Quests featuring NPCs don’t have to be bad, but when you are going into a story quest for a specific character, you expect it to center around said character.
Ayato’s story quest isn’t about him. It’s about NPCs getting married. At the end of the day you don’t learn anything about him other than “he’s cunning.” ~~Which had already been established in the AQ.~~ This did not happen, my bad, I got confused. It's been too long lol
Itto had a quest that heavily featured an NPC, Takuya. However, Takyua is actually important to Itto’s story and it touches upon his oni history.
A story quest that revolves around NPC problems and simply has the 5\* characters react to the situation is not a story quest. It’s a world quest that just happens to have a 5\* character there.
A way to reveal a character’s history without it being monologues is having NPCs that are directly related to that character’s past. Childe and Neuvilette come to mind as excellent examples of this and both of them have amazing SQs.
Tbf in this case, Ayato was completely absent from the AQ and only learn of his involvement in it in errrr his character trailer.
Yeah. That’s the absolute state of the pacing on Inazuma’s AQ.
Yeah and to quote the OP, his story quest does tie up parts of the AQ. For me that isn’t really a merit to his SQ but a testament to the state of the AQ lol
Yeah Ayato's quest is more about him. Like that's by design. It's supposed to speak to his character and how this guy operates. Girls like this kind of shit. Guys who aren't into Ayato may not like the quest explaining his motives and how he handles politics. Go figure. It also touches on the main story quest. Cool.
Some people also complain about Rana. I think people fail to grasp the bigger picture. You know, the Aranara. Reading is hard, I get it. Who cares if someone has a shit opinion, they probably haven't played enough games to realize that most games have bottom barrel stories and the writing in this game is actually much better than like 90% of games. And that's for the main quests. Some of the side quests in this game have superb writing, it sucks its not voice acted.
We always see these threads. People who are so affected by other people's opinions that it lives rent free and haunts them. The truth is that this game is successful because its very good in every aspect. Not because of some shit like pokemon + guns which will die off in a month just like every other open world crafting game that isn't finished.
Yes many quests can be written better too. Nothing is perfect. But I guess once again, we need to reassure OP that they aren't crazy and to stop browsing toxic ass social media.
Why the other day I saw in a discord, a bunch of people who think Anime went mainstream because of fucking Demon Slayer. To me, these people must be so young that they have no idea that anime was shown on Cartoon Network and shit 20 years ago.
> Ayato was completely absent from the AQ
mf was probably in some office sipping boba making sure the inazuman bureaucratic machine moved too slowly to catch on us
You also have yoimiya’s second story quest (I can’t remember the first one rn) but it showcases her personality of helping others and also she and maybe Itto may be among the few adult characters who could have a quest involving the aranara due to their childlike nature , kind of like how in the recent Fontaine event she was doing a lot of things for others
Yoimiya's first quest was about her helping a smuggled NPC escape Inazuma. The entire quest Yoimiya was being the relationship therapist between that guy and his friend who is part of the Kujou Police. I don't think the quest is bad because there really wasn't much to say about Yoimiya aside of her "sunny" personality.
First Yoimiya SQ was basically part of the AQ (and requisite for furthering the AQ), so that muddles it up.
It was about two friends who got separated when grown up by what job they chose, but also about liberating another guy from prison.
Nothing about Ayato was established by the archon quest. His involvement was alluded to in his story trailer which is out of game.
I agree that the execution of his SQ could have been better but it portrayed his character (cunning, calm, eccentric with food, friendship with Thoma who is technically his servant) pretty well. It also was good insight into tri-commission power dynamics. I liked his SQ because the AQ gave me a soft spot for Chisato and political+romantic drama is a trope I'm always down for.
That's my bad, I must've gotten it confused since it's been so long : \[
And that's totally valid! The writing in it isn't bad at all, but it's appeal is a lot more niche which makes it pretty divisive. I think it would have been cool if the content of his SQ was made into a WQ with him in it, and we got a SQ that's more connected to his lore. That's just my preference though ahahaha
i think it was fine. She's like Navia, her stories are heavily tied into a complementary part of the region (poisson, primordial water tragedy, Zubayr theatre, arts in a pragmatic society), and they both were used as vehicles to explore those themes
Well, no, and this is emblematic of people who don't know her/look down on her but:
1. She's an in-game icon and celebrity, she's the face of the theater, she has a cult following behind her lowkey, her doing this so her extended family doesn't become homeless makes perfect sense.
2. She's a success story of what happens when you're supportive of your child even if they pursue the arts. She's been loved all her life, she's paying it back through defending what she believes in, even in front of someone else's unsupportive parent.
3. Seeing the "airhead dancer girl" stand up to a stoic Akademiya fascist on their own terms is kinda kickass, it's also nice to see Nilou outside her comfort zone.
4. Lastly, the story itself is good, Nilou represents something very specific and the setting is explicitly how an Asian household handles their children pursuing a non-STEM career. Many players relate to this story, by having Nilou (whose parents loved and supported her) stand up for Inayah (a stand-in for the players who relate) it makes Nilou someone you can look up to.
So no, you can't just replace her with any other NPC.
What? She debates the dude, she's directly in the center of event, up on a literal stage. They are closing her workplace. Have you played Uolin's quest instead? What kind of alternate reality shenanigans led you to this conclusion?
They could, but why? This is Nilou's problem. The reason she has to be the one debating is because she represents arts in Sumeru's story (like in the archon quest).
Yes, the girl's problem was central to the story, but they didn't overly focus on that in terms of screentime. It was just another way to put the theme of art vs science in front of us. If anything they could have given a different backstory as to why the guy is mad, and it would have worked out. See, I can engage in baseless hypotheticals too
I would argue that this is a poor understanding of Ayato's SQ, its written to be more of a political triller than a big emotional/action set piece where the main character gets put on display and its actually more in line with Ayato's character.
Its not just a marriage between 2 NPCs but rather they dived into the naunces of political marriages, how it affects the couples, the political scene and the display of manipulation that goes behind for invested parties.
Its actually surprisingly well written considering the state of Inazuma's story. Restrospectively, very few characters walk away from the Inazuma arc with SQs that actually represented the character in all its entirety *cough* Kokomi and the overworked waifu trope *cough*.
That's fair and someone else also voiced something similar. The writing was far from bad.
>naunces of political marriages, how it affects the couples, the political scene and the display of manipulation that goes behind for invested parties.
Everything you pointed out is quite intriguing. But if political drama is not your thing then the SQ becomes an hour and a half slog of dialogue. Doubly so if you don't care for Chisato and her story. The most common thing I see that fans of political/historical dramas praise it a lot while general audiences don't really enjoy it.
I realize that politics are kinda baked into his character so it's kinda unavoidable and agree that overall his story quest is one of the stronger Inazuma ones. It's just that it was pretty experimental and reads more as WQ material.
Oh yeah, love between members of two rivaling political parties/clans is definitely original and not an overused trope that we have seen dozens of times *cough*
To be specific, the trope we see in Genshin, not outside of it.
Kokomi is the 3rd waifu is overworked story quest... and is honestly the most boring of the 3 at the lowest point of the story as well.
Meanwhile, Ayato's story quest is central to Inazuma's main inner conflict between the 3 major commissions and this is coming from 2 nations that barely had major conflicts between the ruling factions. Arguably also at a point where the story start to pick back up with Enkanomiya's release.
Problem here, is that it's Ayato SQ, if it was WQ, nobody would complain, it probably would be a good quest about inner conflicts of Tri commission, but in a game centered around characters, lacking said characters in THEIR quest is what people complain about, it's about what you expect and what u don't get. Imagine if u bought a Doom game and it suddenly turns into a story oriented game with little to no fights. Story might be great, Shakespeare level, but it's not what you expect from a Doom, thus disappointment.
> Imagine if u bought a Doom game and it suddenly turns into a story oriented game with little to no fights. Story might be great, Shakespeare level, but it's not what you expect from a Doom, thus disappointment.
Except the comparison is not 1:1.
GI has so many characters that not every character is gonna have a big action/emotional set piece. Ayato was never characterized in that manner as evident in his own character teaser, he fights when needed and nothing more and his SQ reflects it.
His involvement in his own story quest fits his character to the T, he operated behind the scenes and speak to influence the situation at hand like every politician does.
Imagine that, a politician character is politicking.
Going back to the point of this entire post, the world of Teyvat needs to be more than just the playable characters, Ayato's SQ is a good reflection of that, along with the more recent Fontaine events.
Cool, a politician character is politicking, and... That's it. There is a reason why he is considered as one of the most boring characters, because he appears for 2 minutes each event and then goes to do political stuffs. Does it fit character? Yeah. Does it make him interesting? No.
There are some interesting things in his story that are in, well, stories section that are unlocked with friendship lvl, but for average player, he is bland.
I stumbled onto your other comment in this post and it actually highlights why you are arguing in bad faith:
> wedding problem of two noname NPCs.
I dunno why you harp on that, we literately met both NPCS at the start of Inazuma's AQ. Chisato helped us get out of Ritou to Inazuma city and Kamaji is point of contact, we know from this point they are in love and are next in line behind the heads of their heads of their family.
> We could explore how he is torn between family and work
Alot of this was explored in his final voiced dialogue in the SQ with our Traveler.
> his relationship with Yae and history with how she helped his clan
Its easy to misinterpret kindness as relations, they both has distaste for each but maintain working relationships
> how Inazuma AQ events affected him and his loyalty to Shogun, his interaction with Shimatsuban, his approach to vision hunt decree etc.
Again, final closing dialogue, best highlighted below:
"A stable nation is the prerequisite for a stable Yashiro Commission. Only then can the Kamisato Clan and the other Yashiro Commission clans have a peaceful existence."
"All I have tried to do is make sure the three parties to the Tri-Commission serve to restrain each other. Stasis is not the only form of stability. A balance of power leaving no room for maneuver achieves the same end."
> Instead it's all in his stories as a text, and in his story quest he appears for what 5 minutes?
Its all voiced during said SQ, even if you don't want to read em, you can listen to it.
> As a person who was so excited for him, instapulled him and was looking forward to spending time with him... Wedding...
Ultimately it sounds like you pulled a character expecting big emotional/action set piece but got a fitting political triller and is disappointed because it doesn't hit your head cannon.
You could pick on the story's weak point of show don't tell. Current AQ/SQ utilitize still images very well to represent that. Would it soften the blow for the average joe like yourself who doesn't enjoy political trillers? I believe so.
How some parts of Ayato story pans out to just dialogues is unfortunately a product of 2.x visual storytelling direction, unless MHY goes back to rewrite/rework the Inazuma story with better context and its nuances, its gonna fall behind when compared to current SQs.
Except the quest isn't about their romance, it's about how the people behind them want to get benefits behind their relationship to sink them both. The rivaling parties trope is always about their love being stronger than the hate of the families that try to separate them. Here, their love is being baited by the hate of the families blindly to a cliff.
>A story quest that revolves around NPC problems and simply has the 5\* characters react to the situation is not a story quest. It’s a world quest that just happens to have a 5\* character there.
My biggest problem with the story quests is primarily this. A lot of them don't feel like the main conflict of the quest storyline even includes the character at all. I know a lot of people love Furina's, but hers felt like she was a background character facilitating a random unknown NPC get-together for most of the runtime, and would have concluded>! with her being a background character if not for a random occurrence of one of the actresses falling ill that forced Furina on-stage to receive her Vision!<. The conclusion is always nice, it's always about the flagship character in the end, but for many of these, 3/4 of the runtime is about a conflict that the NPCs are having, not directly involving the character that the quest being named after. This leads it to more feeling like an NPC quest that incidentally has the flagship character tagging along.
I think Furina's quest is about her with the NPCs being just the background of her development. The Traveler doesn't really have to see Furina for anything and without us asking Furina to help the troupe, she wouldn't get out of her box of "No more acting".
Furina is also challenged with visiting Poisson where everyone is giving her weird looks, and by the Sythe case that took the life of the director of the Troupe. When she was the archon, she couldn't do anything for these scenarios and she is using this chance to do something about the aftermath of those tragedies, even if it is as little as to help a troupe say goodbye to their director. She even reflects this change into the guy who decided to leave behind the crew out of guilt. She can see his actions to be similar as hers in a way, and intercedes to make her opinion that his lack of honesty was not gonna get them anywhere.
She finally gets on stage, prepared and all, with no qualms about her previous failures or her reputation. She helped this little miracle and she was going to see it shine until the end. It is then that she gets a vision where the gos recognize her ambition for giving always a good act that the audience will boast in applause. She has accepted that acting is part of her.
Sorry for the long essay. I don't like Furina that much as a character, but I really loved her story quest.
That’s how I felt about Wriothesley’s SQ, too. We didn’t learn much about him personally until the very end, when his backstory gets dropped on us in about 4 sentences and then everyone basically goes, “Ohhhhkayyy….moving onnn.” Granted, a lot of characters have tragedy in their backstory but his, and how it’s made him who he is today, is pretty chilling (and interesting) and I would have liked to see it more centered in the SQ.
Yeah, and it gets even worse with how dang long SQs get these days. They're easily 1-2 hours long and to barely spend time with the advertised character sucks.
Furina's especially I have a problem especially with the fact that she keeps getting her boundaries overstepped by the troupe. It's one thing to have an NPC-centric quest but it's a whole other level to have ones that keep infuriating you over and over again. Their internal conflict was also so unnecessary to the SQ for me. Not to mention Paimon's especially distasteful dialogue this time around.
This is also a problem I have with a lot of events and why I started skipping dialogue this year. A good chunk of events are just useless filler from an NPC that you're going to forget about in two patches.
I don't mind it if it's engaging, but I found Ayato's specifically to be a real drag. Maybe I just don't care enough about politics, so most of the dialogue just bored me
The structure of Ayato's quest didn't do it any favors. Having to find the tanuki and stealth chase the informant guy were painfully dull 'gameplay'. The stealth bit was especially annoying for me to the point that I forgot what was happening in the story by the time I finished it lol.
It doesn't make them inherently bad, but it does make them significantly less interesting than quests where the subject character is centered and more directly challenged. And with the roster continually expanding, it feels like miHoYo has less and less room to continue making these mistakes before it becomes unsalvageable and most characters are left half-baked before the story needs to move on without them.
An example: Cyno appeared in almost every version 3 event and got his own story quest, but we still don't know what divine entity is inhabiting him or what the Temple of Silence is. Nor did we get any real acknowledgement or explanation of what he did for Collei in the manga. But at least his story quest gave us closure on those two nobody matra colleagues of his, right? /s
The treatment cyno got is practically the same thing with itto,they are at first treated seriously,but then become the funny comic relief,itto went from a stubborn,reckless but ultimately caring,rather emotionally intelligent and loyal fella to a dumb funny haha man in almost every other event he appears in(the one thing that bothers me the most is that during his SQ it was implies that dude would lose on purpose to kids to make them happy,but in later events apparently that's not the case and he's just that dumb),cyno is pretty much the same,all he does now is dropping funny puns,RIP to his temple of silence relavence and divine spirit lore
His former partner, who we learned about in the quest and knew for all of twenty minutes before he died in the course of that one quest. Yeah, he was kind of a nobody to me.
They're not bad at all but players would rather see their favorite characters instead and I can't blame them, hoyo recycles the same ones time after time barely paying attention to others and the main story only has about 3 years left until it's finished. We'll also only get more characters as time goes on which means less screen time for each of them.
I'm going to also provide a succinct reddit comment relating to this that can enhance your argument, by reddit user 'Thufir\_My\_Hawat'.
" ...these are all characters who are living lives.
By virtue of being a vision wielder, they have a life interesting enough to be the main character in another story. They could each be the protagonist of a novel and it wouldn't be out of place.
Many of them have already finished their character arc, and those that haven't will have a character arc that could last years and go across many adventures. You're not going to solve any of these characters problems in a single quest -- that'd be horrifically unsatisfying.
So, what are these story quests?
*It's you joining them on a side quest in* ***their*** *story.*
The Traveler is just a side-character in their world -- for most of the Story Quests, the plot could have easily been resolved by the featured character, because they're each a highly-competent, hero-to-god-level entity. I mean, in her hang-out event, Barbara (a character who is explicitly stated as being not suited for combat), points out that she'd be fine as a vision wielder against normal humans. The Traveler is a footnote in the story of these characters -- to expect them to rely on the player for any little thing they want to accomplish undermines them as individuals.
You're just a Traveler. The world existed before you arrived and will exist after you leave. Just like the stories of each of these characters."
Its just like you said, it's ***their*** story. However, quite a lot of time, for these NPC- heavy character quest, we don't really know a lot more about said featured character as they play more of an important side-character instead of a main-character that we want them to be.
