Summary

• Genshin Impact has an overwhelming amount of content for newcomers to catch up on.
• The game's farming structure is a major obstacle for players trying to progress.
• As the game expands, updates may make it even more challenging to keep up with.

I have been playing Genshin Impact since the game’s release back in 2020 and, despite my deep love for it, the action RPG by HoYoverse is not one I can currently recommend friends to start playing at this point in time. The title was released nearly four years ago and, since then, has expanded drastically. Starting off with the regions of Mondstadt and Liyue, the RPG started growing with the introduction of the icy reaches of Dragonspire, followed by Inazuma, Sumeru, and now Fontaine – and, of course, other areas within pre-existing regions.

An example of this is the recently introduced Chenyu Vale, which accompanied the release of Xianyun in Genshin Impact earlier this year. In addition to landmasses, the game also gets bigger with new characters, new opponents, new story quests, new challenges, and new items to farm. Now, nearly four years into the game with a new fiery region on the horizon, the idea of starting an adventure in HoYoverse’s hit RPG seems ever more ludicrous, as even seasoned veterans are getting bombarded by an overload of content – and the big problem is not the amount of content, per si.

Genshin Impact’s Content Overload Is Hard To Catch Up With

Each Region Is Huge & There Is Simply Too Much To Do

The amount of content mustered up over four years of continuous updates is one of the negative aspects of the game for newcomers. Catching up on all of that while also maintaining one’s characters on par with the world level can be a difficult and stressful endeavor, especially because of the game’s problems with farming. The story of the game is well worth the investment, as its characters and world-building are superb, but getting through the content that unlocks each of these story quests in Genshin Impact can be daunting.

Because of this, it is quite possible to feel demotivated when having to sidestep away from main story quests only to grind through activities that do not feel as good as the narrative arc of the moment. Surely, these activities help fill up the time when story quests are caught up with, but the way they are often forced and presented upon players can take away from the positive experience within the game’s world, especially when this starts happening over and over.

Seeing tons of uncompleted world quests can be despairing, and it may make you feel that you are missing out on a large portion of the game. Often, that feeling ends up being true. The Aranara questline, for instance, is not an obligatory thing to do in order to progress with the campaign, but it opens up a piece of the Sumeru map that, otherwise, remains locked until it is completed. The problem with the infamous quest is the amount of grinding that players need to do – and that is not even the central problem with Genshin Impact’s content.

The Problem With Genshin Impact’s Content Isn’t In Its Amount

The Game’s Farming Structure Is Its Own Worse Enemy

However, less content is not the solution. The fact that the game does have such a large amount of content is actually good, as it would allow players to continue exploring new areas and venturing through new tales even when they are up to date with the main Archon Quests of each region. However, it is common to leave some of these additional quests aside because how the game is structured. For a while now, Genshin Impact has been suffering from a severe case of farming mismanagement.

Under the current circumstances, a loyal player’s daily experience revolves around logging in to do dailies and farm materials for their characters and weapons – including the ideal Artifact sets and more. With the intense amount of grinding that is necessary to max out characters and make them top-tier, there is either no time or no energy left to do more – especially if Genshin Impact is not the only game you are playing. The investment to get a character to level 90 and upgrade all their skills and their weapon is extremely high.

Simple boss materials often have players facing the same opponent around 15 times because the discrepancy between what a character needs and what a boss drops per run is absurd – this is not even considering that the amount of loot per run is not established. The farming situation gets even worse when considering characters also need strong Artifacts with ideal stats to perform well – and that the stats are always randomized when farming, without any method of ensuring at least one of the stats is what you need for your character in Genshin Impact.

The amount of time spent repeating the same activities to no avail is colossal, and it impedes players from experiencing the best parts of the game. HoYoverse is acting to optimize the experience with farming. Starting this year, players now appear next to the start of the Domain activation rather than at the far end of the room, cutting down a few seconds with every run. Now, it increased the Resin cap in Genshin Impact, which allows players to run more activities within a single .

“It is upsetting to see how the game’s structure ends up ruining a large part of its experience.”

It didn’t, however, address the true problems. What is a little bit more concerning is that, while the game continues to expand and the farming demands increase, the company seems to deliberately ignore some solutions it has installed in some other titles it owns. In Honkai: Star Rail, players can craft Artifacts with specific main stats by using a rare item. It is hard to obtain it, but the simple existence of the mechanic does already alleviate a lot of the farming efforts.

Another great feature in Honkai is that players can store unspent daily Trailblaze Power (the equivalent of Genshin Impact’s Resin) and use that stock later on. If they run out of Trailblaze Power, they can pull more from the bank they fed when not using it on other days. Of course, the best feature is that a lot of the farming activities in Honkai can be run through an auto-battle feature. This allows players to leave the game aside while they do their daily farming routes and then have the disposition to engage with other content, such as side quests.

Auto-battling in a real-time action RPG may initially seem far-fetched, but it is not impossible.

Playing Genshin Impact May Get Tougher

Natlan Leaks Already Hint At An Ill Omen

While the game is currently in a problematic state, it is likely that things will get worse as it progresses. The title will naturally get bigger with every new patch, as is expected, and the release of Natlan expected later this year is a worrying affair. First off, the Nation of Pyro will introduce a brand-new area that is likely going to be as large as or larger than Fontaine. For players who are up to date, that is great news, but for players who are behind or just starting, that is a huge amount of stuff to catch up on.

Worse than that are some rumors that have been circulating. According to some level update leaks about Genshin Impact’s Natlan region, characters will now be able to be leveled up to 100 as opposed to the current cap of 90. This rumored new level cap will, indubitably, increase their power, but it will also require more Ascension material farming, which is already bad as it is. If the current problems with farming persist, it may simply not be worth getting all the player’s characters to the maximum level.

It is upsetting to see how the game’s structure ends up ruining a large part of its experience. The world of the action RPG is beautiful, the stories told in Teyvat are interesting, and the gameplay mechanics are extremely fun to play with, which is why I fell in love with it in the first place.

Unfortunately, I do not enjoy being forced to run repetitive activities time after time in a mindless manner and feeling punished when farming efforts go down the drain. While Genshin Impact does not fix its farming issues, I do not encourage prospective players to start and adventure in the world of Teyvat – instead, they are far better off throwing themselves in the arms of Honkai: Star Rail, which is a lot more considerate to its players.