That's only a negative if you think they won't make some effort to tailor enemy lineups to availble elements. It would still be a boon for freeze as it will at least work some of the time instead of being garbage in abyss lately, and you'll still have hydro and whatever else they give you for bosses. 9Possibly electro to have both freeze and physical, the most neglected 'reactions', showcased at once?)
For me the main problem with this mode is the fact that is really clashing with the GI core design. It rewards you or straight up require you to build multiple characters, even though they are "third best choice" that you wouldn't normally use. But it clashes with the rest of the game where to get one good (not even great) set of artifacts takes months of farming, and we still don't have an option to quickly swap gear between characters. And there are also some other problems with this. Like the fact that this is mostly "funded" from spiral abyss rewards, the fact that there is no indication which character you set up can be used by your friends or just weird limits that you can only use one friend's character per month or that your characters can only be used up to 15 times? But the worst part of it is that we are stuck with it, because of the hoyo track records to never refine or fix shipped content. It took them almost 4 years to fix the mondstadt's domains, and they still are open 3 times a week, so I won't hold my breath that they will do anything to make this better. Which is sad because there is some potential to have fun there.
Looks like my prediction of it being spiral abyss with extra steps was on point. I didn't expect this to make me come back to Genshin and it definitely won't.
Hoyo could make Theater more enjoyable by not restricting players this much on what characters they can use and rather focus on giving major and interesting buffs during the rounds. Using dynamic teams and seeing my characters deal more than my ordinary dmg would be far more satisfactory than trying to get through with a party of Thoma-Alhaitham-Arlecchino-Yoimiya. Vigor points are okay to motivate (or rather force) you to not stick to just one team, but the execution of it is just not working somehow, since you easily find yourself with a party like what I just mentioned.
If they just give me Labyrinth Warrior's event permanently and not this I would be satisfied. Edit: Wanderer pretty much said everything there to this mode ruclips.net/video/qLa9AgUkxe4/видео.html
As someone who likes building 4* characters that I like as characters to level 70-80, this mode is a lot of fun and very for me :3c it's just a bit easy tbh. They really made it super easy because they know you won't have super built characters. I played with super scuffed teams. You don't even need to get the stars (I missed one). I'm glad there's now reason to use characters that aren't meta. Like I brought a Lv70 Beidou with very bad rando artifacts and almost no talent levels and she did great for me because the mode is pretty easy. Or heck, my Level 70 Lynette that does no damage swirled for me and it helped a bunch. You do *not* need fully built characters for this at all. Mediocre ones together with the trial characters are more than enough. Looking forward to the Cryo one so I can finally use Freminet for something 🥰 A Geo focussed one will be a bit bad for me but either it will make me finally build more of my geo characters (poor Noelle really needs some love) or... well I just won't do the hard mode that season and just play normal. Some of y'all don't play this game for fun and it shows (signed: someone who doesn't do abyss 12 stars because it's too much work and fun > rewards)
I'm mainly annoyed that they force you to use filler characters, but still have time limits. I'm of the firm opinion that the time limit should be an optional thing to get more rewards, because as it is, I can't even get to Act Six because I keep getting shit rng on which characters I roll. Could I regear Yanfei? Probably, but why should I HAVE to. I just want to clear, I don't even care about the primos! What's worse is that this is likely the cycle that I'll have the most characters to use, unless It's ever Cryo, Electro, Anemo. I AM glad that you don't have to own the character to use it from your friend, unlike what was speculated, because my whale friend's C3 Raiden absolutely nuked the jadeploom terrorshroom lol, but overall I'm incredibly disappointed. I don't even like the Abyss, but at least I can CLEAR if I want to spend a few hours redoing chambers. Also, I HAD to level my Xiangling to level 70 (was planning on doing it eventually but this literally forced me to) to play the hardest difficulty, just to not end up using her bc I had a friend's character instead, like, wtf, that's just stupid. At least let me open the menu to see if I can have enough characters with a friend's support, but no, I literally had to go around farming chilis just to not even use Xiangling!
Genuine question. Why do you want to clear so badly if you claim you don't care about primos? This mode doesn't give you anything else other than primos and a few level up mats, so what's the point? Also, the fact that you didn't even have a level 70 Xiangling is absolutely wild.
i don't like xiangling and only one of my teams even wants her (and that team only exists because i accidentally pulled childe lol). As for why I want to clear, it's because it's extra content? Why wouldn't I want to do it? I maxed out my tcg level, I'm working on 100% all regions, and I routinely attempt the spiral abyss (even if I rarely manage to get to 12-3 lol), it just feels bad to be locked out of content at AR 58 because of shit rng. At least with the Abyss I know damn well it's a skill issue and not me having to use a character literally only there so I can actually play the game mode.
I am an endgame player with a lot of charas and I hate IT. The enemies are literally the same, but the way to make it difficult is to randomize and limit our charas. You wont have control over what charas are available to your roster, so every team building theory we learn and remember is thrown out of the window. Worst case scenario you can end up with on field dps only or sustainer only or buffer only available in your roster.q We are forced to bruteforce the game in a stupid way. And no this game mode has no replayability at all for me In hsr's su and du, the enemies are far more difficult with new techniques (complete form), but to balance that our characters are buffed with blessings and curios that are extremely important (oh yeah IT's boons buff are completely negligible). Also there is no limitation on character choice (unless they die lol). The blessings and curios are randomized, but its fun. Character choice randomization is not. Also in su you can replay the su with different path, different dice etc and get rewards; and in du you can replay it to get more sync points and do some weird du achievements and all give you rewards. Since these enemies are more difficult, you can always comeback and try your builds. THESE ARE REPLAYABILITY. Nothing like this in genshin's IT. I dont want to replay it just to find out how another stupid team comp feels
For me, it's like having a rogue like system, to a game mode where not only you can get random buffs, but you get random charecters from a pre selection you already made, which in my opinion sucks because if you don't plan ahead you may end up with comps that don't work that well together, like me having Wriothesley and Hu Tao for the last battle lol.
I usually don’t Comment but this time I really have to. My biggest gripe with the whole thing is twofold (threefold if we are counting one problem as 2) 1. Vigorpoints: Two are not enough. Especially when you consider that you need, contrary to the abyss, always 4 characters in the party to start a level. Why? I am already being limited by the vigor point system, but now it is extra annoying. Let’s say you build 2 teams Childe international and Hu Tao double hydro. With enough investment these 2 teams will have cleared all abysses in the last 2 years. Now? You are effectively out of luck, for having used a strategy that worked 100% in your favor for years. This goes nicely to the next point… 2. Character „sharing“: I have some whales in my list with C6R5 5 Stars. Why is it that I can only accept help from 1 person in a whole month? And why are those characters also randomly appearing in my selection screen, while being subjected to vigor points?
I talked about this in my last video, and a bit in this one, but hoyo is really pushing for horizontal investment over verticle. If you took the age-old advice of "build two teams" it seems like they're going to make it harder and harder for you to engage in new content. It's scummy, but it nakes sense, if you invest vertically in a few characters, they've already got all the money they're going to get from you
The barrier of entry is too high. The number of borrowing characters should depend on difficulty: 1 for Easy, 2 for Medium and 3 for Hard. Yeah, the fact that you have to enter the lobby after any fight is messed-up. The quest/overall feel of mode feels anticlimactic. The idea of leveling more characters to be used for a specific game mode isn't bad, but it brings FOMO. And as someone that has been playing from week 1, I still need to level up more characters in order to access the 3rd difficulty. And I was lucky because Pyro, Anemo and Electro were the selected elements of this rotation. Can't imagine what I'll be doing when there's only Cryo, Geo/Hydro and Dendro. In the end, this mode failed in my opinion. The battles are way too easy - compared with what we already had, the SA - and although it can be replayed, it still need more features to become Genshin's Simulated Universe. Hoyo were lazy with this one.
You're a week 1 player and haven't even met the hard mode entry criterion?? What have you been doing these past 4 years? Who are you saving these XP books for? 😂
Too high? Then why did you call it an endgame if everybody could just clear it over night. Forcing you to build all your character as an endgame goal is not that bad of an idea. For me forcing yourself to get the perfect artifact is the stupid one. Just gave all your character the bare minimum atleast before you waste resin in your quest to find a god tier artifact.
6 month old player here and I clear 36 stars now for 6 reset cycles. Obviously I only have a core of 9 (maybe 10) built characters that got all my attention to make it there. This new game mode is the absolute inverse to the spiral abyss. The combat difficulty is non existant, but the entry is barred behind having 18 lvl 70 minus the 6+1 trial and borrowed characters. Now, I do understand this targets the most casual players with old accounts. People that can't beat 36 stars even after a full year of playing. The most recent statistic I saw was somebody pulling the numbers on AR55-60 accounts and of all those accounts barely 50% did actually EVER beat 36 stars. So this release is backed by numbers and targeted at that audience and this will bring joy to all these people, for sure and that's a good thing, I guess. But here is my major gripe with this: The time of release. They release this mora+xp book dump before 5.0, an expac launch with a rumoured lvl 100 expansion. This is why this personally felt crap to me, because I had to reach into my bank and level up 6 characters to lvl 70 JUST to even get to enter the last stage. They didn't even had artifacts and weapons, the difficulty is so incredibly low having a singular built character in those forced teams of 4 was enough to sleepwalk through it. I probably wouldn't be that salty if it just was some mid xpac release, but at this point in time right before 5.0, it felt just cheap and I feel robbed of my purple books.
@dshearwf Not defending, just clarifying because this has become straight-up misinformation, but you don't need 18 characters. You need 11-12 (12 if you don't have a friend with a character to use). The 6 trial characters are good enough for the mode - so you don't need to have any of them. However, people seem to be really underestimating how restrictive 11 characters of three elements still is. Like I mentioned in the video, I have a pretty diverse account, and I still barely made the cut to participate - granted the 6 trial characters were all characters I actually have built, so I'd have a lot more breathing room if the principal cast was characters I didn't have built As far as the level 100 increase goes, I've seen rumors that you won't need level books for it. Keep in mind, both are just rumors
@@Souldapop Oh, yea you are right, my statement was from my position that I had to level up additional pyro/electro/anemo characters and yes the number can still vary depending on the overlap of the trial characters. Still, I mean that makes it even worse I feel, since for the next elements, I'll probably have to level up some more 4 stars again. But yea, surely it's all rumours and stuff and my position is very subjective, but it just felt off to me to have such a resource heavy mode right before a new continent releases, where your instinct is to go into it as prepared as possible. Other than that I am kinda neutral on this mode, because I can see why it was implemented from a demographical standpoint.
