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Does Genshin actually have a problem? And if so, how can they fix it?
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- Опубликовано: 17 авг 2024
- Many people feel that Genshin has a problem: the filler patches.
I feel the same frustrations, but don’t entirely agree.
It’s pretty common for people to point to the floods of money pouring into Genshin, the unbelievable profit margins Hoyo are seeing on any investment they make into the game, and the fairly typical size of their team by triple-A standards, and make the obvious conclusion that they could solve this problem by hiring more people.
Sadly, it’s not that simple.
Let’s take a look at why people feel this way, whether it’s actually something Hoyo should invest time into, and think through some potential solutions - including that obvious one which might not work.
00:00 Intro
00:38 What is filler?
01:03 Story
02:12 Exploration
03:30 Combat
04:45 All the things
06:34 Is it a problem?
08:26 Solutions
11:54 Why isn't it fixed yet?
14:01 Conclusion
Genshin Impact is an open-world action/exploration game, available on PC, PS4, PS5 and mobile devices (iOS & Android).
I'm always happy to talk Genshin and other games, streams 3pm UK every Wed/Fri/Sat/Sun
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I really appreciate that I can take a break from Genshin during filler patches, but rerunning older events (for those who missed) can really serve a wide range of players at minimal dev effort.
Very good point! I really think Genshin should offer past events to new players, even if it meant they'd get no rewards from them. Way too much lore and character interaction gets erased forever once an event has passed :/
Regarding the "hire more people", Genshin is primarily art project, not software project. There are WAY more graphics designers, animators, 3D modellers, musicians etc working on it than programmers. But for what I have heard, there's already about 1000 people working solely on this game within Mihoyo alone and extending such team in any meaningful is way harder than most people can imagine.
Oh yeah valid point - I've usually seen people assume that the bottleneck is developers, but artists are absolutely just as important - same for writers etc. Those same problems apply there too for sure!
That was worded really well......they really are more of an art project, just the way they talked about the details put into Fontaine and researching art and culture. They spent goodness knows how much to hire the famous French opera singer for a 2 minute song/music video and yet that money and time could've gone into voicing the world quests which would be better. But I could be wrong, perhaps it was a fruitful way to get more people interested in playing the game.
@@trashbuilds8351 It could also be a separate budget!
@@raptori Excellent point so I guess whoever chooses how to distribute budgets is maybe the issue lol jk
@@trashbuilds8351 Yep lmao! Pretty normal for companies to allocate a % of revenue to marketing etc though, so I guess it is what it is!
The thing about filler patches that might change people's perspectives is that these might be the result of missed deadlines or complexity on the backend of the game. The fact that we get what we get every six weeks without buggy messes is a testament to the fact that they presumably make the hard decision to delay stuff sometimes and that's probably not the worst thing
agreed, I appreciated one of the recent live streams showing the behind the scenes work that goes into planning and programming parts of the game that we don't often think about. I wish they made that an ongoing thing to peel back the curtain and maybe throw in some bloopers of programming gone wrong (like the most recent Harry Potter game did that and it was hilarious). Not sure if it is more of a Western thing to love behind the scenes content.
@@trashbuilds8351 Did you see they also posted a video on their YT talking through the behind-the-scenes of their development process for Gaming? That video was fantastic, I wish they'd do it for every character!
@@raptori O no I didn't! Thanks for letting me know, I'll check it out! Gaming is the perfect example of how a 4* dps character should be so I think they might be listening more to feedback! If only my C2 Dehya felt as good as C6 gaming haha
@@trashbuilds8351 Hope you enjoy it! 😁Yeah he's fantastic, really sucks what they did to Dehya... mine's only C0 so a bit of a flop sadly 😥
@@raptori It helps that he's so cute and sweet so making him bounce on enemies is even better haha
I'm determined to make her work, but her best teams/builds forego her burst, and that's the most fun part! lol
love the discussion of developer work/life balance and suggested solutions to the filler patch "problem." As a casual player I really don't mind some extra days to save for the next character that appeals, but I also only started playing a few months back, so I sympathize with people who are already done with everything, and get why they'd be itching for new content. Anyways hard to please everyone, but the game is producing an impressive amount of content as is and there are always other games out there if needed. Great vid as always!
Thank you! 💙 Yeha I used to be itching for new content all the time, but then I discovered even mroe games I enjoy so honestly it's nice to feel like Ic an keep up even when I'm not playing genshin 24/7 😅
The "hire more people" argument already became reality when so many tech companies went through hiring sprees during the pandemic, including game companies. And you can see what is happening now as those same companies are firing those people en masse after realising it is not sustainable to maintain that much of a headcount.
So be careful what you wish for.
I think the controversy over the filler patch comes from the hype of streamers. Their desire to run marathon live streams in order to be favored by algorithms has made them demand more content than the average person. However, GENSHIN originated in mobile games, which encourage players to log in twice a day and stay for 10~30 minutes each time. There is no small difference between the two.
I also like UGC like divine ingenuity. In response to a survey, I suggested that it become a regular activity: players as designers upload the stage for other players to challenge. Designers can provide primogems as rewards; Challengers pay primogems as an entry fee. If the challenge is successful, the challenger can take the primogems provided by the designer; If the challenge fails, the designer can take the primogems provided by the challenger. In order to ensure fairness, challengers can play the game without paying the participation fee, but they will not be able to receive a reward. If the challenger hesitates to delay, he may receive a system message informing him that the reward has been taken by other players, and he will not get the reward even if he completes the challenge, but the participation fee will be refunded.
FFS Genshin fans we *need* filler patches. BTW, gotta say, whoever's been editing the videos lately has been doing an *incredible* job, I really appreciate how nicely edited these are.
All live service PVE games need filler patches as to not burn people out
Yes! Thank you for finally saying it! If every single patch was as chock-full of lore as Sumeru or the interlude releases, we'd all get pretty tired of the game pretty quickly. "Filler" patches are a fun little break in-between the larger patches. Besides, Hoyoverse can't create massive amounts of story as quickly as they release patches. Filler is necessary to give players something to do while Hoyo finishes making the big patches.