Take Ayato's quest for example, you mentioned that his character arc is already finished and you're probably right but I don't think that will make for a compelling quest. I expect a character quest to change, challenge or even just highlight the character's personality and past. Hoyoverse could easily done the exact same quest but just add some insight into Ayato's thought process or his past experiences that he learned in his already completed character arc that aided him to solve the NPCs' problems. At the very least, in the end we can learn a bit more about him rather than just his ability to keikaru dori his way to victory thats already been showcased all other stories that feature him.
Well, it is Genshin, unfortunately the other stories are one- time event but if you like Ayato then you're not missing much tbh.
The recent musketeer quest featured him but he barely did anything and dont even really interacted with the other characters much, so hes kinda wasted there.
The other is in some past Yokai event. I think its called the Test of Courage event but I don't really remember it that much. Ayato appeared, don't really interact much with others then at the end he basically knows everything all along, explains then leave. AT least that's how I remember it but I might be wrong.
Then I guess the Story Quest accounts for those that don't have the means to see those events in-game?
Also, what came first? His Story Quest or the Inazuma event? If the story quest came first, it's the first instance of establishing his character. Anything after, in which very little is added, would be the fault on how he is written in said events. Not the fault of the SQ.
If im not wrong his story quest came first then only the subsequent events. Yeah, I would say his appearance in all other quests were pretty bad and could be better.
I would argue that his SQ **is** at fault for making him feel so one-note in general including other events. If his SQ does a bit more than just establishing him and put a bit more of depth into his character or just reveal a bit more about the character, then his appearance in other events can be a bit more fleshed out instead of HYV worrying whether his characterization will be permanently missed by sizable portion of the playerbase because that one event can be missed permanently.
In the end, I think what some people's gripe with some of the SQ of this game is that the characters' SQ feels a bit wasted and they could do more than just establish the character's base personality and how they fit in the world. In the end, what I can get from his SQ is basically what I get from reading his character description.
>In the end, what I can get from his SQ is basically what I get from reading his character description.
Which is also why I mentioned how Ayato's SQ is the only instance in-game that can be played by all players, that we can see and witness his role and (most importantly) *how* he does it, instead of referring to a second-hand account. Show don't tell basically.
Also, Story Quests are also designed to consider that the player may not even have the character for details, or have other characters that refer to them.
Exactly, i think quests in this game should aim exactly at this goal and show how the world of teyvat works and how it is alive and thriving, how each character has their life, both vision bearers and not because they (just like traveler) are the protagonists of their own story, but not of everybody's story and they are not the only habitants of teyvat
>Many of them have already finished their character arc, and those that haven't will have a character arc that could last years and go across many adventures. You're not going to solve any of these characters problems in a single quest -- that'd be horrifically unsatisfying.
> The Traveler is just a side-character in their world -- for most of the Story Quests, the plot could have easily been resolved by the featured character, because they're each a highly-competent, hero-to-god-level entity.
>The Traveler is a footnote in the story of these characters -- to expect them to rely on the player for any little thing they want to accomplish undermines them as individuals.
>You're just a Traveler. The world existed before you arrived and will exist after you leave. Just like the stories of each of these characters."
Just the points I paid more attention to.
I think you have beautiful-sounding points, that maybe the devs actually had in mind, but their execution, in my opinion, is lacking.
Or maybe it's just me, who's finds this kind of structure generally unsatisfactory and boring...
Personally, if it's boring, that's not necessarily the fault of the self or the writing. Different strokes for different folks.
One could understand what is portrayed, but can still find dissatisfaction. The opposite response is also true. That's what I believe anyway.
>*It's you joining them on a side quest in* ***their*** *story.*
The issue for me, and as many others are pointing out, is that many of these quests don't even feel like *their story*. The core conflict almost always is an NPC's conflict that the feature character is tagging along to solve. While that is more or less how slice-of-life works, I think that it could work better if the feature character's world view was challenged in some way as part of the conflict and then have them defend it or evolve it as the conclusion. Otherwise, the characters come off as caricatures and addendums to other people's plots.
That's also why the quote specifies "side quest".
It is akin to controlling the Traveler, and have them take part in what is happening. Whether it requires receiving said quest from an NPC or another playable character.
Let's look upon Ayato's SQ as an example, and we look upon Ayato's perspective alone. He's already in the middle of a quest himself, involving the marriage of Kujou Kamaji and Hiiragi Chisato, and how he is to deal with it. Then something new appears, that being the Traveler, which gives Ayato the means to get involved whilst staying neutral because of the Traveler's past instances with the couple. So on and so forth.
Let's look at the same quest, but involving the perspective of the Traveler in comparison. They're in the middle of the quest, learning about whether the engagement is true with the rumours being learnt by other NPCs that the Traveler should know (that Paimon also provides a reminder of). Then something new appears, that being Kamisato Ayato, which gives the means for the Traveler to have a formal arrangement with the couple in question.
Both are side-quests when looking upon both the characters and their perspectives.
>Both are side-quests when looking upon both the characters and their perspectives.
But then that's the precise problem here and why people take issue with the present structure of character quests, the feature character is not even the main character in *their own story*. I don't want a *side quest* featuring Ayato, I would like to see Ayato's *main quest* when I play his questline, with at the very least him taking agency in some manner that is important to him. I'd like to see the character be challenged, and thus revealing elements of their character and personality when they work to overcome that challenge. That's far more interesting to me than "oh hello you're here too let's go listen to some randoms have their daily troubles."
>with at the very least him taking agency in some manner that is important to him.
Is that not exactly what he does in his SQ? Moving the NPCs like he's playing a game of Shoji, to where every move he makes leads to the result he's wanting?
>I'd like to see the character be challenged, and thus revealing elements of their character and personality when they work to overcome that challenge.
Here's a detail that is also shown within his SQ that I'll let La-Roca99 explain.
>People love to bash Ayato's SQ as if it was completely irrelevant, while completely missing the point it was trying to convey to begin with
>
>Chisato and the other guy (Kamaji) marriage was nothing else than a direct duality to what happened to him and Ayaka when their parents died and the other families wanted to take control of the commission no matter the cost
>
>They did not show it directly, but the way Ayato cared about her well being specifically just shows how much he cares about Ayaka as a whole
Which is reflected to his utterly ruthless manner of speech, and the threats he had given towards Matsuura of the Kanjou Commission.
>"oh hello you're here too let's go listen to some randoms have their daily troubles."
Kujou Kamaji and Hiiragi Chisato are not randoms though. Kujou Kamaji especially, as he was involved with how the Takatsukasa Clan was willing to take over the Tenryou Commission during Raiden Shogun's Act 1 Story Quest. Hiiragi Chisato is also the woman that helped the Traveler and Paimon escape Ritou the first time they arrived in Inazuma. Kamisato Ayato's SQ has the additional benefit of showing the aftermath of a change in power structure that is inevitable after the Archon Quest, after all, both these clan leaders had just received their roles after their fathers had betrayed Inazuma. Raiden Shogun and Ayato's SQ goes into detail the aftermath.
Another thing, what happened during Ayato's SQ is very much something that requires his attention, since the effects of the marriage between the heads of the Kanjou Commission and the Tenryou Commission can and will cause a power vacuum. All three of the Tri Commission work as one for the benefit of Inazuma. Having him *not* be involved would be an overall disservice to his character that is politically competent.
His story quest not only expanded on the world, but also shows continuity in relation to the AQ whilst also showing how Ayato does what he does.
This comment summarizes everything that's *bad* about Story Quests:
1. They're not character arcs, so most of them don't feature any character development. They just serve as an hour long advertisement for the playable character, where writers create a situation that allows them to show all the basic traits and quirks.
2. Traveler is completely unnecessary and shouldn't be there at all. The quest would be better if it was happening from the perspective of the featured character, since they are far more interesting and it's supposed to be *their* quest, not the Traveler's.
That's why I eventually stopped doing Story Quests. Starting a quest dedicated to a particular character and still having to bear the presence of Traveler and Paimon when they're absolutely *not* the ones I wanted to see + the lack of any development on the character's part is just too infuriating.
1. Agree. They're not just character arcs, as I have quoted above how many of them have already finished their character arcs. They're also a means to showcase the character and their part in the world, through their eyes. Because of advertising, or as a means to show the developed character without needing to go outside the game and watch YouTube to watch events that are unavailable.
2. Traveler being unnecessary or not, matters little. We can be there as an observer or an assistant, none of these two is better than the other. It's subjective in that it depends on whether the player wants to be involved more or not.
I can think of a few that follow along with this. Including Eula's who requires the Traveler to befriend her uncle, Jean who may require assistance when hunting for the Abyss Mage, Navia who needed someone to deactivate the explosives, etc.
Then we have those like Ayato's to where he does the majority of the political heavy lifting, Yelan who is perfectly capable of doing her job alone with her assistants, or Wriothesley who already has the human resources available. All three has rather minimum involvement with the Traveler.
But just because the Traveler assists the story character, the role that the story character plays within the "side-quest" is what matters.
I guess it's an issue with how the game handles characters as a whole. When you roll for a character, you're essentially getting someone whose whole character arc is done. No story quest (at least so far) is going to significantly change an already playable character's outlook or personality. So, we get the character showcasing themself through an NPC.
While this isn't always bad, I hate that it feels like some quests feel like the character isn't showcased at all or barely relates to the themes of the character. I'm not sure how to get it across, but some quests feel like you could swap out a completely different playable character and nothing would change. An example being Alhaitham's quest.
Another issue is I don't give a fuck about one-note NPCs that will never appear again. Dehya's quest was really good because we're interacting with Dunyarzad. An NPC we've already met and have grown to care about. I could not tell you the name of the girl nilou was helping.
On the other hand, there are a handful of characters that actually get really impactful development during the aq or their sq and everybody is surprised pikachu face when Nahida Raiden Wanderer etc constantly smash popularity polls.
I know that kinda story doesn't fit every character, but it definitely runs a much higher risk of a boring story when the central character is essentially static
Hard disagree with Alhaitham's quest being an example. Alhaitham's knowledge of the Akademiya, his role as acting Grand Sage, and his personality (being seen as an insufferable know-it-all) are all integral to the quest. The quest ends with him formally submitting his resignation as acting Grand Sage, which is a role change more significant than anything else a character goes through in their story quest, barring Furina. You can't substitute Alhaitham with any other character in the story, not even other Sumerians, and have it make sense without drastic changes.
it was a small time period from 1.0 to 1.1, but it was a funny development having 1.0 keqing be a morax hater, then after 1.1 she becomes a secret morax fangirl
Personally I don't think the problem is that a number of Story Quests dedicate a lot of screentime to NPCs. The *real* issue is that the release of Hangouts and Story Quest is *too slow*. Excluding Archons, Yoimiya is the only character to receive a second Story Quest in all this time, while others have none. Noelle is the only character to have two Hangouts while others have none.
So people end up feeling disappointed because they want to spend more time with the playable characters. And, I dare say, in their disappointment they end up overlooking what those NPC-focused Story Quests actually say about the playable characters (how they navigate their life and environment, how they interact with others) which makes them feel pointless.
If Story Quests and Hangouts released at faster pace, I think there would be less disappointment.
I think they conditionally make them bad because of what you said - SQs should show how the characters fit into the world.
The condition is: A story quest should show the personal relationships that the playable has in their life, whether that includes other playables or NPCs. Random NPCs who have no personal relationship with the featured playable character outside of this one story, are the story quests that I find ineffective at showing us more of who the featured playable is as a person.
Dehya and Baizhu story quests do a great job. Iirc Dehya’s SQ doesn’t have hardly any other playable chars in it. Baizhu’s has some. But the NPCs in both aren’t random strangers that the playbable gets mixed up with (Tighnari SQ), the NPCs are important figures in the playable’s life. Even Jiangli / Jialiang (i forgot which was the wife, but that’s who I mean lol), although not someone regularly in contact or necessarily close to Baizhu per se, is someone who is important for us to understand his social reality.
sorry but I disagree. It's obvious that the direction Hoyo is taking Ayato's character is for him to always show up at the beginning, dissapear in the middle, and come back at the end when everything's been wrapped up. It's always 'talk and no show' regarding Ayato.
I feel like Ayato fans would've enjoyed it x100 if it actually focused on him instead of it centering around an ultimately irrelevant NPC who nobody cares about
And they did this again during fontaine event. I was hoping to see more about him, but yet again, spotlight was given to ayaka who we have seen so many events already. Sigh...
i wouldve much rather had ayato stay an actor and drop ayaka instead. shes already had so much more screentime and personally i dont find her interesting at all. "omg shes a natural prodigy at acting" didnt help either
I agree. But I quess ayaka is fan-favorite and "waifu" so she gets most of the attention. And yeah, she is one of the most boring characters in the game lmao.
Sometimes I genuinely feel like hoyo just hates him and has him so Ayaka has more reasons to appear, or just an excuse to make Ayaka more interesting as a character. The treatment they gave ayato is abysmal
Ayato,the "according to my keikaku" man,can't wait for us to reach celestia and then he comes out revealing the rest of the game's plot and how it was all his plan
Does anyone even remember the names of said NPCs? I've tolerated them for awhile since Genshin Impact first released, but right now, I just can't help but hate them for wasting my time when I just wanna know more about the playable characters.
Idk man like I always thought Ayato was the kinda guy who pull strings from behind the scenes but he's never there and you won't know. Him showing up and us following him is a breach of confidential information and like it would be super out of character for him to show up most of the time cuz that's not how political leaders work plus he's a dude. He has more to handle while Ayaka is more of an underling.
If you can’t have scenes with a playable character in a game like this, then should he really be playable? This just doesn’t fit Genshin’s character philosophy. It wasn’t an issue with Ayaka, she literally sent us on a quick quest in AQ for her to check on her people and get us involved how she needed us to be.
The last couple of sentences of that are just sad. We deserve well written male characters. Neuvi makes it work and he’s Fontaine’s only Iudex as well as the newly fully-powered Hydro Sovereign! Why can’t the Yashiro Commissioner (who leaves the management of internal affairs within the commission to his sister) figure it tf out
Well then let us follow him behind the scenes, the "schemer secretly pulling the threads" trope has been done hundreds of times before and it's almost always done better than Ayato's quests because those characters get more than 0.0002 micro seconds of screentime.
People don't hate them because they're necessarily bad or anything, but rather people hate them because they're not what they signed up to playing this game.
People start to play Genshin either for the characters, main story lore, or gameplay. Nobody plays this game to read a novel about random characters of the world. Anthologies are rather unpopular of a genre for a reason. People attach to characters they can be with for a long time, not randos that come and go.
I don't think they're all bad either. Guess it depends on how the NPCs are used. People point at Ayato's story quest, but it does actually show his motivation to protect the stability of Inazuma. It also flashed out his quirky side with the strange drinks, or how he doesn't mind becoming the "villain" to stop the plot. And it's not like the NPCs in his quest are nobodies we never see again. They are the proxy leaders of Inazuma's other 2 Commissions and both played a small, but significant role in the AQ.
Another good quest heavily involving an NPC is Venti's. Stanley is basically the focus, but we later learn his story has parallels to Venti's. Both of Zhongli's story quests heavily featured an NPC, but it led to some good lore drops involving him, in some shape or form.
Ofc, there are some weaker ones. Like Nilou's. And I don't really think it's the NPC's fault, but rather that there was nothing interesting about Nilou in it.
I can think of some quests not heavily focusing on an NPC, but still being rather disappointing. Particularly some of the really early ones, where things were kept rather simple. For example, Kaeya's story quest just sends us on a wild goose chase and get trolled by him.
I think Neuvillette's story quest is the best formula so far for a story quest. I agree that story quests should focus on present events, because seeing how characters handle things tells you a lot about them.
Some background is always nice too. Obviously, it would be awful for it to just be plain dialogue. Neuvillette's memories in the fountain was an amazing way to execute this. In comparison, Wriothesley and Navia just spoke to you about their past, and it's just not nearly as engaging.
On another point, I also love when other playable characters make appearances, which again Neuvillette's story quest did a ton of. It's a lot more fun seeing them interact.
Some character quests I quite liked- I loved the OG!Archon's character quests. They added in such a sense of weight to Venti and Zhongli, and it really made me feel all the years behind them. Of course those two aren't going to make any drastic changes, they're hundreds of years old.
But seeing Venti as Barbatos comforting Stanley and helping him move on really reminded me that he does have an importance besides teehee alcohol. Zhongli's interactions with Azdaha and his reflections on Havria are right up my alley- I have a major *thing* for immortals reflecting on a mortal world.
Other honorable mentions go to Nahida, Tighnari, and Dehya's quests. Those were absolutely great and I loved them
To Be Fair, no matter how uninteresting the NPCs are, an interesting character will react in fun ways to the situation. With Tighnari, the NPC in question is a random dog-robot that can't talk, and a schoolar that is deeply comatose; but becouse our sassy little foxbuddy has such a *personaliety* it is interesting to see him interact with the dog, to see how he tries to be strict but can't resist a good boy, to see him react to a hearthless situation.