@@dshearwf It definitely does make me doubt the rumors of special materials for the 100 ascension, but primos, mora, and heroes wit are pretty srandard
As someone who played from day 1 and was probably in that AR55 - 60 that didn't get 36 stars; I didn't fail to get them, I just literally never attempted to in the first place. I've never played the upper levels of Spiral Abyss because I rejected the proposition entirely. I'm starting to sound like a broken record now, but: I didn't start playing an open world game, and proceed to play one for hundreds of hours to later just be stuck in instanced rooms with an arbitrary failure timer ticking away in the background. It's about as opposite to the appeals of open world as you can possibly get and it's the same stupid content they already try to force on you in artifact domains, upgrade domains and every half-assed combat event. It's one of the key reasons I finally stopped playing Genshin last year. This is more instanced rooms and more timers so it can also go die in a fire as far as I'm concerned: if this really was meant to try to appeal to people like me who avoid the Spiral Abyss, then they couldn't have failed any harder. If they wanted to keep me, and other players who share my predicament, around they should've made something like Labyrinth Warriors an endgame because that had actual exploration in it and mostly no timers (I don't care that I haven't timed out on anything since the early ARs, I just like to feel like I'm choosing to do things at my own desired pace instead of being rushed along by an invisible, nagging game dev) They seem to have too many game devs stuck in a Honkai mindset that think slapping players with a verbose tome of boring rules and UIs then doing a DPS check in a circular arena is all the content they ever need. It's like a sickness and it's baffling because they already made plenty of stuff in Genshin that shows they're capable of more. The worst part of this all is that it's a problem of their own making. Honkai and PGR are very up-front with what they're about: you fight stuff in arenas, often with a timer. That's what the game is and that's the end game too. Genshin feels like this bizarre bait and switch where they advertise and let you play this completely different genre then try to trick you into putting up with their old bread and butter at the end, rather than crafting a new end-game that suits the new player base they've drawn in (again, except that one inexplicable time they made labyrinth warriors, only to never to be seen again)
I didn't even realize that. You do have to select the principal cast before the support cast, so I can see *why* but it is pretty dumb. Just allow the friend support pick in the first stage if they have one of then in their cast
Honestly, valid points all around. Good suggestions too. Overall, this mode is just weird to me, it was easy, but it was weird. The biggest points I agree with is: 1. Friend list characters should be allowed in regardless. Especially if it is just for 1 fight. 2. Players should be able to choose how many characters they bring into each stage. Because having to throw away usages you otherwise would need later sucks. Another thing I would add is that each character should be able to be used 3 times, rather than just 2. Leaves a little more breathing room for team building. Because I absolutely had to run double on field DPS units like it was 1.0 spiral abyss. Music and enviornment is neat though.
This is just HoYo's way of letting you know that horizontal investment is not a waste. EDIT: Remember the time when we lament pulling for certain characters that we no longer play? Now there is a reason to dust them off and put them back to good use.
but it is a waste. the difficulty is extremely low and the only requirement is to HAVE those lvl 70 characters. they dont need any sufficient build to beat it. It's just an account and pull check contrary to abyss, which focusses on actual combat. Now, I am def a bit salty I had to waste so many xp books on characters I will literally never use in my life just to enter hard mode just to crush it with naked characters. Especially salty, because they introduce this right before an expansion update with a rumoured lvl 100 upgrade. I cling onto every mora and xp book to level my favourite and core characters and now they make me dump it into some trash characters to enter a free loot pinata mode. Like, come on.
What are blud waffling' about? Literally everyone does Horizontal Investment except for those fk simps who wanna show their LOVE TO 3D PIXELS that they think are real by getting Cons and Sigs. If u talk about extreme side of horizontal investment where I need to fk build chars I dont like FOR THIS MODE, then hell nah. Fk that sht!
Good use? You just practically level them up just to get in hard mode and they’ll be trash again. This won’t encourage users to build and use weak ass characters, it only force us to waste our materials
I literally had to swap Traveler back to Anemo just to walk in the Hard Mode door, because I don't have any Genshin Friends. This mode is completely antithetical to the existing 4-year model of "two good Teams do it all". It's been just over two years since I started focusing on acquiring Constellations for the units that were actually proving to be useful rather than trying to accrue more characters that could easily turn out to just be wastes of Resin and time. I didn't get C6 Nahida by treating this game like filling a Pokédex; it took multiple banners to get all seven copies. Why? Because it was simply more worth it to improve my units than to *have more* units. Now they expect me to invest months of Artifact farming into every Tom, Dick, and Harry that they release, just in case they *might* be featured later? I haven't spent *Resin* in two patches because I'm finally *done* building, I am not doing that... And, honestly, for what? More Primogems? What am I even gonna *do* with those, at this point?? Next patch I plan to cash in all my remaining Wishes for C3+ Yelan and then I genuinely am 100% out of plans for Wishes going forward; I will finally have every Constellation I ever wanted for my Hyperbloom and Rational Teams. This is flagrantly manipulative in every facet of its design. I played it to form an honest opinion of my own, and I felt it was boring. I was painfully aware of the multiple levels of artificial difficulty at play. And now that I've reached a point at which Primogems themselves have no further value, I cannot bring myself to dive back into the thankless daily Artifact grind all over again ad infinitum just for this cheap gimmick sideshow content that doesn't even bring the same faint sense of accomplishment as my now routine 36 Star Abyss Clears. I just can't go back to perpetually building more and more characters, now with extra incentives to even do so for the characters I'm not interested in. This mode seems to exist for content creators, and many of them seem to hate it. 😂
Minor correction (I guess it's more like, confusing wording): you said "like Spiral Abyss you will have to restart to change gear" - but in Abyss you CAN change gear at the start of every floor. In this event, you cannot, you have to do all in one go with the same gear. It'd be like having to bring the same gear from floor 9 to floor 12. Which is another major gripe I have with this mode.
I was speaking in terms of chamber to chamber on one floor. I think one floor is more comparable to this mode than multiple floors because one floor is 6 stages 👍
I strongly disagree about replayability. It's so restrictive , and Genshin characters are so "alike" currently without a proper team that's there's no point in replaying it. Yes, I could switch out Arle for Lyney, or Clorinde for Keqing...but I would still basically do the same things than before: get an on-fieldier, do random BS goes, and wow so much fun. I do have more than enough characters. I would LOVE to bring out my plunge DPS Barbara there...but I can't. Or my Noelle. But no, I can't. Or my burgeon Amber....but no I can't (okay, this month I could, but burgeon Amber without a hydro nor a hydro unit is like..commuting to work like everyday but I can't use my bicycle so I have to walk the 8kms). So...I have no reasons to replay it. Even Abyss, Archon bless its poor soul, have more replayability.
Even without extra characters to use, it still has replayability because the only thing that's the same every time are the bosses, and you normally don't use all your characters anyway. The randomness makes you use different teams every time, too. Idk, I think it's the one thing that's got going for it. That said, you're right, it's way too restrictive. My number one change, like I said in the video, is any four characters for the special guests. I know that's a pipe dream, but it'd do so much for the game mode and the players
@@Souldapop If you like the randomness, yeah, it's a great mode. I don't - to me it feels like I'm playing my friendship team, like I do everyday as I like to farm friendship... but worse since you can't gear your characters for this specific team (like when I used Petra Diluc when I finally got him after 2+ years loosing a 50/50 to Arle...) I can't even have that in this mode). At the end of the day, this mode *for me * is pushing for more...generic boring team (gearing everyone with emblem is literally the best thing to do in IT) than actual different things (Shimenawa Barb' , TF Kazuha or whatever team you can cook)
Yeah but honestly i just think they put too much into the UI design of the thing instead of the gameplay. i actually hate the gameplay too because its just so easy and boring, they add all the restrictions to make it more "fun" but it just makes it frustrating. They honestly should have rewarded the players who added more restrictions on themselves instead of that being the only way to get primogems. Like i feel bad for the casuals who just dont know how to build and dont know about meta and such because they have jobs or actual lives. I feel like they would want to spend money on the game to progress, like getting cons on chars. Which does make the game 100% easier, but like your spending money. Then theres the people who feel like they have to spends hours upon hours ingame just to get, what? barely even fifty ten pulls? they should give out at least 50 for completing hard mode, or even just 20 for clearing easy. I feel like genshin is just trying to waste time, which time is money, so people are also wasting money. I actually just decided to quit the game after i cleared it. Now im playing minecraft, which weirdly has more satisfying exploration. Anyways great video, well articulated and really well explained.
@shuya3421 Thanks a lot! Funnily enough, I actually don't like the UI, but it's a total preference thing, so I didn't think it was worth including. I mean, look at that thumbnail, lol One thing I will say is that, oddly enough, it makes c3 r1 Yoimiya fun to play again. One shotting everything in the endless monolith defense reminds me of playing a Demon Hunter in Diablo 3. In abyss it's like, "this only seems good because the investment makes her overtuned" so it kills the fun of trial and error with team-building. Really niche, entirely prejudicial, but it's another thing that adds to the replayability for me: I kind of want to see just how many she can kill
This is supposed to be a game that players invite(Gacha) their favorite characters to join the Team as they progress. They want to quickly Milk their players as fast as possible, and this is just another option for them. They probably prayed on Gacha addicts that don't want to get stigmatized by it to inevitably pull for the character needed just to have an easy time. Well, I've never had any expectation to begin with this Imaginarium Theater. I will just enjoy the Main story journey and whichever content i can clear with my character.
The restrictivness regarding friend character is really really dumb and unecessary. I chose the C6R5 Raiden of a friend because yay C6 but then had to switch because I have a raiden myself and was missing more pyro/electro units. Now, I can't choose ANY other character from them, even tho they would've been more usefull to me. Why? What was the reason? Even in Abyss you can try out different things as many times as you need. Imaging if you could only use the character for one floor of Abyss, no reroll. Restricting that is just hindering the enjoyment of the mode. Thanks, I beat the mode with the help of a friend coming in clutch. No, I cannot try it again or even try different teams. It removes the replayability.
