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Since this video is 1h 41m long and many people here on HN probably don’t know much about Genshin I’ll try and provide a brief summary of the game. Genshin is a

Since this video is 1h 41m long and many people here on HN probably don’t know much about Genshin I’ll try and provide a brief summary of the game. Genshin is an open world game in the style of Zelda BotW in which you play as an otherworldly traveler who was separated from their twin sibling by an unknown god when they arrived in the world of Teyvat. The sibling you picked then is kept asleep for 500 years until you wake up and begin your journey to find your sibling. This journey takes you across the world of Teyvat as you save people from dragons, Abyss monsters, and other threats. Gameplay wise you play with a team of four characters each with their own elemental skills and abilities. To beat the enemy mobs and bosses you have to combine these different elements to create reactions to amplify your damage. There are also a massive amount of open world puzzles to solve as you explore the world of Teyvat. The main problem people have with Genshin is that it is a gacha game so you gamble with premium currency to get new units and weapons. Although I do understand why people are extremely against this, in practice it isn’t that big of a problem in Genshin because of the pity system that guarantees that you will get the 5* unit you want after 180 pulls but will normally happen after 150-160 pulls because of the soft pity system that greatly increases your chance of getting a 5* after 74 pulls (the hard guarantee is at 90 pulls). You are also guaranteed a 4* character or weapon after every 10 pulls and these are also very strong compared to the 5* units. You can easily beat the game with only 4* units, and in fact one of the strongest team compositions in the game is made entirely of 4* units. So any claims about the game being P2W aren’t really accurate since there is no PvP content and the PvE content in the game is beatable by 4* units which are obtainable without spending money or a bunch of time grinding. So overall, I really enjoy Genshin and would recommend other people try it as well. It does have problems but they aren’t as extreme as people make them out to be.

