Genshin Impact: How do I spend money (or not)
Alright, everyone’s been enjoying Genshin Impact. It’s Breath of the Wild, for free. With waifus. People like it a lot. The combat seems fun and I’m excited to start doing co-op soon.
However, it has quite a bit of monetization and a handful of currencies that look similar to each other. So understandably it’s caused some confusion.
Acquaint Fates and Intertwined Fates
There are two wish currencies. Acquaint Fates and Intertwined Fates. The first are used on the Beginner Banner (Featuring Noelle) and the Standard Banner (“Wanderlust Invocation”). Intertwined Fates are used on limited time banners. At the time of writing, there are two. There is the one featuring Venti and the one featuring various weapons. Generally speaking, this game is not pay to win so you should pull for whoever you think looks cutest. Venti so happens to also currently be the best character in the game. On each banner, you are guaranteed a 4* item per 10-wish. This could be a character or weapon. Each banner also guarantees one 5* item once per 90 wishes. These are tracked on each banner separately, so 30 on 3 separate banners will not guarantee a 5* item.
Promoted Items
Let’s start with Venti’s banner. All of the information I will cover can be found in the Details, if you click on them in the bottom left. Promoted banners have a “pity” system where if you receive a non-promoted 4/5*, the next one you receive will be one of the promoted ones. So your worst case scenario if you want Venti is 180 wishes. If you want Barbara, Fischl, or Xiangling, it gets a little more complicated. If you pull none of them on the first 10-wish (remember that a 4* is guaranteed per 10-wish), then you will receive one of the three on the next one. It does not mention the scenario of: Not pulling one of the promoted characters on the 3rd 10-wish does not seem to guarantee a promoted character on the 4th 10-wish. However, each 10-wish has a 16~% chance of getting one of the promoted 4* characters.
A quick note about why you should check the details. The Venti banner has exclusively characters in the 5* pool. While the weapon banner shows exclusively weapons in the 5* pool. The weapon banner also shows slightly higher percentages to get both 4* and 5* items. In addition, the standard banner does not include Venti. The only way to currently acquire Venti is through his banner.
Primogems
Primogems are the main way you will acquire Fates. 160 Primogems can be converted into either Fate. Primogems can be acquired through achievements, reading the informational prompts, and various rewards. Fates will also occasionally appear as statue or adventure rank rewards, but are rather uncommon as rewards. I’ll cover another way to acquire Fates later.
The Shop
Alright time to introduce some of the ways to spend money. First is the monthly card. It costs $5 for daily login rewards of Primogems. This is the most cost efficient way to spend money. A very important note is that if you miss a day, you lose the Primogems for that day forever. It also gives you an upfront number of Genesis Crystals, the paid currency of this game. Genesis Crystals can be converted into Primogems or be spent on various bundles. At the time of writing this, these bundles are absolutely terrible. They are full of things you can easily acquire on your own without spending money. Maybe in a week there will be better ones. Clicking on them will show you what you will receive. You can click on each of the parts to see how you could acquire them. There’s nothing in there you cannot simply acquire by playing more.
Paimon’s Bargains
So we’ve got two more currencies. In many gacha games there’s the concept of “vouchers”. When you make wishes you gain vouchers. When you get duplicates of characters you get even more vouchers. There are two types. Starglitter and Stardust. You will get a lot more Stardust than Starglitter. In either case, I reccomend you use them on Intertwined Fates. You can hoard the Starglitter as it appears characters will rotate monthly, and one you want could appear. The Stardust, however, has a limit on the number of Fates you can get per month, so I do recommend getting the Intertwined Fates as soon as you can. I do not know if the 40% discount will only apply to this month.
Battle Pass
Lastly, is the Battle Pass, unlocked at Adventure Rank 20. The free tier is called “Sojourner’s Battle Pass.” The paid tier is called “Gnostic Hymn.” There are two premium options. Both will unlock the paid tier. The second comes with some bonus items. It’s a fairly typical battle pass with both daily and weekly missions to progress through it. You can also spend money to accelerate through it.
You can scroll though the battle pass and see if it’s worth it to you to buy it. If you’re not sure you’ll finish the pass, you can always wait towards the end and buy it if you think you are close enough.
There’s a variety of monetization in this game, but none of it seems to gate your progression. So feel free to spend money as you desire, or not and enjoy the game! There’s honestly so much content regardless of whether you pay or not. Hopefully this helped clear up the various currencies so that you understand where your money (real world, or in game) is going.