As always, superbly thought-out arguments. Thank you. Here are some of my thoughts. I concur that there are some issues with some of their design choices, but I kind of get why they did what they did. When I first tried this game mode, my first impression (which has not fundamentally changed) is that this is just a suped-up "event". Definitely, one which has a lot of (deliberately) built in handicaps such as an almost total lack of freedom to build comprehensible teams. It is entirely possible to end up with a team with 3 healers, like I did the first run through. Which was actually great because the fact that something like that can happen means it actually needs a little bit of planning to successfully complete. But I want to keep this short so let me approach this from the available trial selection. For this reiteration of this "event" of the first 6 characters, the only really important two are Arlecchino and Clorinde. The other four are throw away characters; but you need them to clear the earlier levels to preserve energy for other characters that you can pull from your available pool. And basically, you want to stuff your character pools with support characters first and main-dps second. There are three bosses, one big chicken who is so easy that it doesn't need a meta team to clear, two vishaps which can be cleared using Clorinde and any pyro dps or sub dps, plus those ballerina robots who Arlecchino will happily turn into junk. What I am trying to argue here is that if you have a basic decent gameplan, this event is very easy. It is definitely not targeted at serious "end-game" players but it is almost ideal for casual players. For players who cannot or do not want to participate in the Spiral Abyss, this is a fairly assessable, "no-pressure", "end-game" mode. MHY has remained true to their philosophy that Genshin is targeted at its large demographic of casual players who just want to have fun and relax. I argue that this approach is going to be a win for MHY and the "casuals" but definitely a loss for "hard-core" players as they're still stuck with only having the Spiral Abyss, and one with cut down rewards to rub salt into the wound. MHY is not stupid, they do things to protect or enhance their bottom line. They REALLY don't care about hard core gamers as they represent the smaller/smallest part of their revenue stream. Genshin is a financial success not because of whales, but by a "loyal" following of casual player who just buy Welkin Moon and Battlepass and who may occasionally spend a little bit more on a featured banner. As long as this group is "satisfied", Genshin will remain a very successful cash-cow. As for the hardcore combat-oriented players, well shout all you want, as MHY has time and time again shown them that they don't care. Financially, this group has little significant contribution to their revenue stream. Plus making it so that you must exit to the lobby upon completion of each stage is actually a very deliberate choice. It reinforces the "relaxed" atmosphere; also the design of the room which hosts this event is also an integral part of this approach. Players do not have to play through the entire challenge in one sitting. They can do a bit, go have a cup of coffee, smoke a cigarette, walk the dog, yap on the phone or whatever and continue later. Make no mistake, MHY doesn't do anything for nothing, and they are very, very good at what they do.
I specifically chose not to bring up difficulty because it's irrelevant to its biggest issue, its inaccessibility. Both casuals and hardcores are affected equally by this. Whether you can play or not depends entirely on how often you pull
@@Souldapop That is by design - MHY deliberately structured it that way. There is no way they would shoot themselves in the foot in that way. Hardcore mode should be assessable to the majority of the player base. Newer accounts may have issues but should still have access to Easy and perhaps Normal modes. Some older accounts that have invested vertically may also be adversely affected but they will be in the minority. Let's not beat around the bush on this one, this "end game" feature is also a deliberately crafted marketing stratagem. It serves MNY exact the same as the existing Spiral Abyss - they are designed to manipulate purchasing behaviors.
@@Souldapop LOL, someone else here has dementia (me). This is why I really enjoy your channel. You peel away the fluff to expose what is really important. No other Genshin channel does this; please keep it up!
Well, I hope it works out for them because they lost me despite being a day 1 player who bought welkin moon and battlepass and never played Spiral Abyss. This content does not appeal to me because to my eyes it's just more spiral abyss with a ton more rules that I have no interest in reading. I'm off playing Wuthering Waves now. Sure, the better combat doesn't hurt, but I'm just as much over there because they have an end-game option called Illusive World that actually ties into the themes of what they advertised themselves as: an open world gacha. I get to explore randomly generated dungeons and beat monsters up with my fave characters and that's going to make me stick around, unlike the circular arenas in the void that the genshin crew seem to stuck in the mindset of making. Maybe Labyrinth warriors didn't poll well in their player feedback? But I suspect if that's the case it's complaints from the section of players in Genshin who just want their rewards quickly... anything that gates rewards will be bad for them and there's a huge number of them. They're better served not by Spiral Abyss nor this new mode nor even a Labyrinth Warriors style thing I'd suggest, but more the events where they just literally hand you goodies for speaking to an NPC. We'll just have to see. You think they know what they're doing, while I think they've had some people with a creative vision in charge of one-shot stuff that actually keeps the game ticking and complete idiots in charge of their repeatable 'end game' and events which will fail the majority of the player base every single time, but don't handicap the game as much as they should because the first lot keep churning out more story and exploration content to keep people coming back. I think it succeeds in spite of the supposed experts who made this new mode, not because of them :P Unfortunately, while I was enjoying the story, I'm too tired of putting up with the second lot's nonsense between story bits and I'm really starting to get tired of reading a small novel for each new character's kit, though admittedly Genshin isn't the sole one guilty of that. I also have so many characters that I don't even know why I'd pull for new people... especially as I'm not driven by the attempted pulling behaviour they're trying to stir with these game modes I actively detest.
Aside from the absurd character requirements & the vigour mechanic being too restrictive, I really don't see the point of replaying it after clearing; where SU/DU have in-game reasons to do a run each week(and in the case of DU, getting better equations) ...also the lore tidbits that curios give adds just enough flavour to SU/DU runs; IT has little reason aside from seeing a few 3D models sitting on a sofa. But ultimately, I don't feel the rewards are worth the time investment needed to level & gear the amount of characters(that and I just found it really boring). With the 1st clear bonus claimed, I won't be bothering with it now or after the reset(which is absurdly lengthy for the content on offer). So like artifact loadouts, Genshin has both missed the point of & half-assed a feature the community has been asking for.
woops I had no idea that friends could only select from the same elements. thought my only friend that plays this put shit characters in their for some reason.
I don’t think players actually know what they want. Restrictions placed to amp up the difficulty? Bad. Damage check on enemies? Bad. Making this just another form of abyss? Bad. I have a lot of characters and most of them aren’t built or have full set. And it’s still very much doable with rainbow teams.
@Spookie24 Complaints about "endgame" are typically just that, complaints. The term in relation to video games entirely exists for the sake of having something to complain about. It's a complaint that isn't meant to be satisfied. That said, content that players can't even access is bad. The Gacha space is the only place on the internet where a playerbase would let a developer get away with that. I specifically didn't mention difficulty because it's irrelevant to the major flaw. If you don't have enough characters of the specific elements, you can't do it. It's just a marketing tool to fleece players into pulling more often right now. It's true that a company's goal is always to make money, but most companies realize that satisfied consumers are good for business. The gacha space, especially Hoyoverse, don't see it that way. Everything has to be a way of exploiting their players. They could have done this game mode, for instance, the way I described in the video - and it would have been satisfying to more consumers because they'd actually be able to do it. That satisfaction turns into spending more time in the game and more money - but they didn't. They chose to be exploitative. They've been steadily getting more brazen about it over the past year, and they'll continue to do it because it continues to work and because they've realized that - no matter how shitty the things they do are, there are people that will defend it. They've realized there is no line that they can cross that will cause them to lose support. I, for one, don't want to pretend they respect their consumers when at every turn they show us they only see us as cash cows
@@Souldapop oh i completely understand you. My comment wasn’t specifically made as a snide statement to you haha. But i’ve been seeing comments about the restrictions making it a bad design. Same comments made whenever abyss has a damage check. It’s a never ending cycle of being disappointed because players don’t even know what they want.
It's sad to see that some people still genuinely think that Hoyo actually gives a flying f**k about their Genshin playerbase.😂No they dont, they never have and they never will. Ever since the game got popular, they have repeatedly shown that the only thing they care about is milking players as much as possible. Genshin is their cash cow while the Honkai games(HSR & HI3) are their passion projects. And because a large part of the community just gobbles up whatever shit Hoyo puts on the table, they dont even have any incentive to implement anything interesting. In fact, it is better for them from a business pov to add all these nonsense mechanics and restrictions because they know that their Stockholm Syndrome players will rather go and spend more money on the game to bypass said nonsense instead of actually voicing their opinions and complains.
@baron7562 I've come to realize that it's just as bad with HSR. Take a while to listen to what the vocal HSR players are saying, and it shouldn't take a lot of effort to realize it's the same arguments they shit on Genshin players for. It makes sense. They're mostly former Genshin stans, after all.
@@Souldapop I was mainly talking about QoL and Endgame stuff in HSR and Hi3. I must admit, I am not too familiar with the current community sentiment about HSR. I think the only alarming thing I have heard recently is that apparently Hoyo is slowly introducing powercreep to HSR(Which isnt entirely surprising if you look at what they did in Hi3).
@@baron7562 I knew they'll do that to HSR, HI3's balancing and new units went out of date every 4 montha. It was awful and discouraged me from playing the game at all. When I saw Sparkle and Acheron, I realised this started happening in HSR as well.
@@RKNancy I stopped playing Hi3 for the same reason as you. Its sad that this is happening to HSR as well. Although I dont play the game, I do follow the story. Interestingly, powercreep is one of the few things that Genshin handles very well. A lot of early version characters are still meta. I guess we just cant have it all T_T
The most shocking part of this game mode is how they thought a CASUAL PLAYER will ever have 30 or more properly built characters. It's like, how do you even build characters without playing very often? You can't and someone who plays more than twice a week is not a casual. (Level 70 can enter, but no you won't be able to clear with just that, you do need talents, artifacts and probably also 80 or higher) So I completely agree with the "prohibitive" part and it makes no sense. It's a lot more prohibitive than Abyss where you can generally clear with 8 halfway built units up to floor 11-3. So where is the "this game is made for casuals" argument then?
Only being restricted to certain elements and being forced to bring 4 characters is pretty bad , not to mention that the "buffs" rely on reactions which is nonsense because your team comps will be out of wack due to not having the character or already having used them Also this highlights the limits of Genshin combat system it's a skeleton of a combat system which is okay for the first few updates but they never expanded on it aside from the dendero update which was not complete anyway because it lacked reactions with some elements This mode just confirmed to me that the combat designers of Genshin literally don't have any knowledge on their own game
No, if you can clear with an incomplete team, it wont stop c6 5s characters to solo a stage. This limitation is meant to hinder your progress because it's an endgame content. It only means that you need to build more characters.
You don't need c6 r5 for characters to solo this. Some c6 r5 characters can even solo some abyss cycles. That said, you're opperating under the assumption that it's a bad thing that it could be solo. From my perspective, and you're totally free to disagree with this, I think a lot of players would like to be able to complete stages with solo teams considering there are players that have dropped thousands of dollars just to say they solo'd abyss. Plus, like I mentioned in the video, it gives another way to engage with the content. I think more ways to have fun is good.
@@Souldapop the point of this mode is to plan out your character's team comp as you move along the stages. This endgame mode is for you to build your benched characters the bare minimum investment. While abyss is for vertical invesment, the theater is for horizontal investment. Whales already can do the solo brute force stuff at the other endgame mode, this one is to let your brain a chance to plan out your team comps. Its not a dps check to say the least
@@florinag7799 I know what the point of the mode is. As I said, I had fun with it. However, the fact - not opinion, fact - that it is totally inaccessible if you don't own the required number of characters is scummy. It COULD have been really good, but they baked in mechanics designed to make characters feel like they need to pull and build characters they don't want. Do you disagree with that? Do you think that it's a good thing that players have to pull and build characters they don't want in order to do it?
