The issues stem from majority of the playable characters are *already developed* before we meet them. They already went through their hero journey, self discovery or redemption. It's in the character stories of their profile(if you have them). Genshin writers are too afraid to take risks and show us their development on screen and instead play it safe by only telling us in their profile(if you have them). It really undermined the visual aspect of its storytelling.
Agreed. Seeing Navia confront her past, go through loss again and finally close the case that landed her father in prison/executed by finding the true culprit was an amazing arc, solidifying her as the boss of the Spina. We see that happen. Se see Furina end her arc that has been going for 500 years and start a new one, finding herself- she is not done developing even now that the archon quests are done. And Neuvilette, who we see on screen regain his authority, change his view on Furina after essentially betraying her and putting her on trial. These three are the ones I’ve seen the most people praise and talk about and I firmly believe it’s because we SEE them evolve on screen, go through their arcs and change
Imagine how cool it would be if character's story chapters were set in the not too distant past and showed us how the character obtained their vision. With story chapter 2 being set in the present and moving on the story. We could have hade kaeya vs diluc. Witness Benny almost getting killed. So much cool stuff. Instead, let's help two idiots with their pointless marriage (ayato's story)
true. i think this is why ppl love furina so much. we see firsthand in her flashbacks how she was forced into her role, rather than being told in dialogue, and come to understand who exactly she is as a person and why she acted the way she did in the previous aq parts. additionally, after the aq, in her sq, we see her confront her past and settle into her new place in the world. we actively see furina develope, rather than just being told that she did or having her development be complete when we meet her
This!!!!! There are some NPCs I love just as much as playable characters like Ruu for example but let me learn about the damn character in THEIR CHARACTER quest
Exactly, if they want to make people not hate on NPC they should include the ones we already know, imagine listening to Jeht after all that time she went missing
I do agree that this NPC centrism is a big problem and I love the changes in Fontaine, but in the case of Sumeru story quest I understand why Dunyazard being so important narratively made sense for that story. A big portion of the conflict in Sumeru is the relationship between Nahida and her people, so it is important to see her being important to someone as ordinary as Dunyazard
I don't fully agree with that. Sumeru was indeed about Nahida and her relationship with her people as Lesser Lord Kusnali but Dunyazard honestly just reinforced the NPC centrism when Nilou could've filled the role better. Dunyazard just felt like an easier insert to add stakes and shortcut their way to the story's point which did sort of cheapen things quite a bit. Dunyazard being important was still very much emblematic of Genshin's issues with giving their playable characters some actual prominence in the story. Fontaine, however, may be an indication that they're more than willing to continue the recent trend of making things character focused on their actual characters and not their NPC's. We can only hope Natlan follows suit
Collei was literally the same character as Dunyarzard An Eleazar patient who didn't have long Her or nilou could've filed the same role nilou was even the focus of the samsara Arc Dehya could've replaced the eremite guy to contrast Candace We could've had more of cyno to show how he was more upstanding than his bosses And maybe even used Layla in there somewhere Ultimately, sumeru should've kept the same process as before Only playable characters should be important in archon quests Leave NPC's for world quests where they belong
@@KudaGeatsune3821 Its possible that Collie or Nilou wouldn't have gotten ill to the extent Dunyarzad did, since they have visions. Also, who would be the host of the dream then. Nilou had a good role in Sumeru Act I and II
@@samisha8205 for Collei it would be easy with the presence of Dottore in Sumeru. He could make something to Collei when Tighnari was absent and use that against him for negociate the exchange of Haypasia. This could demonstrate how Dottore is terrifying and add much more tension in the end of Archons quest.
then they should make dunyazard a playable character... the thing is u can create playable character and then u should then write stories around them instead...
I’m glad Genshin Impact changed their formula and decided to strengthen their writing while also making the story they tell within a meaningful one. Hopefully it stays this way until the end game
I mean like I'm happy they changed but like it took them after 5 nations to do that. Wich is like come on. They fix the issue when the story is more than halfway over.
Hey, maybe you didn't participate, but they are all online. Many youtube videos. Don't worry :) Look up the sequence of events, then find a playthrough on youtube to get the story, there's lots of them.
I'm a day 1 player who's played through every single event, and I totally get it. There are so many in-game lore and character moments that new players don't get to see and experience for the first time. One of my favorite events is Unreconciled Stars, which happened all the way back in 1.1, so the vast majority of players don't even know it existed. Traveler meets Mona and Fischl there for the first time, and those 2 weren't featured in events again until 2.8 Summertime Odyssey, where we also got even more lore about their backstories. Traveler also meets Scaramouche in 1.1 for the first time, and the dialogue for meeting him in Inazuma changes based on whether you've completed that event. There's also a few lore drops from that event that hint at Teyvat's skies being fake. Because of 1.1 and 2.8, Mona and Fischl are 2 of my favorite characters. I have keychains of them, and I even got a mouse pad with the Unreconciled Stars official art on it because of how memorable it was to me.
I appreciate you’re trying to be a helpful person this isn’t directed at you but rather the devs - That is no excuse and a shitty way to run a game. To say ‘oh you missed important story because we trashed it for some reason? Well go on CZcams lol’
My favorite detail that symbolizes this change of approach is Furina's personal quest. It's not her solving a problem as a vision user... its _her origin story as a vision user._ Of course, this also means her quest cannot double as a demo for her powers... but they just ran with it. They even highlighted it by adding that one contrived road fight scene where the Furina character trial session would obviously go... that instead ends with visionless Furina basically going "Uhh... no. I'm gonna let you fight this one because that's what a rational person would do!"
i absolutely love how hoyo wasn't afraid of showing the flawed and vulnerable side of the fontaine cast. it gave more depth to their character, made us relate with them. lyney getting frustrated and making rash decisions after finding out that his siblings are in danger, navia being inexperienced, feeling hopeless and breaking down after melus and silver's death, neuvillette being tied down by the law and having to make decisions he knows are wrong both in the archon quest and his story quest, not to mention the fact that we knew how he felt because of the rain even though he himself hid his emotions and of course, the one and only furina. her character was just so good. it felt so realistic and humane. her dedication to fontaine is wild.
I think it also helps with the way that Fontaine is designed to have spectators with the whole trials are like operas. It allows then many of the NPC's to be people reacting to events of the playable characters rather than the ones having the changes themselves.
There is one npc centric quest that is well done, and it's Venti's. It's Barbatos' story quest, helping people grow and find peace in secret Dehya was also one of the first "Fontaine story quests", I believe, as the whole story was about discovering and making peace with her past. Yoimiya shared her second story quest with a sick kid and it's the most Yoimiya thing possible. The kid didn't steal the spotlight, they used each other as a mean to go forward in the story, Yoimiya discovering Sumeru and the thing she wanted to see and the kid getting her happiness back
I actually love how they placed Dunyarzad in the quest. They got us so attached to her and plus her role also existed to cement into us how Eleazar (human withering) is so crippling. They corrected all the wrongs they made with Teppei to the point where Dunyarzad is one of the most loved NPC's in game (along with Melus and Silver ofc)
One of my friends once stated that they wished Dunyarzad had died during the archon quest from her Elezar to raise the stakes of the quest. Maybe is true but also we wouldn’t have gotten to see her character arc
You've perfectly articulated my thoughts on this matter. Seeing our playable characters change, evolve and stirr the story forward is so much more engaging than interacting with a pre-packaged product that only provides a flashback sequence (if we're lucky enough) to illicit our sympathy. I love NPCs and their stories as they add so much depth and dimension to the world, they also make it clear that however flashy and special our playables are, they're not exactly the center of the world and that equally enthralling stories unfold everywhere if you're observant and curious enough. NPCs shouldn't take the spotlight in the main storyline though, and as somebody somewhare bellow said, something called "world quest" was perfectly tailored for them.
I really don't understand the thought process of not putting spotlight on playable characters and with how lengthy they make dialogue, there is definitely room to make good use of all that talking in order to develop their playable characters. It is insane to me how long it took for this company to perfect something so obvious. Show off the pretty character to make people pull for them. That is what they should have done from the start!
It is actually quite simple. They treat their playable characters like Idols. And Idol have to be perfect all the times. With the way genshin handle PCs it is just easier and more convenient to make an NPC do anything that can be perceived as controversial for their comunity. As it turn out that a lot of things can be controversial, such as opposing the traveller, being mean, having a love interest beyond ship tease, show any vulnerability that is not "cute" and so on. As a result, if the plot demand anything that invokve those, an NPC has to do it. Plus there is the obvious plot armor issue. Hard to raise the stakes when no named character can be killed or permanently injured, so you need "sacrificial NPCs". Even if a PC is an antagonist they make things happen to make so they were not actually jerks. See how Scaramouche was literally erased from existence and replaced with a version that did nothing wrong ever. It is why i say that if Signora ever get to be playable it would be Pre-Cataclysm Rosalyne. Now, this Idol thing is completely stupid when it come to write a good story, but many fanboys, and more damning whales, likes their perfect dolls, so i doubt there will be big changes. But the Tingyun thing in HSR leave me optimist.
@@noukan42not trying to say youre wrong but actually 🤓 scara wasnt erased from the teyvat story, everything he did prior to sumeru still happened, but nobody in teyvat remembers it
@@joiranseisententekiyeah and he's still trying to do better to make up for it. it still happened and he knows it happened. though, it sucks that he'll never have a confrontation with raiden or a conversation with yae..
Fontaine was such a blast, it's Genshin's saving grace for me, if the story, exploration, and characters weren't so great i'd have probably taken another 1 year break like how i skipped thru the entirety of Inazuma. Now i can only hope that the next archon quests, character quests, and event stories won't be a let down or else i might just take another break again.
I think part of the reason some NPCs got a better reception is how they tied into the PCs. Dunyarzad is the reason we meet Dehya rather than the other way around. Cyno's story quest largely revolves around Taj and his backstory, but not only is it centered around the mystery of whether or not he's truly gone rogue, but we don't even meet him face to face until the end of the quest, at which point he sacrifices himself so you and Cyno can get away, so we end up spending most of the quest with Cyno. With Carole and Vautrin, we know that both of them are already gone, and the primary purpose of them was to show how Neuvillette came into his position and also show how far Fontaine has come since the Melusines first arrived. Lyney and Lynette's mentor is likewise already dead, and the two NPCs who might normally take up the spotlight turn out to be villains. Melus and Silver are established as playing supporting roles to Navia from the very beginning, but they're given enough personality that it hurts to hear of their deaths. Not only that, but their last onscreen appearance arguably flips the formula around by having THEM stand up and take the reins to defend Navia like how Nilou defended the theater. EDIT: I forgot to add, but one thing I liked about the poetry event is that while the focus went to an NPC in the end, it was an NPC that has been there since the beginning, while the new NPC was one that was mentioned in Diona's backstory.
