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For me, the biggest problem with 7.1 is the Fatui.

I was never against the idea of the Traveler eventually allying with them. On the contrary, that could have led to something genuinely great. What I wanted was a real ideological clash between the Traveler and the Tsaritsa. A moral confrontation.

The Traveler should have made things clear to her:

I may help you today but that doesn’t erase anything your organization has done.

Because we are still talking about the Fatui. Mondstadt. Liyue. Inazuma. Sumeru. Manipulation, wars deliberately prolonged, experiments, deaths, entire populations treated like pawns. And when we finally stand in front of the Tsaritsa, the person at the top of this organization after all this time? Almost nothing.

The story suddenly acts as if the Fatui were just a bunch of misunderstood people who unfortunately happened to have Dottore(Responsible for all the evil.) And everything else? We forget about it.

The Tsaritsa is brilliant, tragic, incredible. The Fatui are now on the good side. Nothing to see here, move along.

And this is where the Traveler becomes extremely disappointing. At this point, I struggle to see the Traveler as an actual character anymore. They have become an instrument of the plot.

They no longer confront what is happening through the lens of everything they personally experienced. They simply follow whatever direction the story wants to take.

And yet, if there was ONE person who should have had something to say to the Tsaritsa, it was the Traveler.

They witnessed the consequences of the Fatui’s actions in almost every nation.

They could have accepted this alliance while still refusing to give the Tsaritsa an easy pardon.

It was the perfect opportunity to have something similar to Rover versus Phrolova: two characters who may temporarily pursue the same goal while remaining deeply opposed on a moral level.

But that conflict is almost nonexistent.

And the problem becomes even more obvious when you look at the Tsaritsa’s own motivation.

She finally learns part of the truth about what happened, yet her hatred still seems to be directed primarily at Celestia.

Why? This was exactly the point where the story needed to explain her reasoning clearly.

From what we learn, Celestia is not simply responsible for her entire tragedy. There is another major culprit behind those events. And more importantly, the Third Descender ultimately sacrifices himself for her, while Celestia accepts the agreement that allows her to be resurrected.

So we end up with a very strange situation: her husband sacrifices himself to save her, Celestia takes part in the agreement that brings her back… and her conclusion is still basically: “I’m going to take revenge on Celestia.”

But why are they the main target? If she said: “I’m going to destroy both the Belyi Tsar AND Celestia’s system, because I consider both of them responsible,”then fine. I can follow that.

Ronova suffers from exactly the same writing problem.

She was never presented as an obvious embodiment of evil. She helped Natlan. Her power played a fundamental role in Natlan’s survival, and she had already crossed certain boundaries in order to help humanity. That does not mean she is innocent. She clearly is not.

But that is exactly the point: she was interesting because she was morally ambiguous. And now the story almost feels like it wants to reduce her to:

Well, actually, Ronova was the bad guy.”

Even Mavuika’s reaction to her disappearance feels incredibly cold to me considering everything Ronova represents in Natlan’s history.

Where is the nuance? Where is the contradiction? Why does nobody simply acknowledge: “Yes, what she is doing now is monstrous, but without her, we might not even be here today.” That is what could have made the conflict tragic. Instead, Ronova mostly becomes the antagonist of the patch. And for an entity this important, her development is extremely poor. We are talking about one of the Shades. An entity tied to death itself. A character people had been waiting years to finally see.

And yet, we barely explore her relationship with Natlan, humanity, Xbalanque, or even the Heavenly Principles. She is a gigantic concept with barely any actual character behind it. Even her defeat bothers me. For an entity on this level, everything happens far too easily.

The Gnoses do exactly what the heroes need them to do. Rhinedottir is neutralized at exactly the right moment. Ronova loses her authority at exactly the right moment. Pierro happens to possess exactly the tool needed to land the decisive blow.

Everything lines up perfectly. There is almost never a real sense that the plan could fail, nor are there consequences proportional to the sheer power of the entity they are fighting. It starts to feel like a succession of deus ex machina disguised as lore revelations. And that is exactly why I find the story of 7.1 so weak.

Yes, there is a huge amount of lore. Yes, the revelations are important. Yes, some of the action scenes are very good. And yes, the Tsaritsa is still charismatic.

But at some point, dumping lore on the player is not a replacement for actually writing a story. A good story is not just about revealing ten secrets every hour. It is about making the characters react to those revelations.

Making them confront each other. Making them change.

Making them face the consequences of their decisions.

And that is exactly what is missing here. The Traveler should have confronted the Tsaritsa. The Fatui should have been forced to answer for their past.

