That time when Genshin Impact had its own Simulated Universe | Remembering Labyrinth Warriors

Envy for a game that's at least somewhat about amassing collections of attractive anime characters Envy is a feeling on surprisingly limited display in the genin community C2 Ryden that's cool C6 albo King you swiped for every C6 R5 character since release thanks for keeping the Servers Alive whale God Envy there's just not much of it until you start to compare one game with another hunai star's release was enough to make many genin players take to Reddit with rage in their Envy after after years of dedication to genin starel released with a bunch of stuff that genin players had been asking for for years here's a small list replayable events permanent events a multi-layered map a bigger stamina cap plus stamina overflow double drop rate events for artifacts salvageable artifact experience a more useful artifact strong box a photo mode that doesn't default to showing your uid a first-person camera that doesn't require a specific non-standard fourstar to use lip synced characters and dialogue for languages other than Chinese and MC type changes don't require a trip to the Statue of7 resetting in memory of chaos doesn't force you to replay both sides and I'm sure there's some I've missed and of course star rail launched with a big game mode simulated Universe an interesting variable repeatable endgame mode with good rewards it's something that gin impact players have wanted for years the lack of an endgame mode beyond the spiral Abyss was in fact a source of a huge controversy in October 2022 are there any plans to release new permanent endgame content in the same Bane as spiral abyss and ho vers his answer was basically a big fat no for all the players that are either at endgame or just enjoy combat or are trying to get to that level this is a big slap in the face to them the game has essentially been killed for me like I feel like my my my favorite game just got murdered if you're looking forward to end game coming it is not so sure hope you like card games except genin impact did have its simulated Universe for one patch only we had a repeatable Rog likee game mode where we could clear challenging combat Chambers buff up our party and face down a strong boss at the end well-built teams and skill required this is the story of Labyrinth Warriors genin impact's alternative endgame That Never [Music] Was Labyrinth Warriors was the flagship event for genin impact patch 2.2 a roguelike dungeon crawling event set in the Mystic Ono chamber a mysterious domain in Eno Zuma through throughout the event you had to explore the shifting Mystic Ono chamber multiple times each with a different layout to explore and different sets of enemies to defeat at the beginning of your run you would select up to three shiky futa these were special active abilities you could activate a limited number of times throughout your run to increase your damage healing resistance interruption or set up unique Elemental and team interactions plunge hoow anybody you explored two floors of the labyrinth in each run traversing room to room with just a simple map to help you find your way while it didn't take long to make take it from one room to another there were traps to avoid Treasures to be found and twists and turns in the corridors to keep the exploration engaging treasure chests didn't contain Primo gems but they had Mora artifact Potter and that dopamine hit genin players have grown addicted to there were also investigation points containing energy cabbages and damaged replicas in event exclusive currency you could spend on upgrades to make each run easier over time those traps I mentioned you really wanted to avoid those they could ruin your run if you weren't paying attention by simply exploding and killing your active character increasing the damage of all enemies or even preventing your characters from being healed or revived most rooms of the domain contained timed combat challenges after winning a battle you could pick one of three charms that is Buffs for your party in a really nice bit of difficulty tuning each combat challenge lit the player choose between a serious encounter or a dire encounter choosing the more difficult dire encounter gave you more powerful Buffs to choose from over time your party would slowly become more powerful better equipping you for the boss rooms at the end of the labyrinth two floors these boss encounters either featured Elite enemies with attendant support mobs that provide Buffs and healing to their boss or they featured powered up versions of genin's Overworld bosses these were challenging encounters that at the highest difficulty required well-built endgame teams with strong Buffs to defeat wait a second a Rog like dungeon mode where you fight battles to earn Buffs power up your team over time and fight a challenging boss at the end that's right it's the simulated universe or elisian realm I have played honky impact okay anyways all of this was a massive breath of fresh air when compared to the sad state of the Spiral Abyss which players were complaining about even back in Fall 2021 when Labyrinth Warriors was in the game spiral B has never been an especially beloved part of genin impact even combat oriented and hardcore players seem to find it lacking at best without much meat on the content bone to frustrating at worst when the Abyss just refuses to give you that one attack buff you need to one cycle capellia but I have another theory as to why a players seem to find it so unsatisfying the presentation of the Spiral Abyss is just not up to par with the rest of the game presentation is one of genin's strongest suits the game is a visual Feast with a huge variety of