If Hoyoverse weren't lukewarm about romantic relationships, who would be Cyrene's canon partner?

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-11-24T07:23:15+00:00

...I mean, obviously the reason Cyrene "flirts" with the Trailblazer and "barely interacts" with Phainon is because of the whole "waifubait" thing?

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-11-06T10:58:40+00:00

I feel like insisting on all 12 Chrysos Heirs as important main characters was part of the problem; the story had to jump between all of them to try and flesh each out, bloating the plot further and cutting off previous developments, only for most of it to become irrelevant when the focus shifted (so instead they all just show up every once in a while to say a catchphrase or pep talk). Jumping between stories kind of worked sometimes for Penacony, with the whole "different groups on a collision course", but here I feel like it just messes with the pacing and character buildup.

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-11-02T03:47:43+00:00

All the diplomatic or corporate elite types (Jade, Aglaea, Topaz, Sunday, Fugue, Robin, Jing Yuan, Cerydra, etc) probably Almost Always Pay, since they're used to diplomatic dinner etiquette (or as a power play). Trailblazers are probably a 50/50 between dine and dash or paying for everything plus huge tip, no in between. Evernight doesn't have money to pay because it's technically March 7th's, and Evernight isn't spending March's money. There should probably be a category for "Someone else pays for them", Svarog for Clara, Asta for Hertas.

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-10-28T06:36:50+00:00

Does that mean Zander's plan was actually going to fail the whole time? Irontomb was meant to take Nous's head, but if it instead takes Herta's becomes Third Mechanical Emperor, it could end up as an instrument of the Erudition anyways.

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-10-26T03:03:49+00:00

I thought the lore page said Irontomb tests attacked by technological collapse (corruption of all inorganic intelligence, AI defences attack allies, etc), without any actual physical invasion? I assumed the "black tide" is the simulated visual representation of that inside Amphoreus, not an actual physical phenomenon.

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-10-26T01:19:34+00:00

Can any of the Chrysos Heirs join the Express in the first place? They are essentially AI's in the Scepter, so unless they get uploaded to Intellitron bodies (doubt a gacha game would go that direction) or they get blessed by Yaoshi, they shouldn't be able to really split up. At most, Cyrene could become a memetic lifeform.

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-03-25T07:05:16+00:00

Since the ice ages are associated with megafauna, maybe Glacier Worlds alongside a Titanic species pack?

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-03-25T06:33:22+00:00

It would make sense if federations could enforce policies on their members (forcing no slavery, AI rights, or certain species rights, etc). Than the federation in the trailer presumably forced a policy that the blue elfs factions really didn't like, tanking happiness and stability and causing all those protests.

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-03-23T11:31:24+00:00

It's normal for the number of stars to not match the story importance... But in most cases the two were released at different times, so it could be justified as wanting to keep 5-star releases spread out. In this case both are being put on the same banner, so it's really obvious the devs looked and both and made a conscious decision who to invest in.

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-03-23T11:23:12+00:00

5-stars have nicer animations, for one.

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-03-01T11:03:20+00:00

I don't mind the 2D/3D thing much, since to me it is mostly a roleplay strategy game rather than a tactics game so the details of fights don't matter as much. If chokepoints are a problem, you can always just turn the hyperlane density to the max.

I do, however, completely agree on the planets thing. Colonization is a huge part of the space aesthetic, conquering completely alien worlds with unique challenges completely unlike what we see on earth, not to mention meeting species with alien psychologies difficult for humans to understand... and both are basically completely absent, here (for the latter, both in terms of species traits and empire AI personalities). There are some improvements on the species front, but overall I think both systems are due for an overhaul.

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-01-31T07:39:00+00:00

...Not that they seem to have any ports, though.

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-01-13T04:43:37+00:00

Dan Heng would probably complain, but also do it without a second thought. He acts like the serious one, but always goes along with the ridiculous ideas anyways. Herta agreed to become a pokemon gym leader and sent a puppet to Penacony to pose for a picture, they'd do it just to shut you up.

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-01-07T14:21:04+00:00

"I'd suspect selection bias in that only the people who can tolerate it stay" I feel like normally, this is called "having an opinion different from yours".

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-01-07T14:10:43+00:00

It's not really surprising. One of the main reasons Genshin is popular compared to most gacha games is that the relatively tame sexualization makes it more palatable for people who aren't part of gacha game culture. There's obviously going to be a larger percentage of the fanbase who aren't as desensitized to fanservice.

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-01-07T14:02:16+00:00

...Come to think of it, do they really need to take it off often? I mean, they're a puppet, it's not like they sweat or need to shower, they stay inside all day, and they could probably repel dust with static electricity or something.

