In my previous posting, I added more details on my initial favorable impressions of the game where I had also mentioned the Resin system (a gating mechanic) where I said it was something “I didn’t see as as an issue for myself like the way a try hard or competitive player that wants to beat the games most difficult content first, sees that entire system.”
I most definitely need to revise my entire take on that now that I’ve experienced a part of the game over this past weekend that I didn’t expect. Again, I’m sort of playing this blindly and learning/unpacking the progression system as I go. What I didn’t realize was that just like how you reach these caps with your character and weapon level (where you then need to Ascend them), the same thing happens with your Adventure Ranking (AR). I had hit AR 25 but did not know you had to complete a World Quest that upon successful completion, would allow continuing to AR 26.
The game never did convey this quest (or if it did, it disappeared from display since you have to hit “V”quickly when a quest is presented in order for it remain on screen) so I was merrily running around the world collecting Geoculus in Liyue and unlocking chests/defeating mobs as I encountered them. And I focused on leveling up each of my characters along with their weapons and artifacts. This is when the progression bottleneck presented itself as my next story quests unlocked at AR 26. My main character and its weapon were already capped out at level 50 (where I need to hit AR 30 to be able to Ascend both). For the other elemental characters, ascending them to level them past 40, required materials that I learned involved tackling the elite world bosses.
My co-op mode was also temporarily disabled since having it unlocked again required completing a different World Quest (even co-op mode is periodically locked from use and gated behind quests that need to be completed before being available again). I decided to tackle the world boss first and that’s when I learned that collecting the rewards from it would cost 40 Resin… 40 Resin out of a 120 cap (more than a third). And it can take hours to regen that 40. And you need to farm different bosses to get the proper materials for each elemental character. So now, the progression gates made more logical sense in terms of what was frustrating to hardcore players since they are going to be running into these walls much quicker (or I should say, have ran into weeks ago). So I need to take back what I wrote regarding “not seeing this as an issue for myself” since even as a casual player, I’ve now run into this very intentional design to slow down the rate of progression”.
With the right characters and/or party composition, soloing most of these bosses is doable (I have yet to use the co-op mode). But there is a caveat involved here when it comes to my own personal experience. Again, I had not realized up to this point about the quest I needed to complete in order to continue with my AR progression. So I’ve been blissfully unaware that I was capped at AR 25 and thus World Level 1 for nearly a week of play (I’m still accruing the adventure experience though). The caveat is that the mobs in the world are capped at World Level 1 damage, hit points, and rewards (including elite world bosses). I’ve just been running around the world, killing stuff, opening chests, and completing the random events that you come across (along with doing my daily commissions and running the key dungeons for my weapon ascension materials which costs 20 Resin to collect those rewards) where I wasn’t paying attention to actual quests.
At my current character/weapon levels, farming the world bosses solo at World Level 1 is doable. But if I had progressed through the Adventure Rank Ascension quest, my World Level would be 2 where all the open world mobs would be a bit more powerful. And there’s ascension mats that I haven’t yet farmed for my other characters to get them past level 40. Had I actually completed that AR Ascension quest where I only have one of my characters that has been ascended past level 40, I doubt I’d be able to clear some of these elite bosses. And my co-op mode is temporarily gated from use until I complete another World Quest that re-enables access. That quest which needs to be completed before co-op mode becomes enabled again, happens to also be an open world one (which means that the timed challenge for defeating enemies would also have more powerful ones if I were at World Level 2). It should be clear there is a problem here because there is the potential to become progression locked. None of this has anything to do with the gacha mechanics (that is primarily for pulling characters and weapons). This is simply a design oversight where there is no other way to acquire these mats except from these elite bosses that aren’t highlighted as progression mandatory much earlier once they become available at an earlier AR. If you aren’t farming these elites the moment they become accessible (once you reach a specific AR), you’re going to get screwed.
