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the problem with specific enemy or puzzle scenarios is not everyone has those characters. Genshin is a gacha game, mreaning that specific characters to clear scenarios means you can be softlocked until you roll those characters in gacha.

Fun fact , Hoyeverse did in fact directly nerf one character post launch , that being Xingqiu when 1.1 released . In 1.0 Xingqiu's would apply 60 Units of Hydro with his burst which they nerfed to 24 in 1.1 , this nerf reduced how long the Hydro would stick to enemies and made Xinqiu break shields 2.5 times slower

I really hope genshin can fix characters that the community doesn’t pay much attention too…

Something I've noticed is there aren't really any enemies in the game who can only be taken down with physical attacks. There are plenty of shields that require specific elements to break easily, and elemental beings that are immune to their element, but there's nothing in the game to encourage players to make a physical build aside from just... wanting to do it. It feels like a waste when so many characters have unique and fun to play animations for their physical attacks, but then never have reasons to use them outside of extremely niche builds.

Apologies for the issues with the premiering. Won't happen again!... Hopefully...

Its wild to me that only one character has ever been buffed. For any gacha game that's just insane.

The ironic part about genshin is that its progressing extremely slowly compared to most gachas. Since most gachas add about 5 characters per month, Genshin doesnt have to resort to Power creeping as much since they can focus on filling different niches. The ironic part though is they seem to have not found how to implement these niches appropriately. Ive not met a person who is excited to face the golden wolf because they are "forced" to use a geo character. I personally dont like azdaha's "have a shielder or bust" mechanic particularly because I dont have a shielder besides noelle or thoma, nor do i have those characters invested or built. I think they did strike a better balance on the Raiden weekly "electro ball check". I think they should focus on adding more mechanics based things that are faster/more effective if you have them but don't cripple you/create a feels bad moment for the player.

personally, i like the idea of a final ascension to level 100. it could bring four stars up in power and versatility, and for other characters that are already very powerful a new way to play them. it would cost a LOT of resources, but it means that players who really like certain characters that are weak into the spotlight. klee could have her ult stay on the field after she switches off. yun jin could turn into a main dps and buff her own normal attacks more. venti does a special plunging attack, giving incentive to use his held skill more. razor has greater movement speed during his burst. zhongli could deal more damage from his normal attacks, maybe include how during his animations his spear turns into a special geo one. traveler gets a huge elemental dmg bonus for their current element. shenhe can infuse her own attacks with cryo, and now she can be a main dps. noelle generates energy for herself when she’s protected by her shield and the entire party’s health is at full. reduce keqing’s charged attack stamina cost and increase her movement speed. beidou infuses her weapon with electro after a perfectly-timed counter. yoimiya’s burst can be applied to multiple enemies and the cooldown of the explosions is decreased. i think theres a lot that can be done for characters that need it, and for characters that are already really good like ganyu, hu tao, etc, they can have more utility purposes, and support characters can have ways to be a better or main damage dealer. talents could also have a new max at 15 rather than 13, but each upgrade costs a crown still, so completely maxing a character requires 9 crowns instead, but im still not completely sold on this part. one of my favorite parts of the game is coming up with wacky ways to use characters. i main reverse melt, normal attacking chongyun for christs sake. finding weird ways to play characters is my bread and butter. let me play physical thoma. normal and charged attacking yae miko. dps gorou. dps kujou sara. main dps zhongli. its super fun to me, and doesnt prevent the character from being used the way they were before.

This is something I believe you’ve talked about before, but most weak/forgettable 4 star units are that way because their potential is locked behind constellations, and some of those 4 stars will never be featured on a banner which makes acquiring constellations extremely difficult. If they just made a challenge-perhaps similar to Spiral Abyss-where you can earn Stella Fortuna for 4 stars, it might give those characters the opportunity to see more play. I like Amber as a character for instance, but I cannot be bothered ever really using her or investing in her without having her at least C2 first. C0 Amber is easily the worst character in the game by a long shot.

one of the things in favor of healers that can heal the whole party is the rift hounds, this everyone knows to some degree, but the thing i keep having to deal with is even in the middle of burst animations, you can still be hit by corrosion.

They could go the Zhongli route and take advantage of a rerun banner to buff the featured 5 star and 4 stars. So not only would it bring much needed buffs to the rerunning character, the buffs would encourage people who didn't want to pull for them on debut to give them a shot now and people who weren't satisfied with them to start using them again and maybe even go for constellations. So for example, Yoimiya's rerun is coming soon, it would be a great opportunity to give her a buff, it would definitely encourage some people to pull for her Edit: I see arguments regarding indirect buffs in the shape of new weapons and characters that synergize well. But i believe that those are buffs in the same way that a wheelchair is a movement buff to an obese person, yes it helps them perform better, but it doesn't solve the root of the problem. Take Yoimiya for example, yeah she's not that great by herself, but if you fit her with a shielder, a gatherer for keeping enemies in place and either Yunjin for her normal attack buff or a Hydro/Cryo/Electro sub-dps for reactions, she can very well do heaps of damage. But just like Vars always says, why bother? If you are willing to go to that much trouble in terms of investment for a character you intend to pull for, why not aim that investment at a more powerful dps like Ayaka, Shogun, Ganyu or Hu Tao who are going to reward you way more effectively for your investment. That's why direct buffs are so important, because they increase the effectiveness of a character indiscriminately from their circumstances, and so you don't have to worry about needing other things to make them useful, they already would be regardless.

Giving characters a 2nd elemental skill at lvl 100 sounds awesome. With only so little buttons to press every characters gameplay ends up feeling too similar and combat as a whole becomes pretty bland.

I wouldn’t say Yae Miko is weak, but for me she feels clunky to play and one way to fix her for me would be if you could place all turrets at once and casting her burst refreshes the turrets uptime like Kokomi.

