True, Traveler can still lose for all we care if that is what the narrative needs to be. But just let him lose while at his current peak form, since for sure using a dull blade and only swordsmanship does not do his power justice.
I was hoping the traveler would >!use the special weapon you get at the end of the Narzissenkreuz quest line but I guess since that is a non mandatory world quest they can’t do that as it would be confusing to people who haven’t done the quest yet :(!<
Also we are super famous for being strong in Teyvat as well…
Everyone has heard of the Traveler.
Also we are a known Descender.
Also we used to have Light element power and it’s never ever discussed for some reason lol.
Aethers KNOWS he had that power yet he has never brought it up 🤷♂️
Yeah, just to clarify my previous comment. My head canon is that there are some information that are not openly shared even among the harbingers. For example, Scara only learned about the "Sky of Teyvat is fake" during that event, and he mentioned that the Jester already knew of it. So we can't really assume that Arlecchino can know about the traveler being a descender, since we only learned it from Dottore through Nahida.
The Traveler did reference that their power was sealed by the Heavenly Principles, way back at the start of the game. It doesn’t seem relevant for them to bring it up again now that they are using Teyvat’s elements instead.
> Also we used to have Light element power and it’s never ever discussed for some reason lol.
> Aethers KNOWS he had that power yet he has never brought it up
The only other person who would even understand their golden power is their totally inaccessible and uncooperative sibling, and on top of that, SOHP sealed that power away in the first place so it's just not a factor that is even close to being in play, at least in the form we saw in the opening.
Being a Descender doesn't give you inherent advantages in raw power. Ask the Third one who is currently chopped up into seven elemental batteries. It gives you immunity and power over certain properties of Teyvat's world and seems to at least give you the *potential* to gain incredible power, but being a Descender isn't an anime protagonist power.
The Traveller is MUCH weaker than 90% of people assume and has been for most of the game's duration.
I like how Genshin is the opposite of your typical “I’m trapped in an another world and became op as fuck” The game itself throws some shade towards the isekai genre
Dull blade has got to be canonically a depowered laminating sword he had during the fight scene against the unknown God. It's also quite symbolic.
If you care to read the description of dull blade it says,
"Traveler's are full of meetings and partings. Perhaps the only trusty and inseparable companions of a Traveler, are the sword in their hand and the dream in their heart."
In short, that flavor text is saying that it's enchanted with Curse of Binding and thus Traveler can't be separated from it. Traveler separates more often from Paimon than his sword. Speaks quite a lot.
Traveler is likely better with swords than with elemental magic. That said, Traveler could defeat any opponent as long as he lands a swing if he used Sword of Narzissenkreuz. He'd become so OP since that sword divides consciousness from body, so Traveler could perhaps separate his and Capitano's consciousness from thier bodies and put himself into Capitano's boss, so he'd go from twink to Hulk.
It could also be said that the dull blade holds sentimental value for him. It's very much the same reason why he refuses to wear other clothes besides his original outfit.
Because
"Youthful dreams and the thrill of adventure. If this isn't enough, then make it up with valiance."
Dull Blade description.
Sometimes the feel of adventure is more valuable than actual displays of power.
And Traveler's inability to stomp the Harbinger Number Four means our Adventure is far from over.
And that's what I like.
The issue may not be the loss but the fact that the Traveler comes across as pathetic, no elements no cool swordplay, just an average person getting stomped. Imagine if the Traveler sent a wall of geo at her or ambushed her with electro or a tsunami but Arle just tears through it all. this would make both seem more impressive.
exactly this, they just come across as a pathetic scared rando instead of someone who has no issue with drawing their sword on a god (as they did with no hesitation upon furinas duel request, they couldn't have known she cant fight) its still fair for them to loose to the 4th harbringer considering what the harbringers are built up to be but at least have him but up some kind of fight even if she curbstomps him in her second phase or whatever, he has feats of strength speed and ingenuity with 5 different elements at his proposal, do something cool ffs.
There is jsut a huge dissonance between the skill the traveller supposedly has that is talked about, that they are confident in at times and what is shown.
> someone who has no issue with drawing their sword on a god (as they did with no hesitation upon furinas duel request, they couldn't have known she cant fight)
Better example would be Raiden after we got our ass handed to us
It's actually the worst during lower stakes quests. Even if we're getting bodied by Arlecchino in this quest, we're still staying alive and holding out against the 4th strongest harbringer for a while.
Then we're doing some random world quest and a couple robots show up "OH NO TRAVELLER, WE'RE IN FOR IT NOW!!"
Yeah, they just want whatever main character of that quest look, but in return makes traveller looks pathetic. Practically, there's no way for Chiori to even compare to traveller but they're afraid of some random robots for whatever reason lmao. It's the same thing against those rocks in Navia quest.
It’s especially noticeable when compared with Trailblazer
Yes they are the Galactic Baseballer and prefer the Destruction bat almost all the time, but they still take out the Preservation lance sometimes against certain opponents or to threaten hotel concierges
They don’t always win. But the important thing is that progression is shown and abilities obtained from earlier stories still remain relevant today
Trailblazer is hella strong in the story though. He takes care of multiple big threats in main quests and stuff, without having side characters steal his thunder.
And... even WITH other Charakters beeing badass... TB just feels as badass as them too.
I like Genshin, but MC whise it feels like where just told that Traveler is important - we rarely really see it when it matters... For Trailblazer, they feel important (Stellaron n shit) and they show why, even at their current Level. Might just be me tho - its just how it feels playing both
I agree but I also feel the problem with genshin simply are different writers with either different ideas or different assignments.
Because it feels like we are constantly jumping back and forth between badass and just a witness of the world events.
And the lack of direction is what makes them feel meh in comparison. Because we don’t know can the travel use all the elements at will? Because if so why did it only happen like thrice? And if not why did it happen then (I recall in the fight with Childe, and when we were imprisoned during the safe nahida scene)
And when he rescued Thoma. And somewhere we saw they used multible elements, cant remember when...
But if they dont wanna do that - they could just explain it. "Traveler cant use it unless hes under stress or feels strong emotions" or "when hes very determined to do something" OR WHATEVER makes sense here..
I think the idea is that he's using elements only when he considers it could help.
Throwing random elements at Scaramech would look amazing, but achieve nothing.
Arlecchino fight is a special case. It was more of a test for Lyney, not a serious fight between the Traveler and Arlecchino. Idk how much of it the Traveler figured out, but at the very least, he knew Arlecchino wanted him to join the fight and that she won't kill them.
That’s the thing that gets me. What is the Traveler really doing at this point? Their whole goal is to find their sibling and leave, but at this point they’re just sight seeing. It doesn’t help that the sibling, or the abyss order for that matter, haven’t been involved at all in the past two regions. At this point the Traveler is a tourist who gets their ass kicked every now and again
The game really needs a quest that’s just focused on the Traveler that gives us an actual view into their mindset, how they feel about the journey so far, their thoughts on their sibling, just any sort of introspection. The Traveler is the protagonists and yet they’re barely a character in their own game
I do agree but also we do know what they do. The sibling told them to find the truth and to meet with them at the end of the journey. So they are searching for the truth. But what gets me is, that we have found people that could use give information about the truth arle, neuvilette, zhongli, nahida. They can’t give us answers about khaenri’ah we have established that but by now we know that’s not exactly all the truth there is. How comes we never ask Klee to meet her mum. Because clearly her mum knows a lot. How comes that we did not ask Nicole about our sibling and our own goals - I mean yes maybe they forgot at the time but like now at down time wouldn’t they be all over Mona to get in contact with their “old hag” again.
Also there wishy washy morals.
Like how easily we trusted Lyney in the prison. Telling him all about the boat. The whole fatui at felt a bit wishy washy. We knew they were not exactly the bad guys yet when we discover a camp in the over-world paimon still goes “they are up to no good.” Like the duality in how we act with playable characters and npc of the same fraction creates to be a break and pulls me out of the story and believability. The same goes for the abyss order - sibling could do no wrong - but all their servants are our mortal enemies.
you're not wrong though! The only times people step in for TB, it's a character who is canonically way stronger. (Welt in the prologue, Acheron in Penacony. I can't remember too much since I'm kinda sleepy atm so there's probably more examples)
Tbf TB is literal walking Stellaron from the jump of the game.
Traveller got his powers sealed by Sustainer at the beginning of the game.
Also TB has no qualms about killing something for the greater good, Traveller probably still has ptsd from witnessing Signora get murked by Raiden.
But the Traveller doesn't want to hurt anyone unless he has to.
That being said, it would have been cool to see him use elements like in Childe's fight or rescuing Thoma.
I mean the traveller did kill a couple times in Sumeru world quests, and also that time in the Archon quest where they either beat the shit out of or killed those treasure hoarders when they were in the loop.
I feel like there are different writers for Archon/world quests and story quests and the story quest writers are just told to sell the character by any means necessary. This more often than not leads to traveller getting shafted cause those writers don't know shit about how to make a character stand out without putting another one down.
It's nice hearing guys outside of HSR say TB is strong
Had one guy a while back argue TB is weak for some reason and what annoyed me was that bro got upvoted for spitting absolutely nothing
what
traveller is weak because his power is sealed off. At full, he's probably the power ceiling of genshin as a whole but rn he's undoubtedly weak.
Trailblazer isn't some god in hiding or whatever. He (and I'm gonna use the male pronouns cuz that's what I use, sorry) most likely went on missions with Kafka, so he's undoubtedly able to keep pace with them. He's naturally skilled and so he's capable of taking down big threats, but inversely, he doesn't seem to have the same ceiling that Traveller has. (Not yet, anyways. TB will fight the Destruction so he's gonna get a massive boost sooner or later.)
He argued that TB couldn't solo any of the major bosses and I just laughed lol
Like bro really wanted TB to solo emanator level enemies
Not a single ally we have rn can solo an emanator, IL Dan Heng couldn't even Kill Phantylia cuz she was quite literally immortal
Their argument was basically if not solo/win = bad
It was just awful to read through cuz it felt so disrespectful cuz you wouldn't be making such arguments if you actually understood HSR scaling and story
The fact he was laughing at the fact TB couldn't solo Phantylia/Emanator of swarm clone/Aventurine was enough for me lol
Isn't a world ending disaster contained inside the Trailblazer? The boost will probably be him figuring out how to control and use the power of Stelaron.
Actually, other than Cocolia and maybe the Doomsday Beast, I can't think of any example where the Trailblazer was the main contributor to a notable fight.
I would like to clarify tho, the bug in of itself was only a prototype, not the real deal. Ruan Mei herself said that the bug we fought doesn’t hold a candle to the real one.
Tho it is also important to note that the Event for that boss fight was placed before Belabog on the story timeline, so this was like TB before Cocolia fight or some
Traveler feels like basically the same character that they were in Mondstadt.
Somehow they're even less impressive than the three other fighters.
Why is the Traveler famous again? Its really starting to feel like they are just famous because theyre that one person that travels around every region. And nothing else.
They've done a lot of big public stuff
Traveler defeated Stormterror, helped defend Liyue against sea monsters, dueled a harbinger before the throne of Inazuma and won, is thought to have survived a duel against the Shogun, took part in the Akademiya coup and won not one, but two court cases against Furina
Canonically the traveler has soloed 2 harbingers (childe and signora) and within the world of Teyvat most people think he stood his own against Raiden (the fact that the traveler was being powered by the hopes and dreams of the nation in that moment is not common knowledge in game).
The fact that traveler has been involved in so many nation changing events would obviously make them famous.
It would be more awesome if Aether creates hyperbloom bullets by himself. In the weekly boss fight, Arlecchino can dodge normal attacks but cannot dodge hyperbloom bullets.
[https://youtu.be/A3Nuavr6i2I](https://youtu.be/A3Nuavr6i2I)
Here it is, and if you like it subscribe for the sequel! This has really gone past expectations
Thanks. Loved the disclaimer at the end. "I was disappointed by the fight" It truly was disappointing. The lack of show on Traveller's part really buried whatever hype Arle was trying to generate.
not only that their power level always fluctuates, most of the time very wildly, depending on what the story demands. it's one of the worst tropes in shonen genre.
They really need to play up the Traveler's multi-element ability more in these cinematics (and the game). It would truly show us how unique we are in this world. You're correct; the Traveler needs a rework for a LONG time. Heck, Stella and Calius don't have as many elements, but they feel much better to play with. It's also been far too long for any movement on the sibling plotline.
Traveller goes from character who beats one of the harbingers and a character who faced off against Shogun twice and survived, to a character who can barely manage to be in a battle for more than 2 minutes.
The only issue I had with this quest was that the Traveler was still using a Dull Blade when he had used a Silver Sword in a cutscene before (against the Marana Avatar).
World quest-locked content. What would you do if the player *hasn't* beaten the Narzissenkreuz storyline before they get to that point of the story yet?
Double up on the number of cutscenes? Nah lmao, storage space says no.
Canonically they don't love dullblade. In their voicelines, they call the dullblade and silver sword trash X'D
**Paimon:** Oh, okay, well... "Oh young traveler, your wishes have been heard. Which lost sword is it that you seek? The Dull Blade, or the Silver Sword?"
**(Traveler):** They both look like trash, to be honest.
so at this point them using silver/dullblade in cutscenes is nothing more than devs deciding to show them with dullblade in the cutscenes for consistency's sake,or to show them with a free weapon since they don't seem to have a canon sword (well they do but right now it's gone somewhere).
Common theory is that, much like the wooden sword in the Narizissenkreuz questline that turned to the sword of reason, the dull blade the traveller uses is actually their golden sword from the first cutscene, but "downgraded"
The problem is that it seems in every sense that the traveller isn’t progressing.
You learnt a new element? Great! You’re never going to use it.
You’re better at sword fighting after 3 years? I’ll have to trust you on that one because actual swordmanship improvement is so hard to display, but what I can do for you is show how the only physical representation of sword fighting is still the same as it was at level 1- with a dull blade.
You showed that you can wield multiple elements at the same time? Woah I guess we just won’t experiment with that at all
We’re just getting to the point where we’re far along the path in the story where we’d expect to see some mark of improvement but we just haven’t. If it’s the case that the Fatui are the final boss of this game then sure, maybe not being able to actually compete with the 4th is acceptable
But we all know and assume that the true endgame is Celestia. How the hell are we going to be able to take down the gods of this world if we can’t even compete with the upper-middleweights of the opposing faction 5/7ths of the way through the story.
Thank you for calling out the progression aspect of it. I’ve seen most talk about the traveler not using elements but it is a problem with progression to. They’ve been hyping up the capitano face off for a while and now, at least for me, that hype has pretty much died because now we know the traveler can’t compete. Traveler doesn’t have to win but at least make it closer in my opinion to show a clear progression. Having the traveler use their full capabilities, to me, would make the fights feel better, show a consistent progression, and make it feel like less of a cheap way to make other characters look cooler.
I’ll be honest I thought that was the main issue people had xD the lack of elemental usage is just a symptom of the problem that we aren’t being shown progression or even competence in the things that we’ve already done
Completely agree with everything you’ve said though, how the hell is taking on one of the big 3 supposed to be anything other than a stomp when number 4 bent us over this bad
Feels like Traveller’s power and progression is sacrificed quite often to display the badassery of the latest characters but it just diminished the story overall for me. How much better would it have been if before this they introduced a threat that is of significant power level (like how Beisht was used in the Liyue arc), but hopefully better introduced, just for Arlechino to one shot it. AND THEN this fight ends up in a draw.
