I started Genshin Impact back in November with the release of version 1.2. Now, after reaching AR 50/world level 6 (soon to be 7) and doing virtually all quests, I’ve largely “caught up” to the main body of players who started before me. I’ve got a decent main team, some good (4-star) weapons, and some barely acceptable artifacts. The rest is just self-directed self-improvement while I wait for the next big area to be released.

This is the great drawback of jumping into an MMORPG(ish)/gacha game shortly after release – there just isn’t much content yet. Though with the millions that Mihoyo is raking in every day, they really need to step up their game before fans get bored and run away. And by “fans” I mean “other players who aren’t me,” because I have nowhere to run away to. For now, anyway.

Obvious, it’s not that I don’t have any other games to play. Nah, if anything I’ve got way too many. It’s just that I’ve been spoiled rotten by the easy accessibility, bright colors and free exploration of Genshin Impact. It’s right there on my PC, it’s pretty, it’s immediately rewarding, and there hasn’t been any annoying main story to give me pressure in a while.

Contrast that with the most recent “regular” game I played: The Alliance Alive. Lovely little game, nothing against it. But tiny world is tiny! Bad music is bad! Dull colors are dull! Small cast is small! Boring, repetitive battles are boring and repetitive! etc etc. This is all stuff I wouldn’t mind so much if Genshin Impact wasn’t right there next to it like the smug top student the teacher always uses as an example.

So for any readers hoping I’ll get over my gacha game obsession and return to regular gaming soon, nnnoooo… that’s probably not gonna happen. It’s much more likely that I’ll get caught by the next shiny thing, like Bandai’s upcoming Blue Protocol. To successfully play “regular” games these days, I’ll either have to play something relatively similar, like Atelier Lulua or the upcoming Rune Factory 5 (bright colors, lots to explore, etc.) or completely different like a puzzle game, otome game or dungeon crawler. There’s little ground in between.

Oops, I digressed. I forgot what the purpose of this post was… Oh yeah, as I was saying, I’ve reached the stage in Genshin Impact where my progress is up to me. That means I can now take things slower, go where I want to go and work on what I want to work on. In theory.

Thanks to some gacha luck, the Xiao pull the other day and the ongoing “Stand By Me” event, I’ve got quite a number of new characters to raise. Especially Xingqiu, Ningguang and Keqing, who are said to be really good. I also need a non-Barbara, non-Bennett healer, so I’ll be giving Diona a bit of attention.

For world exploration, domains and commissions, I’m satisfied with my main team of Bennett, Xiangling, Fischl and either Chongyun or Xiao as the situation demands. Benny brings the heals and buffs, Xiangling is good for pyro resonance + AFK attacking with Guoba and Pyronado. Fischl is also good for AFK bonus damage, thanks to Oz who hits like a truck lately, best bird ever. Chongyun’s ice field gives good damage boosts to Pyro attacks, but the guy himself… I’ve failed him:

I haven’t gotten any good Crit Rate damage Gladiator artifacts since I started the game, so he still has his base rate, which is awful. So I need to do some farming for him. A crit-rate boosting claymore would be nice too. For all prospective players: Crit Rate and Crit Damage are king. If you get any artifacts with them as main/sub stats, don’t fodder them away easily!

For the next couple of weeks, my focus will be:
– Uncapping Chongyun, Xiao and Fischl past level 80. Actually raising them to level 90 would take too long, but the unlock alone boosts damage.
– Uncapping the weapons for my main team past level 80.
– Uncapping and leveling Sucrose and Barbara to level 80. They’re useful supports, but this isn’t a priority.
– Uncapping and leveling Diona, Keqing, Ningguang and Xingqiu, but very slowly and lazily.
– Making a final attempt to get good artifacts for my main team. The game knows what I need and refuses to drop it.
– Raising talents to at least level 9 when all of that is done and I have the money to spare.

It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s going to take a looong time because of the resin (stamina) system. That means, despite my boasting about “going where I want to go,” there’s only so much I can achieve in each day towards my main goals. Log in, do commissions, use resin on domains/bosses, log out. All these things won’t take more than an hour a day to do, and that’s if I dawdle.

Which means… strictly speaking, I should be able to fit other games into my busy schedule if I really want to. And indeed I just tried a regular PC game an hour or two ago. And it froze on me 5 minutes in. Riiight. I took that as a sign from my desktop that it prefers Genshin Impact, so it’s back to Teyvat I go. Adios~