|OT| Genshin Impact - Breath of the Elements

[Amzin]

I personally didn't enjoy the custom domain event all that much (most of the custom levels are poorly built, and I'm not a fan of making stuff myself), but I really enjoyed the bartending minigame.

I think it's more a problem of their in-game solution to browsing completely sucked ass. They basically relied on social media to share good/fun maps (which is what I did). I did sit there refreshing the browsing page until I saw an uprated one and played it just for some surprise, and it was a really cool multi level labyrinth that you had to go up, back down, up again, etc. to make it to the end.

 

[hersheyfan]

He still provides resistence shred via the VV set, element infusion in his Burst and to be fair, many events still have fodder enemies that he just destroys, so that is not too bad.

He's still fine if you want him, but he definitely went from an evergreen(heh) universal powerhouse to something a bit more situational. (Although I guess you could argue he was too strong on release and is now just "strong".)

Good points. But given that I also have a C6 VV Sucrose with an R4 Sacfrag, is it still worth pulling for Venti for the universal energy regen he provides (and the mobility I guess, given that i dont have Zhong either)? Or should I just keep saving for a theoretical guaranteed Kazuha in 2.8? I'm at 63 pity with 58 pinks in the tank, lol.

I think it's more a problem of their in-game solution to browsing completely sucked ass. They basically relied on social media to share good/fun maps (which is what I did). I did sit there refreshing the browsing page until I saw an uprated one and played it just for some surprise, and it was a really cool multi level labyrinth that you had to go up, back down, up again, etc. to make it to the end.

Yeah, their in-game browser was frickin awful hahaha. If there was a way for them to curate things better it would have been way more successful, as I actually enjoy the platforming/coin collecting stuff. Props to them for trying new things to keep players engaged, too!

 

[Line]

Good points. But given that I also have a C6 VV Sucrose with an R4 Sacfrag, is it still worth pulling for Venti for the universal energy regen he provides (and the mobility I guess, given that i dont have Zhong either)? Or should I just keep saving for a theoretical guaranteed Kazuha in 2.8? I'm at 63 pity with 58 pinks in the tank, lol.

If you already have a C6 Sucrose, I would not roll for Venti. Especially since you really like Kazuha, you hardly need all three (except for collection purposes). Yes, he's good at energy generation, but in a world with Raiden... and the mobility aspect is an extreme outlier since Inazuma.
If you really need to jump higher, the geo Traveler will do just fine. And Kazuha is a lot more fun to move around, Venti's skill can be used with the reusable item Wind Catcher if you need it somewhere.

Still haven't played the tea event, I need to start that... I enjoyed the Enkanomiya event quite a bit, and the custom dungeons are pretty cool, even if I have no interest in making any myself.
Solid line up of events this patch.

 

[Ascheroth]

Good points. But given that I also have a C6 VV Sucrose with an R4 Sacfrag, is it still worth pulling for Venti for the universal energy regen he provides (and the mobility I guess, given that i dont have Zhong either)? Or should I just keep saving for a theoretical guaranteed Kazuha in 2.8? I'm at 63 pity with 58 pinks in the tank, lol.

Ya know I didn't even remember Venti had universal energy regen in his kit, so take that as you will
That said, reading through his kit again, I wouldn't call it universal, it's pretty conditional.

Regenerates 15 Energy for Venti after the effects of Wind's Grand Ode end. If an Elemental Absorption occurred, this also restores 15 Energy to all characters of that corresponding element.

Elemental Absorption doesn't work for Anemo and Geo, so those are out.
Then it can only absorb one element per burst, so it won't help all other characters in the team unless they're all the same element (which isn't tha common).
And then if enemies have natural element auras that might mess up your absorption.

If that's the only thing you want Venti for, I'd pass.


Though if you really like him as a character, sure go for him.

 

[Line]

Finished the bartender event, I enjoyed it quite a bit, nice little voice acted scenes with your team in a more chill environment than usual without lasting too long, and the minigame was a bit slow, but fairly enjoyable.
I'd take an expansion on those systems over more hangouts honestly...

Next event is the come back of duo arena? That's not the most imaginative one... oh well, next stream is on the 18th, and it does confirm Ayaka/Venti so no Kazuha for now.

 

[hersheyfan]

If you already have a C6 Sucrose, I would not roll for Venti. Especially since you really like Kazuha, you hardly need all three (except for collection purposes). Yes, he's good at energy generation, but in a world with Raiden...

Ya know I didn't even remember Venti had universal energy regen in his kit, so take that as you will
That said, reading through his kit again, I wouldn't call it universal, it's pretty conditional.

Elemental Absorption doesn't work for Anemo and Geo, so those are out.
Then it can only absorb one element per burst, so it won't help all other characters in the team unless they're all the same element (which isn't tha common).
And then if enemies have natural element auras that might mess up your absorption.