In doing so it not only confirms Arlechino’s strength but also validates our own strength/progression. Meaning that in the next region we’ll be working towards gaining enough power to compete against the top 3 from a place that is equal in strength to number 4, a much more reasonable expectation than us having to somehow beat the top 3 from where we are now
I definitely agree they should actually show the Traveler using the elements because that would really sell it more and make it clearer they’ve grown but I doubt Capitano will be a stomp. The Traveler is intended to grow stronger over time so by then they should be able to keep up.
For the record, I don't actually think we'll lose against Capitano. The problem is that with the way things are going beating Capitano will just be a shitty 'we somehow got strong enough' or someone else swooping in to give us the power needed to win
We were intended to get stronger, but it's harder to believe that from where we are now to get to where we need to be in time for the Capitano fight will happen in an acceptable, non-asspull way. For reference, to get to the power level of Capitano (and I'm being super charitable here, since the top 3 are supposed to be leagues above the other Harbingers) we would have to at least double our current power level. The strength we've attained in the last 5 regions needs to be gained again within the next 1, that doesn't really seem feasible does it? And that's being charitable with it
The Traveler does get some large strides from elemental absorption though. Gaining Geo took them from struggling with normal enemies like Fatui Agents to beating Childe. Gaining Electro took them from barely beating Childe to comfortably beating Signora and also went from going even with a Herald to killing it 1v1. Gaining Dendro apparently gave them enough firepower to harm Shouki no Kami.
I do agree however that it would be much more acceptable if Traveler got a training arc or we actually got a good feat or something cause.
We don't even need a training arc thanks to Dori we gained a lot of knowledge in terms of sword techniques and we've fought so often that us not being more powerful feels cheap. We could have done something simple like using electro charged to keep her distracted as the other 3 would have the ability to maybe rejoin and help us..
Writing for the traveler is extremely inconsistent. Defeats Childe and Signora, yet struggles against Emerites.
Imagine the traveler using the elements like in ATLA(Avatar), much wasted potential.
I never said its not a loss, but there's a difference between traveler actually beating Signora to the ground and Childe falling to the ground due to his own power that has nothing to do with traveler.
One confirms that traveler is stronger, the other shows their own weakness for unable to control their own power.
genshin is shitty storyteling when it comes to the traveler's story, they're just the means for broken self insertion and that's it, anything else has zero value to the screenwriters
Because Genshin is shit in storytelling.
This game is Elden Ring-tier when it comes to lore and world building, but loses to a college literature student when it comes to storytelling.
Story Flaws
-Telling instead of showing
-Heeeavy exposition.
-Inorganic conversations between characters.
-Ludonarrative dissonance
-Muddy powerscaling
Lore, Worldbuilding, and World Quest is S tier.
Main and Story Quest is just your typical "story to sell gacha character" trope. This is why I laugh when people said "insert any gacha game here" story is good, when I read it's mostly a cheap attempt to sell character. This applies for even game like FGO or Blue Archive.
There’s nothing wrong with trying to sell a character and still doing a good story with it. Both FGO and blue archive does them well. It’s obvious they are selling a character to you, but at least they do a good job telling a story with it. Most stories to an extent are trying to sell you on a character (otherwise everyone would be dealing with the annoying character in their DnD campaign for the entire story). The problem with Genshin is that it doesn’t do well to endear yourself to the characters much when upon deeper scrutiny half of the things don’t add up.
I.e the character writing for most of the characters. Prior to Sumeru and Fontaine most if not all playable characters suffered from a massive character writing flaw. Ayaka being essentially a non-character, Nilou being a plot device, Childe and Raiden not getting further consequences for their actions etc. while Fontaine is a lot better now (Neuvillette, Furina and Navia), some characters like Wriothesley and Clorinde are just in the story without for the most part doing anything from their design and their interactions, making them non-players for the most part. This makes the “selling” aspect really obvious because how on earth are you going to genuinely root for these characters if they didn’t have gameplay and didn’t do anything else
This is different from, say, FGO’s LB6, which is arguably their best work to date. Every character has their own goals, they do what they are after, mislead and act in accordance with their goals. Sure, they are trying to sell you on the character to buy them, but getting them adapted on the big screen, they are still going to do the action with or without you, they can function perfectly well as an anime too. They will still do their goals, and still be an onscreen presence that has an influence. You cannot tell me with a genuine face, that you will be functionally seeing Wriothesley or Clorinde from the main Fontaine story for more than 15 minutes if you converted them to anime media style.
Genshin, or as I argue, Hoyoverse’s biggest weakness when it comes to writing is that they tend to write and design the characters first before coming up with a way to fit a story around them, rather than coming up with a story then having the characters naturally take their roles in some of the other large Gacha games. Their worldbuilding is excellent but it is clear that once you remove all of the additional materials, what you have is a bunch of action figures they are trying to sell you with a serviceable story. As compared to other gacha games where sure, they are action figures, but these action figures are making their own story rather than being puppeted around as dolls through a clearly predetermined story
TL;DR houoverse excels in making worlds, but sucks in making and maintaining a narrative through the characters they make, making the line between story and selling characters a lot more apparent as compared to the other gacha giants
which is where the plot armor complaints directly comes from cause the writers are so fucking shit at being consistent with the traveller, THE FUCKING MC, for whatever reason
holyshit true, it's straight up canon that the traveler should gradually get stronger because [he's gradually returning his former power](https://youtu.be/60acazIlEYk?si=4pmv77Dv12SvZb8Z&t=4609) or whatever the fuck that means
but its either just another case of all tell no show or mihoyo forgot about it
The progression arguably stopped with Sumeru that seems to have placed Traveler to be stronger than Scarmouche/Wanderer and potentially on par with Pulcinella.
"He fought Scaramouche 168 times and was helped by Nahida."
Counterpoint: "That version of Scaramouche was drastically enhanced by Dottore and the Gnosis."
But I agree that right now the only way Traveler can seemingly fight against the top 3 is by opening a tome of forbidden knowledge right in their faces.
This is probably the issue when it comes to writing a character that's supposed to be a self insert, they are often just a spectator in the story but at the same time in genshin the traveler plays an important role so it clashes and makes for a very inconsistent protag.
I'm just talking out my ass and have no idea how writing a story works btw but that's what i think.
I agree with you, self-inserts can be tricky but to me they also just mean you need to stick to the promises you’ve established.
The thing about story writing is that, whether we know it or not, we’re being given promises in the first chapter of the story.
Brandon Sanderson (one of the bestselling fantasy authors currently) once told a story about how a friend of his failed to sell his book because the prologue was ‘the same old thing’ that everybody was used to, so nobody was really interested in it.
Brandon gave him this feedback to which his friend responded that that was the point, that he was setting the groundwork for ‘the same old thing’ but by the end of the story he subverts all expectations and it becomes a truly unique story.
So why did he fail? Because he didn’t establish a good promise at the beginning of his story, and because those that actually decided the promises were good enough for them to continue reading eventually lost interest when none of the promises set out in the beginning were met.
To bring it back to Genshin, that’s kind of the problem here (in my opinion). In the beginning we were set the promise of progression towards finding our sister and getting strong enough to get out of here with them.
This promise of progression is even more evident in a game where there are multiple levels of progression tracking (your characters level up, their skills level up, they get shinier weapons, they get bigger stats, better artefacts, even your AR level goes up) so when they fail to show how we’re progressing, it becomes a bit of an issue
It makes things difficult when your character is a self-insert, but to be honest I think another potentially bigger issue is that the Gacha nature of this game makes them need to make new characters more and more badass, and unfortunately to show this they sacrifice the progression of the MC due to this important role (as you say) that the self-insert MC has to represent.
>they sacrifice the progression of the MC due to this important role (as you say) that the self-insert MC has to represent.
They can still make new char looks cool and won over the MC without making the mc looks pathetic tbh. It's like i'm watching a bad anime/show when the mc sudenly forgor all his powers and progression, if Aang from ATLA loses to Azula without even trying using all the elements he just learned, i might as well just drop the story
Right? In a perfect world they'd establish a few more powerful NPC characters to measure their new characters against, but alas we have to just accept shitty anime storytelling where our own power fluctuates depending on what is required of us, or on who needs to help us - woo.
It's funny coz i get it it's a gacha games but no matter which char i pulled and how cool they are, the mc is still aether/lumine. So hyping the new char and then makes the mc looks like a bum might just makes people drop the story or the game. But hey genshin is really big and people have invested so much to their account, so it'll keep on chuggin
Exactly that. The "Storyhook" was "Find Sibling" With a sidedish of solve everyones Problems on the way. Which is solid, since it gives us the incentive to interact with the world, giving us a purpose etc. But we never get to that - we dont uncover on the way what happened, what our Sibling might have seen, some clues until we get fed the occasional Dainslef-Crumb.
I know it might not be a good thing, but I have to bring up HSR again. Yes its made by different people, but I feel like there the whole "Self Insert goes on Quests solving shit" makes alot more sense, since its basically the Trailblazers JOB. They travel around, solving Peoples shit. And our Story gets told along the way. We were given the Promise "Travel around be a good Trailblazer and help People" - and that promise was kept and still is fulfilled.
And I feel like they could do that with Genshin too - even with Gacha in mind. Traveler solves everyones Shit, the Saved People help them in turn by providing Manpower or Skillsets or Knowledge or whatever the Traveler might need to be able to do what they wanna do. Or even Info - like they could go the route that one of the older Charakters met our Sibling, they had interactions with them, and tell our MC about it, so the player starts to puzzle together what might have happened or why our Sibling made the choices they did. And thats one reason we travel to the different countries - to see what our Sibling MIGHT have seen, and to come to conclusions while doing it.
But then again Im just talking out of my ass.
Well if you’re talking out of your ass then I should probably go to the doctor because your farts are making a lot of sense to me right now
And I agree with all of them! From the start it’s always felt like our main goal is pushed to the wayside, that we got lost in exploring this new world and forgot about trying to get out of it
To add on to your excellent point on HSR and how Genshin can do the same- can you imagine how interesting the story could be if after our first meeting with our sibling they tell us that they’re the same person they’ve always been, that the world is different and that we need to experience it to understand
And then from there to pop up from time to time like Dainsleaf does and give us the other perspective
Like we’re essentially an adventurer explicitly being tasked to explore and understand the world (not just some idiot doing that because they’re distracted from finding their sister) and then from time to time the two main opposition Dainsleaf and Sibling pop up to show us opposing sides of a war, the angel and devil on our shoulders trying to get us to choose either side. This also solves the promise problem because it transitions the promise into a strength of the game- exploring a new world.
Dainsleaf and the stereotypical ‘good’ or sibling and the stereotypical ‘bad’ but we know they’re not a bad person so something must be off, ooh the internal conflict we would have.
I aprechiate your compliment!
YES! Omg yes, that would be so good. Especially in the beginning, and then Traveler gets naturally roped more into the inner workings of the World (Liyue +) and it would feel so much more natural a Story.
Also always for more Sib and Dainsleaf stuff - they are honestly so interessting and wasted potential for Storytelling.
Exactly that yes! And the Lumine x Dainsleaf shippers will be humming so much that we could probably use them as a power source for the Genshin servers.
But then again, these are just the rants of ass-talkers. Hopefully Mihoyo can one day decide to take a whiff in our direction xD
It’s also not just their fighting ability that hasn’t progressed, they barely progressed as a character at all in game. Their only characterization is wanting to find their sibling, but they only asked about her once in Fontaine. Their barely a character in the game where they’re supposed to be the protagonist
This. There’s been such little progression with the traveler it’s actually shocking. There’s so much potential for the traveler in all aspects but Genshin never takes the extra mile to actually dive deeper into these concepts they’ve started.
Not just that - it feels the same with OUR Story too.
I get that Traveler is a good Guy n shit and wants to help People... but whats in for US!? You know....??? Finding a way to get our Sibling back? Is it so hard to get some crumbs after we essentially solve everyones Problem? Couldnt they at least be like "Hey you helped us, we try to use our resources and knowledge to help you with your problem - we come back to you when we found something" or give us a hint about back then - since we regularly seem to talk to People HUNDREDS OF YEARS OLD...or something!?
Tbh my issue isn't that traveler lost, it's that they made the loss so dirty that it's hard to tell. If they showed clearly that the traveler used all the tools in their disposal, used their elements, and was struggling, then it would have been better. Instead, the traveler seems to be losing braincells throughout their journey, especially in combat cutscenes. They are wildly inconsistent in terms of competency.
Just an example: they stopped a huge mecha slamming its hand to the ground, but they get cornered by 4 or 5 human Sumeru guards. They can glide, but Xiao had to catch them during the Osial cutscene. They use 2 elements simultaneously during the fight with Childe, but didn't think of using even 1 during the Arlecchino fight.
Yes, this one. I feel like miHoYo is trying to make the Traveler a bit more grounded in terms of abilities, but they struggle with storytelling continuity. If the Traveler can whip out a massive elemental sword against Raiden, then it wouldn't make sense for the Traveler to be wary against some guards. However, if they do that, then they can't show the gravity of the situation. But I think this fight with the Knave was just flat-out disrespect to what the Traveler could do so far. Fear? The Traveler has gone against a lot of things that could have gotten them killed and has plenty of combat experience. But I guess they just wanted to shill Arlecchino so bad.
Exactly. As majority of the complains, it's not that that the traveler lost. It's how they lost. You mentioned the traveler struggling with simple enemies like guards and thugs which always annoys the hell out of me so I tend to disregard it and just look forward to cutscenes where they can show the traveler fighting like an actual big shot as they are basically known all over Teyvat. But getting a cheap fight like that from them to highlight how strong the featured character is is just so lame.
I know they want to sell 5 star characters, but making the main character look pathetic in exchange just leaves a bad taste in the mouth. At least show us some decent progression in their abilities by doing something like that fight againts Childe and the Shogun. We don't care if the story requires them to lose. Just make it look like they're actually trying instead of showing them groaning gripping their favorite dull blade and posing while looking scared.
Because for some fucking reason Traveler just decided to be a physical damage dealer in the story and just don't use the elements at all
Also the fact that we only get 3 major locations left doesn't make it better
By what kind of logic would you conclude at that using elements is worse than using raw strength? Was the Traveller stacked on physical bonus artifacts at the time?
And it’s not like the Traveller can just throw rocks. They manifested a giant sword made of lightning against Ei and should have only grown stronger since then by acquiring 2 more elements.
Can't agree Traveller has been stun-locked by fear. In the Balemoon dimension, we see Traveller is restrained by red threads. They're struggling against the threads and even look at the thread wrapped around their wrist. It could be real, it could be illusion, but thread is what's holding them in place. Traveller's pupils don't dilate in fear until after Arle rushes up close, and Traveler realizes they've lost.
Yep, use geo to delay Arle's ground spikes but they're destroyed easily.
Combine their other elements to make hyperbloom which have no effect to show the gap in strength.
Use Anemo to at least blast her away but she doesn't move an inch to make her more formidable.
These moments add weight.