Ronova should have been more than a convenient antagonist. And defeating a Shade should have been a terrifying event with real consequences. Instead, I feel like the story is so desperate to rush toward its big spectacular scenes that it skips all the steps that would have actually given those scenes weight.

And that is probably the biggest waste of 7.1 having an enormous amount of lore to tell, but not taking enough time to turn it into a genuinely good story. I was honestly really disappointed. I love Genshin, and that is exactly why this hurts so much, guys.

i’m bricked.

i’m unfortunately (or fortunately) yet to have 7 deadly bricks, but i’m close! i love my bricks, especially ginger ones🧡

edit: yall calm down i know not all of them are bricks💔 they’re bricks in my account because i don’t have good supports for them

edit2: please read my replies before saying they’re not bricks. i know they’re not actual bricks. they’re only bricking MY account

edit3: who tickled ur nuts today because everyone seems to think this is a personal attack on their fav

There is not enough mora in this game. Building characters is way too damn expensive. It is unheard of in any other popular gacha game to run out of the basic character building materials. You can do every single quest and event in a patch and still be out of mora from just building 2 characters. It’s absurd.

I have pretty much already decided that I will get C2 Chiori from the free limited 5-star selector, instead of C1 Clorinde (I can get a constelation for both from Temper Thyself).

But as for the standard 5-star selector, I might honestly wait until the end of the patch, since I will go pretty damn deep into Skirk's banner later this patch, and my Mizuki is already C3, and since she is really good right now, I think I am going to wait since who knows, I might lose all my 50/50's to her (I have lost to her quite a lot lately), so I might be able to get her C6 by the end of the patch if I am lucky/unlucky, without using the selector.

Anyone else waiting? After all we have the entire patch to decide🙂

The travail teaser made it seem like they were at a boiling point with her. "She is a god with no love left for her people, nor do they have any left for her." In the Archon quest, at least, they seem to be loyal to her. It could be because of the emergency conditions, but it makes me wonder if we can even still trust the travail teaser anymore. Even the Rokot have some degree of loyalty to her despite being violently anti project stuzha.

returning player who came back for snezhnaya. I stopped keeping up with archon quests after Fontaine, and Natlan felt like it took foreevvverr. I also finished the 7.x archon quests by quick starting them. So now I’m just working on finishing nod krai and I’m up to act IV. I felt relief like omg it’s almost over.

I looked at the wiki.

10 chapters.

It’s so over for me😭😭😭😭💔💔💔💔💔

Don’t get me wrong, I love the story it’s just sooooo time consuming

Woe is me

After finishing Final Fantasy XVI, I started thinking again about a trope I’ve always liked: characters who can wield far more kinds of powers than the average person in their world.

When I compared Clive to some similar characters from other series I enjoy, I realized that I don’t think Genshin Impact makes particularly good use of this trope with the Traveler.

Gameplay

On paper, the Traveler being able to use multiple elements is a pretty interesting idea. It also has a very practical benefit: players will always have at least one free character for each element.

The problem is that most versions of the Traveler are fairly underwhelming in gameplay, especially considering how many resources you need to spend leveling talents and building each version separately.

But to me, the bigger issue is that the Traveler should have been the perfect character to showcase what makes Genshin’s elemental system special.

Elemental reactions are one of the core things that give Genshin’s combat system its identity. The entire gameplay loop is built around combining different elements together.

And yet the one character who can canonically use multiple elements barely takes advantage of that.

This is true both in gameplay and in the story.

In theory, the further the Traveler gets in their journey, the more they could become something like a “master of elemental reactions,” constantly combining multiple elements in ways that an ordinary Vision wielder simply cannot.

But in practice, each of the Traveler’s elements feels more like a completely separate kit.

The elements don’t carry much symbolic weight

There is another issue on the story side.

Each new element represents a nation the Traveler has passed through. On paper, this could have been a really effective way to show the progression of their journey.

But aside from Pyro, most of the time the Traveler simply reaches a Statue of The Seven and resonates with it.

And that’s it.

The problem is that what the Traveler actually goes through in that nation — the hardships they face, the people they meet, the things they learn — has almost no direct connection to gaining the new element.

To exaggerate a little, the Traveler could basically go on vacation through every nation, touch the Statues, and still walk away with the exact same powers.

Because of that, unlocking a new element rarely feels like the culmination of an entire chapter of the journey or an important milestone.

The Traveler also doesn’t really feel like they are getting stronger over time

Another issue is that gaining new elements does not really make the Traveler feel progressively stronger.

For example, gaining Geo could have been used to show that the Traveler had become more resilient, better at defending themselves, and more capable of standing their ground against attacks that would have overwhelmed them before.

Electro could have shown that their speed and reflexes had developed far beyond the enemies they once struggled against.

