So, been doing the usual gameplay loop of commissions and then burning resin to build up on character materials, but one thing that's been increasingly noticeable as of late is just how many boss mechanics rely on staggering your character such that you can easily get into a stunlock chain. Between the utter bullshit that still is Oceanid (its far too easy in the late stages for multiple enemies to basically prevent your movement for a full three seconds, particularly those damn flying birds and the sparrow/frog water bomb mechanic just needs to go away), Thunder Manifestation summoning that moving lightning pillar AND those stunlock darts simultaneously, and the Ice Hypostasis having knockback on pretty much every single attack, I wish they'd just go back to making bosses deal damage without also having to kneecap the player for artificial difficulty since they all still hit like a truck.

On the plus side, I finally figured out that the water bomb from Oceanid can be mitigated entirely with Biedou's counter skill. MUCH easier than having to try and run away to time a dive exactly right to dodge that stupid gimmick attack.

 

So my story of PS4 Genshin is full of fun. From load times to frame rate issues after loading to teleporting in to falling to my death teleporting to Jueyun Karst because the game hasn't fully loaded in the maps by the time I load in after the teleport to areas that have their textures load minutes after...

...it's all coming to an end. Last night a friend of mine goes "Hey you need a PS5?". Of course I go "@#$!? YES YOU GODDAMN IDIOT" and I think I'll be the owner of a new PS5 by the weekend...or later if he ordered. He didn't tell me if it was in hand or on order.

Anyways. My days of playing janky console Genshin is nearing it's end. Genshin runs an order of magnitude better on PS5 than PS4...not to mention bigger teapot load limit on next gen than previous gen. The performance of the game got noticeably worse for me after Inazuma came out. I'd frequently teleport into terrain or just straight up fall, and texture loading is pretty bad too. The game feels so unoptimized on PS4 that I think it'll be a miracle if it runs on Switch, assuming if it even makes it into Nintendo's platform.

 

Man, Xinyan is getting all the attention in the event quest, people joked about her immediately getting put on the boat after she popped up in Moonchase for five seconds but holy hell she is unabashedly front and center. It's fantastic.

EDIT: Childe just showed up and the direction they're going with this is really interesting. Can't wait to see how it unfolds.

 

I certainly didn't intend to get into this game.

But...



*Icelandic chanting*


I miss the Ropecaster and Rattler but she'll work with what she has.

At rank 25 and desperate to get to Inazuma to ascend her but only just starting Liyue, (though I did explore it all to activate all the statues and most of the warp gates, plus those three bird statues leading to I'm guessing Zhongli's mancave) so it's probably not gonna happen for a good stretch. So I decided to start building Rosaria as Cryo placeholder, most often running Yanfei and Lisa as a duo, filling the 4th slot with Sucrose for Swirl or Barbara for healing, sometimes Noelle; this setup got me through the absolute Praxus that was Dragonspine, most unforgettably that ridiculous timed trial with the three Cryo Abyss mages. My god.

Still not sure how I feel about this game but I'll definitely give it a good go.

 

Not to spoil anything, but you're going to want to kill a certain NPC (and the game will not let you, of course) if you're gunning for upgrading Aloy due to that material. You'll understand once you get to Ritou, the first island.

 

So...oh my god.

I forgot PS5 Genshin is native 60FPS and I can't stress how good this feels. I'm not the last to load into co-op domains anymore, and I load and teleport super fast. Book and Travel Log archives don't lag to hell and I can actually enjoy that content. I can actually breeze through menus and I pick up items super fast.

Yeah this is the dream!

 

Anybody have a good read on Shiki Taishou's English VA? It's bothering me because it sounds so damned familiar to me, but I don't quite have a lock on it. I'm currently thinking either Dave Wittenberg or Jason Liebrecht. They've both at least shown the slight gruffness that I'm hearing. But I feel like there's another candidate that I'm forgetting.

 

You're not in the good part of the game yet, so you still have stuff to look forward to.

Who?

I think it could also be Sean Chiplock.

