I got the six

Another year in the books and the blog’s still going, so here’s the obligatory cake for y’all.

The good news is that, despite my inkling that it might happen as early as two years ago, I haven’t turned my back on MMORPGs completely after all. As a matter of fact I’ve been playing the heck out of Black Desert Online since December, which has only slowed down a bit during the past few weeks.

I’ve taken a break from sailing and bartering for the time being, but am still grinding away for the infinite HP potion every now and then. I’ll also make sure to do the preparatory quests for Land of the Morning Light’s release, which is slated for June 14th.

And of course: checking in on my workers, as one does

As much as I’m looking forward to the new continent though, what I’ve come to realize is that BDO’s, like any other long-running MMO’s, biggest strength is the enormous wealth of content, systems and progression opportunities that are already there, as well as the countless iterations and (hopefully) improvements that all those things got over the years. I mean, the game was already quite good at launch, but by now it’s absolutely awesome and, in my opinion, one of the best there is.

Now, the anticipation for a game’s release can feel really great of course, and the craving for something new and shiny is always there in the back of my head. Still, when I look back on which MMORPGs I’ve played at or shortly after launch during the past few years…well, there’s pretty much only New World and Lost Ark, both of which disappointed me greatly.

I guess from now on I’ll take more of a wait-and-see approach towards new titles, while continuing to play stuff that’s had time to cook and already proven itself. Well, at least unless a game comes along that I feel I just have to play right away for whatever reason.

Still prefer this one over any of the alternatives

Diablo IV is not one of those games, in case you’re wondering. Even if I were to ignore the many good reasons not to buy it – like the fact that Kotick’s still in charge of the company, or the game’s steep price tag combined with a rather expensive cash shop and paid battle pass – I would still nope out for the time being.

Think about it – even Diablo II and III, which were made by “Good Old Blizzard” (anyone remember those times?), each needed a big expansion and many more patches to become as great as they are today. Why would it be any different now? I mean…worse? Sure, that may well happen. Better? Not bloody likely.

And, again, there’s already so many great games out there that are evidently good, polished and content-rich…

I like desert zones in general, but this in particular hits all the right notes for me

Yep, my rekindled enthusiasm for Genshin Impact hasn’t waned yet. I guess my playtime is split about 50/50 between it and BDO at the moment, which feels just right [Edit: Actually it’s more like 40/40, and 20% Hunt: Showdown]. The new (to me) regions, The Chasm and Sumeru, are really great; exploring those while questing and fighting along the way is tremendously fun.

I’ve even managed to get the character I talked about last time by investing only half of my available gacha currency, so I’m still sitting comfortably at 5 bucks spent for a full month of entertainment, with a handful of ten-pulls left over to boot. Take that, Bobby!

He’s… tougher than he looks

So, yeah, still playing, still blogging (well, occasionally). Good times.

I’ve also been watching a lot more basketball this year, starting right after Super Bowl. In years prior I only tuned in for the playoffs; turns out it’s much more satisfying to watch those when I already have a feel for what’s what and who to root for. Also, being there (kind of) when LeBron became the all-time scoring leader felt more special than I’d thought it would.

I’m even considering watching next season right from day one, but I’m afraid following the NFL and the NBA at the same time might be just too much (and pretty expensive too).

Either way, chances are the blog will remain primarily gaming-focused. What can I say, when it comes to sports I prefer doing it myself or at the very least watching. Talking about it – not so much.

Anyway, enough rambling. Year seven, here I come. Groovy gaming guaranteed!

What once was bad is now really good…despite still being bad

It never ceases to fascinate me how the human brain works, especially the part that’s responsible for motivating us and making us happy. That sweet, sweet dopamine is one hell of a drug for sure. And dangerous, too.

It’s been almost two years since I quit playing Genshin Impact due to being thoroughly fed up with its treadmill-like and RNG-heavy game design. Do your dailies, spend your resin, work on the battle pass, do this, do that…it just wasn’t fun anymore.

You already know where this is going, don’t you?

Two weeks ago I decided on a whim to patch up the game and have a look at all the new content I’ve missed and also to see whether they’ve made any changes to its overall design. Yeah, as for the latter…pretty much nothing’s changed at all, which is disappointing to say the least. But here’s the thing…I’m playing every day and having a blast again nonetheless!

Of course I’ve already spent quite some time exploring the new regions they’ve added during my absence, and it’s enjoyable as ever to hunt for hidden treasures, solve puzzles and collect hard to reach shinies.

However, despite my characters being more than strong enough to conquer any challenge the open world has to offer, I’ve also started to work on their gear, talents and levels again because, damn, that kind of stuff feels so rewarding.

Especially when it turns out as great as this every once in a while

The funny thing – or tragic thing, depending on how you look at it – is that I’m well aware of my newfound enthusiasm’s temporary nature. It’s just a matter of time until I’ll once more tire of running the same domains over and over, or get fits of rage when yet another potentially good artifact rolls into a load of crap. Still, I’m enjoying it so much right now that I simply don’t care.

