Friday, August 6, 2021

PSA: I Play Two Genshin Impact Accounts

My younger brother is a very serious and principled person who loves reading.
Note that he doesn't have Diluc. This is my own Diluc.
He hasn't unlocked the Serenitea Pot either.

I was actually nervous to announce this because, according to miHoYo's Terms of Service, you're not allowed to use anyone else's miHoYo account. However, Moga, a Genshin Impact YouTuber, has been a member of the Content Creator Program for a long time and regularly plays on his girlfriend's account (and has even messed with it), so now, I think it's safe to announce this.

I play my younger brother's Genshin Impact account.

Somewhere back when the Lantern Rite was going on in Version 1.3, my younger brother voluntarily asked me to play on his account to help him. I accepted...mainly because I internally cringed at watching him with his weak characters. lololol

We established some ground rules regarding his account:
  • Aim for sword or polearm characters when wishing.
  • Do NOT touch the main story.
Out of respect for him, I added my own rules too:
  • Do not do one-time non-limited quests (i.e. Story Quests, World Quests).
  • Do not open chests.

Why is This Announcement Important?

I think you'd be interested to know why I'm taking a longer-than-usual amount of time on Genshin Impact.

Assuming that every day, I complete all Daily Commissions, spend 20 Resin per battle, and mine every marked ore vein in Mondstadt, it takes me about 30 minutes to clear on my brother's account.
It increases to maybe 1 hour and 30 minutes when including weekly activities such as Reputation Quests and the Weekly Bosses. (I don't actively complete some of the Battle Pass quests like "Complete Ley Line Blossom challenges 20 times"; it's possible for me to reach BP Lv. 50 without doing so.)

It takes me 3 hours on my main account, considering I have 4 Weekly Bosses and 3 regions to mine ores.
Thank goodness the Bounties are much faster in Inazuma, but I have to deal with the tanky enemies in the Requests now.

My brother has grown tired of playing on my PC, likely because he's been banned from my PC several times by my mom. Eventually, I guess his time has been occupied by casual games that don't require powerful PCs, as well as his studies, so now, he staunchly refuses my offers to let him play Genshin Impact.
I still play his account, though, because I feel like Zhongli--I've bound myself to a contract. I'm excited to one day see him enjoy his new and vastly improved characters. Plus, I'm tired of spending 20 Original Resin each freakin' time--I wanna make Condensed Resin.

Why Did I Think This is Sus?

My brother and I are VERY different people. My brother posts much more about politics than I do, while I focus heavily on video games and romance on social media. He uses his Facebook account to log into Genshin Impact.

We have vastly different skill levels in this game. My brother didn't really have a main DPS, instead preferring to go "random bullshit go!" with Elemental Skills and Bursts. I, on the other hand, have clear team synergy plans.

Thankfully, we use the same device and IP address, so it's a little less sus.

Current State of His Quests

I needed to complete Diluc's and Klee's Story Quests to access the Golden Apple Archipelago.

Back in the Lantern Rite, I didn't touch the Liyue Archon Quests because I thought he was still actively playing. So no free character for him.

He's still stuck in Chapter I Act I which I progressed through a little while he wasn't looking because I was desperate to go on co-op against the Oceanid in Wishful Drops.

In terms of Story Quests, he has completed Razor's Story Quest so I can beat up Andrius.

My Brother's Best Characters...Raised By Me

He didn't have Razor before, but now he does, and Razor is my brother's strongest character. I used a claymore billet while he wasn't looking, though, and I have gotten NO new billets from any weekly boss for him.
Razor is very easy to raise because of his extremely fast attacks from his Elemental Burst, as well as his Physical DMG Bonus ascension stat.

His other characters are very weak in comparison because I'm lazy to farm artifacts and I'm focusing on hoarding Acquaint Fates. Kaeya, in particular, has no Blizzard Strayer set because I want my brother to experience the puzzle required to unlock that artifact domain.