If that's the only thing you want Venti for, I'd pass.

Though if you really like him as a character, sure go for him.

Yeah, you two have totally convinced me, im not rolling for Venti any more. The thing is, I dont even like him as a character, its more that people calling him busted for so long that I have (well, had) FOMO about not picking him up. Now I'm at peace, thanks!

Finished the bartender event, I enjoyed it quite a bit, nice little voice acted scenes with your team in a more chill environment than usual without lasting too long, and the minigame was a bit slow, but fairly enjoyable.
I'd take an expansion on those systems over more hangouts honestly...

Next event is the come back of duo arena? That's not the most imaginative one... oh well, next stream is on the 18th, and it does confirm Ayaka/Venti so no Kazuha for now.

Right? The dialogue was decently entertaining, and the total runtime was short enough that it didn't overstay its welcome. The difficulty was pretty sad, but then MHY always seems to balance these non-combat sub games for the lowest common denominator lol.

RE: Friday's show, I'm still holding out hope for Kaz! They haven't explicitly said that Ayaka is a single banner, it's not over yet, it's not

Ah, whatever, I'll just grab the free primos and go if theres nothing for me haha. This is the longest I've ever gone without doing a big pull, I'll be pushing 100 wishes by the time this is all over.

 

[Ascheroth]

Yeah if you don't even like Venti as a character it should be an easy skip.


And yes, the bartending event was pretty fun overall. It looks like there's nothing for me next patch so I've decided to spend my time getting some characters to 90 and filling out talent levels as I go along.
I pray that Sumeru brings a change to the artifact system (they can sell it as "a Sumeru researcher figured out a new process" or something) because it's by far the worst part of the game right now (since release tbh) and it just gets worse the longer you play.

Anyway, got Eula to 90. I also think I'll go ahead and crown her Normals. Next up is probably Qiqi just because I can.

 

[Ascheroth]

Codes:
AB7CKBVQULE5
3TPUKSV8C5X9
UT7C2TD8C5ZD

 

[hersheyfan]

Yeah if you don't even like Venti as a character it should be an easy skip.


And yes, the bartending event was pretty fun overall. It looks like there's nothing for me next patch so I've decided to spend my time getting some characters to 90 and filling out talent levels as I go along.
I pray that Sumeru brings a change to the artifact system (they can sell it as "a Sumeru researcher figured out a new process" or something) because it's by far the worst part of the game right now (since release tbh) and it just gets worse the longer you play.

Anyway, got Eula to 90. I also think I'll go ahead and crown her Normals. Next up is probably Qiqi just because I can.

I'm a big Eula fan, I maxed her out a long time ago... just an excellent general purpose ass kicker, and her level 10 normal upgrade is good value. As for Qiqi: your dedication to making the Qiqi Redemption Arc a thing is fascinating and admirable. Hahaha!

As for the arti grinding, yeah I'm hoping for an overhaul of this stuff in the next patch. I had my friend log in to my account to audit it and see why my Abyss team was having so much trouble clearing 12, and the findings/recommends were nuts - it was like a month's worth of grinding easy (though thankfully only a third of my to-do list was actual arti grinding, the rest is mostly talent upgrading, boosting HP-reliant characters to 90, and finally getting Hu Tao over the hump).

He forcibly retired my L90 c1 Diluc and put Hu Tao in the pyro carry slot... I know Hu Tao is cheap, but I liked that Diluc

And yeah, theres nothing for me in the next patch as well (no give Kazuha) sadly, so I'll just have to content myself with stacking up even more primos with all these events (and playing Elden Ring, because Elden Ring).

 

[Ascheroth]

Oh wow, I tried out something new this Abyss and shockingly I've gotten full stars in Floor 12 - legit the first time ever.

Eula/Raiden/Shenhe/Qiqi work surprisingly well together, which makes me very happy because these are 4 characters that I quite like and I hadn't really found a use for Shenhe other than extra overworld convenience.
It loses some damage because no shield means the Serpent Spine stacks are wasted and I keep Eula's Grimheart stacks for the interruption resistence instead of using them up for Res shred, but meh. Apparently it's still good enough (even with my Eula's pretty mediocre artifacts), so ¯\(ツ)/¯
Shenhe functions as both an Eula and Raiden buffer here, with Quills only secondary. I use her Hold Skill to buff Eula's normals and her Press Skill to buff Raiden's Burst.

And that team allowed to me run Melt Ganyu on the other side, wich I never really did because usually I had Xiangling or Zhongli on another team. I also had to tweak Xiangling's equipment a bit to get more ER, but even then it's still pretty rough, but Ganyu does so much damage that it makes up for it.

 

[Ascheroth]

I'm an idiot, I just realized Qiqi still had a physical% goblet, which is obviously completely useless in that team, lol.
Anyway, I also ran this team for weekly bosses and overworld/domain stuff today and it might be one of my new favorites.
It's legit just really fun - instead of Raiden Yae also works in less Burst ciritical content, so that's even better.
Sorry Ganyu and Zhongli, but I'll be running these girls for some time now.

