Multiplayer games are undeniably popular in
today's age. The top 5 games being watched on Twitch and
top 5 games concurrently played on Steam are always going to be multiplayer games. That’s why many Genshin players like myself
have always wondered why the game seemingly has zero interest in improving it’s multiplayer
experience. Seeing as how Windtrace has just returned
after a 244 day long hiatus, it got me thinking about this a lot, and now I think I can understand
why miHoYo is very reluctant to approach what from the outside looks to be a complete gold
mine. I feel like it's definitely a bit trickier
of a situation than most would expect. Obviously developing multiplayer to any game
entails lots of work, but it’s typically worth it because of how effective it is at
making engaging experiences that players want to keep coming back to. To contextualize things, let’s quickly recap
why people like multiplayer games so much, or rather why they have a successful business
model. Let’s start with the social aspect. You can play with or against friends in a
friendly or competitive manner, whatever you like most. And if you say you don’t have friends, well
multiplayer provides one way to make some. Then there’s the inherent replayability
factor, since even under the same conditions, different people playing makes for widely
varied experiences. In competitive versus games especially, this
emphasizes individual player skill, meaning there is more drive to improve. All this also makes it more appealing to watch
others play, which helps the game get noticed and played by even more people. To sum it up, multiplayer games can naturally
sustain their growing audiences very easily, making them very profitable even with simple
monetization practices. It’s no secret that the current implementation
of Genshin’s only permanent multiplayer, co-op mode, doesn’t take full advantage
of multiplayer’s appeal because of the mode’s many limitations. After unlocking it at Adventure Rank 16 (which
reportedly takes around 8 hours of gameplay), you can join the worlds of other players if
their world level is lower than or equal to your own. Important quests get locked during co-op so
basically all you can really do with others is farm, explore around in one person’s
world, or play the few mini-games that exist within the Serenitea Pot. And barring that last one, none of these experiences
are really enhanced by the presence of others. Farming world materials only gives stuff to
one person, farming enemy materials isn’t hard but just tedious, and doing co-op domains
takes longer so they’re only worth it for the small subset of players who like to carry
or need to be carried. These restrictions make it so that just because
you know someone else also likes Genshin, doesn’t necessarily mean that playing with
them will be fun or rewarding for both sides. Windtrace is the only true multiplayer Genshin’s
ever had, since it requires others to be played at all. For other events that had co-op available,
it was always optional. Although many players have expressed desires
for Windtrace to stay forever rather than be a limited time event, this is not the mode
that would make Genshin have good multiplayer. It straight up would not stand the test of
time. Not just because there are only so many maps
to play on and hiding spots to use before it gets stale, but because in general, people
lose interest quickly. There are very few examples of games that
can keep its player base happy without regular updates, whether it be in the form of new
ways to play, changes to system mechanics, or constantly refreshed rewards. Now the current rerun of the mode has 7 new
maps, which does help make it fresh this time around. But let’s be real, these maps are all places
that already exist in the game so nobody had to design them from scratch. On top of that, there are no new abilities
to experiment with for both hiders nor seekers. In the 8 months that this gamemode was gone,
they didn’t really do anything to innovate on it. To me, that’s an indication that there just
isn’t a whole lot that can be done to spice things up. That or they just think the mode is nearly
perfect as is so they didn’t bother with making changes. Either way, I don’t think it’s a good
sign. I mean the Theater Mechanicus rerun was pretty
different from its original incarnation, and though it had mixed reception, it gave returning
players more of a reason to play it outside of the primogems. Realistically speaking, Windtrace would not
make for a good permanent game mode. After a little while it would be completely
forgotten about, just like how nobody cares about fishing anymore. I would only really accept it if it becomes
a part of the teapot and can be played with your own custom maps, but honestly I don’t
foresee that happening anytime soon. Obviously Windtrace is not standard when it
comes to its multiplayer implementation because it’s a mini-game that uses Genshin’s assets
in a completely different way from the base game. But what if Genshin had a PvP mode that centered
around the game’s core mechanics? This would be the most ideal form of PvP from
a developer’s perspective because it would make use of each player’s individual progression,