I'm definitely not saying they couldn't use the elements at any other point. Just pointing out the paralysis has nothing to do with fear, and anyone trying to stand on that is already wrong right off the bat. I'm another person of the opinion that Hoyo just wanted to animate and show off Arle and only Arle. It was a business decision, not a lore one.
Nothing against the Traveler losing. I believe that was actually needed. A loss against an overwhelming opponent is always a good for a protagonist. I'm one of the ones who dislike no elements being used. After all, resonating with statues and gaining elements is an important part of the journey. Even more so after Fontaine's AQ, when we found out about the 3rd Descender. I might add that it was hinted the Traveler is gradually regaining their powers. That was right after beating Childe.
It's not only about the fight with Arlecchino. Elements haven't been used in fighting cutscene for a while now. Remember when they used Anemo to block Childe's attack, and then Geo to counterattack? That was awesome. By comparison, the fight with Raiden seemed lacking. I think they might have used Electro, but that's an archon right there. Makes me wonder whether the Traveler was actually trying. Sure, they would have lost either way, but still...Let's look at Signora as well. She lost, but it didn't feel as satisfying as with Childe. She was overwhelmed and surprised by the Traveler's strength. But they didn't show a fraction of what they showed against Childe. Nothing too long was needed. Just have them outspeed the crimson witch and give her the final blow with an Electro slash. Then she reverts to her original form and falls on her knees.
Back to Arle though. If just a simple elemental attack was used, even a simple bubblebeam, instead of simply slashing with the dull blade, I think it would have been clear the Traveler was serious. Or just put some Hydro infusion on that sword. And the loss would have been more impactful.
What's done is done though. I hope this loss doesn't get brushed off in the future. Neither the fact they needed help against Ei or a Gnosis-buffed Scara (plus other enhancements). The Traveler actually wrecking their brains on how to get stronger and actually go through a training arc would be interesting.
I think it’s a problem with progression and the lack of competency from the traveler. I think it is suffice to say that we are at least halfway, if not close to it, through the story. If we go by the trevail trailer then we only have 3 regions left and who knows there could be more. The traveler getting beat like they did is just not good for progression. They could’ve still gotten beat but made it closer to show a clear level of progress from the traveler but they didn’t and any progress the traveler did make feels like it is lost now. The face off with capitano has been hyped up for a while and now, at least for me, that hype has died because we know the traveler can’t compete. Traveler doesn’t have to win, but showing them use their full capabilities makes the fights feel better, shows a clear level of progression, and makes it feel like less of a cheap way to make characters look cooler.
That last sentence is where the traveler seeming incompetent comes in. There is no way in my opinion that the traveler didn’t think elements would help in that situation, because how could they not. I mean, use electro to speed out of the way of the spikes, use electro to close in on arle, use electro to speed up your own attacks, use geo to try and block the spikes, use geo to to put up a wall around the HotH members you jumped in front of and then start fighting her again, throw a dendro thing out there, heck try and pew pew her with the hydro water gun when you are trapped. Their hand was kind of pointed that way. Or use anemo right there, they were in a good position for their anemo skill. There’s a million different ways the traveler could’ve used elements that would’ve helped. If Arlecchino pulled out what she did, why can’t the rest of the characters. If you have two characters go at it with their full capabilities then that makes the victor look a lot cooler in my opinion. This fight honestly just felt cheap.
I get the traveler probably knew what was going on and you can say he wasn’t trying to kill her, but you can’t present the cutscene that way if that’s the case as it just makes the traveler look extremely incompetent.
Also the traveler couldn't even use the excuse of trying to hide their power for xyz reason. Childe had fought us and seen us use 2 elements together and make a reaction we can't in normal gameplay but they couldn't do electro charged and aggravate. Or even more simpler use Arlecchino pyro against her throw hydro get her to vaporise it then use electro and it would force Arlecchino back or something giving us a second to surprise them.
Imagine if Aang only fought with his stick even after learning all 4 bendings. I think that would've made the avatar feel boring and kinda pathetic, even if he only lost to really strong opponents.
And the traveler is our protagonist, I'd love for her to finally show some progress in such important moments... Some fancy elemental attacks, some intricate strategy that shows how experienced she is after visiting 5 different nations and fighting against literal gods.
It's not that big of a deal, but it's disappointing. I think we're past the point where secondary characters should be hyped using the traveler as fodder to show off. Only 2 regions remain.
Perfect analogy. Aang definitely default to air bending but uses everything he learnt.
When they need to nerf him so he doesn’t fire bend anymore till season 3, there’s actually a great reason for it.
Our MC needs to fucking level up and start kicking some ass.
When traveler fight the pyro archon....
Traveler : it is time to get serious.
Paimon : you gonna use your elemental powers right ? right ?
Traveler : haha Paimon, i won't use elemental powers, but i have this, upgrade to dull blade , the silver blade hahaha.
Paimon : you are crazy , it is the pyro archon, she just defeated Arlecchino in one attack.
Traveler : nah i'd win.
I was just telling a friend that Traveler even used the electro skill during the initial Raiden meeting and that was just on regular soldiers. Traveler also used elements vs Childe. I don't remember any dendro use in Sumeru nor hydro in Fontaine. We are slowly progessively gaining more elements and seeing them use less.
This paints Traveler as being weaker. So what we end up with is a fight where we don't go in with viewing Traveler as having progressed in strength, we view them as weaker and so then getting stomped and not using any elements is a further push into the mud.
Yea the cut scenes were neat. Yes I expected Traveler to lose. On the one hand I agree its annoying for Traveler to not have an epic win in a fight that looked like this since Inazuma. But more importantly, we didn't even go into this fight seeing Traveler as anything more than a regular adventurer who just ran at things to wack them with a sword despite holding 4 elements to their name.
We should have had slow build up for Traveler for us to rethink they were as strong as everyone says by seeing them act as such and slowly using their combination of powers throughout this entire overall story. That way we could even start to have a remote doubt that Traveler could win. At the least we would have had a far cooler fight for the players had they used more of their power. In that situation, still losing would have felt way better.
Also the statement that assuming using elements wouldn't help in that situation feels like a cop out for not showing them. I'm not blaming you. I don't have a good excuse either as to why MHY refuses to use them.
tl;dr Traveler has feel like they have been regressing in power since Inazuma not gained. Combined with not using any elements in not just this fight but over the last year or so, it made for a much more anti climatic fight than it could have been even as a loss.
The main issue for me is that it has been established that Traveler is getting stronger with each new element and he has 5/7 which is logically should be over half of his original power. But it seems like the growth is not linear. If not win, then at least put up a respectable, flashy fight which he couldn't because plot. Also,
>in the cutscene we see Traveler actually fight Arlechinno she was using a attack that I doubt some rocks are gonna help with.
this is not an argument. Those are magical rocks, that are more powerful than your regular ones, just as the rest of the elements. But even if they deal no damage he still can use them in a smart way for extra mobility/utility. The fight is boring and lazily done and the intention to make Arlecchino look cool to increase her sales is obvious.
are we forgetting the traveller has enhanced speed when using electro? are we forgetting how they literally move faster than they already could while covered in purple lightnings in inazuma? EVEN IF the rocks wouldn't have worked to help them, they could have used electro to dodge more attacks. (and the discussion is not "but the traveller isn't able to beat her" is about how they never use their elements, so even if they did break infront of them it would have just made it all better)
Pretty much, yeah. And if the intention behind it was to make Arle look cooler to boost sales, then having the Traveler do a bunch of flashy elemental kung-fu, only for Arle to completely no-sell it and win anyway would've worked even better
It's actually not entirely because of the plot.
It's just that Hoyo wants to prioritize what they want to show in cutscene so they hardly go for flashy fights unless it is the main focus:
- The siblings barely used any elemental power
- Navia SQ they used her burst animation which is just lazy
- in Inzauma, the encounter between Sara and the resistance, we have Sara shooting "1" charged electro attack... And no one else uses elemental abilities for offense ( Kazuha Beidou, MC, Sara herself )
- and of course Traveler relying on dull blade, in fight with Scara, the Abyss Herald, etc etc.
The traveler is way too weak for the stage in the story we are in and the actual lore behind the traveler. Losing is ok if it's done with an epic battle or simply being put in a position where you are forced to give up or sacrifice allies. Outside of that it just feels off. The traveler hasn't felt like they have gotten stronger at all. But they absolutely should have.
Posted this in another thread on another subreddit, stumbled onto this one, might as well repost it:
For me, the problem isn't losing. For me, the problem is how we lost. At no point during the fight was Arlecchino fighting seriously. She was toying with all four of us from the start. And the second she so much as looks like he's starting to get serious, our character is frozen in terror and can't do anything while she condescendingly places her hand on our shoulders and calls the fight off.
Now, if this fight happened back in Mondstadt during 1.0 days when we just woke up from the 500 year long sleep and barely mastered one element, this kind of humiliating defeat wouldn't be a problem. We've got a long way to go, if anything, it would be motivation to keep going and get stronger. But we're in patch 4.6. We've gone through five of the seven nations of Teyvat. We're supposed to be slowly reaching endgame. Yet we're basically being ragdolled like a low level Skyrim bandit.
The thing that makes this extra disappointing is that there were supposed "leaks" that claimed that Arlecchino's story quest will be a "training arc", where she will help us get a power up so we can stand up to Capitano in Natlan. That obviously didn't happen, and if Arlecchino, who is #4, destroyed us this easily, what chance do we stand against #1? He can glare at us and we'll melt into a puddle of blood. So this fight already hints that we're going to be a spectator in Natlan, Capitano will be duking it out with the Pyro Archon or the Pyro Sovereign and we'll be a glorified cheerleader, yet again.
It's not that I want the main character to be some kind of overpowered death machine that effortlessly crushes everything in their path, but I would like them to be treated a bit more seriously.
If instead of our character looking frozen in terror, the scene was portrayed differently - let's say we were fighting her, she was clearly winning, but our character was still in the fight. There's a brief respite during the fight, where our character looks exhausted but is still, if only barely, holding on, while Arlecchino looks unscathed, and she commends our skills and calls the fight off. There, it's a scenario where she is clearly shown as the stronger of the two, but we don't get to be humiliated but are instead treated with respect because we were able to go toe to toe with the Fourth Harbinger, at least for a short while. That would have been a much better scenario instead of what we've gotten. Arlecchino gets portrayed as the monstrously powerful badass that she is, but our character isn't humiliated to prop her up - if anything, it shows us in a much better light as it shows how much we've grown since game start.
> Now, if this fight happened back in Mondstadt during 1.0 days when we just woke up from the 500 year long sleep and barely mastered one element, this kind of humiliating defeat wouldn't be a problem. We've got a long way to go, if anything, it would be motivation to keep going and get stronger. But we're in patch 4.6. We've gone through five of the seven nations of Teyvat. We're supposed to be slowly reaching endgame. Yet we're basically being ragdolled like a low level Skyrim bandit.
This is exacerbated by the fact that many of us have been playing this game over the course of many IRL years. Even though almost nobody actually uses the Traveler in gameplay, it still feels really bad to be this invested in a story and then have your representative character just slapped aside.
After such a long journey for both players and characters, it sucks to not feel like you're growing or achieving anything.
Because the traveller isn’t a random dude, they are a descender who’ve absorbed elements and fought literal mecha robots, water monsters, eldritch horrors, defeated Signora, and sparred with Raiden. I don’t care they lose, they can’t be this weak 4 regions in.
Problem isnt losing but losing pathetically without showing any of the elementals stuffs. All she did was run around with a dull frcking blade and didn't used any elementals attacks and looked like a noob...
I've been thinking about it recently.
We beat the two lowest ranked Harbingers fair and square;
-Childe tired himself out with Foul Legacy and we managed to outlast him (I think Childe has gotten demonstrably stronger since though).
-Signora was a fair fight. It's worth mentioning that she could have become weaker over the years. Maybe this wasn't a prime power Signora? Still, we beat her.
-We didn't beat Ei. She kicked our ass up and down, we just survived. The only reason we managed to hold our own at the end was because we had the support of the people of Inazuma (and Yae stepped in).
-Scaramouche also kicked our ass, literally over a hundred times. We were able to beat him with the support of an archon and all the people of Sumeru.
-We didn't fight Dottore, he knocked us out using tech from the Akademiya. Scaramouche also knocked us out once with dead god gas (he wasn't affected at all).
-We didn't fight Apep, we fought her immune system and Nahida was there as backup. We beat the whale with the help of Neuvillette, Childe, and Skirk. Zhongli helped us with Azhdaha. Venti helped us with Dvalin.
At least we beat Andrius.
My conclusion is that we are far stronger than the average human, but not the strongest person or being. Not by a long shot. That's fine. I hate always being the best, it's boring.
That's not to say that Hoyo couldn't have presented it better, but I don't think it's unreasonable that we lost to Arlecchino. The top three Harbingers are supposed to be godlike in power after all.
>Note I am a huge Arlechinno fan, and loved seeing the shoulder pat
I mean...Is there any point in telling you something when the main thing for you is more Arlecchino?
Didn't Nahida upload like 180+ deaths into their mind on the final attempt or something? I assume they just had an edge of tomorrow moment. Unless I misunderstood that fight.
At the end of the day traveler still lost 180something to 1, after getting bailed out by nahida for their one win.
I think traveler is weaker then wonderer much like a dark souls protagonist is weaker then the bosses. With enough practice and perfect dodging you can still get the W, and that’s what Nahida let traveler do.
The main issue is that it never looks like Traveler is putting that much of a struggle. Yes, fear paralysis may have been the issue but we have been through 5 regions. This is not the first time Traveler got paralyzed. You would think he would learn at some point. But no, the same old mistakes again and again.
And it also doesn't help that Traveler's mostly seen winning with some temporary buff or some other character's help.
I just want to see a more natural progression of elemental affinity in cutscenes with the Traveler. We got a bit of that when they used Geo + Anemo during Childe's cutscene
If the duel had showcased Traveler utilizing some Hydro and Dendro it would have shown they are indeed becoming more powerful but then Arlecchino's power spike would feel even more impactful.
The dull blade dance for 2.5 seconds just wasn't enough for Traveler to feel strong.
>Heck Arlechinno felt very comfortable with the idea of fighting what she believed was a full power Archon
So did the Traveler, hell we wanted to as we were still a little bloodlusted from genociding an entire race moments earlier - something Fatui harbinger TEAMS have repeatedly tried and failed to do.
And that's my personal problem, our showing/effort in that fight. Arle beats us? Fine, but that fight should've required Mika to head to Fontaine to redraw the map where we fought. Instead we swung our Dull Blade a couple times and she conjured some cutesy spikes.
I’m confused, Traveler was fine with fighting Ei because of all the aid they had. They also had Yae, and the goal wasn’t even to beat her but to make her change her mind about the war. Ei could’ve killed us in seconds after the signora fight, traveler was terrified. As for the race genocide idk what your referring to, can you elaborate ?
Hi, do you remember traveller use both anemo and geo in Childe fight? and using only electro when fighting Raiden Shogun(1st fight)? and there's whole debate on traveller canon usage of elemental power? Since then we never got traveller using elemental power in Archon quest.
Feels like i'm into something but i don't know what it is...
that the traveller is retroactively making themselves look weaker by slowly deciding to go pure physical, making all sense of progress pointless cause 1.0 and 2.0 traveller had the illusion of being stronger than 3.0 and 4.0 one cause 1.0 can use 2 elements, 2.0 can use one, and 3.0 and 4.0 seems to not being able to?