The Zhongli story is so funny considering how that sort of treatment wouldn’t be equal for all. He got the mega buff and Raiden Shogun was released almost explicitly to take advantage of the most popular/meta teams in genshin rather than simply make other Electro units better ( no I don’t think her working decently with Sara and Yae niko makes their clunky play styles that much more improved than without her). They spared no expense to make Raiden a popular and sought after character; the peak waifu bait right down to Dango milk and light novel shopping. Meanwhile, Venti? He was unsubtlely and painfully rendered a worse character to use than at launch with Inazuma’s release just to highlight how much more superior the new 5 star Anemo hotness, Kazuha will be for you instead of relying on him or even Sucrose. He and the other Anemo users never got adjustments to be able to affect the new mobs the way Kazuha could. Yes you can point to the story reasons that Venti was always considered the weakest and so wouldn’t be that wrong like Zhongli or Ei/Shogun (and proud of it) but that doesn’t make it less weird how other mortals can outclass him like Kazuha.

Seasonal bosses like in Blue Archive would definitely freshen up the game by a long shot. Heck, Genshin already has that in a form of the 3 weekly reputation quests in each region where the targeted mob is immune or weak to certain elements

I think making the specific bosses weak to a certain damage type is good. Even specific ones. But making scenarios where only those characters are usable is definitely a no no. The amount of investment required to build even one character is insane and mihoyo is so stingy with how little they give out that forcing players to build a specific character they don’t want to build just for one boss/event will not go over well. I know one of the reasons why I hated specters so much was because you essentially needed a ranged damage user. I didn’t have one and definitely was not willing to spend 3-5 million mora on ningguang just to defeat them. I also was not willing to spend 12k primos for a yoimiya or ganyu either when those could be spent on characters I actually wanted. Great video anyways but I hope Mihoyo never does character specific bosses/events. After all, one of the appeals of Genshin is that you can essentially use any character since the content of the game is so easy. Taking away from that would bring more complaints than anything.

I like the idea of having an awakening or a rank up quest that is tailored towards each character. I imagine it would be similar to what Fate Grand Order does with its rank up quests and interludes where completing the quest grants upgrades to a character’s skills and ultimate attacks.

It's a pity Diluc's atk speed got nerfed since launch. I wonder how fast a C6 Beta Diluc would be.

A while ago I also thought of a mechanic similar to a second elemental skill, but instead of a regular cooldown I thought It would be nice if it have like 15 min CD but with several charges, these would be called gadgets, let me give you an example for amber. Amber's gadget would supercharge the current baron bunny making the enemies that get hit by the explosion generate another explosion, this would have 3 charges and every charge would refresh every 15, or every time you get near a statue of the seven because waiting 15 min would be annoying in the overworld. I though it would also be nice if you got these "gadgets" by completing some sort of special mision of the character, for example a mission that tells you amber's backstory or a mission that covers chongyun's training with shenhe and cloud retainer

Personally, I like the idea of adding a higher power ceiling, with new systems, for one simple reason. The current character progression systems are mind-bogglingly boring. Think about it. Over the entire 90 levels we have in Genshin, we only get two meaningful power jumps, and one is at the FIRST ascension. And everything besides those power jumps is nothing but flat numbers. As a result, at least 90% of what you do to improve your characters feels like busywork, especially in the case of having to get low-level characters up just to deal with Genshin's level scaling. You can invest resources into characters, but 99% of the time it's for the most boring shit imaginable, like slightly higher attack ratios or slightly higher base stats. I just want some new system that makes raising characters up feel more meaningful.

I really like the idea of unlocking a new elemental skill for each character, which you could then equip and swap between. Even if all they did was the Smash 4 approach of “same animations different properties (except Palutena and the mii fighters)” that could potentially give so much room to buff weaker characters. Obviously this would be a huge design undertaking, and sadly I doubt they would go for this approach because it wouldn’t immediately earn them any revenue, but the Traveller already does exactly this with their different elemental forms. I wouldn’t even care if extort more resin from us by making us grind talent levels for the new abilities, I just wish they had a system like that which allowed you more freedom to build characters towards different playstyles. Just think of the diversity it would add to team building!

Coop raid dungeons is what I've been asking for in genshin for the longest time (sort of like destiny 1/2 raid dungeons if you've ever played them before but ofc for mobile controls sake it'll be much more lenient mechanically). It can have weekly rotating themes based on each region and the rewards can correspond to each region. Group solving puzzles from rooms to rooms, finding hidden treasures and then either a boss at multiple stages/phases then a final boss/fight at the end. This will introduce different "metas" and viability to under used characters to shine. Maybe you NEED a taunt for a boss/mob/puzzle phase or a counter or protecting an objective with terrain, traverse terrain with geo structures or charge up an objective with specific elements consistently. Hit a moving objective/boss, stay close in the circle of a teammate, sneaking around/avoid detection, a mob that's attracted to sounds made by objects or projectiles, restrictions to multiple characters, buffed characters on weekly rotations in the dungeon. No food revives only character skills/constellations revive viable. 4 players with only 1 character or 2 characters per player making a team of 8 characters in total. NOT RESIN RESTRICTED. Maybe a first time completion reward cost that resets weekly but also a rerun is available with reduced rewards for free. The boosted rewards can be like new set of artifacts that is 1 set like the crown item from the regies, 300 primos, 300k Mora and 30 exp tomes. Or 1/6 fragment of a constellation of a random 5 star from the region theme. long term progression/endgame/viability opportunities open up. The rerun rewards can be like 25kmora, random talent books/weapon ascension mats and 3 5* random artifacts from themed region. Or a new currency reward that you can trade all the above things I mentioned to a new or existing npc related to this dungeon.

TBH the idea to force characters in certain pieces of content is probably the WORST idea I have ever heard. All it does is push whales with all their units and hurts F2P since a lot of them probably won't have these characters and would also make the experience not fun since the boss NEEDS to be cleared a very specific way...