So here I am, doing all the things that made me quit the game once already, in order to get a new weapon for my Xiangling (a fishing spear, believe it or not), better artifacts for my Ganyu and so on, because the dopamine rush just thinking about reaching those goals triggers tastes oh so sweet.

Look at all that new and shiny stuff!

Unfortunately, like I said in the opening paragraph, that rush can also be quite dangerous. This is where the fact that Genshin Impact is a gacha game comes into play.

A couple of months before I took my leave from the game back in ’21 I stopped pulling for new characters because I couldn’t keep up with leveling and gearing them all anyway. At the same time I also decided that I would not spend any more money on the game going forward, no matter what.

Fast forward a couple years and, well, just two weeks in that resolution has gone out the window already because, upon realizing that I play the game every day again anyway, I couldn’t resist buying the Blessing of the welkin moon for five bucks, which pays out a (relatively) generous amount of funny money spaced out over thirty days of logging in.

Now, five Euros ain’t a lot. However, as people designing this kind of shit aren’t even ashamed to tell you, getting players to spend that first couple of bucks is the “ice breaker”. After that it feels okay to spend on the game. At some point it might even feel like you actually need to spend more.

Of course people aren’t all equally susceptible to this. I guess I’m somewhere in the middle of the pack here, and fortunately my disposable income is such that I can afford my (very mild) level of obsession* without going broke, let alone incurring debts. Also, if you’ve been reading some of my stuff before you probably know that I think it’s important to support the makers of video games I really enjoy (even though the “real” makers only receive but a fraction of that support, obviously).

* I won’t call it addiction because I don’t intend to downplay the seriousness of real addiction, which I fortunately do not suffer from, in any way, shape or form.

Still, gacha mechanics aren’t something that should be condoned, and certainly not supported.

On the other hand, that Baizhu fella looks like he’d be a really great addition to my team right now, and I do have some funny money left over…

He also has a talking snake around his neck, what’s not to like?

I guess we’ll see which part of my brain comes out ahead.

Games I’ve played for 500+ hours

The other day Wilhelm had a post up about games he has played for at least as long as the developers of Dying Light II claim it takes to play their game to 100% completion. It’s a good read, and thinking about it I realized that it might be interesting to have a look at my own gaming history from this angle too.

The difficulty here is that I’ve never actively tracked how much time I’ve spent with any particular game, so if I haven’t launched it through Steam and the game itself doesn’t have a /played function either I can basically only guess. Hence I will sort them into categories of differing certainty, like Wilhelm did.

So let’s see…

Definitely have played for 500+ hours

• • Everquest II

This one is a no-brainer. EQII is easily my most played game of all time. I was the most active between 2006 and 2008, when it was pretty much the only game I touched, and I tended to play very, very long hours more often than not. Additionally, even before and after that particular time period I’ve spent a lot of time with this game over the years, and I can prove it: EQ2U says I have clocked 1,959 hours on my Warlock alone, so…yeah.

• • EVE Online

I created my first account and main character in December 2005, and while I’ve taken numerous breaks over the years only one of those was actually long enough to say “I’m not playing that game anymore” – and even then I eventually returned to have my longest and most active streak yet. Consequently, even without having any hard evidence, I’m absolutely certain that I’ve played a lot more than 500 hours of EVE.

Most likely have played for 500+ hours

• • Diablo II

As I’ve said numerous times Diablo II is one of my all time favourite games period. I actually wasn’t quite as hooked and therefore didn’t play as extensively as I’d expected right at launch, but by the time I’d burned out on Ultima Online towards the end of 2001 the Lord of Destruction expansion had come out and improved the game in every respect. This time there was no stopping me. It then became and remained one of my most-played games up until about 2010 – in fact it’s one of the very few non-MMORPGs I’ve played at all during that time period. The recent release of Diablo II Resurrected added at least another 30-40 hours to the tally, so yeah, it’s highly likely that I’ve crossed the threshold here.

• • Ultima Online

Speaking of UO, hoo boy, was that game a revelation. My gateway drug into MMORPGs, if you will. Starting in June 2001 I was late to the party, but I more than made up for that by playing every waking moment (literally, except when I was at work) for the next six months or so. Unfortunately I was so into it that I couldn’t stop myself from trying to level up dozens of skills on multiple characters each and every day, so I burned out and bounced off of it pretty hard. I returned after a thorough break and played on and off until a little game called Star Wars Galaxies came out, and that was that. Regardless, in total I should be over 500 hours of playing time, though maybe not by much.

• • Star Wars: The Old Republic

Weirldy enough I almost forgot to include this, although I’ve assuredly played it for more than 500 hours. The thing about this game is, my itinial enthusiasm waned pretty quickly, and I most likely would have quit much sooner had it not been for the great guild we were in. Except for some really well designed and fun raids all good memories I have about the game have almost nothing to do with the game itself and everything with this group of people. Anyway, it makes the list easily.

