|OT| Genshin Impact - Breath of the Elements

Line

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Dec 21, 2018
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Weirdest demo of all times, what the hell.

There's so much to unpack, tomorrow is going to be the make or break moment for Fontaine and Furina.
 

Ascheroth

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Won the 50/50, got C6 Charlotte along the way somehow and got my first Kirara from some of the ascension and Fountain standard pulls.
Very good start to the patch!
 
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Line

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Also won the 50/50 for Furina, but zero Charlottes :crying-face:
I C6 Collei which is... eh, I guess. I got a bunch of random stuff, a Sayu con, another extra Ningguang and Gorou...

No way I'm touching the weapon banner this time, I got prodigious luck last time but that was with Homa, not going to risk the green donut, even if I like Baizhu.

Now to play the story...
 
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Dandy

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I lost the 50/50 to Mona, but it was at 30-40 pity, so not the worst thing. I then got Furina with 60 pulls after that. Only got 1 Charlotte, which is a shame, but I did get C4 on Collei and Beidou.

I've finished the AQ and have to say, it was amazing. I plan to jump in to Furina's quest ASAP.
 
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Amzin

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Well that AQ was heart wrenching, damn. And yea I'm gonna jump into Furina's quest tomorrow first chance I get.

I lost 50/50 while pulling on Baiz's banner but I think I might go for the guarantee on Furina's. Or I might get both. IDK. I also really want Navia, Clorinde, whatsherface (the other 4.3 leaked character), and probably most Natlan characters so this is getting rough after a pretty long drought for me :face-with-open-mouth-and-cold-sweat:
 
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Ascheroth

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Overall a very strong conclusion with a lot of fantastic moments, though I think the new boss is fairly underwhelming and a weak link, unfortunately.
I liked Furina before already, but she is absolutely one of my favorite characters in the game now, no buts.
Will be doing her character quest ASAP.
 
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Dandy

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I threw 30 pulls at the Baizhu banner and got Charlotte to C1. From what I've watched, she's an amazing healer. I'm not sure what I'll do with the rest of my primos at this point. I kinda want to keep going for Baizhu/more Charlottes, but I think I'll hold off until closer to the end of the banner, and see for myself how Charlotte is at C1.

I'm thinking Neuv, Furina, Charlotte and Kazuha.
 
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Dandy

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I just finished Furina's Story Quest. I was a bit skeptical of how it started, but it did everything it needed to, and the ending was really good. She's definitely one of my favorite characters as well.

Furina's VA was really good, and her performance made it clear who Furina becomes by the ending. I liked that it touched on earlier events from the AQ, and was relieved when it showed us how she got her Vision.
 
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Ascheroth

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Hydro nation continues to be kind to me and has granted me Mona from the standard banner, after 3 freaking years. ...Finally!

Also did Furina's story quest and have mixed feelings about it.

Furina was great, the NPC storyline was good as well and the cinematic was just beautiful.
But I really disliked how Paimon and the Traveller acted. Paimon was incredibly rude and obnoxious, and the Traveller also felt weirdly harsh.
Sure, they aren't really friends with Furina, but it just felt odd since both know her backstory and also contributed in hurting her even more by setting up the final trial at the end (even if was "fated").
The way they acted just felt oddly tone-deaf.
 
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Dandy

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Hydro nation continues to be kind to me and has granted me Mona from the standard banner, after 3 freaking years. ...Finally!

Also did Furina's story quest and have mixed feelings about it.

Furina was great, the NPC storyline was good as well and the cinematic was just beautiful.
But I really disliked how Paimon and the Traveller acted. Paimon was incredibly rude and obnoxious, and the Traveller also felt weirdly harsh.
Sure, they aren't really friends with Furina, but it just felt odd since both know her backstory and also contributed in hurting her even more by setting up the final trial at the end (even if was "fated").
The way they acted just felt oddly tone-deaf.
Yeah, I agree about that and I've seen a lot of people comment the same. It was definitely a weird choice to have the protagonists of the story pick on the tragic character.

Congrats on the Mona! I also got one when I lost the 50/50 for Furina, I've wanted her for a long time, though I have no idea when or if I will actually build her!
 

spindoctor

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Debated posting an update since I haven't made much progress in the game since last time but there's still some stuff to talk about...

So I finished the Inazuma archon quest early last month. The plan was to wrap up the world quests, do the electroculus collectibles and then move on to the Chasm and then Sumeru. Getting out of Inazuma took much longer than I thought it would for various reasons but mostly because I was very sick for most of the time. I did finish up as many world quests as I could do and collected the electro thingies. Finished the region with a respectable 80%+ completion percentage. Did the archon quest in the Chasm (which was quite sad when you learn about the hilichurls).

Finally arrived in Sumeru and did the first act of the archon quest there. The lush green forests are an immediate, pleasant aesthetic upgrade over Inazuma and even Liyue. The cultural influences they have used to craft the region are... intriguing. Mostly because it is a mix of many regional cultural themes. I'm sure more learned people than me have probably done more insightful theses on this matter than I can. I find it a bit jarring when you can see influences ranging all the way from western North Africa (Morocco, Tunisia) going east to the Middle East and north to Persia (Iran) and then east again all the way to India. It's actually just a mix of all these cultures together in a somewhat unnatural way. In Sumeru city you see the architectural aesthetic is from somewhere, the furniture is from somewhere else, the music is from somewhere else, the language, the names, the markets and everything else are just different cultural influences thrown together. Almost feels like the designers were told to research all these cultures and they did a good job but at the last stage they just mixed stuff up. I'm not really complaining about it... just find it intriguing. It's like if you went to a restaurant and all their furniture/wall decorations were Chinese but all the staff were wearing traditional Indian attire and their menu was all French cuisine and they're playing hip hop music on the speakers. Nothing wrong with this, just... strange, right?