I don't have Kazuha and Zhongli on my main account, but my brother got lucky and, oh boy, are they strong.
Kazuha gets around the problem of removing element statuses by absorbing an element with his Elemental Skill before unleashing it with a Plunging Attack.
Given my brother's history of raging in video games, Zhongli will make his gameplay SO much easier because his shield is nigh-unbreakable. My brother just has to worry about Spiral Abyss time limits.
Unfortunately, I can't level Kazuha's and Zhongli's Talents past Lv. 6.

I got a little ticked off, though...when he freakin' pulled Jean from the Standard banner. Y U no give Jean to my main account? I have every Standard banner 5-star except Jean.
But Jean will also make things easier for my brother thanks to her insta-heal and consistent ability to inflict fall DMG.

I hope something will drive him to get back to Genshin Impact because Inazuma characters (except Kazuha) require access to Inazuma to grow stronger. Only Inazuma so far is explicitly closed off to foreigners, but there's a possibility that, for pure gameplay rather than lore purposes, Sumeru and the other future regions are locked down.

Thursday, August 5, 2021

Inazuma-Induced Idleness

Nobushi
Be prepared to see these guys...a LOT!
Yes, it's hard to get good pictures of enemies when they attack you and interrupt your freakin' photoshoots.

The Inazuma region
A land of big fat content
That's hard to speedrun.

Inazuma, the Electro region based on Japan, has finally made its way at last to Genshin Impact after months of waiting and sheer uncertainty. Among other things, it means a new story, new characters, a new element for the Traveler, and...tons and tons of grinding.

Not gonna lie, I got so addicted to the sheer amount of new content in Inazuma compared to other versions that I spent significantly longer all-nighters, sometimes stretching to 5:30 AM. The most time-consuming things early on were completing the Archon Quests plus Ayaka's and Yoimiya's required Story Quests, not to mention the reading comprehension exercises (i.e. dialogue) and the fact I want to enjoy the characters' voices.
After those, I exhausted myself to unlock Reputation Level 2 so I could do my bounties before the end of Inazuma's launch week--I made it probably one hour before the weekly reset.

Later, my time was consumed by World Quests, most notoriously the Sacred Sakura Cleansing Ritual which is filled to the absolute brim with unvoiced dialogue (I become lazy to read when I'm tired). I've already finished the majority of them and gotten all the 5 craftable Inazuma weapon blueprints.
miHoYo isn't kidding with the sheer amount of content they put in this update; they know a lot of players complain about "not enough content", especially with Dragonspine and the time-limited Golden Apple Archipelago.

Enemies

Important advice: If you only want to speedrun Daily Commissions, choose Mondstadt. The enemies here are significantly easier than in Liyue and Inazuma, except for the occasional "For The Harbingers!" commission in Dragonspine.

The enemies in Inazuma are a huge difficulty spike compared to the Golden Apple Archipelago which was featured in 1.6, immediately before 2.0.

Most enemies in the open world are Nobushi (bandit ronin). Despite some of them being lowly mooks (the Kairagi are mitachurl-sized Nobushi), none of them can be sucked up by Venti's Elemental Burst, forcing me to fight them the hard way (in other words, Kaeya + Tartaglia permafreeze). The lowly mook Nobushi have more HP than a big-bodied Treasure Hoarder and the Kairagi have only slightly less HP than a Fatui Cicin Mage.
The funny thing is, the Kairagi carry Electro- or Pyro-infused katana...and they can't be Swirled by Anemo characters, unlike a Blazing Axe Mitachurl's Pyro axe. You guys must really hate when Venti makes things too easy.

As sexy as the Fatui Mirror Maiden is, it's completely neutralized by how freakin' tanky she is. I rely heavily on my Darting Blow permafreeze team (Venti, Sucrose, Kaeya, Tartaglia) to speedrun content with minimal DMG taken...and the Mirror Maiden has 50% Hydro RES.
I insist on using my Darting Blow team because the Mirror Maiden is, in Filipino, malikot (erratic-moving). Literally all members of that team can stop enemies from moving in some way. While Geo is helpful in avoiding DMG, Noelle is held back by a long cooldown and has anti-synergy with permafreeze teams.