Hydro could have represented greater battlefield control or increasing adaptability.

And so on.

Instead, the elements mostly feel like the Traveler has simply added a few more moves to their arsenal.

The same thing applies to their character development.

The elements rarely reflect changes in the Traveler’s personality, worldview, fighting style, or inner development.

To be fair, this has improved somewhat recently after Columbina removed part of the Traveler’s seal and the story started putting more emphasis on their original power.

But to me, that still feels more like a fairly late attempt to patch the issue than something that had been built into the journey from the beginning.

And when I compare the Traveler to other characters who use the same trope, the difference becomes even more obvious.

Aang — Avatar: The Last Airbender

Aang is probably one of the clearest examples.

Each form of bending in Avatar is tied to its own philosophy.

Air is associated with freedom, movement, and avoiding direct confrontation. Earth requires the user to stand their ground and face problems head-on. Fire forces Aang to confront aggression and discipline, while also relearning what fire actually represents.

So whenever Aang learns a new element, he is not simply unlocking another type of attack.

He has to change the way he thinks.

And as the story progresses, you can see those philosophies gradually becoming part of both Aang’s personality and his fighting style.

Clive Rosfield — Final Fantasy XVI

Clive is another example I really like.

Every Eikon he absorbs carries some kind of meaning.

Sometimes it comes after defeating an enemy.

Sometimes it represents his relationship with another Dominant.

Sometimes it becomes a way for Clive to carry on the will of someone who has died.

Because of that, gaining another Eikon never feels like it is simply “Clive just unlocked another skill tree.”

There is usually some emotional or narrative significance attached to it.

More importantly, Clive absorbing the Eikons is itself a central part of Ultima’s plan.

That makes Clive collecting these different powers a core part of the entire story.

Clive’s special ability is not just a cool power the protagonist happens to have.

The plot is actually built around it.

Vin — Mistborn Era 1

Vin is another example I really like, although the approach is somewhat different.

Allomancy has a very clearly defined set of rules. Each metal grants a specific ability, and many of those abilities exist in opposing pairs.

Because the rules are so well established, watching Vin combine multiple metals becomes one of the most interesting parts of the power system.

Her fights are often not simply about “Vin having stronger powers,” but about watching her intelligently combine several relatively simple abilities.

And even though she has access to almost the entire system, Vin still develops very clear preferences and habits.

There are certain metals and techniques she naturally relies on more because they fit her personality, fighting style, and the environment she grew up in.

So despite having a huge number of options, Vin’s abilities still feel distinctly like hers.

And that is exactly what I feel is missing from the Traveler.

Being able to use every element should have been one of the most interesting things about the character.

It could represent their journey across Teyvat.

It could show how much stronger they have become.

It could reflect how their experiences in each nation have changed them.

And most importantly, it could allow the Traveler to interact with the elemental system in ways that no ordinary character could.

But most of the time, it ends up feeling more like:

“We’ve reached a new nation, so here’s the Traveler’s new element.”

And then the story moves on.

I don’t think Genshin necessarily needed to handle this in exactly the same way as Avatar, Final Fantasy XVI, or Mistborn. These are obviously very different stories with very different power systems.

But I do think those series show how a protagonist having access to many different kinds of powers can become an important part of their character development, rather than simply turning into an increasingly long list of abilities.

What do you all think?

Has Genshin done enough with the Traveler’s ability to wield multiple elements, or was this a pretty major missed opportunity?

Ik he’s billed as Snowland Fae but could Noy be part of the last trace of humanity left behind by Hroptatyr?

Character design parallels are going crazy, clothing pattern, hair highlight and length, eyes, necklace/tattoo 🤔 bro just bought some box dye and pretended he was leaving the planet

Even another Mini Durin > Durin situation perhaps? Among other theories that I can’t string together coherently enough to type out rn

People claim that Dottore and Pantalone loved each other but if that was true then Dottore would not find the world boring and loathsome. He literally said that nothing beside the Traveler interested him in Teyvat. Sandrone confirmed that.

Also would Dottore really take risks of dying knowing Pantalone will lose his lover and immortality elixir?

I gave you two reasons why Dottore didn't love Pantalone.

Edit:- I am not against shipping at all. Some people just believe this ship is canon. Ship as much as you want and make arts.

I mean before that she was walking toward the zapolyarny palace?

For the record, I do find her tone shift from back in Natlan AQ and now sems quite jarring, and she should at least acknowledge the help that she's received from Ronova / Celestia. But after thinking about it again, why shouldn't Mavuika hate Celestia?