I think the best idea would be to raise the level cap and add new talents, considering the game still has a very long ways to go, save some kind of disaster. But I feel like Hoyo will keep as they are by 'improving' characters with new copies. Like, if Amber is bad, just release a better character that replaces her, because you can't monetize Amber without some big systematic change. It's a gacha game, and sadly money comes first before other things for characters. I don't see why they do this, it seemed like a success with Zhongli. He used to be bad, but now he's much better and makes more money as a result. The whole thing is a little sad because one reason I like Genshin is how less characters are released, allowing more focus for each one rather than pumping out hundreds with bigger numbers.

out of all characters that have been put out so far, lisa is still my fave character design. that's why was bummed that her playstyle was torture for me, and not the good kind

Im a proud chongyun main and i really hope at some point, Genshin changes most of the earlier characters, i rewlly love diluc too but he needs some reworks on passive, same to my icecle boy

On the topic of the "New characters are better versions of old ones" argument, I'd have to disagree that Shenhe is just better Chongyun. Chongyun and shenhe both have different playstyles. Chongyun can be a DPS or a support for cryo characters and other characters that benefit from a cryo infusion (Diluc, Bennett, and Xingqiu spring to mind). Shenhe is solely a Cryo damage buffer (with some DPS capabilities, if I'm not wrong). Chongyun can nuke, but Shenhe doesn't have high enough scaling to nuke. They're just pretty different characters, at least compared to Yelan/Xingqiu and Kazuha/Sucrose.

A big issue with events having incentives that buff "weak" characters is that it's largely a temporary incentive to build characters that you otherwise wouldn't use. That's a huge issue in genshin when resources to build characters is very limited.

While you did mention awakening quests, I dont think they are as bad as you think. FGO does awakening quests for older characters all the time and they either update the character's skill to something more modern or simply increase the damage of their Noble Phantasm (burst if we're relating to Genshin). I feel like this is a simple and effective way to buff older units without really needing to touch newer ones. Hell even FGO doesn't really give out awakening/interlude quests to newer units until they become a few years behind the meta. A good example is OG Saber. She was a year 1 unit and had to receive up to 4 quests to become one of the best AOE clearing servants in the game. I'm not saying Genshin needs to go that far, but if we're talking keeping older units up to date with modern ones, I feel like awakenings isn't a bad idea.

Just wanna say, I really appreciate how thoughtful your vids are from a design and development standpoint. It's rare to hear someone on KZfaq suggesting solutions that are actually feasible and that don't break the existing design.

I'm of the "new abilities" camp, while I understand it'd be volitile, it just takes a bit of attention to understand which characters to give "new and amazing" skills and which ones to give "supplimentary, but ultimately slightly underused" abilities. For example, Albedo's C4 is so out of his kit to me "buff plunging damage while in flower" despite nothing else in his kit incentivises doing plunging attacks. What if he had a second skill that would empower in midair? or a passive that effected plunging damage, maybe even boosting it based on Defense, or infusing it with geo, as are two of the ways to build Albedo himself.

Shenhe is my personal favorite character and I love to build teams around her - regardless of what the Meta says. The statement of Shenhe being supposedly a powercrept version of Chongyun already kinda hurt to hear because there is no correlation between the two as units other than matched elements. In fact, they do have a fair bit of synergy, since Shenhe Buffs everyone's Cryo Damage and Chongyun gives the whole party access to Cryo Damage. Though far from optimal, Shenhe does not to what Chongyun does. In fact, she's such a crazy niche and specific unit as a whole that there's barely anything you can compare. Other than that, the powercreep video was also sort of a weird one from a Meta and/or theory crafting PoV, because of the whole Yelan/Xingqiu argument in that video. Mostly because Yelan only has damage but all in all is only a sidegrade overall. However, Yelan's Hydro Application isn't as reliable for units with faster ICD - due to her lacking the Orbitals that also apply Hydro, that Xingqiu has. And it feels a bit weird to bring up the Yelan/Xingqiu point, without addressing the massive shift in the meta that came alongside Yelan, that is the Double Hydro Core - which is a whole new best comp for Hu Tao and also applicable to other Pyro DPS. Anyway, that's just a little take I wanted to throw in because I feel like throwing around the words "Powercreep" and "Fixing" characters, when certain units who are actually doing pretty fine are kind of downplayed. That's all, keep up the good content!

Here we are again. Please stop with Chongyun/Shenhe comparison. You compare them for 3 videos straight and it’s not even a good one. Those are two different units. If Itto and Noelle at least have similar features (both scale with def, both have geo infused ult, both use claymore) and some roles are different (Noelle can support) and make sense, Chongyun and Shenhe have different roles, different abilities, different weapon types, they are built differently (one wants atk crit and some em if melt, the other wants atk atk atk and maybe some ER). If you compare them as “cryo supports” then they have different roles within support. One is a cryo enabler and burst nuke and the other is a buffer. It’s like comparing Xingqiu to Kokomi or Amber to Bennett. It doesn’t work like that.

Perhaps mihoyo could release a new domain that drops a material that you can use to craft a “sacred item” that gives an unit another passive or ability. To balance that out, this domain would require gimmicky strategies and only a select, updatable list of characters would have access to these “sacred items.” (For example for the first patch only the starter character’s “sacred items” are craftable. For the next patch, ninguang, noelle, and chongyun’s “sacred items” are added onto the craftable items list). For gimmicks they don’t even have to make it so that only three specific units could feasibly do it (like: the boss has massive damage reduction to everything except meele cryo attacks). It could be something along the lines of: every second, the boss could only take a set amount of damage. This way, sustain damage dealers like Keqing and Ganyu could clear the floor a lot easier than burst damage dealers like Eula and Ayaka. To promote the reverse, maybe do something like: every time you damage the boss, the boss will heal for a certain amount. Again, these are just ideas and I’m sure that there are a lot of ways to improve them

For most of these things to be implemented they would need to lower the cost of rasing the characters as of now it just takes too many resources or time to build even one 4 star and if you needed to build every single one because you don't know when they'll be needed is too much

I think a good way to incorporate second elemental skills into the game would be to have them added through methods outside of ascending the characters themselves. An example of this would perhaps be having these skills be acquired through additional story modes for certain characters locked behind friendship levels, and then have an additional skill added on to their kit after the storymode. I imagine it would encourage the usage of certain characters, while also encourage the usage of newer characters through hyping up or displaying the additional skill in character demos. Just imagine having a dedicated story for Xinyan gaining an additional skill that both scales off of Def and deals additional physical damage, essentially boosting both core parts of her kit while creating a way to engage with her and getting to know her character even more.

