over the place and I would miss too many second stage ones on short fights, and it needs way more elemental mastery than my team provides.
And it makes me significantly less likely to roll on Cyno, it's a team that doesn't rely on a burst to apply tons of electro... and Keqing constellations definitely help her a lot.

Though if I do the Abyss with this team, I think I'd take the Traveller, Collei is not very good in most fights despite the 60 energy burst. It's just too short, and her skill CD is pretty significant.
She's great for exploration though, very, very comfortable to have a dendro archer in Sumeru... so she doesn't feel like a waste.

Still not done with the Aranyaka, I have hopes to finish it before 3.1... it's so bloody long!

 

[Ascheroth]

I straight up thought Candace was a 5 star, a bit sad she isn't. Of the two next patch, I'm probably more interested in Nilou even though she looks REALLY restrictive for team building right now, having a dedicated hydro-dendro only comp sounds kinda fun when more dendro are available. Plus then I can get Candace, the real star.

I've been working on other quests and keep stumbling across the Aranananana quests / friends while doing so, which is kind of fun, but I'm sure I'll have to backtrack a lot with that. So far my favorite dendro use is Collei + Ayato + Ei, throw all the buffs on and Ayato E and stuff just kinda happens all over the screen, it's chaos.

I think latest rumors have Candace with Cyno on the first banner, followed by Nilou on the second banner.
I want Candace and Nilou, so I'll probably just do some light fishing on Cyno's banner and hope for the best.
Nilou is going to be really restrictive for sure, but she also creates a completely new playstyle, which I find really interesting. Cyno is in the end just another on-field DPS (with freaking awesome animations though).

 

[Ascheroth]

Stream summary:
Trailer

Desert area coming with the next 2 chapters of the archon quest.
Mondstadt festival with a free 4* polearm.
A bunch of other events including a Hyakunin Ikki rerun (hell yeah).
Free Collei for everyone after clearing Abyss Floor 4 Chamber 3.
1st banner: Cyno/Venti with Candace
2nd banner: Nilou/Albedo

10 fates and a bunch of stuff as a login event.
1600 primos via mail + 4 fragile resins, a party popper gadget and a cloud retainer toy pet ( )

Card game confirmed for 3.3, but no mechanic details.

All cards collectable in-game, playable against NPCs and other players (no PVP rewards).

Concert:

Anime by ufotable:

Codes:
3B6RYY7AHX9D
JT78YH7SGWRZ
2BP9HY6BYFR5

 

[SkyStarblaze]

Did the codes expire already? o.o