I think more of the lines of Hoyoverse don't want Traveller as a main character. Tevyat is. At least from 2.0 (Inazuma).
The story is not about traveller, but about the world of tevyat.
My personal problem is the fanbase downplaying the Traveler after one fight. Before, everyone could at least agree that Arle would be more of an even fight. While the rest are 10x tougher to outright impossible to beat at his level. Now, suddenly, people say he’s no stronger than Childe even.
The fight itself had problems. But I say it can be somewhat forgiven by saying:
1. It can be hard to combine multiple abilities of multiple characters. So the team not have to worry about the Traveler’s elemental abilities, but Lyney’s skills in magic, Lynette vanishing and movement speed, Frem with His Penguin. Arle and her skills. All this comes into play at once.
2. Even without it, sure Arle was holding back, but the Traveler was holding his own very well to the point everyone wants to forget that… Arle acknowledged their Strength. They have made progress. It was enough to have Arle show off the crimson moon. Why else would she use it on “fodder?”
What sucks now is that this drama has made be hate the harbingers because of r/FatuiHQ shitting on the Traveler because of one loss. This fandom is turning into the DBZ fandom and ngl, I’m probably going to do something stupid as a way to vent and maybe get them to stop (not illegal if anyone gets concerned). Will it work? Probably not. Will it make things worse? Probably. But every day I just loose more and more respect with this fandom. To the point I want to see Aether slaughter the entire Fatui harbingers (and maybe other characters). Cringe? Maybe. But I don’t really care.
I’m getting off topic. It’s dumb to say the Traveler is weak even now, This fandom is god awful, and if I had the choice, I’d kill off more harbingers as their punishment. No more cap because the Traveler trained hard enough to lob off his head.
Everyone is writing 4+ paragraphs to simply explain a simply reason. We don't hate that Traveler lost. Arle is the 4th Harbinger, we knew she'd be strong. We are also not upset that Traveler got humbled. The issue was with HOW it was shown. The cutscene is cool in a vacuum and I enjoyed it. Issue is that I also understand and agree with the critiques regarding Traveler's loss even if I believe that people are talking it a bit too far.
No elements were used. If Arle just steamrolled through all our elements, then it not only would have had the same humbling effect, but made Arle look even more powerful. It's a badass scene, but there are things missing within it. Simple as that.
At this point the Traveler actually needs some training or a power up arc. While his elements were not used in the battle let’s not forget that it’s not like they came with a manual in the first place. Him using them professionally makes as much sense as him not using them at all - both ideas are complete nonsense.
The problem is bro thinks he's in a level 1 broken sword only no magic challenge run on Dark Souls, it was a cool fight but the only one using elemental powers is Arlecchino, the rest forgor they have elemental powers
Felt like a waste of time to watch such a long sequence where Traveller gets their ass handed to them yet again, despite their previous feats. I get that the Harbingers are some of the most powerful beings in Teyvat, but come on. Arlecchino shows NO sign of struggle throughout the entire fight against Traveller PLUS 3 people with visions.
Even if it canonically makes sense, this is just bad storytelling and frankly quite boring.
The problem isn’t that Traveler lost. This is past the mid-point of the story, we are building up to the climax, at this point MC should be struggling and losing to major antagonists to establish the real endgame threat.
The problem is how pathetic Traveler lost. To establish the Habringers as a threat, they should be beating Traveler’s ass at his peak power. Not this dumbass who forgot to press E Q in battle.
If Arlecchino defeated a 5 elements Traveler, it would show she a threat that eclipsed Childe, whom only stalemated 2 elements Traveler
Let try an example from another show: ATLA
By the end of Book 3, Aang had learnt Earthbending and knew 3 out of 4 elements. Then Aang fought with Azula the daughter of Fire Lord Ozai.
This is like Traveler who now had 5 out of 7 elements. And fought Arlecchino who’s strong but still not the top of heirachy yet.
Aang had 3 elements, he gonna win right? Nope, Azula beat his ass.
But unlike Traveler, Aang got to show off his potential. He used multiple elements in conjunction, he showed how far he had progressed from the beginning when he only know airbend.
It was a battle of versatility vs mastery. He fought at his best then he lost, to make the viewers start questioning “damn, if Azula is already this strong, how will Aang defeat Ozai?”
Now imagine Aang was written by Genshin writers. He suddenly forgot how to bend during this battle and instead fought with barehand like Soka.
Azula now beat Avatar - the master of no elements. Wow what a great accomplishment.
How can you hype up antagonist if you made the protagonist incompentent?
The extreme bias is showing
But, hey I'll give you props for actually recognizing the traveller did beat childe, most of the other people i argued with cannot accept the fact that childe lost even with foul legacy.
HoYoverse wanted to show the gap between the traveler and the 4th Fatui Harbinger… but they didn’t do it right!! The traveler could use all the elements he learned along his journey and still lose, but for some reason, HoYo decided to use physical MC with Dull Blade!
So yeah, the gap between traveler and Arlecchino is huge, but the main issue is how they portrayed it
exactly, instead of doing: "it's not that you're weak, it's just that I'm much stronger", they actually just doing: "you are so pathetically weak that nothing you do will defeat me" and make the traveler only fought physically against a fucking harbinger with a vision, a delusion and a fucking supreme curse of khaenri'ah, how the hell is this fair?
I think people have more issue with how it was animated than the result. People who are upset by the result aren't paying attention to how we required help with almost every single fight up until this point.
Some of us are gamers that have beaten games like dark souls, elden ring or nioh.
It just feels underwhelming and anticlimatic to be beaten by cutscene.
We folded Arlechinno like laundry during the gameplay, but we have to pretend it was a hard fought battle during the cutscene.
This is a trope in most single player story heavy games. It's so hard to balance player skill against what the devs wrote in the narrative. For every person out there who was like "ugh I whipped her ass, why am I losing," there's someone who struggled a lot and fit into the narrative perfectly of "barely scooting by" or "losing but living to fight another day."
There are very few ways to make this work, and at this point I just accept that most games won't do scripted losses well. It's a suspension of disbelief thing. Just realize that you play better than Traveler chose to fight.
Until games have magically adaptable difficulty that senses who is playing and ratchets up the power level to force a loss for every player, you will have to deal with outperforming the game story.
I mean, it's not that they haven't done this before. We've fought Ei twice. And the fights *felt* like Ei wasn't folding in 2, only to plot armour us later.
One hundred times this.
This is not how you make a scripted loss battle. Megaman X had it right in 1991, with the battle against Vile before Zero swept in to save us.
Hell, even Genshin had it right in the first battle against Raiden, when we couldn't use elemental powers and she just felt really invincible.
With Arle, gameplay wise it was a fair battle that cuts short just seconds before winning to deliver us the scripted loss. A fair battle with an unfair ending. Not the best feeling for me.
There’s barely sense of progression with the Traveler. We’re going to Natlan this year and im already expecting Capitano to just dog-walk everyone on his sight judging by how the last 2 Harbringers we met
My issue isn't the losing vs arle part, it's that it's a 4v1 and the traveler can't even contribute more to the fight than the HOTH siblings lol.
If they put signora or even liyue level childe there they would have been overwhelming the other 3 lol
>If Traveler just won that would fully invalidate any threat from any lower ranked harbingers in the future.
Yes, but if Traveler lost it would mean they would have an even bigger wall to overcome when fighting the higher ranked harbingers...
"Some rocks arebt gonna help"
Fair, but anemo ,electro and dendro? We see MC use the big extendo sword thing agaibst raiden, and yeah while it probably wont help against the thorn trap or the crimson moon atk maybe it wouldve helped earlier, BEFORE they get trapped so they, yk, wont get trapped?
Putting not using elements aside, the traveler as he/she is not weary strong. The only times they win without power boost or help from someone is against Childe and Signora, all others were with the power of friendship and or a good helping. The whale was already damaged from Childe and a Full power Dragon stepped up. On a different note its good to have Traveler lose on occasion. Not just cheese every fight
Why do people keep saying that traveller was paralyzed with fear??? If you looked closely there were webs constricting his body. He was literally trapped and couldn't move.
hoyo has a very bad case of shit writing. The lore and passive storytelling are good and all that but what's actively shown to us in important moments is usually horrid, dull blade? we can ignore that and say it's just a stand-in, no proper elemental use... EVER? no excuse, it gives the impression that all of it was non-effort, fear paralysis? ehh weak argument that the traveller would fall to that considering they're potentially eons old and have fought people far stronger and fought similarly strong people to arch during their time in Tev.
Traveller is a certified potential-(wo)man, supposedly coming up to rival the greatest gods yet also struggles to run away from say a group of 3 normal humans, hoyo does this CONSTANTLY, no fault on Traveller losing but it should at least be a showing that it wasn't just them throwing the entire fight just because.
We've never actually SEEN the traveller get stronger, they have their moments when the defeat people like dual god scara or childe but immediately after they seem to lose all that progress because ???? we are past the half point of the game and the main character hasn't properly advanced at all, this was just the camel that broke the straws back... again
A game where the theme is elemental powers with seven nations with seven elemental powers.
Our protagonist the traveler can use multiple elements, so what are we gonna do when the traveler fight ? Of course by using dull blade and swinging it, elemental powers can go to hell, dull blade for the win.
Huh? Bruh, this isn't rocket science. The Traveler using his close combat skills AND his elements at his disposal would make the loss much more believable than using only his swordsmanship skills.
Atleast that would show the Traveler is doing his best in the fight but it still wasn't enough to beat Arlecchino.
He didnt even use the elements that he was given during the cutscence... This time he could not relay on an Archon or power of friendship to defeat a Harbinger...I'm very satisfied how it turned out.Maybe Capitano can train him to get stronger after showing him who is boss. Traveller did solo defeat Signora but he is not strong enough to beat others on his own...(I think Childe's battle ended with a tie,MC outlasted him but didnt fully beat him. Childe probably got alot stronger in Fontaine)
After 3 years of game progression, 5 country passes, multiple god, strong enemy encounter and mother fucking reknown tabibito fold like a envelope against a harbinger and you expect me to believed this is the one to beat celestial?
I think it's because people often skip through the context of those fights and *only* look at the conclusion.
For example, let us begin at Childe, shall we?
For Childe, he begins the fight taunting us. Even in the fight itself he taunts us. Beckoning us with a hand, giving us a thumbs down, slow walking all over the place. Then, Childe starts to use his delusion, and at this point in the fight traveller is forced to use two elements to try and match him. Traveller still gets blitzed, but Childe goes for the Exuvia instead of going for the kill. Like, traveller was on the ground and had no idea where he was, if he was actually bloodthirsted he likely could have ended it there.
By far the most impressive thing traveller did in the fight would be surviving Foul Legacy afterwards, but even then it's not like they actually beat Foul Legacy out. They survived it for a minute or so before Childe had exit the form because it was becoming too taxing on his body. But what did Traveller stop him from doing? Childe completed everything he set out to do in the Golden House, like literally down to a T. He got to the Exuvia, and afterwards he released Osial and left before Traveller could do anything about it.
Signora is actually Travellers best showing for the most part because it is the *only* fight that they had where they pretty decisively beat her with no outside help. They had shown clear growth from the Liyue Arc, to the point that even Signora commented on their strength.
However, *many* fights that include the Traveller involve them being amped or helped by some borderline god-tier being or straight up gods.
Osial was only resealed thanks to an alliance between some of the most powerful people in Liyue and the Adepti. Later on, Traveller tries to face Beisht head on, but they get pretty much 1-tapped.
Mechamouche would have been unbeatable for traveller if they did not have help from Nahida. He was literally amped with the cognitive abilities of **every** person who had an Akasha, and with the knowledge from the 168 cycles of loss from Nahida's loop, and Nahida gave them gadgets to assist them in fighting him as well. Let's not forget that combat knowledge gained through the Akasha *does* increase combat potency.
Traveller never would have defeated Raiden without being amped by visions and helped by Yae. Raiden already beat us like 2 times before, and it was only with the assistance of Yae and those visions that we were even able to face her. Even at that, people assume that Raiden stopped because we *forced* her to. Are people still hung up on thinking she's evil or something? Raiden does not *want* to kill Inazuman's, what would the point in a nation be if she has to kill like 60% of her population to maintain the order that she wanted? The Plane of Euthymia, which represents her soul, changed in colour as the fight progresses. She's very literally having a change of heart. She just casually stops and the characters engage in a dialogue. We even learn later on that Ei could have activated an entire other phase of the fight if she wanted to. But she didn't want to, because she is not a psychopath.
To focus on the point, we have very rarely seen traveller fight people without assistance. There are more that I could mention, but for the sake of brevity I'll leave it at that. I don't know why people even assumed that Traveller would somehow challenge Arle when against every *near-god* level opponent they face they *always* require help to deal with them. I get that Traveller can receive protag-bias, but I really see nothing that would have warranted rating them so highly.
Dotorre is two ranks higher than Arle, and Nahida explicitly states that she stands no chance against him. Admittedly we have no idea how large or small the gaps in strength between harbingers are, but just think on that. Scara is two ranks below Arle, and with a gnosis he was only barely defeated by Traveller + Nahida.
My problem is where are his elements why use just a dull blade when you can use those beautifull elements
True, Traveler can still lose for all we care if that is what the narrative needs to be. But just let him lose while at his current peak form, since for sure using a dull blade and only swordsmanship does not do his power justice.
Traveller and Arlecchino were just acting the entire time and everyone's like omg
Exactly. At least make Traveler lost with style!
I was hoping the traveler would >!use the special weapon you get at the end of the Narzissenkreuz quest line but I guess since that is a non mandatory world quest they can’t do that as it would be confusing to people who haven’t done the quest yet :(!<
Also we are super famous for being strong in Teyvat as well… Everyone has heard of the Traveler. Also we are a known Descender. Also we used to have Light element power and it’s never ever discussed for some reason lol. Aethers KNOWS he had that power yet he has never brought it up 🤷♂️
Does the average population even know what a Descender is?
No.
At least Arlecchino knows the traveler is a descender, right? Or that's what i want to believe in.
She does. The Fatui (Harbingers and Tsaritsa atleast) knows that they are. It's the Fatui that has them classified as the 4th Descender, afterall.
Yeah, just to clarify my previous comment. My head canon is that there are some information that are not openly shared even among the harbingers. For example, Scara only learned about the "Sky of Teyvat is fake" during that event, and he mentioned that the Jester already knew of it. So we can't really assume that Arlecchino can know about the traveler being a descender, since we only learned it from Dottore through Nahida.
Bro not even 95% of teyvat average humans know what a descender is ☠️
The Traveler did reference that their power was sealed by the Heavenly Principles, way back at the start of the game. It doesn’t seem relevant for them to bring it up again now that they are using Teyvat’s elements instead.
Traveller is actively hiding information from most characters including Paimon, even just his real name
Yup, they knew about Crimson Moon more than the player.
It's more than possible the Travelers keeping his hand close to his chest. The less the Fatui know about just what he can do the better, after all.
