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Genshin Impact changes its troublesome Resin system, but not everyone is happy about it

Genshin Impact
(Image credit: MiHoYo)

Genshin Impact is a tremendously popular game, but there's one aspect of it that's unpopular among diehard players: The way it distributes Resin, an in-game resource that's used to enable end-game activities. We explained the problem in detail in Steven's story about Resin in Genshin Impact, but the short version is that if you want to do cool endgame stuff, you need a lot of Resin, and Genshin Impact metes it out sparingly.

The dragon boss Dvalin will drop a chest when you kill him, for instance, but you'll have to spend 60 Resin to open it and see what's inside. The maximum amount of Resin you can currently carry prior is 120, however, and it regenerates an an extremely slow rate of 1 Resin every eight minutes. Given that most Genshin Impact activities take little time to complete—they typically clock in at under five minutes—you can see the problem: Committed players were blasting through their accumulated Resin in no time, and then had to wait hours on end for it to build back up.

The coming 1.1 update aims to address this by making two changes to the game: Reducing the amount of Original Resin required to complete the weekly battle pass challenge from 1600 to 1200, and increasing the amount that players can accumulate and store from 120 to 160.

It's an improvement, but not enough of one in the eyes of many players. The problem, reflected in the responses on Twitter, is that the amount of Resin required to complete various activities, and its painfully slow recharge rate, are unchanged, so players in the endgame are still extremely limited in what they can do. As Twitter user Makenji put it, "40 more Resin just means two more domains or one extra boss a day which can be done in under ten minutes."

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More casual players seem happier with the change: As SkyWhiteTree said in a very long Reddit thread on the matter, the higher cap means that people who are away from the game for extended periods (so, primarily PC/PS4 players, rather than mobile) will be able to hit the battle pass challenge requirements in single daily sessions rather than having to log in twice per day to maximize their output. They also won't lose out on as much Resin because they're not "wasting" recharge time when their reservoirs are full.

"It resolves time issues for me as a player who doesn't want to feel bullied by a game into daily long or double play sessions by being punished in the battle pass if i don't," redditor Graficat wrote. But, they added, "It doesn't help people that play often and want more resin to spend and I hope they get an improvement, too, but to me this small change does make the game more appealing."

I don't play Genshin Impact but I have sunk a good number of hours into mobile and free-to-play PC games that use similar mechanics, so I understand the frustration of not being able to do what you want, when you want. But that's also the nature of the design: You get drawn in, you reach a high level, and then you either start throwing money at it or you slow down. It's not a perfect approach—"spend money or slow down" is usually where I tune out—but I don't think it's all that unusual. 

Some Genshin Impact players have expressed similar sentiments:

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That's not to say there isn't room to tweak the formula, and given the runaway popularity of Genshin Impact I wouldn't be surprised to see more changes in the future. As several players pointed out in comments, even if this change to the Resin system isn't exactly what everyone wanted, at least it's a sign that the developers are paying attention.

Update: The post originally said that the 1.1 update was released yesterday. It was announced yesterday, but isn't slated to go live until November 11.

Andy Chalk