Summary
It might be surprising to those on the outside looking in toGenshin Impact’s world of Teyvat, but HoYoverse’s massively successful action-RPG is in dire need of some fixes. I’ve been playing the game since launch and have almost never missed a content update until last year, when I began to fall off for weeks at a time because of burnout and having a life outside of grinding gacha games. While it’s still one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve ever had in gaming period - let alone with live service games, which have burned me before - that doesn’t mean it’s infallible, andGenshin Impactwould do well to update some of its most archaic designs.
To be clear, at launch, there was little to complain about.Genshin Impact’s depth of contentwas pretty much unheard of at the time, with future games in the genre either drawing heavy inspiration from it or essentially copying its homework, depending on who you ask. Now, four years in and with multiple new regions to explore,Genshin Impacthas grown into a behemoth that doesn’t have much to compare it to. In turn, that makes identifying what it’s doing right and wrong a little bit more difficult, but it’s clear to me and, I think, many others, that a few areas desperately need improvement: artifact grinding, time-gating, and content FOMO being the major issues.
I’ve Been Playing Genshin Impact Since Launch & Can No Longer Recommend It
The popular action RPG by HoYoverse is getting larger with each expansion, but its overload of content is not its main problem: it’s farming.
We’ve already discussed what’s wrong onScreen Rant, in the above article and also in my earlier piece aboutGenshin Impact’s resin problem. I’m not here to cry about the end of Teyvat or attempt to persuade you to playHonkai: Star Railor the upcomingZenless Zone Zero(though you totally should). At the end of the day,Genshin Impactis one of my favorite games ever, and I want to keep enjoying it until its end, whenever that may be.So here’s how to fix it now so that more players don’t face the same dilemma I currently find myself in.
Artifact Grinding In Genshin Impact Needs To Be Friendlier
One Of The Game’s Most Reviled Systems Is Overdue For A Change
I think even the most passionate defenders of everything to do withGenshin Impactwill have to, however begrudgingly, concede that its artifact grinding system is an exercise in misery. It’s gotten beyond the point of just the most invested players needing to point out that the RNG systems in artifact substats are inherently aggressive towards players' experiences - now there are so many artifacts present in the game, with so many different bonuses and uses, that even casual users might run into the endless grind.Even justgetting a useable artifact for a new charactercan take a significant amount of time, while an optimized one can quite literally require months of daily attempts.
It’s obvious this is a pretty hostile environment for player progression. As a gigantic game,Genshin Impactreally doesn’t need to create false incentives for players to return daily. It has questing with rewards, a slew of content updates (more on that later), and an ever-growing roster of characters to further optimize and experiment with.For that reason, I think it’s finally time to abandon the resin requirement for artifact grinding, allowing players to enter domains as often as they want to in an attempt to find that one perfect piece of gear.
I doubt the money made on resin top-ups is more valuable than millions of already interested players being happier.
Truthfully, this isn’t even that revolutionary of an idea. It’s still going to take ages to find the best gear, but players with limited time who can’t effectively make use ofGenshin Impact’s resin cooldown timings will at least be able to sink 5-6 hours into a weekend to do so.As it stands right now, artifact grinding isn’t just punishing from an RNG perspective, but a time investment perspective, too. For content creators, this will more easily (and less expensively) fill in gaps for streaming/videos when there aren’t events going on, and the chase for that perfect Crit DMG/Crit Rate roll is a captivating one that won’t get old just because people can do it more frequently.
For the average player, this likely won’t even impact them much. Casuals aren’t exactlyspending every point of resin farming domains- they’re blissfully free of that cycle. For more invested players, though, this is a great way to prevent burnout on mechanics that they already care about deeply. You don’t need to sell someone who is willing to spend a dozen hours on one perfect piece of equipment on its necessity or the “fun” of acquiring it - they’re already in. I doubt the money made on resin top-ups is more valuable than millions of already interested players being happier, and HoYo is always a Raiden banner rerun away from recouping that loss anyways.
Time-Gated Bosses & Other Content Is An Archaic Relic Of Previous Gacha Experiences
Genshin Impact Is So Much Better Than It
In a similar vein,Genshin Impact’s time-gated content, like bosses and material farming, is an ancient implementation of false longevity that the game has long since surpassed needing. I understand that when a live service game is new, it needs to create ways to keep its players coming back, even if its artifically inflating the amount of time it takes to acquire specific resources.Genshin Impactis now a game that, should you start it from its humble beginnings in Mondstadt, would likely take over 100 hours. And that’s just for the main story; properly exploring these regions and their subquests adds another hundred or two to the list, easily.
