Board 8 > Sell me on this Genshin Impact thing

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Just started it, and aside from virtual controls being awful as always, it seems like a nice game. But, of course, it's F2P, which usually means a game that would be good if you could just buy it has been deliberately ruined in order to make constant purchases both necessary and worthless.

So, how badly has it been monetised, is it possible to just follow the story freely/cheaply if I don't care about PvP or rankings, and is there any beginners' advice on how to get the most out of gacha?

Also, what's Honkai Impact? I thought I'd read somewhere that it was an earlier game in the same 'series', but then somewhere else said that it was a Genshin tie-in? But looks more sci-fi than Genshin's fantasy.
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BlackMageJawa posted...

if I don't care about PvP or rankings

There's no such thing, at least thus far, it's single player with co op parts if you feel like doing it. Nothing major is blocked behind having difficult-to-obtain gacha characters; there is an endgame dungeon that has some high requirements to clear perfectly, but that's hardly essential.

BlackMageJawa posted...

is there any beginners' advice on how to get the most out of gacha?

If you want to avoid paying altogether? The free currency is fed very slowly even for this sort of game, so unless you have something specific in mind, you might as well just use what you have whenever someone who looks interesting shows up. It's easier if you stomach the Welkin Moon monthly pass.

BlackMageJawa posted...

Also, what's Honkai Impact? I thought I'd read somewhere that it was an earlier game in the same 'series', but then somewhere else said that it was a Genshin tie-in? But looks more sci-fi than Genshin's fantasy.

It's an earlier game. Genshin Impact is a loose spinoff. Extremely loose; you would have to know the lore pretty well to recognize any connections. Which I don't.

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Once you exhaust the story and world exploration, you begin to see that Genshin Impact is a gacha game at heart. You have daily things you need to do: grind the same four daily quests, grind for artifacts, mine materials to upgrade your weapons, and scavage field items and monster drops to accend your characters. I've hit Adventure Rank 56 and completely bored of the game. The only interesting part is trying out new characters, but they're mostly tied behind a .6% gacha rate.

The story is pretty easy and can be done completely with the free characters you obtain. Obviously you want to drop weak characters like Lisa and Amber asap. In my personal opinion, you absolutely need the battle pass and welkin if you want to have any sort of fun with the game. You don't need to buy anything else. Think of it as a monthly subscription fee for MMOs.

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Please don't play gacha games

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Ive spent $0 on it, over 300 hours and find it a lot of fun even if itd be ideal if some stuff was changed. The world is huge and is only going to get bigger when they add all the other regions theyve planned out. Honestly I think its pretty fun despite containing gacha poison.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/79305429

Some helpful links in the first post.

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Xiahou Shake posted...

Please don't play gacha games

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Play lots of gacha games.

Just not Genshin.

I enjoyed Genshin Impact in the time I played. It was fun exploring and rambling around the world; the battle system was fun; the world and characters were charming. But I got to a point where I needed to grind several Adventure Ranks to advance the plot, and I really didn't feel like getting on and doing dailies and farming mats and such, so I stopped.

Weirdly I'd still recommend it. I never paid anything and did just fine with 4* and free characters. And because it's free, you don't have to feel bad about dropping it if it's not your style.
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Change the VA to anything but English.

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I played it without any money or grinding and it works pretty well. There's a lull at like 20h in, but it's not too much to get past that doing dailies. It looks like there's huge amounts of grinding you can do, but it isn't necessary at all.

It kinda sucks because everything scales with you past level 20, which boosts your rewards, which just let's you scale more, canceling out any growth you did. So you don't need to level because leveling doesn't really matter to the gameplay. The game does recognize this, and gives new quests and events often, so it can easily be an occasional thing instead of a daily thing.

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Oh and the writing, gameplay, world is pretty good. Way better than a typical gacha and better than most open world games tbh.

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Unless you're someone with addiction issues, just try it. Up until the point where you exhaust all the main content, it plays like a big open-world adventure game with a ton of areas to explore and loads of secrets to find.

There's an ongoing discussion topic on the game as well as a channel in discord if you need more info.

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