I wouldn’t say shenhe is the powercreep ver of Chongyun tho 🤔 their kits work fundamentally different and play different roles I think. For a dps Chongyun I think it’s more accurate to say that his powercreep ver is Ayaka and for support, there’s not really anyone who does what Chongyun does, but then again, there’s no demand for constant cryo infusion so

I think buffing old characters would be the most optimal. It can just be small tweaks overtime. It doesn't need to be a makeover like Zhongli. Fate Grand Order buffs characters constantly, and they often use it as a way to build hype for re-runs. For example, if Genshin were to buff Klee so that her Burst worked when she was off-field, I would pull for her. As is though, she is about to have a 3rd re-run and there have been no new incentives for older players who already skipped her before to pull now. A tweak like this isn't meta breaking, but encourages re-exploring old chatacters.

I would do these fixes directly for weaker characters: Thoma- burst cost decreased to 60 and HP scaling damage increased in his ascension passive Xynian- passive buffed to always have level 3 shield when hitting an enemy and C6 would convert her defense into attack Lisa- her C2 would have the added benefit of decreasing the stacks needed for her skill to one and she would have an EM scaling mechanic similar to Yae added to one of her passives Chongyun - his burst would have a defense down effect and his cryo field would also buff some elemental mastery Qiqi- she would have an added passive that buffs attack while her skill is active like Yelan DMG bonus passive Noelle- after finishing a normal attack combo she would gain 3% attack speed and it would be capped at 15% Razor- he would deal bonus damage for enemies applied with electro and the C6 would be AOE electro damage instead Yanfei- just some percentages buffs in her skills Ningguang- her C4 would also boost damage bonus for the element she triggers a crystalize Sayu- she would pull enemies in once when she uses her burst Barbara- her ring AOE would be increased and her burst would decrease everyone's cool down by 20% Kokomi- if she triggers a reaction she would apply hydro to enemies around her even off field in a tiny AOE (more consistent hydro applier) Keqing- her burst gives her movement speed and restores stamina Diluc- some percentages buff so he doesn't fall off Yae - her burst would refresh her skills duration Kaeya- percentages buffs cause his kit is pretty good Amber- while baron bunny is on field, she buffs puro damage and when her burst is used she buffs pyro characters CRIT DMG by 20% Anemo traveler - his burst stops at large enemies and he gives all elemental damage bonus after using it Geo traveler- he boosts 15% attack and 15% defense in his field Electro traveler- triggering reactions would generate 2 energy for teammates and 4 energy for him I think that's it, none of this abilities would replace any of their current ones due to a law in China (I guess) where they can't change the products they sell, so this would all be buffs that wouldn't impact the use and kits we have for these characters today

That's my Legendary Hector video :) Really happy to know you've seen it, even if it was just to collect data

am i the only one being so cynical that i think they'll never do anything about any of the aforementioned issues or missed opportunities unless they lose a majority of their playerbase against some other game that does all of that and better

I always had this dumb idea to add more diversity to genshin: give each unit a few elemental skills/bursts to choose from, that way you could literally mix up your kit or specialize a character. Eg: a semi healer like xingqui could have the option to swap out his elemental skill for a slightly more offensive ability, or his burst for a heavily defensive one. This would certainly make the game very unbalanced if done wrong but could allow players even more freedom to build teams.

What fosters this lack of diversity in character useage is the fact that it takes months of investment to bring up a single character to usability. Don't expect me to thank Hoyoverse for making me have to stretch my already limited resources even further against an RNG system stacked heavily against me to begin with.

I find it annoying when I'm forced to use a certain type of character to clear content, I just want to use the characters I like, rather than being forced to use cryo against an electro fatui or take 4 minutes to kill him instead so I wouldnt go for restrictive/ niche content/bosses. Awakening/ second skills sounds much more interesting, many games include powerspikes for lower star characters, epic 7 has specialty changes that give 3*'s new abilities/empowered abilities which allows them to spike for certain content. Summoners war has second awakening which basically does the same thing, gives 3*'s a new form with powered up abilities that make them significantly stronger. I can definitely see this type of awakening mechanic in genshin for like the tutorial characters, amber kaeya ect. or just anyone that hasen't gotten a lot of love like razor :)

This sounds like more of an indirect buff to the characters, but without changing the flaws that cripple them in favour of new skills that, if given to other characters, or making them the new normal, would not only make powercreep faster, but also overcomplicate the characters, make them more expensive, and therefore make the game even more of a Grindfest (if we consider that the rest of systems would be as they are right now). A more direct approach, much like they did with Zhongli, would be the easiest and less complicated way to solve characters, tho obviously they still need to be cautious by not making them as desirable as new characters: 1. Reduce Lisa's Hold skill duration to be like Yun Jin where it still takes a few seconds before releasing the charge, but not taking an eternity. It can even be like Beidou's when taking damage you can release the full charge. 2. Lisa's Burst can release an Electro shockwave rather than a single bolt that focuses on one enemy. An extended AoE would also be nice as well as having the enemy stun while inside the AoE rather than pushing them back. 3. Thoma and Shenhe should flat out have higher multipliers: Thoma because of his Burst being a single instance of Pyro rather than multiple ones like Xingqiu's and Shenhe because of the fact that her DoT deals less DMG than Diona's who need I remind you is a 4-star. 4. The one change you mentioned of Razor's Electro DMG scaling alongside Physical DMG is really great, and although it might be a %, it would open to a bigger variety of hybrid builds. 5. I'll say the main thing that is crippling Chongyun and Keqing is the fact that their infusions get overridden by Pyro, so the obvious change would be to, well, change the Element priority, or have it be more cohesive: Say you first activate Bennett's Burst and he is C6, if you then proc Chongyun's Skill, his Cryo infusion will now override the Pyro infusion. However, if you use Bennett after Chongyun's Skill, then Pyro will override Cryo. The same logic will apply to Keqing. Or you can just say that the infusion cannot be overridden like with, well, everyone else, it would require less coding probably. 6. Amber's Baron Bunny could behave like Itto's Ushi as a way to optimise her. Hitting an enemy when throwing the plushie would result in an instant explosion, but this might need a new throwing animation. The AoE blast also needs to be bigger so even if some enemies back up before attacking, it could still reach them. 7. Catalyst need faster casting and projectile speed, as well as improved target seek and probably add AoE capabilities. You can add more complexity and usability by having them deal off field damage by having the Catalyst/Book following the character and deal elemental damage alongside the active character, which by itself would create a new meta but also destroying characters like Fischl and Xingqiu by no longer being necessary as off-field elemental appliers. This is a rather delicate matter so it would be better off improving Catalyst users one by one. 8. You really like to quickswap, don't you? I know it's like "the meta" thing, but some characters are used for more than 3 seconds.