@@Souldapop you dont need to pull for filler character, because you will eventually get them as you pull for limited banners. This is ultimately optional game mode, as you pull for 5s characters you will get new 4s every time so there is no rushing to get them, we call it an endgame for a reason. And for f2p that dont have the available 5s they give us as main cast that is useful for this season and what we got for the this season are 3 on field main DPS that you can use to beat the 3 boss that we have to beat. What you really need are support and off field dps, and lots of them and just use main cast dps they gave for battling the boss and we can even use the trail version. Your complaint about special guest star is another kind of trial run for future wanters, because we can borrow special guest star that your friends have. You are playing the game wrong if you pull for the wrong reason. Calling it FOMO is just wrong, dont force yourself to pull characters that you dont want its that simple. And people who missed the chance to pull the characters they want, then they are able to test them out because they are the special guest star and will finally able try them out with their own team comp.
@florinag7799 I am playing the game wrong because I think everyone that has unlocked the game mode should be able to do it, and that they shouldn't be prevented from doing it because they don't want to pull on characters they don't want. Listen to yourself: "playing the game wrong." FFS
I do not like it! I find games that are to complicate and confusing NOT FUN at all! I do not like too many puzzles too and I really hate the "TCG". I play to relax after a day at the office and I for sure do not need to take more office work at home! This is so stupid and I have no idea how can be funny. I have all the characters and I am adventure rank 60, I started to play since the beginning in 2020. Ho well, it will be fun for others for sure, take care. Ciao.
Genshin never fails to disappoint me. Everyday they give me a new reason why I should uninstal this stupid game. I'm only waiting for Natlan roster reveal and if there's no interesting tall husbandos and no playable Capitano then I'll rid myself of this cancer and focus on WuWa and HSR.
Eh idk it's not that bad, I can't complete it yet because I'm a fairly new player and vertically invested into 2 teams for Abyss, but that's fine. I don't need to be able to clear the last stage of Imaginarium as a new player.
I actually love it… it forces me to use characters i previously loved but benched bc i got better ones… so investing in them months/years ago wasnt a waste Also actually being able to play chracters you dont have/want But i think the time limit is a bit to short I really want to play the hard mode but i cant go past 6 bc time runs out Also i dont like the special guest stars feature (bc i only have baizhu haha)
this is actually trash :/ I’m semi-f2p and it’s hard to get characters I want most of the time and now they want anemo electro?? I’m screwed since my fav element is hydro..
Nah, ppl complaining who can't clear just have huge "Skill" Issue. Jokes aside, I do have my criticism for it . 1) Season: Can we select our first 6 in get go together with seasonal characters? I don't see the appeal of only starting with only seasonal characters. 2) Elemental Restrictions - It's fine since that's literally point of the challenge. However, It depends on the HY understanding on team building and elements. A single rotation of Geo, Anemo and Dendro would literally Ruin this mode. So, Either A) Remove the restrictions but make it significantly harder . B) Make a season with one major element + Minor one. (Pyro + Anemo or Hydro+ Geo) Then, Let the players choose the last element to avoid this problem. They can add a restriction that you cant select the last seasonal elements. 3) Now big one, Needing 11+ characters + Season + One friend. Honestly, I don't mind it. That said, They should removed lvl cap. The mode doable enough for not needing level 70 characters. I reckon, People would beat this one level 40-50 characters with crazy artifacts and 5* weapons. 4) It mostly the minor stuff. Better boons buffs Camera feature in lobby, More customization as rewards for poses and etc2x Overall, This mode is fun. I can see a lot of potential with this mode and hope they would improve it. It's far from perfect but I can see what they going for.
@KraizenFaraway The camera thing is something I didn't notice until I was brainstorming thumbnail ideas. Kind of feels like they did it on purpose, considering they finally let us take pictures in every other domain
Honest question, who is this content for? I don’t see anyone getting excited for this kind of restrictive content. When Geo comes around I expect the community to riot
i don't like it at all, hard-pass even though u get primo rewards will pass on this. and same goes for the TCG not fun. more it goes less i want to play this game anymore. love the exploration i like the units i own. but this game need changes and others clone-like or suppose to be better gatcha ain't interessed at all.
You repeated "fun" so many times that I started to believe it😵💫. They call it Theater, but there's nothing theatrical there except for some decoration and very bad graphic design . It should be fun performance on stage with new bosses and unique enemies. PGR had Recitativo di Fantasia mode which was theater like with a story and very good rewards. Even people who disliked it had a reason to grind. Genshin never listen their players, so what to expect?
I disagree that the limitations are necessarily a bad thing. This is intended to be end game content. If you are gatekeeped away from doing it, you simply aren't in the end game. It sets tangible goals for players to work towards. It rewards players for horizontal investment. It encourages lesser played characters to get a chance to shine. They say in the arts all the time, that limitations breed creativity. This game mode tests game knowledge and understanding of how mechanics work. This game mode tests flexibility, and being able to pilot several characters at the same time, and to be able to make up rotations on the fly. The difficulty of each floor really isnt much harder than floor 10 of abyss, meaning you can reliably clear content with underinvested units. Level 70/80 with level 20 artifacts of the right main stat really isn't to much to farm for, you can build a new character to these standards once a week.
@TheJuicyTangerine You are severely underestimating how restrictive this is if you think "you simply aren't in the endgame." There are people that regularly 36 abyss in this comment section that can not even play the mode because they don't have the characters. There are people in this comment section that have wasted materials they were saving for future characters just to level up enough characters to be able to do it. Like I mentioned, I have 68 characters. I am AR 60. I 36 star every abyss, and it's very likely there will be months where *I* can't even participate. It's not about having reached the endgame. It's about how often you pull. If you're AR 35 and have pulled enough characters, c9ngratulations, you can do it. If you're AR 60 and have focused on making a few units stronger over getting new ones (for no reason, admittedly - but they definitely shouldn't be excluded from participating when THEY have been the most loyal players) you just can't play it.
@@Souldapop Being able to 36 star abyss just means you're in "the end game" for some particular metric. This mode just changes the definition of what endgame means. For a star rail example, a lot of people can 12 star MOC 12 on their accounts but struggle with Pure Fiction. Some people can beat MOC but not Apocalyptic shadow. The point is to expand what end game means, through different content. Diversity in end game is a good thing. My account in particular is more suited towards Imaginarium Theater than it is for Spiral abyss. I don't whale, just welkin + get BP once in a while. Imaginarium Theater is a cakewalk for my account, while I don't have a single triple crowned character. I simply am not a vertical investment player. The requirements to this game mode really isn't that hard. You just need to have characters leveled to 70, which takes 1 week per character at most. I would argue that it's even easier to get into than Spiral Abyss, because all you need to do is get characters to level 70. You don't even need to use them, as the floors are easy enough for you to beat with just 3 characters and having the 4th one just be around doing nothing. The standards for how well built a character is for IT is incredibly low, compared to the amount of artifact investment and talent book farming needed to have well built characters for Spiral Abyss
@TheJuicyTangerine and I also horizontally invest, but I can see that this is strictly designed to push players to pull characters they don't want. Verticle investment has always been stupid. Constellations are double the cost of the original character that is already good enough to clear all the content in the game. It makes no sense as an investment. The fact that players that *can't* clear spiral abyss can do this is proof enough that this isn't about whether you've reached the endgame or not. This would be like putting out a game mode that is inaccessible if you haven't purchased a certain amount of skins in LoL or Fortnite. It's bad game design built around a pay-to-play model. No other gaming genre would permit that. I say this out of concern, not as an insult, but you seem to be pretty brainwashed to not recognize a clearly predatory move by Hoyoverse that anyone outside the space would consider blatantly obvious and common sense to recognize. Really, out of concern, please take some time to think about why that is
@@Souldapop But you don't need constellations on your characters to beat the game mode. You just need a C0 character at level 70, and that's it. When I ran this, I used maybe 3 limited banner characters, namely Raiden, Kazuha, and Xiao. There's 6 trial characters to use, and 1 support character from friends. You just need 11 characters that are pyro, electro, or anemo, OR are one of the supporting cast. You should have incidentally have gotten enough 4*s that fit the bill, considering the game gives out one for free every other patch. If you've been playing for a while, you should already have From the game: Anemo Traveler, Amber, Lisa, Xiangling, Lynette From events: Bennett, Fischl, Xinyan, Beidou, Dori, Gaming This isn't even counting lantern rite festival picks. You literally can do this event on a no pull account.
@TheJuicyTangerine You've either misunderstood me or are strawmanning. I was saying you don't even need constellations for spiral abyss. If you don't need them there, you definitely don't need them here. You know who doesn't have Gaming? This guy. Using characters that were missable as part of limited events doesn't exactly do anything to prove that this isn't primarily of means of increasing FOMO
You basically described the good and the ugly for Imaginarium Theater. It's essentially a more flawed OG SU. Fun, but not well thought for the common player. Imaginarium Theater is gonna need the Gold and Gears treatment to be saved at this point.
I survived this when the only 5 star pyro chatracter that I have is Diluc, and I didn´t even used him 😂. But yeah with this mode I thing I have to consider pulling more pyro characters... To be honest I find the idea of this mode really interesting, I was really exited to play it, but when I did it I felt that it was missing or rather it was not what I expected. The last addition to hsr endgame it's really amazing, I like it a lot and it feels like they put brain and heart on creating it while here... Idk. It's a game mode that could be consider hard for casuals, new players, old f2p like me that don´t pull a lot of characters, you have to think, but not that much and it kind of destroys team building and synergies 'cause at some point you'll find yourself with 3 on field dps's on your team. So I have mixed feelings about this one. 🥲
![[v4.3] We KNOW the Descenders - Genshin Impact](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/DX_LsOhC7TM/mqdefault.jpg)
Correction : Easy ends on Act III and Act III has the first boss, not act IV. So playing on easy is worth only 220 gems.
Whoops
The fact that there might be a month where the elements available are hydro and cryo, like you know, against bosses who can't even be frozen.
That's only a negative if you think they won't make some effort to tailor enemy lineups to availble elements. It would still be a boon for freeze as it will at least work some of the time instead of being garbage in abyss lately, and you'll still have hydro and whatever else they give you for bosses. 9Possibly electro to have both freeze and physical, the most neglected 'reactions', showcased at once?)
For me the main problem with this mode is the fact that is really clashing with the GI core design. It rewards you or straight up require you to build multiple characters, even though they are "third best choice" that you wouldn't normally use. But it clashes with the rest of the game where to get one good (not even great) set of artifacts takes months of farming, and we still don't have an option to quickly swap gear between characters.
And there are also some other problems with this. Like the fact that this is mostly "funded" from spiral abyss rewards, the fact that there is no indication which character you set up can be used by your friends or just weird limits that you can only use one friend's character per month or that your characters can only be used up to 15 times?
