The Problem With Genshin Impact's Weapon System

arguably more integral to your performance in a video game is not the character whom you're playing but the equipment they're carrying and genji and impact is no exception to that rule whilst wide roster of units come with their own individual properties and strengths tapping into that potential comes down to how well you armed them from artifacts to town levels to character experience to constellations but most essentially to weapons the release of every five star event banner is accompanied by an epitome in vacation also known as the weapon banner here you will find a pool of featured weapons with an increased drop rate consisting of 4 and 5 star weapons usually not found in the standard banner the 5 stars in particular are weapons tailor made for whichever 5 star character or characters are being promoted in that cycle for instance at the time of writing this video yelan's event banner is in effect until late june alongside the rerun of xiao so the weapon banner for this period features the aqua simulacra the allen's weapon of choice and the primordial jade wing spear which is available in the standard wish but is primarily wielded by shell this is how the release and distribution of equipment has been handled ever since version 1.0 unlike most other gadget titles where the means to gear out your characters is handled in game for this one virtually all of your weapons are to be acquired via summons or wishes whichever terminology suits your fancy having recently covered this game's extortion and pricing model not too long ago as well as the video earlier this year on the game's artifact system i figured it's worth delving into how weapon design affects player experience in this game so let's go through the various problems regarding weapons in gen xin impact equipment is a core part of any video game with the statistical foundation as it means to externally increase the effective rating of an entity not unlike that of real life ultimately how influential said equipment is comes down to the man or woman using it even so there's only so much a person can do without the right means to handle a situation and no medium showcases this more than video games you could be one of the best players in the world at a certain game but if what you have to work with isn't able to make best use of your capabilities you're not going to get very far many of you might have heard the saying bringing a knife to a gunfight at least once in your life which is an idiom used to describe entering a confrontation or other challenging situation without being adequately equipped or prepared in other words there has to be a fine balance between the sword and the swordsman some genres apply this concept more literally than others in a turn-based rpg like pokemon your equipment would be the part of your sticks that you carry and the stats levels and held items of each pokemon would be the specs of those equipment no matter how extensive your knowledge of the game is your party of level 50 pokemon will almost always be outmatched by a party of level 100s now before you go off in the comments about various gimmicky strategies like focus endeavor quick attack ratata or study notes passive pain split i'm aware i've played competitive pokemon before but outside of those edge cases the primary and sometimes only way to succeed in pokemon is to level up your team sufficiently enough for the task at hand of course there are titles where execution holds a higher share of equity and performance than the tools at your disposal such as in fighting games like super smash bros where characters held in poor regard by the court of public opinion can easily outclass those held in high regard through skill alone that being said the limits are still there hence why all of the game's top players champion fighters higher up in the tier list in conjunction with their impressive aptitude so where in the spectrum is genshin a game that appears to possess attributes from either side on one hand it's an rpg which places heavy emphasis on stats levels characters and whatnot on the other hand it's an action rpg real-time combat instead of turn-based interaction so one's mechanics play just as critical of a role i would say it's right in the middle and incessantly debated topic circulating the community discussion boards for as long as i can remember is whether or not 5 star characters are all that much better than 4 stars to an extent that justifies their exorbitant price tag anyway and the same conversation existed for weapons as well which costs just as much if not more than the very units that use them assuming average luck to get your hands on both a featured 5 star and their signature weapon it will cost you anywhere between 300 to 500 us dollars a paywall that's hard for more than 90 of the player base to scale on a monthly basis given that a new unit and weapon is introduced at least once a month weapons in this game are surprisingly very simple in terms of constitution there are five weapon types swords claymores pole arms bows and catalysts each one comes with an attack stat and substance though only one versus an artifact's four and unlike artifacts both parameters are the same and increase the same way so you don't have to worry about pulling for multiple copies just to get a good roll thankfully additionally they have a weapon passive much like an artifact set bonus consuming additional copies of the same weapon will increase its refinement level in the same fashion as constellations although it's colloquially agreed upon that the level to level increase is negligible and certainly not worth going the extra mile for at least for 5 stars that's really about it it's one of the more straightforward progression systems in genshi since all you have to do is get it to max level and that's all she wrote but even though the stats of a weapon remain constant the way their sub-stats and passives are formatted gives off an impression