The Problem With 4 Star Characters In Genshin Impact

there is a very unique problem gotcha games run into that you don't really see any other genre face and that is the issue of hierarchy the existence of buying characters presents an entire new Dynamic that affects the psychology of how players value them the gacha central design structure is also founded on this notion resulting in a rarity system that we know all too well Kenshin impacts units are categorized into two Rarities four star and 5 Star 5 Star units are supposed to be the creme de la crop among the top of their respective elements rosters and are also impossible to obtain through memes other than pulling on their event banners which I assume will always be the case we've never had a five-star character obtainable for free since the game's release 4 stars on the other hand have been obtainable for free and quite often too but the increased commonality is due to this supposed lower capabilities at the start againshin however the expectation that 5 stars are objectively better than 4 stars was inconsistent xington cross and official have maintained their standing long after version 1 despite Gene and to some extent Mona falling off in relevance I'm sure this was not intended by mihoyo as all force does it came out since then were drastically toned down in power and or versatility especially following version 2 and even more in version 3. despite receiving a comparable amount of attention development and building four stars are notoriously underwhelming from a gameplay standpoint so today let's find out what the problem with four star characters is in ganshin Impact prevailing wisdom has four stars naturally lower in strength and numbers to balance out their lower Rarity that's common sense after all why would anyone in the right Minds go after a five-star character who's exponentially harder to obtain if four stars are just as strong as them however it doesn't always have to be a one-to-one comparison and in well-designed gotchas it usually isn't true on average five stars will have a higher stat line or be able to do more things but ideally there should still be a fair share of representation regardless of Rarity depending on the game some gotchas take STAR Rarity to strength very literally as in there should be no practical reason to use any 4 stars if you have 5 stars to face similar purposes an example of this is Final Fantasy bravexius ever since the Advent of neovisions which are essentially eight Stars 99.99 of all units you cap out as 7 Stars or less are never played because they're simply too weak or inefficient to be worth the spot on your team even if they have abilities or tools that work with the situation at hand granted a lot of stuff starts to give an upgrades into neovision so you don't have to chase after only base Envy units and can retrofit some of your old ones through a process called limit break limit breaking is seen very often in gotcha games as a way for characters with a lower Rarity to still compete with higher Rarity once assuming the player is willing to invest the time and resources to make of that difference genshin doesn't have your conventional limit break system though what they have are constellations sequential upgrades to characters that Grant passive boosts or new capabilities to existing talents this was their way of showcasing limit break here's the thing constellations are open-ended adjustments to a character meaning there's no Benchmark to what they provide some may be game changing like who tells us constellation others may be useless like venti Source constellation additionally unlike limit breaks constellations do nothing to improve the character's base stats once they cap out the numbers are fixed they there may be a constellation that increases your attack by say 20 percent but your base attack is unchanged the absence of assessed standard means one character can be vastly improved through constellations while another will barely change more often than not that ends up being a bad thing in most of my well-known Place episodes featuring 4 stars initially they all share is that they're just undertuned tolma Razer Noel yanfei Kaya ningblang Amber though I haven't made one on Kaya or ninguang yet they all have very unique play Styles and fun experiences but the numbers are simply far too low to compete with the top tiers constellations may offer substantial benefits to the gameplay and quality of life but those constellations are also bounced around being 4 stars understandable since you can see 6a4 star with one tenth of the capital it takes to C6 of 5 star that being said due to 4 stars being easy to Max constellation there's a predisposition that they're inherently meant to be played at C6 therefore it's almost like they have no constellations at all because those are expected to be part of their Base Kit few four star characters if any are evaluated at base if you look the most tier list the majority of them you have C4 or C6 so on and so forth the never constellations on 4 stars is further emphasized by how many feel like incomplete characters without them which is another issue concerning genshin's character design if we're splitting hairs that's also affecting 5 stars but it's more pervasive in force and by no means saying you need those constellations for them to function each unit is playable at base but there's a lot of implicit pressure for four stars to have those constellations purely from how Master the gap between 5 and 4 stars is at a base level I'd even go so far as to say that Shinto shangling sucrose and facial aren't anywhere near as good as we say they are with that C4 or C6 you might try to argue that ascensions on this game's limit break which is about a point they operate on the same basis my counter-argument to that is getting a four step character to level 90 is no easier than on a 5 Star also limit break and levels are not really the same thing overall one of the big problems that Force the units deal with is that they're directly competing with 5 stars in a gacha that exclusively ties effective power to Rarity 4 star characters are easier to get therefore all aspects of their design are about also the