For me, the only major issue I have is the lack of QoL enhancements, particularly with artifact farming. Not being able to select the type or main stat has made this a positively grueling experience. For example, I’ve had Navia since release (Dec 20), have farmed her domain every single day, and still haven’t managed to gather four decent pieces. This speaks to a much larger issue where the vast majority of players, F2P or not, might never be able to have all of their units reach their full combat potential. To me, this greatly disincentives pulling for new units since they could likely be benched for months on account of bad RNG. For a company that cares so much about its bottom line, I can’t even pretend to understand why they haven’t made this change already.
100% agree that it disincentivises pulling for new characters - there's been a bunch of characters where I'm kinda 50/50 on whether I'd want them, and the thought of having to farm their artifacts was the thing which made the decision for me... wish they'd fix that. Long overdue!
Definitely agree! Artefact farming is the absolute worst part of genshin hands down. It's so incredibly demoralising as well when after hundreds or even thousands of resin, you get a promising looking piece and it roll into the single useless stat all 5 times (I've had it happen more times than I care to count) 😔
@@saurusness absolutely!
yeah, I'm trying to farm good dendro attack artifact from dendro set for more than a year and still, my max. crit damage is 14.? and crit chance... zero.
THATS SO REAL!! ive literally spent over 10k resin on navias artifact domain now, only a pretty good flower and feather with an extremely mid circlet and sands. despite all that farming, my 4pc nighttime is a straight up downgrade to my 2pc archaic 2pc vermillion that ive been using since day 1😔😭
i get kind of overwhelmed when new regions drop coz of the content overflow xD so i usually just go exploring first (always a priority) building new characters and then slowly clearing out my story quests and such over the next few patches (just got done with fontaine AQs last month) while also not missing out on abyss resets and stuff and it's honestly been working fine for me. these filler patches help breathe fr
People are spoiled by the 6 week cycle that Mihoyo has perfected, and I don't think realize what an accomplishment this really is.
All live service games need filler at some point: major content drops like Natlan are going to need extra resources to develop and a filler patch or two is how they can prep for that.
Otherwise, I agree with your point about endgame/user generated content. Permanent Labyrinth Warriors would be a dream.
I'm still exploration-first, then combat, then story, and would definitely fall into the hard-core player section, but I've absolutely loved that encounter points feature.
I used to almost speedrun all of the content from each patch within a few days, and then have nothing to do for weeks... these days, I'm happy to just gather my encounter points via little chunks of exploration or parts of a quest, and then leave it there. Filler patches don't bother me as much as a result.
Really really wish they'd add some of those ideas though... coop abyss with built-in puzzles please!
The encounter points are also so helpful for me as a more casual player, as then i don’t stress about finishing off my daillies quickly so i also have time for event stuff (for instance on days where I only have about an hour to play before work) as simply doing the event stuff is usually enough to clear the dailies (or at least minimise them to only one commission)
I don’t think it’s a big deal, I understand it’s pretty upsetting to have nothing to really do in Genshin, but most games don’t have updates so frequently, so I’m just happy we get a lot of updates. It also gives me more time to play HSR and farm for Sparkle :)
I’m happy with having a filler patch every once in a while! I don’t have that much time and it’s nice to be able to do old quests and explore older regions while not having to worry that you’re missing out on something new
I'm probably exploration first, then story, then combat. And maybe semi-serious? I think the ebb and flow works for me so I don't burn out. And as a late starting player, there was a ton to catch up on. I like feeling more caught up and having time to take breaks.
I'm similar. Non-filler patches have more stuff to do in them than I can do in the six weeks, and the filler patches typically give me more time to do my own thing rather than constantly feeling railroaded down time consuming limited time events. The most vocal parts of the community will always be the most dedicated but it genuinely takes a lot to get to "content drought" levels compared to anything else on the market, and the pool of players who are all caught up with 3+ years of content is going to be smaller and smaller relative to the overall audience as the game continues to pull in newer players
Great points as always! Really enjoyed that you included the "more isn't always more" in regards to adding team members, as well as pushing more content out. I'd much rather have high-quality content at a slower pace (some other games need to take note of that too lol), than more content that feels rushed or incomplete. I think overall they've done quite a decent job at hitting split banners and 6 week patches. I'm curious how the new banner will impact things. Will it too begin to feel like filler? Or, will it rather satiate the opportunity for pulling characters who will inevitably take longer to cycle through for a rerun, as their roster is ever-increasing. I am a genshin sponge - willing to soak up just about anything Hoyo creates LOL
Thats a very good way of breaking down different players' motivations on the game. I fit squarly on story first (including character backstories), exploration second and combact third. So for me, the current patch balance is very much on par with my expectations.
That being said... YES to more rewards please!!!!! 😁
As a newbie/casual player. I'm huge on exploration, then combat, then story. I wanna farm items and see how I can conquer enemies. I'm overwhelmed by content so a filler patch sounds fun and nice distraction from level grinding.
I think the issue is that when hoyo gives us full patches they feed us so much we're stuffed, but when they make filler patches it's like we're being actively starved of content. Like in my opinion, they should've had Chiori come out with the Fontaine Film Festival bc she was relevant to the plot & that was a big event. I feel like they pair mid/average (not in a powerscale sense but in a hype sense) with mid/quiet patches and that makes it sting all the more. I would be fine with the mondstat event if it came with the release of a hype character or something. I'm rambling so I'm gonna try to explain this better.
In order for a patch to not be filler, it needs two of three categories to be hype/major/important:
-new region/exploration
-new character/combat
-quest/story/event
Take 4.4 for example, it knocked it out of the park with all three, Chenyu Vale (region), Xianyun (character/combat), and Lantern Rite (less special bc its a re-run of an event, but still hype)
With 4.5 we have no new region, and while Chiori seems interesting, she hasn't been as hype as previous units, and an event that doesn't seem like it will advance the lore or story like say an Interlude would.
