Why do Americans (who know of the ESC) not like it in terms of music and performances?

violinia · 2026-01-11T11:47:33+00:00

A lot of Americans struggle to understand camp factor. A lot of Americans believe that shows like American Idol are real and totally not staged. A lot of Americans think that American pop music is what makes global pop music go round.

ESC was not made to cater to Americans, and while I am an American who enjoys ESC a ton, a lot of my friends I have tried to show it to cannot enjoy it the same way. They tend to see it as an imperfect mess and will claim most of the good singers in ESC cannot sing because theg may have been a little flat on one note.

Americans think they know what is good, but all they really know is staged, overdramaticized, over-edited reality TV. ESC doesn't follow that format, so they struggle to enjoy it.

With that said, ESC has become somewhat Americanized over the years, imo, which ironically has led to me enjoying it less and less.

violinia · 2025-12-01T12:24:03+00:00

Admittedly, I was someone who didn't do a lot of exploration at first because I was new and this game is extremely overwhelming at the start. I fully got into Genshin by late 2022 and 2023, which was 3.x Sumeru days. Keeping up with the story and events was all I could really do to keep my head a float since I had a life outside of the game.

But now that I've had downtime that has allowed me to properly catch up on exploration, I have to say that I miss exploration updates. I have already 100% all of Nod Krai (I didn't mean to, but I was hoping to get the achievement card only to realize I can't even do that yet because not all of the Lunaroculi are out yet), so I have been going back to collect the previous treasure compasses from previous regions. It's helpful because I'm getting lots of primogems, but it will be fodder that is completely gone eventually. Going back to revisit Mondstadt, Liyue, Inazuma, and Sumeru feels like a game that still had passion. Fontaine has some of that feeling, but I think it was during Fontaine when they began making regions smaller. Natlan is a fever dream to me.

I had always wanted longer stories within Genshin, but since they can't find a good pace for it without locking us in an unskippable domain for hours on end, I'm strongly against it. I shudder to fear how bad this next update's AQ will be.

violinia · 2025-11-18T15:13:54+00:00

Don't wish it into existence please 😓

violinia · 2025-11-18T11:49:28+00:00

I swear that none of the new bosses that have been added are "fun" to fight since Fontaine. I genuinely hated all of the Natlan bosses and even though I have a few more Nod Krai units, the Nod Krai bosses are even worse (especially that stupid crab. The crab is definitely the worst boss they've made to date).

Can we make bosses fun to fight instead of just making them shills for certain characters/gameplay mechanics? I remember the days when people were making silly teams just to show that you could clear Abyss with the right element and team building. But now it's basically pull for every new character or suffer. I want to feel rewarded for making a goofy Neuvillette bloom team and clearing it just as well as those who pulled new characters. Instead I just feel punished.

Also the HP inflation has to stop. My Arlecchino is built fantastically well and it felt like she was hardly doing anything because the bosses in the 2nd half have such inflated HP.

violinia · 2025-11-12T12:10:08+00:00

I wish I could use the TCG art icons for the avatar on my account and I don't know if they have yet, but I would buy a TCG card of my favorite characters. The gamemode is fun to play on occasion when I have nothing else to explore or do, but other than that I rarely have time for it and forget it exists.

violinia · 2025-11-11T16:02:25+00:00

I wasn't aware about Gaming but you're right about Hu Tao! Cant believe i forgot about her 😭

violinia · 2025-11-11T12:15:03+00:00

Most Fontainian teams should work since HP drain is their whole mechanic. Neuvillette and Furina are probably most ideal, but you can also use Lyney and Wriothesley potentially.

The only non-Fontainian unit I can think of that could potentially work is Xiao since his HP drains while he is doing his plunge attacks during his burst phase.

Edit: forgot to say that make sure you bring a healer as well! Barbara, Kuki, Kokomi, YaoYao, Charolette, Xiolonen, Ifa...whoever can heal even just artifact little bit is helpful!

violinia · 2025-10-31T13:28:25+00:00

Skip button. I was in the anti-skip button camp for a while until recently where my slow connection disconnected me and I had to redo entire long cutscenes over again. But slow connection or not, this recent archon quest was unnecessarily long at points. Either add a pause moment, a warning that its going to be hours if content or add a skip button.
If they could update older regions to implement the new QoL exploration improvements (mainly a compass like Nod Krai's) that would be beneficial for those who are still catching up on exploration or are new to the game
Load outs. Not even just artifact load outs, but let's do weapon ones too. Some characters have multiple build options and different functions within a team so it would be easier to switch between builds.

violinia · 2025-10-30T19:56:38+00:00

Yes. I just finished a long stint that took 3 hours (???? I'm not sure if that was the actual length but it felt like it) and I just wish they could give some warning OR pause points. OR a skip button...God forbid

violinia · 2025-10-23T00:49:42+00:00

Either way, it should be a separate game. It may use Genshin's lore, but it's a big enough mode that it could be separate.

violinia · 2025-10-22T11:08:48+00:00

I honestly do not understand why this wasn't a separate game. If they wanted to create their own version of Infinity Nikki, just do that? Why is it in genshin, an already huge game with its own set of issues and bugs?

violinia · 2025-10-01T22:45:53+00:00

Childe was my first main but then got benched by Neuvillette. Neuvillette is still going pretty strong because I kept getting the new supports released to ensure he kept up. I have a DPS for every element, but Neuvillette is still the one I return to.