But the worst part of it is that we are stuck with it, because of the hoyo track records to never refine or fix shipped content. It took them almost 4 years to fix the mondstadt's domains, and they still are open 3 times a week, so I won't hold my breath that they will do anything to make this better. Which is sad because there is some potential to have fun there.
Exactly there's too many unnecessary restrictions that make no sense at all
Looks like my prediction of it being spiral abyss with extra steps was on point. I didn't expect this to make me come back to Genshin and it definitely won't.
Hoyo could make Theater more enjoyable by not restricting players this much on what characters they can use and rather focus on giving major and interesting buffs during the rounds. Using dynamic teams and seeing my characters deal more than my ordinary dmg would be far more satisfactory than trying to get through with a party of Thoma-Alhaitham-Arlecchino-Yoimiya. Vigor points are okay to motivate (or rather force) you to not stick to just one team, but the execution of it is just not working somehow, since you easily find yourself with a party like what I just mentioned.
If they just give me Labyrinth Warrior's event permanently and not this I would be satisfied.
Edit: Wanderer pretty much said everything there to this mode ruclips.net/video/qLa9AgUkxe4/видео.html
yes. i thought it will be like that, combined with su/du in star rail.. but well, kinda disappointed with it..
Yes. Labyrinth Warriors was the best event they ever made it's odd that they don't use it as the end game playera have been asking all this years.
As someone who likes building 4* characters that I like as characters to level 70-80, this mode is a lot of fun and very for me :3c it's just a bit easy tbh. They really made it super easy because they know you won't have super built characters. I played with super scuffed teams. You don't even need to get the stars (I missed one).
I'm glad there's now reason to use characters that aren't meta. Like I brought a Lv70 Beidou with very bad rando artifacts and almost no talent levels and she did great for me because the mode is pretty easy. Or heck, my Level 70 Lynette that does no damage swirled for me and it helped a bunch. You do *not* need fully built characters for this at all. Mediocre ones together with the trial characters are more than enough.
Looking forward to the Cryo one so I can finally use Freminet for something 🥰 A Geo focussed one will be a bit bad for me but either it will make me finally build more of my geo characters (poor Noelle really needs some love) or... well I just won't do the hard mode that season and just play normal.
Some of y'all don't play this game for fun and it shows (signed: someone who doesn't do abyss 12 stars because it's too much work and fun > rewards)
I'm mainly annoyed that they force you to use filler characters, but still have time limits. I'm of the firm opinion that the time limit should be an optional thing to get more rewards, because as it is, I can't even get to Act Six because I keep getting shit rng on which characters I roll. Could I regear Yanfei? Probably, but why should I HAVE to. I just want to clear, I don't even care about the primos! What's worse is that this is likely the cycle that I'll have the most characters to use, unless It's ever Cryo, Electro, Anemo. I AM glad that you don't have to own the character to use it from your friend, unlike what was speculated, because my whale friend's C3 Raiden absolutely nuked the jadeploom terrorshroom lol, but overall I'm incredibly disappointed. I don't even like the Abyss, but at least I can CLEAR if I want to spend a few hours redoing chambers.
Also, I HAD to level my Xiangling to level 70 (was planning on doing it eventually but this literally forced me to) to play the hardest difficulty, just to not end up using her bc I had a friend's character instead, like, wtf, that's just stupid. At least let me open the menu to see if I can have enough characters with a friend's support, but no, I literally had to go around farming chilis just to not even use Xiangling!
Genuine question. Why do you want to clear so badly if you claim you don't care about primos? This mode doesn't give you anything else other than primos and a few level up mats, so what's the point?
Also, the fact that you didn't even have a level 70 Xiangling is absolutely wild.
i don't like xiangling and only one of my teams even wants her (and that team only exists because i accidentally pulled childe lol). As for why I want to clear, it's because it's extra content? Why wouldn't I want to do it? I maxed out my tcg level, I'm working on 100% all regions, and I routinely attempt the spiral abyss (even if I rarely manage to get to 12-3 lol), it just feels bad to be locked out of content at AR 58 because of shit rng. At least with the Abyss I know damn well it's a skill issue and not me having to use a character literally only there so I can actually play the game mode.
I am an endgame player with a lot of charas and I hate IT. The enemies are literally the same, but the way to make it difficult is to randomize and limit our charas. You wont have control over what charas are available to your roster, so every team building theory we learn and remember is thrown out of the window. Worst case scenario you can end up with on field dps only or sustainer only or buffer only available in your roster.q We are forced to bruteforce the game in a stupid way. And no this game mode has no replayability at all for me
In hsr's su and du, the enemies are far more difficult with new techniques (complete form), but to balance that our characters are buffed with blessings and curios that are extremely important (oh yeah IT's boons buff are completely negligible). Also there is no limitation on character choice (unless they die lol).
The blessings and curios are randomized, but its fun. Character choice randomization is not.
Also in su you can replay the su with different path, different dice etc and get rewards; and in du you can replay it to get more sync points and do some weird du achievements and all give you rewards. Since these enemies are more difficult, you can always comeback and try your builds. THESE ARE REPLAYABILITY. Nothing like this in genshin's IT. I dont want to replay it just to find out how another stupid team comp feels
For me, it's like having a rogue like system, to a game mode where not only you can get random buffs, but you get random charecters from a pre selection you already made, which in my opinion sucks because if you don't plan ahead you may end up with comps that don't work that well together, like me having Wriothesley and Hu Tao for the last battle lol.
I usually don’t Comment but this time I really have to.
My biggest gripe with the whole thing is twofold (threefold if we are counting one problem as 2)
1. Vigorpoints: Two are not enough. Especially when you consider that you need, contrary to the abyss, always 4 characters in the party to start a level. Why? I am already being limited by the vigor point system, but now it is extra annoying. Let’s say you build 2 teams Childe international and Hu Tao double hydro. With enough investment these 2 teams will have cleared all abysses in the last 2 years. Now? You are effectively out of luck, for having used a strategy that worked 100% in your favor for years.
This goes nicely to the next point…
2. Character „sharing“: I have some whales in my list with C6R5 5 Stars. Why is it that I can only accept help from 1 person in a whole month? And why are those characters also randomly appearing in my selection screen, while being subjected to vigor points?
I talked about this in my last video, and a bit in this one, but hoyo is really pushing for horizontal investment over verticle. If you took the age-old advice of "build two teams" it seems like they're going to make it harder and harder for you to engage in new content. It's scummy, but it nakes sense, if you invest vertically in a few characters, they've already got all the money they're going to get from you
The barrier of entry is too high.
The number of borrowing characters should depend on difficulty: 1 for Easy, 2 for Medium and 3 for Hard.
Yeah, the fact that you have to enter the lobby after any fight is messed-up.
The quest/overall feel of mode feels anticlimactic.
The idea of leveling more characters to be used for a specific game mode isn't bad, but it brings FOMO.
And as someone that has been playing from week 1, I still need to level up more characters in order to access the 3rd difficulty. And I was lucky because Pyro, Anemo and Electro were the selected elements of this rotation. Can't imagine what I'll be doing when there's only Cryo, Geo/Hydro and Dendro.
In the end, this mode failed in my opinion. The battles are way too easy - compared with what we already had, the SA - and although it can be replayed, it still need more features to become Genshin's Simulated Universe. Hoyo were lazy with this one.
You're a week 1 player and haven't even met the hard mode entry criterion?? What have you been doing these past 4 years? Who are you saving these XP books for? 😂
Too high? Then why did you call it an endgame if everybody could just clear it over night. Forcing you to build all your character as an endgame goal is not that bad of an idea. For me forcing yourself to get the perfect artifact is the stupid one. Just gave all your character the bare minimum atleast before you waste resin in your quest to find a god tier artifact.
@@SwieczkaNiweaniewierzeDarek had a life
@@macrockk4641 Nah, 4 years is enough time to have a life AND build a respectable account.
6 month old player here and I clear 36 stars now for 6 reset cycles. Obviously I only have a core of 9 (maybe 10) built characters that got all my attention to make it there.
This new game mode is the absolute inverse to the spiral abyss. The combat difficulty is non existant, but the entry is barred behind having 18 lvl 70 minus the 6+1 trial and borrowed characters. Now, I do understand this targets the most casual players with old accounts. People that can't beat 36 stars even after a full year of playing. The most recent statistic I saw was somebody pulling the numbers on AR55-60 accounts and of all those accounts barely 50% did actually EVER beat 36 stars. So this release is backed by numbers and targeted at that audience and this will bring joy to all these people, for sure and that's a good thing, I guess.
But here is my major gripe with this: The time of release. They release this mora+xp book dump before 5.0, an expac launch with a rumoured lvl 100 expansion.
This is why this personally felt crap to me, because I had to reach into my bank and level up 6 characters to lvl 70 JUST to even get to enter the last stage. They didn't even had artifacts and weapons, the difficulty is so incredibly low having a singular built character in those forced teams of 4 was enough to sleepwalk through it.
I probably wouldn't be that salty if it just was some mid xpac release, but at this point in time right before 5.0, it felt just cheap and I feel robbed of my purple books.
@dshearwf Not defending, just clarifying because this has become straight-up misinformation, but you don't need 18 characters. You need 11-12 (12 if you don't have a friend with a character to use). The 6 trial characters are good enough for the mode - so you don't need to have any of them.
However, people seem to be really underestimating how restrictive 11 characters of three elements still is. Like I mentioned in the video, I have a pretty diverse account, and I still barely made the cut to participate - granted the 6 trial characters were all characters I actually have built, so I'd have a lot more breathing room if the principal cast was characters I didn't have built
As far as the level 100 increase goes, I've seen rumors that you won't need level books for it. Keep in mind, both are just rumors
@@Souldapop Oh, yea you are right, my statement was from my position that I had to level up additional pyro/electro/anemo characters and yes the number can still vary depending on the overlap of the trial characters.
Still, I mean that makes it even worse I feel, since for the next elements, I'll probably have to level up some more 4 stars again. But yea, surely it's all rumours and stuff and my position is very subjective, but it just felt off to me to have such a resource heavy mode right before a new continent releases, where your instinct is to go into it as prepared as possible. Other than that I am kinda neutral on this mode, because I can see why it was implemented from a demographical standpoint.
@@dshearwf It definitely does make me doubt the rumors of special materials for the 100 ascension, but primos, mora, and heroes wit are pretty srandard
As someone who played from day 1 and was probably in that AR55 - 60 that didn't get 36 stars; I didn't fail to get them, I just literally never attempted to in the first place. I've never played the upper levels of Spiral Abyss because I rejected the proposition entirely.
I'm starting to sound like a broken record now, but: I didn't start playing an open world game, and proceed to play one for hundreds of hours to later just be stuck in instanced rooms with an arbitrary failure timer ticking away in the background. It's about as opposite to the appeals of open world as you can possibly get and it's the same stupid content they already try to force on you in artifact domains, upgrade domains and every half-assed combat event. It's one of the key reasons I finally stopped playing Genshin last year.