Probably have played for 500+ hours

• • Star Wars Galaxies

Like UO this is another game I really loved but still didn’t play for as long as I initially thought I would. As much as I like sandbox MMOs, turns out activities like gathering, crafting, housing or (light) roleplaying alone can only entertain me for so long, and unfortunately SWG didn’t have much else to offer at the time (at least to me). Again, just like with UO I played very extensively during the first few months though, so I assume it just about makes the cut.

• • ArcheAge & ArcheAge Unchained

I’m lumping these together because, well, they’re basically the same game with different business models. I’ve played each iteration quite a lot for the better part of a year, so I’m actually pretty certain that it’s been well over 500 hours in total. However, in this case I have next to no “feel” for how long I’ve really played for some reason, and no way to verify it either, hence its appearance in this category.

• • The Secret World

One of the truly great and unique MMORPGs, unfortunately underappreciated by many players and mishandled by Funcom, it never had a chance to reach its full potential. I loved it exactly like it was however, and consequently played it an awful lot.

• • Genshin Impact

My most played game from fall 2020 to summer 2021 by a wide margin, so yeah, pretty sure it’s been over 500 hours.

And there you have it. Which games did you ever play for 500+ hours?

Still dreaming of a white Christmas

We’re coming up on the eleventh Christmas in a row without even the slightest trace of snow where I live, so I’m once again going to accomodate myself – and you, if you like – by posting a bunch of winter-scenery screenshots as a consolation.

So put on your virtual mittens, it’s going to get cold.

I’ll start off with Black Desert Online once more, because damn, does snow look good in this game. I love how it even covers the appropriate parts of my character.

In the real world there is no ice or snow on Venus, but in Warframe there most certainly is. It’s not my favourite planet in the game by a longshot, but that’s mainly because of the enemy faction that’s residing there. The planet itself, especially the open world zone Orb Vallis, is gorgeous.

Space is always cold and dark? Cold yes, but definitely not dark, at least in EVE Online it ain’t.

I’m not certain whether this has something to do with the currently ongoing holiday event, or if metaliminal storms can look like this all year round, but seeing it basically snow in space was a sight I sure wasn’t expecting.

Dashing through the snow in ArcheAge. No sleigh though, just one horse.

Star Wars Battlefront wasn’t a very good game, but the graphics (and sound too) were pretty amazing. It really felt like being in the middle of a huge battle on Endor or, in this case, Hoth.

This is what a winter’s night in 14th century France looked like, at least according to A Plague Tale: Innocence. Really makes one crave for a hot mug of mead at the bonfire, doesn’t it?

Arknights has its share of winter stages too. I especially like how even the enemies’ clothing fits the theme.

My operators always look the same however – luckily for them this game isn’t one of those bent on skimpy outfits, as you can see. SilverAsh (the guy with grey hair and cane) even wears a coat with fur collar, so all is well.

One of the great things about Genshin Impact is that pretty much nothing you see is just a backdrop – if it’s there, chances are you can actually get to and set foot on it.

The same is true for the mountain you see in the background up there. You can even climb all the way up to the top. It’s not just a mountain either, it’s actually a whole region with its own quests, puzzles, treasures and enemies.

It’s also the only place on this list where the cold has an actual effect on the player: staying there and not being near a heat source fills up your cold meter. Once that’s full you continuously take damage and will die if you don’t act on it. I admittedly don’t like mechanics like that very much, but hey, at least the snow isn’t mere eye candy this once. Also, you can cook and eat goulash, which halves the rate at which your cold bar fills up for a while. I like goulash!

And there you have it. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Oh boy, here we go again…

Yes, this is indeed going to be yet another “I really think dailies are the worst feature ever added to video games”-post. It’s not like I’ve talked about it enough already, is it?

The thing is, I feel it just bears repeating. Incentives to do the same stuff over and over – combined with a heavy dose of Fear Of Missing Out – day after day, week after week, manage to sour me on even the greatest of games.

Case in point: Genshin Impact.

Yes, keep me busy please, and thank you

I have played Genshin Impact every day for just over ten months now. Mainly because it is an awesome and fun game, make no mistake. However, for the last couple of weeks I wasn’t feeling it and would most likely have taken a break, were it not for all the stuff that I need to do every day.

Of course I don’t actually need to do any of these things, not really, but the game has conditioned me to feel like I do. Hence, despite not being in the mood, I had quite the routine going. Every fricking day.