 

[Line]

Trading Keqings for Qiqi and Jean, please

 

[SkyStarblaze]

Trading Keqings for Qiqi and Jean, please

You can have my Jean for a Keqing! D:

 

[Ascheroth]

Drip Marketing Impact!

 

[Line]

They look like Genshin characters alright.

I like Yelan's jacket, very useful. But that outfit though... it... makes me think of a weird romper, and I don't think that's a positive
I wonder how they will end up, I hope Shinobu really is a healer.

 

[Ascheroth]

I'll most likely get Yelan so I hope they're on the same banner.
She's probably gonna be decent by virtue of being a hydro character alone. My only hydros are Xingqiu and Barbara, so yeah another one should be a tremendous upgrade on that front in any case.
Shinobu could go either way, 4 stars have been kinda hit and miss.

 

[Amzin]

It's early but rumor is Yelan is a support, sort of an alternative to XQ. Personally I'd rather she be an on-field dps but they put out a lot of those early on so maybe just keeping it spread out more now. so the characters don't compete as directly. Which makes sense because if she was an on-field bow dps I might opt for her over Yoi

I've been pretty happy with the recent 4* but they were more or less made for me. Geo centric buffer and a left-click buffer? That's like all I want to do most of the time.

 

[Line]

Seems like Ayato is a main to get the fullest extent of his kit, so it would make sense for Yelan to be support, but we'll need to see the numbers.
Not unlike Childe, it's odd that there's no unga bunga hydro DPS though, all of them are made for quickswap teams...

I hope that Shinobu and other 4* will be a bit less specific going forward. Yun Jin is a solid choice for basic attackers but will be outshined because she's geo, and all the others... they either have one team and particularly one DPS they're good for (and possibly more later, but when we're talking potential years...), or are outright terrible like Thoma and Sayu.
Looking back on Inazuma, I love playing Ayaka, and Kokomi and Raiden are ok. All the rest I can't stand or don't like much at best (for Itto)... I may not enjoy someone like Albedo, but at least he does his job when needed.

 

[Amzin]

Still have lost every 50/50 since I started playing, but at least I haven't gone to hard pity EVERY time (just most). Good news is I lucked out on the other pulls, got Keqing (new to me), Yun from C0 to C6, Xianling from C3 to C6, and a random Gorou to get C1. Only got like 2 Sucrose dupes who I've had at C6 for months now (was my first C6 even though she's not been featured on any banner I've pulled on till now ).

I probably won't be able to get Ayaka on this rerun but this is the first non-rerun character I've wanted to pull for right away so I'm OK with that.

 

[Ascheroth]

If true Yelan's kit sounds very promising. Her Burst seems to be a mix between Xingqiu and Mona, her skill a Xiao pierce dash and she seems to have instant AoE charge shots every ~5seconds. Can't really picture how all of this works in practive, but hopefully we'll get some beta info soon.
It's this leak here in case anyone wants to know more details.


In other news, the clowns at Mihoyoverse nerfed Yae and passed it off as a "bugfix" . Not like her kit wasn't clunky enough yet.

3. Fixes an issue with the character Yae Miko whereby her Sesshou Sakura ability would attack opponents at random. Sesshou Sakura will now prioritize attacks on the nearest opponents within range after the fix.

Random targeting on her skill is objectively superior in almost all situations.
Targeting nearest makes her electro application and ability to pick off far-away stragglers worse and nerfs her C2 as well (higher turrent range).

I haven't tried it myself yet, so maybe it's not as bad as it is on paper, but I kinda doubt it.

 

[Ascheroth]

I have now tried it myself. It is as bad as it sounds on paper.

 

[Line]

Tried Yae... yup she's even clunkier than before. And gets completely walled by any shield, ever.

As for Ayato, he seems pretty strong, but also one of the simplest characters that we've seen in a long, long time. Click E, hold left click...
But I don't like him in the least, so that's moot. Yelan looks so much more fun than he is.

 

[hersheyfan]

It's early but rumor is Yelan is a support, sort of an alternative to XQ. Personally I'd rather she be an on-field dps but they put out a lot of those early on so maybe just keeping it spread out more now. so the characters don't compete as directly. Which makes sense because if she was an on-field bow dps I might opt for her over Yoi .

My understanding from the GenshinLeaks reddit is that she IS basically Xingqiu (seeing the Q in action, its nearly identical), but can run as a full fat hard carry at high constellations... buuut since she's a 5 star and I'd never dump that kind of cash, im perfectly happy with a C0 haha.

After all, the only thing better than having Xingqiu is having TWO Xingqius!

That E is really weird though, seems useless in Abyss on floors with few enemies.