I don't think there needs to be more content per patch, but I feel that hoyo should better space out, or mix/match events/regions/characters so they can always get 2 out of the 3 criteria so as to not have as many filler patches where players are starving for content.
hope this makes sense im kinda rambling lol
The main content I'm excited about is story heh even books and unvoiced quests
Glad you can enjoy them! I love the lore in theory, but can't stand reading long-form content on a computer screen or TV... will happily read a 1200 page novel, can't sit through half an unvoiced quest in Genshin without starting to skip 😂
I don't mind filler patches. I'm a very casual player. I have much that is not completed. I have quests from Enkanomiya and Chasm that I need to finish, not to mention the chests from Liyue, Inazuma, Sumaru, and Fontaine. This patch is helping me breathe so I can gather as many primogems for patch 4.6. This game is meant to be drawn out, slow burn.
For someone who have a lot of work most of the time I appreciate Filler patches because it's letting me catch up with the game like 4.4 I played the event story, but I didn't have the time to explore the new area yet or the story quests or the world quests so 4.5 still feels had a lot to offer for me ^ ^
(This ended up being a super long comment so just letting you know now. 😂)
I enjoy Genshin for the exploration, its beauty, the lore, the story and the interactions between characters. So I guess that's part of the reason why I never felt like the game had a filler patch, each new one adds stuff from at least one or two of those things.
Another reason is that I view the word "filler" here the same way as if we were talking about a show. To me the prime example of a filler episode in a show are those that are basically all flashbacks with no actual story that moves anything forward, just a recap for the audience. Genshin never felt like that to me, even with "repeated" events, they're not 100% exactly the same. Sometimes the map has something new or there are new mechanics or the story is different or the characters we interact with are different or the lore we get is different. There's always something new even if it's small.
And that's another thing, it's okay to not have every single patch have a massive amount of content to do. Like the video said, that way people who are more busy don't feel like they're missing much and have breathing room.
And that's yet another thing. Let me repeat for the bazillionth time in the internet, that this is a casual game. It's literally designed to be played for a short while each day, that's why for example events force you to complete them in parts each day or even every other day sometimes. If you want something you can play for 10 hours every day, this is not the game for you.
Same thing to hardcore combat-enjoyer players, Genshin is catered to the casuals, that's why it's easy. That's why for instance, combat events give the most important reward (primos) for completing the easiest task, while the task that asks for the most points only gives ore and/or mora.
Like I get the complaints the game has had during all this time, some of them are very valid, but others are honestly ridiculous. Let's realise that the changes we ask for have to align with the type of game we're playing. It would be stupid of me to ask Candy Crash to have more jump scares because I like horror games (I actually don't like horror, this is just a hypothetical example). If I want to get spooked, I should look for... you know, a *horror* game. Not a cutesy silly "match at least three of the same candy" game. If you want a game with hardcore combat, look for one. There's literally tons. Genshin is not that game, no matter how much you like the combat system. 🤷 (I suggest you also wait for Wuthering Waves's release, by the way.)
And before somebody makes the "They could at least add difficult content that is not mandatory and has no rewards attached to it, I'd be happy with that." argument: You feel that way NOW. But soon you'll be like "It's nice that we can truly test out teams with this difficult mode, but with no rewards there's really little to no incentive to build the characters to that point, they should reward our hard work." which is generally valid, but the problem in this game is that if they started attaching meaningful rewards to hardcore content, it wouldn't be that much of a casual game now, would it? Cue the "We don't want to give our players anxiety" from that interview. People don't realise that trying to please everyone is impossible not only mental health wise, but in literally every aspect of life including games. When something is changed to please a kind of player, it usually means discontent to others, many games have died trying to go that route. That's why most games pick a target audience and stick to it and if you don't fit that target audience, it doesn't mean the game is bad, it just means you should look for something else.
Also, the video mentions that avoiding to add difficult content is not the solution, but that they could add things that help "raise the level of casual players". Now what does that mean? 'Cause if it means trying to push me towards being a hardcore combat-enjoyer player, yeah, that's not happening. 😂 In fact, I'd get pissed. Let me keep enjoying the game without having to worry about trying to make the characters I like more meta or being forced to always build them the standard way 'cause otherwise they're useless (something I actually dislike from Star Rail).
I agree Hoyo is stingy thou. 😂
Re: the "you feel that way now" -> legitimately, I know for sure I'd still feel that way afterwards, since I currently enjoy beating the abyss! 50 primogems to get the last three stars is truly insignificant, if we had similar content without the rewards, I would still play it and enjoy it! Though that likely won't be the case for everyone sadly...
And as to "Also, the video mentions that avoiding to add difficult content is not the solution, but that they could add things that help "raise the level of casual players". Now what does that mean?"
Let's say we evaluate a character's build in terms of its damage output, and rate it out of 100. Say the difficult content requires an 80/100 build to complete - you can go higher, but it's still quite a high bar. Currently many casual players don't really get the equipment systems, and aren't interested in that, so their builds are a 20/100. Genshin's new systems let them click a single button, and the game will rearrange their equipment so their build becomes a 60/100. As a result, the content which requires an 80/100 goes from "holy crap this is impossible I'm out" to "oh wow I'm actually close, that was kinda fun!".
Essentially, it's about reducing the effective difficulty of the content for the people who don't want to spend their time figuring out wtf is going on! Definitely not about forcing people to keep up with meta, or stick to optimal builds if they don't want to, etc 😁
@@raptori "Genshin's new systems let them click a single button [...]" You mean like the automatic artifact saving system that saves crap pieces? 😂 Also, the thing that changes the performance from 20/100 to 60/100 usually is building them the standard way so 🤷.
I do agree that they should add difficult content with little to no rewards for people like you who actually don't mind the rewards thing. That domain building event would be great, heck, even I'd use it to test some non-meta, almost meme fun teams properly. The thing is that I feel like there would still be a lot of complainers anyway. XD
@@MusicLoverInTheSky Nahhh not the artifact saving system, the one on the artifacts page which lets you fast equip people! And yeah of course, but imo if you're going out of your way to try something different, then that's beyond the level of interaction I'd expect from a casual player! I'd expect a casual player to not really care about that, since they just want to chill and enjoy the game, and not have to think about equipment at all. Definitely different levels to it though.