In the morning, before work:

1. 1. Log in and claim the daily Primogem stipend (works like a monthly subscription for five bucks)
   2. Go to the alchemy table and craft Resin into Condensed Resin
   3. Visit the adventurer’s guild, collect expedition rewards and send characters off to do new expeditions
   4. Visit the blacksmith and craft some crystals into weapon XP mats

And in the afternoon or evening:

1. 1. Log in and claim finished XP mats from the blacksmith
   2. Craft some more Condensed Resin
   3. Decide what to do with said Resin, then run some domains, ley lines or bosses to spend it
   4. Visit the teapot and claim realm curreny and friendship XP
   5. Claim battle pass rewards

In addition there are some weekly tasks that I usually took care of right at the start of the week or, if not, on the weekend:

1. 1. Kill the four weekly bosses
   2. Do three bounties and three requests for one of the cities
   3. Tick off some more battle pass weeklies like “Spend 500k Mora”

Yeah, no, I really haven’t got anything better to do

Now, I’m not saying doing any of this is unpleasant per se. It’s not. It’s just always the same, and I don’t feel like doing it right now but do it anyway so as to not miss out on the rewards. Also, all of this takes time. Time I’d currently rather spend doing something else.

There have been days lately when I came home from work eager to play Warframe, only that I “had to do” the Genshin stuff first, and once I was done with that I wasn’t in the mood to play anything anymore.

This stops now.

As of today I’m taking a cold turkey kind of break from Genshin Impact, because I just have to. I don’t want the game to sour on me for good. I’d much rather wait for my desire to play and enjoy the game to return, and then have fun with it again.

I feel much better already

Obviously all of this means that without those incentives to log in I would have stopped doing so a couple of weeks earlier than I actually did, which is exactly why they exist in the first place of course.

However, I still doubt that enticing players to keep logging in regularly in this manner is actually beneficial for a game and its makers long-term. If I stop playing a game that I really like for a while because I just need a little change of scenery, chances are I’ll be back sooner rather than later, probably with much renewed vigor to boot.

If I stop playing because I’m fed up with it though…who knows whether I’ll be back at all.

Blaugust 2021 post count: 6

Year four – more Other Stuff than MMOs

No blogiversary-post without a cake

We’ve circled the sun yet another time and I’m still posting (somewhat) regularly around here, so go me I guess.

Still, the blog’s fourth year has been a weird one, and for once COVID-19 wasn’t the main culprit to blame. I mean, sure, after a while masks, distancing, lockdowns and all that shit started to get to me just like everyone else, and I can’t say I’ve been my usual, upbeat self during these surreal times.

The main reason for my change in gaming habits and, as a result, my blogging is something else though: there just isn’t any MMORPG I’d really like to play right now.

It’s not that there aren’t any good ones available, quite the contrary. And, as Bhagpuss accurately notes, there are currently more new and promising releases waiting in the wings than we’ve had in years. I am definitely keeping an eye on Swords of Legends Online, and I’ll most certainly at least try it out when it launches. I also still log into EVE Online every now and again.

There’s always stuff to shoot in space

My enthusiasm for the MMORPG genre as a whole is at an all-time low however. Of course many things have changed during the 20 years since I started to play Ultima Online, and as far as I’m concerned definitely not all of them for the better. Yet after thinking quite a lot about it lately I’ve come to realize: it’s not the genre, it’s me.

I definitely still love the RPG part of the acronym, and I have no qualms regarding the O being in there either. No, it’s the MM aspect that’s become more and more of a turnoff for me.

Guild drama (and drama in general), bad pugs, trolls, people trying to tell me what I can and cannot do with my free time… I could – and probably will – write a whole post of its own about why having other players around is much more bane than boon to me these days.

Peace and calm…yeah, this is much more like it

I guess that’s why I still very much enjoy playing Genshin Impact, which has been my main game – and, at times, my only game – for eight months straight now. It pushes almost all of the buttons that made me addicted to MMORPGs in the first place – exploration, character progression, combat, getting to know a foreign world and then becoming a part of it, and now even housing – without the “baggage” of having other people around. Sorry folks, but that’s just how I feel right now.

Of course there are downsides to playing in self-imposed seclusion too. I’ve argued myself that other players are what puts the spice, the adventure into online games, and I still stand by that. As much fun as I’ve had playing Genshin, Warframe and a handful of other games this past year, I certainly don’t feel like I’ve been on any real adventures while doing so.

Surprisingly, though, I can kinda live with that. As I’ve come to realize it can actually be quite soothing to know in advance that any given play session will most likely not turn into an adrenaline-filled frenzy.

Home is where the heart is

However, I started this blog to write about my gaming adventures first and foremost. You know, about stuff that really excited me when it happened, that I feel the need to preserve and also show to other people, to maybe help them understand why I like to sit at my desk and play these games so much.

It’s probably no surpsise, then, that I’ve published less posts during the blog’s fourth year than any other. Even my first year, when I was still finding my footing and nothing I did had any regularity or plan to it, saw 34 posts published, compared to just 29 within the past twelve months.

Will that change again? Most likely. I’ve been fed up with MMORPGs in the past, and I’ve always come back. I do like having those adventures very much, after all.