EDIT: Sharing the Yelan gameplay for reference.

In other news, the clowns at Mihoyoverse nerfed Yae and passed it off as a "bugfix" . Not like her kit wasn't clunky enough yet.

Random targeting on her skill is objectively superior in almost all situations.
Targeting nearest makes her electro application and ability to pick off far-away stragglers worse and nerfs her C2 as well (higher turrent range).

I haven't tried it myself yet, so maybe it's not as bad as it is on paper, but I kinda doubt it.

This is a horrible precedent, and I hope they don't try this again. MHY can make all the changes they want to the characters prior to release, but you can't drastically alter loadouts after people have already made the investment. Poor form.

--

Also, I finally got that Platinum! Yay me, after I get Yelan (and Kazuha, if I'm lucky) I'm going to step away from GI for a while. My watch has finally ended, so glad to get the monkey off my back at last.

 

[Line]

I imagine that Yelan's dash help a lot with repositioning and avoiding big hits, you don't always need to run for its entire course. And it will probably help her massively, as she is a mix between Yoimiya and Ganyu otherwise, those two with better mobility would be even better.
And she has Xingqiu broke-ass burst on top.
If her numbers and her iCDs are not awful, I can't imagine her being anything else but excellent...

And doing my dailies and some domains? Holy shit Yae, hit the right things for once, stop focusing on that one electro slime in this dungeon, leave that shield alone, no the torch hasn't done anything to you, I just moved your bloody totems again please do SOMETHING.
She went from my list of favourites while being slow and lacking interruption resistance (hi Ayato and everyone else, I'm suuure she didn't need it but the OP AoE guys did) to wondering if I wasn't going to replace her immediately... and considering Shinobu's coming for Raiden, maybe not even play her ever again for anything.
It's that bad.

 

[Ascheroth]

This is a horrible precedent, and I hope they don't try this again. MHY can make all the changes they want to the characters prior to release, but you can't drastically alter loadouts after people have already made the investment. Poor form.

Not only that, it also makes me question if they even understand how their own game works. And if this is what they went out with in reaction to the general complaints about Yae then I also question their ability to gather and analyze feedback (which, to be fair, I already wasn't exactly impressed with, but this is a new low).

I now remember that this change being tested was actually leaked before. It didn't even cause much outrage at the point, because it was such an obviously bad change that no one thought it possible it would actually it make it live.
Alas.

And doing my dailies and some domains? Holy shit Yae, hit the right things for once, stop focusing on that one electro slime in this dungeon, leave that shield alone, no the torch hasn't done anything to you, I just moved your bloody totems again please do SOMETHING.
She went from my list of favourites while being slow and lacking interruption resistance (hi Ayato and everyone else, I'm suuure she didn't need it but the OP AoE guys did) to wondering if I wasn't going to replace her immediately... and considering Shinobu's coming for Raiden, maybe not even play her ever again for anything.
It's that bad.

I thought about crowning her skill literally a day before the patch went live. Really glad I didn't now. Instead I'm about to remove her from my friendship team I'm just frustrated now everytime I use her.

---

Yeah Yelan indeed looks very fun with a good kit. Cynical post-Yae-nerf me wouldn't be surprised if they managed to fuck it up massively somehow.
Or maybe they only fuck it up a month after her banner again. Who knows at this point!

 

[Amzin]

I hadn't seen the full Yelan info previously, just the pre-2.6 rumors. She does look super fun, and her NA animations are awesome (so of course she's more of an off-field centric).

I'm liking Ayato a fair bit. Messing around with different teams but I also don't have great artifacts for him, and I had just dumped all my ascension mats for talents into Raiden so his talents are low. For exploring around it's fun to just have an electro and push his E and zap-slash everything. Supposedly freeze is good on him and you can use the freeze-crit bonus artifacts in that comp but I have nothing really in that direction.

Plus his E slashes and his Q are just styling.

 

[hersheyfan]

I imagine that Yelan's dash help a lot with repositioning and avoiding big hits, you don't always need to run for its entire course. And it will probably help her massively, as she is a mix between Yoimiya and Ganyu otherwise, those two with better mobility would be even better.
And she has Xingqiu broke-ass burst on top.
If her numbers and her iCDs are not awful, I can't imagine her being anything else but excellent...

Yes, youre right - thats definitely going to be useful for repositioning, I didnt think of that.

But hell, I was sold as soon as they said "another Xingqiu Q", all the onfield stuff is gravy. Finally, zero effort, industrial-grade Hydro application across two teams!

Not only that, it also makes me question if they even understand how their own game works. And if this is what they went out with in reaction to the general complaints about Yae then I also question their ability to gather and analyze feedback (which, to be fair, I already wasn't exactly impressed with, but this is a new low).

I now remember that this change being tested was actually leaked before. It didn't even cause much outrage at the point, because it was such an obviously bad change that no one thought it possible it would actually it make it live.
Alas.