I actually like NPC stories a lot. Zhiqiong, Jeht and Jebrael, Timmy, Blanche and Tricky Bulle Fruit, Viktor in the Mondstadt's cathedral, etc... I actually wish they'd spend more time giving some carachters some degree of closure instead of writing some nonsense like this last fontaine event, which I honestly really didn't like. This is a thing they did a lot of in Mondstadt and then slowly started making NPC's less and less interesting as the story progressed. But it gives the world vibrance, it makes it feel alive. Although I agree this isn't something that should go in Carachter Story Quests, I just wish they played more with NPC's and make things happen to them in commissions and such, like they did in Mondstadt. For example, not a lot of people know that Timmie's father didn't abandon the family, he really just died while on an expedition and Draff tells us this in a commission. But this sort of closure is what makes things feel lively in an open world. Joel's father gets found out during the dragonspine event and if you play it, you have him permanently in the encampment, it's so endearing to see them together after seeing Joel waiting for him for months. This is why I remember most of Mondstadt's NPC names, but I don't remember any Sumeru's NPC except for Rana and Jeht and Jebrael. One thing that would be very interesting, for example, would be an event in which the Kamisato get a lead on Thoma's father's whereabouts, or an event in which Ellin really does her Favonius Knights' admission exam.
Xaiver anyone? Anyone? The world quest with him doing a movie is really cool and inspiring too. I guess he got a reputation in tarasuna for them to hate him TvT
@@JustSomeGuyWithAMug I hate RNG too, but I've played commissions in mondstadt for months to get the Viktor's commission and let me tell you, it's very sweet to se the commission change and progress. I know it get unnerving, but the satisfaction in the end for me is far better.
Great video! Thank you for highlighting the issue of NPCs previously being treated as sole catalysts of important plot developments, it's something I've been a bit irked by- until Fontaine. Think I'm personally the most attached to this region because of how well the writers have incorporated the playable cast into our journey in comparison (especially Navia, who stayed by our side throughout our mystery novel-esque investigations and went through so much hardship).
Not All of the quests tho. Furina's quest had the same issue as before where her spotlight got almost totally stolen by a dead character and a Theater troupe. Also, while Lynne and Wriothesley's story quest didn’t suffer from the npc-spotlight issue, they were still the cliche- 'Some issue/crime arises, traveller and the character investigates, they find a criminal Mastermind/organization behind, they fight and save the day' The same case with Alhaitham, Nahida 1st, Itto's, Dehya, Yelan, Xingqui, Eula, etc., story quests..
I loved this entire video! You nailed a lot of things I disliked and even explained a few things I will never be able to unsee and that’s awesome! Looking forward to the rest of Fontaine!
act 3 and 4 fontaine have an npc problem, less so act 4. act 3 couldve focused more on the fatui gang, more so fremmy. I'd argue sumeru doesnt have the issue much either, tho story quests are a different case but i think most of them are good except cyno
Sumeru i think just hides the issues a little better. Personally i’m a big fan of Nilou’s story quest because she’s doing a brave thing to debate which is a weak point of hers, but her quest was blatantly NPC-centric. Tighnari’s story was Karkata and Abattouy’s story, which while i find pretty good, was still NPC-centric. For the Archon quest the Dunyarzad, Isak, and Rahman are nowhere near as bad as teppei, but they still follow that same formula at times which Fontaine has fully abandoned. This is not a knock on Sumeru’s archon quest, it’s just that there’s a clear difference compared to character writing in fontaine. The main problem i had with fontaine act 3 was that it was just dull period. Once we get into prison it’s kind of a drag, but one could argue no character was really a main focus in act 3. Act 4 I thought didn’t have much NPC-presence, once Lyney went to confront Wriothesley there was little to no NPC focus all the way to the end.
The only NPCs from Act 4 I remember were the two love bird engineers or whatever who were helping Wrio make the ark, and that wasn’t rlly much at all,,, Act 3 most certainly was just a dull period tho with suspicious parallels to Furina’s life while also trying to show us how life is like in the FoM, so if anything it should theoretically have been more NPC heavy but it was actually fairly decent. Act 3 itself just didn’t have much to offer but imo that had nothing to do with the npcs present
I think the worst piece of story so far in Fontaine was the the event where Ayaka, Ayato and Literally Who showed up outta nowhere for no good reason. I was more invested in the character we literally just met (Chevreuse) than those 3.
@@JustSomeGuyWithAMug did you just try to change my opinion by stating something and not elaborating on to why? Cuz that ain't working. I don't even see why argue over it.
7:04 Mondstadt's cast has it even worse than Liyue's cast where a majority of its cast was also only shown in events. Even the Archon Quests have like... about half of the 1.0 cast. IIRC only Amber, Lisa, Kaeya, Jean, Diluc, Venti, and Barbara show up and then Bennett, Fischl, Sucrose, Noelle, Mona, Razor, Klee (she's 1.0 2nd phase, still counts) don't show up at all, and to say nothing of characters introduced later that maybe could've been introduced as well. It didn't stop Liyue.
tip: normalize your video's sound every time you get excited or start a sentence the speakers blow up, during the night i either don't hear you then do or i hear you then everyone in the neighborhood too
gonna have to disagree on sumeru development being: scara and cyno it is scara and nahida a nation story can be though of as 2 parts: main, and post tension resolution scara does not change in the main, he is still the same as he was in inazuma, his development comes after the major tension resolution (for sumeru, the boss fight and deal with doctore and the gnosis) in the main; nahida goes from being the passive person, a mere observer locked in cage with access to the digital library of sumeru; to being an active leader full of confidence; like human-furina nahida has only existed for 500~ yrs, unlike furina nahida has archon divinity yet was reduced to being treated like a tool and the mental trauma associated with that; the reason why nahida seems stronger (less apparant growth from casual observer) is that she has spent 500yrs digesting all the 'digital' knowledge of sumeru, and in the post sumeru tension able to leverage that knowledge to compensate for other areas of weakness. compared to the bird trapped in a cage at the start of sumeru main, afterwards she has grown such that as a leader she surpassed the present state of the prior 3 archons we meet. as such it is easy to casually overlook her growth
I agree 100% I couldn't quite explain myself what made me like Fontaine so much over any other region, but you put it into words perfectly, i really hope they keep this up going forward!
Genshin needs to make one of two changes event that add nothing to the story or events that are available permanently Either by being replayable or by being archived in game
Idk, Sumeru still stands on top in my eyes, Fontaine suffers from some setbacks in its pacing and story (hello, meropid fortress). It's just was marketed better. Furina, though a good character on her own, was mostly a massive pity bait for the audience. And it is not like there was no good writing before Sumeru and Fontaine. The Chasm, Second Jade Chamber, Enkanomiya, Tsurui - it was all very well done.
Genshin Impact writes its Acts differently, the story is designed to have different story progression and design philosophy for characters based on each regions theme.
Truly nothing like Albedo and Xiao having some of their most important story beats being locked into limited events. Winters at Dragonspine, the Summer Islands, Lantern Rite.
As someone who was disappointed with Fontaine and prefers Sumeru as a whole. I can’t disagree with your points. Fontaine’s playable characters, generally with a few exceptions, (Sigewinne, Freminet) got great development and depth throughout the archon and story quests. As much as I dislike Lyney, I have to admit he’s a well written character. Furina and Navia in particular stand out very well. I actually believe Navia to be the single best written character in Genshin. After all that how can I still prefer Sumeru’s characters? Well it’s simply because Sumeru’s cast feels like a big group friends. They have fun banter and tease each other but also stand by each other and will defend them until the very end. While Fontaine’s characters feel like everyone is purely on a workplace relationship. I feel like I don’t know these characters outside of their work. Yes we know a lot about Navia’s relationship with her father but he is still intertwined with her work first and foremost. Kinda unrelated but also I prefer Sumeru over Fontaine because Sumeru is more adventurous. Fontaine is very political. I’m not a fan of the courtroom drama and murder mystery. Also I’m not a fan of the steampunk aesthetic. Sumeru feels more like a fantasy adventure. With less technology and more magic.
Hard to happen but i hope they change the early region too Having to go through dozen and zoden of hours to get to the good part could hardly keep your attention
Somehow making all the playables Dynamic and the NPC's static made the NPC's more memorable. A part is due to the story being JUST BETTER. There are richer themes with the feeling of the actual stakes. Not once did I think Sumeru, Inazuma, Liyue, Mondstadt, would lose. It's like comparing JJK and any other generic fighting anime
If you want me to play a massive quest chain and give a shit at least be assed to make them not look like everyone else on all of Teyvat. My favorite example is Ruu, why would I suffer through a fucking tribulation gauntlet of lengthy and time gated quests and be invested in this kid who looks like 10 other kids on the streets of Inazuma city? If it’s THAT important then make a new or at least slightly different model for them. Liben is a great example of this, he’s obviously not playable but sticks out from other NPCs. If he were a world quest character I’d care because I can actually recognize him as a single individual. I wouldn’t say Fontaine has fixed this, the generic npc filmmaker guy kinda pissed me off actually. The event ends with a group photo of entirely playable characters that you know and hopefully like.. and this dude in the back, and this is going to be a decoration I put in my teapot? It’s the truest ‘blud think he on the team’ ever. Generic NPC posing with all these playables was laughably silly
Idk, I think Sumeru cast will probably be the best written one in the entire game. Like, all of them feel like a one big family, even surprisingly Scara, if you count him in. It will be REALLY hard to do the same with Natlan and Snezhnaya just story-wise But that is also true that Fontaine has some of the best characters in the game, it is just that there are also some that I think are really weak, boring, or annoying ones. Like Charlotte.
I don't hate Charlotte but I do agree with you when it comes to the sumeru cast. Fontaine failed to do one little thing imo and that is establish a deep connection between the playable characters. I wanted to see more of neuvi and furina interact or like more interactions between them on screen. It focused too much on the heavy plot that it failed to establish a deep connection between the characters themselves. Sumeru was able to do that though. We know how tighnari and cyno and buddies and how kaveh and alhaitham don't get along but don't hate each other. We know how ugh tighnari cares about collie and how collie loves amber. We know how dehya and Candace are friends and how nahida and wanderer are getting closer and so on and so on. These connections between them helped establish them as better characters imo. They bounce off of each other so well.
IMO with snezhnaya it’ll probably be the best arc in genshin considering the entire story so far has been building up to the big secret the harbingers and the tsaritsa are harbouring. All the archons are in on it too so it’s definitely going to focus on the harbingers and their relationship and past albeit it probably won’t be the found family vibes of sumeru
I feel like now that Genshin devs have realized and begun to change things... they could actually go back and fix the older stories by promoting those well developed npcs to playables in an epilogue. Having Dunyazard becoming a playable character would be a massive payoff and I bet she would actually be rather successful.
Yea, Melus and Silver truly enhanced the encounters with Navia...While she is a great character on her own, I think she really need a secondary character that are all gungho about her crazy ideas. It was a big mistake of Mihoyo to kill them off. One of the flaws with her stories is that Mihoyo has made her cry too much... She cried in Chapter1, Chapter3 and her own character story... At the end I barely felt anything by her character story even though I see why she is sad. That is not good character writing, when you pull something too many times, people stop caring. I love Navia with all my heart, she is best girl but she deserve a story where sorrow is only used where its most impactful. I dont want to see people critiquing her for being a crybaby...
