First, a quick summary regarding how I view the game in general. Genshin Impact for me is what I refer to as a filler game. The story (with new major updates such as with the opening of Fontaine) and exploration aspect, is what draws me back to the game as a casual potato.
The only times I logged in almost everyday was early on (during the 1.x era), and especially during that short period when I had an active sub (Blessing of the Welkin Moon) in the 2-3 months leading into Inazuma (since I wanted a buffer to pull several characters). I also stopped doing daily commissions before Tsurumi Island was opened (whenever I did play, I would occasionally do them like when they were tied to a web event).
Additionally, I stopped doing Spiral Abyss (the only real end game in Genshin) since the carrot that is dangled, isn’t really worth it (plus I know from my other uncapped account that I stopped playing after Inazuma opened, was to just keep my main one capped at AR45 where I don’t have to grind to get better artifacts). Remember, it’s all relative because while my characters end up capped at level 80 (and I cannot attain the highest talent levels), monster damage and hit points are capped well below my character level. In a game like Genshin, I’m not looking for constant challenges (more so as I’ve become more comfortable being ultra casual).
I bring this up since playing the game this way has prevented me from encountering the sort of burn out that many OG Genshin players have been experiencing. miHoYo/Hoyoverse isn’t going to change their existing formula for the game because they don’t have to (whales still throw money at it while the competition hasn’t been able to steal away enough players to make a dent in the engagement metrics). So their updates follow a fairly predictable pattern when it comes to major/minor content patches, filled in between with events (I also don’t try to do every single one of these events either).
I did clear some archon and story quests that were beginning to really pile up though since even though they implemented a way to start some event quests that had pre-requisites, there was beginning to be a lot more of them where a required NPC character was “busy” with one of these yet to be completed story quests (whatever backend design they had to block NPC’s this way, really needs to be undone like how it is in Honkai: Star Rail (HSR), where all it takes is changing the navigation to temporarily unblock that condition). To be even more blunt, a lot of these issues including the streamlining of dailies that is in HSR, really needs to be implemented in Genshin). I haven’t yet completed all of Sumeru’s story and world quests yet either (it piles up this way when I play this as a filler title that I have no desire to play every day).
With 4.0 and Fontaine, they made a big change where players need to have only completed the Mondstadt story quests in order to unlock the Fontaine MSQ. If not, an actual new player would face a multitude of hours playing through Liyue, Inazuma, and Sumeru. Yes, that means they need to stop having way too many references for prior areas being major parts of the lore/MSQ in these newer continents going forward. As it stands, there’s already a lot of details that I’ve shoveled off from all of the prior continents (and as each new zone is released, this is only going to get worse to keep track of). I know there are some lore focused players who do keep track of this stuff in detail, but I’ve personally reached a point where I don’t want to have all of that stuff cluttering my mind (this is another change as I’ve gotten older).
With that said though, one of the biggest exploration components I had previously mentioned (as something that would be great for the game), has finally come to the game; underwater exploration. I’ve long compared and given Genshin a lot of high marks for its exploration when putting it side-by-side with Guild Wars 2 (which I really enjoyed when I leveled via exploration). The verticality in Genshin is excellent with physics to match. The only thing that was missing was being able to dive underwater. With Fontaine being the land of hydro, they finally delivered this game play. It’s only available in Fontaine though (I don’t see them changing the rest of the world though similar to how they haven’t made the Waverider system available for Mondstadt and Liyue except for some temporary events).
Digressing, this is actually the mindboggling part about the game; there’s so many one-and-done content they make (prime example was the initial Golden Apple Archipelago or this recent summer event with the temporary Veluriyam Mirage zone). I wrote about this before (where a lot of this could be repurposed as game systems that could be used to obtain materials via alternative means) where the game play loop could be really expanded (but it is clear this is not their objective).
Nonetheless, it is still impressive what their designers are able to come up with for new game play elements that even if they are mostly one-and-done, makes the game play loop intriguing. Sure some puzzles can turn into annoyances/tedium. However, most of them tend to be well done (and since I just started Fontaine, haven’t really encountered many of them yet; I haven’t even unraveled most of the ones in Sumeru yet). Additionally, while I’ve unlocked a lot of the Fontaine waypoints and completed several world quests, I’m still part way through the MSQ on Sumeru that opens the Fontaine story line. Yes, there is some disjointing aspects like this given the change they made to access, but I don’t mind that you can play this way either.
I sort of expect to begin falling behind on the story quests again (I haven’t even mentioned the various character story quests since I haven’t done most of them due to their contingency on having completed the prerequisite ones) unless I hit one of those points where I am in the mood for lengthy story/lore sessions (but I also don’t want Genshin to be monopolizing most of my time either).