Yeah Yelan indeed looks very fun with a good kit. Cynical post-Yae-nerf me wouldn't be surprised if they managed to fuck it up massively somehow.
Or maybe they only fuck it up a month after her banner again. Who knows at this point!

Uh, wow. Thats some heavy condemnation from you guys, I guess I was lucky I didn't pull for Yae at all (was considering it, but the Kazuha rumor held me back). I wonder why they even did that, were they somehow under the impression that Yae was OP? Sheesh.

If they ever did that to a character I had already heavily invested in (like, maxed out, part of the A-team types), that would totally kill my interest in the game. If you can't trust the established mechanics to remain static (outside of actual bugs), you can't trust anything quite frankly.

I'm liking Ayato a fair bit. Messing around with different teams but I also don't have great artifacts for him, and I had just dumped all my ascension mats for talents into Raiden so his talents are low. For exploring around it's fun to just have an electro and push his E and zap-slash everything. Supposedly freeze is good on him and you can use the freeze-crit bonus artifacts in that comp but I have nothing really in that direction.

Plus his E slashes and his Q are just styling.

I really enjoyed using Ayato in the test actually! Yeah he's pretty simple mechanically but the E slashes are just satisfying. It's just that Yelan totally killed any desire to grab him, plus I have more use for a subDPS type in my team comps vs. yet another carry-type character haha.

 

[Ascheroth]

Uh, wow. Thats some heavy condemnation from you guys, I guess I was lucky I didn't pull for Yae at all (was considering it, but the Kazuha rumor held me back). I wonder why they even did that, were they somehow under the impression that Yae was OP? Sheesh.

I genuinely have no idea.
The cynic in me says they realized that the random targeting made her better at crowd-control than they expected and since they wanna sell you Venti, the crowd-control character this patch, we can't have that.
The alternative is that they legitimately wanted to be helpful and thought this was a good change.

I honestly don't know which of the two options I prefer.


I'm legit annoyed enough that I have been sending them complaints via the ingame feedback form which I don't think I've ever used.
I'm mostly just absolutely confused though.

Can only hope the outcry is big enough to make them revert this. At least both the chinese and japanese player base seem to be pissed as well, so I guess it's not impossible. Maybe they could throw in an actual fix as compensation, like giving her dash interruption resistence and/or speed up the animation.

 

[Ascheroth]

Line
They are reverting the Yae change. Good. Now she's back to being mediocre at least.
Still completely puzzled as to how this ever made it live.

 

[Amzin]

I think anyone who has worked on a project with a large code base and hundreds of developers can understand how something just doesn't get tested properly, and it's often more complex when talking about a game. On top of that, most projects do not have a "common sense" consultant or anything (I wish that were a job, I would be set for life). It sounds like it was a systems change, despite them specifically talking about Yae (for some reason), so with all of that I'm not shocked the people making the decision didn't get the feedback needed to avoid the Yae change.

Like, it still was easily avoidable, but you have to have the pipeline in place to avoid stuff like that. They make VERY few balance changes, or gameplay system changes, but are constantly piling in new stuff.

 

[Ascheroth]

I think anyone who has worked on a project with a large code base and hundreds of developers can understand how something just doesn't get tested properly, and it's often more complex when talking about a game. On top of that, most projects do not have a "common sense" consultant or anything (I wish that were a job, I would be set for life). It sounds like it was a systems change, despite them specifically talking about Yae (for some reason), so with all of that I'm not shocked the people making the decision didn't get the feedback needed to avoid the Yae change.

Like, it still was easily avoidable, but you have to have the pipeline in place to avoid stuff like that. They make VERY few balance changes, or gameplay system changes, but are constantly piling in new stuff.

Generally I agree, but in this case not really.
First, to clarify something: It was both a systems change and a separate Yae specific change.
The systems change is good and helps many characters (including Yae) against certain enemies.
The Yae-specific change isn't.

They did test this. The Yae-specific change (random changing to nearest) being tested in the beta at the time was leaked almost a month ago. It took the community like a day to figure out that this was bad, and word is that beta testers also told them this was bad (but I have no way to confirm this).

So either the beta testers did not in fact tell them this was bad in which case they need to re-evaluate how they do their beta-tests or the beta testers did tell them this was bad but they went ahead with the change anyway for some reason.
Neither is a good look.

They suck at communicating in general tbh.

 

[Amzin]

They either do take feedback from beta testers or there are changes in beta that coincidentally line up with tester feedback. It could have been not enough gave feedback on a change to an existing character that maybe not enough checked (especially again, when so much new stuff is going on). All their communication is definitely event focused, with the periodic update to game bugs going on. We still have no idea what the teapot maintenance is for, which makes everyone assume it's fixing the stacking bug since they won't say.