I think some in the comments agree with me in that even tho the playable characters' quest lack "interesting" turning points for the MCs, it is difficult to portray a significant development when most of them already have a vision, they already developed. Recent characters with nice development have either, their vision granted during the quest or do not use a vision.
Genshin's improvement in their writting is something I wish HSR picks up on. HSR in terms of story is weird. Belebog was amazing but the story quests for their characters are short and barely cover anything (I havent played lynx quest so that might be good). Xianzhou was also good but it had the Inazuma treatment were all the plot points needed to be resolved in 1, 2 hour quest (I'm looking at you blade you unfortunate soul). HSR never had the problem of giving npcs spotlight and main characters getting nothing the problem is no character are getting spotlight since quests are always extremely short and resolve in an anticlimactic way like Ratio's and Topaz's quests.
I hope that NPC design also gets better from here. Like with the Ghost Girl from that event and with the new 4.4 NPC. Those two are actually well designed. It's bad to only work on the writting, I'm gonna look at the shitty NPC and lose my hope for their story frame 1.
I haven't played the other Fontaine story quests, but I feel like Furina's story quest is also somewhat NPC-centric. Though to be fair we basically got her entire story quest in Masquarade of the Guilty. I remember really liking Raiden's Act 2 because we actually explored her backstory, even though I don't care much for her. Worst offenders gotta be Nilou and Ayato. I love Nilou but her story quest was like 95% NPC Impact, and Ayato's even worse. Then there's also the story quests that technically are based on the character, but the plot goes nowhere so it's just as bad. E.g.: Ganyu.
Ayato's quest is very interesting for the people that are interested in Ayato actually, because it's basically politics (which are often boring if you don't care about them). Ayato made a REALLY late appearance so it makes sense not many liked his story being that way, but it makes sense with the character an is important, as he, Kokomi and Raiden all have their SQ used to properly tackle things the AQ didn't because it was rushed.
@@TroubleisHere Going by Gameplay 2 should be Navia. Lorewise it's not that accurate because we have no idea about their combat capabilities in lore. But Wriothelesy is physically strong while Navia has higher firepower.
@@LordofHydro @LordofHydro no navia can't do reactions the rest have that advantage, plus wrio has shenhe and she's a insane cryo support , Lyney is a strong dps as well and being pyro which is one of the best elements in the game. In the prison scene it seemed like lyney was powerless against wrio, so I'd say 1 and 2 are accurate. Maybe 3 and 4 is debatable lore wise
@@TroubleisHere Navia does crystalize reactions and she has the highest skill damage. She's literally the second best dps after Neuvillete. Even at C0 she can hit a 100k one shot without much investment. She doesn't need other reactions nor does she scale off Defence. Which makes her much more flexible. Unlike Wrio, Navia doesn't require a premium support, Bennet is enough for her. My Navia has crit rate 40% and DMG 165% and she hits 180k with 6 stacks with Bennett buff. She can easily hit 100k per shot.
I'm so split on this video. On one hand, yeah I agree with a lot of what you're saying... On the other, I don't think the impact of the effects the story had on the average person would have been nearly as effective without characters like Teppei or Dunyazard without either: A: Making the Archon Quests longer (and I can already hear the hate towards that idea already) Or B: Including world quests that are limited to how far in the story the player is and will disappear once the Archon Quests are done.) Cause without Dunyazard or Teppei, we would barely even see the effects of Elezar besides on Collei and wouldn't even see the effects Delusions were having on the soldiers using them.
I really liked your video, but man, you gotta do sth abt your audio or delivery. You had sudden spikes of volume while speaking, and it made it kinda hard to sit and watch while you would suddenly shout at me😅
Fontaine failed to do one little thing imo and that is establish a deep connection between the playable characters. I wanted to see more of neuvi and furina interact or like more interactions between them on screen. It focused too much on the heavy plot that it failed to establish a deep connection between the characters themselves. Sumeru was able to do that though. We know how tighnari and cyno and buddies and how kaveh and alhaitham don't get along but don't hate each other. We know how ugh tighnari cares about collie and how collie loves amber. We know how dehya and Candace are friends and how nahida and wanderer are getting closer and so on and so on. These connections between them helped establish them as better characters imo. They bounce off of each other so well.
They’ve surely taken the criticism to heart. When the Chasm dropped people loved it because of Itto, Yanfei and Kuki’s interactions. Since then, I have consistently given feedback that we should utilize all the characters instead of NPCs. Nobody cares about the NPCs. Fontaine story was great!
I actually hated the involvement of Itto and Kuki Shinobu in the Chasm since they're irrelevant to Liyue's lore. They had absolutely no reason to be there and had nothing to contribute to that plot. Genshin's writers still haven't improved in that regard with Inazuma characters being shoehorned into the recent event in Fontaine. Ayaka and Ayato were completely replaceable, and even Yoimiya wasn't allowed to handle something like movie special effects despite her background in pyrotechnics.
@@IndigoEyePhotography I can agree on the chasm part. But the recent event was much better, because it explains kamisato’s reasons for traveling and strengthening the ties between the nations. But my question to you is, would you rather see more generic NPC interactions? Personally I’d much prefer character interactions, even if the plot isn’t very deep all the time. It can be a good way to showcase character dynamics and personalities.
This is probably why Raiden's story quests are among the best, people cry about the first one being a date(despite there being 0 romantic subtext) but it's literally just Ei characterization and growth through all of it, even when NPCs get involved she is still the center of it, same with the second quest, NPCs were actually treated like NPCs, being there just to make Ei's resolve of changing her ideal stronger, and none of them were overbearing, at the end of her quests Ei is a different person than in the Archon Quest. However in terms of overall characters yeah Fontaine has a much more solid cast, although I think Ei herself is up there with Furina, Inazuma doesn't have the cast to compete with Fontaine, it has characters like Sara and Kokomi that just bring the overall score of the region down unfortunately.
I believe Raiden's 2nd story quest was the turning point in terms of writing for the game, where the stories started to become more and more fleshed out. Her first story quest was a glorified hangout quest which is basically a date to begin with, romantic subtext or not, which was never a requirement for a date anyway
One gripe I have with the NPC focus in some quests is the NPC's being barely distinguishable between each other outside of either unique clothes or a unique asset such as eyes or horns in the blue oni's case. A lot of them don't *feel* like NPC's I'm supposed to care about and just "re-used asset no.876" (felt this the most with Teppei and Dunyarzard, much as I love Dunyarzards actual writing and character). I know it shouldn't bother me as much as it does but I just can't stand what are SUPPOSED to be important NPC's look the same as 50 other random NPC's that do nothing or very little. Another very minor nitpick is just the clothes on almost all of them have no depth at all, like WHY are they all so flat?
This is a good analysis but i dont think the sumeru comparison is good because its from sumeru onwards where it feels like they actually started caring about making the writing genuinely Good and i was never bothered that badly about the NPCs in it unlike in other regions
i have heard fontaine was written by the honkai impact 3rd story writer, which is why it was so good. future permament story content might be just as good or even better.
Gonna need a source on that buddy. Every time Genshin writing gets good I see some randos claiming that's it because of Honkai writers. Why can't people just accept that the Gensin writers just simply got better over time?
The hype for Kazuha SQ... And then.... Urgh. That's why, i truly think that Navia>>>Kazuha. Even in the theme of grief, Navia is so much better, also Neuvilette with Carol. Also, Dunyanzard>>> Teppei, one of the worst mistakes of Inazuma.
The thing I hate the most about this type of gacha games is how little risk they take with characters. You summed it up perfectly. They can’t change, they can’t suffer permanent damage, they can’t die, and god forbid they fall in love because the fans would kill each other. In the end, most are boring carcasses made to sell digital toys. Even though Furina was executed masterfully, they’re still afraid to kill a playable character, which is why we see so many archons with clones or “sisters”.
Dottore mogs all of them. Also, honestly, the story is becoming closer to the climax so of course the AQ's are going to be increasingly complex, and the characters more involved. Though I would say characters like Ei were excellently-written, even Zhongli and Hu Tao (though it is a shame her sq isn't about her), Ganyu, Dehya, and Ayaka (subtle, but she is pretty admirable, people just do not understand her or Ayato's cultural relevance to Inazuma despite it being explained.) Eula too, could go there. I don't dislike Fontaine but I think y'all overrate it because it feels more like home to you, the same reason a lot of Westerners are fond of Mondstadt. The stories were getting involve more Western tropes/Archetypes, so of course the Western fandom is going to relate to them more. Genshin can also start using more of the main story that is with the playable characters rather than foreshadowing with NPCs, Dottore's interaction with Nahida and the WQ with the Pari was what was able to set that up in the first place, so Sumeru played an important role in setting the scene for future AQs, like Fontaine is now doing for Natlan. Pretty much the only thing I wish we would get is more of Kokomi's connection to the dragons/Orobaxi, and more on Delphi/Enkanomiya. I do wonder if, before it fell into the dark sea, it was somewhere near Fontaine since its original culture is Greek, not Japanese like Narukami, and even now most of the people there are ethnically not Inazuman/Japanese (so Kokomi, Gorou, etc. are white.) This is kind of hidden away in Watatsumi lore but basically the people of Narukami consider the women of Watatsumi exceptionally beautiful due to their fair skin, which they developed from living underwater, which suggests the two islands remain fairly separate to this day since it's been ages since they lived in Delphi. Of course, they also had to change the original names and even their own language to integrate into Inazuma, but you learn the original names and language of the people of Delphi [its true name]/Enkanomiya used to be Greek/European. Of course, that automatically has me wondering whether we'll see some connection between them and Fontaine, or a possible return there, considering Neuvillette (and also that being the only place where bathysmal vishaps can still be found.) So yeah, it'll be interesting to see how the story develops and how we return to other regions, like we're getting Chenyu Vale as another Liyue expansion, and we know Mondstadt and Sumeru are also due expansions. Personally, I would love it if we got more areas like Delphi/Enkanomiya, though. Fontaine has been really disappointing with the exploration and underwater is pretty shitty, people IMO overrate it. Sumeru's landscape was perfect with being rainforest and desert, pretty much the only annoying part was the underground caves, but now that we have the map update, it's not a problem anymore and it does fit real-world mythos of underground caves having many secrets. It also makes it fun to find them, and nothing in Fontaine is particularly fun exploration-wise so far. It could change though, Inazuma was also kind of boring the first three islands but when we got Tsurumi and Watatsumi's full expansion, it became one of the most interesting places. To this day, Delphi and Sumeru are the best places to farm for artefact drops, Delphi especially since there's nothing but strong enemies and you can't heal/overly rely on food. I love going there when I'm bored lol. I will say I like Fontaine's local legends "bosses," though, they do present a big challenge and are funny. The only bad part is you get nothing for fighting them aside from primos the first time, wish they'd drop artefacts or something, but it is a more useful method of testing your parties' strength than Masanori, whom I can KO in literally 5 seconds lol.
you took my words out of my mouth,i hate underwater on videogames. IMO fontaine story quest has big problem , like story quest 2 it is straight out a separate quest from the story quest and was boring af, story quest act 3 failed in the clue of the story with the final enemy being the elder beast of genshin impact a fucking joke of a boss, and then i found the pacing goddamn awful at some point it got like a visual novel like 15 minute straigtht of dialogue
I disagree with the idea that Fontaine's story is good. While it is nice to see the characters gain more agency and deeper meaning and lore development, it came at the expense of the Traveller's (players) development. In Liyue we solved the 'mystery' of Rex Lapis and repelled a giant beast. In Inazuma we basically reformed the government. In Sumeru we saved everyone by solving some brain mumbo jumbo but in Fontaine we took a back seat and mostly watched everyone else do all the work for us. We only played lawyer for a bit that didn't really influence anything. The prophecy happened and we couldn't change it, deceiving of heavenly principles was not done by us, but by the hydro arcon, Neuvillette took care of everything else. If the npc's become better written at the cost of the player becomming poorly written, I don't think it's a good outcome. This is supposed to be OUR story and OUR adventure.
