*Imaginarium Theater* is getting better _but_ I still want a mode more akin to how *Laybrinth Warriors,* as it was way more "balls to the wall" in it's approach: run around, try a path, get rekt by a debuff, try a hard room to get a ress, get some new random team member to replace a fallen comrade, run around a bit more to try and find the exit, skip some rooms and try to beat the boss without enough buffs, get rekt... It was peak. XD
I was never a huge LW fan, didn't hate it, but it didn't quite click for me. That said, I think with some improvement it's could be something really special. And even if I don't end up liking it, I know others will, so I hope they do bring it back in some form for those who do. That and having multiple forms of End Game keeps things fresh, like HSR does.
I'm almost certain that LW was refined and what both Simulated Universe and Hollow Zero for both HSR and ZZZ respectively, which makes me more upset about it since they got this rouge-like game mode that is pretty fun.
I would say thay being critical is very very important even when they improve. I say that considering that many things on this game were changeless for very long, so if after a change there is more that can be done, it's good to point out so they don't think they can stop making changes, when there is still things to do.
I think it's equally important to celebrate the good changes they make. If after making improvements people just complain about new stuff, there is no reason for them to work on improvements. That doesn't mean never criticize again, but the general discourse should be more positive right after a patch with the most improvements they have ever put in one patch.
@@isaacweber9435 I think it's good to point what went better, but since they are a company, what should consist as "praise" is not saying it in videos, but engaging in the game. More people playing the mode, or just talking about it in general. I am saying that considering a big studio like Hoyo's, praise is important for indie devs for sure.
You're correct but I literally didn't see him enjoy a single new addition to the game. I watched him sit and watch the 5.0 steam with the huge QoL announcments and just complain about every addition, whats fun about that?
@edenrav Damm, if he couldn't like even the last round of improvements, he won't ever like the game... For me it was like the Nintendo 64 meme for at least 20 minutes straight.
@@1Henrink Hoyo may be a big company, but it's still composed of hard working individuals who would benefit from praise. Just because they work for Hoyo doesn't mean they don't deserve kind words.
While you can be a bit overly negative sometimes, one of the things I love about your videos is that you are honest about the characters instead of hyping them, it helps keep me from wasting primos or going all in building a character that ends up being disappointing. Meanwhile, other channels will put out videos like "Broken electro support!? Dori is insane!"
@@oppa5346 I feel like there could be some sort of compromise then. Like you can choose 1-4 for the first half of acts, but you *have* to choose 4 for the rest.
I think the fact that you can bring extra ones alleviates this a bit because you have a bigger pool so you have more trash to fill those slots with and/or more possibilities of good units in the future so sacrificing one doesn't feel as bad But yeah that was definitely my main complaint before this update and i still find it kinda annoying
@@davidlg571 nah I like variety. I still want more floors in abyss, but I think having rotating modes is more fun since it's not the same every 2 weeks
I wish they would add envirement to endgame modes, like enemys on rocks, paddles of water, wind currents and so on. Genshin has so much to ofer yet they do nothing. Imagine each abyss would be like an arena with different elemental envirements. There is one with rocks that enemys stand on and you have to climb or fly up. An arena with wind currents so you can move faster and to plunge attacks. What about ice walls that block your way but you can destroy them with pyro which creates warte puddles or if you shatter them it deals aoe dmg on enemys behind the wall. I wish they would get creative with the battle arenas in endgame
the closest thing to that were floors 9 and 10 of Spiral Abyss from 1.2 to 1.6 where the Dragonspine mechanic of freezing was always present so you had to worry about dying because of it. Floor 9 had torch spots and floor 10 had Fire Seelies moving around so you had to use them in order to avoid the cold as much as you can. iirc a lot of players hated those mechanics in Abyss so I don't think they will add smth like that again. All in all, I don't see them adding more things to Abyss if they are gonna affect combat in any way because there will always be players that hate said things
I still think IT exacerbated the fact building character genshin is very very slow. I have seen people ended up stressing over building character or thinking building character for IT isn't worth it.
The floor for the character needed are very low, you dont really high invested char to clear it, thats why the enemy in IT is easy and not as tanky as in abyss, so you can still clear even if your char sucks balls
@@omega6826 The problem is that you still need lvl 70 characters, which is very frustrating since it requires you to "waste" resin building multiple characters you will never use. The level requirement also feels very artificial, forcing you to spend at least a few days of resin per character, but leaving them at a point of which they are still useless in an actual run. Also anyone who doesn't look at leaks is gonna get a funny ||Geo|| jump scare next IT.
@@WhatThe_e You already contradicted yourself by saying "it requires you to "waste" resin building multiple characters you will never use." Either you build them because you plan to use them, or you don't. No one is forcing you but obviously if you're building them for IT then you plan to use them. It's about time Genshin finally gave us more reason to build more characters.
@@shinobu1886 There's nothing completely forcing you, yes. But there is a BIG push, that being, if you don't have enough characters you will lose out on primos every single patch, specifically, you lose the equivalent of $3 worth of primos (per genesis crystals). It takes about 6 days worth of resin to level a character to 70. The level requirement is inherently flawed because your not building characters to use, your building just enough characters to barely reach this arbitrary requirement before the next IT. The reason to build a character is to play them, not to bench them in order to make a number tick up while neuvillette solos.
The new blessings are a huge W also who would've thought! You have a Theatre with elements that are actually good or actually synergize well and it's actually fun!
Zajeff can be negative for sure but it’s important to hear in contrast with a lot of other creators. They show the pros, he shows the cons, and together you have an accurate assessment
I think that the biggest thing in the way of IT being fun its the amount of characters you need, even after the changes. I can meet the requirements, but even so its not fun. Also totally agree on the exploration part. Its and open world game why is it that both the abbys AND IT are in a round arena with nothing in it. Even HSR SU has those arcade game where you have to chase pigs and stuff.
I do think that they can double the amount of trial characters, maybe 6 of them can be level 80 and 6 can be level 70 to still eventually encourage horizontal investment
You are right about abyss area feeling boring (boring same music and same starry area), though fighting in an enclosed space will probably be less resource intensive on low end phones.
It is so frustrating when they create great "dungeons" in 5* story quests, that can only be used once. Like send me back in there with the whole place more populated with enemies to fight through. Thinking of zhong li quest where we go through salt gods old home, and chiori going through that sketchy factory.
@@13Nagash13 Agree, I already mentioned that a couple times in the shithole thats reddit, they could easily reuse assets to make dungeons with puzzles and combat, to create content to fill the gaps between patches with content. I got disliked to oblivion everytime so I stoped trying.
Hard disagree. I'm glad Genshin finally rewarding players who horizontally invested into a wider range of characters, including multiple DPS's of the same element, instead of the just going all in on the 2+ teams you need for abyss. This gave on field DPS's much more value than they did before. You only needed a couple before, especially if they're the same element, and then after that it was kinda pointless and up to you to change it up.
I wish they gave us the ability to retry that last room after completing it, because I missed the stella by mere seconds and to get it I'd need to do the Imaginarium Theatre from the beginning
Ppl have been asking this since 1.0 They will not do anything close to it. For me it should go until you fail, abyss is the same, so you can see how far can you climb.
Yeah I had trouble with it too coz of the remaining characters I have to use are mostly dps (e.g. Raiden, Neuvi, Arle, Lyney) and only have Benny and Kazu for support. I have to use Rewind for the first time to reroll my characters. Finally stella cleared it with Alhaitham my Mvp, Yelan, Raiden and Benny.
Zajef saved nahitional for last boss and cleared it in 30 seconds om To him and any endgame player it was way too easy. I have more problems with hologram 6 and ToA then I do Abyss + IT combined.
honestly if they added just 2 more acts or something in visionary mode it'd be a lot more fun. i didnt even get to use most of my 5 stars because i was saving them; spent 90 minutes gearing for a 10 minute fight
This is why I have always have build my characters with their own artifacts. I could just jump in. Except for traveler, had to switch her element and gear. Still artifact loadouts would be great. Want to be able to switch Raiden between dmg and EM build and the like.
W self-awareness at the start of the vid, love to see a little nuance amongst all the (often warranted) criticisms of Genshin/Hoyo. not that I have anything particularly against heavily critical content or opinions, it's just nice to hear some positivity once in a while :) excited for Xilonen pre-release!!
The new blessings solidified the opinion on theater that i, and a lot of people, had since day 1: Random teams are not fun. The bloom blessing allowed me to play a Nilou bloom team without Nilou (Ayato, Candace, Yao Yao and Kirara) which was really fun but the vigor + randomnes of theater made it so that this team only lasted 1 run against triple Kenki because everyone except for Ayato was at 1 vigor. If i could use any team i wanted, even if i still had to follow elemental restrictions, i would have had a lot more fun and i would actually consider replaying the mode multiple times to experiment with teams that are only possible with reaction blessings, but thats simply not gonna happen because reseting until i get exactly what i want cancels all the fun i could have had. So even tho im happy they are taking a step in the right direction, the next step would require changing the thing that defines the game mode which i cant see happening soon. There are ways to make a game mode that requires 20+ characters still allow for no randomnes (such as requiring multiple runs with multiple teams to get full rewards, maybe give less points every time you repeat a character like some combat events do) but i dont want to get my hopes up just with "what ifs" so ill keep waiting for now
Then go play Abyss lol. Random teams make it so much more fun, forces non meta teams and improvisation. Each run can be very different unlike the bland gameplay of Abyss.
