Scrappy Mechanic / Genshin Impact

Despite the praise Genshin Impact gets, many of its game mechanics have not been well-received.

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Gacha

• When Genshin was still new, the 0.6% base chance of acquiring 5★ characters from the gacha was often criticized because it's very low compared to other gacha games. However, a common rebuttal mentions that Genshin has various pity or safety net mechanic to alleviate the base rate. While criticisms against the rate slowly subsided over time as more players realized that they can surely acquire a 5★ character with enough draws, this concern is still felt by the free-to-play.
• There is no in-game pity counter or guarantee indicator, forcing players to take notes or use third-party services that interpret wish histories; while there is a wish history button on the Wish page, it only tracks the player's previous pulls over the last 6 months and only lists a few pulls per page, making it not very user-friendly.
• For limited character banners and Chronicled Wish, the infamous "50/50" exists. There is a 50% chance that the 5★ you receive is not the featured 5★ character (for limited character banners) or not the 5★ character or weapon you chose(for Chronicled Wish), but rather one of the seven standard banner 5★ characters^note Tighnari, Jean, Diluc, Mona, Keqing, Qiqi, Dehya (for limited character banners) or another 5★ in the pool of the same type as the player's selection (for Chronicled Wish). If that happens, the short banner duration and limited Primogem income mean that the player has likely lost their chance to obtain the featured or desired 5★ unless they have saved up (or pay approximately USD 180 for) another 90 wishes. Thus, expect much rage when a player finally gets a 5★ on either banner type, only to "lose the 50/50" - especially if it's to 5★ characters or weapons that are badly outclassed in the endgame. The only consolation to this is that if you "lose the 50/50" on either banner type, your next 5★ on that banner type is guaranteed to be the featured character or chosen 5★^note This means that in order to absolutely guarantee that you obtain the featured character or desired 5★, you need up to a whopping 180 Intertwined Fates, assuming that you lose the 50% chance at/near the 90th pull. For limited character banners, this guarantee carries over across banner changes. This is often compared to Honkai Impact 3rd, where hitting pity on the character banner guarantees the featured S-rank Valkyrie, and Honkai: Star Rail, whose weakest standard banner unit (Yanqing) becomes workable once the player acquires Gepard.
• On the other end of the spectrum, players who want a specific standard banner 5★ character will have a really hard time getting their (pun unintended) wish. While in practice, the standard banner 5★s can be obtained at literally any time, regardless of which banner that isn't a weapon banner the player pulled on, getting them not only requires "losing the 50/50", but having to deal with all seven of the standard banner 5★s sharing the same 50% drop rate, making it impossible to guarantee a specific one; this ironically makes getting a specific standard character much harder than pulling limited 5★ characters. In the standard banner, the pool is diluted even further with the 5★ weapons. To give an idea on how difficult it is to get a specific standard 5★, some players who played the game since launch claimed they have never got to see certain standard banner 5★s show up in their pulls at all during their gameplay. While version 4.5 added the "Chronicled Wish" banner that finally makes it possible to guarantee pulling a standard banner 5★ character who is in the pool, players wished the standard banner of Genshin would get a similar reward system to the standard banner of Honkai: Star Rail, where players can pick a free standard 5★ of their choice after pulling a certain number of times on the standard banner.
• Constellations are substantial character-specific upgrades. Barring the Traveler, unlocking a Constellation requires obtaining a character's duplicates, so good luck trying to max out a 5★ character's constellations (or even obtaining that early constellation that will cure a glaring weakness in the character's base kit). Some 4★ characters are easier to upgrade because they can be bought from Paimon's Bargains using Masterless Starglitter (a resource acquired from pulling 4★ and 5★ items in the gacha). However, maxing out the constellations for Amber, Lisa, and Kaeya can also be difficult since you can't get any of them from limited character banners, forcing players to invest their Primogems into the standard banner, or their Starglitters into Paimon's Bargains if they want these characters' constellation upgrades. Not that any of them other than Kaeya are particularly good even with the upgrades.
• While every limited character banner has three featured 4★ characters and every limited weapon banner has five featured 4★ weapons, guaranteeing that the player will get one of them every 20 pulls or less, there is no mechanic guaranteeing that a player will get even a single copy of a specific 4★, needless to say multiple copies. Chasing a featured 4★ also implies possibly pulling the featured 5★, and an unexpected 5★ pull could waste precious limited banner pity or a limited 5★ guarantee. This has been exacerbated by the introduction of significantly constellation-locked 4★ characters and a failure to add more 4★ characters to Paimon's Bargains for direct purchase. All these came to a head with the release of Faruzan, the game's first (and to date, only) dedicated Anemo buffer, who has significant ease of use, energy and crowd control issues... until she obtains her sixth Constellation, requiring seven copies of her.
• The limited weapon banner system has caught some flak from players for a few reasons, especially since a limited 5★ weapon without an appropriate unit to use it is generally useless:
  • The odds of obtaining a desired 5★ weapon are somewhat poor. Under the current double banner system, two limited 5★ weapons run simultaneously. In place of the "50/50", when a 5★ weapon is pulled, there is a 25% chance to obtain a standard banner weapon, while the remaining 75% is split between the two limited 5★ weapons. Receiving a standard banner weapon only guarantees that the next 5★ weapon will be either of the limited 5★ weapons. Unless the player commits to pulling three 5★ weapons before the banner ends (detailed below), there is no guarantee to get the desired limited 5★. This is exacerbated by banners pairing a highly desirable weapon (e.g., Engulfing Lightning) with weapons delibrately designed to be only useful on their corresponding character (e.g. Everlasting Moonglow and Jadefall's Splendor). In contrast, Honkai: Star Rail simply has two separate limited Light Cone banners with one 5★ Light Cone each, allowing players to guarantee a specific limited 5★ Light Cone.