beautiful landscapes and vibrant characters there are so many stunning visual reveals where it feels like you've fallen into the game's concept art and don't forget the great voice acting and ENT entertaining cutcenes whether they were rendered in engine or animated in genin's stunning stained glass 2D style and then you have the spiral Abyss in comparison it's at a tack-on location that you first get to Via an unexplained Wormhole as far as I remember the spiral Abyss itself is never mentioned in the game story or lore except for its own inside the abyss itself it's just a series of non-descript almost featureless flat Chambers there are staircases that imply you might be moving up or down the Abyssal Spire but the game Fades to Black the nanc you clear a chamber move on to the next floor via a menu or at best a popup rewards are distributed via menus too instead of a contextualized treasure chest even the music is uninspiring in comparison to the rest of genin there's a reason speedrunners pick their own more exciting songs to go with their highle gameplay videos we're supposedly exploring a large and dangerous Tower and seizing its Treasures instead it feels like we're partaking in several inconsequential battles in a bubble Universe I know this seems like a bunch of small stuff but presentation goes a long way in heightening a player's enjoyment of a gameplay experience ideally spiral Abyss would be a game mode that everybody wants to play because it's inherently fun not just because it provides significant amounts of ever scarce Primo jums as it is the spiral Abyss is left feeling Half Baked which makes it stand out poorly in comparison to the meticulous craftsmanship that's gone into the rest of genjin DS kit not withstanding I do realize that for Pure combat players the speed offered by Fade to Black and menu transitions might be a plus but the Overworld is so easy for even pretty casual late game players that were left in this mixed situation where spiral Abyss is frustrating and boring while the Overworld combat is too easy and boring the spiral Abyss lacks the good presentation needed to make it more interesting and fun to attract the more casual players while failing to provide enough content for hardcore players to sink their teeth into it's the worst of all worlds that casual player base is likely the core reason that genin impact hasn't added any more challenging endgame content genin impact has over 60 million active monthly players it is one of the single largest video games in the entire world while we can only guess as to the makeup of the player base's true habits hoyo does know the real answer and it is safe to assume that hoyo verse is an extremely datadriven company they wouldn't be sending us so many elaborate surveys if they weren't that said we can make some guesses based on hoo's behavior and some social media statistics YouTube videos even on relatively casual oriented content like guides tend to earn the biggest creators a few hundred, views use at most spiral Abyss oriented content tends to perform less well than that the ultimate Point here is that from what we can see less than 10% of the player base is consuming this video content of course this is the English only content and the game is much bigger in China and some other foreign markets so maybe 20 to 30% of players are watching video content in total but if less than onethird of the population are even looking at video guides to build their characters and less than that are looking at Abyss content how many are actually clearing the spiral Abyss my guess is not many I'd assert it's probable that only a minority of players 36 star the spiral Abyss hoo's behavior of deemphasizing the abyss and hard content in general is likely due to poor interest in that type of content remember the specific reason they gave in their 2022 interview that ignited the controversy was this if we create another type of permanent endgame that is similar to spiral Abyss it might end up creating excessive anxiety for our players not everyone is interested in mus grief apparently the anxiety caused by releasing a new archon with limited Ascension materials forcing us to rate each other's worlds if we didn't want to wait 2 weeks to Max her was acceptable anxiety anyways I think this is a bad reason to give up on endgame content instead hoyo should have developed an endgame mode that casual players will want to play and that hardcore players will still enjoy hint it's the simulated Universe the simulated universe is obviously designed to be played by all HSR players casuals and hardcore alike we can infer this from many parts of its design but most importantly that it's the only source of planer relics which you must put on your characters to even have a casual build additionally it's a renewable source of warp tickets good free-to-play friendly light cones and most importantly Stellar Jades and these rewards are 100% achievable for even the Casual player who doesn't have the skill or characters built well enough to successfully clear a run every time the points are cumulative so they just have to attempt an extra run or two to get the max rewards this is in stark contrast to memory of chaos or SP viral Abyss which is a strict DPS check you must have the skill and gear required to full clear or you will miss out on the very valuable pulling currency furthermore the Rog likee nature of the simulated Universe with plentiful Buffs and curios available to power up your team deemphasizes the gear check element of the Abyss game modes instead the game mode is more about picking the right Buffs for your team and the situation the Buffs are way more powerful and impactful than the relics on your characters this again makes