Introduction
I’ve been thinking about this a long time, and I finally want to share my opinion (if you care to read it) about the endgame. Now that the discourse has died down somewhat, I hope we can have a fruitful discussion regarding it. To start off, I want to focus on gameplay elements as to narrow down our scope a little bit. I think the main gameplay appeals of Genshin is its 1) story, 2) exploration, 3) combat, and 4) teapot customization. I also want to briefly touch on what type of Genshin player I am, to sort of show my “credentials” lmao. I am a BP + Welkin player and have completed all the story quests, hidden world quests, character quests, and hangout. I have explored all areas 100% and I have 766 achievements. I have only regularly 36* the abyss on 2.7. All this is not to brag, but to simply dispel unhelpful comments such as “Oh you are a story skipper” or “Oh you don’t do exploration, you only want to fight stuff”. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the nitty gritty.
Genshin and its appeal
As discussed, we will be focusing on gameplay elements. We all know how the waifus and husbandos are the first things that draws us to play the game, but they will not be helpful to the discussion moving forward. As a live service game meant to be a daily-driver for most, Genshin exists in the Goldilocks zone of tedium. It is more engaging than auto-play gachas, and less burnout inducing than full-fledge MMOs. With at least 30 mins in a day, you can complete your daily chores. It also touts a roadmap with a least 7 story chapters across at least 7 explorable regions. Again, these details are not too important to the discussion, but it is important to layout the main gameplay loop and future potential.
Now, laying down the four main gameplay appeals will take a lot of unpacking and will be tackled in the next chapter. It is important to note however, that two of the main appeals – story and exploration – already have a roadmap ensuring content in the coming years. Combat and teapot however, only have the past updates to go on as reference for the coming updates. Which neatly bring us to the next chapter.
Dissection of Version Updates
I will be breaking down the major additions in each version since 2.0(since that is when I started playing) for each of the main gameplay appeals. Please do let me know if I missed anything major.
https://i.imgur.com/44Rz41V.png
What we can see from the table is that almost every version, there are hefty additions to both exploration and story. I want to present my observation that these new explorable areas and story lines are made for the sake of experiencing them. Yes, there are primo rewards to be gained in full exploration and in completing the quests; but these things, by and large, are mainly done for the sake of experiencing it. Most of us explore for the sake of exploration and go through the story for the sake of experiencing the story. The associated events, though limited, still aim to provide the same experience of exploration and story.
The teapot, though not getting as much content as story and exploration, still get a steady stream of additional content and QoL updates. The additions are still meant to be experienced for its own sake. Again, there are minor primo rewards for characters and their sets, but most customize the teapot for the sake of customizing the teapot. (I want to mention that my teapot is a bitcoin farm with jadescreens, so apologies in advance if I get anything wrong regarding this aspect since I am not as familiar with it as the other three)
Combat on the other hand is different. Most of the combat content added is a means to an end, and not meant to be the experience itself. All the bosses and new enemy types are added to ascend weapons and character. The one-time domains, though could be said to be the experiences themselves, are hardly meaningful additions to combat. Most just do the domains for the one-time reward and never visit it again. The weekly bosses are the closest thing I could categorize to new combat experiences since they use unique enemies and new combat mechanics. At the end of the day however, the weekly bosses still boil down to talent ascension materials. Unlike story, exploration, and the teapot, we hardly get any combat content for the sake of experiencing combat; it is always in service of something else.
Well… how about the abyss? Let’s talk about it more in depth in the next chapter.
The Abyss
The abyss is considered the primary repeatable combat. It is what I would consider the only combat related experience we do for the sake of it. However, the biweekly abyss rotations can be hardly said as new content. The relatively sizeable primo reward for abyss also induces FOMO and leaves a bad taste in the mouth of those who don’t want to engage with it, whether because of indifference or inability. And unlike teapot where the primo rewards are so small it could be ignored, or the story and exploration where the bulk of the rewards can be obtained easily, the abyss presents more tangible primo rewards that are gone after two weeks. This causes two major problems: 1) People who are unable to/doesn’t want to complete the abyss become resentful towards difficult combat content because it represents 600 primos down the drain every two weeks, and 2) People who easily clear the abyss and want to do more difficult combat content are left without any outlet for their built teams.
These two differing and incompatible points of view are what caused the recent discord in the Genshin community. Party 2 being upset at Hoyoverse, and Party 1 celebrating Hoyoverse’s decision to not add more difficult combat content, which turned to slinging shit at each other. Well, what’s the solution? Let’s talk about endgame content and why that is a shit name for it.