It was years ago that it was established that our role in teyvat is to be an observer/witness. Zhongli said it to us. Many actually liked that the traveller didn't really help at all and just became a witness. It's boring and repetitive to have us solve all of the nations problem.
@@lieserljamesmaturan2716 I like the fact that there are competent characters that can do stuff on their own, but I believe the player should have agency over themselves as well and shouldn't be fully relegated to an observer position. Just because Zhongli said that, doesn't mean it's true. And I'd rather the player not focus on solving Teyvat's problems but figuring out the deal with the sibling.
@@JustAPal fair point, given that the MC has to travel the 7 nations, I feel like Fontaine was there for the overall lore (about Celestia, Sovereigns, Hexenzirkel, and possibly powerful entities), preparation to (possibly?) fight Celestia and not the sibling lore. It was clearly stated on the end of Act 2 that nobody in fontaine knows about the sibling.
I remember one of the most disappointing things ive ever seen in genshin was during the sumeru archon quest and you run around as the kid dressed up as nahida. it was appalling. I just can't understand how that was put into the game.
After playing for two years and reaching ar60 reading literally every single line of text in the game (commissions included) I'm at the point where if an npc is talking, I roll my eyes so far back into my skull I can see my brain and spam the skip button as fast as Sonic the hedgehog on crack cocaine. Because I know with 100% certainty that not a single freaking word they yap will be useful or interesting in the slightest. The writing team in this game is atrocious (minus archon quest, interlude and some world quests/characters stories). And they talk so freaking much my God. To say exactly nothing. Every survey they do, I send a "everybody talks waaaay too much" as a suggestion. I don't know if it's a problem with the chinese language becoming longer when translated in English or what, but my God they all need to shut the freak up 90% of the time or at least get to the freaking point already.
I’m glad i’m not the only one. I always *try* to pay attention to everything because you never know what sort of hidden detail might be relevant, but at some point i got burned out and can’t do it anymore.
@@arcazure9610 totally not alone, my friend. The writing team for npcs is sadly really really bad. I get it that they, by default, can't be as interesting as the main cast. But they could do waaaay better than this. Besides overall shortening their dialogues, they almost always talk about aspects of their lives that are totally unrelated to genshin and its world. "I got sick". "I lost my job". "my wife was kidnapped". All generic things that could happen anywhere. Imagine if their lines implemented elements in game. Like "I got burned by mistake by a pyro vision holder". Automatically, we as players would go like "ah. Neat. I know pyro visions. Those are nice". Or maybe "I was robbed while traversing lingiu pass". As players we would go "Hey I know that one place!". It wouldn't automatically fix things, but it would by default make their dialogues more interesting. They could talk about things we use as ascension materials and be confused about their use, and we would laugh. They could have vision shells like the one kazuha has, and talk about how they found those. They could tell us they once met an archon or partecipated to one of the recurring events like windblume. That they got drunk with diluc wine. Or that they once saw a weird guy with an eyepatch traversing a river by constantly freezing the water (and we would go lol that's kaeya). Instead we have "boo hoo I have to write my generic book about generic topics. Here twenty minutes of text about my uninteresting life".
Yeah, no. I don't think they've even come close to solving it yet. Or in a way that makes it feel less disjointed. A big criticism I have with Genshin NPCs is that they ultimately achieve very little in impact, and are more like non sequiturs that reuse different assets to imply the illusion of distinction and depth to the world. It's all surface level garbage that would only satisfy the absolutely rabid, and is a disservice to games that actually give more intent and purpose to their world and its characters. Reuse is a common tool that games use to reduce load, not too much unlike draw distance. But Genshin is so unapologetically garish about it, it's really difficult not to notice the blemish when the game wants you to try an impart a bit more empathy into their 'dynamic' camera angles. The general range of emotions characters are even allotted is notable in the aspect of its limitations. Which might be better justified if the body language conveyed and put in more work otherwise. It does not. Everyone still stands around awkwardly talking at each other. The most animated character in any cutscene is always going to be Paimon by default, which is certainly telling when they try to make the scenes look like they have more effort. It's grade school execution at best. We could also just go to the root of all things, and point out how bland the art-style is for Genshin. Inside and out. The lack of blemish in the models, and the overall direction of the atmosphere makes everything looks so darn generic. Even the playable characters. It isn't just that they use rigs for different model sizes. The animation lacks a satisfying weight, and everything moves almost impartially, as if they aren't a part of their body. And some might argue the intent is more for combat and those animations. But you'll barely even really get to see much of that with how the game plays. Combat animations are serviceable at best, being only marginally better than your average animations. But in-game aside, I also think the lack of real direction plays a part in making all the art of these characters look so unappealing. While in some cases the argument could be made to leverage against the artists, Genshin is super big. I doubt even the best would ignore the ability to leverage a character's likeness in improving their portfolio. It is undeserved. As someone who follows a lot of artists, Genshin art is consistently the weakest. NPCs are probably the least of their problems right now honestly.
NPC is "Non-Player Character" as opposed to the "Player Character", i.e. Navia is an NPC in all quests she's in. Otherwise I feel like you're talking about nothing, you don't give direct examples and you've been talking about very subjective things. Hard to relate. What is quite certain is that Fontaine quests are much worse, what with being reduced to exposition dumps where you need to suffer Navia crying about her parents for a couple hours straight. I feel like people who like Fontaine are the same old people who whine about the desert. Also, Chevreuse development IS locked behind an event, clearly Mihoyo is not avoiding this.
No, Navia is a character that you can play, which means that she's not an NPC. Even if you don't control her in her story event, she's still not an NPC. Because she's regularly playable. You are right that the NPC issue hasn't been fixed though as Wriossley's story quest focused on NPCs and not him.
@@brightlight8852 Again, if you approach Navia to talk to her to complete a quest objective and you yourself also play Navia then your Navia is PC and the Navia you're about to talk to is NPC. Same as for example a picture of Navia on reddit is not a PC, it's just an image. It differentiates the player character from all other ones, not generally all playable characters from all unplayable ones. And Wrio SQ, while bad, is just as bad as pretty much all SQ except maybe second Nahida SQ and Zhongli SQs. They're just low effort marketing filler. I don't even think focusing on NPCs is the reason, they should focus on the worldbuilding generally rather than any individual characters and not be boring at the same time.
High key i think they were just scared to follow through with actually making their characters grow and stuff. Cause instead of seeing them grow the characters have already grown and developed, like diluc. Even though we know his father died and he has trauma from it we never saw him grow from it instead we see what it turned him into. A cold almost heartless man. Same with eula instead of helping her overcome the conspiracies that ridiculed her cause of her family she herself learned to deal with it and what we meet is an egocentric vengeance driven women. I feel that as a story writer the characters that you put the most effort into (the playable characters in this case) deserve the most attention not the side characters (the npcs) thats why they are called “main” and “side” characters. This shows the most with Furina a lot of people hated her because we didn’t know her full backstory but now majority of people love her cause now we know why she had to be egocentric and abnoxious and they empathize with her feelings. I can understand that hoyo doesn’t want to take this risk since if people dont like the character means less money for them but if they play their cards right, again like furina they can get what they want and still have a well written story
![Dottore's Secret: The truth behind the Scaramouche Experiment [Genshin Impact Theory]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/BA0celV-BB4/mqdefault.jpg)
The issues stem from majority of the playable characters are *already developed* before we meet them. They already went through their hero journey, self discovery or redemption. It's in the character stories of their profile(if you have them). Genshin writers are too afraid to take risks and show us their development on screen and instead play it safe by only telling us in their profile(if you have them). It really undermined the visual aspect of its storytelling.
Agreed. Seeing Navia confront her past, go through loss again and finally close the case that landed her father in prison/executed by finding the true culprit was an amazing arc, solidifying her as the boss of the Spina. We see that happen.
Se see Furina end her arc that has been going for 500 years and start a new one, finding herself- she is not done developing even now that the archon quests are done.
And Neuvilette, who we see on screen regain his authority, change his view on Furina after essentially betraying her and putting her on trial.
These three are the ones I’ve seen the most people praise and talk about and I firmly believe it’s because we SEE them evolve on screen, go through their arcs and change
Imagine how cool it would be if character's story chapters were set in the not too distant past and showed us how the character obtained their vision. With story chapter 2 being set in the present and moving on the story.
We could have hade kaeya vs diluc. Witness Benny almost getting killed. So much cool stuff. Instead, let's help two idiots with their pointless marriage (ayato's story)
That's why...
Navia>>>Kazuha.
true. i think this is why ppl love furina so much. we see firsthand in her flashbacks how she was forced into her role, rather than being told in dialogue, and come to understand who exactly she is as a person and why she acted the way she did in the previous aq parts. additionally, after the aq, in her sq, we see her confront her past and settle into her new place in the world. we actively see furina develope, rather than just being told that she did or having her development be complete when we meet her
@@bernardoserrano4439 this is why I have a special attachment to these characters especially furina because her arc felt too real for me
Well said.
I would add that NPC exploration already has a place in Genshin.
That place is called "World quests"
This!!!!! There are some NPCs I love just as much as playable characters like Ruu for example but let me learn about the damn character in THEIR CHARACTER quest
some inazuma world quests still left a deep impression on me to this day
TRUEE Zhingqiong (ill never know how to spell her) and Jeht quests are the best!