Anyway... a few weeks ago Mihoyo had a competition on their forum celebrating the anniversary. You had to comment in their forum thread and 10% of all people were given a Welkin as a reward. I managed to get lucky and got it. That was nice. I know it's only 500 bucks but hey, it's 500 bucks.

This banner has been quite good to me. I was at a fairly highly pity already because of my unsuccessful half attempts to get Zhongli back when he was around. So when Furina came I did two ten pulls and got her. She is really fun to play. Her healing is great and being on her skill it's immediately better than my previous healer Barbara. She also does loads of damage with her minions although the HP loss mechanic is something to keep an eye on. Don't have a great weapon for her but what can you do. Spent a few days running around Fontaine collecting flowers for her and and farming that easy boss to get her up to level 70 (which is as high as I can go for now). A few days after pulling her, I saw in my battlepass that I had completed 40/50 pulls for this period so I thought I'll do another 10 pull to complete that quest. In that 10 pull I got a Tighnari constellation. That's really good because his C1 adds 15% crit to his charged shots which is nice but also it means I lost the 50-50 so the next pull is guaranteed. Also, being in Sumeru means I have finally started upgrading him as well and he's at level 60. Dehya is still at 40 because I haven't gone far enough west to find the boss that drops her ascension materials.

I have about 270 wishes saved up now. Still deciding who to get. These last few events have had trials for some characters I don't have and I find myself really liking Neuvillette and Nahida. Neuvillette does tons of damage with his charged attack water laser beam. It's crazy good. Nahida just applies dendro everywhere. Will see if I can get them when they roll back around. Been seeing animations for Navia on Twitter and she's another super stylish character. Not going to pull for her I don't think.

I finished act 1 of the Sumeru story. Basically looking for Lesser Lord Kusanali. Ostensibly supposed to be a mystery but I know the moment I see Nahida I'll be like, yup, there you are. Kind of wonder if playing the game 3 years late sort of dampens the narrative impact of their stories. The entire Liyue story was about solving the murder of the Geo Archon but by now you already know it's Zhongli so it was a bit of a farce.

I'll continue the Sumeru story as and when I can. Looking back at it now, I cannot believe how naive I was to think I could somehow complete Liyue, Inazuma and Sumeru within 3-4 weeks before Fontaine arrived when I had just restarted the game. There was absolutely no chance in hell of pulling that off. The new plan is to hopefully finish Sumeru, Enkanomiya, Fontaine and whatever other regions are in the game before the next expansion arrives next August or whenever. That's more achieveable I think.
 
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Line

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The cultural influences can be a bit jarring, but arguably, that's not that surprising for Sumeru as there are, well, different NPC cultures for reasons (and it's very relevant, if largely skimmed over in the archon quest, but much less so in the rest).
Fontaine does the same thing as you'll see, it's based on France, but there's ton of Italian influences, and a good chunk of English and Irish ones too. Plus it looks more like Switzerland than France actually... and Mondstadt was never really German at all and more generic western fantasy :cold-sweat:
Sadly all too common for Asian developers to mix cultures that are relatively close to each other (and to throw a shit fit when western games do the same for theirs).

The archon quests in general are a bit weird, because as you say, what your character is supposed to search for is blatant to the player (even before their banners I assure you, we all knew about them), but it's also not really what the stories are about, in Sumeru and Fontaine especially.
The Li Yue storyline was more disappointing than anything, but at least it had cool cinematics... though they were more about proving the next leadership than the threat they formed, so it felt very hollow...

And well, getting a random Tighnari con that early is fantastic really. :blobcheer:
As for team building, Furina is pretty amazing, I still haven't levelled her up much, not much time to do that, I've been in the artifact mines for a while. It's interesting to note that she - and Neuvillette even more so - have skyrocketed the value of Dehya. She is a genuinely good support for both of them.

Now I need to complete the new map and most of the side quests... I enjoyed the archon quests and Furina's one, but I have lots to do. It's really the side content and exploration that takes tons of time. The main quest itself is not the biggest time sink.
 

spindoctor

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The new event story was totally depressing. I'm not saying that any topics or themes should be off limits for storytelling but I can't imagine stories about the loss of a parent or child can ever leave someone feeling good about it. I guess not all stories are meant to leave you feeling good?

I'm glad this event had a trial for Raiden Shogun because she turned out to be really fun to use. Although of course you have to imagine they tailored her stats to perfection for the trial and that's probably not achievable in regular use. Still, I did like that they gave powerful trial characters like Nahida, Alhaitham, Neuvillette. Despite that, I only managed to complete the first requirement (2000 points) even though I had the 4x multiplier enabled. Not complaining though... whenever an event comes around with a combat challenge I aim for the lowest requirement which has the primogem rewards because it's not really possible for me to get the high scores with my low AR and haphazardly built characters.

I have to say I really like the QOL of events and everything else counting as daily commissions. I finished the event challenges a few days ago and now I can just log in, claim 4 rewards that are waiting for me and they count as completing the daily chores as well. Genshin could use a whole lot of QOL changes, especially when you consider how many improvements Star Rail keeps getting all the time, so this one change is very handy. I would love it if they could bring the 240 energy and stored up energy system over from Star Rail as well.
 

Ascheroth

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The new event story was totally depressing. I'm not saying that any topics or themes should be off limits for storytelling but I can't imagine stories about the loss of a parent or child can ever leave someone feeling good about it. I guess not all stories are meant to leave you feeling good?
I don't think most Genshin stories are purely "happy happy". Many are bittersweet or sad.
It has many of stories about loss and grief.
 

Line

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That was a pretty dark event, but it does end on a lighter note and spreading hope after tragedy.
Good story, good minigames, great pacing, very nice event for Freminet, hope they will improve all events like this in the future.

Still artifact mining, Neuvillette got a pretty good set but Furina is pretty damn bad. And still isn't 90 either.

But I reached pity on the standard banner and I got


That's pretty good, I didn't have a 5* bow before.
No idea on who should get it first though...
 