For Yae, I don't know when the sentiment changed but the immediate impressions of the beta change seemed positive, it could be the negative follow up just wasn't big enough from the testers (they're going to ignore any theory crafting from non-testers as a rule I imagine, even when it comes to stuff like this where it kind of makes sense to).

But yea fundamentally a fairly big, bad change made it through testing to live. That means the process is not correct somewhere. They say as much in their announcement. Where exactly, who knows, but I have never heard of a project that had a perfect track record of catching even major issues every time before release so people going "how could they possibly in a million years do this?!" just have to have never been involved in a software project, to my ears. I've gotten releases handed to me where I'm like "OK clearly whoever reviewed this was sleepy that day" and had to send it back just from doing a quick scan of it, as part of a smaller team working with relatively small blocks of code.

I'd actually like to see more balance changes (well, buffs) - some characters are just weaker than they really need to be, especially with the inflation of mob HPs over the regions. I'm not willing to condemn their dev team over one confusing mistake making it to live that they reverted in a few days.

 

[Ascheroth]

This was probably the best festival in terms of story and side quest stuff for me. Lots of fun character interactions and even some interesting lore.
Side-activities were a bit uneven though. The photo-taking and flower decoration were inoffensive fluff, parry duels actually fun but Theater Mechanicus v3 was probably its worst iteration yet. I liked the previous ones

Also started venturing into Chasm proper and it's excellent - also seems massive. Might become my overall favorite area.
The new world boss is also pretty cool.


In terms of abyss this setup is really bad against my previous teams, so I had to run something else. I threw some weird teams together and was honestly surprised they did as well as they did.

 

[Line]

Finished the main story of the event. Can't say I really followed, cared, or even read most of it. Genshin is wau too wordy and it the first reason... or to be real, the only reason why I barely play anymore: I don't give a shit about anything in Inazuma, and I didn't give a shit about anything in Li Yue.
The characters are boring and not even in the anime trope sense, they're just a bunch of overworked blobs that blend together in my mind, the true political side and its consequences is barely talked about in favor of complete nonsense about desk jobs.

Kazuha's family story is the perfect example: hours of meandering fake drama, two lines to end it and... there's absolutely no consequences for anything or anyone.
They were betrayed, they fell from grace, but we must not want revenge.
Thanks dude, I didn't give a shit about you before, now I care even less. I don't play RPGs for Columbo episodes. And Columbo has actual smart writing, and a pay off at the end. On top of having CHARACTERS and not wooden dolls, even Venti didn't save the day with his presence this time.

I guess I'll rush through the minigames this week, haven't started exploring the Chasm, haven't bothered with character stories since the first Raiden one... I recently did Yae's one, and yup, it was again a chore and an exercise in skipping boring text. At least the little dungeon was okay, but it's more than worrying that after a year and a half the game would still be better off implementing a skip all option and keep only the combat, like all those D tier gachas.
It's crazy that the simplistic Mondstadt was the only story of value, everything else is a colossal waste of time. And it gets WORSE with every patch, adding more and more inconsequential characters talking for ages about their worthless family trees... and I feel like it's very, very Chinese in nature. I tried to find interest in Chinese literature, but never cared as soon as they get bogged down in family drama.

 

[Amzin]

I disagree with almost everything you said, but that's your opinion I guess.

Mondstadt was probably my least favorite area for story. It had a ton of filler and very little actual lore outside of exactly Dvalin and some vague things about Venti. We've learned more about Venti specifically after Mond than in it. There was also no real change to anything regarding the first archon quests besides the vague threat of Stormterror became not a threat, but since you only experience that threat directly in the story it was kinda eh to me. Contrast that with Liyue and Inazuma questlines where stuff actually changes: areas can change and unlock, buildings can be removed, some rebuilt, etc. There are interesting characters across all 3, but it felt like the Mondstatd ones got left behind a little compared to newer ones because of the greater resources they had after initial release.

The archon quests are always going to be non-resolutions until whatever the endgame is. They're just explory lore adventures. The side quests are where the much tighter writing usually is, and that was for sure the case in the festival, the side quests were amazing. That's another reason I didn't care much for Mondstatd - they hadn't really nailed down side quests yet, so they all felt pretty hollow and generic (I started playing in like October-November 2021 so I went Mond -> Liyue -> Ina pretty fast). I think the Chasm Archon quest had some wonky translation issues or possibly questionable writing towards the end as there was a ton of ambiguous language but we still got a lot of lore and progressed the story.

The main story in the Idori festival was very dry - I truly have no idea what it was appealing to. The Kazuha stuff was interesting but it sounds like you wanted both resolution and not resolution right away, when it's clearly tying into something to come (which is what most time limited stuff does - adds some lore, teases upcoming world additions). The side quests (Itto, Klee, Sayu / Sara) were all fantastic and had tons of character and spirit to them.