wodenokoto 5y ago
> gacha game Parent knows this, but maybe other readers might not: Gacha is the Japanese name for those machines on the street where you put in a coin and a plastic sphere with a random toy comes out. Collecting a set of toys can get obsessive for some, in the same way collecting whatever in micro transaction games. I also have a question: other than the graphic styles isn’t genshin impact closer to the online final fantasy games or even modern jrpg such as xenoblade? I’ve never played genshin, but from the little I’ve seen it just seems it’s only the graphic style that matches BoTW
- kemayo 5y ago
  The BotW comparisons come because of the world traversal mechanics, mostly. Genshin very-exactly copied the free-climbing + stamina + glider system that's pretty distinctive in BotW.
minimaxir 5y ago
A few more notes: - You'll easily get 30+ hours unique of content with the main story without any need to pay money, which is good value for a free game. - As with all gacha games, you get a ton of free currency playing through the story naturally; more than enough to get a couple 5* naturally through pity or otherwise. - As noted, the 4* units aren't bad; in fact some of the higher tier ones are given for free with no strings attached. - Unlike other gacha, this isn't a difficult game for just playing casually (which is normally a meta-incentive for you to gamble with the gacha) unless you are doing super-endgame things. - Unlike other gacha, there is no competitive element with a leaderboard/other players (which is normally a meta-incentive for you to gamble with the gacha) The biggest problem I have with Genshin Impact is Artifact RNG, which is heavily layered with no determinism.
- 1023bytes 5y ago
  I second this, I've played this game casually for a couple weeks and never needed to spend any money. It just means slower progress, not no progress.
  - berdario 5y ago
    I played another gacha for about 2 years (stopped about 1 month ago). I tricked myself into playing it exactly like that: > Ok, I'll try it out... but I'll drop it as soon as I'll hit the paywall The problem is that the companies like Gameloft, Mihoyo, etc. got extremely refined in giving you a *semblance* of progress, while never completely grinding the progress to a halt. It's pretty obvious after you invested some time: you can do some actions, but only up to X times a day. You can refresh the X with premium currency. You can convert premium currency into normal currency. In the meanwhile, the tool/weapon/vehicle/character, won't be unlocked right away, but it needs a certain sets of components to be accumulated. After you finally unlock it, you can improve it/tune it/level it up... but you'll soon hit a wall. To improve it any further you need to boost it/star it up/whatever. And you thus need to accumulate more components. Eventually, you might find time-limited events, which will you give you a special currency, which you can use to unlock more time-limited goodies... and eventually convert it into one of the other kinds of currencies. A lot of these concepts don't seem to be heinous: it's perfectly fine to provide a gradual way to unlock something in a videogame. The problem is that usually there's some different mechanism/puzzle/part of the story that leads you there. In a gacha instead the only thing that grants you the majority of those incremental milestones is the pull/loot/boxes/crates/packs. The reasons you put up with it are pretty obvious: - sunken cost: you already invested some amount of time - feeling of progress. Every inch closer to a goal keep you engaged - the rest of the game is genuinely well made Again: what would be a good amount of content for 10 hours of game, gets stretched and dripped very slowly across hundreds of hours. For longer games (like, RPGs) what would be dozens/a hundred of hours gets stretched in thousands. Even when I play a videogame, I don't want to just "kill time", I want an interesting experience, which ideally makes the most out of the hours that I put into it. Traditional/non-bullshit/paid in advance games make sure that I get that either with skill, or without having to sweat for it (lowering the difficulty). In a gacha, it'll be a neverending stream of pulls (also, they'll obviously keep adding derivative content, to give you more and more things to unlock)
ThrowawayR2 5y ago
> "5* unit you want after 180 pulls" A casual search says "The minimum you can spend for a single Wish roll is $2.97" from https://www.gamespot.com/articles/genshin-impact-microtransactions-what-are-wishes-and-how-does-gacha-work/1100-6483424/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/genshin-impact-microtransa... so that's $534.60 to get a single character you want? Even if it were 1/10th that much with the pity system, that's still outrageous since new characters are released frequently.
- kemayo 5y ago
  The article you linked to does note that the currency for rolls is handed out as you play as well, in what it claims is fairly generous amount, so you don't have to spend extra. (But yes, actually spending money on this sort of game gets ridiculously expensive quickly.)
  - ThrowawayR2 5y ago
    It can't be all that generous: "In just six months since release, Genshin Impact has reportedly crossed over $1 billion in revenue..." from https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2021/03/24/genshin-impact-1-billion-in-mobile-revenue-and-the-six-highest-earning-characters/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2021/03/24/genshin-im...
    - level3 5y ago
      It's generous enough if you aren't aiming for every premium character. If you play all the story content and events, and are doing the daily quests, you'll pretty much earn enough for a guaranteed 5* (80-90 pulls) in about 6 weeks (the length of one version update). So if you're a free player, you can save up for a character you really want, or just pull and be content with whoever you get.
    - minimaxir 5y ago
      Mobile game economics are funny like that.
    - smukherjee19 5y ago

wodenokoto 5y ago

> gacha game Parent knows this, but maybe other readers might not: Gacha is the Japanese name for those machines on the street where you put in a coin and a plastic sphere with a random toy comes out. Collecting a set of toys can get obsessive for some, in the same way collecting whatever in micro transaction games. I also have a question: other than the graphic styles isn’t genshin impact closer to the online final fantasy games or even modern jrpg such as xenoblade? I’ve never played genshin, but from the little I’ve seen it just seems it’s only the graphic style that matches BoTW

kemayo 5y ago
The BotW comparisons come because of the world traversal mechanics, mostly. Genshin very-exactly copied the free-climbing + stamina + glider system that's pretty distinctive in BotW.

minimaxir 5y ago

A few more notes: - You'll easily get 30+ hours unique of content with the main story without any need to pay money, which is good value for a free game. - As with all gacha games, you get a ton of free currency playing through the story naturally; more than enough to get a couple 5* naturally through pity or otherwise. - As noted, the 4* units aren't bad; in fact some of the higher tier ones are given for free with no strings attached. - Unlike other gacha, this isn't a difficult game for just playing casually (which is normally a meta-incentive for you to gamble with the gacha) unless you are doing super-endgame things. - Unlike other gacha, there is no competitive element with a leaderboard/other players (which is normally a meta-incentive for you to gamble with the gacha) The biggest problem I have with Genshin Impact is Artifact RNG, which is heavily layered with no determinism.

