In-Game rewards in Genshin are…

I think that numerous Travelers will agree with me. The in-game rewards in Genshin are bad. If you compare the rewards in Genshin with the rewards you get in Honkai: Star Rail, you'll realize that the rewards in Genshin are terrible. (I found this information in a Reddit post.)

But wait, what do I specify as “in-game rewards”? That's easy.

• Primogems (used to obtain characters and weapons)
• Resin (used to farm artifacts for your characters, level-up materials, ascension materials and talent level-up materials)
• Weapons (used to equip your characters)
• Characters (used for team building and playing the game)

The gacha and primogem disaster

With that in mind, let me show you, why Genshins rewards are horrible:

Starting with the amount of primogems you can get per patch as a free to play player.

7,860 primogems.

That's not that bad, actually. If we divide this number by 160, which is the price for one gacha pull, we get

~49 pulls.

Sounds enough, right? But wait, there is a catch. When pulling on the gacha system, you have a 0.6% chance of getting a five-star pull.

This means that you will have to pull 383 times to get ONE five-star character. This is why Hoyoverse added the pity system. The game is literally sorry for you that you are unlucky. Ouch.
With pity, the chances of getting a five-star character stay the same (at 0.6%), but when pulling 73 times without getting one, your chances of getting a five-star will increase by 6% for every pull. Now you only have to pull 90 times to get a five-star (in the worst-case scenario).

Of course, life wouldn't be funny if there wasn't a 50/50 system in Genshin. When pulling a five-star character, there is a 50% chance of getting the featured character. If you miss the 50/50 you will get a 5 star from the standard banner and your pity is back at 0. But your next five-star is guaranteed to be the featured character.

So in the worst-case scenario, you will need about 180 pulls to get your desired character. Or a whopping 28,800 primogems. That is quite a lot, especially since you only receive 49 pulls out of every patch. Do you see the problem here? Your chances of getting a five-star character in one patch are… low.

The resin drama

Continuing with the so-called “original resin”.
Resin is used to farm artifacts for your characters, level-up materials, ascension materials and talent level-up materials. The maximum capacity for resin is 200 units. One original resin takes 8 minutes to regenerate. So if you have used all of your resin, you will need to wait 26 hours and 40 minutes.
Keep in mind, that resin is used for nearly everything that is level-up related.

• Artifacts
• Talent level-up materials
• Character level-up materials
• Character ascension materials (Boss drops)

Every artifact run (which includes some artifact drops) costs 20 resins. Every weekly boss run costs 30 resin (60 after you claimed the 3rd weekly boss drop). Normal bosses (overworld bosses) cost 60 resins per run! You have to decide what to farm for because your resin is limited. If we take a look into how Honkai: Star Rail managed to solve this issue, we can see: When your "trailblaze energy" (which is the equivalent of resin) is full, the overflowing energy will be converted into reserve trailblaze energy, which can be withdrawn when needed.

But do not fret! There is a solution!

Let me introduce you to an item called “fragile resin”. You can obtain it through in-game rewards. It regenerates your original resin by 60 units for every fragile resin unit that is used. There is only one catch: If you are actively using your resin to build your characters, you will most likely end up using all of your fragile resin, and you'll have to wait again for your resin to regenerate. You really need a lot of time (and a lot of resin) when you want to build a character.

The weapon catastrophe

Weapons are essential when building a character, some are only available when exploring Teyvat (the world of Genshin Impact), some are available during limited-time events and others are only available through the gacha system (like character specific five-star weapons, example shown above).

The only problem here is, we NEVER, in the ENTIRE HISTORY of Genshin Impact, got a free five-star weapon! (Genshin was published 5 years ago!)

This has to do with the producer of Genshin Impact. Until September 2023, “Haoyu Cai” was the producer of Genshin Impact. This means, he was responsible for any rewards, events, and character designs in the game. There was just one issue: He wasn't generous with his rewards for the travelers. This got so bad, that a massive shitstorm hit HoYoverse. Although it didn't hit Haoyu Cai, it hit Liu Wei, better known as Da Wei, the CEO of HoYoverse. This led to Da Wei crying during a live speech after the Genshin Fest 2024. I found a video with English subtitles:

Events? What do you mean with events?

There are three types of events in Genshin Impact. The first type consists of in-game events, such as the 'Lantern Rite,' which celebrates the Chinese New Year, the 'Windblume Festival,' and the summertime event. These are all in the game and often just require some quests to do and some minigames to be played. There are also smaller events, like combat or exploration. Yes the rewards in these events are very good. Often containing a limited 4* weapon and their refining materials or a random 4* character, sometimes there are skins for 4* characters too!

The second type are "offline events". These can range from a collab with a company were there'll be rewards when buying something, a pop-up stand somewhere in a mall or at the Gamescom. To get these rewards you'll have to go there in person. Unfortunately a lot of these cooperation collabs, for example KFC, Xiaomi or Samsung, are never in Europe, only in the US. WHY? 😭

The third and final type of events are 'web events.' These are much simpler than in-game events and typically involve activities like finding differences in pictures or logging into HoyoLab. These often give just a small reward. (I think 40 Primogems?)
For comparison, Honkai: Star Rail gives you 160 Stellar Jades per web event. THAT IS FOUR TIMES MORE. GENSHIN. FIX THIS.

But I heard that you got a free character back in 2021!!! So you are telling fake news!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, it’s true that we received a free character back in version 2.1 (or version 2.2 if you weren’t playing on PlayStation). However, Aloy was part of a collaboration between Horizon Zero Dawn and Genshin Impact, so she doesn’t really count. Her constellations couldn’t be unlocked because she was only obtainable once. That said, we did get a free standard character selection at the start of version 5.0, which was awesome!

Hold on. What are constellations?

Character constellations are bonus boosts for your character. You can obtain a character up to seven times. The first time, you get the character themself. For every additional copy, you'll receive an item called [Name of Character]'s Stella Fortuna. These items are used to unlock stars in their constellation. The boosts vary widely, from increasing a character's attack stats to enabling them to completely annihilate enemies with a single tap. But how do you unlock constellations? You need to obtain the same character multiple times through the gacha system. Yes, you read that correctly - making a character stronger often requires spending more money or grinding harder for primogems. And then there's Aloy. She was never featured in the gacha system, so her constellations remain inaccessible. In fact, her constellation description reads: "The time has not yet come for this person's corner of the night sky to light up." So yeah, she does not count as a free five star. What happens when you get a character to C6, you ask? Once all constellations are unlocked, any additional copies of that character are converted into Starglitter, which you can use to buy more pulls. Simple as that.

Why do I even play the game when there are so many problems?

Genshin Impact has improved in terms of in-game rewards and the quality of its events, but it still receives an absurd amount of hate online. It’s ridiculous. Yeah I know, giving out free pulls only after new characters leave the gacha system is a questionable move. But come on, they have to make a profit somehow, and let’s be real - Genshin isn’t going to start showing ads in the launcher or in-game.

I fell in love with the game at the end of 2021. The story is so well-written, and the lore behind everything is absolutely fascinating. And no, despite what some people say, it’s not a waifu/hentai simulator! It’s an open-world RPG, and it has my heart. The character designs are amazing. Oh, and have I mentioned the music? I just finished the most recent main quest in this update, and THE MUSIC IN IT WAS INCREDIBLE. I still can’t get the melody from the final boss fight out of my head.

Yes, I love this game - with all its imperfections and glitches. (Maybe I’ll write a blog post about the glitches because some of them are really cool!)

That was everything from me, this is Violet, signing off. Until next time!