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Dandy

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I'm glad this event had a trial for Raiden Shogun because she turned out to be really fun to use. Although of course you have to imagine they tailored her stats to perfection for the trial and that's probably not achievable in regular use. Still, I did like that they gave powerful trial characters like Nahida, Alhaitham, Neuvillette. Despite that, I only managed to complete the first requirement (2000 points) even though I had the 4x multiplier enabled. Not complaining though... whenever an event comes around with a combat challenge I aim for the lowest requirement which has the primogem rewards because it's not really possible for me to get the high scores with my low AR and haphazardly built characters.

I have to say I really like the QOL of events and everything else counting as daily commissions. I finished the event challenges a few days ago and now I can just log in, claim 4 rewards that are waiting for me and they count as completing the daily chores as well. Genshin could use a whole lot of QOL changes, especially when you consider how many improvements Star Rail keeps getting all the time, so this one change is very handy. I would love it if they could bring the 240 energy and stored up energy system over from Star Rail as well.
I found my score was way higher with the multiplier set at its lowest. I just used Neuvillette and he melted every enemy the second they spawned.

Energy overflow and a 240 cap is my biggest want for QoL in Genshin. I love that in HSR I don't feel like I am being punished for not playing multiple times per day.
 

Ascheroth

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I found my score was way higher with the multiplier set at its lowest. I just used Neuvillette and he melted every enemy the second they spawned.

Energy overflow and a 240 cap is my biggest want for QoL in Genshin. I love that in HSR I don't feel like I am being punished for not playing multiple times per day.
It definetiley wouldn't hurt, but it's not as bad as the numbers make it look because they operate on different timescales. HSR is 1 every 6 minutes, Genshin is 1 every 8 minutes. 160 Resin in Genshin would be a bit over ~210 in Star Rail. 180 is 24 hours in Genshin.
 

Line

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Bumping the cap to 200 so you can make 5 condensed resins would have made sense years ago.
Weird decisions they've made sometimes.

But maybe there's more coming later, since we know there's a good chunk of QOL changes for 4.3 already.
 
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spindoctor

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A couple of nights ago I did that quest in Sumeru city where the Sabzeruz festival repeats itself and I liked it for a lot of reasons. I liked that they straight up introduced science fiction into this fantasy game (even though I suppose you could point to other things like Ninguang's floating fortress as sci fi as well). I liked that they didn't go with time looping (which everyone would have expected) and went with stolen dreams instead. That was a genuine surprise. It was quite a memorable introduction for the Dendro archon and I'd say the best one so far. I liked how you were virtually locked within the city until the quest was completed... sort of gave an oppressive feeling to the proceedings. And I was really touched by this moment in the story;

It was the strongest indication in the game so far about how much Paimon truly cares for the Traveler. I've honestly never understood why people in the community seem to hate her so much. I've seen complaints about how she talks too much which is basically criticism of how verbose the script is and... I mean, it's an RPG. Storytelling is supposed to be a core aspect of the genre. Anyway I liked the quest. Also finding out that Katheryne is a Sneznayan puppet made that make sense.

I really like the music that plays when you are in Port Ormos. Possibly the first time in my life I've enjoyed music which has instruments like the tabla, sitar and basuri.


(The title of the track - Forest of Jnana and Vidya... The spelling of Jnana is incorrectly taken from Wikipedia and is actually supposed to be spelt/pronounced 'Gyan' and it means knowledge in Sanskrit. Vidya also means knowledge actually. One can interpret the title as 'forest of knowledge and wisdom'.)

Also a mini milestone for me. I crossed 313 saved up wishes which is 50,000 primogems.

I saw an interesting post on the hoyolab forum a few days ago. Someone had a couple of hundred wishes or so and was wondering if he could get Raiden C2 when she shows up. People in the replies were talking about the odds of getting C2 or advising them to get C0 and her weapon or how constellations aren't worth it for non whales and one should get other characters instead. One person had an interesting perspective on the matter.

He said that instead of saving up primogems and wishing every few banners when someone interesting shows up, he saves up until someone he really really wants comes. So while long time players may have 20-30 or more limited characters, he only has 5 or 6. But when he does pull, he goes for minimum C2 + their signature weapon. He said it's more fun that way because a C2 + signature weapon character is substantially more powerful than a C0 + whatever purple weapon you try to make work with them. Obviously people with more characters will have more flexibility and variety but he asked how much of that variety is realistically used? Outside of specific situations like events that call for specific team compositions, how often are all (or even half of) the 20-30 characters being used?

Obviously there's no right or wrong opinion in this situation but I have to say that I do find some merit in the argument based on my experience with this game and Star Rail. In Star Rail I have a majority of the characters but half of them are untouched, less than a handful of 4-stars ever get used and even 5-stars are benched now. I have 2 teams good enough to complete the Forgotten Hall but I don't really like that mode. All regular quests and events and overworld stuff and farming is done by a mostly static team that can brute force all situations. So aside from "I feel like playing this other character" (which is perfectly valid btw), I don't really see the need to have a huge roster. But the biggest thing here is that fewer characters will mean less relic/artifact farming (and in the case of Genshin, less tiresome ascension material farming). I've mentioned time and again how un-fun I find that activity in these games so I'll just say that I am genuinely surprised at how much the misery of farming relics has diminished my opinion of Star Rail. I have nothing left to do in that game except farm more relics and more and more I find myself disliking the game because of it.

Anyway, I'm not suddenly going to start going for C2+weapons on any Genshin characters but yeah I did think that was an interesting way to go about playing these games.
 
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Line

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The first story quest in Sumeru is really the moment the game found its place. I agree that it was lovely, and I loved Paimon just the same. But I do understand why people find the pacing pretty bad at times, it can drag a lot but admittedly, they've been improving on that front. I strongly disagree with the people that think there's not enough combat in the quest lines though, the best ones had the least, and I don't think shoehorning a couple of mobs that explode before you end a rotation would have helped.
Makes the actual boss fights much more memorable, too.