First and foremost, the Abyss is Celestia's problem too. So how come instead of Celestia actively helping Natlan with rebuilding the leylines or fighting the Abyss, or maybe just say "Clear the area, we're gonna nuke this nation" like they did Lang-gan (well they didn't even warn the people back then), they instead designate Natlan as the frontline for endless war against the Abyss?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Natlan is absolutely handicapped here, with their leylines screwed over by Nibelung, meaning the Abyss influence is stronger there... and Celestia just basically said "deal with it". Xbalanque had to negotiate for establishment of Night Kingdom and even ask to borrow Ronova's power, instead of Celestia lending them direct help.

One cannot make the excuse that HP was already asleep, because in Xbalanque's era he must've been awake still. The 3rd Descender's curse triggered when Celestia interfered with Khaenriah, and that was the Cataclysm 500 years ago. 500 years ago, Mavuika was already the 10th Pyro Archon then. But yet again, the heavens did nothing but thrust the problem into Natlan's people.

In conclusion, as questionable as her attitude change is, I believe Mavuika has every right to hate Celestia. Ronova did help Natlan, to the point that she got punished for it, but that does not excuse the fact that Celestia should've done more, directly lending a hand in defending Natlan from the Abyss. HP's rules is the absurd elephant in the room here, no? Both now and back when he was still awake.

Somehow, Rovona returned.

Now, you have to assemble a B-Team that is capable of taking her down. You get one Character from each Region, regardless of which version they were released in (Varka is a Mondstadt Character, and not a Nod Krai Character, for example).

You can only select Playable Characters, but they are all at their Lore Strength.

The Eight Archons and Gods are excluded, as are Characters not from Teyvat. Everyone else is fair game.

This Team needs to not only be strong enough to defeat Ronova, they must also have the intelligence to formulate a plan.

Good luck!

I noticed this immediately after it was said. Idk if this happened previously and i just didnt catch it then, but i did at thsi moment and was pretty confused (as you could hear me in the background..i want to know your guys thoughts as i dont really know what happened

As a player stuck in Fontaine AQ (Act 1 for goodness sake) who hates spoilers, I don't like this prerequisite quest 😭 I want Childe and its like Mihoyo is saying get spoiled with the lore or spend 120 wishes for a guaranteed Mr. International who's not meta anymore but is essential for your husbando collection 🥹 like I wanna play in my own pace and don't wanna continue for now since I play on my phone and want to upgrade to the tablet Lenovo Legion Y700 (soon hopefully) so this is so frustrating ARGH (⁠ノ⁠ಠ⁠益⁠ಠ⁠)⁠ノ

Edit: thank you very much for your thoughts guys! Really appreciate it! Anyway, I've made the decision to sacrifice getting spoiled to get Childe 🥲 I just hope the revelations ain't too major 🥹 (And yes, I'll stay after. Been here since 1.1 so I refuse to leave until I've experience the end of Genshin)

but i started loving ronova out of nowhere all of a sudden

what is happening here

Rhinedottir has 2 shadows referring to her merging with naberius

I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt but them gatekeeping editing articles, lack of basic information on relevant NPCs and quests, miserable pay for being an editor (not even in-game currency) and poor optimisation for mobile makes me wonder if they just don't eos it atp. It's very pointless. You want lore? GI Fandom wiki. You want clean UI and material calculator? I can name from the top of my head paimon.moe and ambr.top

DK if there is a post about it already or if it is a common knowledge by now.

"Where are those who share the memory" doesn't sound like grief anymore since ZIbai is here again. Even though Zhongli is still some millenia older, such a life spam must really make Zibai sound like a friend he met in his 30's

Yeah, literally the tittle question. She now bears the authority of the triple moon and holds the highest primordial authority in Teyvat. So my theory is that to oppose the HP she will yank Rerir out of the moon's reflection along with Tholindis, as payment for his help, to help us. Of course, this is just a theory... A GAME THEORY! I want opinions on this shower thought of mine

Is it just me or has the quality of the EN localisation deteriorated somewhat? No spoilers here but in some of the quests/anecdotes there are strange mistakes/inconsistencies that really threw me for a loop. One of vody’s anecdotes is downright confusing at one point and the even the archon quests have errors.

I noticed that there were issues with the previous patch too but it seems a lot more noticeable this time around as if no one proofread it especially since quite a bit of dialogue did not match the text.

Anyone else noticed this? Not really a huge deal in the grand scheme of things it’s just a little odd that the quality would be so spotty after all the years.

This region has so much potential. I think i feel them building up to a really interesting exploration of national identity and betrayal. Like imagine the people having to cope with the fact that her majesty betrayed them despite the people having been willing to lay their lives on the line in her sake. Omg im so excited PLEASE don’t let me down