11:00 i feel like for lore-wise, the boss could be all about isolating people and like that's how it instils fear into the hearts of ppl

A potential future buffs for characters can be the already seen "Delusion" mechanic, imagine for example Keqing can have a moment she turns to a strong pyro character or something

For those who are wondering what song is in the background, its called 'So happy world' from Persona 5 Royal.

A few things I'd like to add. -The way the current meta is shaped, a lot of people (hopefully the vocal minority) aren't really banking on newer units but on reruns of powerful units (case in point: the amount of people dying for a Kazuha rerun). The only time this rule kinda goes out the window is with some characters being waifu/husbando bait (based on some of the leaks I can already guess who'll be just that). Prior to Itto's release in 2.3, so many limited units were clear-cut improvements that de-incentivized building the older units (with a few exceptions). The case with Diluc and Hu Tao heavily amplified the issue the community had with Claymores in general, the speed. Not only did Hu Tao beat out Diluc in speed, she also beat him out in screenshot damage. Eula's arrival gave birth to Physical builds and never gave Razor a single chance to even compete simply because she had access to high-volume sustained + screenshot damage and fast attack speed, despite her weapons + artifacts being great on him. Kazuha, while not being welcomed well initially, was a godsend for people who didn't have Venti or even Sucrose for so long because his E-skill could stagger enemies not in the way Venti nor Sucrose could at the time (thankfully the weights were adjusted, but it didn't change the fact that Kazuha's still someone meant to powercreep at least in the crowd control department; nor did it get nerfed). Raiden Shogun at the end of the day is a powerful unit despite her element (the same can be said for Fischl and Beidou), unlike Zhongli and Venti who are strong because they're Geo and Anemo respectively; not to mention, did nothing to elevate her element (which you mentioned) When Itto arrived, he didn't powercreep Noelle, at least not in the way Eula did Razor. Hell, he even elevated her already-present viability because most of their kit is similar with their own caveats (Itto needing more stringent rotations and protection but providing higher damage output while Noelle having a lot more safety and makes up her lack of damage with range and relative independence from safety nets as she is the safety net. Essentially people were not de-incentivized heavily for sticking to Noelle despite Itto's clear advantage in the damage department; and would still potentially guarantee some cash from Noelle mains thanks to Redhorn). Yun Jin's arrival gave Noelle another option to directly buff herself even without Gorou or even as a 3rd Geo option when Zhongli and Albedo are preoccupied elsewhere. Ayato in no shape or form powercrept Childe the way Hu Tao did to Diluc, and was established as his own independent unit despite some of the more questionable aspects of his kit (his Namisen mechanic feels like a band-aid solution to the horrible artifact RNG, and quasi-whale bait to get his C2). I don't know how long this is gonna go on, but what we can see from here is that Hoyoverse is in a bit of a dilemma at least in terms of what the English-speaking fans want. Because many people I've seen simply wanted more power/efficiency from newer units (i.e. powercreep), when that'll be a lot more harmful to the game in the long run. At least because of the more recent 5-star releases, I still would like to think that they'll still go this direction with Sumeru. -Nerfs in PvE games actually happen. In DS3, the Fume Ultra-Greatsword (aka the FUGS) got a relatively fat nerf because of how it steamrolled the initial content. In Nioh 2, there was a Soul Core (a "modifiable" skill that's similar to how Bursts work in Genshin) that was way too busted for the Anima cost (the equivalent of Energy; which can be gained by hitting enemies) that they reduced its damage output AND had to increase its base Anima cost (Yatsu-no-Kami) + there was a weapon specific move called "Changing Ways" that dealt so much Ki damage AND recovered so much Anima that spamming that and the Ippon-Datara Soul Core guaranteed a grapple/riposte hit on the toughest of enemies (especially towards high-hitbox yokai enemies like Azai Nagamasa, Ryomen Sukuna, or the rather infamous Shibata Katsuie). Also there was 1 Guardian Spirit (equivalent of supports) that gave a massive damage boost (40%) that literally trivialized so many Guardian Spirits, especially since it doubled as an ultimate radar and elemental spirit (Tengen Kujaku), and they nerfed his damage afterwards. Mind you this is a Souls-like, aka the bane of game journalists and one where build-choking (which the relatively tryhard part of the Genshin community kinda does with the National Team) was actually kinda welcome to first-timers because of the difficulty.

Addressing the last point I think that forcing that sort of diversity on the roster is incompatible with the resources we have in the game, not only do we need to get the character but we also need a couple WEEKS to farm ascension materials and artifacts, if we where to have that kind of systems where a specific type of character is needed we need more freedom to farm for our characters

I’m going to say this once again. I honestly believe they should buff characters on the current banner. (Hey, you can get this new 5. Also we buffed the 4 stars in the banner so please roll)

what's really missing is this company actively communicating with players, it's ridiculous how much they are present on social networks and actively open feedback tabs at the end of each patch but never communicate through these sources about the demands and questions that players ask.