And music in Sumeru is still probably my favorite. Fontaine is great, so is Inazuma, but the ambiance it brings is really unique, and I hope Natlan will follow with the same quality.


As far as constellations are concerned... I think it needs to be approached on a case by case basis, as for one, not all C2 (or more) are worth it. It absolutely turns Raiden Shogun into a DPS monster, but a lot of characters receive a much smaller boost until their C6.
I would say that constellations might not be a good idea at character release, even if you like them a lot... it could be temporary, either because of story reasons later on, or because their gameplay gets dull (I'll put Ayaka in this situation for me, I don't hate playing as her but I never really want to go back, unlike Ganyu which also fits the dull gameplay but that I still use sometimes) or is too cumbersome for most of the content (like all the burst focused chars).

I'd consider the weapon before constellations, as the boost can be extreme, and having a tailor made one is usually a much bigger difference than their C1 (even if weapons do cost more on average).

However all of that changes for reruns, as I absolutely see how getting cons for your favorites units that are staples in your teams being a viable position, especially when you know that you have no interest in patches worth of reruns of other chars, along new chars that don't interest you at all.

Long term, I think you need to have some want for the collection aspect to play a gacha, as if you don't and stick to only one team, they will inevitably get boring.
How fast and how hard it hits you varies... Hoyoverse games having such lame endgames is not helping, it's just not fun to push into Spiral Abyss or Memory of Chaos...
 

Amzin

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Personally I can't imagine not having a wide roster, playing the same couple of teams over and over seems horribly boring. On top of that, you can clear Abyss 12 with con zero and purple weapons, so not really sure what the "value" in stronger characters even is. In the overworld you can't usually even use a full team's abilities in a fight, most of the time 1 characters skill or burst will clear the fight out. Weekly bosses can be chunky but still, not sure the lack of variety makes up for 1 rotationing instead of 2 rotationing them.

No shade on people who just love 1-2 characters and wanna max them out, that makes sense, I just don't buy any argument about how it's more valuable, since it pretty objectively isn't. Given the variety of situations, resistances, enemies, challenges, etc., team variety is gonna be valuable for way more of your playtime.
 

Dandy

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It was the strongest indication in the game so far about how much Paimon truly cares for the Traveler. I've honestly never understood why people in the community seem to hate her so much. I've seen complaints about how she talks too much which is basically criticism of how verbose the script is and... I mean, it's an RPG. Storytelling is supposed to be a core aspect of the genre. Anyway I liked the quest. Also finding out that Katheryne is a Sneznayan puppet made that make sense.
I dislike Paimon(most of the time), and it's for multiple reasons. Her voice and manner of speaking(at least her English one) truly grates on my nerves, she talks too much, and she speaks FOR me.

I love verbose games(BG3 is my favorite game in a long time, I adore Disco Elysium, CRPGs and narrative games are what I play 90% of the time), but most of what Paimon says isn't serving a point. It's either repeating shit for people who don't pay attention to the story anyway, or just the same dead-horse jokes(Paimon is a glutton, Paimon loves money, Paimon is lazy). She sucks the gravitas out of nearly every serious scene with her grating, Elmo-like screeching, and she makes every conversation longer than it needs to be.

That said, there are times I've liked her in the story(like the example you mention). I just wish she didn't have to interject into EVERY scene. I also wish my character could ask questions and not have Paimon replace my place in the conversation.
 
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Line

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The codes just in case:
  • RS99D5LVTM6V
  • UBRQC4MCT4PZ
  • 8BQ9CMMVS5PM

Obviously a filler patch for 4.3, before we get more relevant stuff in 4.4.
But that's a lot of nice upcoming events an the QOL changes are really nice, especially the one for expeditions. The artifact triage sounds good too.

Dunno what to do for rolling, need to see the release numbers for Navia. Chevreuse looks like a good support for overload teams (that are not really a thing right now?), she comes with heals and her gameplay doesn't look clunky as shit like Sara or Faruzan.
We'll see.
 
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Ascheroth

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Yeah, filler patch but looking quite packed. Unironically hyped for the return of the beetle fighting event, lol.

I'll get Navia either way. I'd like Chevreuse too cause I like characters promoting or enabling different team styles, but pulling 4 stars is hell, so I'm not really overly excited especially since I have both Raiden and Yoimiya already.
 

spindoctor

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Been listening to this since yesterday...


These concerts are such a celebration of the artistry of this game. Just beautiful stuff.

At 1:04 they play the music that plays during the Raiden Shogun trailer. I just watched this trailer recently and man what an impressive feat of editing it was. At around 1:15 they play the Port Ormos music that I've been listening to a lot these days. One nice touch is that the folks playing that music are wearing the ethnic attire of the places where the instruments originate. I think that's also true for the people who are playing the wind/string instruments for the Inazuma music but I'm not fully aware of Japanese attire to say for sure.
 
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Ascheroth

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Been listening to this since yesterday...


These concerts are such a celebration of the artistry of this game. Just beautiful stuff.

At 1:04 they play the music that plays during the Raiden Shogun trailer. I just watched this trailer recently and man what an impressive feat of editing it was. At around 1:15 they play the Port Ormos music that I've been listening to a lot these days. One nice touch is that the folks playing that music are wearing the ethnic attire of the places where the instruments originate. I think that's also true for the people who are playing the wind/string instruments for the Inazuma music but I'm not fully aware of Japanese attire to say for sure.
Haven't watched it yet cause I think I might wait until after the Düsseldorf concert (since this Shanghai upload is probably way better :cold-sweat: ), but yes I love their concerts and all the other artsy videos.

And we'll get another concert on the 22nd :)
 

Ascheroth

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Drip marketing:





Gaming is a hilarious localization choice and will produce lots of memes (and screw up search engines lol).
And yes I know it's read differently.
 