  • The safety net to guarantee a specific limited 5★ weapon, Epitomized Path, is deemed too expensive even for low spenders. First, you choose a limited 5★ weapon you want. Then, to guarantee that weapon, you need to have two Fate Points beforehand by obtaining either another limited 5★ weapon or a standard 5★ weapon from the limited weapon banner twice, totaling up to 240 pulls, which is much more expensive than limited character banners, where you only need to fail once (up to 180 pulls total). Also, Fate Points are reset when the banner ends, putting in another caveat that your "absolute guarantee" for a specific limited 5★ weapon must be used before the banner ends. Thus, unlike limited character banners where "losing the 50/50" maintains all pity progress towards the next limited 5★ character, you may still have to spend between 161 to 240 pulls^note 240 pulls minus any existing progress towards the 80 pity threshold for any guaranteed 5★ weapon. on the new limited weapon banner to get that desired limited 5★ weapon.
  • Limited 4★ weapons exist, which are only obtainable by pulling on a weapon banner on which they are featured; in contrast, 4★ characters introduced after v1.0 can be pulled from any banner one patch after their debut. This can be a letdown for players who cannot afford to invest pulls into the weapon banner, especially given the lack of guarantee of obtaining any specific featured 4★. This is especially notable with HP substat swords, as there are exactly two of them (5★ Key of Khaj-Nisut and 4★ The Dockhand's Assistant), and both are limited banner weapons.
• The frequency and consistency of how/when a limited 5★ character gets their rerun banner tends to be very inconsistent; sometimes rerun banners are determined by if the character appears during a patch, other times not, and neither of these factors seem to take into account of how long a 5★ unit has been absent from having a rate up or if there are other 5★ characters waiting far longer than them. This often results in very unbalanced rerun schedules where some 5★ characters are getting reruns comparatively quickly over other 5★s who never got a rerun in a very long time, and there are even cases where a 5★ character can rerun twice or thrice while another 5★ is still waiting for their rerun^note Throughout 2022 and the first half of 2023, Hu Tao, Shenhe, and Eula are unfortunate victims of this for example, having at least one instance where they were absent from the gacha for over a year while other 5★ characters got multiple rate-ups during that time. Many players considered this unfair toward characters who have already been waiting very long without getting their next rerun. As more 5★ characters are added to the game, it becomes much more difficult for all limited 5★s to get reruns in a timely manner, even with four character banners per patch. This appears to have been a catalyst for the release of the "Chronicled Wish" banner system in Version 4.5, a separate rerun banner for older characters (and their signature weapons) whose banners have been run at least thrice and not rerun recently.
• The "double banner" system automatically features the two limited 5★ characters' signature weapons as the featured 5★ weapons in the event banner. Before version 4.5, this made non-standard banner 5★ weapons that were not signature weapons of a particular 5★ character^note Summit Shaper, The Unforged, Memory of Dust, and Primordial Jade Cutter effectively unobtainable unless Albedo is a rate-up^note Because Albedo doesn't have a 5★ signature weapon, the 5★ weapon slot attributed to him on Epitome Invocation will have a random 5★ sword, which can be Summit Shaper, Primordial Jade Cutter, or a 5★ sword that belongs to another character (ie. Freedom Sworn, which is Kazuha's associated weapon); previously, "single banners" allowed them to appear as the second 5★ weapon featured on the weapon banner alongside the other character's signature weapon. This also affected signature weapons of characters who received a limited character banner before being added to the standard banner pool^note Hunter's Path, Beacon of the Reed Sea. Version 4.5 appears to have begun remedying this issue with the "Chronicled Wish" system, whose first edition allows access to some of those weapons.
• While "Chronicled Wish" helps players access characters and weapons which have not been rerun in a while, there are a few issues that players aren't particularly happy about:
  • It appears to have a bit too much FOMO baked in. While this banner uses limited banner wishes and also has a "50/50", its guarantee uses a similar system to the weapon banner's Epitomized Path (except only requiring failing once). This means that if you "lose the 50/50" and fail to subsequently pull the chosen 5★ before the banner disappears, you lose your guarantee — a stark contrast to the limited character banners and their transferrable guarantee. Furthermore, if the inaugural edition in Version 4.5 sets the precedent, the banner seems needlessly short (3 weeks in the first half, when it could have lasted the whole patch). Developers' statements also do not suggest it will run on a predictable schedule, and the lack of a Chronicled Wish banner in 4.6 means that not every patch will feature it. Generally, opinion on the banner is that it is not worth pulling on unless the player has enough wishes to guarantee their chosen 5★ within the banner period.
  • Additionally, in order for a limited 5★ character to be eligible for getting a rate-up on Chronicled Wish banners, they need to have gotten at least three rate-up banners in total. This is unfortunate for characters who are already suffering extremely long wait times between their debut banner, their first rerun, and their second rerun, with notably Shenhe in particular being the oldest released 5★ character who had to wait over a year for her first rerun, and is currently still waiting over a year again for her unreleased second rerun as of v4.6.