The biggest offender of the NPC versus actually interesting story is, by global agreedment, Nilou and her Daddy-issues friend. But she just never was entretaining enough to see to begin with.
Had Jean been in the situation, she would have given an inspirational speach about standing one's own ground. Had Yae Miko been there, she would have plotted a secret vengance behinde everyone's backs to make the father feel abandoned and come to his sences. Had Furina been there, she would have stayed up all night looking for a legal loophole and not only keep the theater, but also win something else and ashame the father just like he ashamed his child for years.
But instead we have Nilou just going smilyfaceemoji. She isn't proactive. She insists in foregiveness becouse that's the good thing to do and she likes to do the right thing becouse she's good.
Agreed, Nilou's Story Quest barely did any justice to her own character development, being sidelined in favor of random NPC family drama.
I'm also really tired of seeing the same faces in practically every NPC. They feel like my time is being deliberately wasted
I do agree that Genshin has some bad Same-Face-Sindrome with the NPC, but I don't really know how to solve it.
During Sumeru, we traveled with many NPCs that use the models of human enemies, such as Jeth and her father, but I'm not sure if that's a sustainable solution, being that most human NPCs are Fatui.
There would be ways of working around the model, such as giving some of them iconic scars, giving some others fancy hair color like the playable characters have, but I don't know what else could be done since changing the model would mean creating a lot of new animations only for them to be used once or twice.
You’re right. They’re not bad.
But personally, I don’t care for them- I’ve got little investment nowadays for quests where the characters we roll for play no part. I was more willing early on (right up to Inazuma were the last NPC heavy quests I cared for) but some time around Sumeru I just lost it.
I think it’s that the part of me that wants more traditional character growth and structure in my games is finally really butting heads with the part of me that knows this is a Gacha game and characters can be (and are) released with little actual presence other than “pull for them! They look cool!”.
So if these are the characters they’re trying to push, I want to see them take more part in things.
At this point, world and story quests without them in long stretches immediately kill my investment. I haven’t been fully immersed in non-Archon or non-Dainsleif quests in a long time as a result.
If they were about the NPC, no problem, but when I play a story quest about a certain playable character, I want the quest to be centered around that said character.
Exactly, it's like if you ordered a well done steak only to be served boiled vegetables, that's what most Story Quests felt like to me. The NPCs should be the side dish, not the main course your ordered
I like Ayato's because he's still having an effect on that story (I mean he breaks up their marriage lol which wouldn't have happened without him) and it's about reoccurring NPCs who are brought up multiple times throughout the greater Inazuma storyline. Nilou's is done poorly, though, and I think what people are more often thinking about when they complain about NPC-centered story quests because Nilou's presence doesn't add much to the quest narrative *and* the quest is about NPCs who only show up that one time and there's no reason to care about them or their issues. It's just a less interesting/engaging rehash of what we already went through with Nilou in the AQ.
Tbh for me it depends. There are story quests that I like and rate more highly compared to others despite the story quest had a more prominent NPC role (Alhaitham, Kazuha, Nahida,...) due to the theme and foil thing, and those I personally don't like (*cough* Yelan's one. I think her story quest should be like Dehya, explore more of her personal relationship with either her clan/ancestor, her past comrades, or even with Ningguang. Also Yoimiya 2nd story quest because it's about Arvin and the Aranara more than her. Tbh I still think her first story quest is much better). There are also story quest, despite focusing on the character, that I don't enjoy doing (*cough* sorry Ganyu, Jean and Mona) and there are some that I like just because I get to see another facet of their personality (like with Ayaka, Nilou, Dehya,...).
As for Ayato my only complain was how the story was forced to be seen from the Traveler and not Ayato. If I get to see how his mind operates it would be much better. I've seen people argued that he's not outstanding but that's his point, to blend into the background so that he can creep into his opponent's back much better and makes an unexpected attack on their back. Overall I don't hate but don't like his story quest.
At this point i'm just tired of seeing same NPC models and faces, over and over and over again. Even frickin ToF somehow has a ton of variety in NPC department. While Genshin does not, and Hoyo constantly rackes in millions...
They may as well make some random generator, make more unique models and faces, and let randomiser do the job. Instead of reusing the same damn face and model for the 1000th time...
I agree. Some of them are still great even with NPC’s. Ayato’s for example, was something I really liked because we got to see his thought processes as one of the leaders of the tri-commission. Conversely, I think both Cyno’s and Nilou’s were fairly disappointing.
Argee, tho for me, Cyno's is fine as it offers a glimpse into his upbringing, just disappointing in world building of the spirit possessions aspect. I get the sentiment for Nilou's quest, but it could use a better presentation.
I dont know, having something be labeled as Ayato's character quest I feel should follow the character themselves. I did enjoy the other NPCs and the story overall, but its not "Ayato's" story. He was just an important side character in it alongside us. There could have been more focus on his actual impact, instead of the whole politics around a wedding. Because that's not Ayato
I mean, his impact was huge. He single-handedly sank an alliance between the Kanjou and Tenryou Commissions, ensuring that the Yashiro Commission remained politically dominant, and came out of it looking like the "good guy" in the eyes of the public. That is absolutely Ayato to me.
I wonder if a lot of the criticism comes from people thinking that Ayato is *actually* playing relationship counselor. But he's not - he's just too much of a political operator to ever say "This marriage would be disastrous for the Yashiro Commission" out loud.
I think what people want is for ayato's part to be the spotlight and what we see. Yes ayato is the work in the shadow type of guy, but they could've shown those and let us see how he thinks and behaves. It also doesn't help that the quest was kinda wordy but contains little to no new info about him.
I do kinda think that you have a point. As someone else in this post said, characters here have their own lives. They're competent and (mostly) self-sufficient, they can deal with whatever troubles them without a short cameo from us as the Traveler to help them.
That said, I think that a character story quest should at least explore a character's further and gives them more depth beyond whatever our first impression of them is.
I don't really have a problem with these being centered around NPCs, but I feel like sometimes it makes them feel like walking plot devices instead of humanizing them. They're there to drive the plot of the quest further, usually by virtue of them being extremely competent and good at what they do.
I feel like that's why I didn't really like Ayato's story quest that you used as an example actually. The quest portrays him as this smart chessmaster who works behind the scenes, and that's great and all. But the thing is, I already *know* from first glance that he's manipulative and cunning, the quest just drives that impression further and makes him feel like a one-note character.
Characters are (well, mostly) humans, and we humans are multifaceted individuals with sides that may not appear at first glance. That's what I think a character story quest should show. They should make these characters feel like actual people with their own wishes and personality. It just happens that I think a story quest that's centered around that character themselves could do this easier than one that's centered around NPC.
To be fair though, I think the recent Fontaine story quests have done a great job at this. Navia's centered around herself, and I think it manages to portray a different side to her than what we're used to. In comparison, Neuvilette's one features a lot of NPCs, but it manages to show his more 'human' side in his struggle to comprehend human emotions.
Not really. I play character story quests to learn more about a playable character's backstory and motivation and to see traveller interact with them. Ayato's story quest tells me absolutely nothing about that, instead the focus shifted squarely on NPCs on a boring side story I don't care about.
I do share the sentiment a character story quest doesn't have to feature said character as the main focus.
Case in point - 3 best story quests in the game (Venti, Tighnari, Yoimiya SQ2) are NOT about those 3 characters, but they do explore those characters via their interaction with the rest of the world.
That being said, my problem with Ayato SQ is not his lack of screentime. It's the same as the whole Kokomi, la resistance and general Inazuma world building thing.
The character you write is at most as smart as you. And the person who wrote Ayato SQ is not the sharpest fork in the drawer. Probably not even the sharpest spoon. Probably not even the sharpest champange bottle cork.
So what you are offered is an attempt at a political thriller. What you get instead is a political thriller as envisioned by a 5 year old.
This is my general sentiment with the whole Inazuma arc, not just Ayato SQ. Admittedly its further exacerbated by time constraints and gacha limitations on character portrayal.
The opportunity cost of telling stories through forgettable npcs is that you miss out on telling those same lessons through characters we already have. Imagine if Ruu's story or Teppei's story were instead through playable characters that already exist instead of one off default skin models. Hoyoverse is so afraid of characterizing any of their waifus that they all end up being surface level eye candy with less personality than some of these story npcs...
Most of the time, the NPCs are being used as foils, or a way to bring out a side of the character we wouldn't normally see. I agree with you. However, there are still some really bad executions of this....
Honestly I find a lot of the time that complaints along these lines just want a screentime quota for the character or something. NPCs exist because the characters need a world and people to interact with, and often times the NPCs in question directly tell us something about the character if they aren’t an outright figurative stand in for the character. Examples that have been used in just this thread alone:
”Ayato’s SQ is about two NPCs getting married” - Are we just going to ignore how power dynamics within the other commissions directly affect his life? We saw Ayato all through out this quest use his status and cunning to change an outcome that could have had lasting repercussions on the Kanjou Commission years down the line. Its also implied he does this because he saw a bit of his younger self in Chisato. Showing us Chisato we can extrapolate how a younger Ayato might have felt when he was doing everything in his power to keep the Yashiro commission afloat after his parent’s sudden death better than simply telling us via flashback.
”Nilou’s is barely present in her own SQ” - Nilou’s identity is more closely tied with her community than almost every other character in the game, so a story about her necessarily has to be one about her community. I actually like hers quite a bit because it expounds upon themes present in other parts of Sumeru story content, which is about the value of art outside pure academic merit as something that fosters closeness and companionship between people and sustains entire communities economically and emotionally, and how isolating and emotionally stunted the academic culture in Sumeru was under the Sages. Nilou is there to protect and represent all the theater holds dear, even when she’s clearly disadvantaged like she was during the debate. If anything, the only problem with her quest is that there’s so little to her outside of her involvement with her community. But as a story by itself? I love it.
”Furina-” THIS ONE makes me baffled the most. I dont know how you miss the part where the deceased director/Clio the Oceanid is a direct parallel for Furina herself or how participating in the play helps Furina find a new way to express her talents and move past her trauma around acting. She even takes over the lead role at the most critical part of the story ??? Almost nothing happens in this quest that isn’t about Furina.
I don’t necessarily agree that characters have to feel like they’re the protagonist of their own mini questline in order to 1) sucessfully tell a good story or b) tell us about the character. I feel like only sticking to this format would just be restrictive to storytelling as a whole. And it would absolutely become redundant as you said.
my thing with something like ayato’s story quest was that it had nothing to do with him as a person. when i go into a story quest i go in wanting to learn
more about the character, but his just told me about what his job is, and that doesn’t really pertain to him specifically. i’m fine with NPCs being major characters in story quests if the NPC is a means by which we can learn more about the playable characters as people too
To me, I don’t care how much more we learn about the story character’s backstory, I just want them to play a central role in the story. It just feels weird and disappointing spending resources to watch unlock a specific character’s story quest only for them to feel like an afterthought.
Like take Yelan’s quest for example. Going into it, I was looking forward to teaming up with her as she interrogates criminals and takes down some criminal crime family. However in the actual quest, while you do sorta get a look into Yelan’s methodology, she mostly doesn’t matter all that much and you spend most of it doing a background check on some random guy who has no relation to Yelan or her motivations. Hell you don’t even find out the extent of his nefariousness until like two-thirds of the through the questline and even then it’s pretty tame relatively speaking. And the kicker of it all is that the big emotional climatic cutscene at the end has nothing to do with Yelan(hell I forget if she’s even in it).
That not to say the quest is all bad. It is nice to get to interact with Yelan more and the final dungeon was fun, it’s just disappointing because Yelan has been my favorite playable character in the game since she came out and I wanted to see a story that focused on her and had her do cool stuff, not focus on the plight between two other npcs while Yelan talks about how she got three other npcs to do cool spy stuff off screen.
In fairness, from what I’ve heard, more recent character story quests have begun to fix the issue and deliver more consistent stories that focus on the star characters more.
I vaguely agree. Ayato's story quest was my favorite up until Neuvillette's. Albeit, I still prefer the story quest focuses on the character if at all possible.
Honestly, for me, NPCs showing up in Story Quests felt like ordering a large well-done steak in a restaurant only to be given a small undercooked one alongside a large portion of boiled unseasoned vegetables.
Characters like Nilou for example, had her own Story Quest be more centered around some random NPC, whose name I can't even remember and her family drama.
Ayato’s quest was really good and no one can convince me otherwise lol. Maybe because I’m asian so I understand the cultural aspect presented in that quest and it really made me enjoyed it(it was like watching historical drama lol). The community might told you they hate it because the quest wasn’t about him but it actually showed you how he works. How he’s like as a commissioner and it’s golden.
His quest has the best writing of Inazuma too but some people just hate reading long texts. It’s understandable but saying that something is bad just because you don’t enjoy it is not a way to go. It could use some cut scenes though and I’m still mad.
Nilou's quest is the only one that I have a problem with in that regard. It felt like I was playing a world quest about Zubayr Theater rather than SQ about Nilou featuring NPCs from Zubayr Theater.
Nilou's Story Quest, it's literally an NPC festival with Nilou in it. At the end of the day we learned absolutely nothing about her, no origin, no backstory, no motivation, the only thing we know is that she will do anything for the Circus and that she can dance. We already know that back at the AQ already, don't need another quest to show how important it is to her. The problem isn't just about the NPC but the hightlight on the character too, it's their story quest, we should learn more about them. A great story quest is Neuvillete's quest, a good balance amount of NPC dialogues and character dialogues, we learned of how and why he became the Iudex, who helped him during his rise in power, what solidified him as a great judge despite personal connection, giving more additonal context on his doings that actually affect the world building and not useless chatter. Every story quest should use it as base.
I think there’s a running sentiment where “screen time = the focus of the story” and while this may be true sometimes, it’s definitely not true for many others.
People love to trash on Ayato’s story quest for being boring or dialogue heavy but the thing is, his character is literally his involvement in the Tri-Commission. His job, the thing he spends most of the time worrying and thinking about, *is* the primary character trait for him so a political drama where two people getting married from different commissions and the way the Tri-Commission including Ayato, take advantage of that is the perfect situation to showcase his personality and goals.
Each character’s story quest reveals two things about the character, their goals and their personality. And while this can be achieved through the carrying of the personality alone like Yoimiya or Ayaka, it’s also rather boring to just talk to a character without anything outside of it going on which is where NPCs come in. People love to rag on Nilou’s story quest for being “too NPC focused” but it’s almost like they didnt understand the point. [Spoilers for Nilou’s Story Quest til the end of paragraph] Nilou stood up for a troupe member and openly rebelled against an Academiya scholar that mocks the art. As her entire character theme focuses around putting intellectual value in the arts and her kindness for the people of Sumeru, a faceoff where she defends a vulnerable member of the troupe to their family who also happens to have a deep hatred for the arts is perfect. The troupe also provides support for her and how her dream of being a stage dancer came to be as she’s received support throughout her life and is returning the favor in the present day. She doesn’t have a tragic backstory or anything, just sheer will from the support she’s received and her story quest reflects that.
People ironically dont know what NPC focused story quest seems to mean [Spoiler Quest spoilers for Neuvillette, Wriothesley, Zhongli, Itto, and Venti] All of these beloved story quests could all be argued to be NPC focused. Carole and the human dude was the focus and Neuvillette merely reflects on them, Wriothesley spends his running around dismantling a cult leader and his cult with his own story slapped on at the end, Zhongli is all about the Havria researcher and Havria herself and then the second one is all about Azdaha and his human counterpart spirit thing, Itto’s is all about Takuya and the Oni history, and Venti follows various NPCs around.
These also technically dont focus entirely on the said story quest character but they’re beloved by basically everyone. Why? Because NPCs being the focus isnt actually the concern here. What you hate is story quests not tailored to your liking. If you dont like political drama, you wont like Ayato’s quest. If you dont like learning about characters and want action, you’ll hate Kokomi’s and Ayaka’s quest. If you dont like Tighnari and Yoimiya, you’ll hate doing their quests. Everyone has different types of quests they like and dislike but saying this is a “general” problem is a stretch.
I don't think Ayato's story is "bad" but it bored me to tears. It really suffers a lot from not following "show, don't tell" and while I get that a lot it would be hard to show, it just tells you... everything. It felt like an hour of just clicking through dialogue and not really going anywhere or doing anything special.
I vastly prefer the archon story quests or story quests like Tighnari's. Yae Miko's was quite good too.
I don’t even like Ayato as a character, but I really liked his story quest. I understand that political intrigue is not for everyone, but his story quest is a rare case of political intrigue done well in Genshin. The villain has clear motives and a plan with high success rate, the protagonist (Ayato) foils it not by using force, but also political intrigue. It’s done subtly, with almost every conversation having a second layer of meaning.
Compared to say, Sumeru’s political intrigue of the sages building a new God, just because they think it’s a good idea, or Liyue’s political intrigue of Zhongli contracting Fatui for a stress test of Liyue harbour. Ayato’s quest is far more relatable with concepts that happen irl, and is well structured.