 

I assume he's talking about

Spoiler

Chouji, who "steals" all the crystal marrow you'd be otherwise saving for Aloy, to finish his questline.

I'd forgotten that I'd had that impression initially, as well. Yeah, he does also sound a bit like Sean. Gruffer than his Diluc, but not completely outside that range. My mind simply didn't sway in that direction initially, because as a newer actor in the biz, I'm just not fully accustomed to him yet. I've only just started to get an ear for Zach Aguilar and Kyle McCarley's voices. I can't even start on many of the newer ladies in the industry, since everytime I hear them in something new, they've taken on a completely different pitch.

 

Oh, @Applejacktimus, if you haven't already, clear level 3 of the Spiral Abyss to get Xiangling if you haven't already. She has IIRC the highest DPS potential in the game as far as 4-stars go, some builds can even outdo Diluc who is a 5-star claymore.

I actually completely forgot about that NPC despite doing his entire questline - but he's not on Ritou.

I'm talking about

Spoiler

the guy who "sells" all the Crystal Marrow to that corrupt officer guy and is helping screw over the International Traders Union

.

Granted, I think that is a problem with the game in that you need resources from what is currently endgame (because holy hell, Inazuma really did ratchet up the difficulty compared to the worst Liyue had, excluding Ahzdaha) to enjoy the newest characters you may have joined up for. Frankly I think it would have been perfectly (and really more in character) for Aloy to use Ruin Guard cores instead of Crystal Marrow.

I'm still blown away by the fact Xinyan's hard Western American accent and Barbara's voice (both the preppy original and the far more softspoken 'update' version) are the same voice actress.

 

For the second round of the event, take in a very, very strong Pyro.

EDIT: Okay, seriously, this is probably THE most broken fucking thing in the game tailor made for the assholes who are stupid powerful. I legitimately can't beat it. I don't have good pyro characters because they're hard to build and this entire fucking piece of shit level is reliant on having fucking Diluc or something.

And screw the gimmick about using the Shimifuma or whatever, half the time I forget they're even there and the effect suck.

The worst part is the story is legitimately interesting. This event needed more time in game balancing for people who aren't fucking min-maxing characters.

 

Xinyan should be able to bust through the Cryo Lawachurls? The Cryo Cube is a tad rough without a strong Pyro but at least there isn't a time limit to it.

I still don't know how Lector/Herald shields work so I just beat my face against them until they drop.

 

Cyro Lawachurls were the least of my problems. It's those goddamn OP as hell Electro mutant Lawachurls. Every single goddamn attack is a stagger.

I eventually did beat it through sheer brute force (Razor, Snowtombed, and Xingqiu's Ult support always is reliable and I just used Yanfei for pyro) BUT it really is RNG with the encounters and I didn't realize one of the primogem related challenges is to beat this dungeon without using one of the heal nodes, which pisses me off because I only used one before the final boss as a precaution. Xinyan is also, incidentally, not an option as her skills are only at level 4 across the board and I just can't be bothered to farm more gold books.

 

Like all shields, you just need to cause Elemental Reactions off of them. So ideally, you want characters that can apply Elements rapidly, with every hit, and with high up-time. Catalyst users, or infusion characters like Keqing or Chongyun are good. Cryo is especially hilarious against the Abyss Herald, since he can be frozen when his shield is up.

 

You know I hate that daily "Straight to the heart.". Because it isn't. Just BS between point A to B.  

Oh gotcha. Makes sense.

 

I REALLY am not happy with this event, it's frankly just far too hard if your characters aren't built right. Again, it seems like the ONLY way they can make challenge is PERPETUAL STUNLOCK. The survey they will be getting from me about this is going to be scathing.

 

Was Neko getting new voiced lines a stealth update, or have I simply never caught her talking about the renovations before?

 

Hmm, I haven't visited Neko since finishing her quest chain, so I never noticed.

 

Man, I can't stay mad at this game (especially since I figured out the easiest way to basically bypass anything was, well, Noelle Cheese.)

The community also is just...well, this is now apparently the Genshin Impact version of Plants vs Zombies

 

Presenting Thoma, in "Way of the House-Husband":