Digressing, one of the things that I really despised in Diablo III: Reaper of Souls was the entire timed greater rifts for it’s end game mode. In Genshin Impact, far too many progression quests are these timed challenges (defeating enemies or completing some puzzle before the clock runs out). In all of these cases, I do get the design objectives of challenging the player to put together the best gear and in the case of Genshin Impact, composing your party with the right elemental mix (these characters can be thought of as what would normally be skills on your skill bar – in this case, you need to gear and upgrade all of these characters which also have their own set of talents (auto attack, base elemental, and elemental ultimate) and the Constellation system to upgrade. And each character (depending on their element) has their own set of ascension mats that you need to farm (all limited by the Resin system).
But it gets really old when you fail the clock over and over again by just a small amount. It’s worse when you make a small mistake and end up getting chain stun locked (normally frozen by minions shooting freeze arrows at you as you try to take out the shield of a cryo abyss mage). Basically, there’s a point where these kind of mechanics end up being bullshit when you are up against a timer for quests you need to complete in order to continue progressing.
With regards to the key Resin stamina system, you (as the player) aren’t really subjected to its usage early on until you hit these breakpoints in your AR (where you can do these open world Ley Lines challenges and spend 20 Resin to collect the rewards or have various domains/dungeons where you can farm for ascension materials and also spend 20 Resin to collect them). Yes, Resin is a stamina system which is capped at 120 and slowly regenerates over time. There are two other ways to quickly replenish parts of it. You can use 50 Primogems to refill 60 Resin (up to 6 times per day) or use Fragile Resin (rewarded occasionally) where each restores 60 Resin. And it’s bad when someone like myself (I consider myself semi-casual) finally comes across the initial grinding mechanic to see how you are limited by this stamina.
Digressing, there’s a point where timed challenges (especially when they are constantly a part of your questing) can become a frustrating turnoff to players though because after a certain point, it’s obvious they are DPS or defensive checks. Due to how these progression gates are staggered in Genshin Impact, you are capped at how much you can outlevel open world mobs. So everyone eventually hits these walls where you either overcome the obstacles, or give up in frustration. I remember tackling the Lost Book story quest once it was offered (at around level 19) and kept failing on the final timed challenge by a few seconds. After the 10th time, I just stopped and continued to level my characters so that I could later return to it. It wasn’t until I hit level 30 that I went back, and finally completed that quest (but just barely since I had had only around 4 seconds remaining; one of my attacks fortunately crit and took out the final enemy).
IMHO, this unfortunately is terrible design because at so early on in the story quest progression, it’s going to catch some casual players off guard and effectively kill the fun they’ve been having up to that point. And there are a lot of these buzz killing timed challenges (basically a go to design). Curiosity got the better of me so I quickly looked up the Adventure Ranking Ascension quest and yes, it too requires completing these timed challenges to progress. And the game never did periodically poke me about that quest (I didn’t really pay attention to my quest log either since the game was giving me this freedom to go out and progress via other means). I don’t expect to be constantly hand held but conveyance should also be a design parameter when it comes to something as important as this.
So at AR 25, I’ve accrued nearly 20K adventure experience. And until I complete that AR ascension quest, this caps my character and weapon levels to 50 and my World Level to 1. Once I do complete that, my World Level will increase to 2 and thus the level of the open world mobs including the elite world bosses (which I need to farm for character ascension materials) will also increase. So right now, I have to pick and choose what I prioritize to do and that is to farm these world bosses for the character ascension mats needed. I need to pare back on gaining too much adventure experience because once I do progress and complete the ascension quest, I will attain several AR’s in the process which brings me closer to the next cap and progression gates. The fact that I am fully aware of this where I need to now curb my play (which has been on the casual side), has fully flipped my original positive impressions of the game. It’s fun up until the mid-level 30’s before you start hitting the next ascension caps. After that, it becomes a conscious grind with resource limitations.
A cursory search reveals that miHoYo is aware of some of the issues (from players that began at launch) and plans to address some of this in the next upgrade (part of that includes raising the Resin cap to 160; but from what I understand, the rest of the complaints players had regarding the regeneration rate or the quantity of the rewards, aren’t really being changed). For myself, this generally curbs the initial enthusiasm that I had including spending money on it (I was considering spending the $20 for the Gnostic Chorus for the next Battle Pass which starts in two weeks). I’m thinking of just keeping myself capped as is and wait for the next major content update that opens up more of the map (and just play that part of the game which I do enjoy).
