Genshin Impact: 5 Starter Tips For New Players (PART 1)

© Photo by miHoYo/Hoyoverse

It's 2023 and by now, the name Genshin Impact has made waves in the video game industry since its launch back in 2020. If you don't know what Genshin Impact is, it's basically an anime open-world action-RPG game rich with deep lore of basically everything— from the weapons to the food and recipes in the game to the archon stories and plot itself and most importantly, the uniquely designed characters that catches the players' hearts. Even their outfits have a story behind it, like Fischl's new skin.

But with all the cool things you see in the game, it's easy to get overwhelmed, especially for new players who have never seen or been exposed to Genshin Impact at all. I know I was overwhelmed when I first started playing it! So here are my top 10 tips for new Genshin Impact players and everything else you need to know so you wouldn't get overwhelmed like I did when I first started playing.

My top 5 Genshin Impact Tips for Starters!

1. Stamina and Statue of the Seven
2. Teleport Waypoints
3. Resin
4. Dailies and Primogems
5. Quests

1. Stamina and Statue of the Seven

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When you first start Genshin Impact (right after the whole introduction cutscene with the Heavenly Principles), you’ll be thrown into the game and get full control of your character (either Lumine or Aether). You’ll notice that when you sprint, you have SUPER little stamina (the yellow bar right next to your character). Don’t worry, you won’t suffer too much with that little stamina, in fact you’ll be able to upgrade it! How so? Well, by upgrading the Statue of the Seven!

Anemo Statue of the Seven in Mondstadt.

Up until Version 3.4, we have 4 Statues of the Seven each representing their archons in the nations available— the Anemo statue for Mondstadt, Geo statue for Liyue, Electro statue for Inazuma and Dendro statue for Sumeru (that includes both the desert and forest areas in Sumeru). Aside from giving your main character the element it is associated with, each statue also has a specific item called a “culus”, each elemental specific. And these are called Anemoculus, representing Anemo for Mondstadt, Geoculus for Geo in Liyue, Electroculus for Electro in Inazuma and Dendroculus for Dendro in Sumeru.

The culus so far for 2023 (Sumeru update).

Just upgrade the statues up until max level (which is Level 10) and you'll have your maxed-out stamina! The easiest you can do this is upgrading the Mondstadt and Liyue statues too!

Tip: I usually use the interactive map to find all the culus in Liyue and Mondstadt, and use YouTube to see if I missed any.

2. Teleport Waypoints

Teleport waypoints are IMPORTANT. There are two reasons why;

1. They help you get to a place faster, and
2. They give you free primogems for each unlocked teleporter.

They’re scattered all around Teyvat too, so let’s say you want to get to Dawn Winery from the city in Mondstadt, but you’re too lazy to run your way over there, then use a teleport! Sure, it takes a few minutes to load you into the area but if you’re in a rush, especially to finish your daily commissions, then it’s worth it to unlock them all. And hey, free primogems as well!

And there are also a few achievements for each waypoint you unlock, so that’s also a bonus too. Those achievements also work for tracking down how many you have left, so it’s just a matter of popping up our trusty interactive map or YouTube guides and finding that last waypoint.

3. Resin

This is something I wished I knew when I started playing Genshin Impact back in 2020, and it was resin. The resin will automatically refill itself, 8 minutes per 1 resin, and is capped at 160 resin. You can bypass the max cap to around 2,000 original resin by using Fragile and Transient Resin, but it’s better to save those for emergencies, like farming for talent materials or weapon ascension materials.

" But what is resin? "

It's basically the "material currency" you would need when you're farming for artifacts, talent materials, weapon ascension materials, Mora and character EXP materials from the Ley Line Outcrop, and for bosses (both weekly and normal).

Using resin especially on talent material and weapon ascension domains is recommended since you'll need these to upgrade your character's talents and ascend your weapon.

4. Dailies

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As you’ve guessed, Genshin Impact is a gacha game. If you’re familiar with gacha games, then you know what the drill is, but if this is your first exposure to the term then let me tell you what a gacha game is.