Before i watch the full video i feel like the biggest thing to change is getting rid of lvl requirement. Like why cant i use a lvl 1 amber to trigger vape.
My biggest problem with """difficult""" endgame content for Genshin is is still relies on enemies having different elemental shields that use ICD and strictly force you to use certain elements, and even certain characters within those elements that have consistent elemental damage output. Having enemies designed to just waste your time as much as possible, be it shields or going underground, it's awful. Baptist final boss is unbelievably stupid. I used hyperbloom to beat it and it felt like cheese.
There are still things that need to get improved. Maybe they could implement a system where we can swap out an element for another one, so that people who got more characters of an element can still play it. Then they could make some adjustments to the point system, cause I feel we don't get enough. Finally they could make it a little harder. Not too much, as we need to improvise teams, but still a little more to make it more interesting
Disagree with swapping an element out, that would defeat the purpose and people would just select meta reactions. Additionally, it will do good to incentivize players into building a balanced variety of elements with rotating elements. The other 2 I can agree with.
I honestly just wish we had the option to not build 4 man teams. Using up 4 characters' energy in the first couple acts when you could easily clear it with 1 or 2 feels really wasteful
While the new buffs help a decent amount theatre is still kinda ruined for me by not being able to just pick a team and go. As much as I like the idea of a team drafter, for a rogue like mode I think building around a team would help a lot while also allowing you to just play a character if you really want to (like let's say a new character just got released and you wanna play them. You can kinda only go abyss 20 times and maybe farm local legends, theatre REALLY doesnt help here)
Even in visionary mode when i had 26 characters i found it annoying that there was no option at all to restore vigor to characters like previous theaters. I appreciate the buffs for the reactions, BUT it’s still not always worth it to buy reaction buff over characters from the alternative cast EDIT: typing mistake corrected
I like this iteration so much already. Finally giving players focus on what team to use, also really like the new difficulty cus you actually have to think super carefully about what characters to use or you'll find yourself with a scuffed team at the final fight.
He made it look like the lizard's not siphoning a yoimillion hp every second and permalocking your ult... is this what a well built Arlecchino look like
This theater was very rage inducing, mainly cause I was too dumb to look at the upcoming enemies and had to restart my character selections after the vishap, the hydro cryo mages, and then baptiste. Was ez pz after I had a team ready for each
I accidentally cornered myself into having a fun challenge in the last chamber of IT this cycle. My last 4 units I could really use were Kazuha, Mona, Arlecchino and Kirara which combined have like exactly enough application to one shot the elemental sheild of each phase but which I had to use mindfully to kill it within the time limit.
A similar thing happened to me, I used Furina Raiden Collei(c2+) Chevreuse(is that how you spell her name) and they barely have enough Elemental Application to break the shields, I have to dash backwards at the start so the boss doesn't teleport away, it was tough but so satisfying once you cleared the challenge
mine was Neuvi, Furina, AlHaitham, and Shogun never expected to see the day I would use two halves of a team combined into one team to counter the baptist.. genuinely had fun with it, I had to restart it multiple times to get the proper rotations against the baptist's shield
As someone who’s horizontally invested in my characters but mostly stopped pulling once Sigewinne dropped, I was happy that IT at least lets you use trial versions of the new characters now.
I'm AR60 and i only had 16 character eligeble for this iteration of the imaginarium theater... am now scrambling and using all my resin to level up characters just so i can play visionary mode they should definitely lower the minimum character required to try it
I think imaginarium really shines for me because I have a decent amount of characters but not enough built to the max! So things like the cards vastly increasing niche-er reactions like burgeon or burning is really fun to see. Things like the cards giving you an additional hydro or pyro application is enough to change things up from abyss enough to be fun imo
i like the new theater a lot chars like collei, dps kokomi, thoma, dehya especially literally carried me in some floors its nice to give them some time to shine
Proof of how impactful the new buffs are: I was playing a normal Nilou team in Act 8 but my only healer (EM Barbara) struggled to keep up. None of my available dendros at that point were healers, and pyro wouldn't do anything in that chamber, so I ended up replacing Nilou herself with PNEUMA FURINA, comfortably beating the chamber with plenty of time to spare.
I had to bring 10 characters I levelled to the minimum requirements to be allowed entry to visionary mode, and playing theater by balancing wasting chaff units with working 2 character teams most battles was more annoying than fun. Naturally I can keep working on building those characters, but I didn't build them before because I don't really like these characters in the first place, so doing it just for theater really isn't something I want to do. That said, after seeing how much better Zajef's experience with theater was than mine, it looks like it could be at least a little fun with all my characters being built. Thanks for the showcase.
very surprised they listened. I still don't love the mode, but the new level was significantly more fun than before, so props to them for putting in some dev work and listening
they could add a thing to pay flowers to not fill a slot. That would at least somewhat compensate as you'd be sacrificing future character gains/buffs to try and stretch the characters you have now and have a bit more strategy around the flower economy. like -33% per slot unfilled for flower rewards.
i love the changes to the theater and I hope they improve it more and maybe add new modes to it in the future like sim uni in star rail. ALso I hope they start to work on abyss aswell please give it some love
"Overly negative" is all contextual and is a different viewpoint rather than parroting the same thing. I'm the same way but I channeled mine into an Operations Management Supply Chain Management degree where that negativity detector is constructive looking to minimize/prevent problems in a system before things hit the fan. Being aware and channeling it constructively while monitoring the actually negative side is a good thing for all of us so we aren't robotically responding to the world. I watch your channel for your low filter and downside honesty because it's the "price" of the potential fun. I quit Genshin over Imaginarium Theater because it is Not Fun and now I only get half the primos from Spiral Abyss because I'm expected to get them from the drek. I'm still watching your videos in case something worthwhile comes back. (P.S. to me Imaginarium is nothing but a force to get more people buying Welkin/Battlepass at the cost of fun. I describe it as Artifact Farming made into an "endgame" mode)
What boggles me about Genshin's choice of endgame, is the fact that it's an exploration game, some of the characters even have freaking passives that affect the exploration (stamina decrease when running at specific time of day, climbing, gliding etc.) or have skills that also work for exploration (Yelan's E for example), yet they don't include ANY kind of exploration in their endgame. We literally had a combat event that, to some degree, included exploration. The Labyrinth Warriors was basically a prototype for HSR's SU. All they had to do was tweak it a bit, polish it up and make it a permanent mode and it would've EASILY been the best endgame for Genshin.
Yes it got better, but getting enough characters is still by far the most difficult part about the mode, and while trying different empowered reactions is a fun little novelty, there's very little actual difference between runs. To "fix" the mode for me they need to let go of some of the restrictions they imposed, like allowing one extra element per rotation or any number of characters in teams, cause rn even as veteran you need to level up almost everyone you've got just to consistently meet the entry qouta, and that's just not a fun way of "encouraging" players.
If you're a veteran and can't keep up, either really poor investment management or a skill issue. I played for over a year and can max fill the character requirements easily. "Letting go" of the restrictions would then just make it another boring version of the Abyss.
@@shinobu1886 I did full clear all rotations so far fyi. IT is just as boring as the Abyss, except way more annoying to deal with cause you can't always use teams you actually like playing to clear it. If leveling all the characters you have indiscriminately and playing random shit is fun for you then godspeed, sure as hell ain't for me.
As someone with insane horizontal investment (I do also have vertical investment too), this mode's starting conditions were so easy for me to meet. Its more of an OCD for me to equip every raised chara with their own sets & weapons + raise talent lvls. & I've done it for everyone who is lvl70 ascended in my account. For me, this game mode just feels like an excuse to finally use all these charas + their own personal builds lmao 😭Not necessary until now, but ig it was useful that I did do that
From my experience, the reaction buffs are powerful enough that it’s doable with really bad gear as long as you have enough ER to burst and HP/DEF to not get 1 hit KO’d. It was ugly (no star and 3 seconds left on the timer), but I got through a few stages with wrong main stats and wrong set artifacts on a few of the characters I “built” by taking gear off characters that were not participating.
I liked that I was forced to level up characters I’ve always been somewhat interested in but never built because I was never actually going to use them in Abyss (for me it was Gaming, Kirara, Klee). It has me interested that ill be building other characters to 70 for other Imaginarium. I also enjoy that its 70 and not 80/90 so you can realistically build a few characters up to that in a week or two (as long as you have weapons and don’t care about talents too much lol).
New blessings are a step in the right direction, but random unit acquisition will never make for a fun experience for me. Scuffed teams don't feel good to play regardless of how many dmg bonuses blessings give us. Really want them to do away with element specific character cards and just make all character acquisition cards allow us to select any unit from the available pool. They already basically force us into running 6 starter units, so if they won't change how character acquisition works the least they could do is let us select which 6 units we start with.