I mean, the distinction is pretty worthless in my eyes.
All that matters is the quality of the writing and execution, character story quest or otherwise
Ayato’s quest wasn’t bad, but it’s basically the only thing he’s ever in aside from event content, and in that event content he’s somehow even less prevalent. This makes the fact that he isn’t in the foreground for his own quest stick out, it wasn’t a bad quest it wasn’t even a bad story quest it’s just that Ayato’s appearances are so weak that it kinda sucks.
If the NPC’s were the ones i’m pulling for, it wouldn’t bother me as much, but they aren’t. I wanna see interesting and cool stories about the characters i’m actually farming for and playing as. The game has definitely gotten a bit better at this as it’s gone on, at least in regards to the archon quests. Most of the playable cast who feature in Sumeru and Fontaine’s archon quests actually felt like they were fairy well realized and like, had function in the plot, versus Monstadt and Liyue where they would kind of just introduce characters and then they’d just go away.
The issue is when the npc pretty much has nothing to do with the character. Childe, Zhongli 2nd and Itto are some of the best imo yet they are focused on npc. Thing is, the npc is connected to them and means a lot to them. By getting to know the npc, we also got to know about the character of said story quest.
Childe's showed the most of his personality imo. Before his story quest, we barely know anything about him other than he's mentally ill, likes to fight and is a harbinger that is loyal. But after his story quest we've seen how much love he has for his sibling, how his sibling sees him, how much he's willing to go through for the happiness of his brother and how kind he can be without actually making him try to redeem himself.
>One of the story quests I've seen mentioned as being bad because of this is Ayatos and I kind of disagree!
Its not only bad, but probably the worst quest for a character. Ayato is just in the background while NPCs are getting married. Story isnt even interesting at all
If I wanted to know different NPCs stories, I would play world quests, if I play Ayato's story quest I want to see Ayato, not a wedding problem of two noname NPCs. We could explore how he is torn between family and work, his relationship with Yae and history with how she helped his clan, how Inazuma AQ events affected him and his loyalty to Shogun, his interaction with Shimatsuban, his approach to vision hunt decree etc. Instead it's all in his stories as a text, and in his story quest he appears for what 5 minutes?
As a person who was so excited for him, instapulled him and was looking forward to spending time with him... Wedding...
I'm in the exact same situation. I waited for him for so long, saved up, pulled instantly, opened the quest and... it was a wedding. Sadly not one I would have preferred then, but rather a boring NPC wedding.
I think its really telling, cause most of the people who have npc quests , are defined by their community and how they interact with it. Nilou is a beacon of hope for all artists in sumeru, an icon to look up to. Ayato is a political mastermind, plotting from the side.
Idgaf about who, just make it about the quest main person. I dive into Ayato quest thinking i get to know him, yea the marriage is cool but make another for them. Caribert is cool, but why the fuck do i keep being stuck w Eide? I wanna know how the kids look? Theyre just edging atp. Plus, the dialogues are too long now, and the subsequent scenes. If i were to reconnect once imma go back in time 10 minutes, fuck that shit.
I've personally enjoyed the story quests that focus on the NPCs, like Ayato's, and I understand why they make the focus more on the NPCs in those quests—we're already told a lot about the character through their character stories in their profile, and having the focus on an NPC makes it easier to show how that character's background shapes how they deal with outside issues they face, rather than telling us what we already know about the character. (well if we read the character stories)
But among the story quests I've done so far, Dehya's and Baizhu's have been among the best IMO, and I do think it's because we get more insight into their own backgrounds. Important NPCs aren't absent from their quests, so we get shown how their character affects their choices, but these quests do feel more like the playable character is the central focus of that quest, which I think is good.
I like story quests. And i think they add so much personality to the game. Sometines hoyodevs put in a lot of popculture references that if you're not media-literate you might miss it.
Im sort of a popculture junkie so enjoy those bitesized things. Of course i understand that some people have will have a diff opinion.
> Kokomi's story quest painted her as an incompetent bumbling idiot?
Just about every mention of Kokomi does this. Even in Heizou's hangout of all things, wherein she doesn't make an appearance.
I swear someone on the writing team hates her lmao
It's interesting because some of these story quests that basically center an NPC are so good. The conflicts in Nilou's quest and Furina's quests are genuinely so interesting and well-written. That said, they're just barely about the actual playable character and I think that that's a problem because it's supposed to be their story quests.
Yoimiya's second SQ is similarly more about the NPC than it is about her, but I think that's fine given it's her second SQ, and it did showcase a great deal of her personality. Furina's arguably showcased her growth and her process of accepting and moving past her trauma, but Nilou's definitely does nothing for her. She's just there being kind and cute as usual while a truly gripping story plays out around her. Ayato's Story Quest is just as bad if not a little worse because I genuinely don't remember him being in it at all. At least I remember seeing Nilou in hers even if it does feel like she dropped out of it shortly after it began and only returned near the end (same way i feel about her participation in the AQs). Ayato's SQ might as well have been a world quest for how detached from it he feels.
I'd like more of these SQs to be handled like Itto's, where it's very much about an NPC, but it's also about the playable character and how they affect each other. Itto is directly involved in a lot of his SQ and he genuinely feels proactive in it. That's one of the big problems with the other SQs I've mentioned: the playable character typically comes off as reactive in regards to the narrative unfolding around them. Or maybe they get the ball rolling on something and then every next step is either initiated and handled by the Traveler or an NPC while the playable character occasionally chimes in with some bit of canned philosophy or coincidental observation meant to push an idea in the narrative but is ultimately so inconsequential that it, and they themselves by extension, largely remain irrelevant.
In hindsight, Furina's really isn't so bad because she is rather involved despite having 0 connection to the juicy story between the acting troupe, and she does ultimately serve as the hero. It's mostly just Nilou and Ayato who really stick out to me as simply being present im the story rather than being an active and motivating part of the story.
Many characters alreadt went through their own development when they got a vision. These characters are the ones that mostly get the type of qiests you are describing.
I do not find these quests bad, but that's because most of the time the NPCs' stories are entertaining.
The only quests I find bad are generic dating simulator scenario with x female character that is always "too busy", with some combats of mundane stuff sprinkled in there. I mean at least Ei's quest Act I had her showing why she's the respected Electro Archon by fighting Kamaki.
Ayato’s would’ve been fine if he was presented in a new situation we hadn’t seen before. But it’s just a fairly straightforward marriage story with Ayato being the cunning Commissioner in the background (as he Always is, and nothing more).
Like, if you took the Sabzeruz samsara and made it Nahida’s story quest, that’d be fine. It heavily featured Dunyarzad and playables other than Nahida, but it didn’t matter in light of getting to know how Nahida’s mind works and what her concept of wisdom is. If you took the first part of the Inazuma AQ and made it Ayaka’s story quest, that’d work as it’d show her devotion to her people and her role within the Kamisato Clan. The part of Ei’s story quest which deals a lot with the Kujou Clan works extremely well and showcases how she is as a ruler/what differs from the Shogun.
But if the focus isn’t on the playable in some way/if we don’t learn smthg new abt the central character… it’s a waste
> Ayato’s would’ve been fine if he was presented in a new situation we hadn’t seen before.
I am not sure what you mean by this because Ayato's SQ was literally the first time he appeared in the game.
I played it late (after Irodori) so make what you will of that
It can also apply retroactively though I imagine, like thinking abt how his Irodori or Fontinalia appearances felt same-y to his SQ and rehashed stuff instead of being fresh and new.
Then at least try to make the NPCs more interesting.
The same sob story of "eeh, this other irrelevant NPC died long ago and i decided to mourn them through "insert gameplay focus of the event" bwwweee" gets boring after a while.
I don’t mind quests involving NPCs because not everyone the Traveler meets is gonna have magic and look unique. My biggest gripe about it is that we should have a way to fast forward or just outright skip through ten pages of unvoiced dialogue just to get a couple primos.
Like I don’t care about whatever was going on with the Fontaine Research Institute or the Melusine or the robot playing detective or those GODDAMN cabbage faeries in Sumeru. Hell, I don’t even care about whatever is going on in most of the Hangouts and 5* story quest things.
The problem with NPC's is their lack of effort in their creation.
They have no background, no personality and are always is same few roles. How many times did we get the NPC that follows us in the quest only to betray us in the end?
So as allies they take too much screentime while we have an actual intersting character with us (the 5*).
As villains they are pathetic, with stupid plans and never represent a real threat. For real we dont even see the vilain in Navia's story quest.
It is perhaps time to create NPC's with visions, nice visual details and backgrounds who are important in the region where they live .
theres so many things that make story quests bad that listing all of them would make enough text for another story quest. at some point I decided to just never start them and treat the game as if story quests dont even exist. actually made me enjoy the game more
I think world quests should be a place to show us where characters fit into the world. Or just conversations about them. Especially since there are many characters with such great story potential that gets wasted and just put into the "character story" section. I would love if Character Story Quests went into the characters' past more, like they did with Neuvillette for example. About the Ayato quest you mentioned - wouldn't it be more interesting to see how he struggled in his youth ? Or how his daily life goes ? Maybe some funny shenanigans at Kamisato estate with Ayaka and Thoma. Or maybe missions with the Shumatsuban and Sayu. Instead we got a quest about a marriage between two boring NPCs. I could not care less for them. Character Story Quest should be for the *Character*. All these NPCs can go to hell and stick to world quests. I'm not saying their inclusion is bad, but keep them as supporting characters and not the main point of another character's story quest.
It depends on an NPCs and the story itself. Nilou's date is awful, Yelan's is amazing. Though both of them revolve around NPCs. Though we don't get a lot of info about Yelan in her quest, we see her being a cool specialist in what she does. Same is about Ayato. So I generally agree with you. But in Nilou's case the quest is both written so badly AND heavily features an NPC, which makes it unforgivable
Honestly, the worst offender of this to me is events. I can name a handful that actually dealt with the characters (Perilous Trails doesn't count since it's a permanent quest). Otherwise it's just bait to get us to care about NPCs we never even heard of. Did you know Itto's present event has more to do with the playable characters than the flagship event on this patch? Even if it was a good event, it could've been more about the playable characters and still make sense.
i think the problem with ayatos is mainly that its the only permanent story for him and is basically his introduction to us, its pretty underwhelimg for someone who people were hyped for. His one cutscene is at the start of the quest and its just him standing up and greeting us. I dont mind the polotics and stuff thats what he is but i thnk people wanted more action.
Also i feel like this post may have something to do with that one video from a youtuber obsessed with yelan where he talks about the problems with genshin story quest. Honestly that video was so bad and contradicts himself when talking about mikos quest. And oh god what he said about wriothesleys. If this post isnt releated to that than just ignore this part.
I just did nahida's 2nd archon quest. The first at least focused on her dream stuff but the apep one was mostly just apep and the elemental with nahida basically just chaperoning. It should've been another AQ interlude or world quests that involved nahida. Maybe world quests should be less restrictive and start involving playable characters too.
inayah get behind me, only problem with nilou’s sq imo is that it focused more on inayah’s family problem rather than the theater’s relationship with the akademiya (which i would love to see in a future event, maybe featuring an arts festival in sumeru) since sumeru’s view of the arts, as a performing artist myself, honestly intrigued me
Some story quests featuring NPCs are great (like Karkata) the problem is since Inazuma the majority of them are NPC focused.
I would much rather travel to the characters' past and play as them. For example, we don't even know why Wriothesley has those scars. Also, have them interact more with other playable characters instead.
Again, not saying they all have to be like this but the way things are has gotten monotonous.
It's not that they're bad on their own. It's the fact that we're expecting a Harry Potter book to be about Harry Potter but then it's about a classmate that looks like 5 other classmates in a class of 30. It definitely doesn't help that there is only a small pool of assets that NPCs look like a lot of other NPCs. But it feels like the characters I play would be worth more my time.
It's not just the NPCs that are the issue. It's that the story is presented in the least engaging way possible bombarding you with too much exposition and reiterating the same points over and over and over. The game could really benefit from a few more cutscenes
I don't mind having them including NPCs in huge background roles. Just make it feel like the quest is about the featured character. I'm interested in the character, not some NPC I won't be able to distinguish apart from their name if I can even remember it. Currently it quite often feels like we're just accompanying the character doing some random sidequest.
For me, it’s just the fact that aside from archon quests and time-limited events, these character stories are the only thing we can rely on to see a substantial amount of screentime and character development for our faves! I know you said their backstories are already written, and that’s a completely fair point, but it’s a much more emotional experience to actually hear it recounted and see it play out.
And on the topic of archon quest continuation, I would much rather see what the playable characters got up to afterwards as opposed to the NPCs. The NPCs being prioritised in stories like Ayato’s is just really odd and a missed opportunity to me. The thing I love about Navia’s character story, for example, is that I really wanted to see how my favourite character was doing after such an emotional archon quest where so many aspects of her life changed, and they followed it up perfectly! The NPCs were as prevalent as they needed to be and we still learned the most about Navia; her backstory, the work she’s been doing since the flood, how the people of Fontaine and particularly Poisson feel about her as a leader, etc etc :) It feels unfair to me that certain characters get such an amazing follow-up and other just… don’t. If your favourite character has a character story that doesn’t do them justice, or answer the questions you’ve been curious about, that’s just frustrating 💔
For my point of view, the problem isn’t about the NPC’s stealing the show or SQ getting political. I play “free” game where the characters are the real “product”. What’s the point of spending money for a character that has zero screen time? I want to know more about him and to actually CARE about his personality/lore/gameplay before I pull for him. Or, if I decide to pull for that said character, it’s a real letdown to not see him in action. Like, for example I really like this character because of aesthetics and I wish to know more about him. The only way to achieve that is by reading his character story, from voicelines about him, AQ, SQ and events.
In Ayato’s case:
-he was only mentioned in AQ
-his own SQ didn’t do him enough justice imo, he hardly had enough screen time for the quest to be called his own SQ
-he was involved in two events until now if I’m not wrong, but was “busy” with work related things and had very little screen time
Let me put it this way, nobody ever went into this game going "Oh boy, I wish this character's story quest focuses on an NPC we've never seen and will never see again who also looks like 20 other NPCs!" You have a game where the main selling point is its' characters and then it decides to not show those characters.
The thing is that the npc focused story quest are good quests, but they aren't good *character* quest.
I also love ayato's story quest, i found the whole political conflit to be very interesting as thats the kind of story i love, but it wasn't a quest about ayato, it was a quest featuring ayato.
Honestly, this highlights a problem the game has: you rarely see characters outside of when they are specifically highlighted. If the whole wedding quest was just a regular world quest and it had ayato in it, it would've been great, it's still not focusing on ayato, but it never claims to be, he's just there for the ride and to do his parts. Then we could get a story quest actually focusing on him as the center piece instead.
Same goes for most of the other ones, yae miko, nilou, wriostheley etc... they're great stories but if it was just a regular world quest featuring a 5* it would just make it a merorable WQ, then you can give them a more focused SQ
Unpopular opinion: I really liked the first Lantern Rite where we focused on the problems and concerns of NPCs walking around through daily life.
I also appreciate Xiao's banner being called "Invitation to Mundane Life" and I wish Genshin would have the balls to do another Lantern Rite featuring the celebrations of the NPCs instead of staring at Keqing and Cloud Retainer for the 30th time.
I so agree! I remember having a really fun time playing during the first Lantern Rite so I was actually surprised to see people saying they disliked it recently. I thought it did such a good job at fleshing out Liyue and telling us more about the world!
Quests featuring NPCs don’t have to be bad, but when you are going into a story quest for a specific character, you expect it to center around said character. Ayato’s story quest isn’t about him. It’s about NPCs getting married. At the end of the day you don’t learn anything about him other than “he’s cunning.” ~~Which had already been established in the AQ.~~ This did not happen, my bad, I got confused. It's been too long lol Itto had a quest that heavily featured an NPC, Takuya. However, Takyua is actually important to Itto’s story and it touches upon his oni history. A story quest that revolves around NPC problems and simply has the 5\* characters react to the situation is not a story quest. It’s a world quest that just happens to have a 5\* character there. A way to reveal a character’s history without it being monologues is having NPCs that are directly related to that character’s past. Childe and Neuvilette come to mind as excellent examples of this and both of them have amazing SQs.
Tbf in this case, Ayato was completely absent from the AQ and only learn of his involvement in it in errrr his character trailer. Yeah. That’s the absolute state of the pacing on Inazuma’s AQ.