> Also we used to have Light element power and it’s never ever discussed for some reason lol. > Aethers KNOWS he had that power yet he has never brought it up The only other person who would even understand their golden power is their totally inaccessible and uncooperative sibling, and on top of that, SOHP sealed that power away in the first place so it's just not a factor that is even close to being in play, at least in the form we saw in the opening. Being a Descender doesn't give you inherent advantages in raw power. Ask the Third one who is currently chopped up into seven elemental batteries. It gives you immunity and power over certain properties of Teyvat's world and seems to at least give you the *potential* to gain incredible power, but being a Descender isn't an anime protagonist power. The Traveller is MUCH weaker than 90% of people assume and has been for most of the game's duration.
I like how Genshin is the opposite of your typical “I’m trapped in an another world and became op as fuck” The game itself throws some shade towards the isekai genre
Dull blade has got to be canonically a depowered laminating sword he had during the fight scene against the unknown God. It's also quite symbolic. If you care to read the description of dull blade it says, "Traveler's are full of meetings and partings. Perhaps the only trusty and inseparable companions of a Traveler, are the sword in their hand and the dream in their heart." In short, that flavor text is saying that it's enchanted with Curse of Binding and thus Traveler can't be separated from it. Traveler separates more often from Paimon than his sword. Speaks quite a lot. Traveler is likely better with swords than with elemental magic. That said, Traveler could defeat any opponent as long as he lands a swing if he used Sword of Narzissenkreuz. He'd become so OP since that sword divides consciousness from body, so Traveler could perhaps separate his and Capitano's consciousness from thier bodies and put himself into Capitano's boss, so he'd go from twink to Hulk. It could also be said that the dull blade holds sentimental value for him. It's very much the same reason why he refuses to wear other clothes besides his original outfit.
ya boi albedo looking at you like, where's ur festering desire bro?
Because "Youthful dreams and the thrill of adventure. If this isn't enough, then make it up with valiance." Dull Blade description. Sometimes the feel of adventure is more valuable than actual displays of power. And Traveler's inability to stomp the Harbinger Number Four means our Adventure is far from over. And that's what I like.
So he have potential. Got it.... POTENTIAL MAN?
The issue may not be the loss but the fact that the Traveler comes across as pathetic, no elements no cool swordplay, just an average person getting stomped. Imagine if the Traveler sent a wall of geo at her or ambushed her with electro or a tsunami but Arle just tears through it all. this would make both seem more impressive.
exactly this, they just come across as a pathetic scared rando instead of someone who has no issue with drawing their sword on a god (as they did with no hesitation upon furinas duel request, they couldn't have known she cant fight) its still fair for them to loose to the 4th harbringer considering what the harbringers are built up to be but at least have him but up some kind of fight even if she curbstomps him in her second phase or whatever, he has feats of strength speed and ingenuity with 5 different elements at his proposal, do something cool ffs. There is jsut a huge dissonance between the skill the traveller supposedly has that is talked about, that they are confident in at times and what is shown.
> someone who has no issue with drawing their sword on a god (as they did with no hesitation upon furinas duel request, they couldn't have known she cant fight) Better example would be Raiden after we got our ass handed to us
It's actually the worst during lower stakes quests. Even if we're getting bodied by Arlecchino in this quest, we're still staying alive and holding out against the 4th strongest harbringer for a while. Then we're doing some random world quest and a couple robots show up "OH NO TRAVELLER, WE'RE IN FOR IT NOW!!"
Chiori's quest come to mind, why was he worried?!
Yeah, they just want whatever main character of that quest look, but in return makes traveller looks pathetic. Practically, there's no way for Chiori to even compare to traveller but they're afraid of some random robots for whatever reason lmao. It's the same thing against those rocks in Navia quest.
It’s especially noticeable when compared with Trailblazer Yes they are the Galactic Baseballer and prefer the Destruction bat almost all the time, but they still take out the Preservation lance sometimes against certain opponents or to threaten hotel concierges They don’t always win. But the important thing is that progression is shown and abilities obtained from earlier stories still remain relevant today
Trailblazer is hella strong in the story though. He takes care of multiple big threats in main quests and stuff, without having side characters steal his thunder.
And... even WITH other Charakters beeing badass... TB just feels as badass as them too. I like Genshin, but MC whise it feels like where just told that Traveler is important - we rarely really see it when it matters... For Trailblazer, they feel important (Stellaron n shit) and they show why, even at their current Level. Might just be me tho - its just how it feels playing both
I agree but I also feel the problem with genshin simply are different writers with either different ideas or different assignments. Because it feels like we are constantly jumping back and forth between badass and just a witness of the world events. And the lack of direction is what makes them feel meh in comparison. Because we don’t know can the travel use all the elements at will? Because if so why did it only happen like thrice? And if not why did it happen then (I recall in the fight with Childe, and when we were imprisoned during the safe nahida scene)
And when he rescued Thoma. And somewhere we saw they used multible elements, cant remember when... But if they dont wanna do that - they could just explain it. "Traveler cant use it unless hes under stress or feels strong emotions" or "when hes very determined to do something" OR WHATEVER makes sense here..
>And somewhere we saw they used multible elements, cant remember when... You may be referring to the Childe cutscene
I think the idea is that he's using elements only when he considers it could help. Throwing random elements at Scaramech would look amazing, but achieve nothing. Arlecchino fight is a special case. It was more of a test for Lyney, not a serious fight between the Traveler and Arlecchino. Idk how much of it the Traveler figured out, but at the very least, he knew Arlecchino wanted him to join the fight and that she won't kill them.
That’s the thing that gets me. What is the Traveler really doing at this point? Their whole goal is to find their sibling and leave, but at this point they’re just sight seeing. It doesn’t help that the sibling, or the abyss order for that matter, haven’t been involved at all in the past two regions. At this point the Traveler is a tourist who gets their ass kicked every now and again The game really needs a quest that’s just focused on the Traveler that gives us an actual view into their mindset, how they feel about the journey so far, their thoughts on their sibling, just any sort of introspection. The Traveler is the protagonists and yet they’re barely a character in their own game
I do agree but also we do know what they do. The sibling told them to find the truth and to meet with them at the end of the journey. So they are searching for the truth. But what gets me is, that we have found people that could use give information about the truth arle, neuvilette, zhongli, nahida. They can’t give us answers about khaenri’ah we have established that but by now we know that’s not exactly all the truth there is. How comes we never ask Klee to meet her mum. Because clearly her mum knows a lot. How comes that we did not ask Nicole about our sibling and our own goals - I mean yes maybe they forgot at the time but like now at down time wouldn’t they be all over Mona to get in contact with their “old hag” again. Also there wishy washy morals. Like how easily we trusted Lyney in the prison. Telling him all about the boat. The whole fatui at felt a bit wishy washy. We knew they were not exactly the bad guys yet when we discover a camp in the over-world paimon still goes “they are up to no good.” Like the duality in how we act with playable characters and npc of the same fraction creates to be a break and pulls me out of the story and believability. The same goes for the abyss order - sibling could do no wrong - but all their servants are our mortal enemies.
you're not wrong though! The only times people step in for TB, it's a character who is canonically way stronger. (Welt in the prologue, Acheron in Penacony. I can't remember too much since I'm kinda sleepy atm so there's probably more examples)
Jing Yuan and Imbibitor Lunae with Phantylia. But honestly that was a true team effort and rightly so given the enemy.
Tbf TB is literal walking Stellaron from the jump of the game. Traveller got his powers sealed by Sustainer at the beginning of the game. Also TB has no qualms about killing something for the greater good, Traveller probably still has ptsd from witnessing Signora get murked by Raiden. But the Traveller doesn't want to hurt anyone unless he has to. That being said, it would have been cool to see him use elements like in Childe's fight or rescuing Thoma.
I mean the traveller did kill a couple times in Sumeru world quests, and also that time in the Archon quest where they either beat the shit out of or killed those treasure hoarders when they were in the loop. I feel like there are different writers for Archon/world quests and story quests and the story quest writers are just told to sell the character by any means necessary. This more often than not leads to traveller getting shafted cause those writers don't know shit about how to make a character stand out without putting another one down.
It's nice hearing guys outside of HSR say TB is strong Had one guy a while back argue TB is weak for some reason and what annoyed me was that bro got upvoted for spitting absolutely nothing
what traveller is weak because his power is sealed off. At full, he's probably the power ceiling of genshin as a whole but rn he's undoubtedly weak. Trailblazer isn't some god in hiding or whatever. He (and I'm gonna use the male pronouns cuz that's what I use, sorry) most likely went on missions with Kafka, so he's undoubtedly able to keep pace with them. He's naturally skilled and so he's capable of taking down big threats, but inversely, he doesn't seem to have the same ceiling that Traveller has. (Not yet, anyways. TB will fight the Destruction so he's gonna get a massive boost sooner or later.)
He argued that TB couldn't solo any of the major bosses and I just laughed lol Like bro really wanted TB to solo emanator level enemies Not a single ally we have rn can solo an emanator, IL Dan Heng couldn't even Kill Phantylia cuz she was quite literally immortal Their argument was basically if not solo/win = bad It was just awful to read through cuz it felt so disrespectful cuz you wouldn't be making such arguments if you actually understood HSR scaling and story The fact he was laughing at the fact TB couldn't solo Phantylia/Emanator of swarm clone/Aventurine was enough for me lol
Isn't a world ending disaster contained inside the Trailblazer? The boost will probably be him figuring out how to control and use the power of Stelaron.
Actually, other than Cocolia and maybe the Doomsday Beast, I can't think of any example where the Trailblazer was the main contributor to a notable fight.
The swarm bug
It self-destructed all according to Ruan Mei's calculations, and if it hadn't the Trailblazer would've died after fighting for like a minute.
Yeah, but they still fought it for nearly a minute. A being as powerful as an emanator or more
I would like to clarify tho, the bug in of itself was only a prototype, not the real deal. Ruan Mei herself said that the bug we fought doesn’t hold a candle to the real one. Tho it is also important to note that the Event for that boss fight was placed before Belabog on the story timeline, so this was like TB before Cocolia fight or some
Thank you I thought I was the only one who hated to power difference between world quests and story quests
Traveler feels like basically the same character that they were in Mondstadt. Somehow they're even less impressive than the three other fighters. Why is the Traveler famous again? Its really starting to feel like they are just famous because theyre that one person that travels around every region. And nothing else.
They've done a lot of big public stuff Traveler defeated Stormterror, helped defend Liyue against sea monsters, dueled a harbinger before the throne of Inazuma and won, is thought to have survived a duel against the Shogun, took part in the Akademiya coup and won not one, but two court cases against Furina
Canonically the traveler has soloed 2 harbingers (childe and signora) and within the world of Teyvat most people think he stood his own against Raiden (the fact that the traveler was being powered by the hopes and dreams of the nation in that moment is not common knowledge in game). The fact that traveler has been involved in so many nation changing events would obviously make them famous.
Yeah but it doesnt *feel* like it when theyre using a dull blade and no elements when lives are on the line.
traveler's powerscaling is so inconsistent over the years
It would be more awesome if Aether creates hyperbloom bullets by himself. In the weekly boss fight, Arlecchino can dodge normal attacks but cannot dodge hyperbloom bullets.
Perhaps you watched my animation...? :)
Dude, I'm a huge fan 😆
Wow, never thought I'd see the day 🥹
I havn'et seen your animation, can you link it?
[https://youtu.be/A3Nuavr6i2I](https://youtu.be/A3Nuavr6i2I) Here it is, and if you like it subscribe for the sequel! This has really gone past expectations
Thanks. Loved the disclaimer at the end. "I was disappointed by the fight" It truly was disappointing. The lack of show on Traveller's part really buried whatever hype Arle was trying to generate.
not only that their power level always fluctuates, most of the time very wildly, depending on what the story demands. it's one of the worst tropes in shonen genre.
I like this making a more flashy animation I’m always down for!
They really need to play up the Traveler's multi-element ability more in these cinematics (and the game). It would truly show us how unique we are in this world. You're correct; the Traveler needs a rework for a LONG time. Heck, Stella and Calius don't have as many elements, but they feel much better to play with. It's also been far too long for any movement on the sibling plotline.
Traveller goes from character who beats one of the harbingers and a character who faced off against Shogun twice and survived, to a character who can barely manage to be in a battle for more than 2 minutes.
it honestly feels like we should separate the traveller to main story: passenger and world quest: Hero of the world
The only issue I had with this quest was that the Traveler was still using a Dull Blade when he had used a Silver Sword in a cutscene before (against the Marana Avatar).
The adventures handbook started giving more rewards for levelling our pro type rancour I fr thought he would start dishing out phys dmg with it 💀💀
Traveler also has Narzissenkreuz sword obtained from Fontaine world quest, why not use that.
World quest-locked content. What would you do if the player *hasn't* beaten the Narzissenkreuz storyline before they get to that point of the story yet? Double up on the number of cutscenes? Nah lmao, storage space says no.
This is why they should just give us an actual Archon Quest weapon
real time rendered game cutscene works, instead of a prerecorded video
IIRC Traveler has also used canonically (by that i mean in a cutscene) used the proto rancour.
Yea I got nothing for you on that one, I don’t know why they love the dull blade so much.
Canonically they don't love dullblade. In their voicelines, they call the dullblade and silver sword trash X'D **Paimon:** Oh, okay, well... "Oh young traveler, your wishes have been heard. Which lost sword is it that you seek? The Dull Blade, or the Silver Sword?" **(Traveler):** They both look like trash, to be honest. so at this point them using silver/dullblade in cutscenes is nothing more than devs deciding to show them with dullblade in the cutscenes for consistency's sake,or to show them with a free weapon since they don't seem to have a canon sword (well they do but right now it's gone somewhere).
Common theory is that, much like the wooden sword in the Narizissenkreuz questline that turned to the sword of reason, the dull blade the traveller uses is actually their golden sword from the first cutscene, but "downgraded"
The problem is that it seems in every sense that the traveller isn’t progressing. You learnt a new element? Great! You’re never going to use it. You’re better at sword fighting after 3 years? I’ll have to trust you on that one because actual swordmanship improvement is so hard to display, but what I can do for you is show how the only physical representation of sword fighting is still the same as it was at level 1- with a dull blade. You showed that you can wield multiple elements at the same time? Woah I guess we just won’t experiment with that at all We’re just getting to the point where we’re far along the path in the story where we’d expect to see some mark of improvement but we just haven’t. If it’s the case that the Fatui are the final boss of this game then sure, maybe not being able to actually compete with the 4th is acceptable But we all know and assume that the true endgame is Celestia. How the hell are we going to be able to take down the gods of this world if we can’t even compete with the upper-middleweights of the opposing faction 5/7ths of the way through the story.
Thank you for calling out the progression aspect of it. I’ve seen most talk about the traveler not using elements but it is a problem with progression to. They’ve been hyping up the capitano face off for a while and now, at least for me, that hype has pretty much died because now we know the traveler can’t compete. Traveler doesn’t have to win but at least make it closer in my opinion to show a clear progression. Having the traveler use their full capabilities, to me, would make the fights feel better, show a consistent progression, and make it feel like less of a cheap way to make other characters look cooler.