Character/Weapon Leveling and Item Farming

As a primer, raising a character to an endgame-ready state requires nine things - Mora, experience scrolls, world boss drops, elemental gems, talent books, a good set of artifacts, weekly boss drops, local specialties (collectible resources in the overworld) and overworld mob drops. Most must be farmed separately and all but the last two require Resin. In addition, they will need their weapon to be levelled, which requires more Mora, weapon ascension materials, weapon refinement ore and overworld mob drops. The first two require Resin.

• The Resin mechanic is generally considered to be very aggressive by endgame players, even by gacha game standards:
  • There is a limit of 160 Resin (120 Resin before version 1.1) that can be stored and it refills slowly at 1 Resin for every 8 minutes (with a full 160 Resin recharge taking 21 hours, 20 minutes total). Allowing Resin to overcap results in any further elapsed time being wasted until Resin is consumed. Preventing overcaps requires a manual conversion of Resin into Condensed Resin. In contrast, the equivalent in Honkai: Star Rail (Trailblaze Power) has a 240 cap, replenishes at 1 Trailblaze Power for every 6 minutes and has a much lower penalty for an overcap with the automatic Reserve Trailblaze Power mechanic.
  • Ley Line, Domain and Boss rewards consume 20-60 Resin. As such, it takes more than 2.5 hours of Resin recharge for a single Domain run. Players usually end up with only a couple of short fights each day and have to wait for hours before they can claim more rewards - all in a game which has no autoplay functionality.
  • While the game is somewhat generous with Resin bypasses (such as open-world chests, event rewards and the Battle Pass), it is rather stingy with Resin refills, even for the average paying player. While Primogems can be used to refill Resin, it is primarily used for the gacha and each refill attempt costs more until the next daily reset, so it isn't worth it unless the player has a lot of money to spare. The only other source of Resin refills is Fragile Resin, which players can only get 1 a week from the Serenitea Pot, 5 per patch cycle from the free Battle Pass and another 5 per patch cycle from the paid Battle Pass. Each Fragile Resin also only gives 60 Resin. This makes it more difficult to speed up focused farming for materials that are not universal (e.g. talent books, boss drops) and progress the Artifact grind.
• Talent leveling and weapon ascension materials are only available on certain days of the week. This led to players waiting for a schedule to farm what they needed. Version 1.2 alleviated this a bit by making all material domains available during Sundays.
• Weekly Bosses drop rare materials that are needed for late-game character progression. Unfortunately, these bosses' drop tables give headaches depending on what the player is aiming for:
  • Characters need unique materials from the weekly bosses to upgrade their talents beyond Level 6. Each weekly boss has three types of unique materials. There's only a single opportunity a week to get up to 2 to 3 of such unique materials, and multiple of the same unique material can drop. Players can go weeks without getting the needed ascension material, leaving their talents stuck at Level 6. Version 1.5 alleviates this a bit by introducing the Dream Solvent, which lets players convert any weekly boss's unique drops into either of its other drops, but that also only drops from weekly bosses. In contrast, Honkai: Star Rail has a strict limit of three weekly boss (Echoes of War) challenges a week, but allows the player to farm the same weekly boss multiple times a week.
  • Flowing from the above, if a character is released alongside a new weekly boss and uses that weekly boss' materials (e.g. Furina and Arlecchino), there is a strict timegate on getting relevant character's talents up to endgame readiness (usually at least Level 8). If there are three talents to be leveled, whether the player has to wait an additional week is solely dependent on whether the weekly boss drops six materials in two weeks.
  • There's a chance that the weekly bosses will drop Billets, which are required to craft 4★ weapons that can't be obtained from Wishing. However, the chance of getting a Billet is a measly 1 in 8, and there's no way to control which type of Billet you'll get. If you managed to craft any of those 4★ weapons, the low drop rates of Billets make it difficult to fully Refine their passive skills. Unlike the aforementioned weekly boss items, there's no way to convert billets into the other types, so if you don't get the billet you want after beating all the weekly bosses, you're out of luck for the week.
• Plenty of items requiring Resin to farm are affected by significant amounts of RNG in the drop rate, which means that the amount of Resin required to reach the required quantity can vary significantly. Because of how slowly Resin recharges, missing a threshold by even a single item can mean waiting for hours or even days for the next opportunity to continue farming that item. A particular annoyance are the world bosses, which cost 40 Resin to farm, drop little of note except elemental gems and their special drop, and can drop 2-3 of their special drop at WL8, 46 of which are required to fully ascend a character. Only receiving 2 special drops from a world boss kill will often leave the character one special drop short of an ascension. In contrast, there is zero variation in drop rates for the equivalent in Honkai: Star Rail (Stagnant Shadow unique drops), which also drop far more unique drops per run.
• Some characters obtain their ascension materials from normal bosses which do not drop the elemental gems that the character also requires for ascension (e.g. Xiao, Kuki Shinobu). Other characters are saddled with normal bosses which have a diluted elemental gem pool (e.g. Perpetual Mechanical Array drops Geo and Cryo gems). The only way to convert elemental gems is to use Dust of Azoth. Currently, the only way to get Dust of Azoth is to pull on banners and spend the duplicate compensation currency (Masterless Stardust) at Paimon's Bargains. Without sufficient Dust of Azoth, players will have to farm another boss which drops the required elemental gem drops to fully build the character - a highly Resin-inefficient endeavour.
• You can't go to Inazuma until you've reached the part of the main story that takes place in it. From a story perspective, this makes sense, as Inazuma has strict border control and a perpetual storm surrounding it to deter people trying to sneak in and out of it. Gameplay-wise however, this makes it impossible to level any Inazuman characters beforehand without entering another player's world, as roughly half of a given character's required materials can only be found in their native region. This means that any Inazuma characters that you obtained before unlocking their native region are effectively stuck with level 20^notelevel 40 if they are the rate-up character on the banner, making their Trial Run and its rewards available as their max level and cannot feasibly keep up with your other characters (who can acquire their level-up materials from the mainland) throughout Chapter 1, and by the time Inazuma is unlocked, the Early Game Hell of the region would have started, requiring significant investment to bring them back up on par with your current party. This requirement has even begun to extend past Inazuman characters and weapons, such as Yun Jin, Shenhe, the Wanderer^*Sumeru-affiliated in-game, although originating from Inazuma story-wise, and even Fontaine's craftable "Finale of the Deep" sword.
• Nobushi and Kairagi are notorious for having unusually poor drop rates for their materials (Handguards) relative to the threat they present, with their drop rates being comparable to Slimes and Hilichurls. Nobushi are as tanky as the stronger Treasure Hoarders, but even level 90 Nobushi aren't guaranteed to drop a basic material (Old Handguard). Kairagi are the toughest basic enemies outside Sumeru and have extremely dangerous attacks, but level 90 Kairagi are only guaranteed to drop a minimum of one Old Handguard. In contrast, level 90 Samachurls are guaranteed to drop a minimum of two Divining Scrolls and level 90 Fatui Skirmishers are guaranteed to drop a minimum of 4 Recruit's Insignia and 1 Sergeant's Insignia (equivalent to 3 Recruit's Insignia). This can make farming Handguards unusually onerous.
