Genshin Impression gamers have been inadvertently locking themselves out of the latest main story replace, and so they’re not joyful. “Getting quest blocked whereas doing an archon quest is the brand new cockblock,” tweeted one participant. One even stopped their gaming session after getting “c0ckblocked.” Frankly, they’re proper.
I’ve skilled this for myself, and it’s maddening. Right here’s what’s been occurring: Gamers are desirous to dive into the sport’s latest story quests, simply added this week, through which they’re making an attempt to save lots of the nation of Sumeru from evil authorities officers who wish to create a synthetic god. The story is instructed in a limited-omniscient means that makes it really feel as if the plan has an opportunity of failing at each flip. The writers masterfully exploit the hole between the participant’s information versus what the characters know. It’s all very tense and excessive stakes. Till the sport tells you that you could’t preserve taking part in.
Right here’s the issue: Upon finishing a specific quest and hitting a narrative cliffhanger, some gamers are getting an data field that pops up and tells them that they will’t proceed till they full a sure facet character quest (or a number of). Gamers who haven’t accepted these explicit quests, or who’ve already accomplished them, can proceed simply high-quality, however a lot of folks depart these quests, first added a couple of months in the past, languishing of their quest logs for a while. In response to Reddit, it takes about an hour to finish these facet questlines. So if you happen to’ve been slacking on these character tales, you then’ll have to finish them earlier than you’re even allowed to the touch the storyline that HoYoverse has been advertising and marketing to you aggressively for the previous a number of weeks. There are presently three characters whose quests battle with the primary story: Cyno, Tighnari, and Nilou.
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Right here’s why: Plot-critical characters can’t be in two locations directly. So for them to be standing within the spot the place you want them to be for the brand new quest, it’s important to clear the outdated quest first. Like, I suppose it’s high-quality? Three hours will not be that a lot time within the grand scheme of Genshin Impression. However I do suppose it’s jarring that I’d be plotting to overthrow the federal government one second, after which I’ll should go assist Nilou transfer some containers of random junk the following. Or making an attempt to lure a robotic crab. Please, simply let me end the search that I’m truly excited for. Or let me delist them till I’m prepared to assist these characters carry out random chores.
I want that the builders had merely allowed us to decide on which quest we’re presently enterprise, which is what number of open-world video games work. As issues presently stand, you’re screwed if you happen to “accepted” a conflicting quest. And lots of gamers discover themselves locked out as a result of character quest “unlocks” are time gated.
Gamers aren’t simply given these character quests by default. With the intention to “unlock” them, gamers have to finish a sure variety of every day quests with the intention to obtain story keys. And gamers can solely accumulate a most of eight keys. So most gamers are incentivized to unlock the entire character tales as quickly as they grow to be accessible. Kotaku reached out to HoYoverse to ask if these quest conflicts can be patched in a future replace, however didn’t obtain a response by the point of publication.
So if you happen to haven’t accomplished the primary quest situation, then do not unlock the character quests.