I'm not really sure what your complaint about "family drama" is in reference to. Clan relations are a huge factor in Japanese inspired anything, which Inazuma obviously is, but in Genshin it barely ever comes up outside of a character talking about their own backstory (which like yea, ones' family is usually important to their personality and own story). The commissions were portrayed closer to modern politicals than historical family politics. If you're skipping most everything you might only be noticing the stuff you don't like. I straight up can't remember any family drama stuff from Liyue, that was more the adepti being old fashioned racists and humans having to deal with human stuff. Unless you're thinking of Shenhe's quest but that was 95% stuff about Liyue and 5% her family.

 

[Line]

Mondstadt has a huge area that's out of reach in the beginning, and even now is completely deserted, Stormterror's Lair is a hundred times what the other regions would like to have.
Li Yue was attacked by a giant sea beast, it's cool!
Had not impact whatsoever on anything, it was all in a cut scene. The change was one useless building (if cool because it flies) being unavailable for a while.
Inazuma was supposed to be inaccessible due to a massive storm.
It was a black screen.
And was plunged into civil war.
Which was an even shorter cut scenes and nothing else, anywhere.

Was Mondstadt good? No.
Did literally nothing happen in two regions and well over a year? Yes.

The entire event was about Kazuha's great grandpa and... tangentially Scaramouche, which yet again appears for two seconds in an event, with no explanation. I'm not going to forgive "it's a set up" for the FOURTH time in a row, for the SAME CHARACTER.
Put up or shut up, and Genshin is really good at talking, not at delivering anything of value.

And yes, I do not care one bit about anyone in Inazuma. I know their clan stuff is important. I also care 0% about any of them, Ayato in particular is the worst and most useless character in the game when Ayaka in already here.
What's the fucking point of having them deal with corruption, the Shogun, their ancestors fuckery... if nothing happens? From the very first time we set foot in Inazuma, nothing has changed. Raiden drank some dango milk and now she's chill, so no biggie, the bad guys that were corrupt... well they're still here, but now it's the son instead of the evil dad that's in charge. People that appeared in one quest, and not before, nor after.

Everything that happens in Genshin is just here to say "we did it and then we won and the villain is defeated but wait-", while revealing nothing before, during and after, everything's resolved in two seconds, look at the utter shite that was Sangonomiya, I can only call that a joke. And Kokomi is just as worthless.
Hell, Enkanomiya was the best part in ages because it was actual fantasy! And revealed stuff about the world, and the past! Even the event had far, far more relevance than Ayato, Yae, or Kazuha could ever hope to be. The reptilians ARE interesting. The latest fuckery of the noble family that has finally reclaimed their place but not really because the game has nothing to show for it? That's what we got. Raiden being a murderous asshole? Nothing happened.

Why did we even go to Inazuma? So that we can watch a cut scene of the antagonists furthering their plans.
If they want a story, they need a set up, and a pay off. They've shown none of that.

 

[Ascheroth]

So I generally agree that Genshin is overwritten and its story execution is often wonky, but I have to correct a few things.
I'd say among all the regions, Inazuma has seen the most long-lasting changes.

The entire event was about Kazuha's great grandpa

That was just where it kinda led to, but the initial premise of the event was literally about showing that Inazuma changed from an isolated nation to one that has once again opened its borders and can be visited.

From the very first time we set foot in Inazuma, nothing has changed. Raiden drank some dango milk and now she's chill, so no biggie, the bad guys that were corrupt... well they're still here, but now it's the son instead of the evil dad that's in charge. People that appeared in one quest, and not before, nor after.

They appeared both before and after.
We met Kujou Kamaji, the son of the previous Tenryou commission head at the very beginning of Inazuma, where you had to bring him a letter from Hiiragi Chitose, the daughter of the Kanjou commission head.
He then became the new head and showed up again during the first Raiden story quest where he proves himself, and then the Ayato story quest follows up on Kamaji and Chitose, and the state of the Tenryou and Kanjou commissions (who both lost their old leaders).

Other than that a bunch of other stuff has changed as well.
The Vision-Hunt decree is over and people got their Visions back. Ei's understanding of "Eternity" changed which ultimately led to her opening up Inazuma again by removing the storm around it (which indeed was very underwhelmingly skipped when we first got to Inazuma...), which made the current festival possible.
Gorou's Hangout follows up a little bit on "what is happening to the resistance soldiers now that there's no civil war anymore".

 

[Ascheroth]

Meet Kamisato Ayaka, the real Archon of Eternity, her banner is never going to end

Unfortunate news about the delay, but it's understandable. Covid doesn't care about schedules.
Hopefully things get better over there soon.

 

[hersheyfan]

Meet Kamisato Ayaka, the real Archon of Eternity, her banner is never going to end

Unfortunate news about the delay, but it's understandable. Covid doesn't care about schedules.
Hopefully things get better over there soon.