• 3.0 introduces different drops for "activated" or "scorched" Fungi. Fungi typically drop "spore" drops (a character and weapon ascension material), but if they are hit with Pyro or Electro even once during the fight, they will start dropping "nucleus" drops (exclusively a weapon ascension material) and the chances of "spore" drops appearing are greatly reduced. The problem is that forcing players not to use these two elements affects every reaction-based team archetype in the game except Freeze and Pure Bloom. Save for those who farmed Fungi in the Chasm before version 3.0, those building certain Sumeru characters and weapons are forced to not use any Pyro or Electro attacks when fighting Fungi, which can make farming "spore" drops even more difficult. This is not helped by the fact that a significant portion of Sumeru's puzzles need Pyro and/or Electro to operate, which often results in players accumulating vastly more "nucleus" drops as they explore the region.
• Min-maxers who aren't used to RNG-based equipment systems find the RNG layers on Artifacts cumbersome:
  • Numerous criteria must be satisfied for an Artifact to make the character endgame-ready: correct set, correct slot, correct main stat and substats useful for the character. It takes a lot of grinding to find an Artifact with all the right stats. Players often wish that something similar to the Self-Modeling Resin item^note Guarantees the main stat when creating new Star Rail Artifact equivalents. from Honkai: Star Rail would be added to Genshin.
  • Each artifact domain has two 5★ artifact sets that it can drop. Some are very resin efficient. Others, especially those containing the best-in-slot artifact for a one specific character, tend to get paired with an artifact set that ranges from "alternatives are more resin-efficient to farm" to "generally useless in endgame". This means that when farming such domains, half the 5★ artifact drops end up wasted. The worst offender is "Valley of Remembrance", which contains Maiden Beloved, a healing bonus artifact set almost always outclassed by the Ocean-Hued Clam artifact set, and Viridescent Venerer, an artifact set that is de facto mandatory for all Anemo support units.
  • The pool of Artifact substats contains "flat stats", which grant a small, flat bonus to ATK, DEF or HP. At the endgame, these are strictly worse than percentage-based substats for the exact same stats. Substat rolls on artifacts are slightly biased against the substats favoured by an ATK-scaling DPS unit, with those flat stats having the highest individual probabilities to appear.
  • It takes even more grinding to fully upgrade an Artifact (especially 5★s which are essential for the endgame).
  • The most hated aspect is the Artifact substat upgrade system, which can irreversibly ruin Artifacts that look promising at +0. A random substat of each artifact is upgraded every 4 levels it gains by a quasi-random amount. The problem is that these substat upgrades are key to pushing team performance over the endgame DPS checks, with three generally being of greater importance: Crit Rate, Crit Damage and Energy Recharge. Missing a few Crit Rate or Crit Damage upgrades on the damage dealers' Artifacts can result in double-digit percentage losses of team damage output, and the former is also needed to trigger Favonius weapons' Energy generation passive. Missing an Energy Recharge upgrade can collapse the team's damage output because an Elemental Burst is not consistently available when needed, especially for characters for whom an Energy Recharge Artifact is insufficient to meet breakpoints or not optimal. Thus, weeks or even months of farming Artifacts can potentially be wasted and the character no closer to endgame readiness if a promising Artifact rolls into non-useful substats in its upgrade rolls.
• Some characters feature "split-scaling" in their kit, where parts of their kit scale off of one stat while the other parts scale off of another stat ^ExamplesAlbedo's skill scales with DEF, while his Burst scales with ATK, or the healing from Yaoyao's elemental talents scale with her HP, but the damage they deal to enemies scale with her ATK. Having two significant parts of their kit scaling with different stats makes them characters with "split-scaling", as opposed to sticking to mostly scaling with a single stat ^note Such as ATK (most DPS units), HP (most healers and HP-scaling DPSs like Yelan), DEF (some Geo units), etc.. This sometimes increases the difficulty of building a character, as this may force a player to invest solely in one part of a character's kit while neglecting the other, or try to invest in both sides, which could take heavy investment and could result in the character becoming a Master of None.
• There is no character loadout system for Artifacts and weapons to rapidly switch characters between different possible builds (e.g., Raiden Shogun as a Hyperbloom trigger or a hypercarry), with the closest being Fast Equip for equipping an Artifact set, but even with that feature players might need to manually choose optimal pieces every time they Fast Equip.
• Unlike weapon leveling, character and artifact leveling does not feature a "refund" system where excess EXP that goes past the Cap is given back to the player. This results in the excess EXP going to waste when it could have been used to contribute to leveling something else or a character's next Ascension. While this could be explained with Character and Artifact Enhancement materials not having very low rarity variations, it is still a letdown.
• The Adventurer's Handbook (F1 when playing on PC) allows the player to mark the locations of enemies (and bosses) on the map, useful if they need to farm them down for their unique drops. However, the system only shows one enemy spawn at a time and the list of enemy spawns is incomplete, forcing players to have to rely on the Genshin Interactive Map instead.
• Local Specialties are hard time-gated - save for two (Violetgrass and Amakumo Fruit), there aren't enough spawns on the map to make up the 168 required to fully ascend a character. Unless a player collects more from another player's world, they'll have to wait for the 48-hour respawn time - often two or more times. While you can use the Seed Dispensary on Local Specialties so you can get a bit more of them on hand when you grow and harvest them in your Serenitea Pot, it only works if the Specialties are plants, and even then, not every plant-based Local Specialties can have their seeds harvested. It doesn't help that Sumeru has introduced two Local Specialties which represent new levels of difficulty to collect - Rukkhashava Mushrooms are well-camouflaged, spawn singly, and are widely distributed - from vines in the depths of caves to high ledges on trees in the Apam Woods. Scarabs take that one step further by having all the above traits, except they can move, don't glint, can get spooked off by stray attacks, and approximately a third of all spawns are locked behind completion of the "Golden Slumber" questline.
• Allocation of world boss and weekly boss drops to characters has a heavy bias towards the latest released regions, often without regard to the character's home region. For example, Mika, a Mondstadt character of the Cryo element, uses world boss drops from the Setekh Wenut, a Sumeru world boss of the Anemo element who released one patch earlier, despite Mondstadt having two Cryo world bosses that could have been allocated to him. This is perceived as diminishing the utility of older bosses and unnecessarily complicating farming for newer players.
• To alleviate concerns about the significant amount of content weekly bosses are locked behind, a mechanic was introduced that allows players to solo challenge weekly bosses they have not yet unlocked. This unlocks at AR40, which is supposed to match when the player unlocks the ability to level character talents beyond 6 (and thus needs weekly boss drops). However, this makes it impossible to pre-farm drops from Azhdaha, Magatsu Mitake Narukami no Mikoto, Guardian of Apep's Oasis, All-Devouring Narwhal and The Knave, since (i) all these bosses have their unlock quests gated behind AR40, which unlocks World Level 5 and (ii) a player can only join a multiplayer session with a lower World Level than their own. Given how Fontaine's Archon Quest unlocks at AR40 and new characters always seem to be assigned the latest weekly bosses, this issue is expected to continue going forward.