thus encouraging them to grind for stats as well as their mechanical skills, overall giving
more motivation to continue playing. Given new characters at the normal pace, occasional
system updates, and rewards tied to performance like leaderboards, it would probably be enough
to keep players consistently interested. Especially because the game’s deeper combat
systems would be able to be explored thoroughly, as opposed to other games made within the
engine that are limited to simple strategies. This all sounds great until you realize there’s
the obvious detriment in that it would incentivize player spending in order to get to the top. Genshin is undeniably pay to win, as constellations
and weapon refinements have a direct correlation to DPS output. But it doesn’t really matter as long as
it doesn’t negatively affect players who can’t or aren’t willing to spend. Losing to someone not because of a gap in
skill but because they paid more? Never a good look for any game. Considering that many are players are upset
with the spiral abyss’ powercreep clearly catering towards whale spenders, even though
the rewards of floor 12 only amount to less than a single pull, there’s just too much
risk involved when most players will stay content with the stream of new characters
and events that we are already getting. Ok well if PvP is out of the running, what
about better co-op? Since the game is already primarily geared
towards the single player experience in every Archon Quest, story quest, hangout, and most
events, it feels like there isn’t much that can be done to make the existing co-op mode
more appealing. So the next best thing would be a separate
co-op focused game mode, and I can’t think of one better than raids. Though obviously the experience differs from
game to game, basically, raids are a type of in-game content that requires larger groups
of players when compared to typical gameplay. They usually entail going through a large
dungeon which features many uniquely challenging mechanics. Finally, they culminate in an intense, high
stakes boss fight. There is one main reason why I feel raids
would make for a great addition to Genshin, and that is replayability. Raids are very often the most challenging
content in their respective games. Now in Genshin, "difficulty" mostly comes
from timed DPS checks, which many would agree is not that engaging. With raids though there is a lot of potential
because the difficulty can instead stem more from requiring good strategy and coordination
with other players. There would be a clear path for growth in
continually understanding how to better clear the dungeon, and that wouldn't be tied down
by time gates or RNG. And because the results would be based on
skill rather than spending, it means the rewards can best in the game. In most implementations raids give high level
gear, but Genshin's enemy drops obviously aren't quite like that. Instead it would probably be an upgrade material,
like maybe ascending characters up to level 100 or something. Unlike the Spiral Abyss' measly primogems,
I'm confident that raids would have good enough rewards to give players a good reason to keep
coming back. Alright so raids, sounds perfect for Genshin
right? Well not exactly. You might remember some previous events from
the past like the Resurgent Cryo Regisvine from 1.2’s “The Chalk Prince and the Dragon''
event and Rhodeia’s Rage from 1.4’s Wishful Drops event. Having had unique combat mechanics when compared
to their regular overworld boss counterparts, these events were among some of the only few
in the game to feature optional co-op matchmaking, presumably encouraging people to help each
other out because of the relatively higher difficulty. Still though, they were based on existing
bosses, and their mechanics never required precise strategy or execution across multiple
players, so I wouldn’t exactly call them indicative of what fighting a raid boss should
feel like. But why haven’t we gotten something like
that yet? A limited time event seems like a perfect
way to test out the implementation of a dungeon that leads up to a boss battle with co-op
being a core mechanic throughout. Well, there’s a pretty good reason that
I can come up with. Not everyone wants to feel like they are forced
to work together with other people, for potentially many different reasons. The first is the chance of running into uncooperative
or straight up toxic people. What if a person trolls you and makes it impossible
to win? What if someone gets overly angry at you even
though you were just trying your best? I mean this stuff happens in domain runs and
those aren’t even hard. Imagine how those people would react when
the process is longer and there are better rewards on the line. And it’s not as easy as just reporting them,
because not everyone is going to be reported fairly. It’s not like people who are reported can
be banned on the spot. Even for more concrete things like a person
leaving a game in progress, you can’t be too harsh with penalties because accidents
happen. Since you wouldn't have the luxury of clearing
such content solo at your own leisure, and you won't always have friends available to
play with, especially ones at the same level as you, people are going to need to use the