I would definitely love to see the third option: adding a new passive talent or skill to every character. I always thought 1 skill and 1 burst wasn't enough, but you have to consider that there's 8 skills/bursts to manage in a team. So a passive talent would be way more likely. It's risky but it is the most direct way to bridge the gap between strong and weak characters.

Well, actually they changed Yae Miko's E so it would hit random enemies, which was kind of a buff if I understand her previous cons correctly

I kinda like the idea of giving characters new abilities since it can give us access to more of their in world power sets. Things like electro traveler being able to move at super speeds like the Flash, Diluc hurling his flaming claymore at an opponent from across the field, or even Tartaglia being able to access his Foul Legacy transformation and gaining electro (i know this would be OP but i'm just using it as an example). We see the characters of Genshin do so much in cutscenes and and animations yet we only have access to a small amount of their potential arsenal. This is an idea that i had after but what about story progression giving access to new abilities to the other cast, not just the traveler. Have story quests or story progression that unlocks a new ability for a character like something as simple as giving Amber, Lisa, or Kaeya a new ability after clearing their story quests, or something bigger like giving Tartaglia access to an electro damage stance rather than a hydro one after you battle him at the Golden House in the main story.

We all know that HYv has the tools to check everyone's accounts and sift through details to know what people are doing with their characters. They had done it with the old Teyvat Times posts which, iirc, stopped for at least the reason of people getting wary of a Chinese app tracking everything about non-domestic users. Nevermind the time they found and banned a beta test leaker by checking what was shown in screenshots even when the UID was covered up. Now we have the character build info for who is leveling up skills in mostly by which order, and stats on artifacts. AND THEN they easily could allocate resources (AHEMglobalwhalemoneytoppingappstorechartsAHEM) and labor hours for people to create such a rebalancing phase for the game. There is really no good reason HYv hasn't done anything yet. My best guess besides the usual "They don't care, " and/or "They're too lazy," is... Maybe they can't find proper people to hire because the right people also don't care to play or design for Genshin whether experiencing the game for themselves or through friends' experiences? For devs who are also actual gamers, I totally understand if they think Genshin is boring af. I think so too for the most part and just get on to spend resin each day and rush through events (or take my time if they're actually good) for primogems. Character building (fk you artifacts) and spiral abyss are the only things keeping me going.

I personally had a Idea for another potential buff that could be universal to all characters: what if after meeting certain conditions (the aren't locked behind constellations) you could unlock a 6th artifact slot for a characters- one where you could put any type of piece you want (rather then add a 6th type of artifact)? I would add a lot diversity into builds- since players could now choose between getting the 2-piece bonus for 3 sets or to get the 4-piece bonus of 1 set and the 2-piece of another

Giving them an extra skill would also slow down development of characters, which I think is actually a positive. If they have 2 skills it can fill in the gaps on what the character is missing. And if they take longer to make the characters they also spend more time thinking about the characters. I feel like Yae Miko and Kuki Shinobu were both made without much thought, they both have a really random EM scaling. If they spent more time on the characters maybe they would have made Yae Miko even more or alternatively entirely not work with EM. Kuki would probably have been a full or highly HP scaling character as opposed to a bit of HP, EM and ATK and likely been much more effective as an electro 4* Hu Tao.

Something I'd enjoy would be a combat overhaul in general. The iridori festival had an event that allowed you to use a parry and i thought that was sick and made fights less about dogging on the enemy and acrually thinking about when to strike. Maybe they could make use of the different weapons characters have and give them special moves depending on what weapon they have. Ex. All swords have a parry, all claymores have a speed mode or something, etc. Can't think of anything else for other weapons but it would be a very neat idea and also could be a way to make physical damage more viable.

we've already seen enemies that need more strategy from the weekly bounties, and from rifthounds. hoyo just needs to apply those types of buffs to more enemies in the rest of the game.

Qiqi with Ocean-Hued Clam is a really good example of that subtle character upgrading just by giving them new tools Her healing scales on ATK and goes to the rest of the party alongside her on the feild, before that made her usable but still suboptimal as a on-feild attacker But this artifact periodically exploding with damage based on how much healing done - on or off the feild - she becomes a very good on-feild attacker while passively healing a LOT

I'll just be hoping a New Canned Knowledge for the traveler, just to make his ascension fit it's rank (being a 5 star, 24% to 28,8% is surprisingly strong)

I would love to get my Eula to level 100 and have a new passive and/or talent to come with the level increase. I use Eula as a Hypercarry and because I do I don't have to worry about switching out nearly as often as quickswap teams do.

Why no one plays Thoma WHEN??

3:45 In what world is Shenhe a better Chongyung? Those two are nothing alike 💀💀💀

One option would be to add passives for using certain character combinations. Say a +5% damage increase for regular attacks for each character on your team that uses a specific weapon. Or if your team consists of all characters from a specific city you get +10% energy recharge. If you are using all short characters gain +20% movement speed. You could also have perks for characters with connections in the story, Albedo and Sucrose each gain a +10% cooldown reduction for their burst skills. The weaker characters would need to have the more substantial effects to compensate for their current state, but it would benefit all characters by offering incentives for different team compositions. Ideally you would want to include as many combinations on your team as you can. Have the characters that are lacking have the most combo options.

Did Thoma etc. ever saw any use? Even when he was new, nobody used him. Like Kuki…..

Characters can be indirectly buffed trough new characters, weapons, artifact sets. Just like Noelle which is indirectly buffed through the new character "Gorou", new weapon the "Red Horned Stone Thresher", and the new artifact set the "Husk of Opulent Dreams".

Great use of So Happy World. It's a really good song.

Personally I think that isn't how Hoyoverse do things. They always seem to plan several updates or sometimes maybe over a year ahead (Dendro) on what they release currently. Zhongli's buff may have been seen as a good thing in the short term, but short term power gain though direct buffs may result in the scaling back of future plans. If everytime players aren't satisfied with a character, then character gets buffed, then the dev team simply has to go back to the drawingboard to scale back future adjustments. In the end, it's all the same for Hoyoverse, they sure don't seem to be too focused on the present.

Can't wait for a video from vars talking bout Semeru and dendro, his video are always enjoyble and interesting.