This is more instanced rooms and more timers so it can also go die in a fire as far as I'm concerned: if this really was meant to try to appeal to people like me who avoid the Spiral Abyss, then they couldn't have failed any harder.
If they wanted to keep me, and other players who share my predicament, around they should've made something like Labyrinth Warriors an endgame because that had actual exploration in it and mostly no timers (I don't care that I haven't timed out on anything since the early ARs, I just like to feel like I'm choosing to do things at my own desired pace instead of being rushed along by an invisible, nagging game dev)
They seem to have too many game devs stuck in a Honkai mindset that think slapping players with a verbose tome of boring rules and UIs then doing a DPS check in a circular arena is all the content they ever need. It's like a sickness and it's baffling because they already made plenty of stuff in Genshin that shows they're capable of more.
The worst part of this all is that it's a problem of their own making. Honkai and PGR are very up-front with what they're about: you fight stuff in arenas, often with a timer. That's what the game is and that's the end game too.
Genshin feels like this bizarre bait and switch where they advertise and let you play this completely different genre then try to trick you into putting up with their old bread and butter at the end, rather than crafting a new end-game that suits the new player base they've drawn in (again, except that one inexplicable time they made labyrinth warriors, only to never to be seen again)
One thing I would add - why are the principal characters not available to pick from a friend? Was that limitation really necessary?
I didn't even realize that. You do have to select the principal cast before the support cast, so I can see *why* but it is pretty dumb. Just allow the friend support pick in the first stage if they have one of then in their cast
Honestly, valid points all around. Good suggestions too. Overall, this mode is just weird to me, it was easy, but it was weird.
The biggest points I agree with is:
1. Friend list characters should be allowed in regardless. Especially if it is just for 1 fight.
2. Players should be able to choose how many characters they bring into each stage. Because having to throw away usages you otherwise would need later sucks.
Another thing I would add is that each character should be able to be used 3 times, rather than just 2. Leaves a little more breathing room for team building. Because I absolutely had to run double on field DPS units like it was 1.0 spiral abyss.
Music and enviornment is neat though.
The critic section seems logical and reasonable (good points) and consisting of mainly QoL changes meaning they probably never implement them xd >
This is just HoYo's way of letting you know that horizontal investment is not a waste.
EDIT: Remember the time when we lament pulling for certain characters that we no longer play? Now there is a reason to dust them off and put them back to good use.
but it is a waste. the difficulty is extremely low and the only requirement is to HAVE those lvl 70 characters. they dont need any sufficient build to beat it. It's just an account and pull check contrary to abyss, which focusses on actual combat. Now, I am def a bit salty I had to waste so many xp books on characters I will literally never use in my life just to enter hard mode just to crush it with naked characters. Especially salty, because they introduce this right before an expansion update with a rumoured lvl 100 upgrade. I cling onto every mora and xp book to level my favourite and core characters and now they make me dump it into some trash characters to enter a free loot pinata mode. Like, come on.
What are blud waffling' about? Literally everyone does Horizontal Investment except for those fk simps who wanna show their LOVE TO 3D PIXELS that they think are real by getting Cons and Sigs. If u talk about extreme side of horizontal investment where I need to fk build chars I dont like FOR THIS MODE, then hell nah. Fk that sht!
@@dshearwf there's no lvl 100. There's no way Genshin dev team is doing that. They are way too lazy to make that happen.
Good use? You just practically level them up just to get in hard mode and they’ll be trash again. This won’t encourage users to build and use weak ass characters, it only force us to waste our materials
I literally had to swap Traveler back to Anemo just to walk in the Hard Mode door, because I don't have any Genshin Friends. This mode is completely antithetical to the existing 4-year model of "two good Teams do it all".
It's been just over two years since I started focusing on acquiring Constellations for the units that were actually proving to be useful rather than trying to accrue more characters that could easily turn out to just be wastes of Resin and time. I didn't get C6 Nahida by treating this game like filling a Pokédex; it took multiple banners to get all seven copies. Why? Because it was simply more worth it to improve my units than to *have more* units.
Now they expect me to invest months of Artifact farming into every Tom, Dick, and Harry that they release, just in case they *might* be featured later? I haven't spent *Resin* in two patches because I'm finally *done* building, I am not doing that... And, honestly, for what? More Primogems? What am I even gonna *do* with those, at this point?? Next patch I plan to cash in all my remaining Wishes for C3+ Yelan and then I genuinely am 100% out of plans for Wishes going forward; I will finally have every Constellation I ever wanted for my Hyperbloom and Rational Teams.
This is flagrantly manipulative in every facet of its design. I played it to form an honest opinion of my own, and I felt it was boring. I was painfully aware of the multiple levels of artificial difficulty at play. And now that I've reached a point at which Primogems themselves have no further value, I cannot bring myself to dive back into the thankless daily Artifact grind all over again ad infinitum just for this cheap gimmick sideshow content that doesn't even bring the same faint sense of accomplishment as my now routine 36 Star Abyss Clears.
I just can't go back to perpetually building more and more characters, now with extra incentives to even do so for the characters I'm not interested in. This mode seems to exist for content creators, and many of them seem to hate it. 😂
If only they just go Divergent Universe Star Rail without this stupid limitation on characters.. i would veeery love this content..
Very good take, earned a new sub
@@MacA60230 Thanks!
Why can't they just give end game content you can do with friends 😭
Minor correction (I guess it's more like, confusing wording): you said "like Spiral Abyss you will have to restart to change gear" - but in Abyss you CAN change gear at the start of every floor. In this event, you cannot, you have to do all in one go with the same gear. It'd be like having to bring the same gear from floor 9 to floor 12.
Which is another major gripe I have with this mode.
I was speaking in terms of chamber to chamber on one floor. I think one floor is more comparable to this mode than multiple floors because one floor is 6 stages 👍
I strongly disagree about replayability. It's so restrictive , and Genshin characters are so "alike" currently without a proper team that's there's no point in replaying it.
Yes, I could switch out Arle for Lyney, or Clorinde for Keqing...but I would still basically do the same things than before: get an on-fieldier, do random BS goes, and wow so much fun.
I do have more than enough characters. I would LOVE to bring out my plunge DPS Barbara there...but I can't. Or my Noelle. But no, I can't. Or my burgeon Amber....but no I can't (okay, this month I could, but burgeon Amber without a hydro nor a hydro unit is like..commuting to work like everyday but I can't use my bicycle so I have to walk the 8kms).
So...I have no reasons to replay it. Even Abyss, Archon bless its poor soul, have more replayability.
Even without extra characters to use, it still has replayability because the only thing that's the same every time are the bosses, and you normally don't use all your characters anyway. The randomness makes you use different teams every time, too. Idk, I think it's the one thing that's got going for it.
That said, you're right, it's way too restrictive. My number one change, like I said in the video, is any four characters for the special guests. I know that's a pipe dream, but it'd do so much for the game mode and the players
@@Souldapop If you like the randomness, yeah, it's a great mode.
I don't - to me it feels like I'm playing my friendship team, like I do everyday as I like to farm friendship... but worse since you can't gear your characters for this specific team (like when I used Petra Diluc when I finally got him after 2+ years loosing a 50/50 to Arle...) I can't even have that in this mode).
At the end of the day, this mode *for me * is pushing for more...generic boring team (gearing everyone with emblem is literally the best thing to do in IT) than actual different things (Shimenawa Barb' , TF Kazuha or whatever team you can cook)
Yeah but honestly i just think they put too much into the UI design of the thing instead of the gameplay. i actually hate the gameplay too because its just so easy and boring, they add all the restrictions to make it more "fun" but it just makes it frustrating. They honestly should have rewarded the players who added more restrictions on themselves instead of that being the only way to get primogems. Like i feel bad for the casuals who just dont know how to build and dont know about meta and such because they have jobs or actual lives. I feel like they would want to spend money on the game to progress, like getting cons on chars. Which does make the game 100% easier, but like your spending money. Then theres the people who feel like they have to spends hours upon hours ingame just to get, what? barely even fifty ten pulls? they should give out at least 50 for completing hard mode, or even just 20 for clearing easy. I feel like genshin is just trying to waste time, which time is money, so people are also wasting money. I actually just decided to quit the game after i cleared it. Now im playing minecraft, which weirdly has more satisfying exploration. Anyways great video, well articulated and really well explained.
@shuya3421 Thanks a lot! Funnily enough, I actually don't like the UI, but it's a total preference thing, so I didn't think it was worth including. I mean, look at that thumbnail, lol
One thing I will say is that, oddly enough, it makes c3 r1 Yoimiya fun to play again. One shotting everything in the endless monolith defense reminds me of playing a Demon Hunter in Diablo 3. In abyss it's like, "this only seems good because the investment makes her overtuned" so it kills the fun of trial and error with team-building.
Really niche, entirely prejudicial, but it's another thing that adds to the replayability for me: I kind of want to see just how many she can kill
This is supposed to be a game that players invite(Gacha) their favorite characters to join the Team as they progress. They want to quickly Milk their players as fast as possible, and this is just another option for them. They probably prayed on Gacha addicts that don't want to get stigmatized by it to inevitably pull for the character needed just to have an easy time. Well, I've never had any expectation to begin with this Imaginarium Theater. I will just enjoy the Main story journey and whichever content i can clear with my character.
Womp womp, my neuvilette is not allowed there 😢😢
There's so much limitations to this mode where it feels like I'm fighting the game more than the enemies. It's a slog to play through
The restrictivness regarding friend character is really really dumb and unecessary. I chose the C6R5 Raiden of a friend because yay C6 but then had to switch because I have a raiden myself and was missing more pyro/electro units. Now, I can't choose ANY other character from them, even tho they would've been more usefull to me. Why? What was the reason? Even in Abyss you can try out different things as many times as you need. Imaging if you could only use the character for one floor of Abyss, no reroll. Restricting that is just hindering the enjoyment of the mode. Thanks, I beat the mode with the help of a friend coming in clutch. No, I cannot try it again or even try different teams. It removes the replayability.
As always, superbly thought-out arguments. Thank you. Here are some of my thoughts. I concur that there are some issues with some of their design choices, but I kind of get why they did what they did. When I first tried this game mode, my first impression (which has not fundamentally changed) is that this is just a suped-up "event". Definitely, one which has a lot of (deliberately) built in handicaps such as an almost total lack of freedom to build comprehensible teams. It is entirely possible to end up with a team with 3 healers, like I did the first run through. Which was actually great because the fact that something like that can happen means it actually needs a little bit of planning to successfully complete. But I want to keep this short so let me approach this from the available trial selection.