Yess that'd be amazing! And yeah, always gonna be complainers though. There are people who buy C6 5 stars, and then complain that the game is too easy, like it wasn't something they did to themselves 😂
@@raptori Oh, I just mentioned that specific system but they all work similarly. And the fast equip is based on what most players do which is based on guides which are mostly done with the meta lens. I can see what you're saying with the different levels of being casual thou. 🤔 Fully agree about the last part. 😂
I think not enough people appreciate how crazy genshin's release schedule is. They put out so much highly polished content at an incredibly fast rate. It's normal that they can't do that every patch. And highering more people wouldn't really fix this; you can only have so many cooks in a kitchen. More employees usually just results in more overhead and a more disjointed experience. As long as the payoff is good in the big patches, I'm totally fine with waiting
100% agree!
Nice vid as usual! I also sense the discontent in the community and think it goes even beyond filler patches. The engaged/online section of the playerbase does not have much goodwill towards hoyo right now.
Also, re-exploration events are something I really miss! Even in unreconciled stars I loved that I was scavenging mondstadt in a new way again. I think they messed it up by running Enka’s one patch after it debuted and maybe got serious negative feedback on it.
i don't really mind the filler patches at all, i'm just frustrated at the FOMO of the limited events. and i doubt we'll get any kind of fix for this, since the backend on a game like genshin is probably a disaster and would require a potentially save-deleting overhaul for a fundamental feature like that (hence why hsr made the smart move of implementing it from the get-go). I've seen enough early-access games to know that the same types of issues that plague those would also deeply affect a live-service game like Genshin.
I also think the story would be somewhat less infuriating if the patch quests actually just did more effective slowburn-style buildup for the next major set of quests like we've seen with the chasm patch. it doesn't even need to be voice acted (even if that would really help), it just needs to be written well and scattered with enough tantalizing scraps of lore and plot to help build anticipation and excitement for the next major set of patches.
Filler patches aren't a problem, the gacha, lack of rewards and lack of purpose to engage in any combat related gameplay is
I don't mind the gacha as is - the main improvement I'd like is an epitomised path for 4 stars so you can guarantee you'd get them.
100% feel they could/should increase the rewards, and make up for lost revenue by releasing more skins or something. And yeah, spiral abyss is nowhere near enough content for people who enjoy the combat...
Genshin and Star Rail are the first and only gacha games I have ever played and I was gobsmacked that there are multiple copies of the same character and weapon....and that it costs thousands since with so many characters you could never accomplish that as a low spender.
Most greedy mobile or ongoing service games are shocking for charging $15-60 for an item/mount/skin/expansion so I didn't realize it could get even more expensive and I think gacha players are just so used to it that they don't realize how shocking the expense really is
Sure, a game like Genshin that costs hundreds of millions to make needs players to spend but there are ways around that such as skins, mounts in addition to the monthly passes, or making it so that each copy of a character/weapon is $15. that would still be over $12k to max out every character/gacha weapon in the game - but more ppl would likely spend close to that as it's a smaller amount over time.
I'm happy to spend like a dolphin as I treat the game like I would a subscription to Netflix, but gacha prices are insanity.
@@trashbuilds8351 Personally I don't mind as long as the 5 stars are good at C0, and I've never played a gacha aside from Genshin!
There's definitely a culture shock there coming from other games where you might expect to end up getting everything and maxing everything out, but it's kinda freeing to just give up on that completely. I'm a dolphin and most of my 5 stars are C0, with a handful of C1s, and only a couple of them have their signature (and no refinements at all). Definitely feel the FOMO at times, but overall I'm happy with it! 😁
Plus, given the amount of free primos we get if you complete all the content, you can guarantee a 5 star roughly each patch, and with early pity and 50/50 wins it's surprisingly easy as a F2P player to build up a great roster of characters. Biggest concern is really for people who are prone to overspending when they can't afford it...
the gacha was always goen be a problem, the game is free you arent own rewards (and if you bother to explore you can pull most chrs ),combat is easy becuase the game playerbase is 95% casual this game is also marketed as open world casual gacha game not action rpg .
@@raptori Fair points - I think the game is actually incredible considering what you can do and get FOR FREE!
I still think no character in a game should cost hundreds/thousands even if most 5* characters are good enough C0. I don't think its right to expect everything for free, I just think the cost to get the full kit of a character requiring thousands is too drastic IMO.
Maybe it's more apparent when you are a new player vs veterans who have had the time to accumulate cons and weapons for their fav characters.
Or maybe it's just a me problem because I get bored using the same team all the time, I like to have breaks from them lol
filler patches are nice imo, personally im a completionist (only 9 chests missing in the entire map, all story quests, world quests and hangout events completed, 1173/1183 achievements etc), so having some small breaks every once in a while makes sure i dont get burnt out
Your videos are so clean & crisp in presentation/info/visuals - top notch!! Your analysis is also spot on. I like all 3 aspects of the game almost equally and the only thing I don't like is the summer expansions because it forces you to rush through a new awesome area that you can never explore again.
I purposefully leave puzzles/chests in every region so that I can go back to those locations and get a sort of first-time excitement feel for the area again. I wish they just created a lingering portal to the event expansions with a cluster of things to go back and farm (like how going to back to Enkanomiya is great for farming vishaps). I really wish they would reuse domains and areas as well since it's a less time consuming way to give the feel of new exploration without programming an entirely new area
As a former Sims4 builder, I'd love to build dungeons for other players to enjoy.....it's the reason I don't bother with teapot even though the build items are way better than Sims, there's no point since there's little gameplay attached to it, but dungeons with combat and loot would be so fun to build
As for combat, besides more endgame, I feel like there's a dichotomy between the unique kit/elements of characters and how bosses are either overly cumbersome (like Scaramouche and the whale that have puzzle-like combat but becomes tiresome every week), timed so that your focus is on speed rather than damage over time setups (such as Spiral), or just a massive HP enemy that whilst allowing you to enjoy rotating through your team several times, is lackluster. I'm not sure what the solution is. Would be cool to have bosses that are programmed to learn your patterns and grows stronger where you are weaker but programming that would be insane I'm sure lol.