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Line

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Birdnetta is here :blobeyes:
And... Gaming? Really? Well at least he won't be immediately be forgotten for a 4* I guess :smart-thinking-blob:
 

Ascheroth

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Well, we did get kit leaks and they sound fun? I'm always up for characters enabling new types of teams and gameplay styles and Xianyun seems to do that by being a plunge buffer/enabler, but also healer with some grouping (and the usual Anemo and catalyst benefits).

And Gaming seems to be a 4* plunge DPS with HP fluctuation and some sort of summon, which sounds fun too and like it would work well with her. Especially since he's the new Lantern Rite 4* meaning everyone can get him for free even if you don't pull on Xianyun's banner (he's mostly going to be available there based on precedent and not in the 2nd half).


Anyway, not much longer 'til Navia day.
 
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Ascheroth

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C5 Candace, C5 Rosaria and Navia with 50/50 won. Fontaine continues to be good to me.
Didn't realize she also needed Transoceanic mats for ascension and talents, so I'll need to murderize cute wildlife again, but so far she's already really fun and does very good damage. Popping the umbrellagun is hella satisfying.
 
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Dandy

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C5 Candace, C5 Rosaria and Navia with 50/50 won. Fontaine continues to be good to me.
Didn't realize she also needed Transoceanic mats for ascension and talents, so I'll need to murderize cute wildlife again, but so far she's already really fun and does very good damage. Popping the umbrellagun is hella satisfying.
She looks really fun! It's tempting to pull for her, but I don't need another character to build right now. I need to focus on the ones I have, and save primos.
 

Line

meh
Dec 21, 2018
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Well I love Navia's gameplay, so I rolled for her :surrenderblob:
Won the 50/50, finally got Sucrose to C6, Candace to C5, no Rosaria though. Mayyybe I will roll a it more to build pity :blobvomiting:

Interesting to see how strong the 4* weapons are for her, Serpent Spine and Sac Greatsword are crazy good somehow.
Now for her team, I hope Chiori will work well with her, she has my favorite design in the game thus far.


I tried to see how it felt for the supposed hypercarry team with Furina and Bennett and huh yeah, it doesn't really work so well.
I'm sure you get a very strong buff... but on way too short a window, Furina eats your HP too fast for Bennett since his heal only goes back up to 70%, their antisynergy is really bad outside of damage-per-screenshot in Abyss, it feels like you're switching so much for little reason but because they sabotage one another.
Not very fun, plus you don't have room for an extra Pyro char in that team, Zhongli is just here for interruption resistance (and resonance), and their elemental application is not very good.
Very dysfunctional team, an off field Geo healer would change it completely. Double Pyro or double Hydro makes it much less painful for now.

Now to see how Xyanyun pans out, she looks amazing, but her gameplay... I'm not so convinced by what is in beta...
 

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
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Yeah, Chiori has a fantastic design. As expected from the designer of Navia's outfit.

I too hope they'll work well together. Navia feels great to play as, but I haven't really found a team for her I'm super happy with yet.
Still need to play around with her build as well. Have her on a WGS right now, but I think I need to tweak ER more.
 

Line

meh
Dec 21, 2018
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Well I was close to 4* pity, so I went there.
And I got C6 Candace. :evilblob:

And I'm just exploring the 4.2 content, it's fun.
Maybe I will finally complete the character quests I haven't done. The QOL aditions are very helpful, they don't get in the way when unlock them, the new instant expeditions, the artifact sorting and fast domains are so, so nice. Definitely removed a lot of annoyances.
And it seems we have more coming yet in 4.4 with the autoequip feature, but that's one of those things that do not work correctly at all in HSR so I'll be cautious...
 

spindoctor

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Jun 9, 2019
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Should I try to get Navia? She looks nice, very stylish and she was ok in the trial but I can't decide if I really want her or not. Same question every banner... do I want this character or not? 360 odd wishes saved up now because the answer almost always ends up being no... Don't even know anything about the 4-stars on the banner...
 

Line

meh
Dec 21, 2018
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The age old question.
In the end, it's all about how much you enjoy a character in gameplay (because story is cool and all, but dragging along unfun main characters is not great) and how much you can spend on them.
In your case, you have loads of extra wishes, so it depends on who you really want... and what you really "need" for your teams.

Like Xianyun, I'm not sure she really fits anywhere for me, and her gameplay looks pretty clunky. I like her, but that's already starting with a negative while she's just been announced and I know Iansan is coming next summer.
But always consider the time you have to get more primos. If you want someone coming next patch, don't spend, but if it's countless months away...
 

spindoctor

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The age old question.
In the end, it's all about how much you enjoy a character in gameplay (because story is cool and all, but dragging along unfun main characters is not great) and how much you can spend on them.
In your case, you have loads of extra wishes, so it depends on who you really want... and what you really "need" for your teams.
Yeah it's tricky isn't it? When I first started playing the game properly a few months ago I figured there was no rush to pull on characters that I didn't know and I'd just wait until I met them in game before deciding whether I liked them and wanted to get them. That... doesn't really work. Meeting a character in the story doesn't really tell much about how they'll play and you need to check for that information externally anyway. And when it comes down to who you 'need', I can't really decide because I have little interest in the hard content of the game (spiral abyss). The hardest thing I'll really do are boss fights I suppose. So I have trouble figuring out who I'd want or need, and the decision becomes more complicated because you are making a choice that will last a year before a character comes back in a rerun. Even archons are now a once a year banner it seems. Raiden Shogun is up next and I've decided I'll probably get her. My friend told me the first year you should only really pull for archons and harbingers and then you can decide who else you like in the second year onwards. That's a long term commitment and plan laid out right there lol. I did throw 20 wishes in Navia's banner just for the heck of it and got Rosaria and my first Widsith which is great for Lisa.