Until then my posting cadence will probably remain on the lower end. But don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.

A teapot to call home

Two weeks ago Version 1.5 went live in Genshin Impact. As that number suggests it’s the game’s fifth major update since its launch in September 2020, and for me personally it’s the most important one yet: among other cool things like new bosses to fight we got – cue drum roll – a housing system! Yes, really.

Puntastically called the Serenitea Pot it’s not “just” an apartment or a house, but a whole archipelago or mountain plateau for players to furnish and design to their liking. It isn’t flawless, but miHoYo already said that they’re still working on improving and expanding it, and even as it is now it’s already surprisingly good.

After a short questline we get to choose one of three layouts (to begin with) for our very own magical realm located inside an actual teapot. This fits the game’s lore as we’ve already visited a couple of those realms during the Liyue storyline.

Initially the area is completely empty except for a main building – your actual house – and an NPC appropriately named Tubby.

Sitting here all day is obviously bad for your health, mate

Tubby is the realm’s manager of sorts. Obtaining realm currency, buying furniture and blueprints with said currency as well as crafting items is managed here. Your trust rank is raised by building furnishings for the first time, which in turn unlocks more blueprints, additional slots for the crafting queue and even grants access to more real estate around your main island.

Realm currency accumulates in real time whether you’re logged in or not, which is good. The amount you get per hour depends on your realm’s score…which ain’t so good, at least initially. The more items you’ve placed inside and outside of your house the higher your score; consequently you’ll most likely plop down everything you have, even if it doesn’t really fit your artistic vision. I do think that this is only a beginner’s issue though, reaching (or keeping) the highest score by building your dream realm just the way you want it should be an organic process and sort itself out over time.

It’s not talked about much, but alongside the teapot we also got a new form of gathering: woodcutting.

Unsurprisingly, in order to craft furnishings some materials are needed. Silk flowers to make fabric, various fruits and plants for dyes, ore for…well, stuff that’s made out of metal, and, of course, various types of wood for most furniture.

The gathering process isn’t elaborate at all, but somehow strangely satisfying: you whack any tree in the open world with whatever weapon you have equipped, and it drops one piece of wood, up to three pieces total.  As trees are abundant and wood respawns daily or upon relogging (Ha, get it? I only just now got it!) acquiring the desired amounts isn’t hard. The only thing left to figure out is which of the seven types of wood spawns where, but that’s not too hard to deduce either. Anyhow, I like it.

Now to the most important part. Placing furnishings is easy and – thank god – not constrained by an anchor system or nonsense like that. There are some restrictions though. For example, most items are strictly classified as indoor- or outdoor-furniture and can only be used as such; if there’s a way to work around that I haven’t found it yet. Also, not everything is stackable on top of each other. I can place lamps and vases on a table, but not a pile of books on a bookshelf, although it looks like it should have plenty of space for that.

Some features, on the other hand, are not only really good but, in my opinion, bordering on groundbreaking. “Furniture Sets”, for instance.

You acquire a variety of these sets over time, and each one gives you the ability to place a pre-arranged combination of furnishings, like the dining area above. You still have to build or buy the items needed for the set first, but once you have them all you can place the whole set en bloc with just a few clicks. Even better, you can still tweak each piece individually after placing the set, giving the arrangement a personal note if you’re so inclined.

Not only is this easier and quicker than placing the items one by one, the sets can also be a great source of inspiration for folks who aren’t all that creative in this regard.

The house itself is spacious and looks pretty nice on the inside too. Both versions (there’s Mondstadt style as seen throughout this post, and Liyue style) have two stories, with a large open space and three adjacent rooms on the ground floor and a gallery-like level above that. The latter also has two doors, but unfortunately those won’t open as of yet. To get to my really nice balconies I actually have to scale my manor’s outside walls like a burglar. I hope they’ll do something about that in future updates.

Once you’ve bought the corresponding blueprints you can even replace floors, ceilings, walls and the main chandeliers with different looking ones; by now I have a much nicer cedar parquet floor in my main hall instead of the chequered one you see above.

At higher trust ranks the currency I mentioned can also be used to buy progression items like resin replenishments, weapon or character XP and Mora. While it’s certainly a smart move from miHoYo’s perspective to incentivise using the teapot even if you’re not a fan of housing, I don’t like this very much.

Firstly, it excacerbates the compulsion to unlock, build and place stuff as quickly as possible even further, which kind of defeats the purpose of a housing system as a more “zen” activity.

Secondly, it’s most likely the reason for the whole thing being locked behind reaching Adventure Rank 35 – which I hadn’t really taken note of in the patch notes as AR restrictions usually don’t affect me anymore, but Bhagpuss reminded me of it. Now, it doesn’t take that long to reach AR 35 if you set your mind to it, but I think it’s pretty stupid to gate a housing system like that at all.