1023bytes 5y ago
I second this, I've played this game casually for a couple weeks and never needed to spend any money. It just means slower progress, not no progress.
- berdario 5y ago
  I played another gacha for about 2 years (stopped about 1 month ago). I tricked myself into playing it exactly like that: > Ok, I'll try it out... but I'll drop it as soon as I'll hit the paywall The problem is that the companies like Gameloft, Mihoyo, etc. got extremely refined in giving you a *semblance* of progress, while never completely grinding the progress to a halt. It's pretty obvious after you invested some time: you can do some actions, but only up to X times a day. You can refresh the X with premium currency. You can convert premium currency into normal currency. In the meanwhile, the tool/weapon/vehicle/character, won't be unlocked right away, but it needs a certain sets of components to be accumulated. After you finally unlock it, you can improve it/tune it/level it up... but you'll soon hit a wall. To improve it any further you need to boost it/star it up/whatever. And you thus need to accumulate more components. Eventually, you might find time-limited events, which will you give you a special currency, which you can use to unlock more time-limited goodies... and eventually convert it into one of the other kinds of currencies. A lot of these concepts don't seem to be heinous: it's perfectly fine to provide a gradual way to unlock something in a videogame. The problem is that usually there's some different mechanism/puzzle/part of the story that leads you there. In a gacha instead the only thing that grants you the majority of those incremental milestones is the pull/loot/boxes/crates/packs. The reasons you put up with it are pretty obvious: - sunken cost: you already invested some amount of time - feeling of progress. Every inch closer to a goal keep you engaged - the rest of the game is genuinely well made Again: what would be a good amount of content for 10 hours of game, gets stretched and dripped very slowly across hundreds of hours. For longer games (like, RPGs) what would be dozens/a hundred of hours gets stretched in thousands. Even when I play a videogame, I don't want to just "kill time", I want an interesting experience, which ideally makes the most out of the hours that I put into it. Traditional/non-bullshit/paid in advance games make sure that I get that either with skill, or without having to sweat for it (lowering the difficulty). In a gacha, it'll be a neverending stream of pulls (also, they'll obviously keep adding derivative content, to give you more and more things to unlock)

ThrowawayR2 5y ago

> "5* unit you want after 180 pulls" A casual search says "The minimum you can spend for a single Wish roll is $2.97" from https://www.gamespot.com/articles/genshin-impact-microtransactions-what-are-wishes-and-how-does-gacha-work/1100-6483424/ https://www.gamespot.com/articles/genshin-impact-microtransa... so that's $534.60 to get a single character you want? Even if it were 1/10th that much with the pity system, that's still outrageous since new characters are released frequently.

kemayo 5y ago
The article you linked to does note that the currency for rolls is handed out as you play as well, in what it claims is fairly generous amount, so you don't have to spend extra. (But yes, actually spending money on this sort of game gets ridiculously expensive quickly.)
- ThrowawayR2 5y ago
  It can't be all that generous: "In just six months since release, Genshin Impact has reportedly crossed over $1 billion in revenue..." from https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2021/03/24/genshin-impact-1-billion-in-mobile-revenue-and-the-six-highest-earning-characters/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2021/03/24/genshin-im...
  - level3 5y ago
    It's generous enough if you aren't aiming for every premium character. If you play all the story content and events, and are doing the daily quests, you'll pretty much earn enough for a guaranteed 5* (80-90 pulls) in about 6 weeks (the length of one version update). So if you're a free player, you can save up for a character you really want, or just pull and be content with whoever you get.
  - minimaxir 5y ago
    Mobile game economics are funny like that.
  - smukherjee19 5y ago