I believe (this is my opinion) that the dissatisfaction of the combat focused players stem from the fact that story, exploration, and to an extent teapot, all receive notable updates every version that can be enjoyed and experienced for the sake of it, but not combat. This is not a new thing and has always been discussed at length every time a new enjoyable combat event – see Hyakkunin Ikki and Labyrinth Warriors – are added to the game, and inevitably, pops new threads on the Genshin subreddit about how this would be a great endgame content.
Endgame content, what a shit name for it. It brings to mind MMOs, the unending grind, power creep, PvP, and leaderboards. I do not believe this form of endgame is what most players want or even mean when they say endgame content. This is why I do not like this term at all; it is all too easy to demonize and to brush off actual concerns of combat focused players. I believe (again, this is my opinion) that what most combat focused players want are the same level of updates as story and exploration. Combat content that can be done for the sake of experiencing it, for the sake of testing out our built teams, and for the sake of enjoying the complex combat system that Genshin has built.
Can’t you enjoy combat on the overworld where there are unlimited enemies and bosses, or through the numerous combat events? Well, the same reason why I didn’t add the minor world quests, story commissions, explorable domains, and minor events in the dissection; these are simply filler and serve a different purpose to the gameplay aspects I laid out in the dissection of the version updates. Anyone with a semi-decent team will bulldoze any combat content in the overworld. These are basically the fetch quests of combat content. So how do we solve the issue of dissatisfaction of combat focused players without inducing FOMO to the other camp, and does it even have to be solved?
Is combat important?
Genshin is an Action RPG. Don’t want to go by Wikipedia definitions? Sure. Hoyoverse puts equal weight on a character’s kit and personality, evident in the videos they release for each new character: one to showcase the combat kit, and one to showcase their personality. The main progression system in the game is to improve our characters until they are combat ready. The elemental reactions all serve to give complexity and depth to the combat system. The characters we pull from the gacha interact with the world primarily through combat.
Don’t want to go by Hoyoverse’s game design and insist that combat focused players only constitute the minority? Well, true since we have some data on how many players complete the abyss every cycle and we know that only a handful achieves 36*. BUT, that doesn’t mean the average player does not care about combat. We have sales data and we can see that the most popular banners tend to be the one with stronger characters. We have abyss statistics that show that characters on banner tend to be used more, which indicates that those who pull for them wants to test out their combat capabilities.
We have all these things pointing to the fact that combat is an important aspect of the game, and yet we have get no combat content regularly unlike story or exploration. We have nowhere to use our built characters aside from the abyss, which as explained in The Abyss chapter, can be problematic. This is why combat focused players are dissatisfied, especially after the Hoyoverse interview.
What is the solution?
Bruh, I don’t know. I just wanted to say that I personally don’t like the way some in the community went “hurr hurr you don’t deserve combat content, and Hoyoverse agrees with us”. This is not an us versus them problem. If you don’t appreciate or engage with the combat, sure, more power to you. Just like how some players don’t engage with the story. I’m just trying to present that combat IS an important aspect of this game and should have the same amount of new content as the other aspects. And no, I am not advocating for more primos for the new difficult content. I just want something to sink my teeth into combat wise, that the rest of the player base can safely ignore without losing too much, just like how some players can ignore the teapot or leave their worlds at 25% exploration or skip the story. I don’t know if it is possible and I don’t know if Hoyoverse, or any of you for that matter, cares. I just wanted to express that I feel full and satisfied after consuming story content and exploration content, but the same does not go for finishing the abyss every other week. It makes me want for more because Genshin has such a deep, complex, and frankly beautiful combat system.
TLDR;
Genshin has three main appeals in its gameplay: Exploration, Story, and Combat. Every patch, exploration and story content are added that can be experienced for the sake of it. The combat content added every patch always serve a purpose: weapon ascension, character ascension, talent ascension, what have you, while the story and exploration content can be experienced for the sake of experiencing them. The closest combat content that can be experienced for the sake of it is abyss. Yes, it refreshes every 2 weeks, but that hardly counts as “new” content and is hamstrung by the relatively big primo rewards causing FOMO to those who cant accomplish it. What I think Genshin needs is new combat content that can be experienced for the sake of itself.
Edit: Please correct me if I have any mistakes or if I'm blowing smoke out of my ass. I want to listen to your takes too