14:15 I think the main reason why they wouldn't add another skill/talent is because many characters are similar (as you mentioned) and by adjusting older characters they further limit their creative flexibility for new characters going forward. And it would also conflict with players chasing new characters too (as you mentioned). While she didn't exist at the time of this video, hopefully Dehya gets some TLC like Zhongli did. Xinyan too.

Something i offhandedly thought of that i think would make genshin a more genuinely fun experience would be if they kept giving you the characters from the story lines as you met them/completed certain story events, pretty much the same way it happens with the first few 4 stars. In this case though instead of venti, for example, just being a pullable 5 star, he was given to you once for free after completing the mondtstadt archon quest, same for zhongli and the shogun. I think this would not only make progression through the story even more fun, as it genuinely felt as if you were recruiting people as you went along, but itd also give players full access to every character the devs worked so hard to make. Now OBVIOUSLY given the context that this is a GACHA game, that will never happen. But the idea of getting more constellations for a character you have and like might still be an incentive to pull, even if far far far less of one. Now again this is absurd levels of unrealistic, but i just think itd make the flow of the story feel better too if they werent so obsessed with taking all of your time and money

one way to buff Older units I think is to introduce a weapon that's tailor made for them. These weapons can have attractive general main and sub stats so as to give minor benefit to other characters but have unique passives that benefit a specific character. For Example, a Keqing weapon can have an effect like: "Dealing Electro damage increases the User's Physical damage by 60% for 8 seconds and dealing Physical damage increases the User's Electro damage by 40% for 8 seconds. Triggering both bonuses at the same time grants a greater buff that lowers CA stamina cost to 10."

So a good example of correctly buffing characters comes from dragalia lost where the 2.0 update brought buffs for all characters to make them all viable and introduced upgraded skill trees to come out monthly for those who needed it most

One of my ideas for buffing or reinvigorating old units (that they will NEVER do) is upgrading 4 star characters into 5 stars through their own in-game character arc story quests. An obvious example would be Noelle making it into the Knights of Favonius. So she gets a new official Knights of Favonius style skin and gets kit and scaling buffs to go along with her character growth, making her a 5 star unit. Maybe she gains a new move when applying her shield that ACTUALLY gets her a decent amount of particles, making it easier to get her burst on her own or becoming a new battery+shielder for other geo units. Maybe her burst lasts longer, with even better defense scaling and a cool new normal attack moveset. Maybe her shield can more easily compete with Zhongli's (lol). Frankly they'd never do something like this, because giving us a way to upgrade 4 stars into 5 stars by just playing the game would be way too cool and generous on Hoyo's part lol. We can permanently miss 4 star event weapons ffs... Like if they wanted to drain our wallets with this, they could say only C6 4 stars could evolve or something. And they'd gain another 6 constellations to keep you pulling for them. It also just seems like a ton of work. New voicelines, new animations, new skin (which seems like a ton of work based on how few are available even now). It's just fun to think about ways some units could "evolve." Especially when it comes to upgrading their kit or how they're growing as a character within a story context.

9:20 What if instead of a quest, you unlock extra passives and bonuses for the character by raising their friendship to a specific level? This will make friendship exp way more valuable, since it's only use rn is in getting lv10, which only gives you a cosmetic item.

I think that adding a second elemental skill would cause far too much of a strain in development time, instead I think that the final character ascension should have its level cap increased to 99 and give the player a choice between 3 passive talents that are unique (or mostly unique) to the character and designed to help further specialize a character, for example let's say Lisa was the case: Talent 1: Whenever Lisa consumes Conductive stacks, the enemy afflicted will have their electro resistance reduced by 6% and def by 2.5% per stack consumed, and her atk spd will increase by 4% per stack consumed, up to 12%, this atk spd bonus is applied to the entire party at half efficiency Talent 2: Lisa's elemental burst gains a 20% radius increase, a 1s duration increase, a 2s cd reduction, and it increases the damage of the next elemental burst used by a party member by 12% Talent 3: Lisa's elemental skill can now be cancelled with a dodge, even when fully charged, gains an additional charge, and its cd is reduced by 1s. The cooldown will further be reduced by 1s per conductive stack she consumes, up to 3s, and its resistance to interruption is further increased, moreover if only one enemy is hit while they have 3 conductive stacks applied, they receive an additional electro strike that deals 30% of the original skill damage

I think there should be a domain or some kind of area where level doesn't matter or is equal for any characters you pick. This would help break up the monotony, allow us to use different characters and play styles and also it could let us fall in love with characters we never would have played and maybe even want to build them putting more money in Hoyo's pocket.

Imo for a lot of starter characters, they could immediately be buffed if they made some of their constellations more accessible, making them just as viable as other 4 stars. Like for amber as an example (im an amber main), if they made her c2 baron bunny buff just part of the c0 kit, she’d be immediately more powerful now that she can trigger baron bunny. Simple changes like that can change the whole game.

Nerfing quickswap teams by making the swap cooldown longer gives me the same vibe as Blizzard enforcing a 2 dps - 2 tank - 2 supports rule to stop the crazy strong 3 tank meta in Overwatch haha

I like the idea of increasing the cooldown of changing characters, but there is a huge problem with it. Most of the buffs in the game will lose a lot of duration due to character changes. For example, I press Raiden's elemental skill, then Bennett's ult, then Yelan's ult, then I switch to my Eula to start hitting enemies. And if we increase the cooldown of the character change to 4 seconds, this process will take me almost 20 seconds and by the time Eula starts to fight, most of the buffs will already be gone.