expectation that a player will naturally unlock their constellations just by playing and so their power budget automatically soon sees six whereas where most 5 Stars their power budget starts at c0 and everything else afterwards is icing on the cake at worst you need C1 to unlock a 5 Star character's full potential but generally speaking there is a hard divide between 4 and 5 stars that mihoyo refuses to close ever since version 1. unlocking constellation 6 doesn't make a 4 star character on par with the 5 Star but they're still evaluated on the same playing field it's like Mario Party I'm sure everyone has played Mario Party at least once in their lives in that game stars are infinitely more valuable than coins you can have 999 coins and still be losing to a player with zero but one star that's how the dynamic between 4 and 5 Star sealing I know I do this a lot and some of you might say you should stop comparing apples to oranges but one other gotcha I play a lot is blue archive in that game the units come in different Rarities as well one star two star three star all of them can be upgraded to 5 star and share the same cap at times it doesn't feel like there's any difference between a one or two star and a 3 star are other than how rare they are that's how I feel like Rarity should be in gotcha games just that Rarity in exchange for being easier to obtain four star characters should begin weaker than 5 stars but through enough work and investment they can make it to at least the same weight class as them In fairness 5 stars are supposed to be conceptually better than four stars but that should only be through application not numbers four stars and genshin are hamstrung by both worse numbers and less applications they not only do less stuff than 5 stars but a few things they can do are usually worse than if there was a 5 Star equivalent my stressing of the idea that 4 stars are unfairly expected to compete with 5 Stars despite not having the same privileges is based on how Genji's combat is structured while the bulk of your experience consists of forming a party composition of four characters only one of them is a lot on field at a time in contrast to other games where all party members on the field simultaneously this influences a lot of factors Chief among them is who is allowed to be the front runner of your team you'll notice that of the op4 Stars quote unquote none of them are known for their on-field pressure then it switches in uses his burst then switches as well now the only reason sucrose is on field in her taser team is because the teams where she's your main DPS don't really care about who's on field she just happens to be the one who stays out the most this structure realistically slashes any chance of a four star on filter slash main TPS ever seen the light of day ninguang Razer Noel yanfei they will never Match 5 stars in power because the numbers are lower than 5 Stars again understandably so the four stars who do perform well are those with all field pressures since all Fielding is basically the way you can have more active characters at a time they're on the field without having to be on the field if that makes sense shangling's Beyblade Shinto's rain cutter officials Oz Etc Amanda benmani that mihoyo has taken notice of this the last four star on-field damage dealer we had was I believe yanfei all the way back in 2021 every four star since then has been either a support or off-field DPS which is basically someone who supports food damage whether or not by their own choice I should say that designing A Game's roster in this way is not inherently a bad thing if your approach to combat is to pull all of your resources into one person so they can carry your team it only makes sense for you to use it on a five star not a four star in doing so however 4 star units end them cannibalizing each other the handful of four stars who are good enough to contest five stars are the only ones players are going to want to use leaving those who aren't for dead genshin simplified combat system is both its greatest strength and greatest weakness the lack of intricate combat Mechanics for now at least put all units on the same playing field even though they shouldn't be in the past years so I've gotten tons of criticism from players that are along the lines of you shouldn't compare X character to White they're not the same and they're most certainly correct Barbara is not the same as kokomi Xing tul is not the same as yellow is not the same as shinho yenfei is not the same as Klee if we're talking about them on paper in practice the game forces them to be evaluated as if they are the same for the sheer fact that ganshin's combat is simplified to simplified every single battle in this game is a beat down rush attack attack there's hardly any someone's strategy rotations coordination what have you everything is a deep yes check even against bosses who have invulnerability periods or different phases in the Overworld 99.99 of all enemies you encounter are nameless moocs who get two shot it bosses may come with their own faces or attacks but in the few situations they're invulnerable or require you to do something other than attack they're mostly just tedious stalling tactics and are usually universally addressable and not demanding of a specific type of character the golden wolf Lord is in good case of this after taking some damage he generates a massive shield and is more or less Invincible during this time to make him vulnerable again you have to inflict geodamage on the three riptown skull teeth those around the arena during this time he gets to free fire on you but his attacks are not threatening in the slightest the hypostasis cubes are another example they're only vulnerable when their core is exposed on the ground and all of them have this survival check that you have to do something about thus they regain some HP most of the time though they just need a specific element or weapon and a character you bring doesn't even have to be good what's unfortunate is that a lot of four stars have some really mean stuff about them Candice and chongyun offer hydro and crowd infusion to their respectively that's something no 5 star has ninguan's Jade