Genshin Impact is the newest mobile RPG blockbuster this year, made by miHoYo of Honkai Impact 3 fame. The game is probably the most ambitious mobile open-world RPG to date, with beautifully designed maps just as big as any famous open-world titles in the market like Witcher 3 or Breath of the Wild.
In this Genshin Impact Beginner's Guide, we would list out the 10 most useful tips and tricks that you need to know before starting the game. While the tutorial is fairly good at explaining things, there are still quite a few systems that you need to figure out by yourself.
Genshin Impact Beginner's Guide
1 - The game's "Gacha" system of microtransactions is not important
Genshin Impact is a free-to-play game with a 100 million dollars development phase - they must find a way to get back their money somehow. This is where the "gacha" system of the game comes in: You can spend a certain amount of premium currency to get a character of various rarity.
Overall, this is pretty predatory, as it has one of the lowest rates in all gaming: 0.6% for an SSR (5 stars) character. However, you can definitely beat the game with 4 stars or lower characters - 5 stars are decent to have occasionally, but you can definitely survive without them.
The game also gives out premium currency through various in-game quests - you would be able to get a decent amount by just playing every day.
2 - Stock up on cooked meals
This is the main method of healing in Genshin. These meals restore your HP and are pretty fun to create, with a reaction based mini-game.
Meals can be cooked in campfires scattered across your journey. Sometimes you would have to go a long stretch without any healing - stock up on food is super important to sustain your character to the end of the content.
3 - Level your characters and weapons up as soon as possible
In Genshin Impact, character experience would be gained from exploring and fighting. You need to periodically check your character's stats, as the game does not really tell you when they can advance to the next level.
Enhance your weapons frequently as well. Just pick a weapon that you got from the beginner's gacha and stick with it - you don't need to be too optimal by waiting for a high-tier weapon, as anything with a high enough enhancement level can do the job.
Remember to equip all possible items on your character and switch them in/out frequently, especially artifacts. Some of them are quite strong and can make a lot of differences during fights.
4 - Collect everything you see
There are a lot of items to pick up in Genshin Impact's world.. from fruits in a nearby tree to a slime drop after killing a goo enemy. Most items are used in some kind of recipes or are part of equipment strengthening - it is important that you hoard and take everything you see.
5 - Focus on increasing your Adventurer's Rank
Adventurer's Ranks are gained by exploring the game's world, take on quests and discover new treasures. It marks the amount of experience you have gained and prevents you from getting some higher quality items and weapons (yes, some gears are locked behind adventurer's rank).
If you want to unlock more items in the shops and get the best upgrade, you would have to focus on exploring and completing quests to build your ranks instead of just grinding levels.
Adventurer's rank is also needed to unlock the co-op feature in Genshin Impact. The rank requirement is not high - you only need to spend a few hours exploring the game. The first 5-10 hours of the game is a fairly lonely solo experience but after Adventurer Rank level 16 and clearing a fair bit of the main story, you would be able to jump to other worlds and fight together with your friends.
Only the host can get the loots, of course.
6 - Switch between characters to create elemental combos
In Genshin Impact, you would play as a party of 4 characters... one at a time. You have to switch between them rapidly to perform elemental magics or combo attacks. Try to switch between them as frequently as possible to perform combos.
With 20 existing characters in the game, you would find a lot of different interesting combinations of weapons and elements.
Interested in more of our articles related to mobile games? Please check out this post to find out more about the system requirements for Genshin Impact.