Leading up to the 1.1 update, there were a lot of complaints about Resin in Genshin Impact -- the system where your ability to get key materials for improving your characters is limited each day. Mihoyo apparently didn't do anything about it other than allowing players to bank more. And that, of course, isn't giving them more at all. So obviously, players are still calling for either more Resin or removing the time-gate entirely.
The main reason more or unlimited Resin is unlikely to happen is something quite out of Mihoyo's hands: Chinese law. Genshin Impact is rated for Teens, and that's a demographic of concern under regulations to protect players from not just excessive gameplay but excessive online purchases. In short, the amount of gameplay that Resin gates is unlikely to change. Even if they tweaked the game distribution so that outside of China players get to play more, that would only alienate their Chinese audience.
Resin doesn't gate everything, however. Players can for example explore the game world to pick up other materials. Ultimately progress is still limited by the activities that require Resin, so exploring and hoping to find something good has sharply diminishing returns once you've explored the map. Non-Resin activities therefore are very low-value for time, and many players simply don't do them. They just log in, do the Resin-related activities and other limited high-value-for-time activities, then stop. And then complain that there's nothing left to do.
So in fact what players are complaining about is the lack of value for their time. There is so little of value outside of Resin activities that they don't want to spend their time doing it. Even if they do spend it doing low-value activities, they are dissatisfied.
Players then think that if they can spend more time repeating high-value activities, they can make more progress. This sounds reasonable BUT actually doesn't necessarily work in Genshin Impact.
The reason that more time does not necessarily equal more progress/value is that key resources appear based on chance. Some resources are "guaranteed" but not in great amounts. Other resources are not guaranteed at all and may literally never appear. For example, "Prototype" weapons are a type of material that players look for and is gated by an activity requiring Resin. But the consistent feedback is that after very many attempts, it simply doesn't appear. For players who've tried literally dozens of times, those attempts are essentially wasted because they made no progress at all. (Trying to get a "good" Artifact is another time and Resin waster given the randomness of the associated mechanics).
More gameplay won't necessarily result in more value for time.
Ask any senior at a lottery kiosk tearing up non-winning tickets how their strategy of buying more lottery tickets is getting them closer to retirement. When the activity has low or no return, doing more of it is isn't going to help much. Doing more of it just wastes your most precious resource -- time.
As we proposed in our previous article, what's really missing from Genshin Impact is value for time.
Resin can be completely removed and players can make as many attempts as they like, but with the probability being so low for key materials they are looking for, players might still not have any real progress. Worse, unlimited gameplay that continues to be frustrated by low chances of success can lead to highly undesirable behaviors beyond excessive gameplay -- such as botting (using various cheats to automate repetitive gameplay).
So instead, to bring more value for time, we need to make these Resin-related materials appear much more frequently so that there's a reasonable feelin of progress. And there's a lot of room for that progress to go: Players are accumulating more and more characters, and those characters can use any excess materials gathered. Right now, the materials available to the player are in such short supply that they feel they need to play much more to get anywhere.
And I think Mihoyo is experimenting with giving players more value for their time with the current Unreconciled Stars event. In the previous Crucible event, players didn't feel the rewards justified spending Resin. Perhaps Mihoyo took the hint because for the Stars event, players have calculated that it is much better to spend their daily allotment of high-value gameplay (i.e., Resin) on the event rather than the usual Resin-gated activities because of the payout. If it turns out to be too generous, the event is time-limited so Mihoyo gets to turn it off and recalculate more carefully for the next event.
Furthermore, the event store for the Stars event is focussed on a lot of lower-tier materials for improving characters -- perhaps directly addressing complaints about not having enough of those materials to improve newly obtained characters to a playable state. Without those materials, there would be practically no point in buying Wishes to get more characters and weapons -- which is basically the products that this type of game promotes and aims to sell via lottery chances in their cash shop.
The currency model in Unreconciled Stars, combined with a limited-stock store for that currency, is a clever way to give incremental progress, yet cautiously limit the total amount that can be earned. Is Mihoyo using events to test giving players more? Or simply parachuting in extra resources now and again, with the added benefit of attracting participation for the events?
For non-Resin activities, Mihoyo has already made cautious improvements, such as a gadget to find treasure chests. While this may not seem like much, I feel it is right for Mihoyo to proceed cautiously -- It is easier to give something than to restrict it or take it back later because it was too good. And making it too good might make it a core gameplay activity and get them into trouble with Chinese law.
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