Gameplay

• Characters automatically climb tall environmental objects just by getting close to them. This can be detrimental when enemies corner you because your character might accidentally climb onto something (and become even more vulnerable) when you could've just wanted them to turn around.
• If an enemy gets too far away from its spawn point, it may decide to reset itself, walk back to its spawn point and replenish its entire health bar. This is normally intended to help players escape from unwanted encounters, but this can also be accidentally triggered if enemies run too far from their spawn point to chase you, or if you knock them away far enough. This is evident for Fatui Pyroslinger Bracers who tend to jump back and try to keep distance from you; they can jump enough times to go outside of their "area" where the mechanic will be triggered.
• If you run out of stamina and drown while swimming (except in Fontaine, where you can't drown), there will be a loading screen and your entire party will respawn at the last ground or platform that you previously stood on. Unfortunately, this becomes a burden when fighting the Oceanid; the boss fight takes place on a platform surrounded by water, parts of the platform sink as the fight progresses, and you constantly run to avoid the boss's summoned mimics. If you happen to run out of stamina and drown, the battle will be interrupted by a loading screen, respawning you outside of the arena, and worse, resetting the Oceanid to full HP.
• Your characters automatically lock-on to enemies in battle. This isn't too terrible unless the character you're controlling is an archer or catalyst user; trying to single out an enemy becomes a lot more difficult as you have to get up close to your target in order to properly attack them. Compounding on this is the inability to aim certain characters' Elemental Bursts (e.g. Amber, Venti), since the bursts rely on the lock-on system in choosing their target. This limitation causes AoE Elemental Bursts to sometimes whiff or hit only one enemy.
• Bennett's Constellation Lv. 6 upgrade, which is irreversible once activated, causes his Fantastic Voyage field to infuse Swords, Claymores, and Polearms inside it with Pyro. Unfortunately, many players see this as a Power Up Letdown because its infusion overrides physical and infused (except by Candace) Normal Attacks,^note An example of an infusion, which can be overridden, is Keqing's Electro infusion from her Elemental Skill. This is in contrast with damage conversion, which cannot be overridden. Examples of the latter include Alhaitham's Dendro mirrors from his Elemental Skill and Xiao's Elemental Burst which grants him Anemo damage on his normal attacks. shifting the playstyle of melee characters who are not built for dealing Pyro damage or driving Pyro reactions. Also, non-Pyro damage bonuses from Goblets or talents do not work while the Pyro infusion is active. In the most extreme cases, some players who ended up getting Bennett to C6 without understanding the implications were forced to start the game over from scratch with new accounts just to undo their mistake. While this is now less of an issue with more support units, most newer melee character kits utilising elemental damage conversions (that, unlike infusions, cannot be overriden) and the discovery of an unusual Razor team that requires C6 Bennett, players have been wishing for the ability to toggle certain Constellations off, or just have Bennett's final Constellation reworked.
• Version 1.1 changed how environmental elemental reactions work. With the damage scaling with your world level, what was previously scratch damage became a swift health drain. This made Pyro characters risky to use when fighting in grass as they're liable to kill themselves and the rest of your team, and makes even the lowly Pyro slime into a huge threat. The Oceanid became an even harder boss for some teams, with Electro characters unable to stop hurting themselves due to the permanent Wet status. It was so immediately unpopular that the developers both acknowledged and nerfed it to scale two levels below your world level, but with a cap of 4.
• Due to the environmental mechanics involving Pyro, Overload reactions can be just as dangerous to your characters as they are to enemies. Hitting a patch of burning grass with a source of Electro, or standing on an electrified pool of water with Pyro, both count as Overload. After Version 1.1 scaled environmental damage with the World Level, Overload deals a substantial amount of damage. And while there's normally a cooldown of sorts that prevents characters and enemies from immediately suffering back to back Elemental Reactions, it only applies to application on a single entity, which is a moot point in a burning field with lots and lots of individual patches of grass to Overload one by one. Whatever is caught in this situation can suddenly be subject to consecutive Overload effects in rapid succession with little to no wait time in between, leaving them to be helplessly juggled about until they are either hurled clear of the danger area or dead from the tremendous damage.
• Any scenario where the floor itself can become covered or infused in an element or energy, since a character standing on infused ground will be drained of their health more quickly than they would from most threats in the game. It's a big threat in the Geo Hypostasis fight that must be countered by unleashing a shield from a crystal it spawns, and Ruin Destroyer snakes love to use this. When there's more than one, the player will likely be running back and forth for a safe place to stand.