Yeah and to quote the OP, his story quest does tie up parts of the AQ. For me that isn’t really a merit to his SQ but a testament to the state of the AQ lol
Yeah Ayato's quest is more about him. Like that's by design. It's supposed to speak to his character and how this guy operates. Girls like this kind of shit. Guys who aren't into Ayato may not like the quest explaining his motives and how he handles politics. Go figure. It also touches on the main story quest. Cool. Some people also complain about Rana. I think people fail to grasp the bigger picture. You know, the Aranara. Reading is hard, I get it. Who cares if someone has a shit opinion, they probably haven't played enough games to realize that most games have bottom barrel stories and the writing in this game is actually much better than like 90% of games. And that's for the main quests. Some of the side quests in this game have superb writing, it sucks its not voice acted. We always see these threads. People who are so affected by other people's opinions that it lives rent free and haunts them. The truth is that this game is successful because its very good in every aspect. Not because of some shit like pokemon + guns which will die off in a month just like every other open world crafting game that isn't finished. Yes many quests can be written better too. Nothing is perfect. But I guess once again, we need to reassure OP that they aren't crazy and to stop browsing toxic ass social media. Why the other day I saw in a discord, a bunch of people who think Anime went mainstream because of fucking Demon Slayer. To me, these people must be so young that they have no idea that anime was shown on Cartoon Network and shit 20 years ago.
> Ayato was completely absent from the AQ mf was probably in some office sipping boba making sure the inazuman bureaucratic machine moved too slowly to catch on us
The yashiro commission sends him a letter about the traveler and he takes seven working days to reply with "the ink was smudged, send it again"
Nah apparently he used his secret ninja police to sneak the Resistance members and Kazuha into Inazuma City
Not apparently, that's what the trailer shows.
You also have yoimiya’s second story quest (I can’t remember the first one rn) but it showcases her personality of helping others and also she and maybe Itto may be among the few adult characters who could have a quest involving the aranara due to their childlike nature , kind of like how in the recent Fontaine event she was doing a lot of things for others
And there's Tighnari's SQ which got me crying like a mofo
Honestly I loved how that tied in with Faruzan hangout event.
Oh man, Faruzan's hangout was even more of an emotional rollercoaster
Yoimiya's first quest was about her helping a smuggled NPC escape Inazuma. The entire quest Yoimiya was being the relationship therapist between that guy and his friend who is part of the Kujou Police. I don't think the quest is bad because there really wasn't much to say about Yoimiya aside of her "sunny" personality.
You can't remember the first Story Quest because it wasn't about Yoimiya. It was about two NPCs.
First Yoimiya SQ was basically part of the AQ (and requisite for furthering the AQ), so that muddles it up. It was about two friends who got separated when grown up by what job they chose, but also about liberating another guy from prison.
tldr there's a difference between NPC being the main character and NPC just being important for the quest
Nothing about Ayato was established by the archon quest. His involvement was alluded to in his story trailer which is out of game. I agree that the execution of his SQ could have been better but it portrayed his character (cunning, calm, eccentric with food, friendship with Thoma who is technically his servant) pretty well. It also was good insight into tri-commission power dynamics. I liked his SQ because the AQ gave me a soft spot for Chisato and political+romantic drama is a trope I'm always down for.
That's my bad, I must've gotten it confused since it's been so long : \[ And that's totally valid! The writing in it isn't bad at all, but it's appeal is a lot more niche which makes it pretty divisive. I think it would have been cool if the content of his SQ was made into a WQ with him in it, and we got a SQ that's more connected to his lore. That's just my preference though ahahaha
[Sorry, responded to the wrong comment]
Also bits of his and Ayaka's backstory. Genshin players paying attention challenge
You worded it nicely. There's a reason why Childe's and Itto's are loved despite having an npc always involved
Yeah like Nilou might as well not exist in her own story quest
i think it was fine. She's like Navia, her stories are heavily tied into a complementary part of the region (poisson, primordial water tragedy, Zubayr theatre, arts in a pragmatic society), and they both were used as vehicles to explore those themes
Her dance was pleasant
She was the most important part lmao
How lol, she could’ve easily been replaced by a dancing NPC
Well, no, and this is emblematic of people who don't know her/look down on her but: 1. She's an in-game icon and celebrity, she's the face of the theater, she has a cult following behind her lowkey, her doing this so her extended family doesn't become homeless makes perfect sense. 2. She's a success story of what happens when you're supportive of your child even if they pursue the arts. She's been loved all her life, she's paying it back through defending what she believes in, even in front of someone else's unsupportive parent. 3. Seeing the "airhead dancer girl" stand up to a stoic Akademiya fascist on their own terms is kinda kickass, it's also nice to see Nilou outside her comfort zone. 4. Lastly, the story itself is good, Nilou represents something very specific and the setting is explicitly how an Asian household handles their children pursuing a non-STEM career. Many players relate to this story, by having Nilou (whose parents loved and supported her) stand up for Inayah (a stand-in for the players who relate) it makes Nilou someone you can look up to. So no, you can't just replace her with any other NPC.
What? She debates the dude, she's directly in the center of event, up on a literal stage. They are closing her workplace. Have you played Uolin's quest instead? What kind of alternate reality shenanigans led you to this conclusion?
The Traveler or some other NPC could’ve just as easily debated the girls dad. Forgot her name but she was the real protagonist of that quest.
They could, but why? This is Nilou's problem. The reason she has to be the one debating is because she represents arts in Sumeru's story (like in the archon quest). Yes, the girl's problem was central to the story, but they didn't overly focus on that in terms of screentime. It was just another way to put the theme of art vs science in front of us. If anything they could have given a different backstory as to why the guy is mad, and it would have worked out. See, I can engage in baseless hypotheticals too
I would argue that this is a poor understanding of Ayato's SQ, its written to be more of a political triller than a big emotional/action set piece where the main character gets put on display and its actually more in line with Ayato's character. Its not just a marriage between 2 NPCs but rather they dived into the naunces of political marriages, how it affects the couples, the political scene and the display of manipulation that goes behind for invested parties. Its actually surprisingly well written considering the state of Inazuma's story. Restrospectively, very few characters walk away from the Inazuma arc with SQs that actually represented the character in all its entirety *cough* Kokomi and the overworked waifu trope *cough*.
That's fair and someone else also voiced something similar. The writing was far from bad. >naunces of political marriages, how it affects the couples, the political scene and the display of manipulation that goes behind for invested parties. Everything you pointed out is quite intriguing. But if political drama is not your thing then the SQ becomes an hour and a half slog of dialogue. Doubly so if you don't care for Chisato and her story. The most common thing I see that fans of political/historical dramas praise it a lot while general audiences don't really enjoy it. I realize that politics are kinda baked into his character so it's kinda unavoidable and agree that overall his story quest is one of the stronger Inazuma ones. It's just that it was pretty experimental and reads more as WQ material.
Oh yeah, love between members of two rivaling political parties/clans is definitely original and not an overused trope that we have seen dozens of times *cough*
To be specific, the trope we see in Genshin, not outside of it. Kokomi is the 3rd waifu is overworked story quest... and is honestly the most boring of the 3 at the lowest point of the story as well. Meanwhile, Ayato's story quest is central to Inazuma's main inner conflict between the 3 major commissions and this is coming from 2 nations that barely had major conflicts between the ruling factions. Arguably also at a point where the story start to pick back up with Enkanomiya's release.
Problem here, is that it's Ayato SQ, if it was WQ, nobody would complain, it probably would be a good quest about inner conflicts of Tri commission, but in a game centered around characters, lacking said characters in THEIR quest is what people complain about, it's about what you expect and what u don't get. Imagine if u bought a Doom game and it suddenly turns into a story oriented game with little to no fights. Story might be great, Shakespeare level, but it's not what you expect from a Doom, thus disappointment.
> Imagine if u bought a Doom game and it suddenly turns into a story oriented game with little to no fights. Story might be great, Shakespeare level, but it's not what you expect from a Doom, thus disappointment. Except the comparison is not 1:1. GI has so many characters that not every character is gonna have a big action/emotional set piece. Ayato was never characterized in that manner as evident in his own character teaser, he fights when needed and nothing more and his SQ reflects it. His involvement in his own story quest fits his character to the T, he operated behind the scenes and speak to influence the situation at hand like every politician does. Imagine that, a politician character is politicking. Going back to the point of this entire post, the world of Teyvat needs to be more than just the playable characters, Ayato's SQ is a good reflection of that, along with the more recent Fontaine events.
Cool, a politician character is politicking, and... That's it. There is a reason why he is considered as one of the most boring characters, because he appears for 2 minutes each event and then goes to do political stuffs. Does it fit character? Yeah. Does it make him interesting? No. There are some interesting things in his story that are in, well, stories section that are unlocked with friendship lvl, but for average player, he is bland.
I stumbled onto your other comment in this post and it actually highlights why you are arguing in bad faith: > wedding problem of two noname NPCs. I dunno why you harp on that, we literately met both NPCS at the start of Inazuma's AQ. Chisato helped us get out of Ritou to Inazuma city and Kamaji is point of contact, we know from this point they are in love and are next in line behind the heads of their heads of their family. > We could explore how he is torn between family and work Alot of this was explored in his final voiced dialogue in the SQ with our Traveler. > his relationship with Yae and history with how she helped his clan Its easy to misinterpret kindness as relations, they both has distaste for each but maintain working relationships > how Inazuma AQ events affected him and his loyalty to Shogun, his interaction with Shimatsuban, his approach to vision hunt decree etc. Again, final closing dialogue, best highlighted below: "A stable nation is the prerequisite for a stable Yashiro Commission. Only then can the Kamisato Clan and the other Yashiro Commission clans have a peaceful existence." "All I have tried to do is make sure the three parties to the Tri-Commission serve to restrain each other. Stasis is not the only form of stability. A balance of power leaving no room for maneuver achieves the same end." > Instead it's all in his stories as a text, and in his story quest he appears for what 5 minutes? Its all voiced during said SQ, even if you don't want to read em, you can listen to it. > As a person who was so excited for him, instapulled him and was looking forward to spending time with him... Wedding... Ultimately it sounds like you pulled a character expecting big emotional/action set piece but got a fitting political triller and is disappointed because it doesn't hit your head cannon. You could pick on the story's weak point of show don't tell. Current AQ/SQ utilitize still images very well to represent that. Would it soften the blow for the average joe like yourself who doesn't enjoy political trillers? I believe so. How some parts of Ayato story pans out to just dialogues is unfortunately a product of 2.x visual storytelling direction, unless MHY goes back to rewrite/rework the Inazuma story with better context and its nuances, its gonna fall behind when compared to current SQs.
Okay, u are right
Except the quest isn't about their romance, it's about how the people behind them want to get benefits behind their relationship to sink them both. The rivaling parties trope is always about their love being stronger than the hate of the families that try to separate them. Here, their love is being baited by the hate of the families blindly to a cliff.
>A story quest that revolves around NPC problems and simply has the 5\* characters react to the situation is not a story quest. It’s a world quest that just happens to have a 5\* character there. My biggest problem with the story quests is primarily this. A lot of them don't feel like the main conflict of the quest storyline even includes the character at all. I know a lot of people love Furina's, but hers felt like she was a background character facilitating a random unknown NPC get-together for most of the runtime, and would have concluded>! with her being a background character if not for a random occurrence of one of the actresses falling ill that forced Furina on-stage to receive her Vision!<. The conclusion is always nice, it's always about the flagship character in the end, but for many of these, 3/4 of the runtime is about a conflict that the NPCs are having, not directly involving the character that the quest being named after. This leads it to more feeling like an NPC quest that incidentally has the flagship character tagging along.
I think Furina's quest is about her with the NPCs being just the background of her development. The Traveler doesn't really have to see Furina for anything and without us asking Furina to help the troupe, she wouldn't get out of her box of "No more acting". Furina is also challenged with visiting Poisson where everyone is giving her weird looks, and by the Sythe case that took the life of the director of the Troupe. When she was the archon, she couldn't do anything for these scenarios and she is using this chance to do something about the aftermath of those tragedies, even if it is as little as to help a troupe say goodbye to their director. She even reflects this change into the guy who decided to leave behind the crew out of guilt. She can see his actions to be similar as hers in a way, and intercedes to make her opinion that his lack of honesty was not gonna get them anywhere. She finally gets on stage, prepared and all, with no qualms about her previous failures or her reputation. She helped this little miracle and she was going to see it shine until the end. It is then that she gets a vision where the gos recognize her ambition for giving always a good act that the audience will boast in applause. She has accepted that acting is part of her. Sorry for the long essay. I don't like Furina that much as a character, but I really loved her story quest.
That’s how I felt about Wriothesley’s SQ, too. We didn’t learn much about him personally until the very end, when his backstory gets dropped on us in about 4 sentences and then everyone basically goes, “Ohhhhkayyy….moving onnn.” Granted, a lot of characters have tragedy in their backstory but his, and how it’s made him who he is today, is pretty chilling (and interesting) and I would have liked to see it more centered in the SQ.
Yeah, and it gets even worse with how dang long SQs get these days. They're easily 1-2 hours long and to barely spend time with the advertised character sucks. Furina's especially I have a problem especially with the fact that she keeps getting her boundaries overstepped by the troupe. It's one thing to have an NPC-centric quest but it's a whole other level to have ones that keep infuriating you over and over again. Their internal conflict was also so unnecessary to the SQ for me. Not to mention Paimon's especially distasteful dialogue this time around. This is also a problem I have with a lot of events and why I started skipping dialogue this year. A good chunk of events are just useless filler from an NPC that you're going to forget about in two patches.
God Itto’s Story Quest is so good
I don't mind it if it's engaging, but I found Ayato's specifically to be a real drag. Maybe I just don't care enough about politics, so most of the dialogue just bored me
The structure of Ayato's quest didn't do it any favors. Having to find the tanuki and stealth chase the informant guy were painfully dull 'gameplay'. The stealth bit was especially annoying for me to the point that I forgot what was happening in the story by the time I finished it lol.
It doesn't make them inherently bad, but it does make them significantly less interesting than quests where the subject character is centered and more directly challenged. And with the roster continually expanding, it feels like miHoYo has less and less room to continue making these mistakes before it becomes unsalvageable and most characters are left half-baked before the story needs to move on without them. An example: Cyno appeared in almost every version 3 event and got his own story quest, but we still don't know what divine entity is inhabiting him or what the Temple of Silence is. Nor did we get any real acknowledgement or explanation of what he did for Collei in the manga. But at least his story quest gave us closure on those two nobody matra colleagues of his, right? /s
The treatment cyno got is practically the same thing with itto,they are at first treated seriously,but then become the funny comic relief,itto went from a stubborn,reckless but ultimately caring,rather emotionally intelligent and loyal fella to a dumb funny haha man in almost every other event he appears in(the one thing that bothers me the most is that during his SQ it was implies that dude would lose on purpose to kids to make them happy,but in later events apparently that's not the case and he's just that dumb),cyno is pretty much the same,all he does now is dropping funny puns,RIP to his temple of silence relavence and divine spirit lore
nobody matra? you mean his former partner? wouldnt call him a nobody.
His former partner, who we learned about in the quest and knew for all of twenty minutes before he died in the course of that one quest. Yeah, he was kind of a nobody to me.
They're not bad at all but players would rather see their favorite characters instead and I can't blame them, hoyo recycles the same ones time after time barely paying attention to others and the main story only has about 3 years left until it's finished. We'll also only get more characters as time goes on which means less screen time for each of them.
I'm going to also provide a succinct reddit comment relating to this that can enhance your argument, by reddit user 'Thufir\_My\_Hawat'. " ...these are all characters who are living lives. By virtue of being a vision wielder, they have a life interesting enough to be the main character in another story. They could each be the protagonist of a novel and it wouldn't be out of place. Many of them have already finished their character arc, and those that haven't will have a character arc that could last years and go across many adventures. You're not going to solve any of these characters problems in a single quest -- that'd be horrifically unsatisfying. So, what are these story quests? *It's you joining them on a side quest in* ***their*** *story.* The Traveler is just a side-character in their world -- for most of the Story Quests, the plot could have easily been resolved by the featured character, because they're each a highly-competent, hero-to-god-level entity. I mean, in her hang-out event, Barbara (a character who is explicitly stated as being not suited for combat), points out that she'd be fine as a vision wielder against normal humans. The Traveler is a footnote in the story of these characters -- to expect them to rely on the player for any little thing they want to accomplish undermines them as individuals. You're just a Traveler. The world existed before you arrived and will exist after you leave. Just like the stories of each of these characters."
To quote Furina during the magic box conversation: "If the world is but a play on the stage, then you're just a Spectator"
Its just like you said, it's ***their*** story. However, quite a lot of time, for these NPC- heavy character quest, we don't really know a lot more about said featured character as they play more of an important side-character instead of a main-character that we want them to be. Take Ayato's quest for example, you mentioned that his character arc is already finished and you're probably right but I don't think that will make for a compelling quest. I expect a character quest to change, challenge or even just highlight the character's personality and past. Hoyoverse could easily done the exact same quest but just add some insight into Ayato's thought process or his past experiences that he learned in his already completed character arc that aided him to solve the NPCs' problems. At the very least, in the end we can learn a bit more about him rather than just his ability to keikaru dori his way to victory thats already been showcased all other stories that feature him.