random matchmaking feature and situations like these will inevitably come up. The 2nd reason is poor connectivity between
players. As any fighting game player in quarantine
will tell you, good net code (the term for the systems that enable online play) is essential
for a solid online multiplayer experience. Genshin’s multiplayer netcode is really
not that great, but it’s not that big of a deal in a PvE focused game as long as all
players are dealing the right damage to the enemies they are trying to hit. But against raid bosses where there is a reliance
on team coordination, such as different people doing separate tasks simultaneously, well
that's where bad connections can really harm the experience. Even with great netcode though, of course
having a stable connection does ultimately rely on the end user’s setup. And when some people play Genshin on Wi-Fi
with high ping on their phones or laptops, that latency could definitely stop certain
players from being able to enjoy raids. Speaking of phones, for PC and console players
like myself it’s sometimes easy to forget that a lot of people play this game primarily
on them. And no I’m not even talking about processing
power or size of the game’s files. Mobile games are typically meant to function
in a pick up and play fashion, where you can always pause and at no point are you really
obligated to continue playing. Obviously this helps the game’s accessibility
by making it so that it can be quickly played whenever you have a free minute. Even in Windtrace, the games are only a maximum
of 3 minutes long. On the other hand, bigger co-op would presumably
be a much longer commitment of time in which you and the rest of your group have some responsibility
to be there. I’d imagine not everyone would not be interested
in dedicating themselves to a single session like that. From a developers perspective, let’s not
forget that it would take a LOT of work to make a raid. From start to finish, raids are all about
being grand in scale. miHoYo usually does a great job at making
big events feel important, so that would mean developing some new enemies, environments,
mechanics, bosses, music, cutscenes, and the like. And with all additions to Genshin whether
they’re temporary events or permanent features, they aren’t just added in and that’s it. They are always introduced through the story
in some fashion. So with a raid type mode, having the writing
team figure out how to translate the gameplay into something that narratively makes sense,
stays consistent with the rest of the game’s lore, and still feels relevant, is no simple
task. Difficulty also plays a big role in long term
success. If it’s too easy then it won’t feel engaging,
but if it’s too hard then it might frustrate players to the point of making them quit. And if you go the route of making multiple
selectable difficulties, well then that’s another feature that needs to be carefully
thought out. Looking at it from a practical perspective,
if Genshin’s flavor of the month temporary events and new character releases already
can keep the game’s player count relatively stable, it’s kind of hard to justify working
on a large-scale feature like raids, especially when there’s a chance it might not be received
that well. We already know that miHoYo is constantly
putting resources towards large future content updates in the form of Teyvat’s other regions,
so while I think raids would be good for the game, I can’t say I expect something like
it to be added anytime soon. After researching all this, I do have to applaud
WindTrace for doing a decent job of getting around these problems. Even though the hiders are technically on
a team, you don’t really have to rely on teammates to win, meaning that having bad
teammates is not as much of a detriment as it usually is. Players leaving is mostly inconsequential
because of how short games are and how easy it is to start another one. Also, the way the mode reusses assets from
the base game to reduce effort and file load is pretty smart, even though some people may
phrase it as just lazy. I don’t think I’ve said this yet but,
WindTrace is pretty fun. It’s well designed, and I still don’t
think it would make for a very good permanent game mode, but I am glad that it exists as
it is. So I know what I talked about in this video
was kind of all over the place, but I hope I was able to drive home the single point
that there are a lot of different factors that go into your favorite multiplayer game
giving you a good multiplayer experience. If Genshin does have something in the works
for a future update, then to match the scale and quality that we the audience would expect
they’re gonna need a lot of time for development. And if there aren’t plans for better multiplayer,
I think that’s okay. I personally have been very satisfied with
the content we’ve been regularly receiving, so as much as I would like to be able to enjoy
Genshin more with my friends, I don’t want all that effort to be wasted on something
unless it truly revolutionizes the current game. But at the end of the day I’m just a guy
speculating stuff, so who really knows what’s to come in the near future. I just thought this was a pretty interesting
topic of discussion and wanted to share my thoughts. I hope you guys enjoyed this video, and as
always, thanks for watching.