Anyway, I finished off the Sumeru archon quest a couple of nights ago. I have lots of scattered thoughts about it. I think Sumeru is easily the best region in the game. Pleasant visuals in both the forest and desert regions, a decent plot (by video game writing standards), well written characters and just phenomenal music all the way through. Seriously, the music is so good. Every location is a banger... Port Ormos, Aaru village, and the Surasthana area after you free Nahida. Aaru village has multiple ambient tracks for day and night and all of them are so nice. The desert music is slow and contemplative. I've been listening to the tracks non stop for days now. Even my mom likes this Surasthana theme



I really liked most of the main characters too. Nahida is just about the only archon who actually cares about her people. Venti was oblivious, Zhongli wanted out and the Raiden Shogun is nuts. Dehya was such a strong character too. Really makes you think when you love a character that everyone else seems to hate (happens with Paimon too). I liked that the story also took care to conclude the stories of lesser characters like Dunyarzad and Setaria. I'll be honest, I was a bit misty eyed at the end of the story, especially around this scene...

Which was interesting because Lord Rukkadevata was not developed at all as a character. As a side note, I know I've mentioned this a couple of times before, but the English VA pronunciation of Rukkadevata was probably the most egregiously wrong pronunciation of all these Sanskrit inspired words. "Devta" in Sanskrit means deity or god and "Rukka" is tree. So, the tree-deity or tree-goddess. One small oversight is that they continue to refer to Nahida as Lesser Lord Kusanali when there is no memory of the Greater Lord left anywhere on the land. No reason to call her a lesser lord at that point. From what I read, the game devs made it a point to actually remove references to Rukkadevata from the literature you can find in the game world after this happens in the story.

Speaking of Dehya, I finally explored enough of the map to ascend her up to level 70 (along with Tighnari). That's about four months of playing with those two locked at level 40. I'll continue to gather materials to get my core 5-6 characters ready for level 80 (maybe 90 if possible) before doing the ascension trial. I figure I can finish all of Sumeru at AR35 and then ascent to AR40 when I'm ready to go to Fontaine (it's required for the archon quest there).

I'm a little bit lost on what exactly to do next in the game. Right now I'm preparing for Raiden Shogun i.e. fishing for The Catch and I've been enjoying this event going on right now. The multiplayer mini game was more fun than you'd think. I think after this I'll start working on the world quests as there are still areas and teleport points that need to be unlocked. I visited the North Western part of the desert to light it up and man it is huge. Especially when there are underground sections as well. I assume world quests will take me there because the main story didn't.

Did I mention I really like the music in Sumeru? This is so so good

 
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Line

meh
Dec 21, 2018
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Yeah it's tricky isn't it? When I first started playing the game properly a few months ago I figured there was no rush to pull on characters that I didn't know and I'd just wait until I met them in game before deciding whether I liked them and wanted to get them. That... doesn't really work. Meeting a character in the story doesn't really tell much about how they'll play and you need to check for that information externally anyway. And when it comes down to who you 'need', I can't really decide because I have little interest in the hard content of the game (spiral abyss). The hardest thing I'll really do are boss fights I suppose. So I have trouble figuring out who I'd want or need, and the decision becomes more complicated because you are making a choice that will last a year before a character comes back in a rerun. Even archons are now a once a year banner it seems. Raiden Shogun is up next and I've decided I'll probably get her. My friend told me the first year you should only really pull for archons and harbingers and then you can decide who else you like in the second year onwards. That's a long term commitment and plan laid out right there lol. I did throw 20 wishes in Navia's banner just for the heck of it and got Rosaria and my first Widsith which is great for Lisa.
Without really bothering with "endgame", it's at least good to know if you want a healer, a shielder, or something like that. Helps narrow down the possibilities a bit to just have fun with a team (especially true for characters that sacrifice HP) without it becoming too annoying even walking around.
And only rolling for archons and harbingers for the first entire year? That's craaazy. That's the realm of really loving them though, not some power level requirement. I certainly wouldn't roll for Childe as first 5* just because he's a harbinger, there are so many better options that are not high investment... and not clunky as shit.
The Widsith is a fantastic weapon, definitely the best 4* DPS catalyst for anyone using it.

And there are some rumours that triple banners are coming, but when that will be...

I really liked most of the main characters too. Nahida is just about the only archon who actually cares about her people. Venti was oblivious, Zhongli wanted out and the Raiden Shogun is nuts. Dehya was such a strong character too. Really makes you think when you love a character that everyone else seems to hate (happens with Paimon too). I liked that the story also took care to conclude the stories of lesser characters like Dunyarzad and Setaria. I'll be honest, I was a bit misty eyed at the end of the story, especially around this scene...
Sumeru was just great. The story, music, visuals, level design, it's almost without fault.
Note that Dehya is not hated at all, it's her half baked toolkit that is the issue, people love Dehya, even in China there was a big movement to buff her... but of course, Hoyoverse strikes again...

I'm a little bit lost on what exactly to do next in the game. Right now I'm preparing for Raiden Shogun i.e. fishing for The Catch and I've been enjoying this event going on right now. The multiplayer mini game was more fun than you'd think. I think after this I'll start working on the world quests as there are still areas and teleport points that need to be unlocked. I visited the North Western part of the desert to light it up and man it is huge. Especially when there are underground sections as well. I assume world quests will take me there because the main story didn't.
The event quality has really ramped up, they are both meatier but also better paced, and it's good to see the characters interacting more often. But.... I hope it didn't spoil too much for you, because they are a lot less self contained and don't hesitate to retrace a lot of what happened in the archon quests and the character quests now...

Exploration wise, yep anything after X.2 is not archon related so it's all interlude and world quests, sadly often without voice acting in general. Note that you still have a lot to do with Nahida, I highly recommend doing her character quests!