The imaginarium theater definitely encourages account diversity with having many characters. It mostly rewards players for horizontal investment. I actually quite like this because similar to HSR, you hear content creators like EODGamer admit that they regret getting an E6 (aka C6) character. Mainly because they are no longer as “meta” as other characters and are outperformed due to power-creep. IMO players with diagonal investment (C1-C2; R1) actually reap the most rewards because having enough characters well built and with higher forms of investment means you should be able to tackle both forms of endgame content given enough skill and knowledge. Obviously, this is my take but I think Hoyo is actually cooking with imaginarium theater.
im a horizontally invested gamer so im loving this personally, although i can definitely see why it's unfriendly towards newer players (it is an endgame mode though at the end of the day)
As someone who loves building characters im thriving it's so fun! I'm f2p so it feels very satisfying knowing despite that im still meeting the requirements and breezing through the hardest difficulty But i can definitely understand the other side of the coin and why people dislike the high requirements. I think lowering the requirements but still allowing you to bring extra ones was a good compromise
@@halethaden same. I have 35 lvl90 5 stars, and most of them at talent lvl9+ with ok to decent artifacts. That's not even counting the 4 stars, being finally able to have a use for so many leveled character is very fun, as before most of them just rotted in my inventory since I just played them to friendship 10 and ditched
my problem is that the mode will likely require at least 16 characters with proper artifact sets. HSR's divergent universe literally gives your ungeared characters something to play with.
Tbf thats just star rail being a very powercreep heavy game. In genshin unless your character was already unusably bad your c6 is gonna be relevant for a long time.
The thing i disliked about this theatre is for the bosses. The Lector is one of the bosses i hate the most, because it requires certain elements to cear. Combine needed elements with restricted elements and randomized characters sucks ass. The other thing is the aura the lizard had. Just give me all the characters up front and randomize the buffs and stuff. And letting us use teams of less than 4 would be cool. Other then that, it was quite fun.
agree need to add a feat where u can select ops less than 3 characters... kinda annoying they forced u to do 4 characters when u wanna save the energy of others for the next flrs, or the team u had just enuf for stages also imo they need to add more rng to elite battles.... like i found a rly challenging elite stage that rly have troubles, and when i wanna do it again, i cant find it... so yeah (and also make the elite battles more rewarding, as i see it we only get more currencies, which is iirc not +50% of what u get in normal ones..., maybe add a buff or give more of those flowers) but then again its true this one more enjoying than abyss... just hope they improve this further
They lowered the requirements though All they did was add an extra difficulty, but that's on top of what we already had, you're gaining the exact same amount of primos you did before if you go for the hard difficulty
@@DeJaVu804 if you cant complete it because you dont have enough characters that can fight the current endgame level bosses, than it was too challenging for you to complete with your current account, no?
I never liked this mode nor I see which part of it got better. This, right now, is just a worse and more trashy version of the abyss. It has a timer, you need to own so many characters and build all of them to get good results. You can't even start a fight with 2 characters to save the rest for the upcoming stage. And here is the worst part of it (thankfully the abyss was spared from it): IT IS RANDOM. It can take more time to beat (full score) than the abyss because you might get a very bad lineup. Why do they love to waste our time? I would rather if they made a rouge like permanent event or something, assuming they can execute it properly and make it fun. I know my comment comes off as a completely negative take, but it has been 4+ years and this is what they managed to do in terms of game modes? Give me something that's as boring but it doesn't take more than 5 minutes and I'll be fine with it. That's how low my standards for this game has become.
honestly didnt notice much difference from previous difficulty wise, only fight i had to retry like 7 times is the dragon that sucks your energy with its aura, i was trying to use random chars but i had to just use the ones i was saving to get the bonus star, the buffs are a good change before i didnt even bother at all.
I dont mind the 2 use limitation IF the randomization was removed. Let me save my best characters for the hardest rounds at the end, by giving me the whole roster to pick from. I ended up with fights that had nohealers and others with just carries and no support because of shit luck on the character randomization. Also dont force me to take the level 80 trial characters, just let me take more of mine if i want. I usually end up forcing them onto teams in first 2 rounds just to get rid of them during easy rounds. But some are just so bad they sit there taking up a slot the whole 10 rounds because i dont want them on any teams, meanwhile i have lvl 90 characters the correct element i cant take because i ran out of slots.
I'm f2p and ar 60 and don't have enough characters to play the hardest mode. Maybe I just have to build a bunch of random characters I'll never use outside of imaginarium theater but either way still frustrated by the character restrictions.
I personally just built a lot of the lower effort 4 stars overtime because they were rarely useful and it wasn't hard to build them. Characters like Thoma, Laya, Diona, Yaoyao, Kirara, Heizou, Lynette, and now Kachina don't really need must investment to be functional. Thoma can need a bit higher artifact quality if you're trying to do triple em main stat and get enough er but you can just use a er sands if you have to. Would just build the 4 star shielders, vv appliers, and those who can have useful elemental app if you lack enough units to do the mode. But yeah I agree the amount of characters needed should really just be lowered and they should allow you to use 3 units in a chamber if you want to.
As another f2p who did make it to the hardest difficulty my advice is to prioritise the traveler (you don't have to actually build them, just level them to 70) because that's a +1 character to any cycle just switch the element And prioritise characters that don't need investment to work, for example kachina who doesn't need levels or talents or even main stats, as long as she has a full set she does her job. This way you get at least some value out of these character instead of them just being a dead slot in your teams Good luck!
@@twigz3214i agree they should allow you to use 3 units or less but the requirements Were lowered for all difficulties They did add an extra difficulty but if you stick to hard you're getting the same amount of primos you were before but with less characters required
@@EdenVix Think the mode would function fine anyway even if the final mode needed 1-2 less characters. I had extras but also have been playing since 1.2.
Not an issue for me. I have more level 90 units than level 50 unbuilt characters. And those lvl 50s are pretty low in number. I usually just level everyone 70/80 for free wishes and if needed I go farther
gameplay doesnt change that much since the strat is still the same, use all of the trials/less built characters on early stages and aim for additional characters rather than going for unique buffs for early card picks since you cant start with less than 4 characters per run, once you get enough chars then its time to go for buffs (but now you can instead pick unique reaction cards). the problem with this mode is still the same, but i will be lying if i say i dont have any fun with those unique buffs. lvl 4 bloom upgrade with nilou is indeed overkill and i heckin love it when it happens. hoyo seems taking their time to "improve" this game mode and maybe thats for the best, i guess
I still don't understand why they chose THE WORST event for PERMANENT endgame, and they have NEVER rerun labyrinth warriors. They just don't want you to have fun in Genshin. So you only spend time with Paimon in story and you only do tedious fights on arenas with the characters you don't want to use. I feel like even Capitano and Snezhnaya are not enough to keep me playing.
If you're any good at resource and risk/reward management IMO you'll maybe run into a situation where you have to pick a character that doesn't really fit or that you really want to hold onto maybe once in a whole run in my experience across three IT versions now. This really does seem to be the issue at the end of the day for most people though is just not wanting to bother with having to play with the cards they get dealt and use the systems to level the playing field with better buffs and adding more characters to their available pool or even having a chance at restoring vigor to one. I was all kinds of ready to be underwhelmed with the mode because of how poorly received it seemed to be and haven't even found the RNG to be a fraction of the problem it's been implied to be since there's often some sort of mitigating factor to the RNG that you can exploit if you plan your route reasonably well. Like the RNG IS there for sure, but it's fairly easily worked around to just kind of a be a factor rather than the overwhelming hinderance it's been billed as.
@@shinobu1886 Yeah sorry but across 3 IT's now, much as I hate to say it it really is just kind of a matter of "Git Gud", know your characters, teams and strengths and enemy weaknesses and exploits and learn to resource manage and spend your fantasia flowers wisely. It's not like it's required content either unless you want the extra rewards from it which are some of the higher value items in the game.
Honestly? I didn't notice the changes much but it definitely felt better to play than previous cycles. My main complaint was that it requires 4 characters per team, and while it still does that, i think it's now alleviated by the fact that you can bring more characters, you have a bigger pool to choose from. Also it requires less characters so that's good for people who don't have enough. I already had fun with the old IT but i did find myself struggling a bit in some chambers for the star, this time around i steamrolled through visionary first try but im unsure if that's because of the new buffs or simply bc the elements were better for me, but overall the difficulty didn't seem to change imo.
I don't tend to enjoy spiral abyss much and I didn't enjoy the first two IT runs. This time was a definite improvement but still not something I look forward to doing yet.
I never really cared all that much for Spiral Abyss, but I've actually kind of come to look forward to IT at this point. Spiral Abyss has always kind of felt like an "I guess it's time to grind my way through it again" affair that I usually do on the last few days of a rotation. Definitely one of this games biggest shortcomings was that being the only real end game mode it had for almost 4 years and it being a fairly run of the mill straight DPS check for the most part.
13:24 doesn't matter, I cleared this with full em raiden (but the em didn't matter), artefactless thomas, noblesse Xingqiu and Chevreuse who doesn't work because of Xingqiu
The defense and bounty challenges feel so unbalanced. In defense if you choose Lawachurls or constructs, they will just destroy the monolith with no input from you. In bounties i chose abyss mages once and I had less time to kill 8 of the fuckers spawning 1 at a time, than I had to kill 3 Kairagi. I ran tripple hydro, but just couldn't keep up.
Still don't like that it's basically a character roster check, I have amazing hyper invested characters but I just don't 22 characters of 3 elements, not all that fun
I tend to be very picky with the characters I pull and prefer getting constellations on my favourites instead of grabbing shiny new toys I know I'm never going to use, so I also struggled with fielding 22. Thankfully, there's a ton of 4-stars you can level to 70 just to gain entry without actually building them, so their goofy horizontal investment incentive isn't going to work.