it more accessible to Casual players who might not have or even know how to create the optimized builds needed to comfortably clear strong gear will make it a lot easier maybe even trivial for hardcore players but at least the variety of paths in the simulated Universe provide good opportunities for replay through experimentation should a hardcore player get bored of insta killing everything most importantly the simulated Universe has good presentation instead of being dropped into a featureless chamber with no context we revisit corridors of Worlds we've experienced enemies and the music are usually contextualized to the area we're simulating which makes it a lot more visually and orally interesting than what spiral Abyss has to offer one of the first updates hoyo made to the simulated Universe in the live game was to improve a facet of its presentation remember these weird little spheres that were used for simulated Universe events at launch they were quite Bland the choice to remove these spheres and instead drop a painting with the events relevant artwork into the world was a great idea the appearance of one of those paintings is eye-catching and gets a reaction from you before you get there it's pretty hyped to enter An Occurrence area to see Ron May's painting floating there lastly and most relevant to genin is that the simulated Universe features an aspect of traversal however basic it may be while there isn't much need to explore the need for forward movement with enemies in the way and destructible objects to interact with helps you feel a distinct sense of progress as you literally progress forward through the simulated Universe traversal and exploration are two of the most important gameplay elements of genin impact and they are both completely missing from its endgame but they are represented however lightly in Star rail simulated Universe the lavish open world is obviously where a lot of Dev time and money is going and it works exploration in gion Impact is a ton of fun for me opening chests is as rewarding and addicting 3 years later as it was at the start of the game it's this open World gameplay Loop that likely keeps a lot of genin's casual player base hooked open worlds are just insanely popular in the gaming market and hoyo keeps giving us more incredible open world content to enjoy so ideally in endgame mode that appeals to both casuals and hardcore players would tie the game's exploration and Combat gameplay together and guess what there's already content that does that super well in the game it's these challenge domains that are scattered throughout the Overworld these Standalone dungeons provide gon's exploration experience on a miniaturized scale while also providing frequent and fun combat these have sadly gotten rarer and less complex as time has gone on there are zero of them in Fontaine and several of the ones in suu consisted of simple one room combat challenges but when they're done well they provide really awesome experience experiences and that's basically what the core of Labyrinth Warriors was they were extended domains with a greater emphasis on combat but with strong presentation exploration and traversal to make the mode more engaging entertaining and immersive there were even treasure chests to find and open along the way it's a game mode that managed to tie all of genin's gameplay elements team building traversal exploration and combat into one excellent little package it was by far the single best combat event they have ever given us and like the simulated Universe Labyrinth Warriors was tuned to be approachable for casuals and fun for hardcore players by putting a greater emphasis on powering up your teams through the available Buffs I'm really not kidding when I say this game mode was just simulated Universe in genin Impact there's a reason these Rog likee game modes are in every other one of hoo's games they're really fun and work really well it's frankly weird that they haven't tried to bring it to genin his permanent content especially because they already did the work Labyrinth Warriors exists it could be put back into the game right now just by tweaking the UI changing changing enemy lineups and balancing some Buffs but it could even be so much more the domains in the event were brilliantly themed to Ena Zuma but there are a lot more domain themes they've introduced since then more than one for each region they could likely create some sort of procedural generation system for each terrain set match the theme of The Domain to a new set of enemies you choose every week or create multiple worlds like Star rail has in its simulated Universe it would be a lot of fun to explore new varied domains and face down challenging enemies every week hell why not put some beefed up weekly bosses in there they could make asaha or even storm Terror real challenging fights again genin's game playay is so much fun that there is of course all this potential to do stuff with a new endgame mode unfortunately it seems like hoyse has settled with gin's endgame as is despite all the blowback from when that one interview dropped they haven't done anything genin impact is a casual game that's how hoo seems to think but I think a game mode like this like the simulated Universe can strike the appropriate balance approachable for casuals fun for hardcore it already exists Toyo put it back in the [Music] game [Music]

Channel: East On-Air

Views: 73,418

Keywords: Genshin Impact, Labyrinth Warriors, Genshin Patch 2.2, Genshin Impact 2.2, Genshin Impact Patch 2.2, Into the Perilous Labyrinth of Fog, Genshin Impact Labyrinth Warriors, Genshin Impact Endgame

Id: N3vhMAM8dAg

Length: 15min 32sec (932 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 23 2024