Same thing is happening for Fontaine, though it's more like the world quest lines follow through each patch so it's less disconnected. 4.4 will take us in a very different direction though.
I hope we'll start seeing some hints about Natlan, it's about time!
Can't wait to read the "story spoilers" that leakers will try to share and be 100% wrong about everything like they were for Fontaine :upside-down-face:
 
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spindoctor

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And only rolling for archons and harbingers for the first entire year? That's craaazy. That's the realm of really loving them though, not some power level requirement. I certainly wouldn't roll for Childe as first 5* just because he's a harbinger, there are so many better options that are not high investment... and not clunky as shit.
I don't think my friend was being 100% serious about this. The point was to emphasize that archons and harbingers are more powerful or versatile than other, regular characters. I can sort of see what he's saying but older players have a somewhat different perspective on the game I suppose.

Note that Dehya is not hated at all, it's her half baked toolkit that is the issue, people love Dehya, even in China there was a big movement to buff her... but of course, Hoyoverse strikes again...
I dunno man, Youtube and Twitter are always full of 'jokes' or memes about how Dehya is the worst character in the game. I do understand it's because people wanted her to be better but that doesn't mean she's bad. At least I've had no issues throughout my time in the game. And her characterization in the Sumeru story made her even more likable to me. I just feel like if you keep repeating something over and over it stops being a joke and just becomes what you believe anyway, but who knows...

The event quality has really ramped up, they are both meatier but also better paced, and it's good to see the characters interacting more often. But.... I hope it didn't spoil too much for you, because they are a lot less self contained and don't hesitate to retrace a lot of what happened in the archon quests and the character quests now...
It did spoil a lot, unfortunately. I now know that Furina is no longer the hydro archon. It was the first time I met her in the game as well and that was kind of exciting and then you learn this. I feel like they could definitely have written the event quest to not reference the ending of the nation's archon quest. Another way to look at it is that the quest designers do not give a shit about people who have not finished the Fontaine story.

Yesterday a friend joined my world and I was helping her farm upgrade materials for Rizzley. Now the way I've explored Fontaine in my game so far has been to light up the map but only go to the places that the events have taken me to. I've deliberately avoided doing anything else there... I leave treasure chests and seelies and hydroculus things for when I'll actually play Fontaine. So we're running around killing mechs and I'm going to new places and seeing new vistas for the first time. They're beautiful, but it kind of made me regret seeing them so early. Just last week was the first time I went to the Sumeru desert after playing this game for months and I was suitably awed by the pyramid there and the underground areas and the north west region and all. I'm not going to have that experience with Fontaine. It's unfortunate and there was nothing that could have been done about it. Short of me just refusing to visit Fontaine ever and then missing out on every single event that happens all year. It's not a huge deal but the visual discovery of the game world has been a highlight for me throughout my playthrough and that's just gone for Fontaine. I don't blame the devs for putting all their events in Fontaine. That makes sense. I just wish they could have been a bit more circumspect about spoiling the story within it for people who have not experienced it yet.
 

Line

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I don't think my friend was being 100% serious about this. The point was to emphasize that archons and harbingers are more powerful or versatile than other, regular characters. I can sort of see what he's saying but older players have a somewhat different perspective on the game I suppose.
-
I dunno man, Youtube and Twitter are always full of 'jokes' or memes about how Dehya is the worst character in the game. I do understand it's because people wanted her to be better but that doesn't mean she's bad. At least I've had no issues throughout my time in the game. And her characterization in the Sumeru story made her even more likable to me. I just feel like if you keep repeating something over and over it stops being a joke and just becomes what you believe anyway, but who knows...
Definitely the results of being very invested into characters over time, yeah.
Then people miss changes in the meta and how Dehya isn't bad anymore, or that Venti and Wanderer are not very good today (the latter was never more than T2 at best even). Hell, even Zhongli is lucky that his shield is better than Layla's, because he would be rock bottom otherwise, between his split scaling, the problems of Geo and the meta replacing shielding with healing... if Chiori is indeed the Geo healer double Geo teams need, it wouldn't surprise me to see him being dumped from the ever so fanciful meta lists.

Thankfully we see a bit less often "Hu Tao or nothing" like we did back then, Dendro brought a lot of weaker teams and characters forward, and Furina alone powers up anyone with the Maréchaussée set to fix some gearing issues that can exist.

Yesterday a friend joined my world and I was helping her farm upgrade materials for Rizzley. Now the way I've explored Fontaine in my game so far has been to light up the map but only go to the places that the events have taken me to. I've deliberately avoided doing anything else there... I leave treasure chests and seelies and hydroculus things for when I'll actually play Fontaine. So we're running around killing mechs and I'm going to new places and seeing new vistas for the first time. They're beautiful, but it kind of made me regret seeing them so early. Just last week was the first time I went to the Sumeru desert after playing this game for months and I was suitably awed by the pyramid there and the underground areas and the north west region and all. I'm not going to have that experience with Fontaine. It's unfortunate and there was nothing that could have been done about it. Short of me just refusing to visit Fontaine ever and then missing out on every single event that happens all year. It's not a huge deal but the visual discovery of the game world has been a highlight for me throughout my playthrough and that's just gone for Fontaine. I don't blame the devs for putting all their events in Fontaine. That makes sense. I just wish they could have been a bit more circumspect about spoiling the story within it for people who have not experienced it yet.
Spoiling the story was unfortunate.
But on the other hand, it's better for events to be in the open world like this, I think it's very important to not lock away events for countless hours like it was in Inazuma and the Chasm where you just rushed the story, or would not be able to participate. That sucked a lot.
 

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
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Dehya was never as bad as people made her out to be and she became a lot better with Fontaine as well.
It was mostly just people wanting her to be one thing (hyper carry) while she ended up being something completely different (defensive option) and on her release everyone tried force her into being a DPS instead of making use of her actual strength.
I've been using her pretty consistently since release.
To be fair though, it's partly Hoyo's fault with marketing as well, I mean her character trailer is basically her being a badass in a fight, which is not at all how she plays in a game.

