Genshin Impact: Getting started

[LtNoobslayer]

Welcome Travelers!

If you've landed here I'm going to hazard a guess you are mildly interested in trying out this wonderful open world RPG for yourself.  Follow this long-winded quick start guide to dive into one of the best F2P experiences of the past decade.  Don't worry, You can get in on the action via PC, Android, iOS, PS4, and PS5 and can enjoy cross-play and save so your game can follow you anywhere.

First off you probably want to get the game downloading before you read the beginner tips.  You can find Genshin Impact on the Google Play and Apple App stores, PSN, and the PC launcher via Epic Games or directly from HoYoverse.  On mobile, the game is currently about 17GB for just the English Language pack you'll need a bit more space though for the game to unpack; for those close to capacity consider yourself forewarned.  The PC version is about 60GB for single voiceover language (others can be downloaded additionally in game) and will also want about double that space for unpacking and verifying files.

Now that you've got your download going in the background, you may be wondering what Genshin Impact even is.  Well worry not I'm hear to tell you that it is a single player fantasy RPG in a beautiful anime style.  The game boasts a massive and growing open world with constant updates on an industry leading 6 week patch cycle for major version updates.  Form a party of 4 characters from an amazing cast and travel the world on a quest to find your lost sibling and uncover the truth of this world.  Run, jump, swim, climb, glide, and sail across the vast landscapes to solve puzzles, fight monsters, find secrets and complete various quests and challenges.  Use the powers of the 7 elements to defeat enemies and puzzles alike and combine them for more powerful attacks.  As of this post we have 4 of the 7 nations available to us and are only now approaching the halfway point of the game's story.

"But Noobslayer, why should we get excited for a single player game?"

I'm glad you asked!  The game actually does have a co-op function that allows you to join friends and do certain activities together in their worlds.  Once you reach Adventure Level 16 (account/player level, not character) you can be joined by any player on the same server that is the same world level or higher.  Not all game content can be accessed in coop mode but domain challenges, weekly boss fights, overworld puzzles, and radiant world quests can all be done with 1-3 friends in tow!  Many limited events also include coop modes or are outright coop only events.  You can fine tune your coop experience to allow open joining, joining by request only, or rejecting all join requests so no need to worry if you just want to play alone for a while.

Now, once you get in game and start your free journey (did I mention it's 100% free?) you'll probably want to start collecting all the cool characters.  Here's the one catch, this game is a gacha game.

NO! WAIT COME BACK!

Okay, I know most folks run for the hills when they see that word but let me tell you it's actually not that bad at all.  I've played dozens of gacha games and Genshin is one of if not the most forgiving ones on the market.  Let me detail the monetization methods so that there's no misgivings or secrets.  First off, the shop is sorta hidden in game, there's no banners taunting you at every menu, no constant pleas for you to top up your balance, it's there if you go look for it but it never comes to attack you.  There are 3 primary real world purchases you can make: Welkin Moon, Gnostic Chorus, and direct Genesis Crystal purchases.  The Welkin is a 5 dollar item that rewards the freemium currency (Primogems) that you can earn in game every day for 30 days and a one time bonus of 300 premium currency (Genesis Crystals).  This is the best money to reward value but does require daily logins to claim all the benefits, can be stacked up to 180 days. The Gnostic Chorus is a battle pass, there's the free tier of rewards everyone gets or you can buy the 10 dollar bonus for additional rewards per tier.  It's incredibly easy to get all the rewards so no need to buy levels or grind the battle pass, even casual F2P finish the battle pass every patch.  And finally there's the direct crystal top ups, these are your standard currency microtransactions in every mobile game out there and the least efficient use of your money.

Now with that covered let's talk about getting characters.  You'll need to progress the game until you've met Jean in Mondstadt, just keep following Paimon and you'll get there in less than 15 minutes (or way longer if you have wanderlust and get easily distracted like me).  The game will tell you about the Wish system and prompt you to open the menu for it.  Feel free to try your luck immediately but I'd suggest you wait until you've progressed a little further and gotten the rest of your starter party.  Follow the main quest and you'll pick up 2 more free characters to round out your roster (Kaeya and Lisa).  By now you should be approaching AR10 and should have some rewards to claim from the friendly Adventure guild receptionist just inside the city gates.  After you claim those rewards you should have enough to go for a few rounds in the wish menu.

Professional Advice: Go ahead and use the 2 Beginner wish banners first to get 20 wishes for the price of less (I don't remember if it's 1-2 off).  It's not worth rerolling unless you just really want to play the RNG game, you'll get plenty of characters over time and all characters can beat all the content in the game (people are still clearing the end game abyss with the 4 freebies).  After that, only use your primogems (in game wishing currency earned from gameplay) on the character event banners, the standard banner can be wished on using the blue fates you will earn from various gameplay elements.  Genshin has a pity system to ensure there is a maximum you can spend before getting the character you want guaranteed.  You will get a 5 star character at 90 wishes if one did not appear before then, it has a 50% chance to be either the featured event character or one of the standard 5 stars.  If you "lose" this 50/50 your next 5 star will 100% be the rate up character.  This pity count and your 50/50 win loss state will roll over banner to banner.  Players can plan ahead for reruns of desired characters to get exactly who they want.  At 75 pity count a soft pity kicks in increasing the odds of a 5 star drastically.  Average 5 star pulls happen in the high 70s to low 80s vs closer to the 90 hard pity.  Every 10 wishes you are guaranteed a 4 star character or weapon, getting one resets this counter.  Wishes do not need to be saved up for 10-pulls, there's no bonus rates, it's simply a time saver.  Most players will swap to single pulls when approaching pity to stop spending as soon as they get their 5 star and save more wishes for future targets.

Well hopefully your download is close to done, if you ever want to add a friend in game hit me up here, on discord or even in game.

If you want to read more, why not hit the Beginner's Guide next?

Happy trails, enjoy some screenshots (sorry ladies, all the men are trapped on my old computer's hard drive so no males represented for now).

Edited February 22 by LtNoobslayer
Adding links to next guide in series

[aoblxix]

I have not downloaded it yet but I might just have to after reading the other topics 

[LtNoobslayer]

4 hours ago, aoblxix said:

I have not downloaded it yet but I might just have to after reading the other topics 

You totally should, after all what's the worst that can happen for trying a free game?