So why do I need to wait to farm plants mynew favorite inexplicably needs to grow stronger? I’ve already got more than enough to do, not even counting events, too. If I want to spend an hour each day for a week farming for resources, that’s an hour I’ve spent playingGenshin Impactover another game. I love everything about the game’s open world exploration, I just hate how much it wants to police when I’m technically allowed to enjoy it the most. While other games with significantly shallower content might need to balloon their playtimes in this manner,Genshin Impactoutgrew it years ago. Now, it’s just completely unnecessary.
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I thinkGenshin Impactwould do well to free up some of this time-gating so that players don’t feel so much pressure to keep up weekly with reset timers and boss battles. I know from personal experience that missing a week can spiral - you feel behind, there’s actually no means to catch up on your own (though, thankfully, co-op exists to alleviate this problem somewhat), and you start to wonder if it’s worth it.The patches I’ve skipped or had to catch up on are universally ones where they required more material grinding or time-gated content; there are plenty of ways to keep players interested without that, andGenshin Impactalready features most of them!
Genshin Impact’s Content Needs A Failsafe For Busy Players
Stop Punishing People For Needing Breaks
These points lead nicely into the biggest problem I think I can helpGenshin Impactfix - its sheer overwhelming amount of content, and the way it dramatically punishes players who can’t keep up.Genshin Impact’s content release schedule is pretty rapid, with most events getting spaced out across three-week periods to complement banner rate ups and other mechanics, with a proper version update arriving every six weeks. That’s a huge amount of content that often requires many hours to complete, which slots into a player’s scheduleon top ofthe already steep grinding time requirements.
It’s easy to see why players get burnt out - how could you not?It’s not just the content rollout, though, it’s the looming specter of unfair punishment for missing out on it. Limited content will only be available for a specific amount of time, to make sure players are incentivized to return for each version update. I understand why this is a part of the game, but don’t understand why it applies to it as a blanket rule.
There’s no reason to thinkGenshin Impactcouldn’t also do it, even if it requires instanced worlds to prevent overlap.
I think there is plenty of room for one major version update event that is time-gated and other events being saved as optional completions whenever the player wants to.Honkai: Star Railalready has this system implemented, so there’s no reason to thinkGenshin Impactcouldn’t also do it, even if it requires instanced worlds to prevent overlap with other character quests that are permanent. I appreciate this being a potentially big ask, but even the occasional saved event would go a long way to preventing the kind of content FOMO that makes getting back intoGenshin Impactafter falling off a bit too intimidating.
Genshin Impact Will Always Have A Fan In Me
But Without Changes, It Might Become Admiring It From Afar
I’m certainly not suggesting these kinds of changes to scheduling and content production as though it’s an ultimatum.I plan to continue to playGenshin Impactinto Natlan and beyond, even if I miss out on many events juggling both my real world commitments and the other games I love (Honkai: Star Rail,thank you for being a little less time intensive!) That said, however, the sheer amount of things I will continue to be unable to participate in does wear on me, and I can see a future where I continue to loveGenshin Impactfrom a distance, keeping track of its story without actually engaging in it.
That would be the worst outcome, but it can be prevented. I thinkGenshin Impact’s success has made it feel infallible and, to a certain extent, that’s hurt design decisions a little, at least when it comes to addressing archaic or outdated mechanics that could be improved on. After all, the shiny new thing is going to draw players in more often than the quietly upgraded QoL adjustment. However, with more people than ever having already heard ofGenshin Impact,at a certain point the priority needs to shift to keeping those players rather than aggressively seeking out new ones- and, in my eyes, that time has already arrived for HoYoverse’s excellently crafted but majorly inconvenient world of Teyvat.
Genshin Impact
Genshin Impact is an online, open-world, action RPG from the creators of Honkai 3rd Impact. In the game, players assume the role of the Traveller, a powerful being separated from their sibling during an intense battle. Stricken with amnesia and lost in a new world, players will guide their hero with the help of their new companion, Paimon, through the world of Teyvat.