of exclusivity even if every bow wielding unit is able to equip every ball in the game or any sword-wielding unit can equip any sort and this brings us to the issues surrounding genji's weapon system despite there being no set criteria for using equipment other than being compatible with this type weapons in this game especially five star ones are implicitly biased towards a singular character or at most a couple rather than all of them or even a specific playstyle here are a few examples of what i mean let's look at song of broken pines eula's weapon of choice which grants bonus physical damage for his substance and a passive that increases your attack speed after striking four times heavily inferring that this is most efficient on yula who wants bonus attack speed to get more hits in before glacial illuminations aftershock the physical damage substance basically solidifies that the only ones who can use this weapon are physical damage claymore units with an attack style specifically involving normal and charged attacks conveniently razer enjoys sbp just as much as yula but on everyone else it's much less efficient another one would actually be the new aqua simulacra it is the highest crit damage substant value in the game tied with redhorn stone pressure at 88.2 percent going off of just the stats any dps bow user would be dying to have this at least until you look at the passive first it increases your base hp that alone should tell you something then it boosts your damage by 20 when there are enemies nearby for those who don't know yelan is an hp damage scaler much like utah explaining the hp bonus additionally despite being a bow user she specializes in fighting up close thanks to her elemental skill so she naturally fights the melee range along with the rest of her party furthermore her elemental burst is a persisting effect there are no dps bow users besides yellow who scale off of health so the hp bonus is irrelevant for everyone else meaning the only character that we know of so far who benefits from the full scope of this weapon's power is yellow one could argue that kanye when child can utilize his weapon very well since the former has a very strong persisting ultimate and the latter is for all intents and purposes of melee unit but they have their own signature weapons almost every five star weapon in this game being made in such a way that only one and two people can use it to its fullest capacity damage the average player's ability to comfortably navigate genji's experience more often than not it's typical for equips to be universal so as to allow players to move them around from one to another and so all you have to do is get that character once that's done the rest comes easy i used to play final fantasy brave vexis for a long time and in that game equipment was divided pretty much into three categories damage defense and utility in most cases all your damage deal is true from the same pool of equipment tanks drew from their own pool supports as well and they would have the same statistical efficiency regardless of the unit i'm not trying to say that weapon exclusivity is a bad thing a lot of games do it but the fact that genqing does this every single time is why it's a problem character specific things should come from the characters themselves that's the whole point of their element their play style their talents and stuff it should not be on the weapons because in essence five star weapon passes behave just like constellations primordial jade cutter grants bonus hp and then bonus attack based on your hp which sounds very much like something you would see on a 5 star unit's constellation in my opinion weapon passive should be made to accommodate situations and play styles not characters ironically a lot of the four and three star weapons do exactly that thrilling tales of dragonslayers grants a massive attack buff when you switch from the one wielding into someone else the passive evidently has no effect on the actual wielder but it presents an alternative way to approach whatever it is you're about to handle works on a lot of catalyst supports like sucrose barbara mona etc the best instance of situation focused design would be the sacrificial weapons a sword claymore catalyst and bow no spear though that provides energy recharge and a passive that has a chance to let you reset your elemental skill allowing you to use it again right after these are useful for just about any support who wants to spam their elemental bursts as much as possible and relies on the skill for battery like diona shinto sucrose kudosada sayu etc if anything the higher the rarity of the weapon the more all-purpose it should be common sense dictates the harder something is to get the more of an overall return it should give to make it worth your while right five star characters may not necessarily be stronger than four stars but they're more consistent kazuha shogun and zhong li are more all-purpose than shinxo bene and xanding despite all six being on the same relative scale of power at maximum efficiency yet genqin does the exact opposite when it comes to weapons the rarer something is the less number of scenarios you can use it in from a business standpoint it would make much more sense for 5 star weapons to be all-purpose if you're trying to sell them the broader its range of applications are the more people will want to go after them actually it was like that in the early months of the game back in october wolf's gravestone was all the rage because at the time it was generally good on any greatsword user you can think of deluge cheongyun razor beidou even noel to an extent the skyward weapons were also pretty solid for their all-encompassing weapon passes on top of their amazing base stats if you think about it the less the performance of a weapon is determined by how much the community loves whatever character that weapon is associated with the better people who don't care for a unit will also not care about their weapon of