For this reiteration of this "event" of the first 6 characters, the only really important two are Arlecchino and Clorinde. The other four are throw away characters; but you need them to clear the earlier levels to preserve energy for other characters that you can pull from your available pool. And basically, you want to stuff your character pools with support characters first and main-dps second. There are three bosses, one big chicken who is so easy that it doesn't need a meta team to clear, two vishaps which can be cleared using Clorinde and any pyro dps or sub dps, plus those ballerina robots who Arlecchino will happily turn into junk.
What I am trying to argue here is that if you have a basic decent gameplan, this event is very easy. It is definitely not targeted at serious "end-game" players but it is almost ideal for casual players. For players who cannot or do not want to participate in the Spiral Abyss, this is a fairly assessable, "no-pressure", "end-game" mode. MHY has remained true to their philosophy that Genshin is targeted at its large demographic of casual players who just want to have fun and relax. I argue that this approach is going to be a win for MHY and the "casuals" but definitely a loss for "hard-core" players as they're still stuck with only having the Spiral Abyss, and one with cut down rewards to rub salt into the wound.
MHY is not stupid, they do things to protect or enhance their bottom line. They REALLY don't care about hard core gamers as they represent the smaller/smallest part of their revenue stream. Genshin is a financial success not because of whales, but by a "loyal" following of casual player who just buy Welkin Moon and Battlepass and who may occasionally spend a little bit more on a featured banner. As long as this group is "satisfied", Genshin will remain a very successful cash-cow. As for the hardcore combat-oriented players, well shout all you want, as MHY has time and time again shown them that they don't care. Financially, this group has little significant contribution to their revenue stream.
Plus making it so that you must exit to the lobby upon completion of each stage is actually a very deliberate choice. It reinforces the "relaxed" atmosphere; also the design of the room which hosts this event is also an integral part of this approach. Players do not have to play through the entire challenge in one sitting. They can do a bit, go have a cup of coffee, smoke a cigarette, walk the dog, yap on the phone or whatever and continue later. Make no mistake, MHY doesn't do anything for nothing, and they are very, very good at what they do.
I specifically chose not to bring up difficulty because it's irrelevant to its biggest issue, its inaccessibility. Both casuals and hardcores are affected equally by this. Whether you can play or not depends entirely on how often you pull
@@Souldapop That is by design - MHY deliberately structured it that way. There is no way they would shoot themselves in the foot in that way.
Hardcore mode should be assessable to the majority of the player base. Newer accounts may have issues but should still have access to Easy and perhaps Normal modes. Some older accounts that have invested vertically may also be adversely affected but they will be in the minority.
Let's not beat around the bush on this one, this "end game" feature is also a deliberately crafted marketing stratagem. It serves MNY exact the same as the existing Spiral Abyss - they are designed to manipulate purchasing behaviors.
@@mmdinnovations2990 That's exactly what I said in the video
@@Souldapop LOL, someone else here has dementia (me). This is why I really enjoy your channel. You peel away the fluff to expose what is really important. No other Genshin channel does this; please keep it up!
Well, I hope it works out for them because they lost me despite being a day 1 player who bought welkin moon and battlepass and never played Spiral Abyss.
This content does not appeal to me because to my eyes it's just more spiral abyss with a ton more rules that I have no interest in reading.
I'm off playing Wuthering Waves now. Sure, the better combat doesn't hurt, but I'm just as much over there because they have an end-game option called Illusive World that actually ties into the themes of what they advertised themselves as: an open world gacha. I get to explore randomly generated dungeons and beat monsters up with my fave characters and that's going to make me stick around, unlike the circular arenas in the void that the genshin crew seem to stuck in the mindset of making.
Maybe Labyrinth warriors didn't poll well in their player feedback? But I suspect if that's the case it's complaints from the section of players in Genshin who just want their rewards quickly... anything that gates rewards will be bad for them and there's a huge number of them. They're better served not by Spiral Abyss nor this new mode nor even a Labyrinth Warriors style thing I'd suggest, but more the events where they just literally hand you goodies for speaking to an NPC.
We'll just have to see. You think they know what they're doing, while I think they've had some people with a creative vision in charge of one-shot stuff that actually keeps the game ticking and complete idiots in charge of their repeatable 'end game' and events which will fail the majority of the player base every single time, but don't handicap the game as much as they should because the first lot keep churning out more story and exploration content to keep people coming back. I think it succeeds in spite of the supposed experts who made this new mode, not because of them :P
Unfortunately, while I was enjoying the story, I'm too tired of putting up with the second lot's nonsense between story bits and I'm really starting to get tired of reading a small novel for each new character's kit, though admittedly Genshin isn't the sole one guilty of that. I also have so many characters that I don't even know why I'd pull for new people... especially as I'm not driven by the attempted pulling behaviour they're trying to stir with these game modes I actively detest.
Aside from the absurd character requirements & the vigour mechanic being too restrictive, I really don't see the point of replaying it after clearing; where SU/DU have in-game reasons to do a run each week(and in the case of DU, getting better equations) ...also the lore tidbits that curios give adds just enough flavour to SU/DU runs; IT has little reason aside from seeing a few 3D models sitting on a sofa.
But ultimately, I don't feel the rewards are worth the time investment needed to level & gear the amount of characters(that and I just found it really boring).
With the 1st clear bonus claimed, I won't be bothering with it now or after the reset(which is absurdly lengthy for the content on offer). So like artifact loadouts, Genshin has both missed the point of & half-assed a feature the community has been asking for.
Finally a streamer with brain and facts, hu doesen kiss hoio and tell the truth!
woops I had no idea that friends could only select from the same elements. thought my only friend that plays this put shit characters in their for some reason.
I don’t think players actually know what they want. Restrictions placed to amp up the difficulty? Bad. Damage check on enemies? Bad. Making this just another form of abyss? Bad. I have a lot of characters and most of them aren’t built or have full set. And it’s still very much doable with rainbow teams.
@Spookie24 Complaints about "endgame" are typically just that, complaints. The term in relation to video games entirely exists for the sake of having something to complain about. It's a complaint that isn't meant to be satisfied. That said, content that players can't even access is bad. The Gacha space is the only place on the internet where a playerbase would let a developer get away with that.
I specifically didn't mention difficulty because it's irrelevant to the major flaw. If you don't have enough characters of the specific elements, you can't do it.
It's just a marketing tool to fleece players into pulling more often right now. It's true that a company's goal is always to make money, but most companies realize that satisfied consumers are good for business. The gacha space, especially Hoyoverse, don't see it that way. Everything has to be a way of exploiting their players. They could have done this game mode, for instance, the way I described in the video - and it would have been satisfying to more consumers because they'd actually be able to do it. That satisfaction turns into spending more time in the game and more money - but they didn't. They chose to be exploitative. They've been steadily getting more brazen about it over the past year, and they'll continue to do it because it continues to work and because they've realized that - no matter how shitty the things they do are, there are people that will defend it. They've realized there is no line that they can cross that will cause them to lose support. I, for one, don't want to pretend they respect their consumers when at every turn they show us they only see us as cash cows
@@Souldapop oh i completely understand you. My comment wasn’t specifically made as a snide statement to you haha. But i’ve been seeing comments about the restrictions making it a bad design. Same comments made whenever abyss has a damage check. It’s a never ending cycle of being disappointed because players don’t even know what they want.
i got jumped scared by the ghoul 💀
@@shuya3421 3k views on the model and this is the first comment to mention it lol
It's sad to see that some people still genuinely think that Hoyo actually gives a flying f**k about their Genshin playerbase.😂No they dont, they never have and they never will. Ever since the game got popular, they have repeatedly shown that the only thing they care about is milking players as much as possible. Genshin is their cash cow while the Honkai games(HSR & HI3) are their passion projects. And because a large part of the community just gobbles up whatever shit Hoyo puts on the table, they dont even have any incentive to implement anything interesting. In fact, it is better for them from a business pov to add all these nonsense mechanics and restrictions because they know that their Stockholm Syndrome players will rather go and spend more money on the game to bypass said nonsense instead of actually voicing their opinions and complains.
@baron7562 I've come to realize that it's just as bad with HSR. Take a while to listen to what the vocal HSR players are saying, and it shouldn't take a lot of effort to realize it's the same arguments they shit on Genshin players for. It makes sense. They're mostly former Genshin stans, after all.
@@Souldapop I was mainly talking about QoL and Endgame stuff in HSR and Hi3. I must admit, I am not too familiar with the current community sentiment about HSR. I think the only alarming thing I have heard recently is that apparently Hoyo is slowly introducing powercreep to HSR(Which isnt entirely surprising if you look at what they did in Hi3).
@@baron7562 I knew they'll do that to HSR, HI3's balancing and new units went out of date every 4 montha. It was awful and discouraged me from playing the game at all. When I saw Sparkle and Acheron, I realised this started happening in HSR as well.
@@RKNancy I stopped playing Hi3 for the same reason as you. Its sad that this is happening to HSR as well. Although I dont play the game, I do follow the story. Interestingly, powercreep is one of the few things that Genshin handles very well. A lot of early version characters are still meta. I guess we just cant have it all T_T
The most shocking part of this game mode is how they thought a CASUAL PLAYER will ever have 30 or more properly built characters. It's like, how do you even build characters without playing very often? You can't and someone who plays more than twice a week is not a casual. (Level 70 can enter, but no you won't be able to clear with just that, you do need talents, artifacts and probably also 80 or higher)
So I completely agree with the "prohibitive" part and it makes no sense. It's a lot more prohibitive than Abyss where you can generally clear with 8 halfway built units up to floor 11-3. So where is the "this game is made for casuals" argument then?
Only being restricted to certain elements and being forced to bring 4 characters is pretty bad , not to mention that the "buffs" rely on reactions which is nonsense because your team comps will be out of wack due to not having the character or already having used them
Also this highlights the limits of Genshin combat system it's a skeleton of a combat system which is okay for the first few updates but they never expanded on it aside from the dendero update which was not complete anyway because it lacked reactions with some elements
This mode just confirmed to me that the combat designers of Genshin literally don't have any knowledge on their own game
Straight facts, no chaser
No, if you can clear with an incomplete team, it wont stop c6 5s characters to solo a stage. This limitation is meant to hinder your progress because it's an endgame content. It only means that you need to build more characters.
You don't need c6 r5 for characters to solo this. Some c6 r5 characters can even solo some abyss cycles.
That said, you're opperating under the assumption that it's a bad thing that it could be solo. From my perspective, and you're totally free to disagree with this, I think a lot of players would like to be able to complete stages with solo teams considering there are players that have dropped thousands of dollars just to say they solo'd abyss. Plus, like I mentioned in the video, it gives another way to engage with the content. I think more ways to have fun is good.