It'd be interesting to poll people on which patches are "filler" and which aren't. I feel like most people would say new archon quest or permanent overworld area = non-filler, but I've heard people call 4.4 filler even though it added Chenyu Vale. If only archon quests save a patch from being filler, then basically the whole second half of each major version counts. There's not much they can do about this, though; 3-4 months just isn't enough time to develop an entire new region and its story without a massive drop in quality.
I don't really mind this system; besides allowing more dev time for the next region, the tail-end patches let anyone burned out on the game stop playing for a while without missing too much, and the main event each patch is usually polished enough to be worth the time for anyone still playing. They could probably be more generous with freemogems without losing money, and that would placate a lot of F2Pers, but it's not surprising they're risk-averse with an unbelievably successful cash cow.
The one thing I really want is more free 4-star selectors. It's ridiculous that we still only have that once a year, and only for Liyue characters. There's *thirty-nine* 4-stars, with only 6 on rate-up each patch, probably forever due to Chronicled Wish coming out instead of triple banners. And 3 of those are standard banner only. Getting a specific one is already a nightmare, and it keeps getting worse.
The genshin combat system is a great example of stumbling into greatness, the elemental system is so immaculately complex that i firmly believe other games should straight up steal the concept and actually utilize it better. Cause clearly the ppl who designed combat are not allowed to design content.
new video always brightens my day. i love how calm and collected they are. +1 for enka music and imagery. i played relativley active for two years now and i still have things to do and am looking forward within currently released content. the development of the game had it ups and downs but i really enjoy the formula and the game. a great fantasy world to dive into whenever i feel like it entertaining me for countless hours for free. im not affraid running out of things to do. that just means that i can have fun somewhere else. i can relate to people wanting more things to do in a game they love but its just a game
I personally start to having a problem with genshin's flagship event theme. Most of the time when you think about it, its festival themed. Ngl I kinda getting used and bored to it. I really wish they start to put more incident based ones like 1.1 scara (didnt play it but watched i and 2.5 enkanomiya.
I really like the story with the feeling of mystery and emergency of something dangerous coming. But this theme will always likely tied to a lore that you will never hear outside this event
But really I hope they dcrease the theme of happy festivals and start to increase the mystery and gritty incident moments for the flagship events
Quality over quantity any day. Still hoping for well-designed endgame someday, but I'm patient !
Concerns:
1.) not mentioned are Players who are sick of genshin who dont actually come back because of filler patches and the lack of story moving forward. The players who literally introduced me to this game moved on 2 years ago and played other games that even with dry patches still enjoy the game because there's designed replay-ability. The game is also not targeted to casuals as much as people believe because the existence/development of TCG and Teapot is very evident of that.
Genshin could make an arcade mode for basic gameplay reliability, or a grind mode for items that wont impact gameplay but could get you wonderful cosmetics or gadgets. Imagine being able to get Old weapons/Ascencion crystals/artifact exp/mora/bossmats/expbooks/etc. from Tubby's Arcade Domain at the teapot where you just collect arcade points playing previous mini games they've added AND ALREADY DEVELOPED, everyone would play that specially if its COOP. Having such replayable games would entice players to play more. Imagine 8-16 people in windtrace, it would be so chaotic and everyone will be enjoying it. TCG could make a pvp update with a leaderboard, so the company itself could invest into that as well. It wouldnt be pay to win because everyone could grind for the cards, what could incentivize players there are alternative arts, special namecards, alternate card artwork, card sleeves, summoning animations, card auras, dice designs, etc. Theres so much potential and already existing CODED features in the game that could literally make the game replayable. But instead we get "basic guides" that hundreds of content creators already do since the game came out.
2.) Adding more devs to the team is paramount because the company is growing. We are not seeing it but the game's dev teams are not the same people from start to the current. This is why we see difference in quality when Inazuma came in compared to Sumeru or any of the latest design changes, Genshin was also very welcoming during the launch at the earlier patches then became silent meanwhile HSR has been vocal and much more appreciative. A lot of the devs/writers/composers probably leave the team eventually to pursue whatever they want to pursue or theyre added to the new team of the upcoming game (cough cough yu peng chen). HI3 rise in quality is not due to having the same number of talents they previously had. Creating HSR and ZZZ is the same. The company is growing, the dev team is also growing.
3.) Filler patches are very subjective because its only good for people who want to catch up in the current game or want to take a break. A game patch has approximately 6 weeks or 42 days duration. Most archon/world quests could be finished in 3-5 hours, a single event could be finished in 10-30 mins. Main patch events take 1-2 hours. Dailies take 5-10 mins, so if you play during the first week of a main patch's release and clear all the content in one week, the remaining 5 weeks are dead patches to you because you've already consumed the main updates. This has been the case since the game's release and this is mainly troubling to players who actually just got into the game that don't understand genshin's content cycle.
I believe genshin just needs an actual replayable content that could entice players to play the game even if it has no rewards but has enjoyment to it. Battle royales, TCGs, Mobas, Shooters and other games are basically the same repetitive thing over and over but has fun mechanics to it that make people play it for hundreds of hours. Meanwhile grinding dailies and artifacts just to lose the 5050 and getting bad rolls just feels bad and is one of the reasons what makes people to actually not play the game again.
when all the regions are out all of them will just feature a minigame festival per patch until EOS (windblume/weinlesfest, lantern rite, irodori, sabzeruz/akademiya festival, iridescence tour, and whatever natlan or snezhnaya cook)
then 1 patch for dainsleif quest
then 1 mandatory klee DLC island patch for absolutely no reason
then new region, rinse and repeat
I used to dislike filler patches when I wasn't as busy, but with how busy I am now it really helps. If there were major events or quests every single patch, then there's no shot I could keep up. Some of us are busy and need patches like this, I'm very thankful for them. I don't think every patch needs something major happening. Not only would it decrease hype, but I think quality would decrease majorly because they would be going faster so as to reach deadlines. I'm a huge lore fan as well, but again if they had major lore drops every single patch, the mystique of it would wear off pretty quickly. It's best to give lore people time to theorize and to guess, it makes it way more fun that way when we get it right or even if we get it wrong. To explore the possibilities and analyze existing lore to create our own conclusions is the fun of it. Also as a F2P these patches are what gives me time to save, ensuring that I always get pretty much every character I want to get, and to build characters as well. Games need to have these cycles where sometimes things are more empty, to create a healthy balance for everyone.