Exactly, if they want to make people not hate on NPC they should include the ones we already know, imagine listening to Jeht after all that time she went missing
I still remember Jeht
I do agree that this NPC centrism is a big problem and I love the changes in Fontaine, but in the case of Sumeru story quest I understand why Dunyazard being so important narratively made sense for that story. A big portion of the conflict in Sumeru is the relationship between Nahida and her people, so it is important to see her being important to someone as ordinary as Dunyazard
I don't fully agree with that. Sumeru was indeed about Nahida and her relationship with her people as Lesser Lord Kusnali but Dunyazard honestly just reinforced the NPC centrism when Nilou could've filled the role better. Dunyazard just felt like an easier insert to add stakes and shortcut their way to the story's point which did sort of cheapen things quite a bit. Dunyazard being important was still very much emblematic of Genshin's issues with giving their playable characters some actual prominence in the story. Fontaine, however, may be an indication that they're more than willing to continue the recent trend of making things character focused on their actual characters and not their NPC's. We can only hope Natlan follows suit
Collei was literally the same character as Dunyarzard
An Eleazar patient who didn't have long
Her or nilou could've filed the same role nilou was even the focus of the samsara Arc
Dehya could've replaced the eremite guy to contrast Candace
We could've had more of cyno to show how he was more upstanding than his bosses
And maybe even used Layla in there somewhere
Ultimately, sumeru should've kept the same process as before
Only playable characters should be important in archon quests
Leave NPC's for world quests where they belong
@@KudaGeatsune3821 Its possible that Collie or Nilou wouldn't have gotten ill to the extent Dunyarzad did, since they have visions. Also, who would be the host of the dream then. Nilou had a good role in Sumeru Act I and II
@@samisha8205 for Collei it would be easy with the presence of Dottore in Sumeru. He could make something to Collei when Tighnari was absent and use that against him for negociate the exchange of Haypasia. This could demonstrate how Dottore is terrifying and add much more tension in the end of Archons quest.
then they should make dunyazard a playable character...
the thing is u can create playable character and then u should then write stories around them instead...
Shout out to Melus and Silver for being the best npc's
I’m glad Genshin Impact changed their formula and decided to strengthen their writing while also making the story they tell within a meaningful one. Hopefully it stays this way until the end game
I mean like I'm happy they changed but like it took them after 5 nations to do that. Wich is like come on. They fix the issue when the story is more than halfway over.
I do rather they fixed the issue later than never tho @@losetthewaytogo
better late then never
@baron6950 true. But still like can't they higher better writers?
@@losetthewaytogo
They did? You can’t say “can’t they hire better writers” talking about an issue that already passed.
As a new player, I hate that I have to miss out on so many intimate moments with these characters who's events are long past
Hey, maybe you didn't participate, but they are all online. Many youtube videos. Don't worry :)
Look up the sequence of events, then find a playthrough on youtube to get the story, there's lots of them.
@@Star_Rattler There's a difference between watching an event, and playing through one.
I'm a day 1 player who's played through every single event, and I totally get it. There are so many in-game lore and character moments that new players don't get to see and experience for the first time.
One of my favorite events is Unreconciled Stars, which happened all the way back in 1.1, so the vast majority of players don't even know it existed. Traveler meets Mona and Fischl there for the first time, and those 2 weren't featured in events again until 2.8 Summertime Odyssey, where we also got even more lore about their backstories. Traveler also meets Scaramouche in 1.1 for the first time, and the dialogue for meeting him in Inazuma changes based on whether you've completed that event. There's also a few lore drops from that event that hint at Teyvat's skies being fake.
Because of 1.1 and 2.8, Mona and Fischl are 2 of my favorite characters. I have keychains of them, and I even got a mouse pad with the Unreconciled Stars official art on it because of how memorable it was to me.
@@mcihay246not to mention that it can literally have story implications in-game that you didn't complete it(unreconciled stars)
I appreciate you’re trying to be a helpful person this isn’t directed at you but rather the devs -
That is no excuse and a shitty way to run a game. To say ‘oh you missed important story because we trashed it for some reason? Well go on CZcams lol’
My favorite detail that symbolizes this change of approach is Furina's personal quest.
It's not her solving a problem as a vision user... its _her origin story as a vision user._
Of course, this also means her quest cannot double as a demo for her powers... but they just ran with it. They even highlighted it by adding that one contrived road fight scene where the Furina character trial session would obviously go... that instead ends with visionless Furina basically going "Uhh... no. I'm gonna let you fight this one because that's what a rational person would do!"
i absolutely love how hoyo wasn't afraid of showing the flawed and vulnerable side of the fontaine cast. it gave more depth to their character, made us relate with them. lyney getting frustrated and making rash decisions after finding out that his siblings are in danger, navia being inexperienced, feeling hopeless and breaking down after melus and silver's death, neuvillette being tied down by the law and having to make decisions he knows are wrong both in the archon quest and his story quest, not to mention the fact that we knew how he felt because of the rain even though he himself hid his emotions and of course, the one and only furina. her character was just so good. it felt so realistic and humane. her dedication to fontaine is wild.
I think it also helps with the way that Fontaine is designed to have spectators with the whole trials are like operas. It allows then many of the NPC's to be people reacting to events of the playable characters rather than the ones having the changes themselves.
There is one npc centric quest that is well done, and it's Venti's. It's Barbatos' story quest, helping people grow and find peace in secret
Dehya was also one of the first "Fontaine story quests", I believe, as the whole story was about discovering and making peace with her past.
Yoimiya shared her second story quest with a sick kid and it's the most Yoimiya thing possible. The kid didn't steal the spotlight, they used each other as a mean to go forward in the story, Yoimiya discovering Sumeru and the thing she wanted to see and the kid getting her happiness back
I actually love how they placed Dunyarzad in the quest. They got us so attached to her and plus her role also existed to cement into us how Eleazar (human withering) is so crippling. They corrected all the wrongs they made with Teppei to the point where Dunyarzad is one of the most loved NPC's in game (along with Melus and Silver ofc)
One of my friends once stated that they wished Dunyarzad had died during the archon quest from her Elezar to raise the stakes of the quest. Maybe is true but also we wouldn’t have gotten to see her character arc
@@Shamoosemy problem with her is they build up what seems like her going to die and seem like it’s about to happen and then it just.. doesn’t.
You've perfectly articulated my thoughts on this matter. Seeing our playable characters change, evolve and stirr the story forward is so much more engaging than interacting with a pre-packaged product that only provides a flashback sequence (if we're lucky enough) to illicit our sympathy. I love NPCs and their stories as they add so much depth and dimension to the world, they also make it clear that however flashy and special our playables are, they're not exactly the center of the world and that equally enthralling stories unfold everywhere if you're observant and curious enough. NPCs shouldn't take the spotlight in the main storyline though, and as somebody somewhare bellow said, something called "world quest" was perfectly tailored for them.
Fontaine is the first area where I want the majority of the characters
I really don't understand the thought process of not putting spotlight on playable characters and with how lengthy they make dialogue, there is definitely room to make good use of all that talking in order to develop their playable characters. It is insane to me how long it took for this company to perfect something so obvious. Show off the pretty character to make people pull for them. That is what they should have done from the start!
It is actually quite simple. They treat their playable characters like Idols. And Idol have to be perfect all the times.
With the way genshin handle PCs it is just easier and more convenient to make an NPC do anything that can be perceived as controversial for their comunity. As it turn out that a lot of things can be controversial, such as opposing the traveller, being mean, having a love interest beyond ship tease, show any vulnerability that is not "cute" and so on. As a result, if the plot demand anything that invokve those, an NPC has to do it. Plus there is the obvious plot armor issue. Hard to raise the stakes when no named character can be killed or permanently injured, so you need "sacrificial NPCs".
Even if a PC is an antagonist they make things happen to make so they were not actually jerks. See how Scaramouche was literally erased from existence and replaced with a version that did nothing wrong ever. It is why i say that if Signora ever get to be playable it would be Pre-Cataclysm Rosalyne.
Now, this Idol thing is completely stupid when it come to write a good story, but many fanboys, and more damning whales, likes their perfect dolls, so i doubt there will be big changes. But the Tingyun thing in HSR leave me optimist.
@@noukan42not trying to say youre wrong but actually 🤓 scara wasnt erased from the teyvat story, everything he did prior to sumeru still happened, but nobody in teyvat remembers it
@@joiranseisententekiyeah and he's still trying to do better to make up for it. it still happened and he knows it happened. though, it sucks that he'll never have a confrontation with raiden or a conversation with yae..
Ngl though, they did an excellent job making me fall in love with Dunyarzad. I want to main her now and she’s not even playable 😢
Another thing is they are better integrating role play into to the story than reading walls of text.
Fontaine was such a blast, it's Genshin's saving grace for me, if the story, exploration, and characters weren't so great i'd have probably taken another 1 year break like how i skipped thru the entirety of Inazuma. Now i can only hope that the next archon quests, character quests, and event stories won't be a let down or else i might just take another break again.
I think part of the reason some NPCs got a better reception is how they tied into the PCs. Dunyarzad is the reason we meet Dehya rather than the other way around. Cyno's story quest largely revolves around Taj and his backstory, but not only is it centered around the mystery of whether or not he's truly gone rogue, but we don't even meet him face to face until the end of the quest, at which point he sacrifices himself so you and Cyno can get away, so we end up spending most of the quest with Cyno. With Carole and Vautrin, we know that both of them are already gone, and the primary purpose of them was to show how Neuvillette came into his position and also show how far Fontaine has come since the Melusines first arrived. Lyney and Lynette's mentor is likewise already dead, and the two NPCs who might normally take up the spotlight turn out to be villains. Melus and Silver are established as playing supporting roles to Navia from the very beginning, but they're given enough personality that it hurts to hear of their deaths. Not only that, but their last onscreen appearance arguably flips the formula around by having THEM stand up and take the reins to defend Navia like how Nilou defended the theater. EDIT: I forgot to add, but one thing I liked about the poetry event is that while the focus went to an NPC in the end, it was an NPC that has been there since the beginning, while the new NPC was one that was mentioned in Diona's backstory.
I actually like NPC stories a lot. Zhiqiong, Jeht and Jebrael, Timmy, Blanche and Tricky Bulle Fruit, Viktor in the Mondstadt's cathedral, etc... I actually wish they'd spend more time giving some carachters some degree of closure instead of writing some nonsense like this last fontaine event, which I honestly really didn't like. This is a thing they did a lot of in Mondstadt and then slowly started making NPC's less and less interesting as the story progressed. But it gives the world vibrance, it makes it feel alive. Although I agree this isn't something that should go in Carachter Story Quests, I just wish they played more with NPC's and make things happen to them in commissions and such, like they did in Mondstadt. For example, not a lot of people know that Timmie's father didn't abandon the family, he really just died while on an expedition and Draff tells us this in a commission. But this sort of closure is what makes things feel lively in an open world. Joel's father gets found out during the dragonspine event and if you play it, you have him permanently in the encampment, it's so endearing to see them together after seeing Joel waiting for him for months. This is why I remember most of Mondstadt's NPC names, but I don't remember any Sumeru's NPC except for Rana and Jeht and Jebrael. One thing that would be very interesting, for example, would be an event in which the Kamisato get a lead on Thoma's father's whereabouts, or an event in which Ellin really does her Favonius Knights' admission exam.