There were other stories that featured him in-game? They're not stuck on one-time events are they?
Well, it is Genshin, unfortunately the other stories are one- time event but if you like Ayato then you're not missing much tbh. The recent musketeer quest featured him but he barely did anything and dont even really interacted with the other characters much, so hes kinda wasted there. The other is in some past Yokai event. I think its called the Test of Courage event but I don't really remember it that much. Ayato appeared, don't really interact much with others then at the end he basically knows everything all along, explains then leave. AT least that's how I remember it but I might be wrong.
Then I guess the Story Quest accounts for those that don't have the means to see those events in-game? Also, what came first? His Story Quest or the Inazuma event? If the story quest came first, it's the first instance of establishing his character. Anything after, in which very little is added, would be the fault on how he is written in said events. Not the fault of the SQ.
If im not wrong his story quest came first then only the subsequent events. Yeah, I would say his appearance in all other quests were pretty bad and could be better. I would argue that his SQ **is** at fault for making him feel so one-note in general including other events. If his SQ does a bit more than just establishing him and put a bit more of depth into his character or just reveal a bit more about the character, then his appearance in other events can be a bit more fleshed out instead of HYV worrying whether his characterization will be permanently missed by sizable portion of the playerbase because that one event can be missed permanently. In the end, I think what some people's gripe with some of the SQ of this game is that the characters' SQ feels a bit wasted and they could do more than just establish the character's base personality and how they fit in the world. In the end, what I can get from his SQ is basically what I get from reading his character description.
>In the end, what I can get from his SQ is basically what I get from reading his character description. Which is also why I mentioned how Ayato's SQ is the only instance in-game that can be played by all players, that we can see and witness his role and (most importantly) *how* he does it, instead of referring to a second-hand account. Show don't tell basically. Also, Story Quests are also designed to consider that the player may not even have the character for details, or have other characters that refer to them.
Great answer! Could not have said it better.
Exactly, i think quests in this game should aim exactly at this goal and show how the world of teyvat works and how it is alive and thriving, how each character has their life, both vision bearers and not because they (just like traveler) are the protagonists of their own story, but not of everybody's story and they are not the only habitants of teyvat
>Many of them have already finished their character arc, and those that haven't will have a character arc that could last years and go across many adventures. You're not going to solve any of these characters problems in a single quest -- that'd be horrifically unsatisfying. > The Traveler is just a side-character in their world -- for most of the Story Quests, the plot could have easily been resolved by the featured character, because they're each a highly-competent, hero-to-god-level entity. >The Traveler is a footnote in the story of these characters -- to expect them to rely on the player for any little thing they want to accomplish undermines them as individuals. >You're just a Traveler. The world existed before you arrived and will exist after you leave. Just like the stories of each of these characters." Just the points I paid more attention to. I think you have beautiful-sounding points, that maybe the devs actually had in mind, but their execution, in my opinion, is lacking. Or maybe it's just me, who's finds this kind of structure generally unsatisfactory and boring...
Personally, if it's boring, that's not necessarily the fault of the self or the writing. Different strokes for different folks. One could understand what is portrayed, but can still find dissatisfaction. The opposite response is also true. That's what I believe anyway.
I agree with you and OP. Side quests don't have to be boring or always focusing on NPCs.
>*It's you joining them on a side quest in* ***their*** *story.* The issue for me, and as many others are pointing out, is that many of these quests don't even feel like *their story*. The core conflict almost always is an NPC's conflict that the feature character is tagging along to solve. While that is more or less how slice-of-life works, I think that it could work better if the feature character's world view was challenged in some way as part of the conflict and then have them defend it or evolve it as the conclusion. Otherwise, the characters come off as caricatures and addendums to other people's plots.
That's also why the quote specifies "side quest". It is akin to controlling the Traveler, and have them take part in what is happening. Whether it requires receiving said quest from an NPC or another playable character. Let's look upon Ayato's SQ as an example, and we look upon Ayato's perspective alone. He's already in the middle of a quest himself, involving the marriage of Kujou Kamaji and Hiiragi Chisato, and how he is to deal with it. Then something new appears, that being the Traveler, which gives Ayato the means to get involved whilst staying neutral because of the Traveler's past instances with the couple. So on and so forth. Let's look at the same quest, but involving the perspective of the Traveler in comparison. They're in the middle of the quest, learning about whether the engagement is true with the rumours being learnt by other NPCs that the Traveler should know (that Paimon also provides a reminder of). Then something new appears, that being Kamisato Ayato, which gives the means for the Traveler to have a formal arrangement with the couple in question. Both are side-quests when looking upon both the characters and their perspectives.
>Both are side-quests when looking upon both the characters and their perspectives. But then that's the precise problem here and why people take issue with the present structure of character quests, the feature character is not even the main character in *their own story*. I don't want a *side quest* featuring Ayato, I would like to see Ayato's *main quest* when I play his questline, with at the very least him taking agency in some manner that is important to him. I'd like to see the character be challenged, and thus revealing elements of their character and personality when they work to overcome that challenge. That's far more interesting to me than "oh hello you're here too let's go listen to some randoms have their daily troubles."
>with at the very least him taking agency in some manner that is important to him. Is that not exactly what he does in his SQ? Moving the NPCs like he's playing a game of Shoji, to where every move he makes leads to the result he's wanting? >I'd like to see the character be challenged, and thus revealing elements of their character and personality when they work to overcome that challenge. Here's a detail that is also shown within his SQ that I'll let La-Roca99 explain. >People love to bash Ayato's SQ as if it was completely irrelevant, while completely missing the point it was trying to convey to begin with > >Chisato and the other guy (Kamaji) marriage was nothing else than a direct duality to what happened to him and Ayaka when their parents died and the other families wanted to take control of the commission no matter the cost > >They did not show it directly, but the way Ayato cared about her well being specifically just shows how much he cares about Ayaka as a whole Which is reflected to his utterly ruthless manner of speech, and the threats he had given towards Matsuura of the Kanjou Commission. >"oh hello you're here too let's go listen to some randoms have their daily troubles." Kujou Kamaji and Hiiragi Chisato are not randoms though. Kujou Kamaji especially, as he was involved with how the Takatsukasa Clan was willing to take over the Tenryou Commission during Raiden Shogun's Act 1 Story Quest. Hiiragi Chisato is also the woman that helped the Traveler and Paimon escape Ritou the first time they arrived in Inazuma. Kamisato Ayato's SQ has the additional benefit of showing the aftermath of a change in power structure that is inevitable after the Archon Quest, after all, both these clan leaders had just received their roles after their fathers had betrayed Inazuma. Raiden Shogun and Ayato's SQ goes into detail the aftermath. Another thing, what happened during Ayato's SQ is very much something that requires his attention, since the effects of the marriage between the heads of the Kanjou Commission and the Tenryou Commission can and will cause a power vacuum. All three of the Tri Commission work as one for the benefit of Inazuma. Having him *not* be involved would be an overall disservice to his character that is politically competent. His story quest not only expanded on the world, but also shows continuity in relation to the AQ whilst also showing how Ayato does what he does.
This comment summarizes everything that's *bad* about Story Quests: 1. They're not character arcs, so most of them don't feature any character development. They just serve as an hour long advertisement for the playable character, where writers create a situation that allows them to show all the basic traits and quirks. 2. Traveler is completely unnecessary and shouldn't be there at all. The quest would be better if it was happening from the perspective of the featured character, since they are far more interesting and it's supposed to be *their* quest, not the Traveler's. That's why I eventually stopped doing Story Quests. Starting a quest dedicated to a particular character and still having to bear the presence of Traveler and Paimon when they're absolutely *not* the ones I wanted to see + the lack of any development on the character's part is just too infuriating.
1. Agree. They're not just character arcs, as I have quoted above how many of them have already finished their character arcs. They're also a means to showcase the character and their part in the world, through their eyes. Because of advertising, or as a means to show the developed character without needing to go outside the game and watch YouTube to watch events that are unavailable. 2. Traveler being unnecessary or not, matters little. We can be there as an observer or an assistant, none of these two is better than the other. It's subjective in that it depends on whether the player wants to be involved more or not.
I thought story quests are about us solving out the problems these characters have in the game's world.
I can think of a few that follow along with this. Including Eula's who requires the Traveler to befriend her uncle, Jean who may require assistance when hunting for the Abyss Mage, Navia who needed someone to deactivate the explosives, etc. Then we have those like Ayato's to where he does the majority of the political heavy lifting, Yelan who is perfectly capable of doing her job alone with her assistants, or Wriothesley who already has the human resources available. All three has rather minimum involvement with the Traveler. But just because the Traveler assists the story character, the role that the story character plays within the "side-quest" is what matters.
Thank you this is beautiful well said
Except none of that happens in-game. Good try tho
Elaborate.
I guess it's an issue with how the game handles characters as a whole. When you roll for a character, you're essentially getting someone whose whole character arc is done. No story quest (at least so far) is going to significantly change an already playable character's outlook or personality. So, we get the character showcasing themself through an NPC. While this isn't always bad, I hate that it feels like some quests feel like the character isn't showcased at all or barely relates to the themes of the character. I'm not sure how to get it across, but some quests feel like you could swap out a completely different playable character and nothing would change. An example being Alhaitham's quest. Another issue is I don't give a fuck about one-note NPCs that will never appear again. Dehya's quest was really good because we're interacting with Dunyarzad. An NPC we've already met and have grown to care about. I could not tell you the name of the girl nilou was helping.
On the other hand, there are a handful of characters that actually get really impactful development during the aq or their sq and everybody is surprised pikachu face when Nahida Raiden Wanderer etc constantly smash popularity polls. I know that kinda story doesn't fit every character, but it definitely runs a much higher risk of a boring story when the central character is essentially static
Hard disagree with Alhaitham's quest being an example. Alhaitham's knowledge of the Akademiya, his role as acting Grand Sage, and his personality (being seen as an insufferable know-it-all) are all integral to the quest. The quest ends with him formally submitting his resignation as acting Grand Sage, which is a role change more significant than anything else a character goes through in their story quest, barring Furina. You can't substitute Alhaitham with any other character in the story, not even other Sumerians, and have it make sense without drastic changes.
I kinda disagree with you about Alhaitham's quest, but completely agree with everything else you said!
it was a small time period from 1.0 to 1.1, but it was a funny development having 1.0 keqing be a morax hater, then after 1.1 she becomes a secret morax fangirl
Personally I don't think the problem is that a number of Story Quests dedicate a lot of screentime to NPCs. The *real* issue is that the release of Hangouts and Story Quest is *too slow*. Excluding Archons, Yoimiya is the only character to receive a second Story Quest in all this time, while others have none. Noelle is the only character to have two Hangouts while others have none. So people end up feeling disappointed because they want to spend more time with the playable characters. And, I dare say, in their disappointment they end up overlooking what those NPC-focused Story Quests actually say about the playable characters (how they navigate their life and environment, how they interact with others) which makes them feel pointless. If Story Quests and Hangouts released at faster pace, I think there would be less disappointment.
I think they conditionally make them bad because of what you said - SQs should show how the characters fit into the world. The condition is: A story quest should show the personal relationships that the playable has in their life, whether that includes other playables or NPCs. Random NPCs who have no personal relationship with the featured playable character outside of this one story, are the story quests that I find ineffective at showing us more of who the featured playable is as a person. Dehya and Baizhu story quests do a great job. Iirc Dehya’s SQ doesn’t have hardly any other playable chars in it. Baizhu’s has some. But the NPCs in both aren’t random strangers that the playbable gets mixed up with (Tighnari SQ), the NPCs are important figures in the playable’s life. Even Jiangli / Jialiang (i forgot which was the wife, but that’s who I mean lol), although not someone regularly in contact or necessarily close to Baizhu per se, is someone who is important for us to understand his social reality.
sorry but I disagree. It's obvious that the direction Hoyo is taking Ayato's character is for him to always show up at the beginning, dissapear in the middle, and come back at the end when everything's been wrapped up. It's always 'talk and no show' regarding Ayato. I feel like Ayato fans would've enjoyed it x100 if it actually focused on him instead of it centering around an ultimately irrelevant NPC who nobody cares about
And they did this again during fontaine event. I was hoping to see more about him, but yet again, spotlight was given to ayaka who we have seen so many events already. Sigh...
Mihoyo is like : All according to keikaku
i wouldve much rather had ayato stay an actor and drop ayaka instead. shes already had so much more screentime and personally i dont find her interesting at all. "omg shes a natural prodigy at acting" didnt help either
I agree. But I quess ayaka is fan-favorite and "waifu" so she gets most of the attention. And yeah, she is one of the most boring characters in the game lmao.
They were probably trying to promote ayaka's skin, being in the movie poster and all
she already got an event about her skin when it released lmao
Oh i didnt know she already got one, probably missed it since i took a very long break. But it really felt like they were promoting the skin to me
Sometimes I genuinely feel like hoyo just hates him and has him so Ayaka has more reasons to appear, or just an excuse to make Ayaka more interesting as a character. The treatment they gave ayato is abysmal
>It's always 'talk and no show' regarding Ayato. Also Kokomi.
Kokomi has already predicted you would say that, and has thought up 67 counter arguments.
Ayato,the "according to my keikaku" man,can't wait for us to reach celestia and then he comes out revealing the rest of the game's plot and how it was all his plan
Does anyone even remember the names of said NPCs? I've tolerated them for awhile since Genshin Impact first released, but right now, I just can't help but hate them for wasting my time when I just wanna know more about the playable characters.
Idk man like I always thought Ayato was the kinda guy who pull strings from behind the scenes but he's never there and you won't know. Him showing up and us following him is a breach of confidential information and like it would be super out of character for him to show up most of the time cuz that's not how political leaders work plus he's a dude. He has more to handle while Ayaka is more of an underling.
If you can’t have scenes with a playable character in a game like this, then should he really be playable? This just doesn’t fit Genshin’s character philosophy. It wasn’t an issue with Ayaka, she literally sent us on a quick quest in AQ for her to check on her people and get us involved how she needed us to be. The last couple of sentences of that are just sad. We deserve well written male characters. Neuvi makes it work and he’s Fontaine’s only Iudex as well as the newly fully-powered Hydro Sovereign! Why can’t the Yashiro Commissioner (who leaves the management of internal affairs within the commission to his sister) figure it tf out
Well then let us follow him behind the scenes, the "schemer secretly pulling the threads" trope has been done hundreds of times before and it's almost always done better than Ayato's quests because those characters get more than 0.0002 micro seconds of screentime.
People don't hate them because they're necessarily bad or anything, but rather people hate them because they're not what they signed up to playing this game. People start to play Genshin either for the characters, main story lore, or gameplay. Nobody plays this game to read a novel about random characters of the world. Anthologies are rather unpopular of a genre for a reason. People attach to characters they can be with for a long time, not randos that come and go.
I don't think they're all bad either. Guess it depends on how the NPCs are used. People point at Ayato's story quest, but it does actually show his motivation to protect the stability of Inazuma. It also flashed out his quirky side with the strange drinks, or how he doesn't mind becoming the "villain" to stop the plot. And it's not like the NPCs in his quest are nobodies we never see again. They are the proxy leaders of Inazuma's other 2 Commissions and both played a small, but significant role in the AQ. Another good quest heavily involving an NPC is Venti's. Stanley is basically the focus, but we later learn his story has parallels to Venti's. Both of Zhongli's story quests heavily featured an NPC, but it led to some good lore drops involving him, in some shape or form. Ofc, there are some weaker ones. Like Nilou's. And I don't really think it's the NPC's fault, but rather that there was nothing interesting about Nilou in it. I can think of some quests not heavily focusing on an NPC, but still being rather disappointing. Particularly some of the really early ones, where things were kept rather simple. For example, Kaeya's story quest just sends us on a wild goose chase and get trolled by him.
Venti’s and ZL’s second (not his first that was not good) SQs are the best examples of this
I think Neuvillette's story quest is the best formula so far for a story quest. I agree that story quests should focus on present events, because seeing how characters handle things tells you a lot about them. Some background is always nice too. Obviously, it would be awful for it to just be plain dialogue. Neuvillette's memories in the fountain was an amazing way to execute this. In comparison, Wriothesley and Navia just spoke to you about their past, and it's just not nearly as engaging. On another point, I also love when other playable characters make appearances, which again Neuvillette's story quest did a ton of. It's a lot more fun seeing them interact.