Also, let's not forget, the game is totally free. You don't have to pay a dime to experience quests, to fully beat Abyss, nothing. I am fully F2P and I get pretty much every character I want. I don't really pull for weapons, but if I save I can slowly get signature weapons with reruns. But in my opinion, for most characters constellations are really not necessary. I've been playing since Dec 2021 and the only 5* character I have close to C6 is Keqing who is C5 because she seems to be the only character I get in Standard and when I lose 50/50, and then I've got Jean at C1 because of Standard as well. But besides that, all of my limited characters are C0 with either 4* weapons, F2P weapons or even the occasional 3* weapon. The only character I have that has their signature weapon is Xiao, b because I got lucky in Standard. And theoretically you don't even fully need 5* characters, there's plenty of videos out there of people making guides on how to beat Abyss with 4* characters. Point is, I think people are far too used to immediate gratification, and not everything is immediate.
very much agree!
This was a well reasoned video. Great job. My enjoyment priorities are similar to yours but I'd probably swap exploration and story around. I enjoy new areas but often find exploring some areas tedious (though it was mostly Sumeru).
I don't think they will ever make world quests voiced unfortunately. I don't think it is an issue of costs or even time. I think it is entirely due to file size issues. The game's audio files are an alarmingly large portion of it's already massive size. It is likely also part of the reason that major limited time events don't stick around after the patch (unlike in HSR). That could be remedied by making them downloadable with the option of removing the relevant files after the fact.
I for one would certainly play any kind of SU like mode in Genshin. Even if there were no primos for grabs. Just hand out some basic resources and maybe some artifact boxes like abyss rewards.
I'm a sucker for exploration! I often find that once I do start quests/events, I've already gone through the areas, or done the "thing" - or gotten to the point where I'm like "why is this locked?" Oh - it must be in the quest LOL love the open world of it all
I watch some theory crafters, lore channels and the like and your channel is sooo refreshing!! I really like your content and commentary on the state of the game and characters
I can't take mihoyo seriously when they say they don't add endgame because they don't want to overwhelm and stress out casuals. If they cared about that, then the artifact and gacha systems wouldn't be the way they are. The artifact system is the most stressful and overwhelming system I've ever seen in a game.
I 100% agree artefact system is the one thing that "ruins" the game somewhat. Everything else is pretty subjective but aretafcts are incredibly frustrating and there are no shortcuts at all like HSR relic crafting system +self modeling resin, which is all still rng but at least gives you way more control than the strongbox.
Its just an excuse reasons of hoyo .. they don't want to add an endgame content bec, of anxiety ,but in hsr some of casual players they not touching the SU and other endgame content of finish it😂
Filler patch was the reason i can manage my spending to get the unit i desire. Its also give time to leisurely clear my backlog quests. Its more enjoyable this way for me. After all, a long journey need a few places to stop and rest.
I agree I think that they could make artifacts farming for better stats easier. Especially for those are newer players. Or returning players that gave up like I did. They are so frustrating I played the first year a whole year and my main team characters are still not fully built for artifacts. They could also raise the resin level up as well. I just started Honkai star rail. And they are a little bit more generous with resins. I think they would get a lot more interest in the game and more revenue if they made it more forgiving in artifact. I recently got back in because of new updates on the maps and quests.
Coming from game that that take 2-3 months for new content that only last for 1 week
I find GI 6 week per patch are fine even if the patch atr consider filler because of 2 reasons
1) even when the patch doesn't add new main story, the "filler" patch often add event that show more characters personally and interactions, I love this more than the main archon quest due to Mihoyo now not lock character in their region and instead let them move and interact with other regions
One of the old GI problems is "when you move to the other regions, the character from the past regions become forgotten, "filler" patch fixes
this
2) often filler patch are there for the dev to cook something big for the next couple update
Yesss in contrast to other games it's wild that people complain. Saurus and I used to play Red Dead Online a lot... now THAT game was a neverending desert devoid of any new content 😂
ive been playing royale high (a roblox game) for 5 and a half years now, theres an update there every few months on a good day with completely unscheduled updates and so many delays, i waited for one specific update for literally 3 years (genuinely thought it was gonna get released in 2021, got released in 2023). genshins update schedule in comparison is insanely good😭
finally a nuanced take 😂
I love how you set up your videos and explain things!
It wouldn't take much effort to add more oculi, hidden chests, and levels of statue/whatever. Something like that should have happened at AR60.
The thing about filler in Genshin is that theres A LOT of it thats unnecessary. Why do events run for weeks but are only relevant for 5-7 days simply by being time gated. As someone who plays various other gacha, those events can be farmed past the point of the minimal necessary completion even whrn time gated.
Genshin doesn't have a filler patch problem. It has a general lack of worthwhile repeatable content problem. Once you get done with the exploration/quest portion, there is very little to do. And if you've been playing for a while, your artifacts are such that you need months of farming to get a new set to the point where it is worth using.
Hoyoverse is hiring developers to help with User-generated content.
Yeah I saw that! Really hoping that's Divine Ingenuity - curious what else it could be though. Maybe teapot games too? Some of those are really fun, would be awesome to have player-created Windtrace levels for example!
Yes this is such a (potentially) smart move because the player base is so huge and diverse, its a great way to get players to create the content they want. I just hope it involves the option for real combat, not just puzzle based combat. I'm not a sweaty gamer or anything but after investing so much time and resources into building the unique kits of all these characters, I want a way to put them to good use!