• The Teleport Waypoints don't specify how high or how low they are on the map. Waypoints located on an area of the map that looks like the top of a mountain may actually be in a cave much lower underground, or those that look like it's on ground level may actually place you hundreds of meters in the air. This makes traveling to a certain area a bit more annoying as the nearest waypoint to your intended location may actually be much further and the fastest route is actually in a further waypoint that requires you to travel on foot. This is notable in some areas of Liyue, Dragonspine, Amakumo Peak, Sumeru and Fontaine. Version 3.4 placed a small icon next to the underground waypoints and Version 4.0 added a multi-layered map, but neither helps players swiftly distinguish between (i) elevated and ground-level waypoints or (ii) underground or underwater waypoints at different layers.
• The Traveler is the only character who can switch between different elemental attributes, which is neat… except switching requires you to interact with a Statue of the Seven of the given element. This can be particularly annoying in Liyue, where some puzzles require placing multiple Geo constructs for puzzle solving or platforming purposes (which the Geo Traveler’s particular skillset fulfills), which means if you don't have more units that create Geo constructs ^note Zhongli, Albedo, Itto or Ningguang, and only C1 Zhongli can put two down in rapid successionto do the job instead, you’d have to teleport to a Liyue Statue, change their element to Geo, go back to the puzzle, and then teleport back to another region to change their element back to your preferred one. It’s even more jarring when some cutscenes show that The Traveler can just switch elements on the fly in the story.
• The Anemo Treasure Compass does not work while in Dragonspine. It's not clear why this happens, either due to lore reasons (Dragonspine is rampant with unstable Ley Line energy, which the compass is powered by) or mechanical limitations (the concurrent Sheer Cold mechanic). Regardless, this makes hunting for any treasure chests (some of which can even contain Crimson Agate needed for the Frostbearing Tree) you may have missed when exploring the mountain needlessly annoying.
• The ability to break free from a Hydro bubble or frozen state being mapped to the jump button (space bar by default on PC) or a command button on the right-center of the screen (on mobile) is seen as a very odd and clunky mechanic, as many players find it physically awkward mashing the space bar or reaching out their thumb away from the corner of their device, and wondered why "breaking free" isn't mapped to the attack button (designated to the left mouse button) or tapping anywhere on their mobile screen instead, as rapid clicking is much less clunky to perform. For non-mobile players in particular, it will result in your character jumping in place, leaving them vulnerable to being stunlocked again before you can gain control of their movement.
• The in-game map displays an "exploration progress" percentage per area, but it is not as useful as it looks:
  • The game rounds the "exploration progress" percentage to the nearest whole number. Thus, "100% exploration progress" displayed on the in-game map may still mean that there are exploration objectives (chests, puzzles etc.) left to be completed. This leaves no easy way to determine if an area has been fully explored and all exploration objectives have been completed.
  • The "exploration progress" percentage counts almost every one-time exploration objective, ranging from all-important chests and teleport waypoints to even floating Mora boxes in the water. This makes it impossible to determine at a glance what needs to be done to finish up the last few percentages of missing exploration progress.
• Any mission involving stealth. Genshin uses a proximity-based system to determine if enemies are able to see you, leading to situations where you get spotted through walls or boxes just because you got too close to a target. Some missions also will fail you for being too far away from a target, leading to a weird balancing act of trying to find the right distance to be from the target.
• You can only have one gadget equipped at a time. While not mostly an issue in freeroaming, it can become an annoyance if you need to keep opening your inventory to switch back and forth between using "freeroam"-based gadgets (ie. Treasure Compasses, Seed Dispensary, Red Feather Fan) and the subregion's "puzzle-solving" gadget (ie. Lumenstone Adjuvant, Sorush) to accommodate for any situations in the open world. This was alleviated in version 3.7, where a Gadget "Quick Swap" system was introduced, allowing you to equip up to four gadgets so that you can quickly switch between them on the fly.
• There is no reliable way to keep track of Occuli and Crimson Agate. Despite the existence of Occuli Resonance Stones, they are not reusable and need local specialties limited per 48 hours and are locked behind Reputation Level 8 starting in Inazuma. Crimson Agate on the other hand, does not have such item. Even with the official Teyvat Interactive Map, it doesn't sync your progress and you have to manually mark which ones you've collected. This gets especially tedious if you haven't used it at the beginning of your hunt, as you're going to be doing a lot of backtracking just to mark which ones you do have.
• Fishing holes are this to some in a similar fashion to Local Specialties in that they're also time-gated, only worse as they take 72 hours instead of 48 to replenish the types of and/or however many fish you caught from them. This can be inconvenient to those who are trying to obtain certain fish to redeem for the weapons and other rewards given by the nations' respective fishing NPCs, even moreso for the refinement materials which take nearly twice to three times as much fish to obtain. Some fishing holes can even contain "ornamental fishes" (denoted by a fish hopping out of the water), which only serves as decoration in your Serenitea Pot and they cannot be converted into regular fish, which can be upsetting when they cause you to fall short of a few fish needed to obtain rewards from the fishing NPC's shops.