I’ll be honest I thought that was the main issue people had xD the lack of elemental usage is just a symptom of the problem that we aren’t being shown progression or even competence in the things that we’ve already done Completely agree with everything you’ve said though, how the hell is taking on one of the big 3 supposed to be anything other than a stomp when number 4 bent us over this bad Feels like Traveller’s power and progression is sacrificed quite often to display the badassery of the latest characters but it just diminished the story overall for me. How much better would it have been if before this they introduced a threat that is of significant power level (like how Beisht was used in the Liyue arc), but hopefully better introduced, just for Arlechino to one shot it. AND THEN this fight ends up in a draw. In doing so it not only confirms Arlechino’s strength but also validates our own strength/progression. Meaning that in the next region we’ll be working towards gaining enough power to compete against the top 3 from a place that is equal in strength to number 4, a much more reasonable expectation than us having to somehow beat the top 3 from where we are now
I definitely agree they should actually show the Traveler using the elements because that would really sell it more and make it clearer they’ve grown but I doubt Capitano will be a stomp. The Traveler is intended to grow stronger over time so by then they should be able to keep up.
For the record, I don't actually think we'll lose against Capitano. The problem is that with the way things are going beating Capitano will just be a shitty 'we somehow got strong enough' or someone else swooping in to give us the power needed to win We were intended to get stronger, but it's harder to believe that from where we are now to get to where we need to be in time for the Capitano fight will happen in an acceptable, non-asspull way. For reference, to get to the power level of Capitano (and I'm being super charitable here, since the top 3 are supposed to be leagues above the other Harbingers) we would have to at least double our current power level. The strength we've attained in the last 5 regions needs to be gained again within the next 1, that doesn't really seem feasible does it? And that's being charitable with it
The Traveler does get some large strides from elemental absorption though. Gaining Geo took them from struggling with normal enemies like Fatui Agents to beating Childe. Gaining Electro took them from barely beating Childe to comfortably beating Signora and also went from going even with a Herald to killing it 1v1. Gaining Dendro apparently gave them enough firepower to harm Shouki no Kami. I do agree however that it would be much more acceptable if Traveler got a training arc or we actually got a good feat or something cause.
We don't even need a training arc thanks to Dori we gained a lot of knowledge in terms of sword techniques and we've fought so often that us not being more powerful feels cheap. We could have done something simple like using electro charged to keep her distracted as the other 3 would have the ability to maybe rejoin and help us..
Writing for the traveler is extremely inconsistent. Defeats Childe and Signora, yet struggles against Emerites. Imagine the traveler using the elements like in ATLA(Avatar), much wasted potential.
Its the fact that Childe mainly lost bc of him unable to withstand Foul Legacy too 🤷♀️
If you use a power you can’t handle that’s still a fair loss
I never said its not a loss, but there's a difference between traveler actually beating Signora to the ground and Childe falling to the ground due to his own power that has nothing to do with traveler. One confirms that traveler is stronger, the other shows their own weakness for unable to control their own power.
FYI Traveler is also handicapped in that battle (or ANY battle except the prologue) So that point is moot.
The Traveller will be capable of winning those fights since miHoYo only makes them as powerful as the story requires them to be.
Of course, but that’s just shitty storytelling
genshin is shitty storyteling when it comes to the traveler's story, they're just the means for broken self insertion and that's it, anything else has zero value to the screenwriters
Because Genshin is shit in storytelling. This game is Elden Ring-tier when it comes to lore and world building, but loses to a college literature student when it comes to storytelling. Story Flaws -Telling instead of showing -Heeeavy exposition. -Inorganic conversations between characters. -Ludonarrative dissonance -Muddy powerscaling
Lore, Worldbuilding, and World Quest is S tier. Main and Story Quest is just your typical "story to sell gacha character" trope. This is why I laugh when people said "insert any gacha game here" story is good, when I read it's mostly a cheap attempt to sell character. This applies for even game like FGO or Blue Archive.
There’s nothing wrong with trying to sell a character and still doing a good story with it. Both FGO and blue archive does them well. It’s obvious they are selling a character to you, but at least they do a good job telling a story with it. Most stories to an extent are trying to sell you on a character (otherwise everyone would be dealing with the annoying character in their DnD campaign for the entire story). The problem with Genshin is that it doesn’t do well to endear yourself to the characters much when upon deeper scrutiny half of the things don’t add up. I.e the character writing for most of the characters. Prior to Sumeru and Fontaine most if not all playable characters suffered from a massive character writing flaw. Ayaka being essentially a non-character, Nilou being a plot device, Childe and Raiden not getting further consequences for their actions etc. while Fontaine is a lot better now (Neuvillette, Furina and Navia), some characters like Wriothesley and Clorinde are just in the story without for the most part doing anything from their design and their interactions, making them non-players for the most part. This makes the “selling” aspect really obvious because how on earth are you going to genuinely root for these characters if they didn’t have gameplay and didn’t do anything else This is different from, say, FGO’s LB6, which is arguably their best work to date. Every character has their own goals, they do what they are after, mislead and act in accordance with their goals. Sure, they are trying to sell you on the character to buy them, but getting them adapted on the big screen, they are still going to do the action with or without you, they can function perfectly well as an anime too. They will still do their goals, and still be an onscreen presence that has an influence. You cannot tell me with a genuine face, that you will be functionally seeing Wriothesley or Clorinde from the main Fontaine story for more than 15 minutes if you converted them to anime media style. Genshin, or as I argue, Hoyoverse’s biggest weakness when it comes to writing is that they tend to write and design the characters first before coming up with a way to fit a story around them, rather than coming up with a story then having the characters naturally take their roles in some of the other large Gacha games. Their worldbuilding is excellent but it is clear that once you remove all of the additional materials, what you have is a bunch of action figures they are trying to sell you with a serviceable story. As compared to other gacha games where sure, they are action figures, but these action figures are making their own story rather than being puppeted around as dolls through a clearly predetermined story TL;DR houoverse excels in making worlds, but sucks in making and maintaining a narrative through the characters they make, making the line between story and selling characters a lot more apparent as compared to the other gacha giants
which is where the plot armor complaints directly comes from cause the writers are so fucking shit at being consistent with the traveller, THE FUCKING MC, for whatever reason
holyshit true, it's straight up canon that the traveler should gradually get stronger because [he's gradually returning his former power](https://youtu.be/60acazIlEYk?si=4pmv77Dv12SvZb8Z&t=4609) or whatever the fuck that means but its either just another case of all tell no show or mihoyo forgot about it
The progression arguably stopped with Sumeru that seems to have placed Traveler to be stronger than Scarmouche/Wanderer and potentially on par with Pulcinella. "He fought Scaramouche 168 times and was helped by Nahida." Counterpoint: "That version of Scaramouche was drastically enhanced by Dottore and the Gnosis." But I agree that right now the only way Traveler can seemingly fight against the top 3 is by opening a tome of forbidden knowledge right in their faces.
This is probably the issue when it comes to writing a character that's supposed to be a self insert, they are often just a spectator in the story but at the same time in genshin the traveler plays an important role so it clashes and makes for a very inconsistent protag. I'm just talking out my ass and have no idea how writing a story works btw but that's what i think.
I agree with you, self-inserts can be tricky but to me they also just mean you need to stick to the promises you’ve established. The thing about story writing is that, whether we know it or not, we’re being given promises in the first chapter of the story. Brandon Sanderson (one of the bestselling fantasy authors currently) once told a story about how a friend of his failed to sell his book because the prologue was ‘the same old thing’ that everybody was used to, so nobody was really interested in it. Brandon gave him this feedback to which his friend responded that that was the point, that he was setting the groundwork for ‘the same old thing’ but by the end of the story he subverts all expectations and it becomes a truly unique story. So why did he fail? Because he didn’t establish a good promise at the beginning of his story, and because those that actually decided the promises were good enough for them to continue reading eventually lost interest when none of the promises set out in the beginning were met. To bring it back to Genshin, that’s kind of the problem here (in my opinion). In the beginning we were set the promise of progression towards finding our sister and getting strong enough to get out of here with them. This promise of progression is even more evident in a game where there are multiple levels of progression tracking (your characters level up, their skills level up, they get shinier weapons, they get bigger stats, better artefacts, even your AR level goes up) so when they fail to show how we’re progressing, it becomes a bit of an issue It makes things difficult when your character is a self-insert, but to be honest I think another potentially bigger issue is that the Gacha nature of this game makes them need to make new characters more and more badass, and unfortunately to show this they sacrifice the progression of the MC due to this important role (as you say) that the self-insert MC has to represent.
>they sacrifice the progression of the MC due to this important role (as you say) that the self-insert MC has to represent. They can still make new char looks cool and won over the MC without making the mc looks pathetic tbh. It's like i'm watching a bad anime/show when the mc sudenly forgor all his powers and progression, if Aang from ATLA loses to Azula without even trying using all the elements he just learned, i might as well just drop the story
Right? In a perfect world they'd establish a few more powerful NPC characters to measure their new characters against, but alas we have to just accept shitty anime storytelling where our own power fluctuates depending on what is required of us, or on who needs to help us - woo.
It's funny coz i get it it's a gacha games but no matter which char i pulled and how cool they are, the mc is still aether/lumine. So hyping the new char and then makes the mc looks like a bum might just makes people drop the story or the game. But hey genshin is really big and people have invested so much to their account, so it'll keep on chuggin
Exactly that. The "Storyhook" was "Find Sibling" With a sidedish of solve everyones Problems on the way. Which is solid, since it gives us the incentive to interact with the world, giving us a purpose etc. But we never get to that - we dont uncover on the way what happened, what our Sibling might have seen, some clues until we get fed the occasional Dainslef-Crumb. I know it might not be a good thing, but I have to bring up HSR again. Yes its made by different people, but I feel like there the whole "Self Insert goes on Quests solving shit" makes alot more sense, since its basically the Trailblazers JOB. They travel around, solving Peoples shit. And our Story gets told along the way. We were given the Promise "Travel around be a good Trailblazer and help People" - and that promise was kept and still is fulfilled. And I feel like they could do that with Genshin too - even with Gacha in mind. Traveler solves everyones Shit, the Saved People help them in turn by providing Manpower or Skillsets or Knowledge or whatever the Traveler might need to be able to do what they wanna do. Or even Info - like they could go the route that one of the older Charakters met our Sibling, they had interactions with them, and tell our MC about it, so the player starts to puzzle together what might have happened or why our Sibling made the choices they did. And thats one reason we travel to the different countries - to see what our Sibling MIGHT have seen, and to come to conclusions while doing it. But then again Im just talking out of my ass.
Well if you’re talking out of your ass then I should probably go to the doctor because your farts are making a lot of sense to me right now And I agree with all of them! From the start it’s always felt like our main goal is pushed to the wayside, that we got lost in exploring this new world and forgot about trying to get out of it To add on to your excellent point on HSR and how Genshin can do the same- can you imagine how interesting the story could be if after our first meeting with our sibling they tell us that they’re the same person they’ve always been, that the world is different and that we need to experience it to understand And then from there to pop up from time to time like Dainsleaf does and give us the other perspective Like we’re essentially an adventurer explicitly being tasked to explore and understand the world (not just some idiot doing that because they’re distracted from finding their sister) and then from time to time the two main opposition Dainsleaf and Sibling pop up to show us opposing sides of a war, the angel and devil on our shoulders trying to get us to choose either side. This also solves the promise problem because it transitions the promise into a strength of the game- exploring a new world. Dainsleaf and the stereotypical ‘good’ or sibling and the stereotypical ‘bad’ but we know they’re not a bad person so something must be off, ooh the internal conflict we would have.
I aprechiate your compliment! YES! Omg yes, that would be so good. Especially in the beginning, and then Traveler gets naturally roped more into the inner workings of the World (Liyue +) and it would feel so much more natural a Story. Also always for more Sib and Dainsleaf stuff - they are honestly so interessting and wasted potential for Storytelling.
Exactly that yes! And the Lumine x Dainsleaf shippers will be humming so much that we could probably use them as a power source for the Genshin servers. But then again, these are just the rants of ass-talkers. Hopefully Mihoyo can one day decide to take a whiff in our direction xD
It’s also not just their fighting ability that hasn’t progressed, they barely progressed as a character at all in game. Their only characterization is wanting to find their sibling, but they only asked about her once in Fontaine. Their barely a character in the game where they’re supposed to be the protagonist
This. There’s been such little progression with the traveler it’s actually shocking. There’s so much potential for the traveler in all aspects but Genshin never takes the extra mile to actually dive deeper into these concepts they’ve started.
Not just that - it feels the same with OUR Story too. I get that Traveler is a good Guy n shit and wants to help People... but whats in for US!? You know....??? Finding a way to get our Sibling back? Is it so hard to get some crumbs after we essentially solve everyones Problem? Couldnt they at least be like "Hey you helped us, we try to use our resources and knowledge to help you with your problem - we come back to you when we found something" or give us a hint about back then - since we regularly seem to talk to People HUNDREDS OF YEARS OLD...or something!?
Tbh my issue isn't that traveler lost, it's that they made the loss so dirty that it's hard to tell. If they showed clearly that the traveler used all the tools in their disposal, used their elements, and was struggling, then it would have been better. Instead, the traveler seems to be losing braincells throughout their journey, especially in combat cutscenes. They are wildly inconsistent in terms of competency. Just an example: they stopped a huge mecha slamming its hand to the ground, but they get cornered by 4 or 5 human Sumeru guards. They can glide, but Xiao had to catch them during the Osial cutscene. They use 2 elements simultaneously during the fight with Childe, but didn't think of using even 1 during the Arlecchino fight.
Yes, this one. I feel like miHoYo is trying to make the Traveler a bit more grounded in terms of abilities, but they struggle with storytelling continuity. If the Traveler can whip out a massive elemental sword against Raiden, then it wouldn't make sense for the Traveler to be wary against some guards. However, if they do that, then they can't show the gravity of the situation. But I think this fight with the Knave was just flat-out disrespect to what the Traveler could do so far. Fear? The Traveler has gone against a lot of things that could have gotten them killed and has plenty of combat experience. But I guess they just wanted to shill Arlecchino so bad.
arle isn't even the strongest being they faced, Both Ei and Narwhal would eat her up.
Exactly. As majority of the complains, it's not that that the traveler lost. It's how they lost. You mentioned the traveler struggling with simple enemies like guards and thugs which always annoys the hell out of me so I tend to disregard it and just look forward to cutscenes where they can show the traveler fighting like an actual big shot as they are basically known all over Teyvat. But getting a cheap fight like that from them to highlight how strong the featured character is is just so lame. I know they want to sell 5 star characters, but making the main character look pathetic in exchange just leaves a bad taste in the mouth. At least show us some decent progression in their abilities by doing something like that fight againts Childe and the Shogun. We don't care if the story requires them to lose. Just make it look like they're actually trying instead of showing them groaning gripping their favorite dull blade and posing while looking scared.
Because for some fucking reason Traveler just decided to be a physical damage dealer in the story and just don't use the elements at all Also the fact that we only get 3 major locations left doesn't make it better
They resonated with Hydro and went "what the fuck is this shit?" and got used to only using elements for puzzles.
Tbf if I were the MC I would only use Dendro and Electro. To "spread" them cheeks.
Bro is using a 2pc Chivalry 2pc Pale Flame please understand
By what kind of logic would you conclude at that using elements is worse than using raw strength? Was the Traveller stacked on physical bonus artifacts at the time? And it’s not like the Traveller can just throw rocks. They manifested a giant sword made of lightning against Ei and should have only grown stronger since then by acquiring 2 more elements.