screen blocks all projectiles that come in contact with it there are some really Nifty tools that can come in handy in a lot of situations but all the game's challenging content is permanently available ensuring that said content can't be designed to require a specific character or Niche out of consideration for players who may not have that character they just started out for instance all the same they shouldn't make a full 180 and over generalize everything that dumbs down every boss into a Beatdown Rush where it doesn't matter how you deal damage as long as you deal lots of it and is a huge reason why Bennett shangling sukro's official Strongarm virtually every other 4 star out of relevance there's an option to use other 4 stars but not a need for it in my video last week talking about physical units I mentioned how if there's no need most players won't care not to go the extra mile for something that achieves the same end result who cares about Candace or chungy's Elemental infusions just get high to require damage outright at this point any player who's been around for a while has ninguan considering she's basically the governor of the US there should be more demonstrations of her power they could have designed a boss or a dungeon that unleashes a huge branch of projectiles that deal huge amounts of damage forcing players to bring along someone with a metric ton of defense like Noel or someone who can I don't know block projectiles they sort of try to attack conditional bosses every now and then such as a reputation binding where the enemy in question is seeming to Elemental damage but in turn takes more damage than something else most players boot Force the way through them anyway so because 4 stars are inherently meant to have less applications than 5 stars to make them noticeable they usually have a specific Niche but without situations that demand those niches there's no reason to use them that's one of the fundamental rules of good game design just like how life without purpose is meaningless applications without purpose are also meaningless resulting in many four stars being meaningless and it's not like constructing these mechanics are difficult nor did they have to be hyper-specific say if we tried to find a way to make Candice more usable her main stick is that she abused her team with Hydro in most cases its high transfusions are relevant since in a situation where Hydro is needed you can just use regular Hydro damage like Shinto as an answer to that there can be a boss that can only be damaged by Hydro basic attacks not abilities not only does this instantly scream Candace but you can dust off your Barbara as well there is yellow and ayato child and Mona but those are five stars that are far less likely for many players to have everyone has Barbara actually speaking of Barbara they brought her back into some unrelevant status to nilo since the Bountiful chorus can run the risk of exploding your team so you do need a hydro healer on that note I'm not saying mihoyo isn't trying to make the niche units particularly four stars more usable but they're not doing enough of it causing many highly beloved units to fall to the Wayside as they don't have the right scenarios so they're quirky tools to shine one thing that genshin doesn't have that most scotches do to encourage the use of multiple characters is boss rotation like race if they ever decide to have weekly bi-weekly or monthly rates creating bosses that require a specific mechanic will give opportunities for more 4 stars to be usable and therefore give players a reason to work on them instead of just using 5 Stars over and over if I had the opportunity to write up ideas for bosses that would be so much fun I can make a boss that requires a single massive burst of animal more damage Hazel Jean and Xiao are the only ones who can do that as all the others attack in multiple strings or an electro version so you need Lisa's Elemental skill for one giant nuke how about a boss that can only be damaged by charge attacks and Catalyst uses yen face a very good charge attack the list goes on and on alternatively if there was the boss or a dungeon that required you to make several parties at once the name's escaping me but there was that one dungeon where you had to send two units in at a time and yet to cycle through like 10 pairs that's a good example I just can't tell you how frustrating it is that genshin has such amazing character design in such a simplistic game but so many of its problems are because there's no content in this game that you can't complete by turning your brain off and bum rushing it might sound like I'm at the school or thought that parrots we should make genshin more hardcore but in reality these changes would make the game more satisfying for everyone even casual players it gets boring when you use this antenna so characters for weeks on end yet at the same time there's no incentive for you to invest resources into characters who are worse than those 10. players need that extrinsic motivator to use all the uni 4 stars genshin has to offer okay that's gonna be it for today let me know your thoughts on this topic in the comments down below if you agree or disagree with my points but if you enjoyed the video please be sure to like And subscribe really helps me out also follow me on Twitter at bar swear and join my Discord server and while you're here check out my video on exclusive supports if you haven't yet but till next time thanks so much for watching and I look forward to seeing you again soon take care [Music] [Applause] [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: Vars II

Views: 175,043

Keywords: genshin, genshin impact, vars genshin impact, genshin why no one plays, genshin impact gameplay, genshin discussion, genshin impact analysis, mihoyo, hoyoverse, genshin impact game, genshin impact graphics, genshin 4 star, genshin 5 star, genshin worst character, genshin best character, genshin characters, genshin problem, the problem with genshin impact, the problem with genshin 4 stars, 4 star, 5 star, 4 star characters suck, genshin best 4 star

Id: -y3dE0pJ9mo

Length: 14min 50sec (890 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 24 2022