As for pulling Archon's and Harbingers... I don't think I agree?
I barely use Venti anymore these days. He's very strong in his niche, but you can't really make use of it that often these days and he falls off a cliff outside his niche.
Zhongli is the best shielder by far which is fine, but the game is also currently promoting a more healer focus.
Raiden is good, but these days I just use her as a hyperbloom bot which is kind of a waste of her kit and something Shinobu could do as well (Raiden's a bit more convenient though, but lacks the heals instead). It is however very convenient and dishes out lots of damage.
Nahida is still very strong.
Furina is very good as well.

Hyperbloom with Raiden, Nahida and a Hydro unit of your choice is definitely the premium brain-dead easy damage mode and one I very much enjoy, lol.

Tortellini is still good, but I don't like how he plays at all so I don't have him and won't get him either - you should definitely see if you like his playstyle first if you want to aim for him.
Wanderer honestly is nothing special,

I have a really hard time recommending units tbh. I'm still of the opinion that mostly everything works so you can just go for who you like or whose playstyle you enjoy, but it's also definitely true that some units can get results easier than others.
 

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
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Catching up on Hoyofair stuff and that was fun. So many talented people in this community.
I still can't get over the fact that they've got Nano for an Arlecchino fansong/fan music video though. Nano rocks.
 

spindoctor

MetaMember
Jun 9, 2019
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Well, yesterday was an interesting day for my account. I did a little bit of wishing and then did a little bit more and ended up with these new characters;

Raiden Shogun C1
Kujou Sara C6
Chevreuse C5
Mona
Ningguang
Kuki Shinobu
Qingqiu
Fischl (from the starglitter store)
and Bennett went from C4 to C6.

At the pace I play the game it would take me months to level up these folks. Actually, aside from streamers who can play the game for 9 hours a day, it would probably take everyone months to do it. I know, I know... nobody actually does that. Nobody expects to be able to. I suspect that while all of these characters are varying degrees of good and useful, most people who have put time into the game have several 4-stars who are just gathering dust in the inventory so to speak. Kind of makes one step back and think about the whole game design purpose for them. From the developers' point of view, it obviously enables the gacha system. From the players' perspective, it enables more specific team combinations to achieve various outcomes and, as a secondary endeavor, I guess it keeps people busy as they work towards leveling/building them up. I still have to imagine that most people are not able to keep up

Anyway Raiden seems fun so far. I farmed The Catch R4 for her and I still need to do a bit of fishing to get to R5. Also need to do the domain to get some more of her talent level up materials. Not made any progress with Sumeru world quests yet. It seems like every quest is part of a long chain of quests to get through. I've just been doing the events in the game for the last couple of weeks. Will have to make time to get back to doing all the quest chains. Still have 140+ wishes left so I'll easily get to 160-170 by the time Nahida arrives. After that I have no idea who I'd want to get. It already feels overwhelming to try and gather materials to level up the 6-8 characters I'm doing right now and this is all before I even start farming for artifacts. I did consider ascending from AR35 to 45 sooner than Fontaine so that I could start farming for yellow artifacts but my friend also got Raiden (in one ten-pull!) yesterday and she doesn't have Inazuma unlocked yet. For now, she'll have to come to my world to get the materials to level her up (and fish for The Catch) so I'll stay at AR35 for a while longer so that she can join my world.

What are you guys upto in the game?
 

Dandy

Bad at Games.
Apr 17, 2019
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Well, yesterday was an interesting day for my account. I did a little bit of wishing and then did a little bit more and ended up with these new characters;

Raiden Shogun C1
Kujou Sara C6
Chevreuse C5
Mona
Ningguang
Kuki Shinobu
Qingqiu
Fischl (from the starglitter store)
and Bennett went from C4 to C6.

At the pace I play the game it would take me months to level up these folks. Actually, aside from streamers who can play the game for 9 hours a day, it would probably take everyone months to do it. I know, I know... nobody actually does that. Nobody expects to be able to. I suspect that while all of these characters are varying degrees of good and useful, most people who have put time into the game have several 4-stars who are just gathering dust in the inventory so to speak. Kind of makes one step back and think about the whole game design purpose for them. From the developers' point of view, it obviously enables the gacha system. From the players' perspective, it enables more specific team combinations to achieve various outcomes and, as a secondary endeavor, I guess it keeps people busy as they work towards leveling/building them up. I still have to imagine that most people are not able to keep up

Anyway Raiden seems fun so far. I farmed The Catch R4 for her and I still need to do a bit of fishing to get to R5. Also need to do the domain to get some more of her talent level up materials. Not made any progress with Sumeru world quests yet. It seems like every quest is part of a long chain of quests to get through. I've just been doing the events in the game for the last couple of weeks. Will have to make time to get back to doing all the quest chains. Still have 140+ wishes left so I'll easily get to 160-170 by the time Nahida arrives. After that I have no idea who I'd want to get. It already feels overwhelming to try and gather materials to level up the 6-8 characters I'm doing right now and this is all before I even start farming for artifacts. I did consider ascending from AR35 to 45 sooner than Fontaine so that I could start farming for yellow artifacts but my friend also got Raiden (in one ten-pull!) yesterday and she doesn't have Inazuma unlocked yet. For now, she'll have to come to my world to get the materials to level her up (and fish for The Catch) so I'll stay at AR35 for a while longer so that she can join my world.

What are you guys upto in the game?
That's a lot of characters! I definitely have way more characters than I will ever level or play. I stick to a core 8 or so, and even they are not fully leveled.

Right now I'm sort of just dialing it in with Genshin. I do my commissions, use my resin(usually), and then I'm done for the day. I'm always like this with Genshin though. When I get a new character that I'm really excited to use, or when there is a new AQ I am all in. Then I lose steam and just go through the motions. Right now, there aren't really even any characters I am looking forward to. I like Chiori's design, but geo makes me worry. Gaming has cool animations, but I'm not sure how good he'll be(plus 4 stars are the worst to pull for).