@@vladdyru this is the way! Im f2p so i need to be careful with my primos and don't pull for any character unless they're a)super meta or b) i love them a lot, but I've been doing the hardest difficulty by building my 4 stars The lower investment they need the better it is (aka slap a support set and weapon on them and call it a day). It's pretty easy so you don't actually need super good or actually built characters like in abyss
@@davidlg571 i know it's not a new mode or anything but i think the local legends achievements are a step in the right direction, they've been kicking my ass in the new difficulty and actually survive a full rotation (multiple in fact). Most are fun to do
It's pretty fun imo, but it's still waaaaay too easy as someone who played since 1.0 I just wipe the floor with my characters, good rewards tho. Like neuvilette or almost any other of my dps on the last two "boss" challenges just knocks everything. The boons make it strong too.
It shouldn't even be hard in the first place, it would've been ridiculous if it actually was anything but easy. Hard content requires coherent teams, and that's out of the picture with the Theater's element restriction.
@@alexprus7953idk if u faced the ruin enemies but a ruin grader used his run attack while I was distracted he took 50% of the monolith hp with 1 attack I was shook
I started 3.7. And yeap it’s actually really easy. I don’t think they can really make it any tougher tbh. It’s difficult to make teams work when you can’t really choose proper teams. That being said, it’s a good sign I suppose that they added more floors. Maybe that’ll slowly happen to abyss then
To me, theater is ruined by the time limit. Without it, you could potentially finish the fight with lvl 10 team Dark Souls style. If they just removed the stupid timer, I would enjoy it much, much more.
This IT is significantly better than the last one, the only issue I ran into is the stage where I need to defeat 8 PYRO Abyss Mage, and there were slimes that interrupts my attacks, I used all my Hydros and still couldn't pass with a star, had to rewind, that part wasn't fun at all.
I picked it accidentaly, because I saw pyro enemies and thought to myself "I have Neuvillette and Furina saved for last 2 acts, it will be a breeze". In fact it was fucking far from it. Retried that room 20 times and finally with team consisting off Neuvillette, kazuha (for moral support), kirara (to block slimes from interrupting) and Furina I manged to pull the star. Increasing DPI on my mouse to 20k until I was physically unable to see what I'm doing and spinning with Neuvi was a key to do it.
I got that one as well I couldn't complete it at all. I went out and in again and suddenly the enemies changed, not sure what happened but it saved my run so I am glad it did
Its a real shame I dont have Neuvillette, I used Furina Kokomi Barbara and Kirara, I dont even think that stage is win-able without Neuvillette (not to defend myself, but that stage is seriously unfair). I did see other variation of the stage as well with the Hydro Mage but luckily I learned my lessons and avoided that stage
You are not overly negative or anything. people are just too positive. so when you slightly ever mentioned anything negative. they will dogpile on you. it is not your fault but I appreciate that you still acknowledge the criticism toward you even though it wasn't fair to begin with. I think being positive is nice and all but being too much positive to the point where it become toxic positivity is what these people are. that's why they often being dismissive toward your negativity. I will never understand why people are so eager to defend or not being critical toward corporate company that prey on human psychology. at the end of the day, they are still corporate company, and their goal is to make money. its never about passion. and before anyone get mad at me, I'm not talking about their employees, I'm talking about the higher up. I'm pretty sure that Hoyo employees does have passion for video games but there's only so much they can do, however, the final say is always the higher up. I dont think a lot of people knows how human psychology work or maybe they just lack self-awareness. it is human's tendency to remember negative experiences over positive experiences. its called "negativity bias", it is tied to our instinct to keep us survive like other animal on the planet. it explains why no one bat an eye when you praise the game but losing their mind every time you being negative to the game. Anyway, back to IT topic. I think its still a shit mode. there's no justification for game mode that forces you to pull more characters and leveling them up, resources are expensive in this game. so if someone isnt a long time player/dolphin/whale, they are going to ran out of their resources. yes, it is end-game but end-game should be accessible to anyone regardless of whenever they are able to clear or not. take Spiral Abyss, for example. everyone can access to it but once they realize that "Oh, this is an end game stuff" they will leave it at that and come back later once they are ready. it doesnt take long for someone to 36 stars the abyss but it sure af gonna take someone at least a year (and possibly a ton of money) to have enough character to do Visionary Imaginarium Theater. for context, my friend play this game for 2 years, she is a welkin + BP spender and she still doesnt have enough character to play on Visionary mode. thats just how shitty this system is. do I enjoy it ? kinda, yeah, but I do not like the premise of it. if they remove character restriction or at least allow 4-5 elements, then yeah, cool ! but right now, 3 elements aint it. I want everyone to be able to have fun with this game mode without feeling the need to pull for more character.
I breezed through the whole thing except act 10... that was such a pain and I even had proper elements, C2 Raiden and Neuvillette in team... Took me like 20 tries. Can't imagine how mad I would be if I did not have elements needed to break the shields and needed to reset the whole run. Also 75 seconds is too little for this enemy that teleports and takes 5 seconds to enter imo.
Neuv is mid vs. Baptist since his elemental application is pretty weak. You're relying entirely on him hitting the damage phase to make up for lost time on shield phase. Raiden is actively bad vs. Baptist, since her skill does not proc against shields, and electro is not ideal for those specific elements. You'd be relying entirely on burst infusion. For that specific Baptist shield combination, you want hydro vs. pyro, dendro vs. hydro, and pyro vs. electro. "Coincidentally" the same elements of this Imaginarium cycle. So something like Bennett / Xiangling / Xingqiu / Nahida. Instantly obliterates all shields, easy fight.
@@phoenixlau I actually had no issues breaking his pyro shield with Neuv (ult -> skill -> normal -> charged usually broke it), biggest problem was hydro one for me. Other than those two I had Beizhu and Thoma/Bennet. Bennet didn't work at all for me so I went with Thoma in the end. Beizhu's application is too weak I know but I had noone else left from Dendro. I had Raiden for dmg there but after I finished I checked her build (she was support from friend) and she had like 50 CR so... :/
*Imaginarium Theater* is getting better _but_ I still want a mode more akin to how *Laybrinth Warriors,* as it was way more "balls to the wall" in it's approach: run around, try a path, get rekt by a debuff, try a hard room to get a ress, get some new random team member to replace a fallen comrade, run around a bit more to try and find the exit, skip some rooms and try to beat the boss without enough buffs, get rekt... It was peak. XD
If we got Labyrinth Warriors as a permanent event, I’d be very happy Ngl
I was never a huge LW fan, didn't hate it, but it didn't quite click for me. That said, I think with some improvement it's could be something really special. And even if I don't end up liking it, I know others will, so I hope they do bring it back in some form for those who do. That and having multiple forms of End Game keeps things fresh, like HSR does.
I'm almost certain that LW was refined and what both Simulated Universe and Hollow Zero for both HSR and ZZZ respectively, which makes me more upset about it since they got this rouge-like game mode that is pretty fun.
Same shit
Not a chance, that event was very unpopular in cn.
R i p mualani post release
He takes at least a month lol
ta7
What's up emilie
@@freddiem6805so then where’s Emilie?
it is not yet time 🗿
I would say thay being critical is very very important even when they improve. I say that considering that many things on this game were changeless for very long, so if after a change there is more that can be done, it's good to point out so they don't think they can stop making changes, when there is still things to do.
I think it's equally important to celebrate the good changes they make. If after making improvements people just complain about new stuff, there is no reason for them to work on improvements. That doesn't mean never criticize again, but the general discourse should be more positive right after a patch with the most improvements they have ever put in one patch.
@@isaacweber9435 I think it's good to point what went better, but since they are a company, what should consist as "praise" is not saying it in videos, but engaging in the game. More people playing the mode, or just talking about it in general. I am saying that considering a big studio like Hoyo's, praise is important for indie devs for sure.
You're correct but I literally didn't see him enjoy a single new addition to the game.
I watched him sit and watch the 5.0 steam with the huge QoL announcments and just complain about every addition, whats fun about that?
@edenrav Damm, if he couldn't like even the last round of improvements, he won't ever like the game...
For me it was like the Nintendo 64 meme for at least 20 minutes straight.
@@1Henrink Hoyo may be a big company, but it's still composed of hard working individuals who would benefit from praise. Just because they work for Hoyo doesn't mean they don't deserve kind words.
While you can be a bit overly negative sometimes, one of the things I love about your videos is that you are honest about the characters instead of hyping them, it helps keep me from wasting primos or going all in building a character that ends up being disappointing. Meanwhile, other channels will put out videos like "Broken electro support!? Dori is insane!"
He isnt honest either, he just actively underhypes because he feels responsible for peoples FOMO if he calls something busted.
@@luminous3558 How is underhyping connected to honesty in any way?
He isn't really negative, stop sugarcoating incompetency, he just isn't good at theory crafting
All I hope is that they eventually make it so we’re not forced to choose 4 characters for every act.
This would kill the mode, so it never going to happen.
@@oppa5346 I feel like there could be some sort of compromise then. Like you can choose 1-4 for the first half of acts, but you *have* to choose 4 for the rest.
@CaliforniumEra or just your damage gets tanked a little for every empty party slot
"Abyss randomizer on floor 11" so true
Now they just need to remove the restriction of chosing 4 charechters and let use two or three charechters instead of making us sacrafice someone
Sadly they wont
The sacrifice is one key to make this game mode harder
I think the fact that you can bring extra ones alleviates this a bit because you have a bigger pool so you have more trash to fill those slots with and/or more possibilities of good units in the future so sacrificing one doesn't feel as bad
But yeah that was definitely my main complaint before this update and i still find it kinda annoying
I like the fact that it makes you think strategically!