choice thus losing out on sales by extension mind you there are a good number of 5 star weapons that have general applications to them but since there will always be a better albeit specific option out there relatively speaking you're missing out on what a character is fully capable of in theory you could use song of broken pines on a non-physical damage greatsword user but it won't feel satisfying because you're using that with the knowledge that something better is out there as silly as it sounds knowing you're missing something that can enhance the performance or usability of a character affects player psychology a lot more than you think having a five star character but not their weapon of choice is like taking a test and knowing you can only score a maximum of 90 900 you're never going to be able to experience how strong a character can get you can devise an entire strategy team composition and playstyle around to character but if you're missing that weapon you'll never be able to make up for it compared to someone who does and that's another problem with weapons in this game there is presently no feasible way for you to obtain good 5 star weapons outside of the gacha banner or any 5 star weapon at all for that matter they're just as rare as the 5 star character yet valued at so much less natural gameplay compared to them it would be one thing if the weapon banner had a 5 chance to get a 5 star versus 8.7 because then it would be sufficiently cheap enough to where you don't have to spend the equivalent of what it takes to get an actual unit most people can barely afford to go after one let alone both in a way weapons have their own ridiculous rng on top of rng flaw that artifacts have where even if you do get a good weapon it may not be the one that you want or can even use and it's rare for you to find a middle ground it's absurd to think that the black sword is a better second option over primordial jade cutter for someone like coaching purely because the weapon passive is completely useless to her so basically your only good five-star weapon on her is the missplitter reforged everything else is just a statistic if memory serves even ayato's signature sword is worse than the black sword because despite providing higher attacking crit stat and even a little bit of elemental damage bonus you can get 40 increased damage on normal and charged attacks just by doing five seasons of battle pass and we've been through at least 10 by now yes there is a correlation between accessibility and the satisfaction you feel when you get something but if you make it too particular or difficult to acquire most people won't even bother going through all the trouble to get it and if you lock that behind a massive paywall weapons sales will not be all that good there needs to be a sweet spot as something costing more to where you earn a profit from it but not too much to turn away prospective buyers i'm not against the notion of weapon banners but the way they are now is not only unacceptable but makes little practical sense this might be too outlandish to suggest but they can make signature 5 star weapons obtainable in-game as the long-term reward you can grind for people are naturally more inclined to go after something if they have the means to fully enjoy or sometimes that's the only reason they go after something you ever wonder why fast food places like mcdonald's have those combo meals or special deals or if you buy a 10-piece chicken nugget you get a large fry with it for free that's because it entices you to spend more money than if you were just gonna get that one thing if you're getting a 10-piece nugget for the large fry you might as well get a drink to go with it or at movie theaters you're going there to watch a movie and you pass by the concession stand well if you're gonna watch a movie you might as well get some popcorn with it and if you're gonna get popcorn you need a drink with that too right same exact principle for video games i wouldn't be surprised if people went after albedo during his rerun purely because of cinnabar spindle in fact i'm certain of it so if hypothetically we were to add an npc with a coin shot that sells you character exclusive weapons or a way to randomly get them that might be incentive enough for an otherwise unwilling player to maybe go after that unit weeks or sometimes months before new character is introduced to the game people farm up their ascension and talent materials ahead of time so that when they finally release they can enjoy them to the fullest immediately now imagine if you were to make their personal weapon attainable in games such as to whatever event coincided with their event period i know it sounds like i'm giving hoyo a bunch of ideas on how to suck more money out of us but at the same time if it leads to a more well-designed game then i'm all for it a large reason why would-be whales don't spend money on a game is because they don't think the gratification outweighs the cost to get it among many other things the current weapon system is partially responsible for that but what do you guys think if you could change the weapon system in genshin how would you go about it let me know in the comments down below apart from that if you enjoyed the video please be sure to leave a like and subscribe consider following me on twitter joining my discord server and if you haven't yet i suggest you check out a similar video i made on artifacts i think you'll like it a lot for now thanks so much for watching and i look forward to seeing you again soon take care [Music] you

Channel: Vars II

Views: 278,092

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 weapons, genshin weapons, genshin impact weapon locations, genshin impact best weapons, genshin impact worst weapons, genshin impact weapon banner, genshin impact five star weapons, problems, genshin impact problems, genshin impact bad

Id: N0eqFJillDE

Length: 13min 51sec (831 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 18 2022