Genshin Impact

Ah, thanks! Yeah, seems like using Noelle is just not an option for the Geo puzzles. I’ll definitely go as far as I can, so if I can go farther than Liyue, why not.

Damn, they went all out on this.

The traveler is the only character that can throw down 3 Geo constructs by themselves without any issue, just a short cooldown. 3 is the limit then the oldest one despawns. And there will be puzzles that use that.

Another tip, hold down the skill button to target a specific spot.

Alright, it was exploration day, with a big fight against an ancient Geosaurus, lots of teleportation points and statues unlocked, and holy crap I actually ended up in Sumeru. Apparently way too early, since Paimon’s lines when I activated the statue weren’t even voiced. Not sure how I’m supposed to use those weird floating insignas.

Also realized there was also an adventurers’ guild in Liyue, which… makes sense. What doesn’t is that there is another Catherine who looks exactly the same at the reception.

Geo Lumine’s skills look pretty cool but they seem very… situational. Oh right, I could elevate Yanfei too! I like you, Amber, I really do, but that second of charge every time I wanna apply pyro is really not ideal in combat.

…Meanwhile, I’ve picked up more than 50 green crystals but that’s still not enough for the Wagner quest apparently. I could forge a broadsword at least, but still.

Continuing my exploration, I climbed the three mountains around Quinyu Peak and got rewarded with a big ascending wind… that leads to three floating platforms… that lead absolutely nowhere. There’s a giant green… rocky… thingy above my head◊ but no way to reach it. Weird.

Also got to try out Dendro Lumine, and she’s pretty good I must say. With Lisa and some water around, it’s quite effective.

I also stumbled upon a certain monster called "Ocedanid" near Qince village. I did not have a good time.

Also, I boarded two big boats. And got scolded both times. I hoped I would meet the famous Beidou, but no luck.

Nobody has a good time against the Oceanid (except me since I have Razor, Fischl, and the Raiden Shogun). Also if you really want to meet Beidou, you could have a look at her hangout event eventually. You'll also meet her at the very beginning of Inazuma's Archon Quest, since she's the one who takes you there.

Yeah, I think beyond the Inazuma plotline our first plot introduction to Beidou was a temporary event, and Genshin doesn't typically rerun those.

That choice honestly baffles me. At least Honkai’s temporary events are either silly, non-canon shenanigans or follow a storyline in a parallel universe unrelated to the main game’s plot.

But introducing canonical characters that are an integral part of the lore in temporary events is nonsensical. Why would you create cool storylines and backstories for those characters and then make sure no one can ever experience them when the patch is over?

They probably don’t want the game’s size to get too bloated, massive as it already is, but there has to be a better way to handle this.

Edited by Lyendith on Sep 21st 2022 at 4:53:43 PM

It is really weird, especially now that we're starting to get events that are sequels to earlier events.

But I had a conversation with a friend who also plays recently, and that friend posited that it's likely a filesize issue, keeping in mind that the game is already huge and has to be careful not to become so much bigger that it completely destroys mobile storage and becomes non-viable on phones. (well, to be precise we were talking about the ability to replay older missions or parts of the story at the player's leisure, which the game also lacks, but the same principle applies).

Hosting multiple big cutscene heavy events at the same time is likely out, and you can either do new events all the time or eschew new events do to rerun old ones, so they chose the former. Same with keeping those mission files or save-states to be re-visited, unfortunately.

Which I understand, even if I don't like it.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Sep 21st 2022 at 8:01:47 AM

Granted, reruns aren’t yet out of the question since the game’s only 2 years old. Honkai only started to do reruns in its 5th year. >.>

Still, I wonder if they couldn’t make those events downloadable as optional DLC or something… Though making them deletable at will to save space would probably be a technical headache…

Edited by Lyendith on Sep 21st 2022 at 5:06:25 PM

Currently I finished the Main quest and interludes so I'm currently on "finish all story quest" mode.

Current favorite is easily Zhongli Act 2 lmao. Ignoring multiple acts, Itto's, no question.

Klee's is probably my least favorite?

Edited by ultimate_life_form on Sep 21st 2022 at 9:57:48 AM

My favourite character quest was Zhongli part 2 as well. I liked Part 1 too.

My least favourite was Eula's by far, nothing else came close.

Favorite hangout was either Beidou or Ningguang's, though Thoma's is close behind theirs. Least favourites are Noelle's and Diona's.

Eula's quest was pretty bad yes. Ganyu's bored the fuck out of me but I didn't feel the parties involved were all incredibly stupid.

If it's favourite that's a more difficult one, I actually felt surprisingly emotional from Yoimiya's though story wise all the archons have pretty good character quests (except 80% of Raiden's first)

Edited by Mami on Sep 22nd 2022 at 8:14:51 PM

Yeah, Eula's is bottom-tier by a lot of measures.