Xaiver anyone?
Anyone?
The world quest with him doing a movie is really cool and inspiring too.
I guess he got a reputation in tarasuna for them to hate him TvT
Not in commisions pls, I hate RNG
@@satchie1049 YES, XAVIER
@@JustSomeGuyWithAMug I hate RNG too, but I've played commissions in mondstadt for months to get the Viktor's commission and let me tell you, it's very sweet to se the commission change and progress. I know it get unnerving, but the satisfaction in the end for me is far better.
@@reddinareddika3624 just make it a normal quest with daily reset to wait for the next part
Great video! Thank you for highlighting the issue of NPCs previously being treated as sole catalysts of important plot developments, it's something I've been a bit irked by- until Fontaine. Think I'm personally the most attached to this region because of how well the writers have incorporated the playable cast into our journey in comparison (especially Navia, who stayed by our side throughout our mystery novel-esque investigations and went through so much hardship).
Oh how far we've come from the 1.0 quests.
Yes I did it. I didn't take 20+ days to get a video out this time!
Not All of the quests tho. Furina's quest had the same issue as before where her spotlight got almost totally stolen by a dead character and a Theater troupe.
Also, while Lynne and Wriothesley's story quest didn’t suffer from the npc-spotlight issue, they were still the cliche-
'Some issue/crime arises, traveller and the character investigates, they find a criminal Mastermind/organization behind, they fight and save the day'
The same case with Alhaitham, Nahida 1st, Itto's, Dehya, Yelan, Xingqui, Eula, etc., story quests..
I loved this entire video! You nailed a lot of things I disliked and even explained a few things I will never be able to unsee and that’s awesome! Looking forward to the rest of Fontaine!
It's the first time i've seen your video, and it feels like a really good start!! Keep it up
Coming here as a Genshin player and TTRPG game master has been very eye-opening. Thank you for making this video.
Maybe Furina's success will show the devs that we're very much down to see the path of the character, rather than just the end state
act 3 and 4 fontaine have an npc problem, less so act 4.
act 3 couldve focused more on the fatui gang, more so fremmy.
I'd argue sumeru doesnt have the issue much either, tho story quests are a different case but i think most of them are good except cyno
Sumeru i think just hides the issues a little better. Personally i’m a big fan of Nilou’s story quest because she’s doing a brave thing to debate which is a weak point of hers, but her quest was blatantly NPC-centric. Tighnari’s story was Karkata and Abattouy’s story, which while i find pretty good, was still NPC-centric. For the Archon quest the Dunyarzad, Isak, and Rahman are nowhere near as bad as teppei, but they still follow that same formula at times which Fontaine has fully abandoned. This is not a knock on Sumeru’s archon quest, it’s just that there’s a clear difference compared to character writing in fontaine.
The main problem i had with fontaine act 3 was that it was just dull period. Once we get into prison it’s kind of a drag, but one could argue no character was really a main focus in act 3. Act 4 I thought didn’t have much NPC-presence, once Lyney went to confront Wriothesley there was little to no NPC focus all the way to the end.
The only NPCs from Act 4 I remember were the two love bird engineers or whatever who were helping Wrio make the ark, and that wasn’t rlly much at all,,, Act 3 most certainly was just a dull period tho with suspicious parallels to Furina’s life while also trying to show us how life is like in the FoM, so if anything it should theoretically have been more NPC heavy but it was actually fairly decent. Act 3 itself just didn’t have much to offer but imo that had nothing to do with the npcs present
I think the worst piece of story so far in Fontaine was the the event where Ayaka, Ayato and Literally Who showed up outta nowhere for no good reason. I was more invested in the character we literally just met (Chevreuse) than those 3.
Nah it was Meropide in 4.1 quest
@@JustSomeGuyWithAMug did you just try to change my opinion by stating something and not elaborating on to why? Cuz that ain't working.
I don't even see why argue over it.
@@VahnBlack what tf are you talking about? You think this is twiter or smth? XD
@@JustSomeGuyWithAMug You tell me, you came to reply to me I was wrong for thinking the last event was worse than Meropide.
@@VahnBlack never said you were wrong, you're taking this too seriously bro
7:04 Mondstadt's cast has it even worse than Liyue's cast where a majority of its cast was also only shown in events. Even the Archon Quests have like... about half of the 1.0 cast. IIRC only Amber, Lisa, Kaeya, Jean, Diluc, Venti, and Barbara show up and then Bennett, Fischl, Sucrose, Noelle, Mona, Razor, Klee (she's 1.0 2nd phase, still counts) don't show up at all, and to say nothing of characters introduced later that maybe could've been introduced as well. It didn't stop Liyue.
100% agree with these points. The fact character quests aren't even about the featured character is why I stopped doing them.
tip: normalize your video's sound
every time you get excited or start a sentence the speakers blow up, during the night i either don't hear you then do or i hear you then everyone in the neighborhood too
HI3 has a mostly Static NPC, except the one that looks stand out like Abnormal Stigmata for example.
Neuvillette, Furina and Baizhu having the best Story quests , so true of them.
gonna have to disagree on sumeru development being: scara and cyno
it is scara and nahida
a nation story can be though of as 2 parts: main, and post tension resolution
scara does not change in the main, he is still the same as he was in inazuma, his development comes after the major tension resolution (for sumeru, the boss fight and deal with doctore and the gnosis)
in the main; nahida goes from being the passive person, a mere observer locked in cage with access to the digital library of sumeru; to being an active leader full of confidence;
like human-furina nahida has only existed for 500~ yrs, unlike furina nahida has archon divinity yet was reduced to being treated like a tool and the mental trauma associated with that; the reason why nahida seems stronger (less apparant growth from casual observer) is that she has spent 500yrs digesting all the 'digital' knowledge of sumeru, and in the post sumeru tension able to leverage that knowledge to compensate for other areas of weakness. compared to the bird trapped in a cage at the start of sumeru main, afterwards she has grown such that as a leader she surpassed the present state of the prior 3 archons we meet. as such it is easy to casually overlook her growth
He said Nahida tho??
He said Scara and Nahida initially, then added Cyno. He didn't erase Nahida at all😭😭
I agree 100% I couldn't quite explain myself what made me like Fontaine so much over any other region, but you put it into words perfectly, i really hope they keep this up going forward!
Wdym like Furina's quest was yet another NPC quest I hated it
Genshin needs to make one of two changes event that add nothing to the story or events that are available permanently
Either by being replayable or by being archived in game
Literally every character in Fontaine is important and have their roles in the Archon Quest, even Sigewinne.
dehya is also dynamic char in her story quest that's why it is so good...
Idk, Sumeru still stands on top in my eyes, Fontaine suffers from some setbacks in its pacing and story (hello, meropid fortress). It's just was marketed better. Furina, though a good character on her own, was mostly a massive pity bait for the audience. And it is not like there was no good writing before Sumeru and Fontaine. The Chasm, Second Jade Chamber, Enkanomiya, Tsurui - it was all very well done.
Genshin Impact writes its Acts differently, the story is designed to have different story progression and design philosophy for characters based on each regions theme.
I was previously divided on wich was the best Archon Quest: Sumeru's or Fontaine's. This video made me realize it's actually Fontaine's.
Wanderer: am I a joke to you
Truly nothing like Albedo and Xiao having some of their most important story beats being locked into limited events. Winters at Dragonspine, the Summer Islands, Lantern Rite.
As someone who was disappointed with Fontaine and prefers Sumeru as a whole. I can’t disagree with your points. Fontaine’s playable characters, generally with a few exceptions, (Sigewinne, Freminet) got great development and depth throughout the archon and story quests. As much as I dislike Lyney, I have to admit he’s a well written character. Furina and Navia in particular stand out very well. I actually believe Navia to be the single best written character in Genshin.
After all that how can I still prefer Sumeru’s characters? Well it’s simply because Sumeru’s cast feels like a big group friends. They have fun banter and tease each other but also stand by each other and will defend them until the very end. While Fontaine’s characters feel like everyone is purely on a workplace relationship. I feel like I don’t know these characters outside of their work. Yes we know a lot about Navia’s relationship with her father but he is still intertwined with her work first and foremost.
Kinda unrelated but also I prefer Sumeru over Fontaine because Sumeru is more adventurous. Fontaine is very political. I’m not a fan of the courtroom drama and murder mystery. Also I’m not a fan of the steampunk aesthetic. Sumeru feels more like a fantasy adventure. With less technology and more magic.
Navia C6 main. My first paid C6 since 1.1 when I joined.
Nuff said.
Hard to happen but i hope they change the early region too
Having to go through dozen and zoden of hours to get to the good part could hardly keep your attention
Somehow making all the playables Dynamic and the NPC's static made the NPC's more memorable. A part is due to the story being JUST BETTER. There are richer themes with the feeling of the actual stakes. Not once did I think Sumeru, Inazuma, Liyue, Mondstadt, would lose. It's like comparing JJK and any other generic fighting anime
I like both formulas and Fontaine npcs kinda miss 5he spotlight for me, but yeah, amazing video
And this is why I have to possess all the Fontainian characters. Smart move Hoyo 👀
Slap a 👑 to support your channel.
Are they so much better tho?
Is the writing that different from Nahida/Wanderer characters quests?
If you want me to play a massive quest chain and give a shit at least be assed to make them not look like everyone else on all of Teyvat. My favorite example is Ruu, why would I suffer through a fucking tribulation gauntlet of lengthy and time gated quests and be invested in this kid who looks like 10 other kids on the streets of Inazuma city? If it’s THAT important then make a new or at least slightly different model for them. Liben is a great example of this, he’s obviously not playable but sticks out from other NPCs. If he were a world quest character I’d care because I can actually recognize him as a single individual. I wouldn’t say Fontaine has fixed this, the generic npc filmmaker guy kinda pissed me off actually. The event ends with a group photo of entirely playable characters that you know and hopefully like.. and this dude in the back, and this is going to be a decoration I put in my teapot? It’s the truest ‘blud think he on the team’ ever. Generic NPC posing with all these playables was laughably silly
Idk, I think Sumeru cast will probably be the best written one in the entire game. Like, all of them feel like a one big family, even surprisingly Scara, if you count him in. It will be REALLY hard to do the same with Natlan and Snezhnaya just story-wise
But that is also true that Fontaine has some of the best characters in the game, it is just that there are also some that I think are really weak, boring, or annoying ones. Like Charlotte.
I don't hate Charlotte but I do agree with you when it comes to the sumeru cast. Fontaine failed to do one little thing imo and that is establish a deep connection between the playable characters. I wanted to see more of neuvi and furina interact or like more interactions between them on screen. It focused too much on the heavy plot that it failed to establish a deep connection between the characters themselves. Sumeru was able to do that though. We know how tighnari and cyno and buddies and how kaveh and alhaitham don't get along but don't hate each other. We know how ugh tighnari cares about collie and how collie loves amber. We know how dehya and Candace are friends and how nahida and wanderer are getting closer and so on and so on. These connections between them helped establish them as better characters imo. They bounce off of each other so well.