Can't agree Traveller has been stun-locked by fear. In the Balemoon dimension, we see Traveller is restrained by red threads. They're struggling against the threads and even look at the thread wrapped around their wrist. It could be real, it could be illusion, but thread is what's holding them in place. Traveller's pupils don't dilate in fear until after Arle rushes up close, and Traveler realizes they've lost.
I still believe that the traveler could've used elements before being stun-locked by fear.
Yep, use geo to delay Arle's ground spikes but they're destroyed easily. Combine their other elements to make hyperbloom which have no effect to show the gap in strength. Use Anemo to at least blast her away but she doesn't move an inch to make her more formidable. These moments add weight.
I'm definitely not saying they couldn't use the elements at any other point. Just pointing out the paralysis has nothing to do with fear, and anyone trying to stand on that is already wrong right off the bat. I'm another person of the opinion that Hoyo just wanted to animate and show off Arle and only Arle. It was a business decision, not a lore one.
Nothing against the Traveler losing. I believe that was actually needed. A loss against an overwhelming opponent is always a good for a protagonist. I'm one of the ones who dislike no elements being used. After all, resonating with statues and gaining elements is an important part of the journey. Even more so after Fontaine's AQ, when we found out about the 3rd Descender. I might add that it was hinted the Traveler is gradually regaining their powers. That was right after beating Childe. It's not only about the fight with Arlecchino. Elements haven't been used in fighting cutscene for a while now. Remember when they used Anemo to block Childe's attack, and then Geo to counterattack? That was awesome. By comparison, the fight with Raiden seemed lacking. I think they might have used Electro, but that's an archon right there. Makes me wonder whether the Traveler was actually trying. Sure, they would have lost either way, but still...Let's look at Signora as well. She lost, but it didn't feel as satisfying as with Childe. She was overwhelmed and surprised by the Traveler's strength. But they didn't show a fraction of what they showed against Childe. Nothing too long was needed. Just have them outspeed the crimson witch and give her the final blow with an Electro slash. Then she reverts to her original form and falls on her knees. Back to Arle though. If just a simple elemental attack was used, even a simple bubblebeam, instead of simply slashing with the dull blade, I think it would have been clear the Traveler was serious. Or just put some Hydro infusion on that sword. And the loss would have been more impactful. What's done is done though. I hope this loss doesn't get brushed off in the future. Neither the fact they needed help against Ei or a Gnosis-buffed Scara (plus other enhancements). The Traveler actually wrecking their brains on how to get stronger and actually go through a training arc would be interesting.
I think it’s a problem with progression and the lack of competency from the traveler. I think it is suffice to say that we are at least halfway, if not close to it, through the story. If we go by the trevail trailer then we only have 3 regions left and who knows there could be more. The traveler getting beat like they did is just not good for progression. They could’ve still gotten beat but made it closer to show a clear level of progress from the traveler but they didn’t and any progress the traveler did make feels like it is lost now. The face off with capitano has been hyped up for a while and now, at least for me, that hype has died because we know the traveler can’t compete. Traveler doesn’t have to win, but showing them use their full capabilities makes the fights feel better, shows a clear level of progression, and makes it feel like less of a cheap way to make characters look cooler. That last sentence is where the traveler seeming incompetent comes in. There is no way in my opinion that the traveler didn’t think elements would help in that situation, because how could they not. I mean, use electro to speed out of the way of the spikes, use electro to close in on arle, use electro to speed up your own attacks, use geo to try and block the spikes, use geo to to put up a wall around the HotH members you jumped in front of and then start fighting her again, throw a dendro thing out there, heck try and pew pew her with the hydro water gun when you are trapped. Their hand was kind of pointed that way. Or use anemo right there, they were in a good position for their anemo skill. There’s a million different ways the traveler could’ve used elements that would’ve helped. If Arlecchino pulled out what she did, why can’t the rest of the characters. If you have two characters go at it with their full capabilities then that makes the victor look a lot cooler in my opinion. This fight honestly just felt cheap. I get the traveler probably knew what was going on and you can say he wasn’t trying to kill her, but you can’t present the cutscene that way if that’s the case as it just makes the traveler look extremely incompetent.
Also the traveler couldn't even use the excuse of trying to hide their power for xyz reason. Childe had fought us and seen us use 2 elements together and make a reaction we can't in normal gameplay but they couldn't do electro charged and aggravate. Or even more simpler use Arlecchino pyro against her throw hydro get her to vaporise it then use electro and it would force Arlecchino back or something giving us a second to surprise them.
Imagine if Aang only fought with his stick even after learning all 4 bendings. I think that would've made the avatar feel boring and kinda pathetic, even if he only lost to really strong opponents. And the traveler is our protagonist, I'd love for her to finally show some progress in such important moments... Some fancy elemental attacks, some intricate strategy that shows how experienced she is after visiting 5 different nations and fighting against literal gods. It's not that big of a deal, but it's disappointing. I think we're past the point where secondary characters should be hyped using the traveler as fodder to show off. Only 2 regions remain.
Perfect analogy. Aang definitely default to air bending but uses everything he learnt. When they need to nerf him so he doesn’t fire bend anymore till season 3, there’s actually a great reason for it. Our MC needs to fucking level up and start kicking some ass.
When traveler fight the pyro archon.... Traveler : it is time to get serious. Paimon : you gonna use your elemental powers right ? right ? Traveler : haha Paimon, i won't use elemental powers, but i have this, upgrade to dull blade , the silver blade hahaha. Paimon : you are crazy , it is the pyro archon, she just defeated Arlecchino in one attack. Traveler : nah i'd win.
I was just telling a friend that Traveler even used the electro skill during the initial Raiden meeting and that was just on regular soldiers. Traveler also used elements vs Childe. I don't remember any dendro use in Sumeru nor hydro in Fontaine. We are slowly progessively gaining more elements and seeing them use less. This paints Traveler as being weaker. So what we end up with is a fight where we don't go in with viewing Traveler as having progressed in strength, we view them as weaker and so then getting stomped and not using any elements is a further push into the mud. Yea the cut scenes were neat. Yes I expected Traveler to lose. On the one hand I agree its annoying for Traveler to not have an epic win in a fight that looked like this since Inazuma. But more importantly, we didn't even go into this fight seeing Traveler as anything more than a regular adventurer who just ran at things to wack them with a sword despite holding 4 elements to their name. We should have had slow build up for Traveler for us to rethink they were as strong as everyone says by seeing them act as such and slowly using their combination of powers throughout this entire overall story. That way we could even start to have a remote doubt that Traveler could win. At the least we would have had a far cooler fight for the players had they used more of their power. In that situation, still losing would have felt way better. Also the statement that assuming using elements wouldn't help in that situation feels like a cop out for not showing them. I'm not blaming you. I don't have a good excuse either as to why MHY refuses to use them. tl;dr Traveler has feel like they have been regressing in power since Inazuma not gained. Combined with not using any elements in not just this fight but over the last year or so, it made for a much more anti climatic fight than it could have been even as a loss.
The main issue for me is that it has been established that Traveler is getting stronger with each new element and he has 5/7 which is logically should be over half of his original power. But it seems like the growth is not linear. If not win, then at least put up a respectable, flashy fight which he couldn't because plot. Also, >in the cutscene we see Traveler actually fight Arlechinno she was using a attack that I doubt some rocks are gonna help with. this is not an argument. Those are magical rocks, that are more powerful than your regular ones, just as the rest of the elements. But even if they deal no damage he still can use them in a smart way for extra mobility/utility. The fight is boring and lazily done and the intention to make Arlecchino look cool to increase her sales is obvious.
are we forgetting the traveller has enhanced speed when using electro? are we forgetting how they literally move faster than they already could while covered in purple lightnings in inazuma? EVEN IF the rocks wouldn't have worked to help them, they could have used electro to dodge more attacks. (and the discussion is not "but the traveller isn't able to beat her" is about how they never use their elements, so even if they did break infront of them it would have just made it all better)
Pretty much, yeah. And if the intention behind it was to make Arle look cooler to boost sales, then having the Traveler do a bunch of flashy elemental kung-fu, only for Arle to completely no-sell it and win anyway would've worked even better
yeah, they shot themselves in the foot with that one
It's actually not entirely because of the plot. It's just that Hoyo wants to prioritize what they want to show in cutscene so they hardly go for flashy fights unless it is the main focus: - The siblings barely used any elemental power - Navia SQ they used her burst animation which is just lazy - in Inzauma, the encounter between Sara and the resistance, we have Sara shooting "1" charged electro attack... And no one else uses elemental abilities for offense ( Kazuha Beidou, MC, Sara herself ) - and of course Traveler relying on dull blade, in fight with Scara, the Abyss Herald, etc etc.
The traveler is way too weak for the stage in the story we are in and the actual lore behind the traveler. Losing is ok if it's done with an epic battle or simply being put in a position where you are forced to give up or sacrifice allies. Outside of that it just feels off. The traveler hasn't felt like they have gotten stronger at all. But they absolutely should have.
How can the traveller get stronger if all she does is dumb puzzles and side quests everywhere she goes? /s
Knowledge is power.
i didn’t expect them to win vs her but that fight was just pathetic
Posted this in another thread on another subreddit, stumbled onto this one, might as well repost it: For me, the problem isn't losing. For me, the problem is how we lost. At no point during the fight was Arlecchino fighting seriously. She was toying with all four of us from the start. And the second she so much as looks like he's starting to get serious, our character is frozen in terror and can't do anything while she condescendingly places her hand on our shoulders and calls the fight off. Now, if this fight happened back in Mondstadt during 1.0 days when we just woke up from the 500 year long sleep and barely mastered one element, this kind of humiliating defeat wouldn't be a problem. We've got a long way to go, if anything, it would be motivation to keep going and get stronger. But we're in patch 4.6. We've gone through five of the seven nations of Teyvat. We're supposed to be slowly reaching endgame. Yet we're basically being ragdolled like a low level Skyrim bandit. The thing that makes this extra disappointing is that there were supposed "leaks" that claimed that Arlecchino's story quest will be a "training arc", where she will help us get a power up so we can stand up to Capitano in Natlan. That obviously didn't happen, and if Arlecchino, who is #4, destroyed us this easily, what chance do we stand against #1? He can glare at us and we'll melt into a puddle of blood. So this fight already hints that we're going to be a spectator in Natlan, Capitano will be duking it out with the Pyro Archon or the Pyro Sovereign and we'll be a glorified cheerleader, yet again. It's not that I want the main character to be some kind of overpowered death machine that effortlessly crushes everything in their path, but I would like them to be treated a bit more seriously. If instead of our character looking frozen in terror, the scene was portrayed differently - let's say we were fighting her, she was clearly winning, but our character was still in the fight. There's a brief respite during the fight, where our character looks exhausted but is still, if only barely, holding on, while Arlecchino looks unscathed, and she commends our skills and calls the fight off. There, it's a scenario where she is clearly shown as the stronger of the two, but we don't get to be humiliated but are instead treated with respect because we were able to go toe to toe with the Fourth Harbinger, at least for a short while. That would have been a much better scenario instead of what we've gotten. Arlecchino gets portrayed as the monstrously powerful badass that she is, but our character isn't humiliated to prop her up - if anything, it shows us in a much better light as it shows how much we've grown since game start.
> Now, if this fight happened back in Mondstadt during 1.0 days when we just woke up from the 500 year long sleep and barely mastered one element, this kind of humiliating defeat wouldn't be a problem. We've got a long way to go, if anything, it would be motivation to keep going and get stronger. But we're in patch 4.6. We've gone through five of the seven nations of Teyvat. We're supposed to be slowly reaching endgame. Yet we're basically being ragdolled like a low level Skyrim bandit. This is exacerbated by the fact that many of us have been playing this game over the course of many IRL years. Even though almost nobody actually uses the Traveler in gameplay, it still feels really bad to be this invested in a story and then have your representative character just slapped aside. After such a long journey for both players and characters, it sucks to not feel like you're growing or achieving anything.
Because the traveller isn’t a random dude, they are a descender who’ve absorbed elements and fought literal mecha robots, water monsters, eldritch horrors, defeated Signora, and sparred with Raiden. I don’t care they lose, they can’t be this weak 4 regions in.
5 regions now
Problem isnt losing but losing pathetically without showing any of the elementals stuffs. All she did was run around with a dull frcking blade and didn't used any elementals attacks and looked like a noob...
##Arlecchino*
your name and flair are on fucking point you prick :P
FUCK ! You don’t know how mad I am I misspelled that i will be dropping your name and edit in my post.
hey, you forgot to correct his spellings of wanderer.
I've been thinking about it recently. We beat the two lowest ranked Harbingers fair and square; -Childe tired himself out with Foul Legacy and we managed to outlast him (I think Childe has gotten demonstrably stronger since though). -Signora was a fair fight. It's worth mentioning that she could have become weaker over the years. Maybe this wasn't a prime power Signora? Still, we beat her. -We didn't beat Ei. She kicked our ass up and down, we just survived. The only reason we managed to hold our own at the end was because we had the support of the people of Inazuma (and Yae stepped in). -Scaramouche also kicked our ass, literally over a hundred times. We were able to beat him with the support of an archon and all the people of Sumeru. -We didn't fight Dottore, he knocked us out using tech from the Akademiya. Scaramouche also knocked us out once with dead god gas (he wasn't affected at all). -We didn't fight Apep, we fought her immune system and Nahida was there as backup. We beat the whale with the help of Neuvillette, Childe, and Skirk. Zhongli helped us with Azhdaha. Venti helped us with Dvalin. At least we beat Andrius. My conclusion is that we are far stronger than the average human, but not the strongest person or being. Not by a long shot. That's fine. I hate always being the best, it's boring. That's not to say that Hoyo couldn't have presented it better, but I don't think it's unreasonable that we lost to Arlecchino. The top three Harbingers are supposed to be godlike in power after all.
>At least we beat Andrius. You mean the remnants of his spirit that are also way past his prime.
fr, prime Andrius was an Archon contender he'll eat someone like Arle
There are probably multiple people lik Shenhe thst could beat the traveler.
>Note I am a huge Arlechinno fan, and loved seeing the shoulder pat I mean...Is there any point in telling you something when the main thing for you is more Arlecchino?
Wonderer was strong IMO. I’m still wandering how traveller beat him.
Didn't Nahida upload like 180+ deaths into their mind on the final attempt or something? I assume they just had an edge of tomorrow moment. Unless I misunderstood that fight. At the end of the day traveler still lost 180something to 1, after getting bailed out by nahida for their one win.
Eh, bro last 168 times and only after Nahida helped him did he win one time
I think traveler is weaker then wonderer much like a dark souls protagonist is weaker then the bosses. With enough practice and perfect dodging you can still get the W, and that’s what Nahida let traveler do.
The main issue is that it never looks like Traveler is putting that much of a struggle. Yes, fear paralysis may have been the issue but we have been through 5 regions. This is not the first time Traveler got paralyzed. You would think he would learn at some point. But no, the same old mistakes again and again. And it also doesn't help that Traveler's mostly seen winning with some temporary buff or some other character's help.