@@ibrahim5463 and then what? It's the exact same thing they changed basically nothing lol
How would they give you incentive to pull new characters otherwise
I actually had alot of fun w theater. I don't think it's perfect yet - but I honestly enjoyed it way more than Abyss (Which isn't saying much.)
Idk man, I honestly would've prefered that they added until floor 15 and that the challenge had been sick
@@davidlg571 nah I like variety. I still want more floors in abyss, but I think having rotating modes is more fun since it's not the same every 2 weeks
@@davidlg571yet abyss will always be a dps time based check, as it was designed to be.
for real! I always look forward to the IM reset but abyss just feels like a chore💀 I even went out of my way to get the 10 flowers! I enjoy it a lot
I liked that IT forced me to use teams I wouldn't even think about (ayato childe burst supp dendro mc yaoyao) and actually enjoy playing with them
I wish they would add envirement to endgame modes, like enemys on rocks, paddles of water, wind currents and so on. Genshin has so much to ofer yet they do nothing. Imagine each abyss would be like an arena with different elemental envirements. There is one with rocks that enemys stand on and you have to climb or fly up. An arena with wind currents so you can move faster and to plunge attacks. What about ice walls that block your way but you can destroy them with pyro which creates warte puddles or if you shatter them it deals aoe dmg on enemys behind the wall. I wish they would get creative with the battle arenas in endgame
i hope they do that. those could serve as environmental "props" since youre in a "theater" and youre "performing" anyway
I'd like the stages to be set up like the new Natlan trials
the closest thing to that were floors 9 and 10 of Spiral Abyss from 1.2 to 1.6 where the Dragonspine mechanic of freezing was always present so you had to worry about dying because of it. Floor 9 had torch spots and floor 10 had Fire Seelies moving around so you had to use them in order to avoid the cold as much as you can. iirc a lot of players hated those mechanics in Abyss so I don't think they will add smth like that again. All in all, I don't see them adding more things to Abyss if they are gonna affect combat in any way because there will always be players that hate said things
I still think IT exacerbated the fact building character genshin is very very slow. I have seen people ended up stressing over building character or thinking building character for IT isn't worth it.
The floor for the character needed are very low, you dont really high invested char to clear it, thats why the enemy in IT is easy and not as tanky as in abyss, so you can still clear even if your char sucks balls
@@omega6826 The problem is that you still need lvl 70 characters, which is very frustrating since it requires you to "waste" resin building multiple characters you will never use. The level requirement also feels very artificial, forcing you to spend at least a few days of resin per character, but leaving them at a point of which they are still useless in an actual run.
Also anyone who doesn't look at leaks is gonna get a funny ||Geo|| jump scare next IT.
@@omega6826 also it stacks up when you need 3-4 characters to enter theater and abyss to worry about
@@WhatThe_e You already contradicted yourself by saying "it requires you to "waste" resin building multiple characters you will never use." Either you build them because you plan to use them, or you don't. No one is forcing you but obviously if you're building them for IT then you plan to use them. It's about time Genshin finally gave us more reason to build more characters.
@@shinobu1886 There's nothing completely forcing you, yes. But there is a BIG push, that being, if you don't have enough characters you will lose out on primos every single patch, specifically, you lose the equivalent of $3 worth of primos (per genesis crystals).
It takes about 6 days worth of resin to level a character to 70. The level requirement is inherently flawed because your not building characters to use, your building just enough characters to barely reach this arbitrary requirement before the next IT. The reason to build a character is to play them, not to bench them in order to make a number tick up while neuvillette solos.
The new blessings are a huge W also who would've thought! You have a Theatre with elements that are actually good or actually synergize well and it's actually fun!
Zajeff can be negative for sure but it’s important to hear in contrast with a lot of other creators. They show the pros, he shows the cons, and together you have an accurate assessment
I think that the biggest thing in the way of IT being fun its the amount of characters you need, even after the changes. I can meet the requirements, but even so its not fun.
Also totally agree on the exploration part. Its and open world game why is it that both the abbys AND IT are in a round arena with nothing in it. Even HSR SU has those arcade game where you have to chase pigs and stuff.
I do think that they can double the amount of trial characters, maybe 6 of them can be level 80 and 6 can be level 70 to still eventually encourage horizontal investment
You are right about abyss area feeling boring (boring same music and same starry area), though fighting in an enclosed space will probably be less resource intensive on low end phones.
It is so frustrating when they create great "dungeons" in 5* story quests, that can only be used once. Like send me back in there with the whole place more populated with enemies to fight through. Thinking of zhong li quest where we go through salt gods old home, and chiori going through that sketchy factory.
@@13Nagash13 Agree, I already mentioned that a couple times in the shithole thats reddit, they could easily reuse assets to make dungeons with puzzles and combat, to create content to fill the gaps between patches with content. I got disliked to oblivion everytime so I stoped trying.
Hard disagree. I'm glad Genshin finally rewarding players who horizontally invested into a wider range of characters, including multiple DPS's of the same element, instead of the just going all in on the 2+ teams you need for abyss.
This gave on field DPS's much more value than they did before. You only needed a couple before, especially if they're the same element, and then after that it was kinda pointless and up to you to change it up.
That last baptist kicked my ass. Visionary mode + needs too keep going
I wish they gave us the ability to retry that last room after completing it, because I missed the stella by mere seconds and to get it I'd need to do the Imaginarium Theatre from the beginning
Ppl have been asking this since 1.0
They will not do anything close to it.
For me it should go until you fail, abyss is the same, so you can see how far can you climb.
Eh it was easy. Burgeon whoops his ass.
Yeah I had trouble with it too coz of the remaining characters I have to use are mostly dps (e.g. Raiden, Neuvi, Arle, Lyney) and only have Benny and Kazu for support. I have to use Rewind for the first time to reroll my characters. Finally stella cleared it with Alhaitham my Mvp, Yelan, Raiden and Benny.
Zajef saved nahitional for last boss and cleared it in 30 seconds om
To him and any endgame player it was way too easy. I have more problems with hologram 6 and ToA then I do Abyss + IT combined.
honestly if they added just 2 more acts or something in visionary mode it'd be a lot more fun. i didnt even get to use most of my 5 stars because i was saving them; spent 90 minutes gearing for a 10 minute fight
boy doing 26 characters with no real artifact loadout is crazy, I hope the imaginarium thearer actually makes them create a true artifact loadout
@@danielhertz1984
Pretty certain they will never give you the ability to use your 50CV pyro goblet on 10+ characters in 1 challenge.
@@kellywilson137 pretty certain that's not what most people have in mind when they say they want artifact loadout
gearing bedge
This is why I have always have build my characters with their own artifacts. I could just jump in. Except for traveler, had to switch her element and gear.
Still artifact loadouts would be great. Want to be able to switch Raiden between dmg and EM build and the like.
W self-awareness at the start of the vid, love to see a little nuance amongst all the (often warranted) criticisms of Genshin/Hoyo. not that I have anything particularly against heavily critical content or opinions, it's just nice to hear some positivity once in a while :) excited for Xilonen pre-release!!
The new blessings solidified the opinion on theater that i, and a lot of people, had since day 1: Random teams are not fun.
The bloom blessing allowed me to play a Nilou bloom team without Nilou (Ayato, Candace, Yao Yao and Kirara) which was really fun but the vigor + randomnes of theater made it so that this team only lasted 1 run against triple Kenki because everyone except for Ayato was at 1 vigor.
If i could use any team i wanted, even if i still had to follow elemental restrictions, i would have had a lot more fun and i would actually consider replaying the mode multiple times to experiment with teams that are only possible with reaction blessings, but thats simply not gonna happen because reseting until i get exactly what i want cancels all the fun i could have had.
So even tho im happy they are taking a step in the right direction, the next step would require changing the thing that defines the game mode which i cant see happening soon. There are ways to make a game mode that requires 20+ characters still allow for no randomnes (such as requiring multiple runs with multiple teams to get full rewards, maybe give less points every time you repeat a character like some combat events do) but i dont want to get my hopes up just with "what ifs" so ill keep waiting for now
Then go play Abyss lol. Random teams make it so much more fun, forces non meta teams and improvisation. Each run can be very different unlike the bland gameplay of Abyss.
Before i watch the full video i feel like the biggest thing to change is getting rid of lvl requirement. Like why cant i use a lvl 1 amber to trigger vape.
I like that zajeff also complimented the dev's or the company for doing a good job aswel. Claps for Zajefff
My biggest problem with """difficult""" endgame content for Genshin is is still relies on enemies having different elemental shields that use ICD and strictly force you to use certain elements, and even certain characters within those elements that have consistent elemental damage output. Having enemies designed to just waste your time as much as possible, be it shields or going underground, it's awful.
Baptist final boss is unbelievably stupid. I used hyperbloom to beat it and it felt like cheese.
There are still things that need to get improved. Maybe they could implement a system where we can swap out an element for another one, so that people who got more characters of an element can still play it. Then they could make some adjustments to the point system, cause I feel we don't get enough. Finally they could make it a little harder. Not too much, as we need to improvise teams, but still a little more to make it more interesting
Disagree with swapping an element out, that would defeat the purpose and people would just select meta reactions. Additionally, it will do good to incentivize players into building a balanced variety of elements with rotating elements. The other 2 I can agree with.