Not to mention, Inazuma has been memed on for having difficult enemies that guard...Common Chests. In Mondstadt, Liyue, Dragonspine, and the Golden Apple Archipelago, similarly difficult encounters would yield Exquisite, Precious, or even Luxurious Chests.

All this is available upon reaching Adventure Rank 30. I can't remember how much I knew about Genshin Impact back in this AR except for not using Geo and preferring Swirl over the superior Melt and Vaporize, but I imagine F2Ps who are new to the game will struggle a TON here, especially given how I thought Inazuma would reel in a lot of weebs.

Materials

Ayaka was the first character to come out along with the 2.0 update and she uses a new ascension material, Sakura Bloom. The problem is, these are fairly rare, found one by one, and spread around various places in Narukami Island, so I've been getting more and more join requests from other players.

Another major time-consuming activity for me early on was farming Naku Weed. They share some of the difficulties of getting Sakura Bloom, except they're often found in VERY dangerous places in Inazuma, including but not limited to near freeze-proof rivers of electrified water, in Balethunder (Sheer Cold-like) areas, and near squads of Fatui members.
There's a hidden Naku Weed donation house after completing a World Quest which grants an Exquisite Chest every day for 3 days, each giving 5 Primogems. The problem is, it needs 12 Naku Weeds per day while I've pretty much wasted a lot of them on another World Quest plus the quest needed to unlock this donation feature.
But, for me, it was worth it to catch 'em all even faster in the long run.

Domain Farming

Note that I haven't tried the new artifact domain.

Along with the Ley Lines, these new domains are freakin' HARD, but mainly because of a Self-Imposed Challenge. To avoid having to think of characters I don't like, I use them first in anything that increases Companionship EXP like Daily Commissions, Random Events, and of course, domain farming.
The Crackling Axe Mitachurls rush you like crazy with their quick spin attacks and jump attacks. The Kairagi are...well, super tanky.

What Does This Mean For The Rest of My Life?

I'll be honest: Genshin Impact is in my Top 10 favorite video games of all time, so it's gonna be very hard for me to quit it. (It's REALLY hard to reach my Top 10, so in CDawgVA's words, I'd say miHoYo absolutely killed it.)

Right now, I'm back to the usual routine of "do Daily Commissions, spend Resin, kill Weekly Bosses, and do Reputation Quests" with the occasional mining if I have extra time.
Note that I have another Genshin Impact thing keeping me busy, so keep an eye out for my next post.

I'll spend the rest of this week recovering my sleeping habits. I hope to sleep by 1 AM at worst so I don't boot up Genshin Impact the next morning with more than 120 Original Resin.
Ideally, I should spend all my Resin, take a bath, and brush my teeth before 12:30 AM.

In case of unexpected real-life events preventing me from spending all my Resin the usual way, there are always Condensed Resin and Magical Crystal Chunks.
Heck, in addition to the small Mora cost, the reason I usually don't make Condensed Resin is to prepare for such events.
These include appointments, schoolwork, and vacations.

Still, I used to be indifferent about new regions so I kept my hopes low for Inazuma, but now, I'm nervous about Sumeru. Not because of the puzzles like the memes say (but the Inazuma ones still hurt my tired brain), but because Sumeru might make Inazuma look like Mondstadt in terms of quest length and enemy difficulty.
Heck, perhaps one reason the Inazuma quests were too long for me is, in my head, I was practicing pronouncing every Japanese name and word. (My pitch accent is trash.)
I hope to get a more powerful PC than this because I currently can't record Genshin Impact--I can't leave my future viewers in the dark.

TL;DR summary: Screw Inazuma's tanky enemies and super-long quests. Good thing I finished them all so I can bring my life back to normal slowly, but I'm now nervous about the next Genshin Impact regions.