Why Genshin Endgame Is Designed To Fail

I would add one more thing to that end game loop PNG I made at the end: your choice of how you like to enjoy your characters. Whether that’s abyss and exploration like me, teapot, just existing, something else, or if you can’t find your own satisfying part and then you get burned out like many do. Just to hopefully quell some comments: it was designed to fail for some, so it could succeed for others. Whether or not they walk the right line is up for debate, but you can’t deny that the game remains wildly successful. Personally I think they can easily address certain things without loosing the causal side, but let me know what you think!

I use the teapot solely to get the extra resin once a week (the friendship is a bonus)

There seriously NEEDS to be an endgame for co-op. Farming being literally the only content to play with friends is extremely boring. Co-op combat events have been the most fun so far but we need a long term endgame to play with friends. It also gets people to bring their friends into the game cause there’s actually something to do in co-op other than boosting someone or farming domains. So it’s a win-win for MiHoYo’s wallet.

TLDR: it’s not about the end game it’s about the friendship levels we gained along the way

You reach endgame when you are able to skip events and play the game when you want, not caring about the daily rewards you missed. In short, when you are free of the daily habit and FOMO.

The true Genshin endgame is to scroll all the NSFW subreddits to admire all the talented artwork thousands of people put out there.

The exploration is what keeps me coming back, for technically being free this games probably one of the best open world games, and it just gets bigger and better every other patch

by the way, if you 36 star the abyss, you get a whopping 600 primos!!! So that's 1200 primos per month, which isn't even worth 10 pulls... :)

Good points, but I also think it's important to mention the Archon Quests. I heard a lot of people saying they dropped the game around 3.5 and came back for Fontaine. I believe people are doing the same now. While the story may not be a main focus, the writing, especially in Fontaine, is very good. Not only do people fall in love with the pixels Hoyo is trying to sell, but the whole Teyvat lore is so elaborate that people won't get bored easily

The real endgame is logging in for 20 minutes on bathroom breaks and then going ahead and playing better games.

I think you're missing one major part people might keep returning to this game. Like with pretty much every rpg, people play them at least partially because of the storyline. When new areas get added, new main storyline quests also become available, and I believe this is what attracts players back to genshin after having breaks from the game. I think it's interesting how hoyoverse has managed to include elements from real cultures and religions and them into their game without them feeling too forced. The character designs, nomenclature and other lore have a nice bunch of small details that have some kind of interesting real life counterparts behind them. I think you could even make a video series of character designs, where you could analyse what their names mean in some language, certain decorations from their clothing resembling some real life counterpart etc. If you need examples, Nilou's silly looking hat/head decoration is from Sumerian and Akkadian iconography, and similar looking head pieces can be seen on depictions of deities and rulers. Edit: My point was, (not sure if it counts as 'endgame' though), some people keep playing because they want to see how the story ends, and what's the deal with the whole world of Teyvat and that mystery goddess we briefly see at the beginning of the game.

Ive never 36 starred, I beat floor 12 one time, with 1 star. The Games Story/ exploration is why I play

That "secret" endgame isn't the least bit secret. The real secret endgame is the deep dives into the lore.

Even though I'm one of the players who hate genshin's lack of end game and its waste of potential, I gotta say Mihoyo truly understands the Chinese market well. Chinese people live in a high pressure society where there is endless comparison and competition, most people feel insecure and anxious, they are too used to comparing and competing that they do so subconsciously. That's why despite Genshin is pretty much a single player game, any element of competitiveness would still stress out a lot of players. It's the reason genshin tries so hard to avoid stressing out casual players, because if harder content exist, many people would feel like the company is baiting them to spend or to grind, giving them a sense of inferiority. Most successful games focus on a group of core audience, Genshin on the other hand, focus on a much broader audience, to the point it becomes a minigame simulator. When we complain that genshin lacks core gameplay, we gotta realize it's intentionally trying to avoid core game play to satisfy a broader player base. Its goal is to become part of people's daily life. Chinese people's time is extremely limited and fragmented. Therefore. rather than being a traditional sense of "game" with deep gameplay, genshin tries to become the "topic" that people can talk about in the office or at school. The more friendly it is towards broader audience, the more people will keep talking about it, therefore the more popular it gets. People will discuss their favorite characters at work, at school, etc., despite not having much time to play, they still have something to look forward to in their daily life, and they would have the motivation to spend on characters.

Highly agree with many points made here. I'd also add that the 'keeping things accessible' mentality that has created many of the design to fail issues is also important for other reasons. Part of what keeps me coming back to Genshin is that I never feel punished for engaging in some content but not others.

I am someone who plays genshin on and off and it is because of imo what is lack of end game content, I have 90% of my characters maxed out and have most of the characters that I want and am rarely motivated to pull for more these days. I am passionate about game design myself and am pursuing a career in the gaming industry and am probably a little bit biased because of that as I see a lot of issues in genshin as hoyoverse purposely leaving them out as fixing them would actually potentially while being good interfere with the psychology of keeping the players coming back (tldr addiction/habbits). I find the whole casual vs hardcore players debate f*cking riddiculous, end game content does not need to be mandatory same as teapot and fishing arent which are what most would deem casual designs, same as you dont have to participate in them it can be designed so that casual players dont have to participate in end game. Sure the rewards might motivate them a bit but end game should not be enticing just cause of rewards but actually be fun itself otherwise it just defeats the purpose of end game content if its a one and done deal. there is COUNTLESS possibilities for creating end game content and pretending like it can only cater to 1 type of player or that it will harm the casuals and other usual excuses are just to me delusional and point to someone who hasnt really thought about actual design. circling back to main point I think hoyoverse hasnt added end game content because it wouldnt be proffitable for them, it might satiate players making them not log in constantly every day and build habbits, and obviously its going to be free content that will need developement time which they could use on other things that will bring in money and this is one of those moments where we as players should just demand to not be treated like cashcows, the game is making them insane amounts of money and they should invest into its quality vertically not just horizontally. The reason why I think so many genshin players are extra vocal about this (imo which they should be and it rly annoys me when people try to silence legitimate complaints and critiques) is because they can see the potential. Yes genshin is a gacha game where getting your faves is the general main selling point but we forget that gacha games are usually very simplistic and quick to play in nature but genshin also has a lot of elements in its core design that are DEFINITELY not traditional for the gacha systems and thats partially where that big clash comes from, it feels like 2 opposing genres meshed together, there is so much potential to expand and build on elements that are akin to mmorpgs or action based games with genshins combat being really dynamic and strategic. also it would just be fun to actually do something fun with friends in genshin, the "coop" in this game is just horrendous

My problem with this idea or at least how I feel is that for every character I get a feel less motivated to play, because I can't use them all, and I have nothing to really use them on. There is just no point if there is nothing more reliable to use them in. I still feel slight motivation to collect characters because I am missing certain elements and supports to reliably do the abyss, but after that I don't know if I will feel any pull towards the game, since I can already do everything with I have.

The most fun I've had with current endgame content is trying to beat abyss with stupider and stupider teams. Clearing with DPS Candace gives me close to that first time thrill in a way that building Neuvilette hyperbloom never will.

I think having an option of how you get your daily rewards would benefit the game a lot. The game gives 60 primos daily that can be collected by either commission or exploration. If you add combat tcg teapot to the mix then the people will be able to get it by playing their favourite modes. Keep in mind its same resource you can get through different means and not different things from different modes

i wish there was more co-op stuff, that's one of my most wanted things! and maybe more outfits for characters, considering the end-game loop really is just character collection.