The Act 2 for both Zhongli and Raiden were both very good. Far less faffing around and more doing things (or having more interesting stuff).

I quite like Act 1 of Zhongli's, actually, Interesting lore and a well done examination of how Genshin's gods work and all that.

I mean, it ain't THAT bad. It's still bad, but it's just that all you need are very specific party members.

As for favorite story quests? I mean, I liked Itto's the most. I don't really have a least favorite, but I really thought Yelan's story was gonna be more interesting than it actually was. I barely remember Eula's, but all I got out of it was, "yup, everyone hates her, her dad's an asshole, and I hate her, too."

For me the most memorable story quests are Venti, Zhongli Part 2, Raiden Part 2, Itto, and most recently Tighnari. Some characters like Albedo, Kazuha, or Xiao have benefited a lot from having more event quests.

venti should really get an act 2

I think Venti will get an act 2 when we return to Mondstadt. We only have about 60% of the region right now, there's a lot more Mondstadt to the north that we'll eventually get.

Now when we'll return to Mondstadt? Who knows, but probably in several years, before Snezhnaya releases...

Venti’s already in half the events, on the other hand. He’s my favorite character, but I can’t deny the dude gets a lot of story content.

My favorite character quests are Zhongli part 1, Childe, and Itto. Honorable mention to Tighnari's (it's less about him and more about the robot) and Hu Tao's (just the last part). I haven't finished all the hangouts, but Heizou is the best so far (mostly for Itto).

Also finally finished the Aranara questline... sorta. At least the main goal is done, but it looks like there's a few clean-up quests. I liked it but man was it at least 5 steps too long. If the Aranara weren't totally adorable I would have lost my patience with it, even if the pay-off final quest was really good.

Alright, I finally finished that quest with the dragon statues in Qingce village, which was unusually long… for a pretty paltry reward, I must say (just one geo key and I think a 4* star artifact, and no dragon corpse =[). Oh well.

Now I’m starting to get some of my characters to Elevation 2 (namely Sucrose, Kaeya and Lumine, and Noelle as soon as I get the mats), upgraded my 5* sword and I unlocked Xingqiu, which I’m not sure what to do with for now. Seems like a hydro DPS, something I didn’t have until now. I’ll probably keep Lumine as a Dendro option for the most part.

Not sure if I should move on to World Level 2 or wait a little more, since some of my characters (Fischl, Barbara, Yanfei, and of course Dori and Xinqiu) are slightly underleveled. I still don’t have a lot of decent artifacts or weapons either.

Edited by Lyendith on Sep 22nd 2022 at 2:28:05 PM

Xingqiu is one of the best support character at high level, one of the honorary 5-star, along with Xiangling and Bennett.

He kinda needs high Energy recharge to work wonder with his Burst, so maybe not super useful at low level, but swapping him in for the hard-hitting Skill is still a good option. He is not really an on-field DPS though, his normal attack is kinda unimpressive.

He would be a good support for Yanfei, I use the Raiden/Yanfei/Xingqiu/flex team a lot, you can sub in Fischl for Raiden.

Edited by UnnamedTroper on Sep 22nd 2022 at 5:19:42 AM

Generally, you don't want to delay raising your World Level, since it improves enemy drops, which add up in the long run and will help make your characters stronger. However, it might not a bad idea to hold off a little bit while farming world bosses (Oceanid in particular) for the materials for the first couple ascension levels.

Fortunately, Adventure EXP continues to stack over the cap, and gets cashed in once you do the ascension quest, so there's no penalty in that regard.

Edited by Eschaton on Sep 22nd 2022 at 6:01:18 AM

On the flip side, I've had a friend who delayed so ridiculously long that they leaped straight from WL 1 to WL 3, skipping WL 2 entirely when they finally did the quest. That won't happen unless you're really holding it off, but still, usually better to do it sooner rather than putting it off too much. The increase in world level usually doesn't raise the difficulty too drastically and you get better rewards out of it anyway.

Once you hit WL 5, you'll unlock the ability to optionally lower your WL by 1 for 24 hours at a time if you need to, so at that point it isn't really as big of a deal.

Edited by Minus0 on Sep 22nd 2022 at 7:14:12 AM

And I got my first 5* character! It’s… not the one I aimed for. Oh well, I suppose Mona’s fine too. At least her costume is very *cough* well designed, I can give her that.

I walked around Sumeru City while I was at it. Absolutely love how creative the fauna has gotten in those parts. Very pretty city too, although it has to be the whitest Middle-Eastern town I’ve ever seen. Some of the random conversations give you surprisingly good presents, to boot? I got a 4* artifact just by talking to a random guy in the café.

Anyway, after farming a few bosses, time to jump into WL2!

PS: Since I managed to freeze my way to a remote island before, I wondered if you could do the same and walk aaaall the way to Inazuma from Liyue Harbor. And the answer is… well, you can definitely try.