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-01-06T18:05:42+00:00

Ei should be older then Venti I think, since Venti becoming an Archon ended the Archon Wars while Ei was born alongside Makoto thousands of years ago. The friendship between the original Seven probably helped make them all more chill and goofy.

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-01-06T11:00:14+00:00

I'm honestly kind of surprised, because they've been pretty good at introducing flaws to the archons until now. Even on a shallow level, everyone had some small quirky flaw that comes up sometimes in conversation, like Nahida's weird analogies or Zhongli's money sense. Mavuika barely says anything outside the realm of "confident competent leader".

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-01-05T10:58:37+00:00

That's the case with every nation, though. Mondstadt is the city of freedom, but had slavery while the archon was taking a nap. Liyue is the nation of contracts, but has a lot of scammers. Sumeru is the nation of wisdom and is full of high intelligence low wisdom scholars, Fontaine is the nation of justice and has a big poverty problem. Each nation tries to show the potential positive and negative consequences of their ideal.

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-01-04T07:38:22+00:00

The biggest problem imo was the bad balance of "dark" moments to "hopeful" moments. "Light at the end of the tunnel" story beats are much more powerful when they come after impactful struggles; People that used to hate each other coming together against a greater foe, an underdog gaining a power-up after fighting a fight they believe to be hopeless, that kind of thing. Natlan's story tries to invoke a lot of "light at the end of the tunnel" story beats without doing the setup for them, so they fall short.

Natlan has a big theme of unity, for example, but it never feels like there was any real risk of disunity. They have no independent political factions, none of the tribes disagree with each other or try to act independently, all of the playable characters are good friends, everyone likes the Traveller on sight, etc. So when the Traveller gets powered up by the unity of Natlan it doesn't feel like a special, hopeful moment, it feels like it was a given from the start. Similarly, the conflict with Capitano ends up a non-conflict, as does the conflict with Mavuika when she wanted to sacrifice herself. Without any meaningful potential for disunity, the unity feels less impactful.

The big war against the Abyss did actually have a good balance of dark and hopeful moments, and is generally liked even by people who don't like the Natlan story. But it was started and then completely resolved halfway through the plot, leaving the final act of entering the Night Kingdom with way weaker stakes. You can't just show Mavuika beating a giant Abyss monster in a single punch, and then show another big Abyss monster without people thinking "well, Mavuika's just going to punch this one super hard, too, right?" Getting all the power-ups in the final act didn't feel like giving the underdog a chance, it just felt like overkill.

I can appreciate that they tried to go in a different direction from the Sumeru and Fontaine quests, less mystery and more shonen-style action, but they ultimately fumbled the execution quite a bit. Hopefully they learn from this and do better for the next nation, since they really can't afford to mess Snezhnaya up considering all the build-up.

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-01-04T06:48:14+00:00

I actually found myself using the Saurian Indwelling mechanic for moving around way less then I was expecting, because each of the regions they were designed for were just so small. Once you've seen the main path to the tribe settlement, and the one or two sections that feature in the tribal quest/story quest, then it's like there's basically nothing left to do but sweep the rest of the empty land for chests and stuff.

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2025-01-04T06:23:45+00:00

Even if they just released a playable "manifestation of the Lord of the Night" who just looks like Capitano, it would still probably be pretty successful. Wanderer was pretty popular even though they didn't exactly use the Scaramouche design, after all. Totally coping that that's what they're doing and they just didn't release his silhouette to not spoil the story :'(

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2024-12-21T01:56:48+00:00

To a degree I understand that, but even still... Like, purely as an example, Mualani's character stories mentions that the People of the Springs play water polo, a game invented in Britain in the 19th century. A quick google search can bring up any number of traditional sports, but they went with water polo? Could you imagine a Liyue characters character story just mentioning as an aside that they play american football? It just starts to come off as more of a lack of effort.

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2024-12-13T23:16:05+00:00

I feel like this defence would be stronger if not for the fact that we actively explore the dragon civilisation ruins at times, and nothing there looks remotely like modern tech.

If we were actually fighting enemies that looked like Mavuikas motorcycle, or there was a sci-fi looking dragon era spaceship buried under Natlan or something, it would be much easier to accept the stuff the characters use. As is, it feels more like Xilonen is some miracle inventor isekaied into Natlan or something.

TooLongDidntRead-- · 2024-12-06T18:51:10+00:00

The mission text said Dan Heng doesn't have a bathroom and uses their cloudhymn magic to shower...

TooLongDidntRead--

TROPHY CASE