I wish TCG would've been made like Star Rail combat but in the art style of the TCG cards, and based on the actual build of the characters you own with rewards like battle pass materials. That way you are not learning a whole new combat system, those people that get "stressed" by dodging enemies would have the relaxed pace to think about what moves to make, it utilizes characters you already have and incentivizes you pull on limited banners for characters/weapons you wouldn't normally just to use them in TCG - like a Spiral Abyss for casuals lol
YUSSS another Saurus think piece, let's go!!
Fantastic video! Nice and concise while hitting the right points home!
Thank you! 💙
I really don’t mind the filler patches. Let’s me catch up on other games and give Genshin a break to avoid burnout. It’s a win-win.
My almost 2-year-old acc is still ar 41 and I can't even do commissions without dying
That's frustrating! Is it because you've spread your investment across too many characters, or have you just not been able to (or had the motivation to) put together equipment for your characters to make them stronger? Artifacts make the biggest difference to strength, but they're a pain...
Definitely recommend finding some people to coop with either way, since that makes it a heck of a lot more fun!
my acc is doomed. I just play on eur server now, which my characters at ar 25 do more dmg then my main @@raptori
@@AustinWithAHead I'm sure it's fixable! Would just take figuring out what's going wrong really 🥺
I mean, All of my chars are underleveled (like in the 40-50 range), and I have trash 3 and 4 star artifacts. @@raptori
@@AustinWithAHead Yeah so would just take a little effort to pick a couple to focus on, and invest in them a bit!
I think when you can offer 3 different forms of players, with 3 tiers of what people want, and 4.5 whiffs pretty much all 9 categories or barely sprinkles on the lowest tier of 2 the 3 categories, we can be agreed that it is very much the definition of a 'filler patch'. That means it's really not hard to not have filler patches. You will almost always have patches that someone will dislike due to the split in what people like, but if you at least target one of each of these groups every patch, you will avoid making a filler patch. It would be hard to satisfy all 3 categories every patch, but it would be reasonably easy if patch 1 catered to story, patch 2 catered to exploration, patch 3 catered to combat, and so on and so forth, with the release of a new nation being the rare 'caters to all three' patch.
I guess technically this patch does have Chiori's story quest and Lynette's hangout, so for the people who are here exclusively for the story at least there's that... plus a minor combat event if I'm remembering correctly?
It does feel extremely light though. But honestly 4.4 has been absolutely phenomenal for me at least, best region in the entire game, so I'll happily spend the next few weeks savouring the last bits of exploration and world quests from there!
My hot take would be LESS content, but with higher quality, more variety, and repeatable.
I found that most genshin players done "contents" only to get rewards. I think if people like to play, they will play regardless of reward. I like the environent, today i just do walking simulator from ritou to watatsumi. I dont get any primo, items, or chest. But im playing the game. I even hope i could redone the sakura cleansing quest. That could be the extra content for player like me. Which i couldnt do except making new account and put 40 hours first.
This video now seems prescient. They definitely brought some roguelike elements into the new Imaginarium Theater, which is also new endgame combat.
I don't mind "filer" patches since I can take a break from Genshin and play/do something else
Moreover I am someone who doesn't enjoy combat only events
Example: from 3.2 to 3.6 . It's that boring for me that only done archon quest and Interlude quest. As well dailies
Do people so easily forget how often these filler patches have lore bombs that are later realized?
That's when they have an interlude though right? E.g. the Caribert quest - I wouldn't have considered that patch to be filler! Compare that to 4.5, which so far doesn't look like it's got anything comparable... 👀
yep , no archon quest does not mean no lore, its probably new players who still don't know the loop .. usually they add lore bombs on evnet quests like windblume and lantern rites,
hopefully the main event in 4.5 will have some hexenzirkel lore drops🙏 especially because 3.5 had a lot of it
What's worse Hoyoverse doing is ignored what international players feedback and Survey ask for when into Star Rail different base game genre work for, Deyha buff kit element apply stamp 5 star, clunky bugs and confusing characters kit description than removed Eliot Gindi voice.
who did eliot voice? (wasnt it tighnari... do you know what he did?)
should I use my stellar jades for chiori?
I don't think anyone can tell until after getting her and trying her out - the people who base their opinion off calcs and betas are often mistaken (just look at Xianyun - she's second only to Furina in terms of buffing strength on my account). Saurus is likely to put together a Chiori review after pulling for her and post it early next week!
do you like her design, gameplay and/or personality? if you do shes worth pulling
If its not voiced I skip through the story. If its not worth their time to add then why should I spend mine on it.
You should study World of Warcraft on "Why catering the game to endgame players ruined the game and why many players are shifting back to the Classic WOW vs the retail one"
combat enjoyer a a tiny amount of players most are casual player who enjoy getting chrs , exploration and story. the problem with thsi combat enjoys they want to ruin the game by making genshin a openly market game as a CASUAL OPEN WORLD GACHA GAME and turn this game into something it not by adding difficult content and that would change what made genshin great the casual part of it .Even in your arguement that we need ot close the gap between hard content and causal the issue is you ignore the fact casual DONT LIKE OR WANT THAT CONTENT . a casual player by defenition is player who plays to relax and have fun by doing difficult content you lose the relax part so by then you are no longer causal but a midcore or hardcore player if you truly do the hardeest content .
I don't think it has to be one at the expense of the other! If they were to add some fun combat stuff for endgame players, it could be done in a way which doesn't alienate casual players - and then they'd be able to keep going with the current style of content tailored for casuals, while still keeping the combat enthusiats happy!
@@raptori the only way to do that is no rewards outside of hero whips and mora but let me ask you why should a game that cater to causal add content for non causals i ask my self as causal i dont go around souls game and demand them to give me casual content in form of easy mode i think it ok that game isnt mean to be player 24/7 (the only ppl who arent are addicted ppl and cc ) and i think a game target audience matters a lot more then the irellavant minority of players who bully the devs int giving them content not made for the mayority of players. also the OPEN WORLD HAS COMBAT the exploration has combat and most mobs unless you play 3 suport cant be one shooted . also addign a world lv wouldnt work soon or later the player wil lsay it to easy and then boom another world lv then another and so on until we reach lv 50 + because one guy cant stop spamming bennet and kazuha . and the new world lv can only have higher difficult not better rewards other the 3 wishes we got from hoyo are far less of middle finger then then this the moment you add non causal content and put a good rewards sistem that to casual scream f you loser. dont get me wrogn the game isnt perfect and i also thing it doesnt own us free rewards it a free game with ever 6 weeks we get updates and a ton of small event inbetween andi would like soem change but they would BENEFIT ALL not jsut a minority of player stuff like :
1. artifact loadout.