IMO with snezhnaya it’ll probably be the best arc in genshin considering the entire story so far has been building up to the big secret the harbingers and the tsaritsa are harbouring. All the archons are in on it too so it’s definitely going to focus on the harbingers and their relationship and past albeit it probably won’t be the found family vibes of sumeru
I feel like now that Genshin devs have realized and begun to change things... they could actually go back and fix the older stories by promoting those well developed npcs to playables in an epilogue.
Having Dunyazard becoming a playable character would be a massive payoff and I bet she would actually be rather successful.
Remember Ayato’s story quest? The one about two NPC’s wedding? That was disappointing
Yea, Melus and Silver truly enhanced the encounters with Navia...While she is a great character on her own, I think she really need a secondary character that are all gungho about her crazy ideas. It was a big mistake of Mihoyo to kill them off. One of the flaws with her stories is that Mihoyo has made her cry too much... She cried in Chapter1, Chapter3 and her own character story... At the end I barely felt anything by her character story even though I see why she is sad. That is not good character writing, when you pull something too many times, people stop caring. I love Navia with all my heart, she is best girl but she deserve a story where sorrow is only used where its most impactful. I dont want to see people critiquing her for being a crybaby...
Bro imagine if ruu was a playable character 😭☝️
I think some in the comments agree with me in that even tho the playable characters' quest lack "interesting" turning points for the MCs, it is difficult to portray a significant development when most of them already have a vision, they already developed. Recent characters with nice development have either, their vision granted during the quest or do not use a vision.
Genshin's improvement in their writting is something I wish HSR picks up on. HSR in terms of story is weird. Belebog was amazing but the story quests for their characters are short and barely cover anything (I havent played lynx quest so that might be good). Xianzhou was also good but it had the Inazuma treatment were all the plot points needed to be resolved in 1, 2 hour quest (I'm looking at you blade you unfortunate soul). HSR never had the problem of giving npcs spotlight and main characters getting nothing the problem is no character are getting spotlight since quests are always extremely short and resolve in an anticlimactic way like Ratio's and Topaz's quests.
I hope that NPC design also gets better from here. Like with the Ghost Girl from that event and with the new 4.4 NPC. Those two are actually well designed. It's bad to only work on the writting, I'm gonna look at the shitty NPC and lose my hope for their story frame 1.
I haven't played the other Fontaine story quests, but I feel like Furina's story quest is also somewhat NPC-centric.
Though to be fair we basically got her entire story quest in Masquarade of the Guilty.
I remember really liking Raiden's Act 2 because we actually explored her backstory, even though I don't care much for her.
Worst offenders gotta be Nilou and Ayato. I love Nilou but her story quest was like 95% NPC Impact, and Ayato's even worse.
Then there's also the story quests that technically are based on the character, but the plot goes nowhere so it's just as bad. E.g.: Ganyu.
Ayato's quest is very interesting for the people that are interested in Ayato actually, because it's basically politics (which are often boring if you don't care about them). Ayato made a REALLY late appearance so it makes sense not many liked his story being that way, but it makes sense with the character an is important, as he, Kokomi and Raiden all have their SQ used to properly tackle things the AQ didn't because it was rushed.
Top 4 strongest characters of Fontaine
1.Neuvillete
2.Wrio
3.Lyney
4.Navia
Strongest in terms of what
@@LordofHydro gameplay, but I guess lore wise is also accurate
@@TroubleisHere Going by Gameplay 2 should be Navia. Lorewise it's not that accurate because we have no idea about their combat capabilities in lore. But Wriothelesy is physically strong while Navia has higher firepower.
@@LordofHydro @LordofHydro no navia can't do reactions the rest have that advantage, plus wrio has shenhe and she's a insane cryo support , Lyney is a strong dps as well and being pyro which is one of the best elements in the game. In the prison scene it seemed like lyney was powerless against wrio, so I'd say 1 and 2 are accurate. Maybe 3 and 4 is debatable lore wise
@@TroubleisHere Navia does crystalize reactions and she has the highest skill damage. She's literally the second best dps after Neuvillete. Even at C0 she can hit a 100k one shot without much investment. She doesn't need other reactions nor does she scale off Defence. Which makes her much more flexible. Unlike Wrio, Navia doesn't require a premium support, Bennet is enough for her. My Navia has crit rate 40% and DMG 165% and she hits 180k with 6 stacks with Bennett buff. She can easily hit 100k per shot.
Silver & Melus 🥹
I'm so split on this video. On one hand, yeah I agree with a lot of what you're saying... On the other, I don't think the impact of the effects the story had on the average person would have been nearly as effective without characters like Teppei or Dunyazard without either:
A: Making the Archon Quests longer (and I can already hear the hate towards that idea already)
Or B: Including world quests that are limited to how far in the story the player is and will disappear once the Archon Quests are done.)
Cause without Dunyazard or Teppei, we would barely even see the effects of Elezar besides on Collei and wouldn't even see the effects Delusions were having on the soldiers using them.
I really liked your video, but man, you gotta do sth abt your audio or delivery. You had sudden spikes of volume while speaking, and it made it kinda hard to sit and watch while you would suddenly shout at me😅
Thanks for the feedback. You saying this means... i wasn't overreacting after all when i notice problems in audio
God is good, His love endures forever, His plans never fail💖🙌
Fontaine failed to do one little thing imo and that is establish a deep connection between the playable characters. I wanted to see more of neuvi and furina interact or like more interactions between them on screen. It focused too much on the heavy plot that it failed to establish a deep connection between the characters themselves. Sumeru was able to do that though. We know how tighnari and cyno and buddies and how kaveh and alhaitham don't get along but don't hate each other. We know how ugh tighnari cares about collie and how collie loves amber. We know how dehya and Candace are friends and how nahida and wanderer are getting closer and so on and so on. These connections between them helped establish them as better characters imo. They bounce off of each other so well.
.
Inazuma was a main offender
Except for Miko i guess
They’ve surely taken the criticism to heart. When the Chasm dropped people loved it because of Itto, Yanfei and Kuki’s interactions. Since then, I have consistently given feedback that we should utilize all the characters instead of NPCs. Nobody cares about the NPCs. Fontaine story was great!
I actually hated the involvement of Itto and Kuki Shinobu in the Chasm since they're irrelevant to Liyue's lore. They had absolutely no reason to be there and had nothing to contribute to that plot.
Genshin's writers still haven't improved in that regard with Inazuma characters being shoehorned into the recent event in Fontaine. Ayaka and Ayato were completely replaceable, and even Yoimiya wasn't allowed to handle something like movie special effects despite her background in pyrotechnics.
@@IndigoEyePhotography I can agree on the chasm part. But the recent event was much better, because it explains kamisato’s reasons for traveling and strengthening the ties between the nations. But my question to you is, would you rather see more generic NPC interactions? Personally I’d much prefer character interactions, even if the plot isn’t very deep all the time. It can be a good way to showcase character dynamics and personalities.
@@IndigoEyePhotographyexactly in a lot of a events a lot of the characters feel utterly superfluous and unnecessary in my opinion.
This is probably why Raiden's story quests are among the best, people cry about the first one being a date(despite there being 0 romantic subtext) but it's literally just Ei characterization and growth through all of it, even when NPCs get involved she is still the center of it, same with the second quest, NPCs were actually treated like NPCs, being there just to make Ei's resolve of changing her ideal stronger, and none of them were overbearing, at the end of her quests Ei is a different person than in the Archon Quest. However in terms of overall characters yeah Fontaine has a much more solid cast, although I think Ei herself is up there with Furina, Inazuma doesn't have the cast to compete with Fontaine, it has characters like Sara and Kokomi that just bring the overall score of the region down unfortunately.
That's straight up coping, the only good thing about Ei was the second story quest
@@Wolf-vy7et Ok I guess?
I believe Raiden's 2nd story quest was the turning point in terms of writing for the game, where the stories started to become more and more fleshed out. Her first story quest was a glorified hangout quest which is basically a date to begin with, romantic subtext or not, which was never a requirement for a date anyway
OMG FINALLY SOMEONE WHO APPRECIATES EI😭😭😭🫶🏻 THANK UUUU
@@Wolf-vy7etL take
One gripe I have with the NPC focus in some quests is the NPC's being barely distinguishable between each other outside of either unique clothes or a unique asset such as eyes or horns in the blue oni's case. A lot of them don't *feel* like NPC's I'm supposed to care about and just "re-used asset no.876" (felt this the most with Teppei and Dunyarzard, much as I love Dunyarzards actual writing and character). I know it shouldn't bother me as much as it does but I just can't stand what are SUPPOSED to be important NPC's look the same as 50 other random NPC's that do nothing or very little.
Another very minor nitpick is just the clothes on almost all of them have no depth at all, like WHY are they all so flat?
This is a good analysis but i dont think the sumeru comparison is good because its from sumeru onwards where it feels like they actually started caring about making the writing genuinely Good and i was never bothered that badly about the NPCs in it unlike in other regions
Furina is easly the best character as far as writing goes in the entire game in my opinion. I loved seeing her story unfold! 💙
i have heard fontaine was written by the honkai impact 3rd story writer, which is why it was so good. future permament story content might be just as good or even better.
Gonna need a source on that buddy. Every time Genshin writing gets good I see some randos claiming that's it because of Honkai writers. Why can't people just accept that the Gensin writers just simply got better over time?
The hype for Kazuha SQ... And then.... Urgh.
That's why, i truly think that Navia>>>Kazuha.
Even in the theme of grief, Navia is so much better, also Neuvilette with Carol.
Also, Dunyanzard>>> Teppei, one of the worst mistakes of Inazuma.
The thing I hate the most about this type of gacha games is how little risk they take with characters. You summed it up perfectly. They can’t change, they can’t suffer permanent damage, they can’t die, and god forbid they fall in love because the fans would kill each other. In the end, most are boring carcasses made to sell digital toys. Even though Furina was executed masterfully, they’re still afraid to kill a playable character, which is why we see so many archons with clones or “sisters”.
Dottore mogs all of them. Also, honestly, the story is becoming closer to the climax so of course the AQ's are going to be increasingly complex, and the characters more involved. Though I would say characters like Ei were excellently-written, even Zhongli and Hu Tao (though it is a shame her sq isn't about her), Ganyu, Dehya, and Ayaka (subtle, but she is pretty admirable, people just do not understand her or Ayato's cultural relevance to Inazuma despite it being explained.) Eula too, could go there.
I don't dislike Fontaine but I think y'all overrate it because it feels more like home to you, the same reason a lot of Westerners are fond of Mondstadt. The stories were getting involve more Western tropes/Archetypes, so of course the Western fandom is going to relate to them more. Genshin can also start using more of the main story that is with the playable characters rather than foreshadowing with NPCs, Dottore's interaction with Nahida and the WQ with the Pari was what was able to set that up in the first place, so Sumeru played an important role in setting the scene for future AQs, like Fontaine is now doing for Natlan.