@@Souldapop the point of this mode is to plan out your character's team comp as you move along the stages. This endgame mode is for you to build your benched characters the bare minimum investment. While abyss is for vertical invesment, the theater is for horizontal investment. Whales already can do the solo brute force stuff at the other endgame mode, this one is to let your brain a chance to plan out your team comps. Its not a dps check to say the least
@@florinag7799 I know what the point of the mode is. As I said, I had fun with it. However, the fact - not opinion, fact - that it is totally inaccessible if you don't own the required number of characters is scummy. It COULD have been really good, but they baked in mechanics designed to make characters feel like they need to pull and build characters they don't want. Do you disagree with that? Do you think that it's a good thing that players have to pull and build characters they don't want in order to do it?
@@Souldapop you dont need to pull for filler character, because you will eventually get them as you pull for limited banners. This is ultimately optional game mode, as you pull for 5s characters you will get new 4s every time so there is no rushing to get them, we call it an endgame for a reason. And for f2p that dont have the available 5s they give us as main cast that is useful for this season and what we got for the this season are 3 on field main DPS that you can use to beat the 3 boss that we have to beat. What you really need are support and off field dps, and lots of them and just use main cast dps they gave for battling the boss and we can even use the trail version.
Your complaint about special guest star is another kind of trial run for future wanters, because we can borrow special guest star that your friends have. You are playing the game wrong if you pull for the wrong reason. Calling it FOMO is just wrong, dont force yourself to pull characters that you dont want its that simple. And people who missed the chance to pull the characters they want, then they are able to test them out because they are the special guest star and will finally able try them out with their own team comp.
@florinag7799 I am playing the game wrong because I think everyone that has unlocked the game mode should be able to do it, and that they shouldn't be prevented from doing it because they don't want to pull on characters they don't want.
Listen to yourself: "playing the game wrong." FFS
I do not like it!
I find games that are to complicate and confusing NOT FUN at all! I do not like too many puzzles too and I really hate the "TCG".
I play to relax after a day at the office and I for sure do not need to take more office work at home!
This is so stupid and I have no idea how can be funny.
I have all the characters and I am adventure rank 60, I started to play since the beginning in 2020.
Ho well, it will be fun for others for sure, take care. Ciao.
Love the way you put it. Theres no need for IT to be so prohibitive and convoluted.
Genshin never fails to disappoint me. Everyday they give me a new reason why I should uninstal this stupid game. I'm only waiting for Natlan roster reveal and if there's no interesting tall husbandos and no playable Capitano then I'll rid myself of this cancer and focus on WuWa and HSR.
Eh idk it's not that bad, I can't complete it yet because I'm a fairly new player and vertically invested into 2 teams for Abyss, but that's fine. I don't need to be able to clear the last stage of Imaginarium as a new player.
I actually love it… it forces me to use characters i previously loved but benched bc i got better ones… so investing in them months/years ago wasnt a waste
Also actually being able to play chracters you dont have/want
But i think the time limit is a bit to short
I really want to play the hard mode but i cant go past 6 bc time runs out
Also i dont like the special guest stars feature (bc i only have baizhu haha)
this is actually trash :/ I’m semi-f2p and it’s hard to get characters I want most of the time and now they want anemo electro?? I’m screwed since my fav element is hydro..
Nah, ppl complaining who can't clear just have huge "Skill" Issue.
Jokes aside, I do have my criticism for it .
1) Season: Can we select our first 6 in get go together with seasonal characters?
I don't see the appeal of only starting with only seasonal characters.
2) Elemental Restrictions - It's fine since that's literally point of the challenge. However, It depends on the HY understanding on team building and elements. A single rotation of Geo, Anemo and Dendro would literally Ruin this mode.
So, Either A) Remove the restrictions but make it significantly harder .
B) Make a season with one major element + Minor one. (Pyro + Anemo or Hydro+ Geo)
Then,
Let the players choose the last element to avoid this problem.
They can add a restriction that you cant select the last seasonal elements.
3) Now big one, Needing 11+ characters + Season + One friend.
Honestly, I don't mind it.
That said, They should removed lvl cap. The mode doable enough for not needing level 70 characters.
I reckon, People would beat this one level 40-50 characters with crazy artifacts and 5* weapons.
4) It mostly the minor stuff.
Better boons buffs
Camera feature in lobby, More customization as rewards for poses and etc2x
Overall, This mode is fun.
I can see a lot of potential with this mode and hope they would improve it.
It's far from perfect but I can see what they going for.
@KraizenFaraway The camera thing is something I didn't notice until I was brainstorming thumbnail ideas. Kind of feels like they did it on purpose, considering they finally let us take pictures in every other domain
@@Souldapop: I mean, I only noticed it cuz I was trying to do Raiden pose in domain 😅
nice thumbnail
Lol, thanks. Fan of beige?
@@Souldapop maybe.. I definitely love the big ghost eyes tho
Honest question, who is this content for? I don’t see anyone getting excited for this kind of restrictive content. When Geo comes around I expect the community to riot
It's for people that pull every patch and build every character
I do not like the imaginarium theater
I don't think playing genshin for end game is the point of the game tbh
i don't like it at all, hard-pass even though u get primo rewards will pass on this. and same goes for the TCG not fun. more it goes less i want to play this game anymore. love the exploration i like the units i own. but this game need changes and others clone-like or suppose to be better gatcha ain't interessed at all.
You repeated "fun" so many times that I started to believe it😵💫. They call it Theater, but there's nothing theatrical there except for some decoration and very bad graphic design . It should be fun performance on stage with new bosses and unique enemies. PGR had Recitativo di Fantasia mode which was theater like with a story and very good rewards. Even people who disliked it had a reason to grind. Genshin never listen their players, so what to expect?
So you get 3 pulls :/
I disagree that the limitations are necessarily a bad thing. This is intended to be end game content. If you are gatekeeped away from doing it, you simply aren't in the end game. It sets tangible goals for players to work towards. It rewards players for horizontal investment. It encourages lesser played characters to get a chance to shine. They say in the arts all the time, that limitations breed creativity. This game mode tests game knowledge and understanding of how mechanics work. This game mode tests flexibility, and being able to pilot several characters at the same time, and to be able to make up rotations on the fly. The difficulty of each floor really isnt much harder than floor 10 of abyss, meaning you can reliably clear content with underinvested units. Level 70/80 with level 20 artifacts of the right main stat really isn't to much to farm for, you can build a new character to these standards once a week.
@TheJuicyTangerine You are severely underestimating how restrictive this is if you think "you simply aren't in the endgame."
There are people that regularly 36 abyss in this comment section that can not even play the mode because they don't have the characters. There are people in this comment section that have wasted materials they were saving for future characters just to level up enough characters to be able to do it. Like I mentioned, I have 68 characters. I am AR 60. I 36 star every abyss, and it's very likely there will be months where *I* can't even participate. It's not about having reached the endgame. It's about how often you pull. If you're AR 35 and have pulled enough characters, c9ngratulations, you can do it. If you're AR 60 and have focused on making a few units stronger over getting new ones (for no reason, admittedly - but they definitely shouldn't be excluded from participating when THEY have been the most loyal players) you just can't play it.
@@Souldapop Being able to 36 star abyss just means you're in "the end game" for some particular metric. This mode just changes the definition of what endgame means.
For a star rail example, a lot of people can 12 star MOC 12 on their accounts but struggle with Pure Fiction. Some people can beat MOC but not Apocalyptic shadow. The point is to expand what end game means, through different content. Diversity in end game is a good thing.
My account in particular is more suited towards Imaginarium Theater than it is for Spiral abyss. I don't whale, just welkin + get BP once in a while. Imaginarium Theater is a cakewalk for my account, while I don't have a single triple crowned character. I simply am not a vertical investment player.
The requirements to this game mode really isn't that hard. You just need to have characters leveled to 70, which takes 1 week per character at most. I would argue that it's even easier to get into than Spiral Abyss, because all you need to do is get characters to level 70. You don't even need to use them, as the floors are easy enough for you to beat with just 3 characters and having the 4th one just be around doing nothing. The standards for how well built a character is for IT is incredibly low, compared to the amount of artifact investment and talent book farming needed to have well built characters for Spiral Abyss
@TheJuicyTangerine and I also horizontally invest, but I can see that this is strictly designed to push players to pull characters they don't want. Verticle investment has always been stupid. Constellations are double the cost of the original character that is already good enough to clear all the content in the game. It makes no sense as an investment. The fact that players that *can't* clear spiral abyss can do this is proof enough that this isn't about whether you've reached the endgame or not.
This would be like putting out a game mode that is inaccessible if you haven't purchased a certain amount of skins in LoL or Fortnite. It's bad game design built around a pay-to-play model. No other gaming genre would permit that. I say this out of concern, not as an insult, but you seem to be pretty brainwashed to not recognize a clearly predatory move by Hoyoverse that anyone outside the space would consider blatantly obvious and common sense to recognize. Really, out of concern, please take some time to think about why that is
@@Souldapop But you don't need constellations on your characters to beat the game mode. You just need a C0 character at level 70, and that's it. When I ran this, I used maybe 3 limited banner characters, namely Raiden, Kazuha, and Xiao. There's 6 trial characters to use, and 1 support character from friends. You just need 11 characters that are pyro, electro, or anemo, OR are one of the supporting cast. You should have incidentally have gotten enough 4*s that fit the bill, considering the game gives out one for free every other patch. If you've been playing for a while, you should already have
From the game:
Anemo Traveler, Amber, Lisa, Xiangling, Lynette
From events: Bennett, Fischl, Xinyan, Beidou, Dori, Gaming
This isn't even counting lantern rite festival picks.
You literally can do this event on a no pull account.
@TheJuicyTangerine You've either misunderstood me or are strawmanning. I was saying you don't even need constellations for spiral abyss. If you don't need them there, you definitely don't need them here.
You know who doesn't have Gaming? This guy. Using characters that were missable as part of limited events doesn't exactly do anything to prove that this isn't primarily of means of increasing FOMO
It’s not “GATE KEEPING” if it’s “END GAME CONTENT”
mint
You basically described the good and the ugly for Imaginarium Theater. It's essentially a more flawed OG SU. Fun, but not well thought for the common player. Imaginarium Theater is gonna need the Gold and Gears treatment to be saved at this point.
I survived this when the only 5 star pyro chatracter that I have is Diluc, and I didn´t even used him 😂. But yeah with this mode I thing I have to consider pulling more pyro characters... To be honest I find the idea of this mode really interesting, I was really exited to play it, but when I did it I felt that it was missing or rather it was not what I expected. The last addition to hsr endgame it's really amazing, I like it a lot and it feels like they put brain and heart on creating it while here... Idk. It's a game mode that could be consider hard for casuals, new players, old f2p like me that don´t pull a lot of characters, you have to think, but not that much and it kind of destroys team building and synergies 'cause at some point you'll find yourself with 3 on field dps's on your team. So I have mixed feelings about this one. 🥲