All things considered I’m pretty happy though, especially since I know more is coming still. Also, in case you forgot, this isn’t an MMORPG. For what’s basically a single player RPG with optional four player Co-Op, primarily developed for mobile platforms, a housing system as substantial as this is already much more than I’d dared to hope for.

I do have a wishlist for those future updates however, because of course I do:

• Make the house’s interior part of the teapot’s main-instance instead of the separate instance it is now. This would spare us the additional loading screens each time we’re going in our out, and also greatly increase the immersion factor. Also, what good is a balcony for when I can’t actually get to it?
• Let us use all furnishings wherever we want, inside or out (except those that are too large for indoor use, obviously).
• Let us stack more items on top of each other.  Encouraging creativity is king.
• Some more functionality would be great. We already have forge, stove and alchemy table (awesome!), access to the adventurer’s guild is pretty much the only important thing that’s missing now.
• Add new blueprints to our crafting selections immediately, don’t make us go to our inventories and consume them first.
• Maybe think about lowering the AR restriction. Making players wait this long until they can experience a game’s housing system really doesn’t make sense to me.
• And please, for the love of god, let us switch between Tubby’s menus without having to start the conversation all over again each time (this goes for pretty much all of the game’s NPCs, by the way). I swear, I’ll throw that fat finch into the stove when I have to listen to its greeting line just one more time!

Fingers crossed.

Three changes that would make Genshin Impact even better

Having played the game daily for about five months now I think I have a pretty good grasp of which aspects of its design do and do not work well. It’s a great game overall, don’t get me wrong, but in my opinion it could be even more enjoyable with some tweaks here and there.

I’m going to try and keep it reasonable though, so don’t expect me to say “They should get rid of the gacha mechanics and make their monetization non-predatory and fair” because, while I obviously would welcome such a change, it’s just not going to happen.

Without further ado, here are three possible adjustments to Genshin Impact that I think would be really great for its players while not hurting miHoYo’s bottom line – at least I assume they wouldn’t; in fact they might actually turn out to be beneficial for the company’s profits.

Usual combat rewards on the left, expenses at lvl 79 on the right

Greatly increase XP and Mora rewarded for combat

While we do get some character-XP and Mora for killing monsters in the open world the amounts are so negligible that they might not even be there.

Despite this being the case I still only level most of my characters to 79 instead of 80, for example, but that’s just because I’m weird like that and won’t let anything go to waste, however little it might be. In reality though, it would take years for an 80+ character to gain another level this way.

The thing is, unless there’s an event going on getting hold of XP materials and Mora in actually useful amounts is, like most everything, gated by the resin system. I get why they do it that way, but at least in this case I think it’s a mistake.

Here’s why: being able to level up all my characters would feel much better, be more fun and also make me want to have even more characters.

This is so sad…

You see, at the time of this writing I have 26 characters at my disposal, and the max level is 90. However, the current level-distribution is as follows (rounded):

• • Level 90: zero (!)
  • Level 80: seven
  • Level 70: five
  • Level 2-60: four
  • Level 1: ten

Now, it’s not that I can’t play the game well with these characters, quite the contrary. As a matter of fact the difficulty curve I talked about a while ago flattened considerably once I’d reached adventure rank 40 and stopped doing daily comissions, and by now my teams smash everything but the lowest two levels of Spiral Abyss with relative ease.

Still, all those characters sitting glumly at level 1? I really would like to level those up too, and getting my main damage dealers up to 90 wouldn’t hurt either. Alas, I can’t afford it. As a consequence I’m not looking forward to any new character banners right now. Even if they look really interesting, I just don’t need any more when I can’t even use half of those I already have.

What’s more, roaming the open world and killing stuff would be much more enjoyable and feel more rewarding if we could actually level up our characters that way and also earn some Mora while we’re at it.

As long as it isn’t excessively overtuned I don’t think this would break anything either. The game has so bloody many progression-bottlenecks – character ascension- and XP-mats, weapon ascension- and XP-mats, talent books, artifacts, Mora – that loosening the chains a bit on two of those wouldn’t result in us getting bored or fed up anytime soon.

So, what happens when players have more fun, feel more rewarded and are even encouraged to get hold of and level up more characters? If you gave this a shot it might well turn into a win-win situation, you folks at miHoYo. Just sayin’.

This was really fun…while it lasted

Make event-content permanent with reduced rewards

All those great gameplay additions that came alongside the numerous events we got to play since the game’s release? Yeah, they’re all gone now.

I’m not a developer, so I don’t have a realistic notion of how much work went into that stuff, but I’m pretty sure it was too much to just throw it all away after a week or two.

What’s more, it was ‘something else to do’ for players. And also fun. Why not make it permanent?

Oh, I get it, they want us to feel that FOMO really bad. But trust me, as long as the rewards remain on the generous side (a tad more primogems would be even better though!) we’ll still log in every day to participate in the actual events for sure. But once those are over, just dial the rewards back considerably and let us continue to play the stuff if we want to.