How bout give them a Story Quest and at the end. Would be a Challenge Domain hard enough where its reward is Gonna be a fixing Scaling, Multipliers, Constelation for that "Weak" character. Or straight up give A Character an Extra Added Change when they equip a certain weapon(Signature) Example: Like Klee with Dodoco Tales. It will be like a Artifact Set effect where: If Klee equips Dodoco Tales: Upon Casting her Burst, It will mark enemies hit with Burst. The little bombs will Home-in the marked enemies and Explode upon contact dealing + X amount of dmg. That would somehow improve their niches.

the only character that I feel a mechanical change would be fair is Klee by making her burst a persist one but maybe is just me Edit: I do not have Klee and I don't exactly like her that much this was just a thing that I thought would make sense

I know, being a gatcha game, tying this to some banner or pulling system is probably the best bet for them to actually do this. My thought is add onto existing banners, or make a new banner, an ascension item that promotes a 4 star to a 5 star, tweaking their kit and making them on par with other 5 stars. That or give some reward for pulling more copies of a character past C6, like, pulling a few more copies of that character lets you ascend them. That way, husbando/waifu fans can stick with their favorites, AND Mihoyo makes money. Unless it were something in game like a new artifact set, I think this may have mor chance. But, who knows.

The extra ascension passive is a great idea! + the quest and some things you need to accomplish to improve the character even more even if only raising all base stats by 100

I want an R skill, a second elemental skill. The game feels like it was built to have characters be able to do just one more thing. Lisa having a CC to set up for her own charged E was a fantastic example. Noelle having a Geo construct that emits a healing buff or buffs shields in proximity to it. Ningguong having a charged skill to build extra star fragments by eating a shield. Stuff that encourages either combos within a character's own kit or synergizes with other characters kits would be a great way to build a more diverse meta. Additionally, something should be done to make normal attacking and charged attacking especially more useful, especially for bows where charged attacking and precision hits just aren't really rewarded. Very very few characters want to be using their charged attacks even though those cost stamina and should, theoretically, be much stronger than a normal attack string. But it's all about the E/Q swap rotations. That would buff normal/charged attackers like Yanfei, Yoimiya, Ninggong, and catalyst users generally. It would make infusing characters far better as well since they sort of rely on infused normal and charge attacks to do stuff, shield breaking and the like.

What would be cool if they did something like Granblue Fantasy, occasionally rebalancing characters to fix their issues, or improve their kits to catch them up to the more recent and current characters.

Corrosion and Rifthounds were a nerf to shields and a buff to healers, but it just became annoying since it encourages you to play slow, bc if you attack them fast and close, they'll drain the hp of your hole party really fast

I've been binging your videos while playing genshin, Just wanted to tell you I really love your content and appreciate your effort you put into making such professional and amazing videos.

This man 100% called the “char does more dmg over time” reaction with dendro and electro keqing

I think dendro will buff a lot of characters especially ones with high application if their element ie klee, keqing,.... From the trailer it also looks like keqing is getting a buff, she had a double slash in her e skill!

The problem with character limited events/bosses is that not everyone has the characters and there isn't enough similar kit characters that means that hoyo looks at the bosses and puzzles that can be done with guaranteed characters. This means we would almost definitely get one free dendro character so that we have all elements from the start.

i personally love the ffbe references i played the game since it came out. stopped in 2021 and i always thought that it was an excellent gacha to refer to as an example. Shame it became a lil too much for me when neo visions came out.

Correction at 0:26 - While Zhongli was buffed in version 1.3, he would not receive his first rerun until version 1.5. This is a very minor nitpick but it just irked me a bit lol.

0:08 JUST LIKE RITO, HIREZ AND ANYOWNER OF A VIDEOGAME THAT DEPENDS ON PLAYER AMOUNT RATHER THAN PRODUCT SALES, If they want it to stay or improve this is a necessity that states more about any one of these, Unless it's a positive on their ROI they don't care which leads to stagnation as new things are less cared about from old things and leads to a clown dance of keeping players engaged with new generic character of the week but takes time to create, and if you don't do it "quick" then(supposedly) the player base will leave, but have what's already there not function so the new thing because the same as the last and most realize the game wont Fix or improve what fundamentally sucks so they leave to Find some other creator who cares. Mihoyo have already shown in their "game" and PR they don't care for you or the player base, you're just like what casinos see as their costumers, Bank accounts waiting to be collected. I will take somethings from this product to probably remake it into something actually Fun and respectable, maybe a 2d beat em' up, while giving life to characters I enjoy in character level but hate in character design. But please while taking this product due understand it's Gambling at any sense of the word, keep that in you're mind when choosing stick to it or leaving for something else, you should have information giving to you by the company when anything major happens to have trust( but if Mihoyo had that they wouldn't make their entire product around it) for you to decide.

I absolutely see those “awakening” quests coming like what happened in Honkai with awakened battlesuits and agument cores.

Or do story power ups. Make a short quest that lets you know about the character and by the end of it, it gets a power up in damage on one of the skills, or stat increase. Requirement being one of; talents being at a certain levels (without constellation requirements), character level, friendship level or main story progression. Not necessarily power creeping 5/4 stars or newer characters, but at least making them do more damage or adding more lore to them. Making it more enjoyable for players using their favorite characters. Similar how FGO buffs it's characters and adds more lore to them.

in hoyo other game Honkai, mihoyo actually buff outdated character using augmented system that pretty much giving the character new moveset and skill, allowing completely outdated character to somehow "keep up" with the current powerscale, they are not suddenly return to meta, but for anyone that like to use them, they are simply "Viable" at the very least, so honestly, there's that another that i also take from honkai are how in recent years, each character getting more and more unique in their playstyle, in honkai, charge attack for each character work differently, there also some character that change their attack pattern by the difference between tapping the attack button or holding it, HoS that swap between 3 weapon, HoF herrscherr bar, Equinox changing attack between paladin mode and cavalry mode, aponia, felis, eden, all totally different, on the other hand for genshin, whether it's 4star or 5star, their auto attack are the same 4-5 hit, the same double hit charge attack for sword, the same thrust for polearm, and spinning for greatsword (with only xiao, jean, raiden and zhongli as exception), you can pretty much feel the difference just by comparing playing kuki and DJ, hell compare how Fischl play between the game and u can feel which one more engaging there's also some text that's pretty much stating that the cap of talent actually 15 with constellation, but right now, even with contellation and crown, it only rose to 13, make me wonder maybe in the future, there another "upgrade" system or item beyond crown