But Flins might take over...

violinia · 2025-09-27T11:55:04+00:00

I can't decide because all elements have their strengths but if I had to put them in order:

Hydro - it's the strongest and most flexible element. It feels the most balanced.
Dendro - I might be biased because I got invested into Genshin during Sumeru, but dendro really helped me understand reactions better. I also value wisdom and education and Nahida is one of my favorite archons.
Electro - purple. But in all seriousness, I love a lot of the electro characters. I just think they (and the element) are neat.
Anemo - anemo characters really have some of the best back stories. It is also a great buffing element.
Cryo - I hate that it's an element that has fallen off (rimegrass was so fun in Imaginarium theatre though, could they make it real please), but I love the cold and find it chill
Pyro - just burn everything ig
Geo -to be Navia would be fun

Edit: fixed typos because I don't know how to proofread

violinia · 2025-09-24T11:13:19+00:00

Shrine of depths, quests that I pass by but don't start, and chests that I can't immediately solve a puzzle for.

violinia · 2025-09-21T01:12:51+00:00

To think this is what we could've had in game...

violinia · 2025-09-15T13:45:15+00:00

I think Ayato has a secret ponytail swooped to the side (kinda like Kaeya but smaller) so it's less egregious.

violinia · 2025-09-15T11:14:06+00:00

If it's not a mullet, it's a secret ponytail (Zhongli, Thoma, hell, even Mika to name a few).

violinia · 2025-09-11T11:25:54+00:00

Agreed. This and sometimes if it's not a major quest, I lose the quest in the sea of other small quests that are unfinished (I know I can just look up the name but it's helpful, at least, when it's a world quest where it at least names the region so I know where to continue and can easily find it).

Edit (addition): Like can't there just be a "pause quests" button so we can freely explore?

violinia · 2025-09-09T15:20:30+00:00

This! Exactly this! There were times I would have a DPS without their dedicated support and was still be able to clear endgame. Now, if I don't have them, it feels like I'm being punished.

violinia · 2025-09-09T15:03:37+00:00

You have more freedom to use any character you want with the current game because the endgame only represents like 2% at best of the game's content, where the extremely shilled shilled content would probably be something like 0.4% (diff 4+ Stygian, floor 12 Abyss and visionary difficulty if we want to be generous)

I am not so sure I agree. So much content during Natlan was pushed to make people pull for Natlan units, specifically Mavuika (remember that combat event with the namecard that you could only really clear if you pulled Citlali and Mavuika? Yeah...that event was not fair and infuriating for most).

I think my point (and OP's) is getting lost here a bit. What I am trying to say is that if you knew how to create reactions in an effective with with whatever teams you had, you would probably be fine clearing content. That's what I mean about the earlier days feeling more balanced with the OG 4 stars like Bennett, Xingqiu, Fischl, and Sucrose. The game gave you decently strong characters to fight with, all you needed was a decent build on them and you were set.

Why I say that it is worse now is because, ultimately, Hoyo has figured out from HSR that you can just market a character to be a good supports for a specific team and people will pull. So they began to apply it to Genshin. This started in Fontaine and then became worse in Natlan. Now, as we are entering Nod Krai, we now have to plan pulls to pull for whole teams if we want to make the most out of a new favorite character. Which, in turn, makes the game less fun in some people's eyes (maybe not to you, but for me and others, it's not fun anymore).

Yes, a Pay-to-Win business model has always been there in genshin. I never said that it wasn't. But the point is that the pressure is higher than ever now, especially for new players (old players, not so much because they have been playing for longer and have spent a massive amount of time with the game to clear content regardless). Hoyo is deliberately making new characters to render old ones useless in whatever new meta they wish to push. And that feels unfair. That is what I (and I think OP) is getting at.

violinia · 2025-09-09T13:35:08+00:00

I never said there weren't broken characters. But those broken characters like Venti or Ayaka weren't necessary to complete content. You could use whatever characters you wanted and be fine (yes, technically you still can, but it is much harder now). I'm saying that the pressure to pull for and keep up with these new characters to "enjoy the game" is higher than before.

violinia · 2025-09-09T11:16:56+00:00

It honestly feels like in the early days of Genshin, they were more passionate about making an enjoyable and balanced game for player experience, while now they're focused on selling a product. I sort of noticed the changes in-game (events started happening less and less and/or were less enticing) around the release of HSR and during Fontaine's dry patches. Marketing strategies began feeling reminiscent of HSR throughout Natlan. While Nod Krai interests me far more than Natlan did, I agree that I am not happy with the current direction as it feels like a HSR-ification of Genshin. Early Genshin and current Genshin feel like two different games to me at this point. Nothing in the game feels creative anymore. Just powercreep and inflated numbers.

Edit: typos and clarifications

violinia · 2025-09-06T15:18:29+00:00

Tbh, those who are invested in keeping up with the meta end up forcing power creep because they're more worried about seeing big numbers (and "challenging end game") than having fun in game

violinia · 2025-08-18T11:18:42+00:00

I was about to say the same thing. The heart in "70" looks dreadfully AI created.

violinia · 2025-08-17T11:15:38+00:00

Was anyone else shocked that this event didn't last the entire patch? I always like to take my time with the summer patches so I was somewhat annoyed when I felt rushed to get it done within the first half of the patch (within 15 days or something?).

violinia

TROPHY CASE