I’ll use Theater Mechanicus as an example. They could bring this back and let us play it as often as we like. The reward per match could be a choice of either, say, 30k Mora, two blue talent books or two blue ascension mats. The first two matches per week are free, after that it costs 10 resin per. Maybe those numbers aren’t quite optimal yet, but you get the idea.

This would encourage all players to engage with the content at least from time to time, while giving those who really love doing it the option to earn their Mora or character mats this way instead of doing leylines and domains, without either being the obviously better choice.

Fire ventures with you? Fine, but please leave me out of it!

Make constellations toggleable

For non-whales constellations mainly exist to take the sting out of getting duplicates from the gacha system and are supposed to make the characters in question stronger.

However, the effects of some character’s constellations can actually have a negative impact, depending on how you play them and which other characters you team them up with.

The most obvious one is Bennett’s C6 (shown above), which makes his ultimate ability convert most characters’ normal and charged attacks to Pyro damage. Under the right circumstances this can be really great. Unfortunately, if your group’s main damage dealer mainly relies on physical damage (and thus probably wears gear with bonuses to that type of damage on it) this actually lowers their damage output considerably.

So…you’d like us to happily pull for more characters and constellations, right? Then at least make sure that we can’t accidentally mess up our characters by doing so and give us a toggle for all constellations please.

This is supposed to always be a joyous moment, isn’t it?

And there you have it. I think these changes would make an already great game even better, and while I’m not an expert on such things I really believe that none of this would make players spend less money on it…so why not do it?

Accuracy is a bad stat in MMORPGs

The other day I was fiddling around with my characters’ artifacts in Genshin Impact, pondering which ones to keep or ditch, which to upgrade further or leave as is and so forth.

Getting really good artifacts like the one seen above is quite hard as there’s a lot of RNG involved.

Firstly, the main- and sub-stats they drop with are – with a few exceptions – completely random. You can (and regularly do) even get pieces of such a set, this one is obviously meant for Hydro characters for example, with a bonus to, say, Pyro damage as its main stat. While such an item isn’t necessarily useless it certainly isn’t what you’re hoping for when farming a particular set.

Secondly, each time you raise an artifact’s level by 4 it gets an additional (random) sub-stat unless it already had four. In the latter case one of the existing sub-stats is chosen, you guessed it, randomly to get a boost.

MOAR CRITS, MOAR DAMAGE, MUCH GOOD!!

It isn’t all bad though. With perseverance and a bit of luck it’s absolutely possible to get very strong artifacts, as you can see here.

The main reason for this, I believe, is that there aren’t actually that many different stats for the RNG to choose from. Therefore you’re gonna hit the desired combination eventually.

Anyway, all this made me think about the different kinds of stats I’ve encountered over the decades in various RPGs, MMO or otherwise, which finally brings us to the point I’m trying to make today: depending on class, playstyle et cetera there are always desirable stats and undesirable stats…

…and then there’s Accuracy.

Seriously though…why?

I’m really glad that Accuracy doesn’t exist in Genshin Impact because, as far as I’m concerned, it is the most annoying, unnecessary and, above all, unfun stat of them all.

The way I see it Accuracy, sometimes called Hit Rating or somesuch instead, is a remnant of Pen & Paper RPGs that should never have made its way into RPGs played on digital devices in real time.

“But Mail, when characters in Dungeons & Dragons have a THAC0 it makes sense that characters in computer- or console-RPGs have it too, right?”

Well, no. Let me explain why.

When you play Pen & Paper a dice roll is usually the only way to determine whether or not your character succeeds at whatever it is you want them to do (unless the GM hates you or something). If you didn’t need to win those rolls your alter ego would be pretty much infallible because in order to make them do something you but need to say it.

Go ahead, try to do that in a real time video game. I’ll wait.

Didn’t work out so well, did it? That’s the thing. ‘Telling’ your character what to do is so much more complex and, at times, difficult in Action RPGs, MMORPGs and other games of their ilk nowadays that this already is the challenge. Adding an arbitrary dice roll to decide whether you succeed or not is not only unnecessary, it’s downright mean.

So you’ve positioned your character correctly, selected the right target and pushed your myriad of buttons in the optimal order and all at the right time? Well done to you, mate, but unfortunately the dice roll says that you failed to interrupt the boss’s one-shot mechanic, and now you’re dead.

Sounds like fun? Yeah, didn’t think so.

In order to minimize those frustrations you can try to maximize your Accuracy-stat of course. I see two problems with that though.

One, more than a few games that have a Chance To Hit mechanic also have a hard cap for it, so you’ll still fail a roll every so often no matter how much of the stat you stack on your gear, which makes it even more unfun.