2. better artifact rng .
3. skip button for the ppl who play story driven game for some reason but hate stories .
4. more resin and faster recharge of it .
a single wish for ever time you do all 4 dailys .
this all would help but not assing for content that actively scream f you causal wh oi mind you are 95% of this game playerbase and made genshin the GOD TEIR GAME IT IS .
also i think ppl need to understand genshin endgame is simple you do story and gather and build chr to use in the exploration of thw world that the overall cricle of the game and with those build chr you use them in the abyss(if you into that ) and open world simple and easy now YOU DONT HAVE TO LIKE THAT BUT THAT WHAT MOST PPL WANT AND LOVE .
@@anteprs7908 Games with a strong dedicated audience should definitely keep them happy - those are the people who are most likely to be spreading the game via word-of-mouth, convincing their friends to try it, maybe even creating content for it, and so on. Though to be clear they should *prioritise* casuals if those are the main playerbase, and I wouldn't advocate for them to switch to being a souls-style game - imo the things that would keep the hardcore players happy don't have to be high-effort.
Further world level increases would be fine imo IF they're optional, and do not give increased rewards. I have somewhere around 50 fully-built characters, because I like the variety; problem is that in the overworld I can't use any of the ones who need to use their burst, because the enemies die too fast. All I'd want is an extra, optional world level 9 or 10, which sets the enemies to be abyss-level difficulty, without changing anything else!
Agree that stuff which would benefit everyone would be ideal - though if you're the kind of person who would appreciate artifact loadouts, then imo you're probably not a casual! 😁
@@raptori i agree with you on most things . i just build anything with crit rate and damage . also arifact loadout are not mean for hardcore content just to get more damge or better performance .
@@anteprs7908 Hmm you might mean something different to what I mean by loadouts then!
What I want loadouts for is to allow me to save multiple builds for the same character, for example EM vs DPS Raiden, or DPS vs Shielder Yanfei. I feel like the quick equip system they released recently was *perfect* for casual people, while the kind of loadouts I'm hoping for would be less useful since they're less likely to end up having multiple builds 👀And that's not to say it be useful for some casual people, but just on average they probably wouldn't care! 😁
From the perspective of a long-time player who's enjoyed a meteoric rise to power and nothing to use it on, Mihoyo's priorities to retain players should be:
1: Combat.
-LASTING combat content. Endgame stuff.
--Endless waves of enemies to test AOE builds on
--Extremely healthy and dangerous enemies to test DPS builds on
-Like the Abyss, but not EXCEEDINGLY EASY or STUPIDLY DIFFICULT
-Something you can actually grind at over the course of two weeks, instead of something you crank out in an hour.
-Perhaps gain rewards from completing them in a timely manner.
2: Quality of Life.
-Artifacts are randomness compounded upon randomness upon randomness upon randomness upon randomness.
--Artifact set
--Artifact slot
--Main stat
--Substat 1
--Substat 2
--Substat 3
--Substat 4
--Which substat is improved at level 4
--By how much that substat is improved
--Which substat is improved at level 8
--By how much that substat is improved
--Which substat is improved at level 12
--By how much that substat is improved
--Which substat is improved at level 16
--By how much that substat is improved
--Which substat is improved at level 20
--By how much that substat is improved
-Every single one of those can go wrong and make a potentially good artifact into near-trash.
-On top of that, the odds are stacked completely against you from near the beginning. Main stat occurrences are primarily skewed to Def% and HP%, with useful Crit% CritDMG% ElemDMG% and EM being extremely rare in comparison.
-This MUST be rectified.
-Oh yeah and artifact loadouts and constellation toggling
3: Exploration.
-Expanding the map with more complex and brain-teasing puzzles, secret areas with chests.
-Not perishable content that makes the world less interesting to explore or look at. Put those artists to work making DIVERSE and INTERESTING environs. Not just desert for miles and miles.
-Stuff like world quests that make the world more beautiful with a new visual, instead of taking away one like the desert quests took away the sick inverted pyramid, tornado, and void pillars
-Persistent puzzles that affect the landscape and make it more traversible.
4: Characters and Wishing
-Fixing the wish system so people can actually work towards what they want.
--The new regional banner is not indicative that they are considering good design. It's just a dumpster for characters they can't make money off with FOMO anymore.
-Epitomized path Fate points should not be losable.
-Characters should not be designed to have features taken away and sold to you as Constellations. Constellations should be IMPROVEMENTS, not SOLUTIONS TO MANUFACTURED PROBLEMS.
-Characters should be designed to actually be useful in a substantial way, even if they're 4-star or relegated to the basic banner.
-Basic banner should be updated with new weapons and characters.
-Old event weapons should be mixed into the weapon banner with a somewhat rare chance of dropping upon losing your 50/50. That way, sure, you don't get what you want, but here's something exclusive as well.
5: Events
-Events should include some interesting way to use the characters you own. Combat challenges are best for this.
-Activities that are always the same every time and have no failure state are boring and pointless. (cooking, gliding) Get rid of them.
-Puzzles are interesting.
-If you're going to design a puzzle or a combat challenge, design more challenges with the SAME puzzle or combat system for players to spend their time on, even if they aren't earning primogems after the first five. Logging in, playing one challenge, and then logging off after you get your commissions done is not gameplay.
❤
L take
Top tier comment, great insight, would read again
@@raptorithanks bb
such great feedback, I sure appreciate you sharing your views indepth, thank you!
COPIUM
Filler patches are great for taking a break from Genshin and doing other things instead. Or catching up on past quests