I honestly just wish we had the option to not build 4 man teams. Using up 4 characters' energy in the first couple acts when you could easily clear it with 1 or 2 feels really wasteful
While the new buffs help a decent amount theatre is still kinda ruined for me by not being able to just pick a team and go. As much as I like the idea of a team drafter, for a rogue like mode I think building around a team would help a lot while also allowing you to just play a character if you really want to (like let's say a new character just got released and you wanna play them. You can kinda only go abyss 20 times and maybe farm local legends, theatre REALLY doesnt help here)
Even in visionary mode when i had 26 characters i found it annoying that there was no option at all to restore vigor to characters like previous theaters.
I appreciate the buffs for the reactions, BUT it’s still not always worth it to buy reaction buff over characters from the alternative cast
EDIT: typing mistake corrected
You can still get the cards that restore vigor to characters
Hot take: relying on restoring vigor and running out of options is a skill issue when it comes to planning
@@TheJuicyTangerine not hot take: Being forced to use sometimes 3 on field characters because of the stupid vigor system isn't fun
@@mandom5714 sounds like a you problem for bringing too many DPSs and not enough supports and sub-dps's. Get good.
I always got a card to restore vigor wdym???
I like this iteration so much already. Finally giving players focus on what team to use, also really like the new difficulty cus you actually have to think super carefully about what characters to use or you'll find yourself with a scuffed team at the final fight.
Man that lizzard with the hydro shield was way harder when I did it... he made it look so easy xd
He made it look like the lizard's not siphoning a yoimillion hp every second and permalocking your ult... is this what a well built Arlecchino look like
This theater was very rage inducing, mainly cause I was too dumb to look at the upcoming enemies and had to restart my character selections after the vishap, the hydro cryo mages, and then baptiste. Was ez pz after I had a team ready for each
I accidentally cornered myself into having a fun challenge in the last chamber of IT this cycle. My last 4 units I could really use were Kazuha, Mona, Arlecchino and Kirara which combined have like exactly enough application to one shot the elemental sheild of each phase but which I had to use mindfully to kill it within the time limit.
A similar thing happened to me, I used Furina Raiden Collei(c2+) Chevreuse(is that how you spell her name)
and they barely have enough Elemental Application to break the shields, I have to dash backwards at the start so the boss doesn't teleport away, it was tough but so satisfying once you cleared the challenge
I didn't have any dendro for the last fight so I just had to bruteforce the best I could with my arlecchino lol
mine was Neuvi, Furina, AlHaitham, and Shogun
never expected to see the day I would use two halves of a team combined into one team to counter the baptist.. genuinely had fun with it, I had to restart it multiple times to get the proper rotations against the baptist's shield
Ofc from something competitive and challenging it became something for casuals.
As someone who’s horizontally invested in my characters but mostly stopped pulling once Sigewinne dropped, I was happy that IT at least lets you use trial versions of the new characters now.
I'm AR60 and i only had 16 character eligeble for this iteration of the imaginarium theater...
am now scrambling and using all my resin to level up characters just so i can play visionary mode
they should definitely lower the minimum character required to try it
These buffs made the gamemode way easier, even on visionary difficulty.
I think imaginarium really shines for me because I have a decent amount of characters but not enough built to the max! So things like the cards vastly increasing niche-er reactions like burgeon or burning is really fun to see. Things like the cards giving you an additional hydro or pyro application is enough to change things up from abyss enough to be fun imo
i like the new theater a lot chars like collei, dps kokomi, thoma, dehya especially literally carried me in some floors its nice to give them some time to shine
It needs more fun gimmicks like Labyrinth warriors or HSR Simulated Universe. It still feels like a bland combat mode but with restrictions
Proof of how impactful the new buffs are: I was playing a normal Nilou team in Act 8 but my only healer (EM Barbara) struggled to keep up. None of my available dendros at that point were healers, and pyro wouldn't do anything in that chamber, so I ended up replacing Nilou herself with PNEUMA FURINA, comfortably beating the chamber with plenty of time to spare.
ah yes, the classic nahida national. the most used team in 3.7. good memories
I had never played burning or burgeon, i liked that this helped me play archetypes that I haven't tried out yet!
I had to bring 10 characters I levelled to the minimum requirements to be allowed entry to visionary mode, and playing theater by balancing wasting chaff units with working 2 character teams most battles was more annoying than fun. Naturally I can keep working on building those characters, but I didn't build them before because I don't really like these characters in the first place, so doing it just for theater really isn't something I want to do. That said, after seeing how much better Zajef's experience with theater was than mine, it looks like it could be at least a little fun with all my characters being built. Thanks for the showcase.
very surprised they listened. I still don't love the mode, but the new level was significantly more fun than before, so props to them for putting in some dev work and listening
Maybe devs are not always listening, but Zajef do. Zajef do
i watch these even tho i suck at the game, thanks for the fire content king77 ta 🔥
they could add a thing to pay flowers to not fill a slot.
That would at least somewhat compensate as you'd be sacrificing future character gains/buffs to try and stretch the characters you have now and have a bit more strategy around the flower economy.
like -33% per slot unfilled for flower rewards.
I agree! I enjoyed the Reaction Buffs quite a bit! My only gripe now is that rng can heavily influence your runs, but maybe that is also intended?
i love the changes to the theater and I hope they improve it more and maybe add new modes to it in the future like sim uni in star rail. ALso I hope they start to work on abyss aswell please give it some love
"Overly negative" is all contextual and is a different viewpoint rather than parroting the same thing. I'm the same way but I channeled mine into an Operations Management Supply Chain Management degree where that negativity detector is constructive looking to minimize/prevent problems in a system before things hit the fan. Being aware and channeling it constructively while monitoring the actually negative side is a good thing for all of us so we aren't robotically responding to the world.
I watch your channel for your low filter and downside honesty because it's the "price" of the potential fun.
I quit Genshin over Imaginarium Theater because it is Not Fun and now I only get half the primos from Spiral Abyss because I'm expected to get them from the drek. I'm still watching your videos in case something worthwhile comes back.
(P.S. to me Imaginarium is nothing but a force to get more people buying Welkin/Battlepass at the cost of fun. I describe it as Artifact Farming made into an "endgame" mode)
What boggles me about Genshin's choice of endgame, is the fact that it's an exploration game, some of the characters even have freaking passives that affect the exploration (stamina decrease when running at specific time of day, climbing, gliding etc.) or have skills that also work for exploration (Yelan's E for example), yet they don't include ANY kind of exploration in their endgame. We literally had a combat event that, to some degree, included exploration. The Labyrinth Warriors was basically a prototype for HSR's SU. All they had to do was tweak it a bit, polish it up and make it a permanent mode and it would've EASILY been the best endgame for Genshin.
Yes it got better, but getting enough characters is still by far the most difficult part about the mode, and while trying different empowered reactions is a fun little novelty, there's very little actual difference between runs. To "fix" the mode for me they need to let go of some of the restrictions they imposed, like allowing one extra element per rotation or any number of characters in teams, cause rn even as veteran you need to level up almost everyone you've got just to consistently meet the entry qouta, and that's just not a fun way of "encouraging" players.
If you're a veteran and can't keep up, either really poor investment management or a skill issue. I played for over a year and can max fill the character requirements easily. "Letting go" of the restrictions would then just make it another boring version of the Abyss.
@@shinobu1886 I did full clear all rotations so far fyi. IT is just as boring as the Abyss, except way more annoying to deal with cause you can't always use teams you actually like playing to clear it. If leveling all the characters you have indiscriminately and playing random shit is fun for you then godspeed, sure as hell ain't for me.
the dog picture popup makes me irrationally irritated to be honest
I didnt even have enough characters for visionary mode 😭
babe wakeup Zajef77 posted
The new blessings are fun, but I don't like that they basically don't work with the off-element guest characters.
As someone with insane horizontal investment (I do also have vertical investment too), this mode's starting conditions were so easy for me to meet. Its more of an OCD for me to equip every raised chara with their own sets & weapons + raise talent lvls. & I've done it for everyone who is lvl70 ascended in my account.
For me, this game mode just feels like an excuse to finally use all these charas + their own personal builds lmao 😭Not necessary until now, but ig it was useful that I did do that
Best theater by far, and it can still be improved a lot, i hope they'll cook
I'm scared about the next one, geo and electro are elements I have barely invested in...
From my experience, the reaction buffs are powerful enough that it’s doable with really bad gear as long as you have enough ER to burst and HP/DEF to not get 1 hit KO’d.
It was ugly (no star and 3 seconds left on the timer), but I got through a few stages with wrong main stats and wrong set artifacts on a few of the characters I “built” by taking gear off characters that were not participating.
I liked that I was forced to level up characters I’ve always been somewhat interested in but never built because I was never actually going to use them in Abyss (for me it was Gaming, Kirara, Klee). It has me interested that ill be building other characters to 70 for other Imaginarium. I also enjoy that its 70 and not 80/90 so you can realistically build a few characters up to that in a week or two (as long as you have weapons and don’t care about talents too much lol).
New blessings are a step in the right direction, but random unit acquisition will never make for a fun experience for me. Scuffed teams don't feel good to play regardless of how many dmg bonuses blessings give us. Really want them to do away with element specific character cards and just make all character acquisition cards allow us to select any unit from the available pool. They already basically force us into running 6 starter units, so if they won't change how character acquisition works the least they could do is let us select which 6 units we start with.