Agreed, hopefully the COVID situation over there improves soon so they can get back on track.

Well, in the meantime, at least we get this:

This will probably get me over the 200 pink wishes mark by the time Yelan rolls out (Im currently at 170 or so). I'm at 75 wishes on the event banner, so 200+ pinks is good for 3 guaranteed 5 stars with an outside chance at 4!

I gotta say though, this long stretch without an event is wearing on me - it really makes Genshin seem even more like an elaborate set of daily chores.

 

[Myradeer]

I like how they started with 240 days before changing to "Before Version 2.6 Ends", it probably wasn't smart idea. Actually it's still 239 days on Test Run event

 

[Ascheroth]

I gotta say though, this long stretch without an event is wearing on me - it really makes Genshin seem even more like an elaborate set of daily chores.

My recommendation for that is always going to be "just take a break" and come back later.
The dailies in Genshin give comparatively so little reward that it really doesn't matter if you sit them out (fully or partially). Just login to do the events and peace out (and even with events sometimes you can just login once at the end).
Just do what you feel like and skip the rest. Commissions a chore? Skip em. Not like you get much primos from them.
Spending resin a chore? Let it sit capped, at a certain point your roster is good enough to never interact with it ever again and still beat everything.

 

[hersheyfan]

My recommendation for that is always going to be "just take a break" and come back later.
The dailies in Genshin give comparatively so little reward that it really doesn't matter if you sit them out (fully or partially). Just login to do the events and peace out (and even with events sometimes you can just login once at the end).
Just do what you feel like and skip the rest. Commissions a chore? Skip em. Not like you get much primos from them.
Spending resin a chore? Let it sit capped, at a certain point your roster is good enough to never interact with it ever again and still beat everything.

Yes, I want to just go full blown "events only" like some of my friends already did. I already have a loaded for bear 8 member Abyss gang anyway, so any additional guys like Yelan and Kazuha are just refining my squads. I've got just 70 days left on my Welkin (I maxed it out during the Ganyu banner, because Ganyu lol) and plan on doing just that when it runs out.

My PS5 will finally be free! I can play all that stuff I've been putting off, like Miles Morales and Demons Souls haha. With Genshin hogging so much time, when Im done I usually wanna do something, anything, other than use the PS5 some more.

When Yelan and Kazuha (and Kiku!) finally come home, it'll be like the end of an era. Looking forward to it!

 

[Ascheroth]

Upcoming Anemo 4* (after Yelan and Kuki Shinobu)
"Catalyst" user. In quotes because his leaked kit and animations have him as a DPS who fights with punches and kicks.
Ngl, that sounds hella fun.

 

[Line]

He looks like a cool character! I like that. He's very far away though.

If the leaks for 2.7's banners are true, ain't gonna for Yelan either. Don't want Noelle, Barbara and Yanfei c2467.

 

[Ascheroth]

Banner is awful for me, but I'll still get Yelan. Just gotta hope I get as few rate-up 4 stars as possible.

Also looks like there's a date for 2.7: May 31st. And I think today is the trailer and stuff?

 

[Ascheroth]

Codes
1: LANVJSFUD6CM
2: DTNUKTWCC6D9
3: HSNUKTXCCPWV

Trailer

 

[Line]

I play very little nowadays, haven't even started the Chasm, will definitely not roll for Yelan... the routine fatigue is here.

But I still slowly reach friendship 10 with my characters.
I swapped things around quite a bit for a Sucrose/Ei combo, and I like it a lot. Not really sure who to use with them, I have my trusty Kokomi along (she really became the staple of pretty much every team - and her usage levels seem to corroborate, she's just the perfect filler for anything with cryo or electro), but otherwise I've used Yae and Fischl for way too long... and Xiangling is less needed for casual gameplay.

 

[Ascheroth]

Yelan's a lot of fun. Can't really comment about combat yet cause it will take a while until I've built her up completely, but just for overall traversal alone she's awesome.
Comparable to Sayu if not better in terms of traversal speed/comfyness. Her skill does not last as long as Sayu's rolling, but it's faster and she actually regenerates stamina while in use - almost enough to run until the skill comes off cooldown again.

 

[Line]

That's a very good banner for me, but do I even want Itto? Not so sure.

Also... I haven't played the last event. I completed Kokomi's quest because I had to. Now I have Itto's to do, and the entire Chasm+Yelan questlines before I can do an unrelated combat event?
I love how they added the prerequisite skip last time, only to not use it in the very next event. Amazing.

 

[Ascheroth]

My Chongyun is C1 and I have no Gorou, so I'll probably put in a few rolls and hope I get either Gorou, Shinobu or both. But I don't want Itto.

Yeah, it's pretty stupid since the combat event is literally just a sign-post leading to some challenges and doesn't even have time-limited story connected to it this time (it only reuses the domain visuals from the story quest).