Quest Mechanics

• Certain quests like the infamous "Trails in Tianqiu" can lock you out of multiplayer co-op. Since you cannot cancel quests once initiated, if you're struggling, you are effectively barred off from co-op, events and the Serenitea Pot until you complete said quests. This has become a major point of criticism for players.
• The repeatable NPC quests that appear as you go adventuring or material farming can be annoying. Unlike the one-time quests which are offer some value to the game's Worldbuilding and have decent rewards, these random quests don't offer much in return, and they tend to pop up at the most inconvenient of times to annoy the players. The NPCs have abysmal spawn placements, usually spawning on top of high cliffs, within aggro range of non-priority enemies, or just far enough from your intended path of whatever you were doing prior that getting back is a chore in and of itself (with the most Egregious case being the Dr. Edith/Dr. Livingstone delivery quests). Completing said quests gives little payout of only a few thousand Mora, some low-tier weapon enhancing stones and very low character friendship EXP, so they only feel like a waste of everyone's time. It appears the developers have taken note of this, (i) one spawn location of such a repeatable quest ("The Churlish Chase") is placed right in front of the Dendro artifact domain, and (ii) new repeatable NPC quests have not been sighted since the release of Sumeru's desert regions.
• Inazuma has a serious problem with World Quests timegated behind Real Life days, being seen as artificial Padding at best or outright bad game design at worst. While it's understandable for certain quests like "Through the Mists" (4 days) to be timegated because they're story-driven with a sense of mystery build-up, others are cited as being unnecessary restrictions that only waste time. Some of the more infamous examples include "Tatara Tales" (7 days), "Neko is a Cat" (9 days), and the Boatman quests on Tsurumi Island where two of the ghosts are timegated^note Una, who you have to talk to every day for 5 days, and Abe, who you can only interact with twice by collecting a specific patch of Florescent Fungi, and said items only respawn 2 days after pickup. "Tatara Tales" is considered one of the worst offenders, as it unlocks a world area that is initially completely inaccessible and has deadly environmental effects until the quest chain is completed. Fortunately, the developers appear to have taken notice, as there is far less World Quest timegating since the release of Sumeru. Fontaine's "Berrypuff" hidden quest, which can be advanced every 6 hours, also suggests that the developers are experimenting with time-gating in smaller blocks of time than a day.
• A number of World Quests irreversibly alter the landscape upon completion. Many players regret finishing World Quests simply because they find the previous landscape to be more unique. Examples include Tsurumi Island's unique fog, the sandstorm on top of the Mausoleum of King Deshret and the spooky yellow colour of the Weeping Willow of the Lake in Erinnyes Forest. While in most cases, the peculiar scenery is usually caused by The Corruption, and thus players can expect it to go away when they progress the World Quest chain, one Version 4.2 quest is notorious for giving no such warning: progressing In the Wake of Narcissus, the climatic arc of the Narzissenkreuz quest chain, irreversibly sinks the Tower of Gestalt into the sea. The tower is the primary landmark in Fontaine's Morte Region, visible since Version 4.0. Without it, the above-water area of the region has no distinctive elements.
• You cannot progress a quest if a character or even location involved is currently busy doing something else in another quest. This feature is considered incredibly annoying as you have to backtrack to certain quests just to free up the character. It's also a common habit for players to not do quests as they receive them, so if they pile up during quests like Jean's Story Quest or Sumeru's Archon Quest ending, you have to go back to free them all just to continue. Steps have been taken to fix this issue, with Version 4.1 commencing the rollout of warning screens and quest suspension for quests that interrupt other world quests, and Version 4.2 finally separating unlocking Story Quests from starting the quests.
• Related to the quest NPC issue is that some quests require talking to Katheryne to initiate or progress through, the same character(s) who serve as your central hub for your daily completion rewards, Adventure Rank rewards, and expeditions. Quest progression has priority over everything else Katheryne has to offer, so if you're just reporting back from your dailies etc., you're out of luck and have no choice but to initiate the quest first. It's not so bad if it's just one Katheryne who's pre-occupied and you can just teleport to another nation's Katheryne to bypass this, but if multiple or all Katherynes are pre-occupied, it can be a real annoyance. Chapter III, Act 3 is especially egregious in this regard since a good chunk of the Archon Quest will lock Sumeru Katheryne behind basic story progression due to Nahida using her as a temporary vessel to communicate with the Traveler. The developers appear to have taken some note of this, as a version 4.1 World Quest involving Katheryne only starts when a special dialogue option in Katheryne's dialogue options is chosen.
• World Quests (including those introducing version flagship events) cannot be turned off and have their cutscenes automatically trigger when near their objectives. Numerous quests have event and/or objectives inside towns trigger cutscenes, which becomes very frustrating if the player is simply trying to get to the stores or Adventurer's Guild if they want to save the quests for when they have more time to complete them. This used to be a problem with Story Quests until version 4.2 split unlocking and starting a Story Quest into two separate steps.
• The Daily Commission system, the primary repeatable source of free Primogems, has more than a few annoyances:
  • There are exactly as many Daily Commissions per day as required to turn in rewards to Katheryne — four. Unless players clear Daily Commissions in another player's world, players get no choices on the matter. In contrast, Honkai: Star Rail gives a selection of eight tasks, one of which is instantly completed by logging in for the day.
  • If the selected Daily Commission region is the latest nation released and a version releases a new area in that nation, the game could assign one of the possible Daily Commissions in the new area on day one of the version release... before the player is done exploring it and unlocking the teleport waypoints that facilitate navigation of the new area. This can force the player to commence exploration of the new area immediately.
  • Daily Commissions often include at least one NPC Commission, which contains plenty of unskippable dialogue. This wouldn't be particularly bad on its own, but most NPC Commissions are repeatable, so players may be forced to play through the exact same NPC Commissions over and over. While some have gameplay elements or variations to complete, others are nothing more than monotonous, time-wasting roleplaying sessions. Furthermore, the game can also force follow-up NPC Commissions in a commission chain into the list even if the player has switched their dailies to a different nation to avoid them.
  • In an attempt to alleviate issues with Daily Commission fatigue, the "Adventure Encounters" system launched with Version 4.1, allowing certain other tasks to be completed in lieu of Daily Commissions. However, all these tasks are one-time exploration or event objectives (open chests, collect oculi, complete quests, obtain event rewards). This is in contrast with Honkai: Star Rail whose Daily Training Activity includes repeatable tasks done as part of the character raising process (e.g. level up Relics and Light Cones). As a result, when there is no new content available, the "Adventure Encounters" system is near-useless for veteran players and content speedrunners — the very players who want relief from Daily Commission fatigue. This is exacerabated by (i) a trend of newer events timegating in blocks of 48 hours instead of 24; and (ii) end-of-version filler events ("Overflowing Mastery", "Ley Line Overflow" and "Marvelous Merchandise") not counting as providing claimable event rewards.
• Enemies spawned by quests don't drop items. Kill a number of rare enemies with materials you need? Not getting them. Literally the only possible positive is that you don't have to avoid using Electro or Pyro abilities on Fungi if you've been doing it for the sake of spore gathering.
• Definitely minor compared to most of the problems on this page but still worth mentioning, if you happen to log into the game to do your dailies before the Battle Pass releases on that day, those dailies don't count towards the daily goal. Be ready to face palm in frustration if you get even one done and you see the notice for an update when a Battle Pass isn't active at the time.
• Also relatively minor are the trial mechanics in the Fontaine Archon Quest. In theory a change in mechanics to something a bit more like, say, Ace Attorney does sound like a nice change of pace, and it is handled decently well for the most part, but the main problem is the inability to fail at anything, meaning you can just use trial and error until you progress. This was likely unavoidable due to the overall structure of the game (and also the fact that players probably wouldn't want to be stuck in the trial when there's dailies and such to do), but it also makes the trials mechanically shallow at best and mostly just busywork instead of enabling the player to actually make smart deductions.

