Genshin Impact Life Lessons 3

The drive to play on is supported by the constant accrual of rewards, plus the assurance - not mere promise - of future rewards.

"Pfft." You may say. "How can one trust claims of certainty in a game genre explicitly run on chance?"

Trust through Transparency 

In short, those promises of future rewards are very well defined, and promptly delivered upon.

Genshin Impact's 'gacha' or gambling element comes in the form of players spending 'wishes' for the chance of getting playable characters or weapons. Players earn wishes steadily, but can also buy them if they have the means or lack the time.

It gets way more complicated than that, and Genshin Impact does not shy away from giving you the details. Your chances of 'winning' any given 'roll' are published to one decimal place. Plenty of explanation is given as to when guarantees kick in. Your wish history is easily accessed should you wish to assess the odds of your next roll.

If that's not enough, the fan base has dissected the numbers so as to recommend wishing strategies. 

Not that MiHoYo, the makers of Genshin Impact, care that players have picked apart their carefully laid-out design. Quite the opposite. Players who feel safe rolling will roll.

Compare that to the vague representations made by the IRL gambling industry as to your actual chance of winning, in between their insistences on personal responsibility. Imagine their kicking and screaming if asked to publicise - instead of merely conform to - return-to-player ratios. 

Compare that also to the lack of clarity in other aspects of life. There are no stats about how long until you get a promotion, whether your new certificate will lead to better pay, or the past probabilities that claims such as yours were accepted. All you get are hand-waving boiler-plates about how your effort will be assessed on its own merits.

Mappa Mare

Genshin's transparency infuses even the non-randomised, non-monetised parts of the game. Quests are up-front about rewards for completion. You are told what you will receive before you start the smallest fetch quest or the most intense boss battle. Any prerequisites are similarly spelled out, along with icons to easily add them to your task list. The resulting convenience more than makes up for ruining any surprise or immersion. 

So while Genshin Impact and the real world share large elements of uncertainty, Genshin Impact goes to great lengths to disclose running probabilities, make participating more frictionless, then deliver on those probabilities. Nevertheless, the fact remains that however well transparency works, it would be redundant were there not an underlying scarcity of resources.

At some point in Genshin Impact, as in real life, you will face running out of stuff. 

What has Genshin Impact taught me about hitting that scarcity, and can I apply it to everyday life?