Two, and this is what bugs me the most, it’s a must-have stat that does basically nothing for you. In The Secret World and SWTOR I stacked as much Accuracy on my tank gear as theorycrafters had figured out was necessary to practically (in SWTOR’s case literally) have a 100% chance to hit in any situation, just to be sure I’d never miss an important impair or taunt, respectively.

So what I did was, in essence, to waste a whole lot of my available stat pool to make sure I’d never realize it’s even there.

Ok, maybe I just fell off the platform this time…

But isn’t raising our characters’ stats supposed to be one of the really fun things about playing RPGs? Hitting harder, running faster, jumping higher, all that jazz…that’s fun! Notice how “Missing less often” isn’t on that list, and it feels even worse when I’m basically forced to pour stats into this instead of those other things that are actually enjoyable.

And, again, having another way to fail in video games where the difference between victory and defeat hinges as much on my skill as a player as it does on my character’s stats anyway is just not necessary. I can easily manage to screw up on my own, thank you very much.

So, yeah, I know where the Accuracy stat is coming from and why it makes sense in its original context. But can we please get rid of it in MMO- and Action-RPGs? Like, for good?

Don’t miss out on this – Genshin Impact

An event is currently running in Genshin Impact – as per usual – and I highly advise anyone who’s played and liked the game before to put Valheim away for a bit (c’mon, we all know you’re playing that one right now) and take a look. It’s so worth it on every level!

The event is called Lantern Rite and is most likely based on the Chinese spring lantern festival. Storywise it’s full of feelgood-moments and laughs, the new gameplay mode is awesome, rewards are great and festively decorated Liyue Harbor is a sight to behold.

The quests are all centered around helping Liyue’s populace with their various preparations for the festival, and they’re quite numerous.

I won’t lie, gameplay-wise these aren’t revelatory in any way, shape or form. But, again, the stories are mostly quite good, and you learn a lot about various people, many of which you’ve already met before while doing world quests or daily comissions. I’m really curious now about what the future might bring for some of those NPCs, which is a feat not many games have managed to accomplish.

The new game mode is called Theater Mechanicus, and it’s basically tower defense, Genshin Impact style.

On first glance it’s simple: monsters come out of one or more purple portals and walk (or run) towards one or more blue exit portals. You can’t deal damage with your characters directly, but applying elemental statuses with your attacks works. The only way to actually damage the mobs is to build automated turrets. They come in different flavors, and those that deal elemental damage can also trigger one of the various elemental reactions for even more damage.

The turrets have varying ranges and attack speeds, so careful placement is key, as is choosing the right characters going in. Those that match the turrets you’re intending to use best for setting up the strongest elemental reactions will yield the most devastating results.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure whether I was going to like this mode as tower defence isn’t exactly my cup of tea. But I gotta tell you, this is so much fun!

It’s incredibly satisfying to set up big reactions and see a whole bunch of those big shield-wielding hilichurls explode in an instant. Or, even better, once I’d upgraded my hydro turret to level 5 and thus unlocked its ability to trap monsters in a bubble of water I instantly knew what I was going to do: give those annoying Abyss mages a taste of their own damn medicine!

Setting this up took a bit of work, but the result made me squeal with glee

It’s even more fun with a partner – yes, two player Co-Op is enabled for this mode. Lakisa and I play at least a couple of rounds every evening since the event went live.

Of course the rewards are nothing to sneeze at either.

As you can see I’ve already accumulated a lot of the event currency. What can I say, I’m saving up for a big shopping spree, hehe. There’s talent and ascension materials on offer, XP scrolls, Mora, the lot. A very rare Crown of Insight, an item needed to get a character’s talents to level 10, can also be bought, as well as an event-exclusive namecard style.

Probably the best reward of all, at least for F2P players, is a free four-star character. This isn’t the first time that’s happened, but which character we’d get had always been predetermined until now. Well, not this time:

All of these characters are really strong in their own way, so there should be something there for everyone.

At the time of this writing there’s 10 days and 15 hours remaining to play the event, so there’s still plenty of time to see and do everything. What are you waiting for?

I gotta say though, in my opinion it’s a shame that it’s all going to go away so soon. I really hope miHoYo is at least considering leaving Theater Mechanicus in the game in some form. It would be a real waste to take it out completely because it’s well made content that surely took quite a while to develop, and, well, is a lot of fun.

Thanks Paimon, I’ll take it!

Technically not tied to the event, but still worth patching up the game for too, is the current log-in campaign. Most notable are the up to ten Intertwined Fates you can get, which means ten free pulls from one of the time-limited gacha banners containing characters and weapons exclusive to those banners. There’s 8 days and 15 hours left to claim these seven reward tiers, so better get to it right now.

I’m still surprised about the high quality and quantity of content this game keeps getting. Again though, it’s a shame that so much of it isn’t permament, and I really hope they’re planning to bring the best events back at some point – maybe on a yearly schedule or something?

Anyway, you’ll have to excuse me, those turrets aren’t gonna build themselves…