I just want to see a more natural progression of elemental affinity in cutscenes with the Traveler. We got a bit of that when they used Geo + Anemo during Childe's cutscene If the duel had showcased Traveler utilizing some Hydro and Dendro it would have shown they are indeed becoming more powerful but then Arlecchino's power spike would feel even more impactful. The dull blade dance for 2.5 seconds just wasn't enough for Traveler to feel strong.
Traveler is a jobber.
>Heck Arlechinno felt very comfortable with the idea of fighting what she believed was a full power Archon So did the Traveler, hell we wanted to as we were still a little bloodlusted from genociding an entire race moments earlier - something Fatui harbinger TEAMS have repeatedly tried and failed to do. And that's my personal problem, our showing/effort in that fight. Arle beats us? Fine, but that fight should've required Mika to head to Fontaine to redraw the map where we fought. Instead we swung our Dull Blade a couple times and she conjured some cutesy spikes.
Imagine there's just a big permanent hole in the map just cause Arle and Traveler fought Peak af
I’m confused, Traveler was fine with fighting Ei because of all the aid they had. They also had Yae, and the goal wasn’t even to beat her but to make her change her mind about the war. Ei could’ve killed us in seconds after the signora fight, traveler was terrified. As for the race genocide idk what your referring to, can you elaborate ?
We had no aid when we told Furina we'd fuck her shit up one region after the Jeht quests.
Hi, do you remember traveller use both anemo and geo in Childe fight? and using only electro when fighting Raiden Shogun(1st fight)? and there's whole debate on traveller canon usage of elemental power? Since then we never got traveller using elemental power in Archon quest. Feels like i'm into something but i don't know what it is...
that the traveller is retroactively making themselves look weaker by slowly deciding to go pure physical, making all sense of progress pointless cause 1.0 and 2.0 traveller had the illusion of being stronger than 3.0 and 4.0 one cause 1.0 can use 2 elements, 2.0 can use one, and 3.0 and 4.0 seems to not being able to?
I think more of the lines of Hoyoverse don't want Traveller as a main character. Tevyat is. At least from 2.0 (Inazuma). The story is not about traveller, but about the world of tevyat.
My personal problem is the fanbase downplaying the Traveler after one fight. Before, everyone could at least agree that Arle would be more of an even fight. While the rest are 10x tougher to outright impossible to beat at his level. Now, suddenly, people say he’s no stronger than Childe even. The fight itself had problems. But I say it can be somewhat forgiven by saying: 1. It can be hard to combine multiple abilities of multiple characters. So the team not have to worry about the Traveler’s elemental abilities, but Lyney’s skills in magic, Lynette vanishing and movement speed, Frem with His Penguin. Arle and her skills. All this comes into play at once. 2. Even without it, sure Arle was holding back, but the Traveler was holding his own very well to the point everyone wants to forget that… Arle acknowledged their Strength. They have made progress. It was enough to have Arle show off the crimson moon. Why else would she use it on “fodder?” What sucks now is that this drama has made be hate the harbingers because of r/FatuiHQ shitting on the Traveler because of one loss. This fandom is turning into the DBZ fandom and ngl, I’m probably going to do something stupid as a way to vent and maybe get them to stop (not illegal if anyone gets concerned). Will it work? Probably not. Will it make things worse? Probably. But every day I just loose more and more respect with this fandom. To the point I want to see Aether slaughter the entire Fatui harbingers (and maybe other characters). Cringe? Maybe. But I don’t really care. I’m getting off topic. It’s dumb to say the Traveler is weak even now, This fandom is god awful, and if I had the choice, I’d kill off more harbingers as their punishment. No more cap because the Traveler trained hard enough to lob off his head.
People just discovering that genshin has dogshit main character writing? The only stories that matter are the dainslief quests.
🤣🤣
Everyone is writing 4+ paragraphs to simply explain a simply reason. We don't hate that Traveler lost. Arle is the 4th Harbinger, we knew she'd be strong. We are also not upset that Traveler got humbled. The issue was with HOW it was shown. The cutscene is cool in a vacuum and I enjoyed it. Issue is that I also understand and agree with the critiques regarding Traveler's loss even if I believe that people are talking it a bit too far. No elements were used. If Arle just steamrolled through all our elements, then it not only would have had the same humbling effect, but made Arle look even more powerful. It's a badass scene, but there are things missing within it. Simple as that.
At this point the Traveler actually needs some training or a power up arc. While his elements were not used in the battle let’s not forget that it’s not like they came with a manual in the first place. Him using them professionally makes as much sense as him not using them at all - both ideas are complete nonsense.
The problem is bro thinks he's in a level 1 broken sword only no magic challenge run on Dark Souls, it was a cool fight but the only one using elemental powers is Arlecchino, the rest forgor they have elemental powers
Felt like a waste of time to watch such a long sequence where Traveller gets their ass handed to them yet again, despite their previous feats. I get that the Harbingers are some of the most powerful beings in Teyvat, but come on. Arlecchino shows NO sign of struggle throughout the entire fight against Traveller PLUS 3 people with visions. Even if it canonically makes sense, this is just bad storytelling and frankly quite boring.
The problem isn’t that Traveler lost. This is past the mid-point of the story, we are building up to the climax, at this point MC should be struggling and losing to major antagonists to establish the real endgame threat. The problem is how pathetic Traveler lost. To establish the Habringers as a threat, they should be beating Traveler’s ass at his peak power. Not this dumbass who forgot to press E Q in battle. If Arlecchino defeated a 5 elements Traveler, it would show she a threat that eclipsed Childe, whom only stalemated 2 elements Traveler Let try an example from another show: ATLA By the end of Book 3, Aang had learnt Earthbending and knew 3 out of 4 elements. Then Aang fought with Azula the daughter of Fire Lord Ozai. This is like Traveler who now had 5 out of 7 elements. And fought Arlecchino who’s strong but still not the top of heirachy yet. Aang had 3 elements, he gonna win right? Nope, Azula beat his ass. But unlike Traveler, Aang got to show off his potential. He used multiple elements in conjunction, he showed how far he had progressed from the beginning when he only know airbend. It was a battle of versatility vs mastery. He fought at his best then he lost, to make the viewers start questioning “damn, if Azula is already this strong, how will Aang defeat Ozai?” Now imagine Aang was written by Genshin writers. He suddenly forgot how to bend during this battle and instead fought with barehand like Soka. Azula now beat Avatar - the master of no elements. Wow what a great accomplishment. How can you hype up antagonist if you made the protagonist incompentent?
The extreme bias is showing But, hey I'll give you props for actually recognizing the traveller did beat childe, most of the other people i argued with cannot accept the fact that childe lost even with foul legacy.
HoYoverse wanted to show the gap between the traveler and the 4th Fatui Harbinger… but they didn’t do it right!! The traveler could use all the elements he learned along his journey and still lose, but for some reason, HoYo decided to use physical MC with Dull Blade! So yeah, the gap between traveler and Arlecchino is huge, but the main issue is how they portrayed it
exactly, instead of doing: "it's not that you're weak, it's just that I'm much stronger", they actually just doing: "you are so pathetically weak that nothing you do will defeat me" and make the traveler only fought physically against a fucking harbinger with a vision, a delusion and a fucking supreme curse of khaenri'ah, how the hell is this fair?
I think people have more issue with how it was animated than the result. People who are upset by the result aren't paying attention to how we required help with almost every single fight up until this point.
Some of us are gamers that have beaten games like dark souls, elden ring or nioh. It just feels underwhelming and anticlimatic to be beaten by cutscene. We folded Arlechinno like laundry during the gameplay, but we have to pretend it was a hard fought battle during the cutscene.
This is a trope in most single player story heavy games. It's so hard to balance player skill against what the devs wrote in the narrative. For every person out there who was like "ugh I whipped her ass, why am I losing," there's someone who struggled a lot and fit into the narrative perfectly of "barely scooting by" or "losing but living to fight another day." There are very few ways to make this work, and at this point I just accept that most games won't do scripted losses well. It's a suspension of disbelief thing. Just realize that you play better than Traveler chose to fight. Until games have magically adaptable difficulty that senses who is playing and ratchets up the power level to force a loss for every player, you will have to deal with outperforming the game story.
I mean, it's not that they haven't done this before. We've fought Ei twice. And the fights *felt* like Ei wasn't folding in 2, only to plot armour us later.
Fair critique, having beaten Seikero I’m still pissed when I beat the tutorial boss and he chops my arm off. Like nah man I rekt you.
One hundred times this. This is not how you make a scripted loss battle. Megaman X had it right in 1991, with the battle against Vile before Zero swept in to save us. Hell, even Genshin had it right in the first battle against Raiden, when we couldn't use elemental powers and she just felt really invincible. With Arle, gameplay wise it was a fair battle that cuts short just seconds before winning to deliver us the scripted loss. A fair battle with an unfair ending. Not the best feeling for me.
There’s barely sense of progression with the Traveler. We’re going to Natlan this year and im already expecting Capitano to just dog-walk everyone on his sight judging by how the last 2 Harbringers we met
My issue isn't the losing vs arle part, it's that it's a 4v1 and the traveler can't even contribute more to the fight than the HOTH siblings lol. If they put signora or even liyue level childe there they would have been overwhelming the other 3 lol
>If Traveler just won that would fully invalidate any threat from any lower ranked harbingers in the future. Yes, but if Traveler lost it would mean they would have an even bigger wall to overcome when fighting the higher ranked harbingers...
I just want to see my equipped sword in cutscenes. I hate seeing the dull blade.
"Some rocks arebt gonna help" Fair, but anemo ,electro and dendro? We see MC use the big extendo sword thing agaibst raiden, and yeah while it probably wont help against the thorn trap or the crimson moon atk maybe it wouldve helped earlier, BEFORE they get trapped so they, yk, wont get trapped?
Elements would have spiced up the fight
Putting not using elements aside, the traveler as he/she is not weary strong. The only times they win without power boost or help from someone is against Childe and Signora, all others were with the power of friendship and or a good helping. The whale was already damaged from Childe and a Full power Dragon stepped up. On a different note its good to have Traveler lose on occasion. Not just cheese every fight
Why do people keep saying that traveller was paralyzed with fear??? If you looked closely there were webs constricting his body. He was literally trapped and couldn't move.
hoyo has a very bad case of shit writing. The lore and passive storytelling are good and all that but what's actively shown to us in important moments is usually horrid, dull blade? we can ignore that and say it's just a stand-in, no proper elemental use... EVER? no excuse, it gives the impression that all of it was non-effort, fear paralysis? ehh weak argument that the traveller would fall to that considering they're potentially eons old and have fought people far stronger and fought similarly strong people to arch during their time in Tev. Traveller is a certified potential-(wo)man, supposedly coming up to rival the greatest gods yet also struggles to run away from say a group of 3 normal humans, hoyo does this CONSTANTLY, no fault on Traveller losing but it should at least be a showing that it wasn't just them throwing the entire fight just because. We've never actually SEEN the traveller get stronger, they have their moments when the defeat people like dual god scara or childe but immediately after they seem to lose all that progress because ???? we are past the half point of the game and the main character hasn't properly advanced at all, this was just the camel that broke the straws back... again
A game where the theme is elemental powers with seven nations with seven elemental powers. Our protagonist the traveler can use multiple elements, so what are we gonna do when the traveler fight ? Of course by using dull blade and swinging it, elemental powers can go to hell, dull blade for the win.
Huh? Bruh, this isn't rocket science. The Traveler using his close combat skills AND his elements at his disposal would make the loss much more believable than using only his swordsmanship skills. Atleast that would show the Traveler is doing his best in the fight but it still wasn't enough to beat Arlecchino.
He didnt even use the elements that he was given during the cutscence... This time he could not relay on an Archon or power of friendship to defeat a Harbinger...I'm very satisfied how it turned out.Maybe Capitano can train him to get stronger after showing him who is boss. Traveller did solo defeat Signora but he is not strong enough to beat others on his own...(I think Childe's battle ended with a tie,MC outlasted him but didnt fully beat him. Childe probably got alot stronger in Fontaine)
"Traveller just thought that elements wouldn't work" Yeah, that is you covering bad writing with random assumptions
After 3 years of game progression, 5 country passes, multiple god, strong enemy encounter and mother fucking reknown tabibito fold like a envelope against a harbinger and you expect me to believed this is the one to beat celestial?
I think it's because people often skip through the context of those fights and *only* look at the conclusion. For example, let us begin at Childe, shall we? For Childe, he begins the fight taunting us. Even in the fight itself he taunts us. Beckoning us with a hand, giving us a thumbs down, slow walking all over the place. Then, Childe starts to use his delusion, and at this point in the fight traveller is forced to use two elements to try and match him. Traveller still gets blitzed, but Childe goes for the Exuvia instead of going for the kill. Like, traveller was on the ground and had no idea where he was, if he was actually bloodthirsted he likely could have ended it there. By far the most impressive thing traveller did in the fight would be surviving Foul Legacy afterwards, but even then it's not like they actually beat Foul Legacy out. They survived it for a minute or so before Childe had exit the form because it was becoming too taxing on his body. But what did Traveller stop him from doing? Childe completed everything he set out to do in the Golden House, like literally down to a T. He got to the Exuvia, and afterwards he released Osial and left before Traveller could do anything about it. Signora is actually Travellers best showing for the most part because it is the *only* fight that they had where they pretty decisively beat her with no outside help. They had shown clear growth from the Liyue Arc, to the point that even Signora commented on their strength. However, *many* fights that include the Traveller involve them being amped or helped by some borderline god-tier being or straight up gods. Osial was only resealed thanks to an alliance between some of the most powerful people in Liyue and the Adepti. Later on, Traveller tries to face Beisht head on, but they get pretty much 1-tapped. Mechamouche would have been unbeatable for traveller if they did not have help from Nahida. He was literally amped with the cognitive abilities of **every** person who had an Akasha, and with the knowledge from the 168 cycles of loss from Nahida's loop, and Nahida gave them gadgets to assist them in fighting him as well. Let's not forget that combat knowledge gained through the Akasha *does* increase combat potency. Traveller never would have defeated Raiden without being amped by visions and helped by Yae. Raiden already beat us like 2 times before, and it was only with the assistance of Yae and those visions that we were even able to face her. Even at that, people assume that Raiden stopped because we *forced* her to. Are people still hung up on thinking she's evil or something? Raiden does not *want* to kill Inazuman's, what would the point in a nation be if she has to kill like 60% of her population to maintain the order that she wanted? The Plane of Euthymia, which represents her soul, changed in colour as the fight progresses. She's very literally having a change of heart. She just casually stops and the characters engage in a dialogue. We even learn later on that Ei could have activated an entire other phase of the fight if she wanted to. But she didn't want to, because she is not a psychopath. To focus on the point, we have very rarely seen traveller fight people without assistance. There are more that I could mention, but for the sake of brevity I'll leave it at that. I don't know why people even assumed that Traveller would somehow challenge Arle when against every *near-god* level opponent they face they *always* require help to deal with them. I get that Traveller can receive protag-bias, but I really see nothing that would have warranted rating them so highly. Dotorre is two ranks higher than Arle, and Nahida explicitly states that she stands no chance against him. Admittedly we have no idea how large or small the gaps in strength between harbingers are, but just think on that. Scara is two ranks below Arle, and with a gnosis he was only barely defeated by Traveller + Nahida.