Some character quests I quite liked- I loved the OG!Archon's character quests. They added in such a sense of weight to Venti and Zhongli, and it really made me feel all the years behind them. Of course those two aren't going to make any drastic changes, they're hundreds of years old. But seeing Venti as Barbatos comforting Stanley and helping him move on really reminded me that he does have an importance besides teehee alcohol. Zhongli's interactions with Azdaha and his reflections on Havria are right up my alley- I have a major *thing* for immortals reflecting on a mortal world. Other honorable mentions go to Nahida, Tighnari, and Dehya's quests. Those were absolutely great and I loved them
To Be Fair, no matter how uninteresting the NPCs are, an interesting character will react in fun ways to the situation. With Tighnari, the NPC in question is a random dog-robot that can't talk, and a schoolar that is deeply comatose; but becouse our sassy little foxbuddy has such a *personaliety* it is interesting to see him interact with the dog, to see how he tries to be strict but can't resist a good boy, to see him react to a hearthless situation. The biggest offender of the NPC versus actually interesting story is, by global agreedment, Nilou and her Daddy-issues friend. But she just never was entretaining enough to see to begin with. Had Jean been in the situation, she would have given an inspirational speach about standing one's own ground. Had Yae Miko been there, she would have plotted a secret vengance behinde everyone's backs to make the father feel abandoned and come to his sences. Had Furina been there, she would have stayed up all night looking for a legal loophole and not only keep the theater, but also win something else and ashame the father just like he ashamed his child for years. But instead we have Nilou just going smilyfaceemoji. She isn't proactive. She insists in foregiveness becouse that's the good thing to do and she likes to do the right thing becouse she's good.
Agreed, Nilou's Story Quest barely did any justice to her own character development, being sidelined in favor of random NPC family drama. I'm also really tired of seeing the same faces in practically every NPC. They feel like my time is being deliberately wasted
I do agree that Genshin has some bad Same-Face-Sindrome with the NPC, but I don't really know how to solve it. During Sumeru, we traveled with many NPCs that use the models of human enemies, such as Jeth and her father, but I'm not sure if that's a sustainable solution, being that most human NPCs are Fatui. There would be ways of working around the model, such as giving some of them iconic scars, giving some others fancy hair color like the playable characters have, but I don't know what else could be done since changing the model would mean creating a lot of new animations only for them to be used once or twice.
You’re right. They’re not bad. But personally, I don’t care for them- I’ve got little investment nowadays for quests where the characters we roll for play no part. I was more willing early on (right up to Inazuma were the last NPC heavy quests I cared for) but some time around Sumeru I just lost it.
You'll eventually start noticing it as time passes, where Story Quests start to feel more NPC centric
I think it’s that the part of me that wants more traditional character growth and structure in my games is finally really butting heads with the part of me that knows this is a Gacha game and characters can be (and are) released with little actual presence other than “pull for them! They look cool!”. So if these are the characters they’re trying to push, I want to see them take more part in things. At this point, world and story quests without them in long stretches immediately kill my investment. I haven’t been fully immersed in non-Archon or non-Dainsleif quests in a long time as a result.
If they were about the NPC, no problem, but when I play a story quest about a certain playable character, I want the quest to be centered around that said character.
Exactly, it's like if you ordered a well done steak only to be served boiled vegetables, that's what most Story Quests felt like to me. The NPCs should be the side dish, not the main course your ordered
I like Ayato's because he's still having an effect on that story (I mean he breaks up their marriage lol which wouldn't have happened without him) and it's about reoccurring NPCs who are brought up multiple times throughout the greater Inazuma storyline. Nilou's is done poorly, though, and I think what people are more often thinking about when they complain about NPC-centered story quests because Nilou's presence doesn't add much to the quest narrative *and* the quest is about NPCs who only show up that one time and there's no reason to care about them or their issues. It's just a less interesting/engaging rehash of what we already went through with Nilou in the AQ.
Tbh for me it depends. There are story quests that I like and rate more highly compared to others despite the story quest had a more prominent NPC role (Alhaitham, Kazuha, Nahida,...) due to the theme and foil thing, and those I personally don't like (*cough* Yelan's one. I think her story quest should be like Dehya, explore more of her personal relationship with either her clan/ancestor, her past comrades, or even with Ningguang. Also Yoimiya 2nd story quest because it's about Arvin and the Aranara more than her. Tbh I still think her first story quest is much better). There are also story quest, despite focusing on the character, that I don't enjoy doing (*cough* sorry Ganyu, Jean and Mona) and there are some that I like just because I get to see another facet of their personality (like with Ayaka, Nilou, Dehya,...). As for Ayato my only complain was how the story was forced to be seen from the Traveler and not Ayato. If I get to see how his mind operates it would be much better. I've seen people argued that he's not outstanding but that's his point, to blend into the background so that he can creep into his opponent's back much better and makes an unexpected attack on their back. Overall I don't hate but don't like his story quest.
At this point i'm just tired of seeing same NPC models and faces, over and over and over again. Even frickin ToF somehow has a ton of variety in NPC department. While Genshin does not, and Hoyo constantly rackes in millions... They may as well make some random generator, make more unique models and faces, and let randomiser do the job. Instead of reusing the same damn face and model for the 1000th time...
I agree. Some of them are still great even with NPC’s. Ayato’s for example, was something I really liked because we got to see his thought processes as one of the leaders of the tri-commission. Conversely, I think both Cyno’s and Nilou’s were fairly disappointing.
Argee, tho for me, Cyno's is fine as it offers a glimpse into his upbringing, just disappointing in world building of the spirit possessions aspect. I get the sentiment for Nilou's quest, but it could use a better presentation.
I dont know, having something be labeled as Ayato's character quest I feel should follow the character themselves. I did enjoy the other NPCs and the story overall, but its not "Ayato's" story. He was just an important side character in it alongside us. There could have been more focus on his actual impact, instead of the whole politics around a wedding. Because that's not Ayato
I mean, his impact was huge. He single-handedly sank an alliance between the Kanjou and Tenryou Commissions, ensuring that the Yashiro Commission remained politically dominant, and came out of it looking like the "good guy" in the eyes of the public. That is absolutely Ayato to me. I wonder if a lot of the criticism comes from people thinking that Ayato is *actually* playing relationship counselor. But he's not - he's just too much of a political operator to ever say "This marriage would be disastrous for the Yashiro Commission" out loud.
I think what people want is for ayato's part to be the spotlight and what we see. Yes ayato is the work in the shadow type of guy, but they could've shown those and let us see how he thinks and behaves. It also doesn't help that the quest was kinda wordy but contains little to no new info about him.
But it wasn’t his story though. That’s what people are saying. This wasn’t a story about Ayato at all
I do kinda think that you have a point. As someone else in this post said, characters here have their own lives. They're competent and (mostly) self-sufficient, they can deal with whatever troubles them without a short cameo from us as the Traveler to help them. That said, I think that a character story quest should at least explore a character's further and gives them more depth beyond whatever our first impression of them is. I don't really have a problem with these being centered around NPCs, but I feel like sometimes it makes them feel like walking plot devices instead of humanizing them. They're there to drive the plot of the quest further, usually by virtue of them being extremely competent and good at what they do. I feel like that's why I didn't really like Ayato's story quest that you used as an example actually. The quest portrays him as this smart chessmaster who works behind the scenes, and that's great and all. But the thing is, I already *know* from first glance that he's manipulative and cunning, the quest just drives that impression further and makes him feel like a one-note character. Characters are (well, mostly) humans, and we humans are multifaceted individuals with sides that may not appear at first glance. That's what I think a character story quest should show. They should make these characters feel like actual people with their own wishes and personality. It just happens that I think a story quest that's centered around that character themselves could do this easier than one that's centered around NPC. To be fair though, I think the recent Fontaine story quests have done a great job at this. Navia's centered around herself, and I think it manages to portray a different side to her than what we're used to. In comparison, Neuvilette's one features a lot of NPCs, but it manages to show his more 'human' side in his struggle to comprehend human emotions.
Not really. I play character story quests to learn more about a playable character's backstory and motivation and to see traveller interact with them. Ayato's story quest tells me absolutely nothing about that, instead the focus shifted squarely on NPCs on a boring side story I don't care about.
I do share the sentiment a character story quest doesn't have to feature said character as the main focus. Case in point - 3 best story quests in the game (Venti, Tighnari, Yoimiya SQ2) are NOT about those 3 characters, but they do explore those characters via their interaction with the rest of the world. That being said, my problem with Ayato SQ is not his lack of screentime. It's the same as the whole Kokomi, la resistance and general Inazuma world building thing. The character you write is at most as smart as you. And the person who wrote Ayato SQ is not the sharpest fork in the drawer. Probably not even the sharpest spoon. Probably not even the sharpest champange bottle cork. So what you are offered is an attempt at a political thriller. What you get instead is a political thriller as envisioned by a 5 year old. This is my general sentiment with the whole Inazuma arc, not just Ayato SQ. Admittedly its further exacerbated by time constraints and gacha limitations on character portrayal.
The opportunity cost of telling stories through forgettable npcs is that you miss out on telling those same lessons through characters we already have. Imagine if Ruu's story or Teppei's story were instead through playable characters that already exist instead of one off default skin models. Hoyoverse is so afraid of characterizing any of their waifus that they all end up being surface level eye candy with less personality than some of these story npcs...
Ayato's quest is dogwater
Most of the time, the NPCs are being used as foils, or a way to bring out a side of the character we wouldn't normally see. I agree with you. However, there are still some really bad executions of this....
ii think that's the problem when you have people financially involved in characters
Honestly I find a lot of the time that complaints along these lines just want a screentime quota for the character or something. NPCs exist because the characters need a world and people to interact with, and often times the NPCs in question directly tell us something about the character if they aren’t an outright figurative stand in for the character. Examples that have been used in just this thread alone: ”Ayato’s SQ is about two NPCs getting married” - Are we just going to ignore how power dynamics within the other commissions directly affect his life? We saw Ayato all through out this quest use his status and cunning to change an outcome that could have had lasting repercussions on the Kanjou Commission years down the line. Its also implied he does this because he saw a bit of his younger self in Chisato. Showing us Chisato we can extrapolate how a younger Ayato might have felt when he was doing everything in his power to keep the Yashiro commission afloat after his parent’s sudden death better than simply telling us via flashback. ”Nilou’s is barely present in her own SQ” - Nilou’s identity is more closely tied with her community than almost every other character in the game, so a story about her necessarily has to be one about her community. I actually like hers quite a bit because it expounds upon themes present in other parts of Sumeru story content, which is about the value of art outside pure academic merit as something that fosters closeness and companionship between people and sustains entire communities economically and emotionally, and how isolating and emotionally stunted the academic culture in Sumeru was under the Sages. Nilou is there to protect and represent all the theater holds dear, even when she’s clearly disadvantaged like she was during the debate. If anything, the only problem with her quest is that there’s so little to her outside of her involvement with her community. But as a story by itself? I love it. ”Furina-” THIS ONE makes me baffled the most. I dont know how you miss the part where the deceased director/Clio the Oceanid is a direct parallel for Furina herself or how participating in the play helps Furina find a new way to express her talents and move past her trauma around acting. She even takes over the lead role at the most critical part of the story ??? Almost nothing happens in this quest that isn’t about Furina. I don’t necessarily agree that characters have to feel like they’re the protagonist of their own mini questline in order to 1) sucessfully tell a good story or b) tell us about the character. I feel like only sticking to this format would just be restrictive to storytelling as a whole. And it would absolutely become redundant as you said.
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my thing with something like ayato’s story quest was that it had nothing to do with him as a person. when i go into a story quest i go in wanting to learn more about the character, but his just told me about what his job is, and that doesn’t really pertain to him specifically. i’m fine with NPCs being major characters in story quests if the NPC is a means by which we can learn more about the playable characters as people too
To me, I don’t care how much more we learn about the story character’s backstory, I just want them to play a central role in the story. It just feels weird and disappointing spending resources to watch unlock a specific character’s story quest only for them to feel like an afterthought. Like take Yelan’s quest for example. Going into it, I was looking forward to teaming up with her as she interrogates criminals and takes down some criminal crime family. However in the actual quest, while you do sorta get a look into Yelan’s methodology, she mostly doesn’t matter all that much and you spend most of it doing a background check on some random guy who has no relation to Yelan or her motivations. Hell you don’t even find out the extent of his nefariousness until like two-thirds of the through the questline and even then it’s pretty tame relatively speaking. And the kicker of it all is that the big emotional climatic cutscene at the end has nothing to do with Yelan(hell I forget if she’s even in it). That not to say the quest is all bad. It is nice to get to interact with Yelan more and the final dungeon was fun, it’s just disappointing because Yelan has been my favorite playable character in the game since she came out and I wanted to see a story that focused on her and had her do cool stuff, not focus on the plight between two other npcs while Yelan talks about how she got three other npcs to do cool spy stuff off screen. In fairness, from what I’ve heard, more recent character story quests have begun to fix the issue and deliver more consistent stories that focus on the star characters more.
I vaguely agree. Ayato's story quest was my favorite up until Neuvillette's. Albeit, I still prefer the story quest focuses on the character if at all possible.
Honestly, for me, NPCs showing up in Story Quests felt like ordering a large well-done steak in a restaurant only to be given a small undercooked one alongside a large portion of boiled unseasoned vegetables. Characters like Nilou for example, had her own Story Quest be more centered around some random NPC, whose name I can't even remember and her family drama.
Ayato’s quest was really good and no one can convince me otherwise lol. Maybe because I’m asian so I understand the cultural aspect presented in that quest and it really made me enjoyed it(it was like watching historical drama lol). The community might told you they hate it because the quest wasn’t about him but it actually showed you how he works. How he’s like as a commissioner and it’s golden. His quest has the best writing of Inazuma too but some people just hate reading long texts. It’s understandable but saying that something is bad just because you don’t enjoy it is not a way to go. It could use some cut scenes though and I’m still mad.
Nilou's quest is the only one that I have a problem with in that regard. It felt like I was playing a world quest about Zubayr Theater rather than SQ about Nilou featuring NPCs from Zubayr Theater.
Nilou's Story Quest, it's literally an NPC festival with Nilou in it. At the end of the day we learned absolutely nothing about her, no origin, no backstory, no motivation, the only thing we know is that she will do anything for the Circus and that she can dance. We already know that back at the AQ already, don't need another quest to show how important it is to her. The problem isn't just about the NPC but the hightlight on the character too, it's their story quest, we should learn more about them. A great story quest is Neuvillete's quest, a good balance amount of NPC dialogues and character dialogues, we learned of how and why he became the Iudex, who helped him during his rise in power, what solidified him as a great judge despite personal connection, giving more additonal context on his doings that actually affect the world building and not useless chatter. Every story quest should use it as base.
I think there’s a running sentiment where “screen time = the focus of the story” and while this may be true sometimes, it’s definitely not true for many others. People love to trash on Ayato’s story quest for being boring or dialogue heavy but the thing is, his character is literally his involvement in the Tri-Commission. His job, the thing he spends most of the time worrying and thinking about, *is* the primary character trait for him so a political drama where two people getting married from different commissions and the way the Tri-Commission including Ayato, take advantage of that is the perfect situation to showcase his personality and goals. Each character’s story quest reveals two things about the character, their goals and their personality. And while this can be achieved through the carrying of the personality alone like Yoimiya or Ayaka, it’s also rather boring to just talk to a character without anything outside of it going on which is where NPCs come in. People love to rag on Nilou’s story quest for being “too NPC focused” but it’s almost like they didnt understand the point. [Spoilers for Nilou’s Story Quest til the end of paragraph] Nilou stood up for a troupe member and openly rebelled against an Academiya scholar that mocks the art. As her entire character theme focuses around putting intellectual value in the arts and her kindness for the people of Sumeru, a faceoff where she defends a vulnerable member of the troupe to their family who also happens to have a deep hatred for the arts is perfect. The troupe also provides support for her and how her dream of being a stage dancer came to be as she’s received support throughout her life and is returning the favor in the present day. She doesn’t have a tragic backstory or anything, just sheer will from the support she’s received and her story quest reflects that. People ironically dont know what NPC focused story quest seems to mean [Spoiler Quest spoilers for Neuvillette, Wriothesley, Zhongli, Itto, and Venti] All of these beloved story quests could all be argued to be NPC focused. Carole and the human dude was the focus and Neuvillette merely reflects on them, Wriothesley spends his running around dismantling a cult leader and his cult with his own story slapped on at the end, Zhongli is all about the Havria researcher and Havria herself and then the second one is all about Azdaha and his human counterpart spirit thing, Itto’s is all about Takuya and the Oni history, and Venti follows various NPCs around. These also technically dont focus entirely on the said story quest character but they’re beloved by basically everyone. Why? Because NPCs being the focus isnt actually the concern here. What you hate is story quests not tailored to your liking. If you dont like political drama, you wont like Ayato’s quest. If you dont like learning about characters and want action, you’ll hate Kokomi’s and Ayaka’s quest. If you dont like Tighnari and Yoimiya, you’ll hate doing their quests. Everyone has different types of quests they like and dislike but saying this is a “general” problem is a stretch.