0:36 oh thank god bro is remotely self aware
wdym remotely he has said it multiple times on stream too that he is negative about stuff when it comes yo hoyo unless you're new
110 tower defense against the robots was 👹👹👹
22 characters is too much for a f2p player. I could barely do this after 367 days of playing with multiple 0 artifacts 0 talent characters 😢
The imaginarium theater definitely encourages account diversity with having many characters. It mostly rewards players for horizontal investment.
I actually quite like this because similar to HSR, you hear content creators like EODGamer admit that they regret getting an E6 (aka C6) character. Mainly because they are no longer as “meta” as other characters and are outperformed due to power-creep. IMO players with diagonal investment (C1-C2; R1) actually reap the most rewards because having enough characters well built and with higher forms of investment means you should be able to tackle both forms of endgame content given enough skill and knowledge. Obviously, this is my take but I think Hoyo is actually cooking with imaginarium theater.
im a horizontally invested gamer so im loving this personally, although i can definitely see why it's unfriendly towards newer players (it is an endgame mode though at the end of the day)
As someone who loves building characters im thriving it's so fun! I'm f2p so it feels very satisfying knowing despite that im still meeting the requirements and breezing through the hardest difficulty
But i can definitely understand the other side of the coin and why people dislike the high requirements. I think lowering the requirements but still allowing you to bring extra ones was a good compromise
@@halethaden same. I have 35 lvl90 5 stars, and most of them at talent lvl9+ with ok to decent artifacts. That's not even counting the 4 stars, being finally able to have a use for so many leveled character is very fun, as before most of them just rotted in my inventory since I just played them to friendship 10 and ditched
my problem is that the mode will likely require at least 16 characters with proper artifact sets. HSR's divergent universe literally gives your ungeared characters something to play with.
Tbf thats just star rail being a very powercreep heavy game. In genshin unless your character was already unusably bad your c6 is gonna be relevant for a long time.
The thing i disliked about this theatre is for the bosses. The Lector is one of the bosses i hate the most, because it requires certain elements to cear. Combine needed elements with restricted elements and randomized characters sucks ass. The other thing is the aura the lizard had.
Just give me all the characters up front and randomize the buffs and stuff. And letting us use teams of less than 4 would be cool.
Other then that, it was quite fun.
agree need to add a feat where u can select ops less than 3 characters... kinda annoying they forced u to do 4 characters when u wanna save the energy of others for the next flrs, or the team u had just enuf for stages
also imo they need to add more rng to elite battles.... like i found a rly challenging elite stage that rly have troubles, and when i wanna do it again, i cant find it... so yeah (and also make the elite battles more rewarding, as i see it we only get more currencies, which is iirc not +50% of what u get in normal ones..., maybe add a buff or give more of those flowers)
but then again its true this one more enjoying than abyss... just hope they improve this further
what I do want in imaginarium is the ability to do solo or double characters in each run
Good for players with enough built characters. Worse for those that can't keep up with the increase in requirements.
“we want endgame content!” “wait this content requires a lot of built characters, I don’t like it!”
They lowered the requirements though
All they did was add an extra difficulty, but that's on top of what we already had, you're gaining the exact same amount of primos you did before if you go for the hard difficulty
@@ToTheStars65 i don’t consider this end game content. That would require actual challenge not just a time gated event.
@@DeJaVu804 if you cant complete it because you dont have enough characters that can fight the current endgame level bosses, than it was too challenging for you to complete with your current account, no?
@@ToTheStars65 You aren't serious are you? This is "endgame" for you? You must be mentally ill
I never liked this mode nor I see which part of it got better. This, right now, is just a worse and more trashy version of the abyss. It has a timer, you need to own so many characters and build all of them to get good results. You can't even start a fight with 2 characters to save the rest for the upcoming stage. And here is the worst part of it (thankfully the abyss was spared from it): IT IS RANDOM. It can take more time to beat (full score) than the abyss because you might get a very bad lineup. Why do they love to waste our time?
I would rather if they made a rouge like permanent event or something, assuming they can execute it properly and make it fun.
I know my comment comes off as a completely negative take, but it has been 4+ years and this is what they managed to do in terms of game modes? Give me something that's as boring but it doesn't take more than 5 minutes and I'll be fine with it. That's how low my standards for this game has become.
I stopped taking anything you said seriously the second you said this was worse than the Abyss.
You comment is negative rightfully so.
It's clear from the beginning that the genshin team is making a mockery of the player base.
I actually enjoyed the theater this time and I actually did kinda struggle even as someone who has everyone built properly...
honestly didnt notice much difference from previous difficulty wise, only fight i had to retry like 7 times is the dragon that sucks your energy with its aura, i was trying to use random chars but i had to just use the ones i was saving to get the bonus star, the buffs are a good change before i didnt even bother at all.
I dont mind the 2 use limitation IF the randomization was removed. Let me save my best characters for the hardest rounds at the end, by giving me the whole roster to pick from.
I ended up with fights that had nohealers and others with just carries and no support because of shit luck on the character randomization.
Also dont force me to take the level 80 trial characters, just let me take more of mine if i want. I usually end up forcing them onto teams in first 2 rounds just to get rid of them during easy rounds. But some are just so bad they sit there taking up a slot the whole 10 rounds because i dont want them on any teams, meanwhile i have lvl 90 characters the correct element i cant take because i ran out of slots.
I'm f2p and ar 60 and don't have enough characters to play the hardest mode. Maybe I just have to build a bunch of random characters I'll never use outside of imaginarium theater but either way still frustrated by the character restrictions.
I personally just built a lot of the lower effort 4 stars overtime because they were rarely useful and it wasn't hard to build them. Characters like Thoma, Laya, Diona, Yaoyao, Kirara, Heizou, Lynette, and now Kachina don't really need must investment to be functional. Thoma can need a bit higher artifact quality if you're trying to do triple em main stat and get enough er but you can just use a er sands if you have to. Would just build the 4 star shielders, vv appliers, and those who can have useful elemental app if you lack enough units to do the mode. But yeah I agree the amount of characters needed should really just be lowered and they should allow you to use 3 units in a chamber if you want to.
As another f2p who did make it to the hardest difficulty my advice is to prioritise the traveler (you don't have to actually build them, just level them to 70) because that's a +1 character to any cycle just switch the element
And prioritise characters that don't need investment to work, for example kachina who doesn't need levels or talents or even main stats, as long as she has a full set she does her job. This way you get at least some value out of these character instead of them just being a dead slot in your teams
Good luck!
@@twigz3214i agree they should allow you to use 3 units or less but the requirements Were lowered for all difficulties
They did add an extra difficulty but if you stick to hard you're getting the same amount of primos you were before but with less characters required
@@EdenVix Think the mode would function fine anyway even if the final mode needed 1-2 less characters. I had extras but also have been playing since 1.2.
Not an issue for me. I have more level 90 units than level 50 unbuilt characters. And those lvl 50s are pretty low in number. I usually just level everyone 70/80 for free wishes and if needed I go farther
i love nilou buff that gives her double blooms. she kills her teammates and enemies alike lol
zajayato at 8:01 sent me 😂
New Ayato VA incoming
gameplay doesnt change that much since the strat is still the same, use all of the trials/less built characters on early stages and aim for additional characters rather than going for unique buffs for early card picks since you cant start with less than 4 characters per run, once you get enough chars then its time to go for buffs (but now you can instead pick unique reaction cards).
the problem with this mode is still the same, but i will be lying if i say i dont have any fun with those unique buffs. lvl 4 bloom upgrade with nilou is indeed overkill and i heckin love it when it happens. hoyo seems taking their time to "improve" this game mode and maybe thats for the best, i guess
I love Zajeff77!
i am traumatized from having to play reverse vape gaming
Not being forced to run 4 characters would be the next big change for me. Having to waste vigor on those first fights feels bad.
3:42 lmao the guy in chat that said donald trump was live on twitch then got timed out or something and was apologizing at 3:48 om 😂😂😂
I still don't understand why they chose THE WORST event for PERMANENT endgame, and they have NEVER rerun labyrinth warriors. They just don't want you to have fun in Genshin. So you only spend time with Paimon in story and you only do tedious fights on arenas with the characters you don't want to use. I feel like even Capitano and Snezhnaya are not enough to keep me playing.
Then stop playing. Clearly this game isn't meant for you if you can't find enough characters that you enjoy playing to build and use.
@@shinobu1886 yeah, good luck playing Noelle and Dori in next IT, cause you need to have 22 characters of pyro, geo and electro.
@@ginichimaruan3572 why would I use them? Neither I use.
If you're any good at resource and risk/reward management IMO you'll maybe run into a situation where you have to pick a character that doesn't really fit or that you really want to hold onto maybe once in a whole run in my experience across three IT versions now. This really does seem to be the issue at the end of the day for most people though is just not wanting to bother with having to play with the cards they get dealt and use the systems to level the playing field with better buffs and adding more characters to their available pool or even having a chance at restoring vigor to one.
I was all kinds of ready to be underwhelmed with the mode because of how poorly received it seemed to be and haven't even found the RNG to be a fraction of the problem it's been implied to be since there's often some sort of mitigating factor to the RNG that you can exploit if you plan your route reasonably well. Like the RNG IS there for sure, but it's fairly easily worked around to just kind of a be a factor rather than the overwhelming hinderance it's been billed as.
@@shinobu1886 Yeah sorry but across 3 IT's now, much as I hate to say it it really is just kind of a matter of "Git Gud", know your characters, teams and strengths and enemy weaknesses and exploits and learn to resource manage and spend your fantasia flowers wisely. It's not like it's required content either unless you want the extra rewards from it which are some of the higher value items in the game.