Gacha games are usually games where you are given a special currency to receive the characters that the game offers. And this is usually for the ones with higher rarity. Most gacha will cost you real life money, and others offer ways for you to get the “special currency” needed to receive your favourite characters. And that is essentially what a gacha game is. And Genshin is basically a gacha game.

And our "special currency"? It's Primogems. Primogems are used to buy Intertwined Fates to pull on either the limited-time character or weapon banned in each patch. You can also buy Acquaint Fates for the standard banner with primogems, though a lot of players avoid doing this since you'll get free Acquaint Fates (especially when you do the Battle Pass). When you first play Genshin, of course, you wouldn't have any primogems except the free 20 wishes you get. So how do we get more primogems?

Commissions.

To be specific, the daily commissions that you can do, well, daily from the Adventurer’s Guild. Now to access the Adventurer’s Guild daily commissions, you’ll need to be at least AR 12 and finish one of the World Quests, Every Day a New Adventure in Mondstadt. That’s basically the first step to start earning primogems and other rewards, like Adventurer EXP, Mora, Companionship EXP, and of course the Enchantment Ores. Of course, aside from the primogems, the other rewards will increase based on your AR. After that, when you play through the story, you’ll unlock other areas where you can take commissions, like Liyue, Inazuma, and Sumeru.

Claiming your dailies as well as AR Rewards and other stuff you can do.

Of course, this will be a bit of a grind since 1 Fate or pull costs 160 primogems. But doing your dailies will give you enough after a few days and also complete the missions in the Battle Pass.

5. Quests

Source Example of a Quest menu that involves Archon, Story, and World Quests.

This isn't exactly a tip but it's something I also wish I knew before because I couldn't tell the difference, or which one was important back then. So let's talk about Quests.

Excluding the commissions, there are essentially three types of quests: Archon Quests, Story Quests, and World Quests. Each quest is different from the other, but they are still linked to each other, based on the region of course.

Essentially, Archon Quests is the main story and has the biggest impact on the whole game. This can change the game in many ways, like the Inazuma Archon Quest or Sumeru's Archon quest.

Following that is the Story Quest, usually related to a single character in the previous Archon Quest. Story Quests will also revolve around that one character, their background, agenda, personalities and the aftermath of the Archon Quests. Doing their story also lets you understand the character better and why they choose to be like they are. Take Raiden Shogun/Ei for instance. She locked herself away for hundreds of years and finally came out to be completely culture shocked with what a selfie is.

Hangout Events are also technically considered as Story Quests, but are a more relaxed and doesn't nesccesarily revolve around the aftermath of an event. Infact, Hangouts are more similar to dating sim or visual novel games!

Hangout Event with Heizou in one of his Routes.

And just like any visual novel game, Hangouts also have multiple routes and endings, usually centered around a 4-star character. It does occasionally include 5-star characters, like Gorou's Hangout, but most of the time just the 4-stars and their backstory with certain NPCs as well, like Barbara or Sayu. So, all in all, Hangout Events are more akin to visual novel games, but nonetheless are enjoyable and gives you rewards for each ending you’ve found.

One of the endings from Heizou's Hangout Events that everyone can get.

And finally World Quests. They typically unlocked after you completed an Archon Quest, either the whole quest or a specific segment of it, gives you useful items to use in your world and lets you explore more of the map for hidden secrets and rewards.

But it's extremely long and are unvoiced, so that means a LOT of reading. Sometimes, you wouldn't get the chance to read anything because of how fast the pacing is, especially when you're in the middle of the battle. For instance, the Golden Slumber world quest or Aranara quest in Sumeru are both super long and eventually relate to one another. It personally took me around 2 months or so for the Aranara quest because of the multiple mini quests it involves and a lot of lore dump, but it was worth it since the rewards are good.

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Conclusion

So that's about it for the first 5 tips and other things you should know when you first start playing Genshin Impact. Stay tune for part 2 of my tips!