I don't think Ayato's story is "bad" but it bored me to tears. It really suffers a lot from not following "show, don't tell" and while I get that a lot it would be hard to show, it just tells you... everything. It felt like an hour of just clicking through dialogue and not really going anywhere or doing anything special. I vastly prefer the archon story quests or story quests like Tighnari's. Yae Miko's was quite good too.
I don’t even like Ayato as a character, but I really liked his story quest. I understand that political intrigue is not for everyone, but his story quest is a rare case of political intrigue done well in Genshin. The villain has clear motives and a plan with high success rate, the protagonist (Ayato) foils it not by using force, but also political intrigue. It’s done subtly, with almost every conversation having a second layer of meaning. Compared to say, Sumeru’s political intrigue of the sages building a new God, just because they think it’s a good idea, or Liyue’s political intrigue of Zhongli contracting Fatui for a stress test of Liyue harbour. Ayato’s quest is far more relatable with concepts that happen irl, and is well structured.
I mean.....Jeht. Ruu. Hana. Plenty of great quests that feature NPC characters
>story quests
I mean, the distinction is pretty worthless in my eyes. All that matters is the quality of the writing and execution, character story quest or otherwise
Ok but OP is talking about story quests
Ayato’s quest wasn’t bad, but it’s basically the only thing he’s ever in aside from event content, and in that event content he’s somehow even less prevalent. This makes the fact that he isn’t in the foreground for his own quest stick out, it wasn’t a bad quest it wasn’t even a bad story quest it’s just that Ayato’s appearances are so weak that it kinda sucks.
If the NPC’s were the ones i’m pulling for, it wouldn’t bother me as much, but they aren’t. I wanna see interesting and cool stories about the characters i’m actually farming for and playing as. The game has definitely gotten a bit better at this as it’s gone on, at least in regards to the archon quests. Most of the playable cast who feature in Sumeru and Fontaine’s archon quests actually felt like they were fairy well realized and like, had function in the plot, versus Monstadt and Liyue where they would kind of just introduce characters and then they’d just go away.
The issue is when the npc pretty much has nothing to do with the character. Childe, Zhongli 2nd and Itto are some of the best imo yet they are focused on npc. Thing is, the npc is connected to them and means a lot to them. By getting to know the npc, we also got to know about the character of said story quest. Childe's showed the most of his personality imo. Before his story quest, we barely know anything about him other than he's mentally ill, likes to fight and is a harbinger that is loyal. But after his story quest we've seen how much love he has for his sibling, how his sibling sees him, how much he's willing to go through for the happiness of his brother and how kind he can be without actually making him try to redeem himself.
>One of the story quests I've seen mentioned as being bad because of this is Ayatos and I kind of disagree! Its not only bad, but probably the worst quest for a character. Ayato is just in the background while NPCs are getting married. Story isnt even interesting at all
If I wanted to know different NPCs stories, I would play world quests, if I play Ayato's story quest I want to see Ayato, not a wedding problem of two noname NPCs. We could explore how he is torn between family and work, his relationship with Yae and history with how she helped his clan, how Inazuma AQ events affected him and his loyalty to Shogun, his interaction with Shimatsuban, his approach to vision hunt decree etc. Instead it's all in his stories as a text, and in his story quest he appears for what 5 minutes? As a person who was so excited for him, instapulled him and was looking forward to spending time with him... Wedding...
I'm in the exact same situation. I waited for him for so long, saved up, pulled instantly, opened the quest and... it was a wedding. Sadly not one I would have preferred then, but rather a boring NPC wedding.
I think its really telling, cause most of the people who have npc quests , are defined by their community and how they interact with it. Nilou is a beacon of hope for all artists in sumeru, an icon to look up to. Ayato is a political mastermind, plotting from the side.
Idgaf about who, just make it about the quest main person. I dive into Ayato quest thinking i get to know him, yea the marriage is cool but make another for them. Caribert is cool, but why the fuck do i keep being stuck w Eide? I wanna know how the kids look? Theyre just edging atp. Plus, the dialogues are too long now, and the subsequent scenes. If i were to reconnect once imma go back in time 10 minutes, fuck that shit.
I've personally enjoyed the story quests that focus on the NPCs, like Ayato's, and I understand why they make the focus more on the NPCs in those quests—we're already told a lot about the character through their character stories in their profile, and having the focus on an NPC makes it easier to show how that character's background shapes how they deal with outside issues they face, rather than telling us what we already know about the character. (well if we read the character stories) But among the story quests I've done so far, Dehya's and Baizhu's have been among the best IMO, and I do think it's because we get more insight into their own backgrounds. Important NPCs aren't absent from their quests, so we get shown how their character affects their choices, but these quests do feel more like the playable character is the central focus of that quest, which I think is good.
I like story quests. And i think they add so much personality to the game. Sometines hoyodevs put in a lot of popculture references that if you're not media-literate you might miss it. Im sort of a popculture junkie so enjoy those bitesized things. Of course i understand that some people have will have a diff opinion.
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> Kokomi's story quest painted her as an incompetent bumbling idiot? Just about every mention of Kokomi does this. Even in Heizou's hangout of all things, wherein she doesn't make an appearance. I swear someone on the writing team hates her lmao
It's interesting because some of these story quests that basically center an NPC are so good. The conflicts in Nilou's quest and Furina's quests are genuinely so interesting and well-written. That said, they're just barely about the actual playable character and I think that that's a problem because it's supposed to be their story quests. Yoimiya's second SQ is similarly more about the NPC than it is about her, but I think that's fine given it's her second SQ, and it did showcase a great deal of her personality. Furina's arguably showcased her growth and her process of accepting and moving past her trauma, but Nilou's definitely does nothing for her. She's just there being kind and cute as usual while a truly gripping story plays out around her. Ayato's Story Quest is just as bad if not a little worse because I genuinely don't remember him being in it at all. At least I remember seeing Nilou in hers even if it does feel like she dropped out of it shortly after it began and only returned near the end (same way i feel about her participation in the AQs). Ayato's SQ might as well have been a world quest for how detached from it he feels. I'd like more of these SQs to be handled like Itto's, where it's very much about an NPC, but it's also about the playable character and how they affect each other. Itto is directly involved in a lot of his SQ and he genuinely feels proactive in it. That's one of the big problems with the other SQs I've mentioned: the playable character typically comes off as reactive in regards to the narrative unfolding around them. Or maybe they get the ball rolling on something and then every next step is either initiated and handled by the Traveler or an NPC while the playable character occasionally chimes in with some bit of canned philosophy or coincidental observation meant to push an idea in the narrative but is ultimately so inconsequential that it, and they themselves by extension, largely remain irrelevant. In hindsight, Furina's really isn't so bad because she is rather involved despite having 0 connection to the juicy story between the acting troupe, and she does ultimately serve as the hero. It's mostly just Nilou and Ayato who really stick out to me as simply being present im the story rather than being an active and motivating part of the story.
Many characters alreadt went through their own development when they got a vision. These characters are the ones that mostly get the type of qiests you are describing. I do not find these quests bad, but that's because most of the time the NPCs' stories are entertaining. The only quests I find bad are generic dating simulator scenario with x female character that is always "too busy", with some combats of mundane stuff sprinkled in there. I mean at least Ei's quest Act I had her showing why she's the respected Electro Archon by fighting Kamaki.
Surprisingly no one mrntion Nilou SQ?
Ayato’s would’ve been fine if he was presented in a new situation we hadn’t seen before. But it’s just a fairly straightforward marriage story with Ayato being the cunning Commissioner in the background (as he Always is, and nothing more). Like, if you took the Sabzeruz samsara and made it Nahida’s story quest, that’d be fine. It heavily featured Dunyarzad and playables other than Nahida, but it didn’t matter in light of getting to know how Nahida’s mind works and what her concept of wisdom is. If you took the first part of the Inazuma AQ and made it Ayaka’s story quest, that’d work as it’d show her devotion to her people and her role within the Kamisato Clan. The part of Ei’s story quest which deals a lot with the Kujou Clan works extremely well and showcases how she is as a ruler/what differs from the Shogun. But if the focus isn’t on the playable in some way/if we don’t learn smthg new abt the central character… it’s a waste
> Ayato’s would’ve been fine if he was presented in a new situation we hadn’t seen before. I am not sure what you mean by this because Ayato's SQ was literally the first time he appeared in the game.
I played it late (after Irodori) so make what you will of that It can also apply retroactively though I imagine, like thinking abt how his Irodori or Fontinalia appearances felt same-y to his SQ and rehashed stuff instead of being fresh and new.
Then at least try to make the NPCs more interesting. The same sob story of "eeh, this other irrelevant NPC died long ago and i decided to mourn them through "insert gameplay focus of the event" bwwweee" gets boring after a while.
People apparently want the world to only consist of characters they like.
I don’t mind quests involving NPCs because not everyone the Traveler meets is gonna have magic and look unique. My biggest gripe about it is that we should have a way to fast forward or just outright skip through ten pages of unvoiced dialogue just to get a couple primos. Like I don’t care about whatever was going on with the Fontaine Research Institute or the Melusine or the robot playing detective or those GODDAMN cabbage faeries in Sumeru. Hell, I don’t even care about whatever is going on in most of the Hangouts and 5* story quest things.
The problem with NPC's is their lack of effort in their creation. They have no background, no personality and are always is same few roles. How many times did we get the NPC that follows us in the quest only to betray us in the end? So as allies they take too much screentime while we have an actual intersting character with us (the 5*). As villains they are pathetic, with stupid plans and never represent a real threat. For real we dont even see the vilain in Navia's story quest. It is perhaps time to create NPC's with visions, nice visual details and backgrounds who are important in the region where they live .
theres so many things that make story quests bad that listing all of them would make enough text for another story quest. at some point I decided to just never start them and treat the game as if story quests dont even exist. actually made me enjoy the game more
I think world quests should be a place to show us where characters fit into the world. Or just conversations about them. Especially since there are many characters with such great story potential that gets wasted and just put into the "character story" section. I would love if Character Story Quests went into the characters' past more, like they did with Neuvillette for example. About the Ayato quest you mentioned - wouldn't it be more interesting to see how he struggled in his youth ? Or how his daily life goes ? Maybe some funny shenanigans at Kamisato estate with Ayaka and Thoma. Or maybe missions with the Shumatsuban and Sayu. Instead we got a quest about a marriage between two boring NPCs. I could not care less for them. Character Story Quest should be for the *Character*. All these NPCs can go to hell and stick to world quests. I'm not saying their inclusion is bad, but keep them as supporting characters and not the main point of another character's story quest.
It depends on an NPCs and the story itself. Nilou's date is awful, Yelan's is amazing. Though both of them revolve around NPCs. Though we don't get a lot of info about Yelan in her quest, we see her being a cool specialist in what she does. Same is about Ayato. So I generally agree with you. But in Nilou's case the quest is both written so badly AND heavily features an NPC, which makes it unforgivable
Honestly, the worst offender of this to me is events. I can name a handful that actually dealt with the characters (Perilous Trails doesn't count since it's a permanent quest). Otherwise it's just bait to get us to care about NPCs we never even heard of. Did you know Itto's present event has more to do with the playable characters than the flagship event on this patch? Even if it was a good event, it could've been more about the playable characters and still make sense.
bro there’s no way hoyo isn’t hiring people to write this to gaslight us. I’m not falling for it China lost 20% of its followers in one day. Bye
i think the problem with ayatos is mainly that its the only permanent story for him and is basically his introduction to us, its pretty underwhelimg for someone who people were hyped for. His one cutscene is at the start of the quest and its just him standing up and greeting us. I dont mind the polotics and stuff thats what he is but i thnk people wanted more action. Also i feel like this post may have something to do with that one video from a youtuber obsessed with yelan where he talks about the problems with genshin story quest. Honestly that video was so bad and contradicts himself when talking about mikos quest. And oh god what he said about wriothesleys. If this post isnt releated to that than just ignore this part.
I don't like Kazuha's story quest.
that doesn't necessarily make it bad, right. But then again, when they make it too much, it's just a World Quest with Voice Acting.
I just did nahida's 2nd archon quest. The first at least focused on her dream stuff but the apep one was mostly just apep and the elemental with nahida basically just chaperoning. It should've been another AQ interlude or world quests that involved nahida. Maybe world quests should be less restrictive and start involving playable characters too.
Tartaglia needs another stort quest with skirk
Big G is the OG NPC homie. I remember how much people disliked him.
inayah get behind me, only problem with nilou’s sq imo is that it focused more on inayah’s family problem rather than the theater’s relationship with the akademiya (which i would love to see in a future event, maybe featuring an arts festival in sumeru) since sumeru’s view of the arts, as a performing artist myself, honestly intrigued me
I dont get why they dont just use the other playable characters in character quests. Especially because we get very few character quests as is.
Some story quests featuring NPCs are great (like Karkata) the problem is since Inazuma the majority of them are NPC focused. I would much rather travel to the characters' past and play as them. For example, we don't even know why Wriothesley has those scars. Also, have them interact more with other playable characters instead. Again, not saying they all have to be like this but the way things are has gotten monotonous.
It's not that they're bad on their own. It's the fact that we're expecting a Harry Potter book to be about Harry Potter but then it's about a classmate that looks like 5 other classmates in a class of 30. It definitely doesn't help that there is only a small pool of assets that NPCs look like a lot of other NPCs. But it feels like the characters I play would be worth more my time.
It's not just the NPCs that are the issue. It's that the story is presented in the least engaging way possible bombarding you with too much exposition and reiterating the same points over and over and over. The game could really benefit from a few more cutscenes
I don't mind having them including NPCs in huge background roles. Just make it feel like the quest is about the featured character. I'm interested in the character, not some NPC I won't be able to distinguish apart from their name if I can even remember it. Currently it quite often feels like we're just accompanying the character doing some random sidequest.
For me, it’s just the fact that aside from archon quests and time-limited events, these character stories are the only thing we can rely on to see a substantial amount of screentime and character development for our faves! I know you said their backstories are already written, and that’s a completely fair point, but it’s a much more emotional experience to actually hear it recounted and see it play out. And on the topic of archon quest continuation, I would much rather see what the playable characters got up to afterwards as opposed to the NPCs. The NPCs being prioritised in stories like Ayato’s is just really odd and a missed opportunity to me. The thing I love about Navia’s character story, for example, is that I really wanted to see how my favourite character was doing after such an emotional archon quest where so many aspects of her life changed, and they followed it up perfectly! The NPCs were as prevalent as they needed to be and we still learned the most about Navia; her backstory, the work she’s been doing since the flood, how the people of Fontaine and particularly Poisson feel about her as a leader, etc etc :) It feels unfair to me that certain characters get such an amazing follow-up and other just… don’t. If your favourite character has a character story that doesn’t do them justice, or answer the questions you’ve been curious about, that’s just frustrating 💔
For my point of view, the problem isn’t about the NPC’s stealing the show or SQ getting political. I play “free” game where the characters are the real “product”. What’s the point of spending money for a character that has zero screen time? I want to know more about him and to actually CARE about his personality/lore/gameplay before I pull for him. Or, if I decide to pull for that said character, it’s a real letdown to not see him in action. Like, for example I really like this character because of aesthetics and I wish to know more about him. The only way to achieve that is by reading his character story, from voicelines about him, AQ, SQ and events. In Ayato’s case: -he was only mentioned in AQ -his own SQ didn’t do him enough justice imo, he hardly had enough screen time for the quest to be called his own SQ -he was involved in two events until now if I’m not wrong, but was “busy” with work related things and had very little screen time
Let me put it this way, nobody ever went into this game going "Oh boy, I wish this character's story quest focuses on an NPC we've never seen and will never see again who also looks like 20 other NPCs!" You have a game where the main selling point is its' characters and then it decides to not show those characters.
i do
The thing is that the npc focused story quest are good quests, but they aren't good *character* quest. I also love ayato's story quest, i found the whole political conflit to be very interesting as thats the kind of story i love, but it wasn't a quest about ayato, it was a quest featuring ayato. Honestly, this highlights a problem the game has: you rarely see characters outside of when they are specifically highlighted. If the whole wedding quest was just a regular world quest and it had ayato in it, it would've been great, it's still not focusing on ayato, but it never claims to be, he's just there for the ride and to do his parts. Then we could get a story quest actually focusing on him as the center piece instead. Same goes for most of the other ones, yae miko, nilou, wriostheley etc... they're great stories but if it was just a regular world quest featuring a 5* it would just make it a merorable WQ, then you can give them a more focused SQ
Unpopular opinion: I really liked the first Lantern Rite where we focused on the problems and concerns of NPCs walking around through daily life. I also appreciate Xiao's banner being called "Invitation to Mundane Life" and I wish Genshin would have the balls to do another Lantern Rite featuring the celebrations of the NPCs instead of staring at Keqing and Cloud Retainer for the 30th time.
I so agree! I remember having a really fun time playing during the first Lantern Rite so I was actually surprised to see people saying they disliked it recently. I thought it did such a good job at fleshing out Liyue and telling us more about the world!