Pretty much the only thing I wish we would get is more of Kokomi's connection to the dragons/Orobaxi, and more on Delphi/Enkanomiya. I do wonder if, before it fell into the dark sea, it was somewhere near Fontaine since its original culture is Greek, not Japanese like Narukami, and even now most of the people there are ethnically not Inazuman/Japanese (so Kokomi, Gorou, etc. are white.) This is kind of hidden away in Watatsumi lore but basically the people of Narukami consider the women of Watatsumi exceptionally beautiful due to their fair skin, which they developed from living underwater, which suggests the two islands remain fairly separate to this day since it's been ages since they lived in Delphi. Of course, they also had to change the original names and even their own language to integrate into Inazuma, but you learn the original names and language of the people of Delphi [its true name]/Enkanomiya used to be Greek/European. Of course, that automatically has me wondering whether we'll see some connection between them and Fontaine, or a possible return there, considering Neuvillette (and also that being the only place where bathysmal vishaps can still be found.)
So yeah, it'll be interesting to see how the story develops and how we return to other regions, like we're getting Chenyu Vale as another Liyue expansion, and we know Mondstadt and Sumeru are also due expansions. Personally, I would love it if we got more areas like Delphi/Enkanomiya, though. Fontaine has been really disappointing with the exploration and underwater is pretty shitty, people IMO overrate it. Sumeru's landscape was perfect with being rainforest and desert, pretty much the only annoying part was the underground caves, but now that we have the map update, it's not a problem anymore and it does fit real-world mythos of underground caves having many secrets. It also makes it fun to find them, and nothing in Fontaine is particularly fun exploration-wise so far. It could change though, Inazuma was also kind of boring the first three islands but when we got Tsurumi and Watatsumi's full expansion, it became one of the most interesting places. To this day, Delphi and Sumeru are the best places to farm for artefact drops, Delphi especially since there's nothing but strong enemies and you can't heal/overly rely on food. I love going there when I'm bored lol.
I will say I like Fontaine's local legends "bosses," though, they do present a big challenge and are funny. The only bad part is you get nothing for fighting them aside from primos the first time, wish they'd drop artefacts or something, but it is a more useful method of testing your parties' strength than Masanori, whom I can KO in literally 5 seconds lol.
you took my words out of my mouth,i hate underwater on videogames. IMO fontaine story quest has big problem , like story quest 2 it is straight out a separate quest from the story quest and was boring af, story quest act 3 failed in the clue of the story with the final enemy being the elder beast of genshin impact a fucking joke of a boss, and then i found the pacing goddamn awful at some point it got like a visual novel like 15 minute straigtht of dialogue
I disagree with the idea that Fontaine's story is good. While it is nice to see the characters gain more agency and deeper meaning and lore development, it came at the expense of the Traveller's (players) development. In Liyue we solved the 'mystery' of Rex Lapis and repelled a giant beast. In Inazuma we basically reformed the government. In Sumeru we saved everyone by solving some brain mumbo jumbo but in Fontaine we took a back seat and mostly watched everyone else do all the work for us. We only played lawyer for a bit that didn't really influence anything. The prophecy happened and we couldn't change it, deceiving of heavenly principles was not done by us, but by the hydro arcon, Neuvillette took care of everything else. If the npc's become better written at the cost of the player becomming poorly written, I don't think it's a good outcome. This is supposed to be OUR story and OUR adventure.
That's a really good point. I think that's also part of the reason why I enjoyed sumeru more
It was years ago that it was established that our role in teyvat is to be an observer/witness. Zhongli said it to us. Many actually liked that the traveller didn't really help at all and just became a witness. It's boring and repetitive to have us solve all of the nations problem.
@@lieserljamesmaturan2716 I like the fact that there are competent characters that can do stuff on their own, but I believe the player should have agency over themselves as well and shouldn't be fully relegated to an observer position. Just because Zhongli said that, doesn't mean it's true. And I'd rather the player not focus on solving Teyvat's problems but figuring out the deal with the sibling.
@@JustAPal fair point, given that the MC has to travel the 7 nations, I feel like Fontaine was there for the overall lore (about Celestia, Sovereigns, Hexenzirkel, and possibly powerful entities), preparation to (possibly?) fight Celestia and not the sibling lore. It was clearly stated on the end of Act 2 that nobody in fontaine knows about the sibling.
I remember one of the most disappointing things ive ever seen in genshin was during the sumeru archon quest and you run around as the kid dressed up as nahida. it was appalling. I just can't understand how that was put into the game.
Omg I forgot about that. Well 8 at least I thought the entire cast was well used
yeah fontane is good atleast better than other nations even though genshin itself is not good for players.
After playing for two years and reaching ar60 reading literally every single line of text in the game (commissions included) I'm at the point where if an npc is talking, I roll my eyes so far back into my skull I can see my brain and spam the skip button as fast as Sonic the hedgehog on crack cocaine. Because I know with 100% certainty that not a single freaking word they yap will be useful or interesting in the slightest. The writing team in this game is atrocious (minus archon quest, interlude and some world quests/characters stories).
And they talk so freaking much my God. To say exactly nothing. Every survey they do, I send a "everybody talks waaaay too much" as a suggestion.
I don't know if it's a problem with the chinese language becoming longer when translated in English or what, but my God they all need to shut the freak up 90% of the time or at least get to the freaking point already.
I’m glad i’m not the only one. I always *try* to pay attention to everything because you never know what sort of hidden detail might be relevant, but at some point i got burned out and can’t do it anymore.
@@arcazure9610 totally not alone, my friend. The writing team for npcs is sadly really really bad. I get it that they, by default, can't be as interesting as the main cast. But they could do waaaay better than this.
Besides overall shortening their dialogues, they almost always talk about aspects of their lives that are totally unrelated to genshin and its world. "I got sick". "I lost my job". "my wife was kidnapped". All generic things that could happen anywhere. Imagine if their lines implemented elements in game. Like "I got burned by mistake by a pyro vision holder". Automatically, we as players would go like "ah. Neat. I know pyro visions. Those are nice". Or maybe "I was robbed while traversing lingiu pass". As players we would go "Hey I know that one place!".
It wouldn't automatically fix things, but it would by default make their dialogues more interesting.
They could talk about things we use as ascension materials and be confused about their use, and we would laugh.
They could have vision shells like the one kazuha has, and talk about how they found those.
They could tell us they once met an archon or partecipated to one of the recurring events like windblume.
That they got drunk with diluc wine.
Or that they once saw a weird guy with an eyepatch traversing a river by constantly freezing the water (and we would go lol that's kaeya).
Instead we have "boo hoo I have to write my generic book about generic topics. Here twenty minutes of text about my uninteresting life".
Yeah, no. I don't think they've even come close to solving it yet. Or in a way that makes it feel less disjointed. A big criticism I have with Genshin NPCs is that they ultimately achieve very little in impact, and are more like non sequiturs that reuse different assets to imply the illusion of distinction and depth to the world. It's all surface level garbage that would only satisfy the absolutely rabid, and is a disservice to games that actually give more intent and purpose to their world and its characters.
Reuse is a common tool that games use to reduce load, not too much unlike draw distance. But Genshin is so unapologetically garish about it, it's really difficult not to notice the blemish when the game wants you to try an impart a bit more empathy into their 'dynamic' camera angles. The general range of emotions characters are even allotted is notable in the aspect of its limitations. Which might be better justified if the body language conveyed and put in more work otherwise. It does not. Everyone still stands around awkwardly talking at each other. The most animated character in any cutscene is always going to be Paimon by default, which is certainly telling when they try to make the scenes look like they have more effort. It's grade school execution at best.
We could also just go to the root of all things, and point out how bland the art-style is for Genshin. Inside and out. The lack of blemish in the models, and the overall direction of the atmosphere makes everything looks so darn generic. Even the playable characters. It isn't just that they use rigs for different model sizes. The animation lacks a satisfying weight, and everything moves almost impartially, as if they aren't a part of their body. And some might argue the intent is more for combat and those animations. But you'll barely even really get to see much of that with how the game plays. Combat animations are serviceable at best, being only marginally better than your average animations. But in-game aside, I also think the lack of real direction plays a part in making all the art of these characters look so unappealing. While in some cases the argument could be made to leverage against the artists, Genshin is super big. I doubt even the best would ignore the ability to leverage a character's likeness in improving their portfolio. It is undeserved. As someone who follows a lot of artists, Genshin art is consistently the weakest.
NPCs are probably the least of their problems right now honestly.
the only garabge character in fontaine is wrio he srsly shouldve just came out in inazuma cuz he only exists to look good
NPC is "Non-Player Character" as opposed to the "Player Character", i.e. Navia is an NPC in all quests she's in.
Otherwise I feel like you're talking about nothing, you don't give direct examples and you've been talking about very subjective things. Hard to relate.
What is quite certain is that Fontaine quests are much worse, what with being reduced to exposition dumps where you need to suffer Navia crying about her parents for a couple hours straight. I feel like people who like Fontaine are the same old people who whine about the desert.
Also, Chevreuse development IS locked behind an event, clearly Mihoyo is not avoiding this.
No, Navia is a character that you can play, which means that she's not an NPC. Even if you don't control her in her story event, she's still not an NPC. Because she's regularly playable.
You are right that the NPC issue hasn't been fixed though as Wriossley's story quest focused on NPCs and not him.
@@brightlight8852 Again, if you approach Navia to talk to her to complete a quest objective and you yourself also play Navia then your Navia is PC and the Navia you're about to talk to is NPC. Same as for example a picture of Navia on reddit is not a PC, it's just an image.
It differentiates the player character from all other ones, not generally all playable characters from all unplayable ones.
And Wrio SQ, while bad, is just as bad as pretty much all SQ except maybe second Nahida SQ and Zhongli SQs. They're just low effort marketing filler. I don't even think focusing on NPCs is the reason, they should focus on the worldbuilding generally rather than any individual characters and not be boring at the same time.
High key i think they were just scared to follow through with actually making their characters grow and stuff. Cause instead of seeing them grow the characters have already grown and developed, like diluc. Even though we know his father died and he has trauma from it we never saw him grow from it instead we see what it turned him into. A cold almost heartless man. Same with eula instead of helping her overcome the conspiracies that ridiculed her cause of her family she herself learned to deal with it and what we meet is an egocentric vengeance driven women. I feel that as a story writer the characters that you put the most effort into (the playable characters in this case) deserve the most attention not the side characters (the npcs) thats why they are called “main” and “side” characters. This shows the most with Furina a lot of people hated her because we didn’t know her full backstory but now majority of people love her cause now we know why she had to be egocentric and abnoxious and they empathize with her feelings. I can understand that hoyo doesn’t want to take this risk since if people dont like the character means less money for them but if they play their cards right, again like furina they can get what they want and still have a well written story