I had to do one of the bosses with great team: Alhaitham/Raiden/Chevy/Bennet and another one with even better: Kirara/Xingqiu/Child/Nilou
still don't feel inclined to do it more than once after getting the rewards
Maybe its getting better, but it still sucks. And thats even before comparing it to Simulated Universe
Honestly? I didn't notice the changes much but it definitely felt better to play than previous cycles.
My main complaint was that it requires 4 characters per team, and while it still does that, i think it's now alleviated by the fact that you can bring more characters, you have a bigger pool to choose from. Also it requires less characters so that's good for people who don't have enough.
I already had fun with the old IT but i did find myself struggling a bit in some chambers for the star, this time around i steamrolled through visionary first try but im unsure if that's because of the new buffs or simply bc the elements were better for me, but overall the difficulty didn't seem to change imo.
I don't tend to enjoy spiral abyss much and I didn't enjoy the first two IT runs. This time was a definite improvement but still not something I look forward to doing yet.
I never really cared all that much for Spiral Abyss, but I've actually kind of come to look forward to IT at this point. Spiral Abyss has always kind of felt like an "I guess it's time to grind my way through it again" affair that I usually do on the last few days of a rotation. Definitely one of this games biggest shortcomings was that being the only real end game mode it had for almost 4 years and it being a fairly run of the mill straight DPS check for the most part.
13:24 doesn't matter, I cleared this with full em raiden (but the em didn't matter), artefactless thomas, noblesse Xingqiu and Chevreuse who doesn't work because of Xingqiu
The defense and bounty challenges feel so unbalanced. In defense if you choose Lawachurls or constructs, they will just destroy the monolith with no input from you. In bounties i chose abyss mages once and I had less time to kill 8 of the fuckers spawning 1 at a time, than I had to kill 3 Kairagi. I ran tripple hydro, but just couldn't keep up.
Improvement yippee
for me it's still boring like I'm skipping it for the third time and I don't even feel bad for missing out on the rewards
I hope they remove elemental restrictions from this mode. I want to use my entire cast to mix and match things.
Not bad, but they should force us to use even more characters. I hope it eventually gets to a point where we have to use 80 characters.
Blooming blessing
Still don't like that it's basically a character roster check, I have amazing hyper invested characters but I just don't 22 characters of 3 elements, not all that fun
I am not a newer player, I've been playing since 1.0 but genshin is my first gatcha so I basically did nothing productive from 1.0-2.2
I tend to be very picky with the characters I pull and prefer getting constellations on my favourites instead of grabbing shiny new toys I know I'm never going to use, so I also struggled with fielding 22. Thankfully, there's a ton of 4-stars you can level to 70 just to gain entry without actually building them, so their goofy horizontal investment incentive isn't going to work.
@@vladdyru this is the way! Im f2p so i need to be careful with my primos and don't pull for any character unless they're a)super meta or b) i love them a lot, but I've been doing the hardest difficulty by building my 4 stars
The lower investment they need the better it is (aka slap a support set and weapon on them and call it a day). It's pretty easy so you don't actually need super good or actually built characters like in abyss
I agree with y'all. We didn't need another endgame combat mode, we needed an ACTUALLY CHALLENGING one.
@@davidlg571 i know it's not a new mode or anything but i think the local legends achievements are a step in the right direction, they've been kicking my ass in the new difficulty and actually survive a full rotation (multiple in fact). Most are fun to do
It’s just right, right now
It's pretty fun imo, but it's still waaaaay too easy as someone who played since 1.0 I just wipe the floor with my characters, good rewards tho. Like neuvilette or almost any other of my dps on the last two "boss" challenges just knocks everything. The boons make it strong too.
The only difficult part is the monolith defense, where some enemies can take 5-10% of it's hp per hit
It shouldn't even be hard in the first place, it would've been ridiculous if it actually was anything but easy.
Hard content requires coherent teams, and that's out of the picture with the Theater's element restriction.
It may be easy but is so booooring, I did the intro mission and haven't touch it again
@@alexprus7953idk if u faced the ruin enemies but a ruin grader used his run attack while I was distracted he took 50% of the monolith hp with 1 attack I was shook
I started 3.7. And yeap it’s actually really easy. I don’t think they can really make it any tougher tbh. It’s difficult to make teams work when you can’t really choose proper teams. That being said, it’s a good sign I suppose that they added more floors. Maybe that’ll slowly happen to abyss then
To me, theater is ruined by the time limit. Without it, you could potentially finish the fight with lvl 10 team Dark Souls style. If they just removed the stupid timer, I would enjoy it much, much more.
This IT is significantly better than the last one, the only issue I ran into is the stage where I need to defeat 8 PYRO Abyss Mage, and there were slimes that interrupts my attacks, I used all my Hydros and still couldn't pass with a star, had to rewind, that part wasn't fun at all.
I also noticed that stage was like 10x harder than any other one for no reason, I dont think you even have enough time to break that many shields
I picked it accidentaly, because I saw pyro enemies and thought to myself "I have Neuvillette and Furina saved for last 2 acts, it will be a breeze". In fact it was fucking far from it. Retried that room 20 times and finally with team consisting off Neuvillette, kazuha (for moral support), kirara (to block slimes from interrupting) and Furina I manged to pull the star. Increasing DPI on my mouse to 20k until I was physically unable to see what I'm doing and spinning with Neuvi was a key to do it.
I got that one as well I couldn't complete it at all. I went out and in again and suddenly the enemies changed, not sure what happened but it saved my run so I am glad it did
Its a real shame I dont have Neuvillette, I used Furina Kokomi Barbara and Kirara, I dont even think that stage is win-able without Neuvillette (not to defend myself, but that stage is seriously unfair). I did see other variation of the stage as well with the Hydro Mage but luckily I learned my lessons and avoided that stage
@@AbsoluteOnigiriya Neuvilette is not the best for breaking pyro shield. I found Clorinde's skill is better for that.
It's definitely better but i doubt it could ever match abyss for me.
You are not overly negative or anything. people are just too positive. so when you slightly ever mentioned anything negative. they will dogpile on you. it is not your fault but I appreciate that you still acknowledge the criticism toward you even though it wasn't fair to begin with. I think being positive is nice and all but being too much positive to the point where it become toxic positivity is what these people are. that's why they often being dismissive toward your negativity. I will never understand why people are so eager to defend or not being critical toward corporate company that prey on human psychology. at the end of the day, they are still corporate company, and their goal is to make money. its never about passion. and before anyone get mad at me, I'm not talking about their employees, I'm talking about the higher up. I'm pretty sure that Hoyo employees does have passion for video games but there's only so much they can do, however, the final say is always the higher up.
I dont think a lot of people knows how human psychology work or maybe they just lack self-awareness. it is human's tendency to remember negative experiences over positive experiences. its called "negativity bias", it is tied to our instinct to keep us survive like other animal on the planet. it explains why no one bat an eye when you praise the game but losing their mind every time you being negative to the game.
Anyway, back to IT topic. I think its still a shit mode. there's no justification for game mode that forces you to pull more characters and leveling them up, resources are expensive in this game. so if someone isnt a long time player/dolphin/whale, they are going to ran out of their resources. yes, it is end-game but end-game should be accessible to anyone regardless of whenever they are able to clear or not. take Spiral Abyss, for example. everyone can access to it but once they realize that "Oh, this is an end game stuff" they will leave it at that and come back later once they are ready. it doesnt take long for someone to 36 stars the abyss but it sure af gonna take someone at least a year (and possibly a ton of money) to have enough character to do Visionary Imaginarium Theater. for context, my friend play this game for 2 years, she is a welkin + BP spender and she still doesnt have enough character to play on Visionary mode. thats just how shitty this system is. do I enjoy it ? kinda, yeah, but I do not like the premise of it. if they remove character restriction or at least allow 4-5 elements, then yeah, cool ! but right now, 3 elements aint it. I want everyone to be able to have fun with this game mode without feeling the need to pull for more character.
Touch my ta? Um no
I breezed through the whole thing except act 10... that was such a pain and I even had proper elements, C2 Raiden and Neuvillette in team... Took me like 20 tries. Can't imagine how mad I would be if I did not have elements needed to break the shields and needed to reset the whole run. Also 75 seconds is too little for this enemy that teleports and takes 5 seconds to enter imo.
Neuv is mid vs. Baptist since his elemental application is pretty weak. You're relying entirely on him hitting the damage phase to make up for lost time on shield phase.
Raiden is actively bad vs. Baptist, since her skill does not proc against shields, and electro is not ideal for those specific elements. You'd be relying entirely on burst infusion.
For that specific Baptist shield combination, you want hydro vs. pyro, dendro vs. hydro, and pyro vs. electro. "Coincidentally" the same elements of this Imaginarium cycle.
So something like Bennett / Xiangling / Xingqiu / Nahida. Instantly obliterates all shields, easy fight.
@@phoenixlau I actually had no issues breaking his pyro shield with Neuv (ult -> skill -> normal -> charged usually broke it), biggest problem was hydro one for me. Other than those two I had Beizhu and Thoma/Bennet. Bennet didn't work at all for me so I went with Thoma in the end. Beizhu's application is too weak I know but I had noone else left from Dendro. I had Raiden for dmg there but after I finished I checked her build (she was support from friend) and she had like 50 CR so... :/
I hate it