Cutscene mechanics

• The game's dialogue system has become this for some. For one, players aren't allowed to hit the button to mark the dialogue as complete immediately. In fact, certain scenes will have the player waiting to press the prompt even if they've already finished reading the dialogue. This is on top of some scenes actually disabling the button outright, having the player sit through some animations on top of the dialogue. To top this off, the system will also throw out dialogue choices that serve no reason other than to check if the player is still actively following the dialogue, with no difference in response regardless of what the player chooses.
  • Auto-advancing the dialogue. Ignoring the "Are you still paying attention" dialogue, the dialogue will continue without the players input as the characters speak. However, not all dialogue has voiced options, and those that don't take an absurd amount of time to automatically progress if the player is, again, not paying attention to the game.
• Some dialogues that start after defeating a particular enemy with other enemies nearby can become this, particularly if the Traveler is fielded as one of your party members, such as "The Foolish Fatuus" quest. When the cutscene starts, the Traveler will not be able to move, but the game does not disengage the enemy aggro on them. This results in the Traveler being rendered defenseless while the enemies get free reign to attack them all they want, which will inevitably kill them even if you are rushing through the dialogue to regain control, forcing you to use an item or head to a Statue of the Seven to revive them. This also applies to the lightning, which means that in Yashiori Island (a place stuck in a perpetual thunderstorm), your character will frequently be struck by lightning during dialogue with no way to avoid it. It would be funny if it didn’t still deal damage. Guess talking isn't a free action after all.

Events

• Major story and lore details are locked behind the storylines of limited-time version flagship events. As a big part of the game's charm is its characters and story, many players (especially newer ones) are locked out of experiencing the flagship event stories for the character interactions, world-building, plot development and lore. There was a practice of running a Suspiciously Similar Substitute of certain limited-time events (such as "Shadows Amidst Snowstorms" and "Chalk Prince and the Dragon", both Albedo-centric events), but this appears to be discontinued. While the developers have tried to mitigate this by uploading each event's climatic cutscene as a "Story Teaser" on official channels, this does not help with key details revealed in dialogue or roleplay segments.
• 4★ weapons (and furniture/ blueprints) earned from a version's limited-time flagship events are permanently unobtainable once they end. Cinnabar Spindle from 2.3's "Shadows Amidst Snowstorms" is notable for being the only DEF-boosting sword other than 3★ Traveler's Handy Sword and 5★ Uraku Misugiri, which meant until the latter was added in 4.5, Albedo players who didn't get Cinnabar Spindle were locked out of his best weapon.
• Unlocking the version's flagship event usually involves having to go through the first act of the event's story, which usually involves about 15 to 20 minutes of roleplay. After that, players need to individually unlock the challenges (where the Primogems are at) by talking to the individual NPCs hosting the challenges, who can be spread out over a significant area and need to be returned to for every new challenge stage. This can be an annoyance for players who want to get to the Primogems quickly. The worst offender to date was Version 3.7's flagship event, "Duel! The Summoners' Summit!". Themed around Genius Invokation TCG, it also required completion of the extended Genius Invokation TCG tutorial quest - even though not all players have an interest in the card game. The developers appear to have acknowledged this problem, as Versions 4.3 and 4.4 have flagship events that unlock their minigames early into the first act of the event story.
• The Flameplume Starflowers minigame from the Fleeting Colors in Flight event involved smelting fireworks by raising meters for each parameter up to specific points to increase quality. Unfortunately, the amount each bar is increased by was randomised depending on the current intensity of the flame and the technique used. This led to a frustrating Luck-Based Mission where getting too low or too high an increase at any point ruined the attempt and forced a retry.
• The Spices from the West event features the ability to let characters in the Serenitea Pot try out players' Delicious Dishes and gain Bond EXP. Normally this would be an enjoyable experience, were it not for the fact that the version 2.6 edition was also concurrent with the Serenitea Pot's extended maintenance, which locked the current layout and prevented players from changing their characters. Newer players who haven't had a chance to set up their Serenitea Pots before maintenance are unable to experience this, and the older players who have still might not have the characters they want to interact with in place, which made it functionally impossible for anyone to enjoy the event as it was intended. The event was originally meant to be delayed until the emergency maintenance was over, but harsh Covid-19 lockdowns in Shanghai resulted in a severe Schedule Slip for Genshin's development team, to the point where they had to delay 2.7's release. This evidently forced them to implement the event to tide players over in the interim.
• Test Run events will allow you try out the rate-up characters on the limited character banner. However, they utilize pre-made builds and parties. This makes it tricky for players to know if they are worth pulling for as they cannot test how well they synergize with the characters, weapons and artifacts they have on hand. This is especially crucial for characters like the Raiden Shogun and Dehya, whose Elemental Bursts won't trigger effects from certain characters like Beidou or Xingqiu. Albedo's Test Run in particular has him wield his best-in-slot weapon, Cinnabar Spindle... a weapon was only available in a limited-time event and likely will never be available again.

Other

• At the end of the third Archon Quest interlude, Inversion of Genesis, you are given the option of giving the Wanderer a custom name, which will be applied as a playable character and in his future appearances as an NPC in quests; apart from being subject to the same censor filter as the Traveler's name, players are free to name the Wanderer whatever they want, with the only caveat to his new name is that you cannot name him names relating to his previous identities, existing/upcoming playable characters, and important NPCs or lore characters (ie. Paimon, the Fatui Harbingers, Dainsleif, etc.). However, the naming system does not account for the possibility of the addition of the names of important characters that had not been mentioned in the game's lore or debuted as a character in-game yet around the time the Wanderer is given a custom name; because of this, it can result in players receiving a warning that their Wanderer's name violated the naming restrictions and they must change it to an "acceptable" name lest their account gets banned, even though this is a coincidental mishap that is beyond the player's knowledge and control.^ExamplePrior to version 3.7, one player named their Wanderer "千織" (meant to be read as "Senri"). The same kanji is coincidentally also used by Chiori, a character first mentioned in one of Kirara's voicelines in version 3.7, first sighted as an NPC in version 4.3 and made playable in version 4.5, which resulted in the player getting a warning from Hoyoverse due to their Wanderer having a "disallowed" name. However, Hoyoverse did release an apology for the system punishing players for something that is beyond their control, and rolled back the naming restrictions that were added in 3.7.
• Serenitea Pot furniture are divided into mutually exclusive "interior" and "exterior" furniture categories, which restrict where they can be placed. While understandable for some furniture, this division can be arbitrary and frustrating for other items. For example, "Statue of Her Excellency, the Almighty Narukami Ogosho, God of Thunder" is coded as exterior furniture and cannot be placed indoors, despite the nature of the item and the corresponding flagship event storyline strongly suggesting that it is an indoor furniture.